Joe's Movie Reviews

Goodbye, I'm A-Leavin'

2009-12-03T10:35:00.000-08:00

I have often had cause to doubt that substantial numbers of people are actually reading these reviews, especially since this blog is devoted primarily to reviews of new, first run releases and I see very, very few of them, as a result of which the posts are few and far between (and who follows a blog with such infrequent posts?). However, I did start writing reviews of the movies I see at second-run theatres on the Hubpages site a little over three months ago, a site which, among other things, allows you to track the number of page views, both for individual reviews and cumulatively. I must say I have been very surprised: in the first two and a half months there were 400 page views, and in the two weeks since then another 200 for a current total of 600. Obviously, people are seeing the reviews there (I post them much more frequently there, of course). So I have decided to move the reviews of the infrequent new releases that I see to that site as well. I can't CALL them "Secondhand Reviews" (my name for the second-run movie reviews) of course, but I'm sure I'll come up with some appropriate name for them. At any rate, if there IS anybody reading this, and you want to continue to read my occasional reviews of new releases, you can go to Http://hubpages.com/hub/Secondhand-Reviews.
That's the first column I wrote there, with reviews of "Up", "Star Trek" and "Drag Me To Hell", but it also contains links to every other review I've written for Hubpages, as well as a link "Other Hubs By JBunce", which will let you navigate to everything else as well. If there is anyone out there, I hope to see you at Hubpages soon...

Capitalism: A Love Story

2009-10-23T08:22:00.000-07:00

I'd imagine that very nearly everyone has already decided what to think about this movie just because it's made by Michael Moore. Either it's an evil, communist conspiracy designed to tear down everything that's great about this country, or else it's perfect and utterly beyond any kind of criticism. I'll try to approach it as just another movie and hope that readers will take it on the same terms, whatever their politics may be. I suppose my own politics will inevitably show through... it's in the nature of any review of a film like this, I suppose... but this is going to be a movie review, not a political rant.

In this movie, Moore takes as his subject something that he's addressed briefly in some of his other movies, particularly his first, "Roger And Me"... the capitalist system by which the country is run, what it used to be at one time and what it has since become, and what might possibly be done to set the country back on course to being what it used to be. Obviously, it's a topic that stirs up extremely fierce debate. Let's try to not tear each other's throats out about it and attempt to discuss it without too much violence.

Among the most common criticism of Moore is that he doesn't present any other point of view in his films but his own. This is something I've never worried about: Moore is making the movie equivalent of newspaper or TV editorials, the whole POINT of which is to present the maker's personal opinions. Do Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly give the other point of view? For that matter, did Ben Stein give a liberal point of view in that Moore-like documentary he starred in about a year ago? And on the liberal side, Al Gore didn't exactly give non-global-warming advocates equal time in "An Inconvenient Truth". I also approach a Moore movie perfectly willing to accept his assurances that he loves his country and BECAUSE of that wants to see it become the best it can be. To be frank, it's actually inspiring at times to see how dedicated he is to that cause.

There can hardly be any dispute, whatever you think of his arguments, that Moore knows how to make a politically oriented documentary very entertaining. The opening sequence of an old movie about the Roman Empire accompanied by a narrator describing the things that brought it to collapse, accompanied by lightning-quick clips of contemporary American life with very direct parallels to the narration is both hysterically funny and somewhat frightening. The clip from "Jesus Of Nazareth" with dubbed dialogue from Christ in which, for example, he refuses to heal a man, saying "I cannot be responsible for his pre-existing condition", gets across Moore's point about what Christ would REALLY have thought about the state of health care and the economy today more memorably that any talking head. And the George W. Bush speach about the soundness of our economy featuring background animation of the building he's speaking in collapsing around him while people run by screaming and on fire... a real stitch.

But Moore has a serious message to impart, and it's not all jokes. We see clear examples of how benevolent the capitalist system used to be in the thirties through the fifties, even into the sixties... providing good jobs at fair wages, paid vacations and safe working conditions, never (well, hardly ever) taking unfair advantage of the poor. A system truly deserving of being called the best in the world. But even though Moore has often been accused of fudging the facts in his documentaries by choosing to present the facts only in ways that bolster his arguments, it cannot be disputed that, for instance, the major Wall Street wizard he interviews really DID say that "Capitalism is more important than democracy". And the sheriff evicting families really DID remark about groups attempting to re-occupy foreclosed properties "If people are living in these houses, people who want to purchase them won't have any place to live". Companies with names like Mortgage Vulture really DO take pride in how many people they can put out of their homes without caring about whether they have any place to go. And most frigtheningly, companies really DO take out "Dead Peasant" insurance policies (that's really what they're called) on their employees, so that when an employee dies, the company can benefit to the tune of millions of dollars while their family struggles to make ends meet. As Moore remarks, "There's a REASON I can't, or shouldn't, take out a policy against your home burning down, because that gives me a vested interest in your home burning down". If even HALF of what Moore is telling us is true... and I find it diffifult to believe it isn't more than that... then something is definitely wrong and needs to be fixed.

And Moore absolutely DOES believe that's possible. In spite of the amazing number of people I've heard commenting about the gloom & doom of the movie's conclusion, it is in fact inspirational. We see employee-owned-and-operated companies providing their staff with full benefits while actually making a decent profit (for those who think Moore is completely against the idea of profit). We see people using the power of the vote to change their situation (and are reminded that the richest 1% still only has 1% of the vote, while the rest of us have the other 99). We see large groups of citizens who have decided they've had enough of greed dominating the course of the country and decided to do something about it. And for folks who are convinced that Moore is a depraved socialist who thinks every single rich person is the devil, we even see level-headed, sensible quotes from people like Warren Buffet ("It's class warfare, and my class it winning... but it shouldn't be."

"Capitalism: A Love Story" IS a story about love: a man who loves his country, and is afraid of the direction he sees it going in. But a man who has NOT given up on the possibility of it being able to be repaired. He closes the film with "I refuse to live in a nation like this... and I'm not moving." If you think there's nothing that NEEDS to be fixed, that statement will probably upset you. But if you believe in America and want to see it live up to all of its potential, then you can only hope that the arguments Moore makes in this film will be heard across party and liberal/conservative lines (I should point out that Democrats take it on the chin in this movie as much as Republicans), and as a result we will be able to change, if not the world, then our own little portion of it.

Ong-Bak 2: The Beginning

2009-10-16T08:04:00.001-07:00

About 4 1/2 years ago, in the spring of 2005, one of the movies you simply couldn't escape hearing about on the internet was a Thai import called "Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior". The star (and director, co-writer, and practically everything else), Tony Jaa, was hailed as the next coming of Bruce Lee, and the film was supposed to be the start of a legend. As impressive a fighter as he was (and he most definitely was impressive), I found Jaa's film to be a bit lacking in a number of key areas. I thought that if he matured as a film maker he could really be something. (He's made a few films in the intervening years, but most of them haven't had much in the way of distribution in the U.S.). Now, we have what isn't exactly a sequel... or even a prequel, really (as such)... but close enough. And while Jaa isn't a world-class film maker yet, he's clearly made some promising steps in that direction.

The first "Ong-Bak" was a modern-day film, and when I heard that this one was set several hundred years in the past, I assumed it must be about an ancestor of Ong-Bak. Well, it sort of is (you'll have to see the movie to understand that "sort of"). Our hero is named Tien (played again by Jaa), introduced to us as a young boy of perhaps ten years old, trapped in the middle of a war in which an invading army is taking over his country and facing little if any obstruction from the official government. His family killed by the invading forces, Tien finds a new home with a band of outlaws who have been extremely impressed by his fighting prowess and offer to train him in weapons and martial arts. Taking up the offer, Tien grows to be a fierce, fighting leader determined to liberate his people.

Some necessary caveats: I totally understand and sympathize with people who have a low tolerance for violence... for the most part, unless it's really essential to the film, I'm not a real lover of violence either (he says, the day before he plans to see "Inglorious Basterds"). But let's face it, this is a martial arts movie, and really gentle souls should probably stay away. Also, genuine Asian martial arts films often have elements and plot twists that you would never in your life see in a similar American release, and which American audience might find difficult to handle. And this is a very genuine Asian film (complete with English subtitles). Just to let you know.

That established, I want to make it clear that Jaa has become an absolute master of martial arts, and the rather thin story and characterization in the first "Ong-Bak" have deepened: you really get to know who Tien and the other characters are. And Tien is not just a fighting machine: you get to know him as a basically gentle man, who loves his country and only wants to live there in peace with his family, and takes up fighting only to set things right (in this respect as well, he truly is the heir of Bruce Lee). When fighting isn't needed, he's more than willing to do things in a peaceful way, and a number of times demonstrates his deep sense of mercy. You don't often get characters this well-rounded in an action movie.

Okay, I've managed to write four paragraphs without going into detail about the action scenes, so here's what you've probably been waiting for: they're spectacular. How many times have you seen the old cliche of one man fighting a army of opponents who do him the courtesy of lining up to take him on one at a time? Not in "Ong-Bak II", where you often see Tien taking on four, five or more opponents at once. You even see him battling one opponent behind him with kicks from his LEFT foot while taking care of another foe in front of him with his RIGHT foot (leaving his arms free, of course, to take on enemies on both sides). And none of those fake Hollywood digital effects, either: what you see Jaa do, he's really doing. Even the stuff that seems to be humanly impossible. Small details are not ignored in the fight scenes, either, as in a shot where an enemy approaches Tien to begin a duel and as Tien approaches him with absolute Zen-like calm, the camera zooms in on a single bead of sweat rolling down his enemy's face (letting you know that he realizes full well what he's facing).

Now, I'm not saying that Tony Jaa is Zhang Yimou or Wong Kar-Wai (or even Jackie Chan as a film maker) quite yet. There are continuity errors, a character or two who suddenly acts in a way contradictory to how they've acted up to that point (because the script demands it), and some scenes that made me go "Hey, wait a minute... why did he do that when it would have made more sense for him to do that other thing?" But ultimately, when a film provides this much action and excitement, filmed as lavishly as this one (it must have had a large budget) and keeps you shaking your head in amazement thinking you couldn't have possibly seen the hero do what you thought he did, you're probably willing to let some things slide. Jaa is clearly getting better as a director (among MOST of his other many tasks on this film: it's hard to imagine him improving as a martial artist), and I'm sure later films will reflect this. In the meantime, he's given us a pretty amazing slice of action in "Ong-Bak II: The Beginning".

By the way, given the setting several hundred years in the past, you don't really need to have seen "Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior" in order to understand this movie. However, having seen it might make a few particular lines in the film's voiceover narration clearer to you, and give you a much different idea about how this movie actually turns out than audience members who haven't. In fact, I suspect some newcomers to Tony Jaa's movies might be rather confused, while those who've seen the first Ong-Bak will be going "Ahh, so THAT's the explanation!" (I wish I could be more explicit without giving away too much.) So it couldn't HURT to watch the first "Ong-Bak" before seeing this one, if you haven't already. It's not on the same level of quality, but Jaa is still an amazing fighter to watch. So why not?

Lessons To Learn

2009-09-23T08:03:00.000-07:00

1. "No Impact Man".
We all know about the importance of minimizing our "carbon footprint", and many of us are doing everything we can to eliminate it completely. At least, we THINK we're doing everything we can. Once you see the example of Colin Beaven, you may have second thoughts about that.

Beaven is a New York writer who decided in 2006 to live a life style that would completely eliminate any environmental impact for one year. That means, among other things, no non-local food, no mechanized transportation, no electricity... essentially, completely eliminating the things that many contemporary folk would consider the basics of comfortable living. But there's more: as difficult as this would be under any circumstances, Beaven happens to live in the absolute center of technological living: Manhattan. AND he had a wife who's addicted to shopping and can't get through a day without her Starbuck's. AND they had a daughter who was just two years old. This movie documents their multiple struggles.

The commitment that Beaven shows to his difficult plan is, on the one hand, admirable (if not really possible to follow one hundred percent). On the other, there are times when his wife agonizes about the genuine hardships it's causing and Beaven responds with what appears to be a certain callousness: a shrug and a "of course it's difficult, but this is important", without any real indication that he's sympathizing with her. The film does show him expressing a few self-doubts from time to time, but these never connect with what anyone else is feeling, and I almost have to wonder if Beaven is throwing them in for the benefit of the camera (and remember the old expression about the very act of observing something changing the nature of the thing being observed).

But nonetheless, Beaven's motives aside, "No Impact Man" is not only a very well-made film, but there still is a lot to be learned from it. Beaven enters the project fully admitting that he won't be so extreme after the end of his year and that not everybody can or should follow his example precisely. The project was designed to try all possible avenues of reducing environmental impact to see which ones work and which don't, which should be followed and which should perhaps not. The movie does show us that a good many things that are extremely simple and easy can have an enormous impact: something as basic as no take-out food for a year can mean thousands fewer take-out containers in landfills, for instance... and that's not even mentioning no Starbuck's cups for a year. Even no mechanized transportation in the middle of Manhattan isn't as difficult at it may seem. Multiply this by thousands... or more... people following similar behaviour patterns and we really are talking about changing the world.

"No Impact Man" makes a good companion piece to books like "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "Fast Food Nation" and the recent documentary "Food, Inc." All of those books/films show us what the problem consists of and hints at a few things that can be done about it. This film gets down to specifics and shows us what out own individual parts in solving the environmental crisis could be. And no, it's definitely not a dry, boring lecture. If Colin Beaven isn't necessarily a person you (or I) would want to be, he can at least show us a way to be the person WE would want to be. It opens locally at the Lagoon Theatre on Friday, October 2nd.

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2. "The Burning Plain".
Guilliermo Arriaga is a master screenwriter from Mexico who has been involved in some very powerful films over the past decade such as "Amores Perros", "21 Grams", "Babel" and Tommy Lee Jones' directorial debut, "The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada". He has established himself as a movie equivalent of some of the great Latino writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jose Saramago, with a similar way of using just the right amount of melodrama and occasional touches of "magical realism", and in particular has become associated with what is now a genre unto itself: the film with multiple paralell storylines and characters that seems at first to be telling several different stories but eventually ties together into one. In "The Burning Plain", he finally makes his own directorial debut, and shows that he has learned well from the directors for whom he has provided scripts in the past.

A cafe owner lives an empty life of affairs with different men every week, not feeling any emotion, and physically scarring herself just so she can feel something. A married Mexican man becomes involved in an affair with a married Anglo woman that will result in tragedy and trauma for both them and their respective families. A similar relationship between Mexican and Anglo teenagers not only faces parental anger and disapproval, but possible obstacles because of of a dark secret that the girl won't talk about, but that has clearly devastated her. Yes, folks, love hurts. And in "The Burning Plain" (the title is explained in the very first scene), it hurts big time.

If you've seen more than just a few of these multiple-story films (and odds are you probably have), you know how they usually work and how they tie together. But you likely won't know how "The Burning Plain" ties together: several times I thought I had it figured out, but it kept surprising me. It all makes perfect sense after the fact, but you won't see it coming, and that alone earns it more than a few points from me. Arriaga cares for his characters (in this and all his films) and doesn't WANT them to suffer, but he knows that we often have to in order to "get over to the other side" and earn our redemption. In this movie he does shows us this in provocative, poweful ways in a story that often illustrates the Biblical concept of the sins of the fathers (and mothers) being visited upon the second and even third generations. AND how they can be overcome.

The cast is for the most part unknown (at least to me), but you'll remember their performances for a long time. It's like the movie is a hidden-camera documentary of real people's lives, not a bunch of actors playing roles. A few famous names appear: Charlize Theron co-stars as the restaurant owner, in a role that offers her one of her all-too-rare opportunities to actually act and show what a strong performer she can be when she isn't limited to being just eye candy. Kim Basinger plays the adulterous Anglo woman (where has she been in recent years?), and makes a surprisingly strong impact (I'll admit to not being her biggest fan in the past).
Some awards shows have awards specifically for "Best ensemble cast". "Bruning Plain" ought to have every one of those awards sewn up right now.

This is the kind of movie that I've often had trouble in the past convincing people to see: when I describe it I'll hear a lot of whining about "Oh, that sounds despressing,I don't want to see THAT!". As if a movie always has to make you feel good in a conventional way in order to be a good movie. Or as if a movie can't possibly make you feel good by showing characters never really struggling with their pain and trauma... seriously, how can you overcome it if you don't struggle with it? But for those with a bit of an open mind, "The Burning Plain" counts as a GENUINE feel-good movie: one that doesn't pretend that pain doesn't exist or that life is perfect, or that it's easy to overcome the burdens of a troubled past... but also one that shows that for those not afraid to tackle their demons head-on, they CAN be overcome and that while life will never be perfect, it can be worth living. Sounds to me like a good lesson to learn. It opens locally on Friday, September 24th at the Lagoon Theatre. Yes, that's going to be one busy theatre for fans of quality films.

New Blog

2009-08-23T11:29:00.000-07:00

For some time now I've dedicated this blog almost exclusively to reviews of movies I've seen as new, first run releases, though the majority of what I see is second run (with the occasional exception like "Angels & Demons" because of a request and "Day The Earth Stood Still" because it had been too long since I'd written a negative review). I finally decided it might be time to start a new blog specifically for reviews of the second-run titles. I've hesitated to do this for several reasons, not the least of them being that a movie that's been out long enough to get into the second run theatres has probably already been seen by about 3/4 of its potential audience. However, I suppose there are a large number of people who wait for the DVD, so maybe you can consider these to be DVD reviews (me, I've never owned a DVD player and never watched a movie that way). Anyhow, the new blog is called "Secondhand Reviews" and can be found at
http://hubpages.com/hub/Secondhand-Reviews.
It currently has one review posted there, for the newest animated film from Pixar, "Up". I'll probably be posting one for "Star Trek" later this week.

I do plan to continue using this space for reviews of the first-run films I see, but if you have any interest in my comments on the slightly older stuff (not that you should, at least not if you're in your right mind) you now have that option.

$9.99

2009-07-29T08:49:00.000-07:00

A father and son deal with their strained relationship, while father also contends with his wife abandoning him and son deals with his long-term unemployment. A homeless man kills himself and is immediately sent back to be the guardian angel of a lonely widower. A repo man begins an extremely unlikely romance with a supermodel. And much more. And all of this in claymation. Yes, it's another one of those Altmanesque claymation extravaganzas. Can't they ever think of anything original?

This Australian effort is one of the most dazzling, amazing films of the year... the year technically being 2008, since it received a token screening late in the year at a couple of theatres to qualify for the animation Oscars, but not only didn't get nominated, but wasn't even able to receive distribution until now. There are those who contend that the more original a film is, the more difficult it is to get large numbers of people interested in it. "$9.99" would seem to go a long way towards proving their case.

The title refers to the price of a series of self-help book published by an Australian publishing company, books which the previously referenced son continues to pour over in search for the secret of life, happiness, and a real relationship with his dad, who seems perpetually disappointed that he didn't turn out to be the manly take-charge hardcase that he (dad) tried to teach him to be. But the son isn't by any means the only character in the film who has trouble finding security and happiness. The repo man, the supermodel (yes, this movie performs the seemingly impossible feat of giving us a supermodel who is intelligent, sympathetic and caring), the widower... each of them has seemingly all they could want, except a happy and fulfilled life. Even the angel is bitter and resentful at never having even gotten into heaven before being sent back to Earth.

But unless you get the wrong impression and imagine that this is nothing but a depressing story of lost hopes and dreams, I should point out that it also contains bigger laughs that just about any comedy of the past several years. In particular, Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush as the angel is nothing short of hysterical, a snarky, sarcastic angel who's light-years away from the gentle, reflective angels of "Wings Of Desire" (when the widower gazes at his wings and exclaims in amazement "Are you an angel?", Rush snaps back "No, I'm a giant, talking pigeon!"). The fact is,
"$9.99" is filled with hilarious comedy, serious and even tragic drama, uplifting moments showing the connection and happiness that IS possible even when everything seems lost... in short, pretty close to everything that you run into in life. The film is, in fact, much more like real life than most live action movies. And when you consider that the entire cast is made of clay, and features a number of supernatural creatures (not just the angel) that's an especially remarkable achievement.

The film is based on a series of short stories by an Australian writer named Etgar Keret (which I have not read but am certainly going to look for now), and adapted by Keret and director Tatia Rosenthal. I'm guessing most audience members wouldn't have guessed that the pieces were all conceived separately, given how smoothly and seamlessly Keret and Rosenthal have woven them all together. Each individual element of the tapestry has considerable strength on their own, but the film becomes more than the sum of its parts when they're all added together.

For a brief while at the very beginning, I did have to wonder a question put in a thread on the IMDB message board for this film: "Why did it have to be made in claymation?" Certainly, the story COULD have been told in live action, or even in the more standard forms of animation. But there's something about claymation... the most obviously not immediately life-like form of animated film... that seems especially fitting here. The mystical, supernatural aspects of the story seem very down to earth and logical when you're watching them in a form of storytelling that makes everything seem not exactly of this world as we know it. And the extremely realistic human drama of other sections (particularly the father/son relationship, featuring an outstanding vocal performance by Anthony Lapaglia as the father) are given a certain element of magic that they could never have had if the story had been told any other way. In fact, "magic" is pretty much the word that best describes this movie as a whole. It's a marvelous story of the magic that we can find all around us if we know where to look and how to look in the right way... and the magic that can be found even in some of the most seemingly mundane situations. As such, it's so thoroughly un-Hollywood commercial that it probably won't get very wide distribution and won't last long where it does play. So when it opens soon at the Lagoon Theatre in Minneapolis... and hopefully somewhere near anyone reading this elsewhere... please go to see it. There just isn't enough magic in the movies these days to not support it when it comes around.

By Request: Angels And Demons

2009-07-22T08:16:00.000-07:00

Just a note to begin with: anyone who has read much of this blog in the past (and if you have, my sympathies) knows that I normally only review films I've seen first-run, and I see MOST movies SECOND-run... which is why there aren't more reviews here than there are. I've never really explained my reason for this, and there are actually two. (1) I've always figured that any movie that's been out long enough to get to the second run discount houses is something that a whole lot of people have already seen, and if you've already seen it, why would you want to read a review of it? And, (2) even if you haven't seen it, there've been so many reviews published by that point that the last thing you'd be interested in is another one, from me. However, I actually got a specific request for a review of "Angels & Demons" (which I saw yesterday at the Hopkins Theatre), and I thought I'd specify here that if, for some strange and twisted reason, anyone is interested in seeing a review here of some specific film that's been out for a while, maybe about to or already in second run... just ask and I'll be glad to do it. I take requests is basically what I'm saying. Of course, most art-house and indie films don't get to second run (which is why, sadly, I don't see as many as I'd like) and there are some movies (like, say, "Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past") that I not only haven't see but don't plan to see even at discount prices (and I could have yesterday, as it was also playing at the Hopkins). However, in most cases I should be able to accomodate most requests. And now, onward...
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I tend to praise indie and somewhat experimental films on this blog more than the commercial, big-studio Hollywood stuff, but that shouldn't be taken to mean I can't enjoy a well-made commercial blockbuster... it's just that over the years there have gotten to be fewer and fewer of those. But I grew up (Hah! I grew up... that's a good one!) on commercial Hollywood movies, and it's still very satisfying when I'm (on occasion) able to find one as enjoyable as I did in my younger years. I found that to be the case with "The Davinci Code", and it happened again with the follow-up, "Angels And Demons" (if it can truly be called a follow-up, since the book was actually published first, though the movie turns it into a sequel).

It seems that the Illuminati, an ancient order of radical devotees of science that was persecuted by the early church, has returned for revenge. They've stolen a container of anti-matter, and kidnapped four of the Vatican Cardinals who were about to vote to elect the new Pope, planning to kill one each hour beginning at 8 p.m., then explode the anti-matter at midnight, destroying the Vatican and much of Rome. Symbology Professor Robert Langdon has been called in to decipher the ancient clues that will enable them to stop the plan.

Not exactly Shakespeare, right? Well, no, but so what? The critics I admire the most are people like Roger Ebert who can acknowledge a well-made film whether it's intellectual & artistic, or pure escapism. And Ron Howard is about as as good a director of commercial movies as Hollywood has got these days. He's done a fine job on both of his Dan Brown adaptations giving us fast-paced, well-acted thrillers that also give you a little to think about. That's certainly more than most directors of action movies seem to able to accomplish.

I found "Angels & Demons" to be perhaps just a LITTLE less thrilling than "The Davinci Code", as the passages of dialogue to clue the audience in on ancient texts they couldn't be expected to know about were somewhat more noticeable, and there wasn't really a standout supporting performance like Ian Mckellan's Sir Leigh Teabing in "Davinci", but even so, it's a quite enjoyable movie. It helps the story tremendously to have an actor in the lead who's believable as an action hero who might not be as brawny as most but is certainly brainier... with all due respect to Bruce Willis, it's hard to imagine him being as believable decoding ancient religious symbols as it is to watch Tom Hanks doing the same. And quality actors like Ewan Mcgregor and Armin Mueller-Stahl help to ensure a high level of performance overall. The novel is some 700 pages, but Howard manages to keep a surprising amount of the plot essentials... and even when he has to jettison some, he does so very creatively. For instance, a very prominent sub-plot from the book had to go from the movie for reasons of length, but that subplot featured the main suspect for most of the sinister goings-on. But Howard (and screenwriters David Koepp and Akiva Goldsman) was able to not only come up with another suspect from among the already existing characters, but also to work him into the plot in a way that makes it seem like this character had ALWAYS been the suspect.

And as far as the issue of the controversies about the film: well, I'll admit that I'm not Catholic (never have been), so maybe I'm not able to see things from the same perspective as that of True Catholic Believers. But it seems to me that this story ultimately has a very positive image of what faith can mean to the world, and of the church that is the public image of that faith. It comes out against unthinking extremism on the part of BOTH the church and the secular forces of science, but says that it's entirely possible for the two to work together towards the same goals as allies, and I don't see anything heretical or evil about that.

At this point, Ron Howard is one of the few Hollywood directors whose work I can reliably look forward to, whether he's doing something more serious like "Frost/Nixon", or more in the blockbuster mode, like his two Dan Brown films (and I could REALLY go on for ages about "Apollo 13"). If some other director winds up doing the film version of Dan Brown's upcoming third Langdon novel, "The Lost Symbol", I'd be a little worried about the result, but if Howard gets the job again (and with Hanks in the lead), I'll be waiting in line enthusiastically.

A Study In Contrasts

2009-07-09T08:10:00.000-07:00

1. "Public Enemies".

Michael Mann certainly knows modern crime stories. This is, after all, the man who gave us "Miami Vice" (both TV and movie versions), "Manhunter", "Collateral" and many others. So I was definitely intrigued with the notion of his going back to 1933 and telling us the story of John Dillinger, particularly with Johnny Depp in the role. Could it be as potent as his best modern stuff? Well, almost. With one little exception, this is as strong a film as fans could hope for, and that exception isn't enough to ruin things.

There's been some controversy on message boards such as IMDB's about Mann's decision to film the movie on hand-held video equipment and transfer it to film, but without a doubt, the method works. Video gives the story a startling degree of immediacy that period films rarely if ever have... you're not just watching something that happened 75 years ago, you're right there in the middle of the action. Mann's mastery of the world of both criminals and those who pursue them hasn't deserted him, and it all feels about as authentic as you could want it to be. And Mann ties in the contemporary skepticism (to say the least) about both government and bankers quite neatly with the situation during the depression to show us how Dillinger became a kind of hero to a large (if misguided) segment of the public. The film being constantly rushing in frantic motion is probably the best approach to take, too, to a film in which the lead character's life was in a constant whirl. And when things begin to go against him, and former allies no longer want any part of protecting him, the pace of the film appropriately slows and the atmosphere darkens... so to the critics who claim Mann is only making the film so frantic because of modern audiences' short attention spans... HAH!! (You probably have to shout that one to get the full effect.)

And the acting is as strong as the other elements: Depp gives us a very effective portrait of a man who relished the fame his exploits brought him (and who doesn't hesitate to casually stroll right into the Chicago police headquarters' Dillinger Investigation Unit for the fun of it). Christian Bale is the very embodiment of obsession as Melvin Purvis, the FBI agent assigned to bring Dillinger down (his performance, it must be admitted, bears more than a little resemblance to Batman without the costume), and in a small but important role, Billy Crudup helps to make up for the debacle that was "Watchmen" with his snarling, angry portrayal of J. Edgar Hoover. Marion Cotillard as Billy Frechette, Dillinger's girlfriend, does what she can with a somewhat underwritten role, but the part doesn't really give her enough screen time (or enough to do) to really give you an idea of what this Oscar-winner is capable of.

So, what's that one small problem, you might ask? (What do you mean, you don't remember my mentioning one small problem? Maybe those critics were right about modern attention spans!) It's actually more of a moral problem than anything else, which I suppose some would maintain has no place in a movie review. But since I'm not being paid to write this, another HAH! (maybe I should come up with some other word for that) to you... I'll write what I want. It is possible to portray a criminal and a killer in a way that never makes you sympathetic to what he does even as it makes you understand him as a person... just look at "Dead Man Walking", for example. This is not one of those movies: you see Dillinger as a guy whose loyalty to friends and colleagues constantly puts his life in danger when he could just walk away; a person with a real code of honor that his enemies don't have. The fact that he killed people and never lost any sleep over it doesn't seem to matter. It's a little surprising to see this in a Michael Mann movie, as Mann has always seemed to understand that the fascination with the criminal lifestyle doesn't have to mean the same thing as an admiration of it. So "Public Enemies" is still a very well-made, effective film. But a little more of Mann's previous (and, one would hope, future) attitude toward the good AND bad sides of the criminal personality) might have made "Public Enemies" a bit easier film to enjoy.

2. "Away We Go".

In the immortal words of Monty Python, and now for something completely different. I saw this film almost immediately after "Public Enemies", and a bigger contrast would be hard to imagine.

Husband-and-wife writers Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida don't have children (at least yet), but have discussed issues such as where the best place to raise a child would be, and what approaches to parenting they might take. These discussions resulted in the first screenplay for these experienced novelists. It's interesting to note that neither of them is exactly noted for novels that could be called laugh riots, and obviously Sam Mendes, who has directed some of the most somber popular movies of the past decade (most recently the severely depressing "Revolutionary Road"), is hardly the go-to man for comedy either. So naturally this film is a comedy. And a very good one at that. Go figure.

This is the story of a young couple (played by John Krasinski of "The Office" and Maya Rudolph of "Saturday Night Live") who are expecting their first child in a few months. Krasinski's parents suddenly announce they're moving thousands of miles away just a month before the baby is due, removing the couple's only reason for living where they do, and they decide to take a road trip to visit a group of old friends and relatives (all of them parents) to scout out both potential new family homes and potential approaches to being parents.

Krasinski and Rudolph both take a very low-key, realistic approach to their roles, which makes for the perfect contrast to the supporting cast of wackos they encounter on their journey. In fact, with occasional exceptions, they don't really do or say funny things, they mainly react to the lunacy going on around them (and their reaction is often funny, but they don't originate the comedy). They are, after all, the people the audience is supposed to identify with, and I would hope not too many people would identify with the supporting cast, wonderful as they are. Krasinski and Rudolph make a very nice, likable pair, which is exactly what they should be.

The rest of the cast, though, as I said, are another story. Catherine O'Hara (of virtually all of Chrisopher Guest's films) and Jeff Daniels only have a few scenes at the beginning as Krasinski's parents, but they make them count in a big way.
Allison Janney ("The West Wing") and Maggie Gyllenhaal in particular steal the show every moment they're on screen as, respectively, a near lunatic in Phoenix who is pretty much the last person who should ever be a mother; and a college professor in Madison, Wisconsin with some very extreme new-agey ideas of child rearing. The two of them provide some of the funniest moments in a comedy movie this year.

The movie does ditch much of the humor as it goes on and Krasinski and Rudolph encounter a relative of Krasinski's with a severely troubled marriage who makes them seriously think about what they want their relationship to be, but it's done very carefully so as not to seem suddenly jarring or out of place, and as a result comes across as quite natural.

Ultimately, "Away We Go" is very likable story about a likable couple (and their lunatic friends and family) that anyone who is in their situation might be able to take some ideas and inspiration from. And regardless of whether they can identify with the protagonists' situation, all audiences will get more than a few good solid laughs and actually care about what happens to our "heroes". And in an age of wacky gross-out comedies like "The Hangover", we definitely can't have too many of those.

Little Ashes

2009-06-03T08:36:00.000-07:00

The movies have often tried to bring us stories of the lives of creative artist types. Whether the film industry in question is Hollywood, Indiewood or some other country, they just can't resist trying to tell stories about how creative types create and what inspires them. Usually they fall short of the mark, even when made by talented filmmakers. "Little Ashes" does better than most in a lot of areas, but also has a few problems that keep it a bit short of complete success.

This film attempts to tell the story of rising young Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca and aspiring filmmaker Luis Bunuel, and what happens to their relationship after a newcomer, ambitious young artist Salvador Dali, enters the picture. Any one of these men could have made for a fascinating film, so one about all three ought to be a sure thing, right? Well, some of the time, yes. First-time director Paul Morrison paints an authentic picture of Spain in the early twenties to 1936, as fascism was rising and unorthodox artist types were finding it more difficult to create anything unconventional, or to question authority. And in two of the three principal characters, he has given us strong, effective portraits of driven, creative individuals and made us understand why and how they created the art they did. But before I get into why the film doesn't always work, I should note the things that it gets very right.

Chief among these are the performances of Javier Beltran as Federico Garcia Lorca and Matthew McNulty as Luis Bunuel. With only a minimum of background information about their pasts, they give you the feeling that you really are watching close friends who are dedicated to each other even as they often disagree about the use to which they choose to put their art. Beltran captures Lorca's fire and intensity, and totally makes you believe he would write the poems and plays that inspired a nation. And McNulty is his equal, giving Bunuel a fierce devotion to art as a tool to change the world. Together with Morrison's aforementioned realistic portrait of the time and place, they go a long way to making "Little Ashes" succeed where other similar films have failed. But then the movie stumbles.

It stumbles at first because of the cast's weakest link, Robert Pattinson ("Twilight") as Salvador Dali. After being unimpressed by Pattinson in "Twilight", I was surprised by his performance in "How to Be" and thought he had real potential. But as Dali, he gives the wild surrealist even less personality than his "Twilight" teen vampire. Dali is played most of the time as semi-catatonic and soft spoken to such a degree that no trace of personality peaks through. Pattinson's Spanish accent keeps appearing and disappearing in alternate scenes, and is never very convincing when it IS present. And when Dali suddenly gets excited and starts into a speach about how artists have an obligation to go beyond the boundaries of conventional morality, it's startlingly out of place for the character: you ask yourself "Where did THAT come from?"

The film goes further off track by its concentration on an off-and-on affair between Lorca and Dali. Granted, I've established myself here as no fan of movie romances, but (straight or gay) if done well they can provide insight into characters in ways no other kind of story can. But here, we just see endless scenes of romantic montages that give us no real feeling for how the relationship is affecting or changing the partners, or how it may have inspired their art... which IS supposed to be the chief subject of the film. (It doesn't help that a oouple of these montages are scored with music that blatantly rips off my all time favorite film score, Ennio Morricone's music for "Cinema Paradiso".) It just distracts from the point of the film to no good effect, and results in Bunuel... a fascinating character both in life and here... being reduced at times to a minor supporting role as the film forgets about him for long periods of time. You find out about his surprisingly intense dislike of gay people and see a brief excerpt from his collaboration with Dali, the film "An Andalusian Dog" (Lorca was Andalusian and convinced the title was a personal insult), but that just makes you frustrated that the film couldn't find more use for him.

I'm of really mixed feelings about whether or not to recommend the film. I guess ultimately I would say yes, with reservations. I'm sure that a good film could have been made about Lorca and Dali's relationship, but this isn't it. And Pattinson's performance keeps pulling you out of the film. But when it does concentrate on its ostensible subject, "Little Ashes" is an examination of creativity and what inspires it in a way that makes you understand the questions it raises far better than most, and contains a couple of the year's best acting jobs. Sometimes you have to take the bad with the good, and in spite of how frustrating the film can sometimes be, there is still plenty of good in "Little Ashes".

Hollywood Chinese

2009-05-28T08:27:00.000-07:00

The relative lack of new, first-run movies of late has led me to resort to such subjects as the ratings board, and, now, movie-related television. But hey, I might as well write about TV while I can (since for me, it's going to disappear after June 12), and at least there is a legitimate movie connection.
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"HOLLYWOOD CHINESE".

The PBS series "American Masters" has given us documentaries on an extremely wide variety of topics, and almost all of them have been well worth watching. The proud tradition continues with "Hollywood Chinese", an examination of the ups and downs of Chinese and Chinese-American actors and film-makers over the decades, as they attempt to build a career in films that don't reduce them to stereotypes and offer them the same opportunities as others. As we see, they have faced a unique set of challenges on that quest.

Minority actors have always faced an uphill battle, but few of them have been consistently portrayed as the embodiment of menace the way Chinese characters were from the days of the silent movies on. Actors like the surprisingly youthful 80-year-old James Hong ("Big Trouble In Little China") are quite candid in interviews about how comparatively little the situation has changed for them from the 1940's to the present (Hong has been on TV shows like "Seinfeld" and movies like "Chinatown", but almost inevitably as a waiter, a butler or a super villain). Joan Chen talks with pride about her role in the Oscar winning "The Last Emperor" but also with frustration about how she finally had to go back to China in order to do any work after that with any substance, making her directing debut with "Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl".

The film doesn't ignore the huge popularity of martial arts themed movies in recent years, with casts headed by Chinese actors, but notes interestingly how most of these roles are played by actors like Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Chow-Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh... performers who were born or lived for many years IN China, not the U.S., so this genre isn't really giving new opportunities to many Chinese Americans.

And there are some very interesting observations about how (1) Chinese roles were played for so many years by Western actors (there are some amazingly embarassing film clips of stars like Katherine Hepburn "being" Chinese), (2) when Chinese actors got work during World War II it was often as Japanese characters (a practice which continues today: remember "Memoirs Of A Geisha"?), and (3) the rarity of a Chinese performer getting work in a role that doesn't blatantly call attention to their race.

But yes, there are some ups as well as downs, and as the film shows, most of them have come in recent years from Chinese/Chinese-American directors stepping behind the camera to tell the stories that Hollyood doesn't seem to be eager to tell. Film makers like Justin Lin ("Better Luck Tomorrow"), Wayne Wang ("Chan Is Missing") and of course the first Asian Oscar-winning director Ang Lee have been telling authentic stories of Chinese life in the U.S. film industry and have sometimes even broken into "mainstream" films (Lin, Wang and Lee have all had considerable success with full-fledged big studio Hollywood product). "Hollywood Chinese" does an impressive job in both showing how the situation has finally begun to change for the better while not minimizing the difficulty of the past struggles, or of implying that there are no more such struggles remaining. After all, there still to this date has yet to be a single Chinese Oscar winner in an acting category. But that's probably a great deal closer to being a real possibility now than it was several decades ago. Check out "Hollywood Chinese" when you get the chance, and once again learn more than you thought you could from a show this entertaining. The "American Masters" tradition continues.

The Ratings Board Has Gone Completely Insane

2009-05-13T08:13:00.000-07:00

As anyone knows who's read much of this blog, I don't (as a rule) generally review movies I've seen at the second run discount houses, and that's where I see MOST of my movies. However, after my experience at the Hopkins Theatre yesterday, I felt I had to write this column. I don't consider it to be a review of any of the films discussed; however, in the course of making my points I suppose I'll have to write some comments that make it SOUND LIKE a review. So be it. It all started when I went out to the Hopkins on their "discount Tuesday" ($2.00 all day instead of the usual $2.50) to see three films: "Adventureland", "Duplicity" and "Taken". Yes, I did see THREE films (one at 4:40, one at 7:10 and one at 9:30) and got back home after midnight. I am a sick, sick person.
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Many of you (this is based on the quite likely false assumption that there ARE "many" who are reading this blog) may rely on a movie's rating to assess its content and decide whether or not you want to see it, or whether it would be appropriate for your children. You might believe that the ratings board (which consists entirely of parents and is SUPPOSED TO be making its judgments based on what they feel is appropriate or inappropriate for children) is making its decisions based on a clearly defined set of standards. I have often had cause to doubt this in the past, and after my experience at the Hopkins Theatre last night I no longer have any doubt that the ratings board either has no idea what it's doing, or else DOES know what it's doing and doesn't care that it's totally inconsistent and makes absolutely no sense.

I saw three films last night. The first was "Adventureland", which is rated R. It turns out to be a very sweet-natured, likable film about sweet-natured, likable characters. Our "hero", James, who had been expecting a trip to Europe as a graduation present, winds up working a lousy job at the low-rent amusement park Adventureland instead, and goes through a surprisingly uncliched coming-of-age experience there. The film has some sexual content (the co-worker he falls in love with is having an affair with an older married man), but absolutely no nudity, and no actual sex scenes... the affair takes place entirely off screen and is merely referred to). (And I should note that the married man is clearly portrayed as the sleezeball he is, and the girl realizes what she's doing is wrong and breaks it off). And James himself, at 22, is still a virgin in spite of a number of chances to change that status because he will not settle for "just getting it over with" with the wrong person. As far as violence, the closest you get is a friend of James who enjoys surprising people by occasionally punching them unexpectedly. Not exactly blood and guts. And the language isn't any stronger than I've heard in PG-13 movies 15 or more years ago. And this warm, sweet coming-of-age story that could actually be a beneficial film for younger teens to see (with some excellent performances by a fine young cast) is rated R, the same as "Friday The 13th" or "Last House On The Left". Does that make any sense to you? Me, neither. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE...

Following "Adventureland" I saw "Duplicity", a very, very complicated but quite fun and entertaining movie about two con artists (played by Clive Owen and Julia Roberts) who team up to steal the formula for a valuable new product from a big multinational corporation. Their plan is played out over a five-year time span, with a whole lot of twists, turns and surprises. The two characters are clearly having a sexual relationship, but this aspect of the story takes up even less time than the affair in "Adventureland" (blink and you could miss the scenes that refer to it) and similarly, there is no nudity whatsoever and no actual sex on screen. The language is about on the level I would have expected in a straight PG movie 15 or so years ago, and there is absolutely no violence whatsoever (not even on the level of the likes-to-punch-people character from "Adventureland"). This is exactly the kind of movie Alfred Hitchock might have made in his lighter, comedic "It Takes A Thief" mode, and hardly seems like something that would be any problem for younger audiences to any greater extent than that film. And yet, the rating: PG-13.

And lastly, there was "Taken". In this movie, a retired CIA agent played by Liam Neeson goes into action using all his old set of skills when his daughter is kidnapped by a ring of criminals in Europe who specialize in capturing female tourists in order to hook them on drugs and then sell them into prostitution. In the course of this movie, Neeson conducts the kind of torture on the criminals he's pursuing that would make the folks at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib blush... and it's extremely explicit, too (especially the electrodes). He's willing to shed as much blood as necessary, and not just the blood of the guilty, either: at one point he's perfectly willing to kill the wife of an uncooperative French policeman who's standing in his way, right in front of the cop. Mind you, he doesn't... the cop caves in... but the fact remains, he would have had no problem doing that, and he's supposed to be the hero. I think we can all agree that this is violence... and particularly repellant violence... to a FAR greater degree than anything I've described in the other two films and, for that matter, than you've seen in many R rated movies. Plus, the whole story revolves around a father searching for the daughter who's been kidnapped to be sold into prostitution, and we even see the "auction" scene in which she and several others are being sold to the highest bidder. The language is probably PG-13 level, but that's the ONLY thing that is, in a movie that, 15 years ago, would have gotten a well-deserved R. The rating it gets now: PG-13, the same as "Duplicity".

SO... the ratings board would have us believe that as far as appropriateness or inappropriateness for younger audiences, the light-hearted non-violent caper comedy of "Duplicity" and the ugly, brutal violence and exploitative sexual elements of "Taken" (sex can have its place in a film, but this is just sleezy exploitation) are both on the very same level, and that the sweet-natured coming-of-age comedy of "Adventureland" is MORE inappropriate than either of them. Yes, folks, "Adventureland" would be more damaging to young audiences than "Taken". I have long suspected this, and now it has been proven beyond any doubt in my mind: every single member of the ratings board has completely lost their mind.

Lymelife

2009-05-07T10:25:00.000-07:00

It's the early 1980's on Long Island. A slowly disintegrating family is trying to hold it together while each of their individual lives is coming apart. Dad has long since lost any emotional connection with mom and is having an affair with the wife of the family's next door neighbor, whose husband is gradually losing any kind of connection with life in general due to his suffering from Lyme disease. The youngest son is attempting to make up for his lack of connection with his family by forging his first serious relationship, and not having much luck. And the older son, in the military, is about to ship out to the Falkland islands. Meanwhile, mom gets obsessed with the rising danger of Lyme disease to an absurd degree (but at least it allows her to concentrate on something other than the desperate state of her family).

Plenty of material there for a movie, that's for sure. Actually, there's plenty of material for a lengthy novel. But the makers of "Lymelife" seem to be a bit daunted by trying to cram all of that into a mere 95 minutes (why such a short film?), and wind up giving us some isolated moments of real creativity and good, solid performances, surrounded by an ocean of cliche and stereotypes, and actors who seem throughly unenthusiastic about the roles they're playing.

Over the past 4 years or so, Alec Baldwin has made an increasing "side" career in small, independent films dealing with disintegrating families, inevitably playing the cold, selfish father who can't see what he's doing to cause his family's drifting even further apart. He can almost play this role in his sleep by now, and in this film he nearly does. The one slightly new development here is that the character is openly racist, spewing his nonsense against Arabs, black people and numerous others... but that's hardly enough to make the character really stand out (or seem real). Baldwin can certainly do great work with a good script, but he doesn't much help here in that department (he's a more interesting heel on "30 Rock").

Jill Hennessey as his neglected wife isn't given much to do except continually cover every object and person in sight with duct tape, which she somehow seems to believe is going to protect them against Lyme disease. It isn't funny the FIRST time she does it, and it becomes increasing less funny each succeeding time. Rory Culkin (one of Mcauly Culkin's brothers) as the youngest son is a bland, character-free lump of teen angst, and Emma Roberts, up until now mostly seen in cutesy teen fare like "Nancy Drew" and "Hotel For Dogs" definitely plays a more adult-style part here but doesn't play it with any more depth... she's like a valley-girl cheerleader who somehow wound up in Long Island. And Cynthia Nixon as the neighbor with whom Baldwin is carrying on an affair plays the role as such a complete bimbo that it's offensive to men AS WELL AS women.

In addition to the weak acting, we have a script that constantly beats us over the head with symbolism and metaphor. Once in a while it works, but mostly it's so obvious as to be almost painful, such as the moment in which mom and her two sons have been abandoned by dad with some lame excuse (he's really with his mistress), and the incomplete family sits down for dinner and says grace directly underneath a picture of the last supper. In case you don't get it, the camera really lingers. Okay, okay, I understand already... this shattered and incomplete family in the same frame as the last supper. Very profound. (And why was the film set in the early
1980's? Except for a few news reports about the Iran Hostage crisis and the Falkland Islands war, the time is rarely mentioned or taken advantage of. The story could just as well have been contemporary.

But didn't I say something earlier about there being a few moments of creativity and good, solid performances? Why, yes I did. Thank you very much for reminding me. Kieran Culkin as the older son is remarkably good in creating a living, breathing person instead of a stereotype. His hard-edged military man slowly reveals multiple layers of emotion and character that probably weren't on the page, and his becomes a genuinely touching sub-plot as he tries to hold the family together. And Oscar winner Timothy Hutton as the neighbor with Lyme disease benefits from one of the film's few effective bits of symbolism: it's clear that what happens to Hutton physically is exactly what's happening to everyone else emotionally. But Hutton deserves much of the credit himself: he makes you feel his pain (both mental and physical pain) but also demonstrates a remarkable sense of humor in the midst of his health crisis that gives the movie its relatively few genuinely deserved laughs.

But overall "Lymelife" is an overly obvious "expose" of something that's been exposed already so many times that it's only a secret or surprise to someone who's been living in a cave far away from civilization: many of our apparently happiest families hide dark secrets and emotional pain beneath their veneer of happiness, and the "golden" suburbs are often not so golden. "American Beauty", "Revolutionary Road", and on and on... they've all been here before. And apart from Kieran Culkin and Timothy Hutton, "Lymelife" is another case of deja vu all over again.

The Soloist

2009-05-06T08:27:00.001-07:00

The "Inspirational True Story" (sorry I'm not tech savvy enough to give that phrase the glowing, golden, 48-point type appearance that would be appropriate) is one of the classic Hollywood staples. The story of a real person who went through enormous obstacles and came out on top is usually put through the same processing machine so it comes out like all the others: generically bland and uplifting, and not having a whole lot to do with real life. "The Soloist" isn't COMPLETELY free of some of the usual pitfalls of the genre, but the few that plague it are truly minor compared to what it gets right. By and large, this is the real deal.

Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez (Robert Downey, Jr.) encounters a homeless, mentally ill street musician named Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Fox) playing brilliant music on an inexpensive violin and, out of curiosity (and the possibility of getting a column out of it) looks into his background, being amazed to discover that Ayers was a former Julliard student. As he continues writing about Ayers, he becomes more and more involved in his life, and tries to improve Ayers' status in life... which has some unexpected consequences.

What does it get wrong? Well, it probably doesn't need the several special-effects-laden sequences that illustrate Ayers getting transported into some kind of heavenly realm when he listens to music. Nobody has any idea if this what he feels when he hears music, and the sequences help to make the movie maybe 10 to 15 minutes longer than it really needs to be. Also, I personally could have done without actually hearing the voices that Ayers hears in his head. I acknowledge that many schizophrenics actually DO hear voices, but the movie doesn't consistently try to put the audience directly inside Ayers' head from the beginning: it just throws in these "voices" scenes at random, and because of this inconsistency I feel like it takes me out of the story a little: makes me remember that I'm sitting in a theatre watching a movie. And I'm a little curious about why they felt compelled to make some of the changes in the details of the characters' real lives: Lopez, for instance, is given a divorce and later reconciliation with the wife that, in reality, he's been happily married to and never even separated from for many years.

But these truly are very, very small quibbles compared to the things the film does well... and it does them VERY well, indeed. For starters, we have the performances of the two leads. Jamie Fox is genuinely deserving of not just another Oscar nomination but an actual win. I honestly don't think I have ever seen a more real, authentic performance by an actor in the role of a mentally ill character. You don't need special effects and actual voices... just watching Fox's face and listening to his staccato speach patterns, you can hear the voices he hears, see the things he sees, and completely understand the world he inhabits. It's downright shocking to realize that this is the same actor who completely convinced you he was Ray Charles, because watching this film all you see is Nathaniel Ayers, and while Ayers lives in a world none of the rest of us inhabit, you can easily convince yourself that that world is very familiar while you're watching Fox.

I also thought that Robert Downey, Jr. did excellent work in what could have been a colorless role. He convincingly gives Lopez his own insecurities, doubts and problems and makes it very understandable why Lopez would go out of his way to befriend Ayers and try to help him... and why he would try to pull back and disconnect his involvement when things begin to get complicated. Downey makes Lopez a real, relatable person and not some kind of perfect saint.

That last comment actually illustrates another somewhat surprising thing the movie does right: it's unexpectedly honest about the way this story would (and, to a fair degree, did) play out in the real world. You don't see Lopez never acting self-centered or short-tempered with Ayers... he did, and you see it in the movie. And most impressively, you don't see Ayers getting prescribed with just the right medication and escaping his schizophrenia forever and living a normal life. That just doesn't happen with people like Ayers, and this film doesn't pretend that it does. That's not to say that it says schizophrenics (or, for that matter, self-doubting newspaper columnists) can't have a happy life. It's just that the film isn't unrealistic on the subject.

So ultimately, does it matter that the movie stumbles a bit now and then? Not in the least. Performances on this level, and honesty about real life to the degree that this film has... not to mention the overall emotional experience it gives you... are all too rare in mainstream Hollywood projects. For a wide variety of reasons, "The Soloist" is very highly recommended.

MSPIFF 2009, Part Two (Conclusion)

2009-04-28T08:34:00.000-07:00

1. "Getting Home". A middle-aged man is having a fine time getting thoroughly drunk with an old friend of his, when the friend suddenly and unexpectedly dies. Our protagonist knows that his friend was a firm believer in the notion that when someone dies they need to be buried at or near their home, or they'll become a wandering ghost. So our "hero", who has no vehicle of his own, has to get his friend's body halfway across the vast expanse of China on his own... sometimes carrying him on his back, sometimes as a passenger on a bus ("Really! He's just sleeping!"), or through whatever other creative means he can come up with.

Anyone old enough to remember "Weekend At Bernie's" (1989) might already be thinking of that decided non-classic, but "Getting Home" is definitely not made of the same stuff as that cheesy piece of Hollywood shlock. This is first and foremost a surprisingly touching story about friendship, and the extent a man will go to in order to keep a promise to a deceased friend. It's also a fascinating travelogue of rural China, a look at areas and types of people that never make the news (no Beijing or Hong Kong here) but that form as much of the nation's character as those large cities, as well as an examination of how the old values haven't always survived completely intact into the modern age. But before you get any misconceptions here, let me add that it IS also extremely funny in a much quieter, more subtle way than you'd get from an American take on the same story... that is, if an American studio ever DID decide to film this story.

Director Zhang Yang is best known for a film from a few years back called "Shower", and aside from that film's very urban setting, it shares a good deal of the quiet humor and subtle character insight that "Getting Home" contains. That may be a bit obscure as a reference to a lot of readers, but it would be a real challenge coming up with a mainstream release to which it can be compared. The film is so subtle, in fact, that it's only after the fact that you realize how surprisingly ambitious it is. Thankfully, it never draws any attention to that as you're watching it.

The Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival has long been one of the Twin Cities' premiere showcases for films the likes of which would probably never play anywhere else in the area if they didn't get a showcase here, but which are well worth seeking out. "Getting Home" is one of this year's best examples.
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2. "Tokyo Sonata". A Japanese businessman loses his management job in the very first scene of "Tokyo Sonata", and the film seems clearly to become the story of how he continues to seek employment while not telling his family about his having been fired. The decidedly non-comic subject is approached with an astonishing degree of humor, too... particularly involving the man's downsized business associate who has developed an amazing array of methods to make it look like he's still thriving (such as programming his cell phone to ring five times an hour so he can constantly be interrupted by "business" calls). But having grown to think of the film as a comedy, the viewer will be taken rather aback by the dark shift in tone as the man is humiliated in job interviews by snide, superior bosses and begins to take out his frustrations on his family (who,of course, know nothing about why he is acting this way).

Furthermore, as the film goes on you gradually come to realize that this is a story about the ENTIRE family, as each member (including the man's wife and two sons) each gets their individual storylines in which their ambitions and goals are blocked and frustrated, as a result of which the family begins drifing apart and disintegrating. Sharp viewers will eventually realize that this isn't merely the story of a family, either... it's the story of a nation, and by extension the story of a lot of nations around the world, and how we relate to each other, or, increasingly, don't.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa (no relation to Akira Kurosawa) has a reputation as being a modern master of horror films (none of which I have seen), but "Tokyo Sonata" shows a sure, steady grasp of human nature and relationships that is far beyond most specialists in that genre. It is, however, just as emotionally intense and harrowing as the best horror movies, in its own way. And what might be the most surprising about it is how a movie with such an extremely wide range of emotional tone from comedy to drama can still be so coherent and of one piece. This Kurosawa clearly has just as much of a mastery and control over his story as did the maker of "Seven Samurai" and "Ikiru".

And for those who might think the film I've just described is TOO emotionally intense to make for comfortable viewing... well, in a way that's true. It isn't reassuring every moment of the way. But ultimately it is a very hopeful story, with some important lessions about how our connections and commitments to each other can carry us through the most difficult of times. Let's hope that, as both families and nations, we can all learn those lessons and put them into practice.

MSPIFF, Part One

2009-04-23T08:14:00.000-07:00

For three years running (counting this one), it looked like this was going to be the first year since 1988 that I wouldn't be able to attend the annual Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival (MSPIFF). But each time something has come along at the last minute to prevent that. This year, I got a last minute phone call from some very generous friends informing me that they had gotten me a five-film punch card. I've seen three of the five films so far (the other two to come this weekend, and to be reviewed next Tuesda). For starters:
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1. "How To Be". American audiences have seen their share of movies about alienated youths who can't relate to their parents, have troubles romantically and pal around with friends who probably aren't the best possible influences on their lives. So how much of a difference is there in this mini-genre when the story is taking place in England? As it turns out, not all that much. "How To Be" is the story of Art, a young man who has moved back in with his distant parents after being dumped by his girlfriend, and who keeps the bills paid with an extremely boring job in a supermarket. When he inherits a goodly sum of money, he uses it to fly a famous self-help guru & author, Dr. Levi Ellington, from Canada to help him learn to become more "normal". The Q & A with director & cast after the screening made it clear that people as different from the lead character as a 40-something American woman could still identify with Art, and that's not surprising.

The story is nothing really new, but it is performed with enthusiasm by the cast. Robert Pattinson is certainly better as Art than he was in the drab "Twilight" (so he CAN act, after all!), and his more eccentric buddies, the hyper Nikki (Mike Pierce) and low-key Ronnie (Johnny White) are outstanding, as is Powell Jones as the last therapist you'd probably ever want to have in charge of your life. The script doesn't really contain many huge laughs, but provides more than its share of chuckles. "How To Be" might not be a classic for the ages, but it's a perfectly pleasant, amusing film that will leave audiences laughing.
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2. "The Biggest Chinese Restaurant In The World". Actually, it's the biggest restaurant in the world, PERIOD. The West Lake Restaurant in Changshan, China has a staff of 1,000; including 30 waiters. It has seating for up to 5,000 customers and has numerous stages for lunch-and-dinner song, dance and theatre performances. When viewed from a short distance off it looks more like a walled city than a place of business. And it's all run by one person: Qin Linzi, who grew up in poverty and has worked her way up to running the largest restaurant on the face of the planet. There's certainly the makings of a fascinating documentary in all of that, and a large part of the time that's what we have here: a look at an amazing rags-to-riches story, an examination of the running of a business that would seem to be too large to possibly work, and (most interesting) a look at the growing gap between the rich and the poor in China (nothing like that happening anywhere else, no sir) as portrayed by contrasting the lives of some of its staff as they spend their working days in some of the most luxurious surroundings imaginable, then go home at night to the tiny, shabby hovels which are all they can afford on their low wages.

The problem: even with a running time of a relatively short 80 minutes, the film seems padded. The film often runs off track and goes into segments that don't seem to have that much to do with what the documentary is supposed to be about. 40 minutes would probably have been enough to do a really absorbing study of the West Lake Restaurant and what it symbolizes about the changing society of China, but instead we get 80 minutes, including the lives and birthday celebrations of customers, and not-always-insightful interviews with staff. One of the friends who provided me with the five-film pass isn't, as a rule, a fan of documentaries and has said that he usually feels most of them would be more interesting if they were short films rather than features. In this one instance, I understand completely what he means.
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3. "The Tour". A very, VERY dark comedy from Serbia that is far and away my favorite of the three films I've seen so far. A group of theatre actors are contracted to put on a French Farce near a particularly war-torn area of Yugoslavia in 1993. A small theatrical tour develops that takes the troup through mine fields in which a friend of the troup (though no actual members of it) is killed, an outburst of violence with several fatalities, and encounters with hostile Croatians and Muslims. And yes, as I said, it IS a comedy.

My grandparents (mother's parents) were born & raised in Yugoslavia (he was Serbian, she was Croatian) and I spent my first 8 years (and many vacations after that) in a town that was essentially "Little Yugoslavia" (every other name in the phone book ended in "IC" or "ICH"), and this film is very familiar territory much of the time: in particular, the Serbian outlook on life of staring straight at some of darkest, bleakest circumstances and reacting to them with a laugh (because what else can you do if you're not going to go insane?). But in between the laughs there are brief little moments that powerfully point out the stupidity of this and any other war, and some surprisingly poetic moments as well (I'm thinking in particular of a scene in which a military doctor, washing up after an operation, delivers an impassioned speach on the stupidity of the war, not even noticing that he's continuing to wash off the blood long after it's no longer there, much like Lady MacBeth).

This is a film that American audiences may have to work with a bit... it doesn't make it easy for mainstream tastes. But when you travel a bit off the mainstream you can find some of the most interesting things. And "The Tour" clearly illustrates that darkness and humor are not mutually exclusive, and that it's possible to laugh at the same film that makes you really think about our humanity and our frequent lack of it. If you're willing to give it a little effort, it will be rewarded by this fascinating film.

The Reader

2009-03-20T11:04:00.000-07:00

Kate Winslet finally achieved her first Oscar after multiple nominations for this film (an excellent performance, though I don't think any performance of the last few years can equal Melissa Leo in "Frozen River", which was also nominated), the story of a young German teen in the late 1950's who becomes involved with an older woman who insists he spend seemingly as much time reading to her as involved in any "romantic" activities. Years later, as a young law student, he learns that she was seriously involved in Nazi war atrocities and has to face serious questions about guilt and forgiveness.

I have to admit up front that I had a few problems and questions about the incredible swiftness with which Winslet and the boy fall into their relationship after they've barely said more than a few words to each other. But then, it is possible that the fact that what I know and understand about relationships multiplied by ten would still be virtually nothing, has something to do with this. It does still seem, though, as if it happens the way it does simply because the story demands it, and at least on Winslet's side I don't know that I was ever totally convinced (do you really keep calling your beloved "kid", even after he's a full grown adult?). However, what results from this relationship is powerful and emotionally potent, so it's not difficult to let it slide.

Not to insult Winslet's performance... it's fine... but I was rather surprised that neither Ralph Fiennes or the young actor who plays his character as a youth were singled out for Oscar attention. It's their combined efforts in the role that make for a lot of the impact the film has. Fiennes completely convinces you that he's the man his younger version would have grown up to be after the devastating events that change his life... never really sure who he can trust or believe in, and hesitant to invest too many of his emotions in anyone for fear the past will be repeated. And let's just not mention the irony of the fact that the role that brought Fiennes his first fame was that of possibly the most thoroughly evil nazi in all of the movies in "Shindler's List" (yes, let's not mention that at all... I'm certainly not going to. What? Oh well, never mind.).

What really makes the film linger after you've seen it, though, is the questions it raises about what you would have done in his situation after finding out the truth. Until very, very late in the film Winslet is remarkably unapologetic about the atrocities she took part in, and yet reveals herself in little moments to be just as human and full of doubts, fears and pride as the rest of us, and with just as much need to find human connection. So.. can you relate to someone who has committed the crimes she has even if she DOES express regret and contrition? Can you, possibly, find it in you to forgive her yourself? And WHATEVER your answer may be, what does that say about both her and yourself? In "Dead Man Walking", Sean Penn (who SHOULD HAVE won an Oscar for the role) raised some powerful questions about whether it's possible to empathize with a murderer while never condoning his crimes, and if it's possible to forgive... indeed, whether it may be NECESSARY to do so, even if it seems impossible. In "The Reader", Winslet and Fiennes will also make you wonder about these imponderables.

This is obviously not a movie for the escapist crowd. I'd even say it's maybe the complete antithesis of that kind of film. But it is a reminder of how much more a movie can accomplish that just provide a couple hours of escapist fun (not that there's anything wrong with that). It would be difficult going if all movies demanded as much from their audiences as this one, but moviegoing would also be much less interesting if there were never any films like "The Reader".

Warning: Two Good Ones

2009-03-19T09:34:00.000-07:00

1. "The Wrestler". Okay, let's get this out of the way at the start: yes, the story of a broken-down, has-been wrestler trying for one last shot at glory has more than a few passing similarities to the career of star Mickey Rourke. So in a certain sense he is playing at least an aspect of his own life. But if that were all that were going on here, this wouldn't be nearly as potent a film as it is.

Randy "The Ram" has seen his his share of glory, but that's all in the very distant past as the movie begins. Not only does he now resort to wrestling in small-time matches in high school gyms on weekends to help make ends meet, but he's never managed to establish a meaningful relationship with a woman since his bitter divorce, though he deludes himself that he's formed something solid with Cassidy, a stripper at a bar he frequents... he either doesn't see or isn't allowing himself to see how much of that relationship is completely professional (and monetary). And what little connection he ever had with his daughter was dissolved in years of parental neglect. As little as his current wrestling bouts give him, it's mighty close to all he's got.

Now, I don't imagine that what I've just described is going to make very many people excited about seeing the feel good movie of the year. I've had problems in the past trying to convince people to see anything that doesn't sound like an on-your-feet-cheering-the-hero crowd pleaser (I couldn't begin to count the number of times my raves about "The Sweet Hereafter" were greeted with "Oh, that sounds DEPRESSING!"). But anyone who understands that a movie doesn't have to make you feel good in order to be a good movie will appreciate a lot of what "The Wrestler" has to offer.

A friend of mine who'd seen this movie before I finally caught up with it said he thought that the story itself had nothing new you hadn't seen in other movies, but that the acting had so much heart in it that you couldn't help but care about the characters. That seems to me to be hitting the nail right on the head. Imagine just about any underdog athletic saga, but with a great deal less feel-good triumph, and you've got "The Wrestler" (say, Rocky if his life had turned out very differently). But Rourke is amazing in this performance. Before seeing this movie I could still barely recall when I used to look at him as a real talent, almost a Brando for his generation... but those memories were getting more faded with time. "The Wrestler" brings them all back full force. He rarely raises his voice, and never takes the easy route of exaggerated gestures and acting, but you feel every single blow life is delivering to his fragile esteem, as well as his desperation to connect with another human being. That is really Randy's tragedy: that wrestling has become his life so totally that he doesn't know how to relate to anyone else in any way that can give his life meaning, and it might now be too late to change that. I've seen my share of movies with actors playing parts that mirror their lives, and generally speaking, they're a big snooze. Rourke delivers a performance as "The Ram" is the emotional equivalent of one of Randy's "Ram Jam"s, a physically devastating wrestling move.

His fellow Oscar nominee Marisa Tomei isn't given quite as much to work with, either in terms of screen time or of a character who is equally well established, but proves herself very capable of creating a memorable opposite of The Ram... unlike Randy, who has no world outside of his profession, Cassidy, a single mother, desperately wants OUT of hers... she has the connection Randy lacks and is working to try and keep it. The script isn't as clear establishing who Cassidy is and what her dreams are, but Tomei does impressive work filling in the gaps with her performance. And director Darren Aronovsky, who in the past has given us "Pi". "Requiem For A Dream" and "The Fountain" (all of them much more unorthodox, experimental type films) works well within a more conventional frame of reference here.

It always seems to be said that a movie about a sport "isn't REALLY about (fill in the name of the sport here)". Usually that's nonsense. But not this time: Randy happens to BE a wrestler, but the movie is about the distance between him and the people in his life, and his faltering attempts to bridge that distance, and to find meaning in something other than his work. And that's something that a lot of people should be able to identify with, and even learn something from... whether it makes them feel good or not.
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2. "Coraline". And now, for something completely different.

Coraline is an apparently typical 12-year old: frustrated by the lack of attention from her distracted parents, wishing she had the parents she feels she deserves. One day she finds a hidden passage in the family home into an alternate world with alternate and seemingly perfect versions of everyone in the world she knows, including parents who indulge her every wish. Paradise, right? Well, maybe not: completely aside from the fact that they literally have buttons in place of eyes, the "other parents" have sinister designs for Coraline, and aren't about to let her leave. She has to find resources of cleverness and strength she never knew she had not only in order to get back to her own world, but to rescue her "real" parents from the designs of the imposters.

Neil Gaiman is one of the most imaginitive, creative writers of our time, and his works have provided the source material for films in the past, but never as effectively as with "Coraline". Director Henry Selick ("The Nightmare Before Christmas") creates Coraline's world... or, more accurately, worlds... on screen with complete understanding in visual terms of what made them work on the page. The story could ALMOST have been his own creation, so concerned is he with achieving Gaiman's vision. But that doesn't mean he's not contributing anything: quite to the contrary, the people and... well, THINGS that interact with Coraline are unlike anything you've seen in any other movie, and more than anything else I was struck by Selick's inventiveness and imagination. You might wind up wishing a few more directors would use stop-motion animation instead of always going for Computer Generated.

There are those who might say that this inventiveness and imagination manifests itself in rather strange, creepy ways. To which I say: and your point is? You're saying that as if it's a bad thing? I maintain that many of the classics of so-called children's literature have a strong thread of creepyness and the eerie about them (if they didn't, the Brothers Grimm and Roald Dahl would never have had careers), and that children appreciate and can handle a good deal more of that kind of thing than many adults. And after all, Coraline is a brave, resourceful girl who is able to overcome any strange creature or person trying to stop her, and who is willing to go to whatever lengths she needs to in order to save her family. Is this the worst role model a child could have? Or do we really want a nation of kids to grow up to be Hannah Montana?

In the midst of all of the bizarre visuals and plot twists of Gaiman's story, Selick also takes care to include his depth of character... he's smart enough to know that if we didn't have real, sympathetic people (okay, so maybe they're not all exactly PEOPLE) at the heart of this story, then all of the imagination in the world would eventually become not much more than a distraction from a story that was empty at its core. And thankfully, he also has Gaiman's sense of fun... this is absolutely the most sheer FUN I've had at a movie in quite a while. By the way, the film is being shown in both 3-D and in more conventional 2-D. I saw the 2-D version and didn't think I was missing a thing: you feel so completely that you're right in the middle of the story that I don't see how 3-D could have helped. In fact, I think it would probably be a gimmicky distraction, constantly taking you out of the story and reminding you that you're really watching a movie.

Gaiman lives quite near the Twin Cities, and as a result often is seen around town (I've met him four times: three times at readings, and once when I simply dropped into Dreamhaven Books one day and happened to spot him standing at the counter talking to the staff). So odds are good that I'll be seeing him again eventually. I know he's getting all kinds of questions about the film now, but I still intend to ask what he thought of it. I expect that he was quite delighted. And anyone who appreciates a thoroughly unique story of people you can recognize in a world you can't, told in a visually dazzling style that almost demands more than one viewing in order to take all of it in, should have a similar response.

Vive La France

2009-03-12T08:43:00.001-07:00

It's 1936 in Paris, and World War II is still several years away. But things are by no means paradise... political factions from both the far right and left are warring, violence is common, and in particular a faction of fascists whose policies are disturbing similar to those of the Nazis are beginning to have a great deal of power. In the midst of all of this, a group of entertainers who had been the talk of the town until the economy forced them to close down their old theatre home are understandably depressed and downbeat? What can they possibly do? How about making a kind of Faustian bargain with one of those aforementioned rising fascists and re-opening the old theatre?

From time to time you'll hear certain movies referred to as "The kind of movie they just don't make anymore". "Paris 36" does have a great deal of affection for the kind of American musicals of the 1930's that they REALLY don't make anymore (Busby Berkley in particular, as well as his imitators), but ultimately it's the kind of film that they NEVER really DID make in the U.S., and that they have never STOPPED making in Europe... the kind that blends both the charming fantasy world of the musical theatre with many of the grim realities of a troubled time, and doesn't hesitate to dwell on those grim realities at times. "Cabaret" probably comes the closest, but even that's not quite it.

Director/co-writer Christophe Barratier has made only one previous movie, "The Chorus" (which was nominated for a Foreign-Language Film Oscar), but "Paris 36" seems to be the work of a veteran film-maker with a lot more experience (I'm amazed to think what he might do when he really DOES have that much experience). Filled with snappy dialogue, memorable characters, moments of both hysterical comedy and meaningful drama, and a sheer love of musical theatre that is nearly unrivaled, this is a worthwhile movie on an amazing number of levels.

There's not a single weak performance in the film, but there are two true stand-outs. The first would have to be Gerard Jugnot as "Pigoil", the man who ran the theatre during its golden days but finds himself beginning to be squeezed out a bit after its re-opening (partially due to its new fascist owners), in a performance that sometimes verges on pathos but never becomes overbearingly sentimental. Then there's also the movie debut of the amazing Nora Arnezeder as "Douce", the very reluctant girlfriend of the theatre's fascist new owner, who the owner forces on the performers as one of their new stars, only to have her turn out to be astonishingly talented, with a voice to rival that of the legendary Edit Piaf. (Oh, yeah... she becomes very reluctant to continue the relationship that got her into the theatre when she falls in love with one of her co-stars.) There's also Jojo, Pigoil's young son... living with his divorced mother but longing to join his father in "the business". I don't know quite why, but it seems that only European film makers are able to handle children with such respect and a complete lack of condescension. This is a group of people you will definitely want to spend time with (yes, even the evil ones).

So, what we have is a story with a lot of political implications, both for its own time and for ours, some of the most memorable characters around, a range of emotional tone that goes from tragedy to farce while always remaining coherent and consistent, and a terrific string of songs, comedy routines and production numbers that fans of classic musicals will remember for a long time. I suppose that technically speaking that can't really be called "something for EVERYONE" (there certainly aren't any vampires lurking around, and there are no cowboys anywhere in sight, just for starters), but it's surprising how close it manages to come.

I saw "Paris 36" on Monday the 9th at a sneak preview at the Edina Theatre (at which both Christophe Barratier and Nora Arnezeder were present... talk about cool!), and I'm not sure when it's going to be opening either in the Twin Cities area (it doesn't open here THIS week) or in other cities. But it's definitely worth watching for it. I'd be very surprised if it ddoesn't amaze you as much as it did me.

"Yes" And No

2009-02-17T08:19:00.000-08:00

First, I want to say that if there are any fellow members of Lyndale United Church Of Christ who just found out about this blog in last week's E-mail blast and are now checking it out for the first time... welcome, and thank you. You should perhaps know that you are joining an ever-growing community of readers that will soon make this blog the most widely-read online movie-related site in the world, and causing Roger Ebert and the Internet Movie Database to give up in frustration, unable to compete.

And by the way, if you think you detect a certain amount of sarcasm and/or irony in the previous paragraph, then you probably are NOT a newcomer here. It sounds as if you know exactly what to expect. And far be it from me to disappoint you. (And again, thanks... no saracasm in that).
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"Yes Man". Is there anything funnier than the site of a comedian who has made a 15-year film career out of the same basic set of wacky facial expressions do still another 100-minute series of variations on those same expressions? Can there possibly be anything more hysterical than what seems like the tenth version this month of the old "emotionally distant male reconnects with the world through the help of a quirky, offbeat love interest" plot? And are you the sort of person who would answer "yes" to either of the above questions? Oh... I'm very sorry to hear that. I hope you can get some effective therapy soon. Now, as for the rest of us...

In "Yes Man", Jim Carrey plays an emotionally distant (of COURSE he is!) bank employee who, as the result of a recent bad divorce, has withdrawn from all of his friends and family. One day he gets talked into attending a seminar by a charismatic self-help guru played by Terrence Stamp, who persuades him to accept the power of "Yes"... to literally say "Yes" to absolutely every single offer or opportunity that comes his way. Needless to say, this changes his life in major ways, most of which are intended to seem wild and wacky. (I wonder if George W. Bush attended a seminar like this just before his first term, and from then on any time one of his advisors came to him with suggestions like "What do you say we invade Iraq and then lie about the WMDs and other reasons for the invasion?", he had no choice but to say yes? It would explain so much!)

This is essentially a movie devoted to fulfilling our expectations of virtually every person involved in making it. Want to see Jim Carrey do Jim Carrey instead of stretching himself the way he did so brilliantly (I DO mean that, seriously) in "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind"? You got it! Want to see Zooey Deschanel take one more step towards firming up her reputation as "the quirky girl who inspires our wacky hero to see the light"? You got that, too. It even continues the recent downward trend of Terrence Stamp, getting him involved once more in trying to provide a touch of dignity and class to a very lowbrow comedy that desperately needs it. And once again, it's not quite enough.

It doesn't seem all that long ago that comedy was based on the UNexpected... characters saying or doing things you had no way of anticipating. When did that change? Once in a very great while, a picture like "Tropic Thunder" that really doesn't play by any kind of rules comes along, but it's now the extremely rare exception. And genuinely talented performers like Carrey, Deschanel and Stamp are content to fritter away their abilities in predictable hackwork like "Yes Man". It may not be the absolute worst example of how far popular culture has fallen (not as long as Celine Dion still has a career), but it's not exactly very encouraging, either.

If the premise of this movie seems interesting enough that you actually feel inclined to catch this movie, I have two alternate suggestions. (1): Read the non-fiction book of the same title by Scottish author Danny Wallace that was the VERY, VERY loose basis of this film. It's genuinely hysterical, and not at all predictable. (2) You could also see "Liar, Liar", a picture with a not too disimilar premise that Carrey made some 13 years ago, when his comedic approach was still fresh and he was occasionally inclined to take some chances. Or just catch some old Monty Python episodes. Warning, though: they could very well make it impossible for you to ever take a film like "Yes Man" seriously ever again. Pardon me now, I have to go and watch the "Argument Clinic" sketch. After writing about "Yes Man", I feel the need for something REALLY funny.

Twilight Time

2009-02-10T10:08:00.000-08:00

Vampires never seem to go out of style, but as time goes by and folks in the media continue to try to find new ways and styles of presenting them, they've come up with some very unusual approaches, everywhere from "The Count" on "Sesame Street" to the recently ever-more-popular approach of vampires that look and act like they stepped right out of a script for "Gossip Girl". In "Twilight", this approach may possibly have reached its peak.

For those who may be unaware, "Twilight" is based on the first of a popular series of teen novels (none of which I've read). In this first tale, a young girl (played by Kristen Stewart of "Into The Wild") is reluctant to follow her mother and mom's new husband on a job-related road trip, so she goes to live with her father in a small, dark/dreary, rain-drenched upper northwest town. There she quickly settles into the local high school and becomes romantically involved with a mysterious student... who just happens to turn out to be a vampire, as are the other members of his family. You never got to meet Dracula's sister or father, did you? Just one of the many unique experiences awaiting you in "Twlight".

Actually, the very basic premise is not really all that different from the concept of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer", complete with the brooding vampire who really isn't all that evil and becomes involved with our teen heroine. But what a world of difference! "Buffy" took the time to avoid stereotypes and make each of its characters... lead and supporting... into real people (or whatever they may have been). "Twlight" gives us cardboard characters who for the most part speak in the same angst-filled monotones, in dialogue that could just as easily have been spoken by any of the other characters. The storylines of "Buffy" almost always related to real world and real, identifiable problems. "Twlight"'s main interest seems to be in close-ups of our handsome, brooding vampire hero and scenes designed to make the teenage girls in the audience filled with romantic longing. "Buffy" could give you every conceivable emotion in the course of a single episode. "Twilight" gives you little but the aforementioned brooding, with the exception of a few scenes that are UNINTENTIONALLY hysterical... I'm thinking in particular of a baseball game between the various members of the vampire family. If only more deliberate comedies could produce as many laughs!

That's not to say that there isn't ANYTHING to recommend it. Director Catherine Hardwicke gives us a fair amount of eerie atmosphere, the cinematography is much better than your standard cheesy horror picture, and in the midst of a cast of unmemorable performances (Hardwicke did much better in "Thirteen" with Holly Hunter and Evan Rachel Wood), Stewart actually seems natural and believable, like a real teen. Still, she's no Sarah Michelle Gellar. Still, is this enough for a really rewarding time at the movies? Not for me.

Having never read any of the original novels, I can't really say whether this movie is an accurate reflection of them. But if it is, I'm a bit mystified at their popularity. As I was sitting here in the Walker Library typing this, I happened to overhear a woman who appeared to be in her 40's asking a clerk how to get on a reserve waiting list for the "Twilight" books, saying something about being "born too late". Maybe I just have a similar problem but was born SO late that I'm just unable to connect with the appeal of the "Twilight" series. (Although I kind of think not.) But ultimately, my reaction to this film is to go very much against my usual grain and actually recommend that instead of going to a theatre to see a movie (this one), you instead stay home and watch a TV series... either in reruns or DVD, or even on Hulu.com, however you can get it. I don't think I have to tell you what TV series that is.

Klaatu Barada No-No

2009-02-05T09:38:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's come to this. The need to deliver some badly needed sarcasm and negativity in these reviews has finally resulted in me dipping into the well... or should that be cesspool?... of turkeys that I've seen second-run recently. But it had to be done. Apologies to those who have no idea what the title of this column refers to... you'll have to have seen the original 1951 version of "The Day The Earth Stood Still" to understand it, as it's inspired by a line that doesn't appear in the remake... and maybe virtually nobody will get it. But it just popped into my head totally unbidden, and wouldn't let me alone until I had written a negative review with that title. Who am I to ignore the magical muse of sarcasm?... I mean, seriously, how often do muses ever directly inspire YOU? Just because it's the muse of sarcasm, I'm supposed to ignore it? I take my muses where I can find them.

Anyhow, let's proceed.
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1. "The Day The Earth Stood Still". What a lovely birthday present. This movie was released exactly on my most recent birthday, and as gifts go I've had better. In fact, it's the sort of gift you wind up returning the very next day. But then, I also got the local release of "Frost/Nixon" on the same day, so things worked out. As for "Day The Earth Stood Still"... I suppose it's somewhat encouraging that casting directors have given up on trying to convince us that Keanu Reeves is a brilliant scientist, or super-hero about to save the world, and cast him as an emotionless alien. At last, a role that doesn't stretch our credibility. But that's about it for encouraging.

Much like the original, THIS version of the story is about a human-like alien being who comes to Earth accompanied by his giant robot guardian in order to save the Earth. NOT the human race, mind you, but the PLANET Earth. Seems that a consortium of alien races has decided that the human race is too much of a danger to the planet and will have to be wiped out in order to save the world. On the plus side, you wouldn't have to worry about not being ready for the digital TV conversion, but overall probably not such a good trade-off. The various governmental forces come to much the same conclusion, and rush to try and stop it.

In the 1951 original, Michael Rennie as Klaatu the alien managed to give us a believably non-human character without human emotions and at the same time not come off as wooden. And when he did eventually have to exhibit some concern for the human race, you believed him. Maybe that's asking too much for a performer of Reeve's range (it shouldn't be, though... he was actually a decent actor in the very early days of his career), but Reeves is SO wooden here you could practically make a table or chair out of him. Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly as the female lead, a scientist attempting to persuade him that the human race is worth saving, should have been a redeeming factor: after all, she actually DESERVED her Oscar (how refreshing!), and has given other Oscar-worthy performances. However, she's no real improvement over Reeves: I was unable to tell what she was feeling in any given scene unless her dialogue indicated it, because her one and only facial expression and vocal tone never changed once during the course of the entire film. And while I don't like to put down child actors, Jaden Smith as Connelly's step-son had better hope his dad Will overcomes his fears of nepotism and decides to give him more acting work in the future... I don't know who else will after seeing this movie. There are some real stand-outs in the smaller roles: the always reliable Kathy Bates is totally believable as the Secretary Of State (government official in charge of response to the aliens after so much of the government has gone into hiding). If aliens were landing, you'd WANT her in charge. And John Cleese is utterly marvelous and even touching in a cameo as a professor trying to persuade Klaatu of humanity's capacity for change. Too bad he couldn't have been equally persuasive with the film's producers and convinced them to give him a bigger role. But Bates & Reeve's combined screen time probably isn't more than 20, maybe 25 minutes. If only...

A lot of people wonder about the special effects in movies like this: if they're really spectacular, that's enough for them. Well, those people will be happy maybe half of the time. I'll admit that the primitive, reptilian part of my brain really responded to some of the destructive scenes... it was kind of cool to watch entire athletic stadiums or even trucks in motion on the highway dissolved into nothingness in mere seconds by the swarms of insect-like creatures. But why, oh why, is movie technology still apparently unable to create a completely digital human-like character who doesn't look like something out of a cheap video game? Klaatu's robot looks mighty impressive just standing still, but as soon as it starts to move I almost felt like laughing. And don't even get me STARTED on the explosions.

And let's face it: if the characters and arguments presented in this movie as reasons for allowing the human race to continue were all the alien visitors had to go on... well, the odds would not be good. How about Mother Teresa, or Martin Luther King, or Nelson Mandela, or Desmond Tutu... but no, Jennifer Connelly trying to convince Reeve of humanity's worthiness by her concern for her badly acting (in all senses of that term) step-son... while her expression never shows a sign of this concern... is what we have to pin our hopes on. Maybe we shouldn't be making any long-term plans just yet.

After the movie was over, I actually heard one other audience member express some disappointment to her companion that the movie was CALLED "The Day The Earth Stood Still" but that at no time anywhere in the film DID the Earth actually stand still.
(Seriously, I am not making that up.) I don't want to be too much of a nitpicker, so I'm willing to let them slide on that one. But there's only so far I can carry that attitude, and I can't take it so far as to actually recommend that anyone rush out to any of the discount theatres where this is now showing to see it. Of course, if Klaatu decided to send his robot after me, who knows? I don't want to be TOO unreasonable about this.
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Don't know how soon I'll be able to squeeze this in, but before too many more days you can probably also look forward to (or anticipate with fear and dread, depending)
to some negative commentary on the movie "Twilight". All I'll say right now is that even as a major, long-time fan of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer", I still never really appreciated how good that show was until I saw "Twilight"...

What Should And WIll Win At The Oscars

2009-01-23T12:59:00.000-08:00

Well, the Oscar nominations were released yesterday. I obviously don't vote for them, but if I DID, here's what I would have voted for, along with what I think probably WILL win (we'll see if I'm any better at predictions this time than I have been in the past). I should add that I very much like many of the films and performances I didn't say "should" win, especially "Slumdog Millionaire", so don't take my not "voting" for them to be negative. And I think it's kind of interesting that after winning a SUPPORTING Actress Golden Globe for "The Reader", Kate Winsley is nominated for an Oscar as LEAD Actress in the very same role.

Incidentally, since it would take so much extra time and the complete nominations list has been published and WILL be published in so many different newspapers and magazines as well as online, I won't be including ALL nominees here, just the "will" and "should" wins.
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ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Should win: Peter Morgan, "Frost/Nixon"
Will win: Simon Beaufoy, "Slumdog Millionaire"
Nominee in this category I have yet to see: "The Reader"

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Should win: Courtney Hunt, "Frozen River"
Will win: Dustin Lance Black, "Milk"
Nominee in this category I have yet to see: "Happy Go Lucky"

ANIMATED FEATURE
Should win: Wall.E
Will win: Wall.E

DIRECTOR
Should win: Ron Howard, "Frost/Nixon"
Will win: Danny Boyle, "Slumdog Millionaire"
Nominee in this category I have yet to see: "The Reader"

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Should win: Viola Davis, "Doubt"
Will win: Viola Davis, "Doubt"
Nominee in this category I have yet to see: Marisa Tomei, "The Wrestler"

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Should win: Heath Ledger, "The Dark Knight"
Will win: Heath Ledger, "The Dark Knight"
Nominee in this category I have yet to see: Michael Shannon, "Revolutionary Road"

ACTRESS
Should win: Melissa Leo, "Frozen River"
Will win: Kate Winslet, "The Reader"
Nominee in this category I have yet to see: Winslet

ACTOR
Should win: Frank Langella, "Frost/Nixon"
Will win: Sean Penn, "Milk" (Though I think it's a real possibility that
Micky Rourke might sneak past him for "The Wrestler")
Nominee in this category I have yet to see: Rourke

FILM
Should win: "Frost/Nixon"
Will win: "Slumdog Millionaire"
Nominee in this category I have yet to see: "The Reader"

So, now we'll see...

Goodbye Clint, Hello Brad

2009-01-17T08:23:00.001-08:00

I herewith pledge that whatever it takes, even if I have to review some second-run movies, I WILL have some negative reviews next time. However, for now, two more I liked.
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1. "Gran Torino". Clint Eastwood has been saying that for the past several years, he's been seriously plotting his retirement from acting (he would continue to direct), and that he's been looking for the right role and film for his farewell to acting project... and that "Gran Torino" is most likely it. If this is the case, he's gone out on a project that might not be his VERY best but is certainly a strong effort, and that takes several popular Eastwood characters and themes to their logical conclusion.

Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, a retired and recently widowed Detroit police officer, Korean War veteran, and based on his politically incorrect speach, an apparent racist, who grumbles and gripes as he sees his neighborhood gradually taken over by Asian immigrants (primarily Hmong). But when he confronts a local gang and is met with (and is at first not sure how to deal with) the gratitude of the entire neighborhood, he finds that he has much in common with his neighbors... certainly more so than with his own greedy family. He wants to protect Tau and Sue (the youngest members of the family next door) from the gang, and certainly has the skills to do so, but he's clearly haunted by some specific violent incident in his past, and frightened of the thought of resorting to his old skills again.

Some of that plot summary might sound a bit like "Unforgiven"... which would not be inappropriate, as that was the movie Eastwood made specifically as his final Western, and this film serves a similar function for his "urban" pictures. But as excellent a film as that was, "Gran Torino" in some ways improves on it. Walt Kowalsi is even more clearly emotionally damaged by his violent history than William Munny was, and while Munny was able to overcome his hesitancy to once again resort to violence with comparative ease, for Kowalski it's not so easy... in fact, what he finally resorts to will probably surprise many long time Eastwood fans. The final screen appearance of the man who embodied characters like the Man With No Name and Dirty Harry takes his character into territory they would never have dreamed of, but which makes perfect sense, and has condsiderable emotional resonance.

The cast (many of whom are non-actors recruited from various Hmong communities around the U.S. ... the actors playing Tau and Sue are both from the Twin Cities) are either responding well to Eastwood's direction (he does have a history of getting good performances out of stars who sometimes aren't so good outside of his films) or really are good actors... they're certainly very natural and believable. The film lightens its heavy emotional load with a good deal of humor (at least in the first half), Eastood's direction is as excellent as you might hope for from a two-time Oscar winner, and the score by his son Kyle adds to the intense atmosphere without being too obvious.

At age 78, Eastwood remains one of the very few actors his age who can convincingly play a character you would back off from the second he even looks at you the wrong way, which makes his character's emotional scars all the more effective. And he's one of the very few directors who seems dedicated to constantly improving his craft and going in new directions and styles as he gets older. "Gran Torino" will probably leave most moviegoers thankful that this is only his ACTING finale. Eastwood most likely has some amazing films still ahead of him as a director, and I'm certainly looking forward to what he does next.
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2. "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button". The F. Scott Fitzgerald story on which this film is said to be based (unread by me) is a SHORT story... and this film runs a good two hours and 40 minutes, some of which is clearly padding. And at times it bears a slight bit too much resemblance to "Forrest Gump" (also written by this movie's screenwriter, Eric Roth). But while it may have its faults, it's still an impressive achievement overall.

As most of you (around 8 or so of this column's likely 10 or so readers), Benjamin Button is a man who is born (in 1918) prematurely aged, with the looks and physical make-up of a man in his late 80's. His mother dies in childbirth, and his father abandons him on the steps of a local home for the elderly... but as Benjamin grows "older", he becomes more youthful. He's aging in reverse.

The premise seems to me like something that clearly works best in a story concentrating on character... how does Benjamin feel about watching everyone he cares about age as he grows younger, how does this effect his relationships, and so on. Part of what gives this film is 160-minute length is a few too many scenes of Benjamin's Gump-like escapades in such areas as his working on a tugboat sailing around the world, and his brief participation in World War II. And, let's face it, even though most of the characters do acknowledge their awareness of his reverse chronology, it does seem like they ought to be making a bigger deal out of it than they do... how often do they run into people who age backwards? But David Fincher, a director who has given us a series of very atmospheric films that wrap up their audiences in their unique worlds ("Seven", "Zodiac") has done a fine job here of making Banjamin's obviously fantasy world believable enough that you'll believe, and a fine cast, headed by Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, are so convincing that most audiences will likely have no problem being swept along. In particular, I've been impressed with how Pitt... who always seemed a bit shallow to me... has been growing as an actor over the past couple of years in films like "The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford" and "Burn After Reading". He continues that journey in "Benjamin Button".

Audiences who demand only movies that could happen in the real world (such as it is) will probably not connect with "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button", and there's nothing wrong with that. But I personally also enjoy films that take us into a world where we obviously don't live and convince us it's real for a couple of hours. It also helps if said film is well acted and directed. As an end result of this, I was quite entertained by "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button".

LEAST Favorites Of 2008

2009-01-06T10:47:00.000-08:00

Yes, I actually did see all of these... thankfully, at discount theatres. I regret not having reviewed any of them. Those reviews would probably have been fun to read. I KNOW they would have been fun to write. Darn my limited computer access...

10 LEAST FAVORITE MOVIES OF 2008

10. Rigetheous Kill
9. 88 Minutes
8. Speed Racer
7. Fool's Gold
6. Step Up 2 The Streets
5. Step Brothers
4. Made Of Honor
3. Mirrors
2. The House Bunny
1. Bangkok Dangerous

If you're wondering whether there are ANY movies that I absolutely will not see even at second-run discount prices on Tuesdays (cheap day)... well, today is Tuesday, and "Beveryly Hills Chihuahua" and "High School Musical 3" are both playing at the Hopkins, my most-often-frequented second run theatre, I haven't seen either of them... but I will NOT be there. Never saw "Love Guru", "Semi-Pro" or a bunch of others, actually. I do apparently have my standards, even if I'm not entirely sure what they are.

Favorites Of 2008

2009-01-02T08:47:00.000-08:00

I call it that and not "Best" because I make no claims to "knowing" anything about any subjective qualities that make a movie the definitive "best"... these are just the ones that most impressed ME. And remember that since I see most movies second run, the Art House list is very unrepresentative of the year... there are a WHOLE lot of art house movies I'd probably have loved that I never saw, since most of them never play the second run theatres. These are simply my favorites of what I DID see.

Also, I know the studios like to put out movies they have real Oscar hopes for in a couple of theatres in New York and L.A. in December, and everywhere else in January. I do NOT go along with the notion that these are 2008 releases. If 99 point 9 percent of the country doesn't get to see a movie until 2009, then as far as I'm concerned it's a 2009 release, period. I'm not a member of the Academy (AMPAS)and I'm under no obligation to follow their rules if I think they're stupid. So, for instance, Clint Eastwood's "Gran Torino" (which I am looking forward to), which opens almost everywhere on January 9th, is a 2009 release by my standards and will be eligible for the commercial list NEXT year.

And once in a great while, a movie will open in Art House type theatres, and later expand into regular commercial multiplexes (for instance, "Milk" and "Slumdog Millionaire"). In those cases, I count the film on the Art House side. That's why, for instance, you'll see "Under The Same Moon" on my Art House list, in spite of the fact that I saw it at the very commercial second run discount house, the Hopkins (and I'm very grateful that in that one instance, a commercial theatre was willing to show such a film... thank you, Hopkins and your parent company, Mann Theatres, for also screening second runs of such indie and "art" type films as "Sicko" and "Away From Her" (last year), and "The Duchess", "Young At Heart" and "Son Of Rambow" this year.). And to the Riverview (my favorite Twin Cities theatre), where I was able to see second runs of "The Band's Visit" (Israel) and "The Counterfeiters" (Germany). If only more second run theatres would do the same.

FAVORITE COMMERCIAL RELEASES OF 2008

10. Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day
9. Burn After Reading
8. Australia
7. Iron Man
6. Doubt
5. Seven Pounds
4. Wall.E
3. Changeling
2. The Dark Knight
1. Frost/Nixon

FAVORITE ART HOUSE RELEASES OF 2008

10. Under The Same Moon (Mexico)
9. Strawberry Shortcakes (Japan)
8. The Visitor (USA)
7. Young A Heart (England)
6. The Unknown Woman (Italy)
5. Man On Wire (USA/France)
4. Milk (USA)
3. Let The Right One In (Sweden)
2. Frozen River (USA)
1. Slumdog Millionaire (England/India)

'Tis The Season For Oscar Bait

2008-12-30T08:22:00.000-08:00

Indded it is, the time of year when the studios are releasing so many movies they have Oscar hopes for, that they have to hold some of them back and give them only limited releases now, and wide releases next month. And both of the films in this column are prime examples. (By the way, I almost feel like apologizing for the relentlessly positive tone of these reviews for such a long time now. Since I tend to see most movies in second run discount houses and don't review those, the lesser titles haven't been getting reviewed here... and believe me, I've seem some lesser stuff. And when I get to use a gift card or free pass to see something first run, it tends to be something I'm might sure I'll like. These are two more upbeat, positive reviews: sorry. Maybe I should start doing an occasional second-run review just so I can have some fun tearing something apart. But for now...)
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1. "Doubt". John Patrick Shanley ("Moonstruck") brings his own stage play to the screen here. Set in the early 1960's just as the Catholic church is beginning to institute some long hoped-for reforms that many traditionalists resent, it tells the story of a nun played by Meryl Streep who becomes convinced that a priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman) has made "improper" advances to a young boy who is a student at their school. She has no concrete evidence... however, she's not about to let this stop her from bringing the priest down and forcing him out. But the boy's family is afraid of drawing public attention to the case for a number of reasons of their own, not the least of which is the fact that he is the school's very first black student.

SO... if Streep completely abandons any doubt and charges ahead with her plans and it turns out that Hoffman is innocent, she's destroying an innocent man's life and career. But if she lets her doubt control her and prevent her from doing anything and it turns out he DID what she suspects, the boy would continue to be abused. And even if she does the right thing, the boy is going to be "put through the ringer" one way or another. Lucky for her she has (or at least ADMITS TO having) no doubts or compassion (when Hoffman asks her "Where is your compassion?", she responds "Nowhere that YOU can get at it!").

We're wrestling with issues of religious faith, personal responsibility, basic right and wrong, racial issues, and a whole lot more here (not the least being women's issues: we're frequently reminded that this is a world in which the problems and complaints of women, no matter how well justified, are generally ignored). Obviously the sort of thing that is more common in works for the stage than for the screen. But Shanley does a fine job of making this a FILM in its own right while making the tone and approach of the original play work just as well in its new medium. Not to mention making the viewer continually ask themselves what they would do in this situation... and then re-think their original reaction, and re-think it yet again. (And possibly a final time in the very last scene.) A movie that makes you think about moral questions? Hard to believe, but true. That alone is a major point in its favor aas far as I'm concerned.

And the film comes complete with at least three performances that go a long way towards making it all VERY real and putting the audience right into the story. I can almost gaurantee that there will at least be nominations for Streep, Hoffman and Viola Davis, who plays the boy's mother in a couple of short but extremely memorable scenes. (And if I had a vote, I'd give the actual award to Davis.) Coming during the same holiday season that gave us "Frost/Nixon" (also with the original playwright adapting their own work), it's a good solid reminder that film adaptations of plays don't always HAVE TO be nothing MORE THAN filmed plays.

2. "Seven Pounds". And from a somber work about doubt and all sorts of moral questions, we go to a Will Smith movie. But it's not as much of a jump as you might think. In spite of his frequent involvement in big-budget action fare like "Independence Day" and "Men In Black", Smith has shown the capacity to give some fine performances as far back as "Six Degrees Of Separation", and has gradually been growing as an actor in recent years, even in those big budget releases: I personally thought his performance in "I Am Legend" was a genuinely top-notch one regardless of genre. In "Seven Pounds" (it's a little difficult to explain the title's significance without giving away some major spoilers), he gets a movie that is definitely a Hollywood studio release, no doubt about it, but that gives him some solid material to work with, and takes more chances than you generally see with commercial releases.

Smith's character is clearly searching for seven complete strangers with the intent of doing SOMETHING that will greatly change their lives for the better. But just who his character really is (he's definitely not what he seems), why he's doing this, and just what is causing the obvious emotional pain he's going through is a mystery. A mystery that, I might add, is not cleared up until the very end of the movie, causing some critics to call it a "gimmick" movie. But the story works just fine whether you know the conclusion or not (not that I'm going to reveal it here). And it gives him a concrete motive for his actions (something a lot of movie characters don't have). The film is told in a series of events that definitely don't follow a straight chronological line (something that some might find annoying), and the fact that it asks so many questions without revealing many answers until late in the film will strike people who want everything explained to them up front as equally bothersome. Personally, though, I think the unorthodox approach (for a Hollywood release) adds to the emotional impact of the movie.

Speaking of which, the emotional impact: be warned up front that this is a tear-jerker of colossal proportions. I understand that there are people who have little patience for or tolerance of movies that are designed to release the old flood gates. As often as not, I would find myself among that crowd: most such films feature sub-par stories and lazy performances, on the apparent theory that if they can make you cry they don't need to do anything else. But "Seven Pounds" wants to make its audience feel connected to the rest of the human race, and understand the truth of the saying that no man is an island. Not to mention what a difference one person can make. Sorry for not being clearer, but you'd be lining up to shoot me if I got any more specific (maybe I shouldn't be assuming that you're NOT).

Accompanied by some of Smith's best work ever, and excellent support from Rosario Dawson, Woody Harrelson, Barry Pepper ("Saving Private Ryan") and others, "Seven Pounds" is, to me at least, a very emotionally affecting movie of the sort that Hollywood doesn't do often enough. Though he probably won't win, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see Smith get nominated for this. And while I would probably give the award to Frank Langella myself, it would not exactly be undeserved if Smith got it. He really is that good.
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Coming soon will be the annual top ten lists (one for commercial releases, one for art house films) but I thought it might be fun to list who I would personally give the Oscar to in a few major categories if I had a vote. This is by no means trying to predict who WILL get nominated or will win... just who I personally would vote for if I were able to. This, before the nominations have even been announced.

Director: Ron Howard, "Frost/Nixon"
Supporting Actress: Viola Davis, "Doubt"
Lead Actress: Melissa Leo, "Frozen River"
Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, "The Dark Knight"
Lead Actor: Frank Langella, "Frost/Nixon"
Film: "Frost/Nixon"

So now we'll see...

Australia

2008-12-17T08:22:00.000-08:00

Doubtless you've heard people say of certain movies... you may have even said it yourself... something along the lines of "I don't think they could possibly have seen the same movie I did". Latest case in point: "Australia". Aside from one single positive review in the Mpls. Star & Tribune (from a critic I USUALLY disagree with), "Australia" has gotten virtually nothing but negative comments, and Nicole Kidman in particular has been the target of most of the snarkiest commentary. I cleary did not see that movie... I saw a very entertaining throwback to the large-scale "epic" movies of some 60 or so years ago, with a talented cast and crew doing some of their best work.

Plot? Yeah, there is one: Nicole Kidman plays a British aristocrat who travels to Australia just as World War II is breaking out, for the purpose of selling her husband's land and cattle, and returning to England. But when she finds her husband dead... seemingly killed by an Aborigine... she finds herself forced to avoid the evil, land-grabbing plans of her husband's main rival... and the only way she can do this involves a cross-country cattle drive lead by Drover (Hugh Jackman), as the notorious rival attempts to sabotage the drive at every turn and even kill the participants if need be.

That would be enough for a movie right there, but "Australia" also features some pointed commentary on the racist policies that ruled Australia for many years (where Aborigine children were taken from their families to be raised by whites who supposedly "knew better" than their fathers, mothers and grandparents what was good for them), and a bit of wartime drama as the Japanese armies travel south and start to attack. A large part of the negative criticism seems to be focused on how all of this makes the movie "overstuffed" and overlong (at two hours and 45 minutes), and difficult to follow. 165 minutes is actually relatively short for this kind of film (it's easy to forget that "Gone With The Wind", for example, was nearly FOUR hours), and the film is totally consistent and coherent as it goes through its various changes in plotlines. It's all part of one story that no moviegoer should have any problem following if they actually pay attention (maybe that's the problem... it's not a movie that you can ignore for ten or fifteen minutes and not have missed anything).

As far as the actors: I personally think Nicole Kidman does some of her very best work in this film. Yes, she's definitely very "Hepburn in THE AFRICAN QUEEN" in the early part of the film... but what's wrong with that? Not only is it totally appropriate to the story (Jackman makes a nice Bogart surrogate), but she's often quite funny... intentionally, that is... which is something you can't say about her performance in, say, "Bewitched". And when the story shifts gears to drama and pathos, she's right on top of it, jerking the tears effectively when that needs doing. Jackman is fine as well, as is the largely unknown in the west Australian cast.

Baz Luhrman (who of course previously directed Kidman in "Moulin Rouge") creates a big, sweeping story of his homeland that presents it at its most beautiful and dazzling (the cinematography ought to get an Oscar nomination at least). It's not a modern type of movie at all... this is the sort of film that could easily have been made back at the time at which it's set. Which, I suppose, could also be a part of the problem for some. A lot of people don't seem to be able to appreciate a film that does quite well what movies used to do years ago but can't seem to do any more. And it's probably no coincidence that this all-Australian production had to go completely outside Hollywood in order to do so. Oh, well... Hollywood's loss.

I would like to think that there is still an audience out there for the kind of film of which "Australia" is such a good example. Believe me, I have nothing against fast-paced, contemporary movies that zip right along with a compact story and cast of characters, very MTV-style. More power to them. But if modern audiences have become so completely accustomed to such films that they can't possibly enjoy anything else, that would be a real shame. I hope more people will give "Australia" a chance... if they approach it with an open mind, they might be very pleasantly surprised.

Frost/Nixon

2008-12-16T12:00:00.001-08:00

You better not shout, you better not cry
you better not pout, I'm telling you why
Richard Nixon's coming to town!
Well, after all, when you get right down to it, is anyone more Santa-like than Nixon? Yeah, good point. Maybe I better just get on with talking about the movie.

I have long been an admirer of MOST of the films of Ron Howard(let's face it, folks, did anyone really like "The Grinch"?), and prior to last Friday, the 12th, I would have said that "Apollo 13" was his best movie (and actually DID, on a number of occasions). But then I saw "Frost/Nixon", one of the most astonishing movies I've seen in ages, with one of the most incredible performances, and had no choice but to change my mind.

I'm old enough to remember watching the actual Frost/Nixon interviews back in 1977, and even then I think I always knew that there must have been a really fascinating story behind them. In "Frost/Nixon", Ron Howard (aided by writer Peter Morgan, with a screenplay based on his original stage play) confirms that in no uncertain terms. Three years after he resigned from office as a result of Watergare, Nixon still had not given a single major interview or even come close to admitting any participation in the Watergate break-in or cover up. Probably the least likely person to get such an interview (and in the process "give Nixon the trial he never had", as one of Frost's researchers puts it) was David Frost, up until then known primarily as a comedian and variety/talk show host whose career was not what it had once been and who was looking for a means of bringing it back to life. Frost seemed to think that the interviews would be a simple way of getting back in the spotlight, and Nixon saw them as a way to "clear his name" while avoiding the harder questions he'd probably get from people like Dan Rather or Mike Wallace. Both of them wound up being very surprised.

Howard presents the two sides as brilliant strategists fighting a series of battles aimed at winning an ultimate war, and even someone (such as myself) who knows the outcome will still find themselves on the edge of their seats as Nixon throws Frost an ingenious curveball, and Frost (after starting to take his opponent more seriously) tosses back a casual statement that has Nixon reeling. Howard achieved something of the same effect on "Apollo 13", another true story where the outcome was already known, but on "Frost/Nixon" the effect is even more powerful, with the end result of this war having a dramatic effect on not only the country, but, in the end, even the world.

Of course, as dramatic and well-told as the story itself is, the film could have been a near-miss if the performances had been less than they might have been. No need to worry. I quite literally could not name so much as one single instance of an actor portraying a real person that I've EVER seen that matches what Frank Langella does here as Nixon. It's comparatively easy to simply ape Nixon's voice and physical mannerisms (though not every actor who's played him has managed to do even that), but Langella achieves the surface stuff and then goes way, WAY deeper, down into the very core, the very soul of who and what Richard Nixon was, and puts it right up there on the screen. You're virtually watching Nixon incarnated on the screen, sitting right there in the room with the real thing. Langella's achievement borders on scary, and if he doesn't get an Oscar for it there truly is no justice. In fact, he's so good that he could probably overshadow some fine work by the other members of the cast, particularly Michael Sheen (Tony Blair of "The Queen") as Frost and the seemingly ever-present Kevin Bacon as a fierce, determinedly loyal Nixon staff member. Hopefully that won't happen, though, as they also make essential contributions to the movie that deserve to be recognized.

There might be people old enough to remember the interviews who don't see the potential drama in a simple re-enactment. Well, this film is much more than a simple re-enactment: it also gives you the story behind the scenes that you never saw, looks more deeply into the characters of its participants than you've ever seen, and makes clear the historical significance of those interviews. "Frost/Nixon" is every bit as powerful a political drama as "All The President's Men", and then some. There may also be younger people who won't understand the relevance of something that happened 30 years ago to what's going on today. They would do well to compare the Richard Nixon story to what George W. Bush has done over the past eight years, and be aware that what happened with Nixon (other than HIS getting caught) is not that far removed, and that the earlier story has a lot of light to shed on the latter. And oh, if only some intrepid current David Frost could go after Bush in a similar manner!

In fact, a subject that might to some seem dry and boring has in fact resulted in what, as far as I'm concerned, is the single best major Hollywood studio-released film of 2008 (I know it's going to be number one on my list), with possibly the most effective recreation of an actual historical figure of all time. "Frost/Nixon" is an incredibly powerful, amazing film on an emotional, intellectual, historical... oh, on any kind of level you'd care to name. It's amazing that commercial Hollywood is still capable of something like this, and it certainly doesn't happen often enough. Which would make it a real mistake if you decide not to go and see it. Maybe not quite as big a mistake as the ones Nixon made, but still...

Milk

2008-11-26T08:35:00.000-08:00

"Oh, what joy, what a glorious day! A new entry on Joe's Corner two consecutive days! What could I possibly have done to deserve this? And what can I possibly do to avoid ever doing it again?"
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America deservedly celebrated entering a new era on November 4th with the election of our first black president. A lot has, indeed, changed. But on the very same day, constitutional amendments were approved in states across the country banning gay marriage (even in states that ALREADY had laws on the books making it illegal) and even gay adoption. There is still a lot of progress that needs to be made, and the time has probably never been more right for a movie that reminds us of how far we've come, how far we still have to go, and how it IS actually possible to change things if we really dedicate ourselves to that change. "Milk" is such a movie.

Every biopic has certain limitations. To maximize the uplift many of the negative aspects of its subject's life are generally overlooked (and even the most saintly among us have such negative aspects), and we generally see them achieving great things a lot more swiftly and easily than they actually did in life. "Milk" is not without some of those problems, but it's very easy to overlook them in light of what it does right.

We are introduced to Harvey Milk's story right after he arrives in San Francisco in 1970 on the verge of turning 40 (and remarking "I'm not going to make it to 50"), intent on simply being a businessman (operating "Castro Camera") in the increasingly gay-dominated Castro neighborhood. But discriminatory laws and hostility from the police and other authority figures motivates him to run for a post as Castro's member of the Board Of Supervisors, eventually winning in 1977 and becoming the nation's first openly gay man to be elected to public office. You see his fierce dedication to the cause of gay rights (and beyond just that, civil rights in general), often at great personal risk. And you see the gradually increasing animosity between fellow Supervisor Dan White and Milk, which will definitely not end well.

If Milk is depicted as a bit of a saint, it's still awesome and inspiring to witness the dedication to helping people that fueled his work, and the way that dedication inspired the people that came in contact with him... people who, in many cases, had never accomplished anything significant in their lives and didn't think they ever would or could, but wound up doing just that when they connected with Harvey. And the film's obvious focus on Milk does not short the excellent supporting cast of characters, each of whom are fascinating in their own right. And the segment of the film in which our protagonists battle to stop the passage of Proposition 6 (an anti-gay proposition even more sinister than Proposition 8) impresses on us in no uncertain terms to relevance that this so-called period piece has for us today.

Then there's the acting. Sean Penn is, of course, one of our best actors, but his roles in recent years have often tended toward the over-the-top and boisterous. In "Milk", he tackles a character who had to over an very basic shyness and introversion to achieve his life's work, and makes it one of his most powerful characterizations (the very first comment I heard from the audience after the lights went up was one guy a couple rows ahead of me saying "Just give him the Oscar right now!"). Equally impressive work is done by Emile Hirsch ("Into The Wild") and James Franco (the "Spider-Man" movies). But by far the most outstanding supporting work is supplied by Josh Brolin ("No Country For Old Men", "W.") as Dan White. Brolin gives you an almost painfully realistic look at a deeply emotionally troubled man (whom the movie implies might have been a closeted gay man) who is eventually driven to a lethal act as a result of his deep-seated insecurities. If Penn deserves at least a nomination (and he does), so does Brolin. And Danny Elfman, who for decades has been the go-to composer for film makers who want a creepy and spooky supernatural type score, turns in some vastly different, sweeping, almost symphonic type music here that will hopefully lead to directors thinking of him in a different way.

Director Gus Van Sant started out in the movie business doing edgy, experimental indie films, eventually worked his way around to pure, big-studio mainstream Hollywood in movies like "Good Will Hunting", "Finding Forrester" and the remake of "Psycho", and then worked his way back to his experimental roots in films like the recent "Paranoid Park". "Milk" kind of takes the two approaches and makes them meet in the middle: a traditional biopic format with a few genuine Hollywood stars, but with some decidedly indie touches that leave you no doubt that Van Sant has made exactly the movie he intended to make without compromises, and told a story that not nearly enough people remember any more, but one that SHOULD be remembered and celebrated. The end result is a strong, important film that is also exactly the right movie at the right time.

Religulous

2008-11-25T09:02:00.000-08:00

First of all, I want to take the opportunity to publicly (well, if a blog that's read by so few people counts as "public") thank my sister for supplying me with helpful ideas when I was puzzling over the question of just exactly what approach to take when trying to figure out just exactly how to review this movie, without turning it into a discourse on my own personal thoughts about religion. Credit should, after all, be given where credit is due.
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SO... how to approach "Religulous"? Well, how about this: every movie you see is trying to persuade you about something: even completely fictional, escapist films (of which this is clearly not one) are doing that. So perhaps we should be asking the question of what Bill Maher is attempting to do in this movie, and how effectively he accomplishes that.

Maher may take a snarky, sarcastic approach to his concerns about what he sees as the dangers of organized religion, but remember, folks, he is after all a comedian and satirist. It's obvious, though, that his concerns are genuine and he seriously wants to get his message to the public and hopefully persuade some of them to "see the light". It might be questionable how effectively he accomplishes the latter. First of all, we have to admit that about 99 plus percent of the people who will be going to see this movie will be people who already agree with what Maher is saying, and it isn't very likely that conservative evangelical types will be persuaded by his arguments. But then again, how often have ANY issue-oriented documentaries done that? Have political conservatives and Fox News fans been persuaded to change their minds by Michael Moore's films? Have liberals and folks on the left been persuaded to become changed persons after seeing that Ben Stein documentary (soory, the titles escapes me right now)? Not likely. But how well does Maher put forth his arguments? Very well, and very effectively, indeed. You'll leave this movie having absolutely no doubt or questions about Maher's honest fears about the power of religion to make the world a more dangerous place. At first I thought the film's VERY sharp turn in the last ten minutes into super-serious territory was a bit jarring after the light and funny approach of the first 90 minutes, but then I realized the purpose of that tactic: it gets the message across even more effectively. The sharp turn is much more effective coming where it does than the film would have been taking that approach throughout: he wants that to be what you take out of the movie, and the jarring nature of the transition makes absolutely certain that it will be.

The film is also quite impressive in the "technical" approach it takes: Maher's interviews with religious figures around the world (not just Christian, folks... Jewish, Muslim and other religious types all take their turns) feature such items as "pop-up video" type commentary, highly appropriate (and sarcastic) film clips to accompany the statements of the interviewees, clever use of pop songs (like the Talking Heads' "Road To Nowhere") at just the right moments, and so on. Maher even gives us the religious voice of calm and reason in some of the most unlikely places (Vatican City, anyone?). It's almost a bit surprising to see such technical expertise in a film from the director of "Borat"... possibly it's a result of Maher's involvement as producer?

But enough of this "technical" stuff, you're saying (well, maybe you're putting it a little more explicitly... and I hope you don't talk like that at family gatherings!). Is the movie any actual GOOD? Yes, absolutely. It's far from perfect: Maher sometimes dwells too long on certain questions and not long enough on others, and skips completely by a number of questions you might logically want to ask. But it's also one of the funniest movies I've seen this year (up until the last ten minutes, of course): I laughed hard, long and often. More conventional comedies (especially the tame, toothless and formulaic films that Hollywood generally turns out as satire) should be this funny. In those first 90 minutes, Maher never lets his desire to communicate his message get in the way of the humor. So it does exactly what it sets out to do, is put together in impressive fashion, and performed well (by both Maher and many of his "targets").

Is this a movie for you? Well, obviously, to appreciate this film you will need to be a concerned, intelligent viewer with a sufficiently open mind to listen to and give full consideration to thoughts and beliefs that you may or may not share, but that could have literal earth-shaking consequences. It also wouldn't hurt to, even if you do "believe", to be willing to entertain a degree of doubt. Because ultimately that's what Maher's message finally is: about the importance of doubt, and how doubt can be what prevents us from going over the edge into the kind of fanaticism that could potentially end the world as we know it. Complete and absolute certainty that "we" have all of the answers and it's our duty to remake the rest of the world in our image? Not so much. If this sounds like you, then absolutely this film is for you. If it doesn't, then be forewarned.

As for myself: did I "enjoy" the movie? Yes, definitely, my thumbs are definitely up. Do I agree with everything Maher says in it? No, not hardly. But I don't think that Maher wants that, anyhow: that would be against the grain of his concern with independent thinking. Am I offended by the movie when it makes statements or takes positions that I don't agree with? Certainly not. And am I in sync with the message about doubt? Yes, for sure: I believe certain things, but I would never in my wildest dreams say that I "know" any of it with such certainty that I want to force everyone else to think exactly the same. "Religulous" is a movie that entertains and educates: it makes you both laugh and think. Not enough movies do either of those things. When you find one that does both as well as this one, you want to recommend it to people who are broad-minded enough to appreciate it. I hope there are a lot of people like that out there.

Let The Right One In

2008-11-19T08:12:00.000-08:00

Oscar is a 12-year-old boy growing up in Sweden. His life isn't easy: no father, a distant, somewhat cold relationship with his mother. He's constantly being picked on by the school bullies and in spite of a growing desire to strike back at them, is never able to do so. He has essentially no friends among his classmates. Then one night while playing in the courtyard of his apartment building, he meets a neighbor... a 12-year-old girl named Eli. As their relationship grows, he finds his life changing in many surprising ways. Sound like a typical coming-of-age story to you? That's probably because there's one major thing I still haven't mentioned: Eli is a vampire.

Yes, I said vampire. And not a cute, sweet little cuddly "Sesame Street" version of a vampire, either... a vampire who you see during the course of the film draining the blood of a number of prominent Swedish citizens. She lives with an adult caretaker who occasionally provides her victims for her, so that not too much attention is drawn, and Eli can remain inconspicuous. But Eli, who has never had an actual friend before, comes to realize that her relationship with Oscar is filling needs in her that she never knew she had. She can't afford to develop a friendship with a human... and yet she has to. And she also has to keep the truth about her hidden from her new friend.

Make no mistake: this is definitely a vampire film. It is, in fact, a vampire film of unusual subtlety (yes, there is blood, but not to the gross degree most Hollywood movies feature) and a genuinely eerie atmosphere of fear... in many ways the movie feels like an eerie dream, in the way that some early silent horror films like "Nosferatu" and "The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari" did, but that very few movies since then have managed to achieve. But not only does it give you a highly unusual approach to those traditional blood-suckers, it is also a good deal more than just a horror movie. It actually IS (among other things) the coming-of-age story I hinted at in the first paragraph, with a good many lessons about the difficulties of growing up and maturing. (The author of the novel on which the film is based has said the story is largely autobiographical, though one would like to ASSUME he didn't befriend a vampire at any point). And in addition it manages to be an effective character study of a bunch of fascinating... and extremely unusual... people (well, most of them are people, anyhow).

You might wonder what you're supposed to feel about a 12-year-old girl who befriends the movie's "Hero" and provides him with the (pardon the expression) human connection he's been needing, and at the same time is responsible for the deaths of people who never did anything to harm her. Should you be hating and fearing her and wishing the authorities would track her down and "deal with her"? Or should you be sympathizing with her plite (she is not unlike a drug addict unable to resist doing a very wrong thing that she needs to do to keep living) and hoping that something can happen to change the course of her "life"? The answer is yes: that is, both. Eli is a complicated character, but then so is Oscar, his mother, Eli's caretaker, Oscar's teachers... there is nothing simple about the characterizations of any of the cast of this movie, or any simple answers to any of the questions it raises.

These are among a number of reasons why this film could never possibly be remade as an American release in a form that even begins to approximate all of the qualities that make it so memorable. Hollywood (with only a few notable exceptions) like simple solutions and easy to understand characters. It also VERY much dislikes the notion of putting children in the central role of movies in which they are not only in peril, but cause peril (and more) for the adult characters who are supposed to be in charge. Except possibly for the "Omen" movies, which are nowhere near the level of "Let The Right One In" (the title comes from the bit of vampire lore that says a vampire can't enter a dwelling unless invited in by someone who lives there), and of course those pictures still stuck to the Hollywood formula of simplistic story and cardboard characters. That's what makes the news of this picture's pending Hollywood remake (due in 2010) so horrendous. In its original form, "Let The Right One In" is an amazing, subtle, and surprisingly realistic (and unsentimental) story about growing up, AND a terrifying vampire tale. Hollywood could only screw it up and churn out a Disneyfied teen comedy that will probably be called something like "My Friend The Vampire". So if this movie sounds at all like something you might be interested in (and it is definitely not for everyone, so I can certainly understand why it might not be), then don't wait. Even if you're alergic to subtitles, seeing this version is the only way you're ever going to see this story as the people who created it meant it to be seen. Just overcomeyour fear of "reading" a movie, forget about the OTHER vampire movie opening this Friday the 21st ("Twilight") and take a chance on something unusual. You won't be sorry.

Who Wants To Be A Slumdog Millionaire?

2008-11-07T08:09:00.000-08:00

Jamal is a young man in his mid-to-late twenties who has just won a phenomenal amount of money on the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" Such a phenomenal amount, in fact, that the host of the show has had him taken at the end of the broadcast to a hidden room and subjected to a series of tortures that would be very familiar to the staff at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, in order to find out how he did it. As he subsequently tells them the story of his poverty and violence-filled life, you begin to get an idea of what an incredible person Jamal must be merely to have survived it all, much less make it to the point he is now at.

"Slumdog Millionaire" is co-directed by Danny Boyle of "Trainspotting" and "28 Days Later" and Indian director Loveleen Tandan, and it's hard to be sure what aspects of the film to credit to which one, but whoever is responsible, they have created a remarkably complex but always coherent film whose multi-layered structure tells the story of Jamal's life at a number of different points over the years in a way that makes for a much greater impact than if it had simply been told in a straightforward, chronological style. Jamal sits in the office... you flash back to him on the show answering the increasingly complicated questions... as he ponders the latest question, you flash back further to his troubled past and see how it has provided him with the unorthodox education to be able to master all kinds of arcane information. And in the process, you get to know and love three pretty amazing characters.

Jamal's widowed mother is killed when he's still a small child, and he has to survive on his own on the streets, eventually teaming up with two other such youngsters, another boy and a girl named Latika, who dub themselves "The Three Musketeers". But circumstances keep tearing them apart and dragging Latika and the other young boy into the criminal underworld. Jamal's dedication to them, even at his own risk, becomes more and more touching as the film goes on, and it eventually becomes clear that his very appearance on "Millionaire" is part of a last-ditch, virtually life-or-death attempt to contact them again. But will he succeed, and what will happen to Jamal... and to them... if he doesn't?

Boyle and Tandan have managed the nearly impossible feat of assembling a cast of differently-aged actors to play the same characters over a 15-to-20-year span and never leave the audience in doubt that the characters at each stage WOULD age and mature to become those of the next phase. Each set of actors is remarkable, and together they create an intense, unforgettable portrait of a set of troubled friends capable of surviving ALMOST anything the world throws at them, but continuing to wonder at each new level if they've finally met their match. Dickens himself couldn't have done better, and, indeed, they may very well remind you of Oliver Twist and other Dickens classic protagonists.

The film builds to a level of intense suspense as it becomes increasingly obvious what high stakes are at risk in Jamal's appearance on the show. In fact, intense emotions are present in nearly every scene, at a level that some western moviegoers unfamiliar with Indian films in general and "Bollywood" productions in particular might find a little melodramatic. But it's perfectly in keeping with Bollywood style, even if the movie does on the whole resist the typical Bollywood trend toward incongrous song-and-dance musical numbers... with one notable exception, and what a memorable exception it is. I'll admit that the whole concept of the Indian equivalent of Regis Philbin being so dedicated to finding what he suspects are the cheating techniques of a contestant that he would try to literally torture them out of him seemed quite implausible at first, until I remembered that plausibility is not exactly the first order of business in Bollywood movies. The point is that all the various elements add up to a story that totally involves the viewer, and makes you cry for characters who fail and cheer for those who succeed. And that, it most definitely does.

But don't get the idea that you need to be familiar with Indian films to appreciated "Slumdog Millionaire". The absorbing story, fascinating characters and the impressive film-making techniques used to tell their story are universal. And even if you DO know Indian film, you'll be surprised from time to time at how the movie takes standard narrative techniques and twists them into unfamiliar patterns. Whatever kind of movie fandom you may be approaching this film from, it will at times seem familiar but ultimately be unlike anything you've seen before. And if that's not a good enough reason to see a movie, what is?

"Slum Dog Millionaire" opens in limited release in New York and Los Angeles on Wednesday, November 12th, and in the Twin Cities area on Friday, November 21st.

Nice Try

2008-10-25T08:08:00.000-07:00

I don't THINK I'm too far out of the usual loop on this, but when a movie is filled with Oscar-nominated (or winning) talent, I think I have the right to expect a little bit more from it than if it were the creation of anonymous hacks. "Body Of Lies" features the work of director Ridley Scott, stars Russell Crowe and Leonardo Decaprio, and a script by William Monahan (screenwriter of "The Departed"). All of this, plus a hot-button topic: the war on terror and how U.S. policy in the Muslim world has shifted the balance of terror. Try as you might to keep a completely open mind, you almost can't help but expect to blown away. And the actual end result? Well, nice try.

Leo plays a CIA operative in Iraq, assigned the task of finding and bringing in an Osama bin Laden-like terrorist leader. His boss, played by Russell Crowe, delivers his instructions and concerns mostly by phone from his cozy little white-picket-fence suburban home as he simultaneously goes about his mundane daily family life with little or no actual worries about the effects of what he's ordering Decaprio to do... either on the actual war effort itself or on the non-combatant civilians of Iraq. And Leo, as he grows increasingly disillusioned about the policies he's being ordered to implement even as he remains convinced of the need to combat terrorists, happens to become romantically involved with a local nurse, a relationship that will have dangerous repercussions for them both.

This is a movie in which a description of the good stuff is inevitably going to involve a lot of use of the phrase "on the other hand". For one thing, Crowe and Decaprio both deliver fine performances, with Crowe somehow managing to portray the very picture of unconcerned detachment while letting you see just enough of the genuine human being underneath that you can't really hate him, and Decaprio in particular doing outstanding work in creating a character whose dedication to his duty and disillusionment with the way he's being asked to carry it out are both palpable. On the other hand, the characters are rarely on screen together in the same place and time and thus don't get to develop much chemistry together, and Decaprio's attempts to blend in with the citizens of Iraq... in particular a segment when he disguises himself as an Iraqi... are totally unbelievable. And even his otherwise top notch performance itself falters in the romantic scenes. For that matter, the whole romantic sub-plot itself just doesn't work (especially considering that in the real world, his love interest's fellow citizens would never have allowed it to develop as soon as they found out about it). I suppose they were concerned about the film's otherwise almost totally male cast, but is a credibility-straining romanace the ONLY way they could get a female character involved? Then again, on the one hand it is admirable that there are at least a few efforts made to illustrate that not every single Muslim is a terrorist, and not every single Iraqi hates the U.S. and wants to destroy it. On the other hand, it is a bit disappointing that most of the "messages" to that effect are delivered in the form of dialogue spoken by Decaprio... it would have been nice to have a few more sympathetic Iraqi CHARACTERS other than Leo's love interest. I could go on like this, but that would make this review a lot longer than anyone in their right mind would want to read. (What's that you say? Why would I assume that anyone in their right mind would want to read these reviews at all? Never mind, whose column is this?)

While watching this film I often found myself thinking of how different it would be if it had been made as either an American independent production or possibly outside the U.S. For one thing, I'm guessing it wouldn't play so much like an action thriller and be a bit more character-based, and that most of the elements that appear to have been added to increase the movie's mass audience commercial appeal would be either de-emphasized or eliminated. And maybe a little more of the viewpoints of ordinary Iraqi citizens as well. Ultimately this picture is a somewhat compromised Hollywood version of what could have been a more potent, dynamic story without those compromises.

Not that I'm saying there isn't anything to recommend it, mind you. Quite the contrary. But when a film has the potential to deliver a knockout, powerful, Oscar-worthy story that brings the war headlines home in a very real, human way and winds up being a well-made and mostly well-acted action picture that almost seems afraid of being everything that it could have been, you can't help but feel a bit of a letdown. See it if you really love the work of the fim's creators (but at the lowest ticket prices you can find... it's definitely not worth a 9 or 10 dollar ticket), and hope that some day Hollywood will have the courage to make an authentic film about terrorism and Iraq... and that those involved will find a movie more worthy of their talents next time.

Paul Newman

2008-09-27T08:48:00.000-07:00

There have been a significant number of actors who have died since I first began this blog in December of 2004, and I have rarely used this space for official R.I.P.s., even when they have been performers I have greatly admired. But after hearing of the death of Paul Newman (age 83), I felt almost obligated to say a brief something.

First, merely as an actor, Newman was head and shoulders over most. Giving flat-out brilliant performances for some fifty or so years in films like "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof", "Hud", "The Hustler", "Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid", "The Sting", "Cool Hand Luke"... right on up to more recent roles like "Road To Perdition", "Empire Falls", the wonderful but woefully neglected "Nobody's Fool" and his vocal contribution to Pixar's "Cars", the man had a career longer and more impressive than almost anyone else you could name, and was amazingly consistent in his performances. Newman was definitely not one of those actors who seem to lose their touch as they get older. No matter what kind of character he was portraying, you always bought it.
And right on into his eighties, his characters always had an intensity and power about them that never faded... you don't even want to THINK about crossing his mob boss character in "Road To Perdition".

But in spite of his Hollywood veteran status, and the seriousness with which he obviously took his craft, the man never took himself or Hollywood too seriously. I was surprised once to learn that he owned a yacht... it didn't seem like him... but then I learned that it was named "El Caca De Toro", and all was forgiven. I also have fond memories of the two times I vacationed in Hollywood and saw Newman & Joanne Woodward's hand and foot prints in the courtyard of Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Newman's footprints were the only ones in the entire courtyard in BARE feet, and Woodward's were in high heels, with each of them labeled "his" and "hers" just in case you thought Woodward's feet were that big, or that Newman wore high heels. And certainly anyone who ever saw him on a talk show (especially with his neighbor David Letterman) knows what a hysterical sense of humor the man had, most of the time directed at himself and his profession.

And of course there is the Newman's Own Foundation and line of products. Through his work with his charities, Newman has genuinely helped to make the world a better place than it had been before he came along, something all of us ought to be thinking of but all too rarely do... ESPECIALLY wealthy showbiz types. He wasn't so concerned about his own status that he had no time to devote to improving the lives of those less fortunate than him.

And even someone such as myself, now less than 3 months short of 56 and never married (and pretty safe to say never will be) has to admire his roughly five decade long marriage to Joanne Woodward. That's definitely something you don't see anymore in contemporary Hollywood.

How many movie stars these days are as genuinely accomplished as Newman purely as actors? AND can continue those accomplishments over a fifty-plus year careet? AND manage to have both a strong sense of self-esteem AND a lack of self-involved egotism? Who are dedicated to their craft but never take their profession too seriously? Who in spite of their success are still involved in helping others to such an extent? And who don't keep turning up in the tabloids every couple of weeks with a new "relationship", and every year or two with a new marriage? Paul Newman was a real giant in each of the areas in which he made a big impact. And as far as I'm concerned, if there was ever one single individual in show business who was the absolute embodyment of pure cool, it was him. Each time a veteran celebrity dies, you'll hear someone saying that we won't see their like again. With Paul Newman, that statement has never been more true. He will genuinely be missed.

Burn After Reading

2008-09-19T08:16:00.000-07:00

So, we have here a story about a disillusioned CIA operative who's quit the agency and is writing a tell-all memoir intended to embarass his former colleagues. But when the computer disk containing his writing falls into the hands of a couple of dim work-out gym employees who decide to blackmail him for the return of his disk, things escalate to the point of violence, bloodshed and gunplay. Of course, it's a comedy. What else could it be? Well, maybe once you realize that it's a COEN BROTHERS comedy all of that will begin to make sense.

The Coen Brothers have never been "mass appeal" film makers who turn out the colossal blockbusters... even their biggest hits like "Fargo" and "No Country For Old Men" are small potatoes compared to "Iron Man" or "The Dark Knight". But for fans of the strange, quirky and decidedly non-formulaic... and who are able to accept the notion that a very dark film can still be funny... they've always had a considerable appeal, and "Burn After Reading" continues that tradition. It's not by any means the best film they've ever made, but long-time fans can at least be thankful that it's not exactly a repeat of the disaster that was "Intolerable Cruelty" either. As we've come to expect in a genuine Coen film, it looks directly and unflinchingly into the darker corners of the human spirit, and finds a lot to laugh at there.

The Coens seem to be among the relatively few directors who are capable of taking an all-star celebrity cast and getting fine, even inspired, performances out of all of them. Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt as the blackmailers are among the most entertaining and likable idiots to grace the screen in a long time, and Richard ("The Visitor") Jenkins as their boss gives the film a touch of real humanity and a rare bit of actual intelligence. John Malkovich as the ex-CIA agent is hysterical, constantly on the verge of blowing his top (some of the movie's most shocking moments occur when he actually does). George Clooney's character is a grand illustration of just how funny total paranoia can be, and even though their characters are limited to only a few scenes and never interact with any of the others, David Rasch as J.K. Simmons as CIA higher-ups are not only funny but manage to tie together a good deal of the film's confusion. And in typical Coen fashion, no character is too small or insignificant for the brothers to give them some snappy dialogue and memorable moments.

Even some long time Coen fans have been slightly surprised that "what it all means" amounts to so little in the end, and many have bemoaned a lack of sympathetic characters they can identify with. I'm not exactly sure I understand those complaints: Coen films have often been about life-or-death situations that ultimately don't add up to much in the grand scheme of things, and McDormand, Pitt and Jenkins all impress me as sympathetic characters, even though McDormand and Pitt together have roughly the intelligence of a muffin.

As Coen films go, this is definitely not the first one the uninitiated should see. But it's still a fun and amusing (if lesser) addition to their filmography. "Burn After Reading" has set an all-time opening weekend record for a Coen Brothers movie, probably as a result of heightened expectations after "No Country For Old Men". Anyone anticipating a repeat of that Oscar-winner will likely be disappointed. But lower your expectations just a bit, don't expect any more than an amusing (and dark) time with a very entertaining bunch of dim bulbs, and you should have a fine time. Not every film has to redefine what movies can be.

Two For The Price Of One

2008-09-02T08:24:00.000-07:00

I saw both of these pictures "back to back" yesterday at theatres only a block apart (the Landmark Uptown and the Landmark Lagoon in Minneapolis), and it would be hard to think of two movies that were more thoroughly different... that is, aside from both of them being top quality. If they both sound like winners to you, you have very wide-ranging tastes.

1. "Transsiberian". Ever had a nightmare vacation where it seems like everything is going wrong? I can pretty much guarantee that however bad it was, it was paradise compared to the one endured by Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer in "Transsiberian."

Harrelson and Mortimer play a couple going through a rough patch in their marriage, who have just finished a trip to China on behalf of a church organization that helps children in need. They COULD have returned home by plane, BUT NO... train fanatic Harrelson decides that a nearly week-long train trip through Russia to Moscow would be just the thing first. Let's just say he lives to regret it. Particularly as a result of several characters they encounter on the train, primarily another young couple (one Spanish, one American) who seem nice and friendly on the surface, but might just possibly be involved in a recent murder and theft of money and drugs... and then there's Ben Kingsley as a Russian police officer searching for the missing money & drugs and those responsible, and who begins to suspect Harrelson & Mortimer.

This is one of those movies where virtually nobody is what they seem. The thing is, though, I've seen more than my share of those, and once I become aware that the movie I'm watching is one of those, I can generally figure out what the twists and turns are going to be. Not this time. After a first half that sets up the story and characters, and is filled with a gradually increasing atmosphere of dread, the second half of this film clamps down on you and doesn't let go, constantly twisting and turning and revealing surprising new developments that I literally never saw coming. Not even once. That might just mean that this picture will never reach a wide audience, since the American moviegoing public doesn't seem to LIKE to be surprised, and even in suspense thrillers wants to know exactly what's going to happen in the rest of the movie within the first five to ten minutes. But if there are still viewers out there who can actually appreciate a movie that you can never be entirely sure about unti literally the very last scene, you owe it to yourself to catch this one.

There's also much to admire for fans of excellent acting... both the "name" stars (especially an ominously sinister Kingsley) and the lesser known supporting players do expert jobs. The musical score adds much to the tense atmosphere without ever going overboard, and the use of tacky American pop songs on the train's Musak system actually manages to do the same... as well as providing some very welcome comic relief. And co-writer/director Brad Anderson, whom I had previously been familiar with only from romantic comedies like "Happy Accidents" and "Next Stop Wonderland" (although I know he's had some experience in horror as well) proves to be a more than capable Hitchcock surrogate, and it would certainly not be bad news at all if he decided to work in this genre again.

Technically, this isn't really an "art" type movie in spite of its playing in a Landmark theatre, but why quibble when the film in question is one of the best suspense pictures of the past few years? If you're at all like me and are frustrated at how long it's been since your last vacation (in my case, just over 4 1/2 years), "Transsiberian" may just change your mind as well as provide you with a pleasurable couple of hours in the theatre. There are, after all, worse things than boredom.

2. "Frozen River". It seems like there's never more than a few weeks that go by without reading a review of some new movie stating that the star gives a performance that's guaranteed to be recognized at Oscar time. I usually take those things with a large grain of salt, even when they appear as consistently as they do in the reviews I've seen or "Frozen River". But now, having seen the film myself, allow me to join the chorus. If Melissa Leo does not at the very least receive a NOMINATION for her leading role in this picture, the Oscars will truly reveal themselves to be the joke that they are often said to be.

Leo plays a single mother (as the result of her husband's recently deserting the family) of two sons, struggling to barely scrape by on her salary as a clerk at a local dollar store in her small town in northern New York state, near the border with Canada... and dreaming of purchasing a DOUBLE-wide mobile home to replace her current single-wide residence. This isn't easy when she is barely able to keep most of the family's posessions from being reposessed, and can't look towards a promotion or raise at her job to help out. Then, through an unusual set of circumstances, she falls in with a Mohawk Indian woman who has been smuggling illegal immigrants across the border from Canada, and joins her in her work, in order to get the money she needs to live her dreams. If you expect things to go smoothly, you don't really understand what kind of a movie this is.

Roughly 98 or 99 times out of a hundred, when a big Hollywood studio does a story about low-income people struggling to just barely keep their hold on the BOTTOM rung of society's ladder, the result comes off as smug and patronizing. And although indie films have a better average in this regard, they don't always avoid those pitfalls, either. "Frozen River", on the other hand, is almost frighteningly authentic. Much of that is because of a sharply observant script and direction, but I don't think it should be underestimated how much of it is due to the stunning performance of Melissa Leo in the lead. A character who doesn't always appear on the surface to be easy to like, Leo nonetheless impresses with her creation of a devoted mother who will stop at nothing to give her family the life she thinks they deserve. She even eventually reveals amazing depths of caring and selflessness bordering on heroism, even towards people outside of her family whom she wouldn't seem to have any obligations towards. This is a character you will not soon forget.

"Frozen River" is certainly not an easy movie to watch, and it might not be quite exactly the correct way to put it to say that you will "enjoy" it. But there are many things that movies can do and many ways they can move you, and to demand that every film has to be 100 percent "feel good" ALL the time will rob you of some of the most impressive film making achievements by some of the most daring, and expert, film makers. If you're willing to go a little outside of what might be your usual comfort zone and experience a movie that will bring you about as close to life on society's fringes as a film can take you, you will be richly rewarded by seeing "Frozen River". Adventurous moviegoers will definitely not regret it.

Man On Wire

2008-07-29T08:18:00.000-07:00

At the very beginning of the 1970's, Phillippe Petit was a young man in France who was obsessed with wire walking. Starting as a young boy in his back yard, he had worked his way up to stringing wires from one side to the other of high bridges and walking across (inevitably to be arrested when he came down). He was looking for the ultimate challenge. And then he heard about the new buildings that were going to open soon in New York City... the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

"Man On Wire" just might be the film you're looking for if you really want to see a movie that isn't like anything else currently out there (and if it IS just like other films playing near you, I'd be interested in knowing where that is, because you clearly have a wider variety of films in your area than we do in Minneapolis!). A documentary about one of the most amazing stunts of the later 20th century, it provides a fascinating look into the mind (and deeds) of a man who some would call crazy, and others would admire for following his dream wherever it took him. The movie admirably takes no position on this... it lets Petit and his cohorts, in recently filmed interviews, tell their own story and lets the viewer make up their mind about them. If they're anything like me (now, that's a terrifying thought!), they'll probably feel a little of both at various points in the film.

The "mission" carried out by Petit and company seems astonishing even BEFORE you've actually seen the movie, and even more amazing afterward. The crew had to get past some extremely intense security, establish a post on the top floor of one of the towers and stay there overnight while avoiding the security guards roaming the building, somehow manage to string the wire from one tower to the other (I wouldn't dream of spoiling your surprise at how they manage this), and then of course Petit had to perform the actual feat itself... about 45 minutes and several complete crossings from one side to the other of the tallest buildings in the world. It's almost as absorbing to see how Petit managed to convince so many other people, including a couple who actually worked in the towers, to facilitate his plan as it is to watch him carry it out.

As stated earlier, Petit and crew accomplished this feat back in 1974... two days before Richard Nixon's resignation (a clip of which is glimpsed on a TV)... and the interviews with them are contemporary (accompanied by vintage film footage of the planning and the actual wire walking itself), but at no point are there any comments made about 9/11. This was a slight disappointment for me, because if anyone would have had a truly unique perspective on what happened and what people felt when the twin towers came down, it would be the man who walked between them. But the movie remains resolutely focused on what happened back then. Considering how genuinely astonishing those events back then WERE, though, that's a small complaint. Being the next closest thing possible to actually being right there next to Petit as he performs possibly the most dangerous stunt ever attempted, thousands of feet above the ground without a net (and no fake movie CGI effects here, folks), knowing what could happen if there were even the slightest slip... let's just say that you'll be on the edge of your seat to a degree that puts most of even the most intense action movies to shame. Even if you're not normally a devotee of documentaries, you might still want to give "Man On Wire" a try. It will definitely take you somewhere you've never been before, and isn't that what we really want from the movies?

Ghost Town

2008-07-25T08:28:00.000-07:00

There's nothing wrong with a movie that aspires to nothing more than to simply be pleasant and entertaining... I've enjoyed my share of those. But when there are movies to see that are pleasant and entertaining as well as creative, well-written, acted & directed, and are genuinely original and unpredictable, is there any real reason to settle for less? Well, apparently there are a lot of people who think so... I keep seeing evidence that there are vast segments of the moviegoing population who love predictability and WANT to be able to tell what's going to happen in the entire rest of the movie after the first ten minutes. That's, I think, what accounts for movies like "What Happens In Vegas" (which didn't even have the virtue of good acting and writing... or even being pleasant or very entertaining) making so much money. All of this is to lead in to a few brief comments on "Ghost Town", which is indeed pleasant and entertaining, fairly well made, and certainly well acted (at least in a couple of cases), but still feels like the movie equivalent of junk food, and is something you'll probably forget about minutes after you've seen it.

The story deals with a curmudgeonly dentist (played by Ricky Gervais) who goes into the hospital for a routine minor surgical procedure, has a reaction to the anaesthetic, and dies on the table... but only for a few minutes, after which he's revived. He then finds that his brief experience of death has given him the ability to see ghosts (yes, "I see dead people"), and all of those ghosts have unfinished business that they insist HE take care of for them before they can pass on. One of them is especially insistant... a businessman played by Greg Kinnear, whose ex-wife is about to get married to a jerk, Kinnear insisting that Gervais help to break off the engagement.

Does this sound more like a movie premise, or the premise of a typically "wacky" network sitcom to you? It sure sounds like the latter to me, and the movie plays out exactly the same way. Most of the cast perform in exaggerated, mugging-and-then-waiting-for-the-laugh sitcom style, especially Kinnear, whose smug expressions and over-the-top delivery are genuinely irritating (I've liked him in other films, so it's not as if he CAN'T deliver a good, restrained performance). Just like your average sitcom, you also get music and even sound effects that keep telling you what to feel (in case you're too stupid to figure it out for yourself), multiple storylines whose problems all wind up getting resolved within a few minutes near the very end, and unlikable characters who learn the importance of being a good person (actually, there are more lessons learned in this movie than in your average school).

For all of this, the movie is by no means aggressively bad (like "Made Of Honor", for instance, or the previously referenced "What Happens In Vegas"). There are some good, funny gags, some interesting characters, and in particular, a couple of very good performances. The storyline between Kinnear's ex-wife (played by Tea Leoni) and Gervais may be predictable in the extreme (when Gervais starts getting to know Leoni better in order to figure out how to best break up her engagement, is there any audience member who has ever seen a single romantic comedy who will not be able to figure out how the two of them will wind up?), but they both avoid the usual sitcom/romantic comedy performances and create authentic characters in a way that helps you to care about them in spite of the predictability. Gervais in particular is a marvel... practically everything he says or does is hysterical. The man is a comic wonder, and his sarcastic, bitter character is a genuine stich. So there are certainly good points to this movie.

However... and I'm sure you knew there would be a "however"... that's not enough. At least, not enough for me. I suppose it could just be because I've seen so many movies that I know all the tricks and prefer movies that avoid them... and actually LIKE movies that surprise me now and then... but "Ghost Town" doesn't quite do it for me. If you're a regular viewer of "Two And A Half Men" and shows of that sort, it might be more your style. In fact, here's a little test. Do you go into hysterics at the thought of a character (Gervais) whose last name is "Pinkus" constantly being referred to by a supposedly sophisticated, upper-class type (Kinnear) as "Pink Ass" almost all the way through an entire movie? If so, then you should probably rush out to see "Ghost Town" when it finally opens on September 19th. You should probably hurry, though, and not take too long. I have the feeling it might not be around for much longer after that.

Just What The World Has Been Waiting For

2008-07-24T09:10:00.000-07:00

I can hear it now... "Look, everyone, there's a new post on JOE'S CORNER again! At last, the darkness has gone away and all is right with the world! Hallelujah!" No, wait, on second thought, I don't think that was exactly what I heard. In fact, you should be ashamed of yourselves! Just for that, I'm going to go ahead and write this entry anyhow!

ANOTHER thing that the world has certainly been waiting for is another reviews of a tiny little independent movie that very few people have seen, called "The Dark Knight". In spite of my almost always seeing films in second run discount houses these days, I made a rare exception yesterday and caught a matinee screening of this little-seen effort. I am very definitely glad that I did.

Three years ago, when I saw Christopher Nolan's "Batman Begins", I thought that the definitive Batman movie still had yet to be made, but that Nolan had come closer to that goal than anyone else yet had. Not only has he improved his aim this time around, he's hit the target dead center.

As virtually everyone knows by now, this was Heath Ledger's last completed film, and there is considerable talk about the possibility of his getting an Oscar nomination for his role as the Joker. I wouldn't be at all surprised if that happens. I'd be the last person to put down the highly talented Jack Nicholson, but Ledger is infinitely better in the role... Nicholson was fun, but Ledger gets spookily under the skin of all of the Joker's terrifying madness, making you forget every other role you've ever seen him in (you certainly won't recognize the Ledger from "Brokeback Mountain") and convincing you that you are watching an actual homicidal lunatic of frigtening power. This is evil personified. And in spite of Ledger's outstanding role, he doesn't overshadow the rest of the cast... Christian Bale, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman are possibly even moure memorable here than they were in "Batman Begins", Maggie Gyllenhaal is a colossal improvement over Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes, and Aaron Eckhart is brilliant as D.A. Harvey Dent, both before and after he morphs into the legendary villain Two-Face.

The plot? As if everyone doesn't know this by now, but just in case: Batman has improved the crime situation in Gotham City sufficiently that he's seriously considering retiring and leaving it all to dedicated new D.A. Harvey Dent... when along comes the Joker, determined to show how thin the veneer of civilization in Gotham really is, and how easily even the best of its citizens can be brought down to the level of animals willing to do anything they have to in order to survive, even at the expense of their friends and families. Obviously, Batman is determined to prevent this... and the fight is on.

Those who come to this movie just for the big action scenes will certainly not be disappointed. But there is so much more to this movie, a greater depth that you almost never seen in comic book adaptations. Would you expect a comic book movie to feature examinations of whether people are essentially good or evil, questions about the very nature of right and wrong, startlingly explicit parallels to some of today's major political and social questions (will George W. Bush love this movie? I somehow don't think so)? And all of this accompanied by explosions, car chases and heroic doings. And in spite of the dark, serious and somber nature of much of the film (it is an authentic Batman movie, after all) it is surprisingly hopeful in the end, showing us that we don't have to inevitably go down the dark path.

This is certainly the movie that Batman fans have been waiting for through the past many decades of the wretched 1960's TV series, the adequate but not QUITE right Tim Burton movies, the horrible Joel Schumacher films, and even Nolan's previous and highly admirable first Batman film. But it should also attract (it certainly seems to have done so, so far) audiences who couldn't care less about Batman but just want to see a commercial Hollywood studio movie with some substance to it. And, of course, some of the best performances of the year. It's probably inevitable that there will be another Batman movie after the success of this one. I can only hope that Warner Brothers will be able to talk Christopher Nolan into taking charge once again. At this point, I'm convinced that he's the only filmmaker who knows how to do it right.
**********************************************************************************

And while I'm here, these are some of the movies I've seen over the past couple of months that I think you should check out:

Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day
In Bruges
Reprise
The Forbidden Kingdom
Under The Same Moon
Mongol
Iron Man

And your life would not be poorer if you never saw these:

10,000 B.C.
Drillbit Taylor
21
88 Minutes
Baby Mama
Made Of Honor
Speed Racer

Expect a review of "Ghost Town", starring Ricky Gervais, Tea Leoni and Greg Kinnear, tomorrow or Saturday. I have a pass to a free sneak preview tonight. The movie isn't supposed to be released until September 19th. talk about sneak previews...

Sorry... These Are Both Good, Too

2007-12-19T12:20:00.000-08:00

I know it probably isn't as interesting to read so many positive reviews (if reading ANY of these reviews can be called "interesting")... unfortunately, seeing fewer movies these days means taking care that the ones I do see are more likely to be ones I enjoy. That, added to the fact that I don't review movies I see at the second-run discount theatres (which is over half of what I see)... as a result, you get a higher level of recommendations. It just doesn't seem right, I know, that a movie reviewer writes so many positive comments. Well, at least I managed to do "P.S. I Love You" this week. Let's hope for some more turkeys soon. In the meantime, here are two more good ones. And the fact that they both have Minnesota connections has nothing to do with that. Really.

1. "No Country For Old Men". Even long-time Coen Brothers fans could be forgiven for beginning to doubt they still hadvewhat it takes after movies like "Intolerable Cruelty" and "The Ladykillers". But now we have evidence they haven't forgotten how to do it right.

Cormac McCarthy's novel about a man's discovery of a suitcase full of $2 million in cash next to a bloody shoot-out, and what happens when he makes off with it (hint: other men who were looking for it aren't happy and want to find him very badly) has the outlines of a conventional crime thriller, but its strange, poetic style would seem just about impossible to duplicate in a film... you could imagine an adaptation being done accurately and still being a very standard commercial picture. But the Coens have long been among the more literary film makers (and their screenplays READ better than just about anyone's). They actually manage the seemingly insurmountable task of turning McCarthy's twisty narrative into a proper film, while maintaining the unique approach and style that made it so distinctive as a novel.

It should perhaps be stated that this is NOT the Coen Brothers of "Big Lebowski" or "Raising Arizona". Anyone searching for their legendary arch comic outlook will be very surprised. Probably the closest comparison in the Coens' filmography would be "Blood Simple"... this is an uncomfortably close look at the dark, sinister side of life and human nature. Good guys don't always succeed, bad guys aren't always punished, and things don't always work out the way they're supposed to. But movies don't always have to be the equivalent of comfort food to be good, and in the tradition of classic film noir (and some of the darker 1970's dramas) the Coens have given us a fascinating examination of some of the less savory aspects of humanity.

The film makers are considerably aided by the work of a stellar cast, in particularly Javier Bardem as just about the ultimate personification of evil, and Tommy Lee Jones as a dedicated, upstanding sheriff trying desperately to make sense out of the evil and bloodshed he sees more and more of each day. "No Country For Old Men" may not be what most people have in mind when they think of "Holiday Movies", but a good movie is a good movie whatever time of the year it is. And, dark as it is, "No Country For Old Men" is most definitely a very good movie.

2. "Juno". Written by former Twin Cities resident Diablo Cody (whose byline appeared so many times in "City Pages"), "Juno" has been getting so many rave reviews virtually everywhere that I was fully expecting to dislike it... after all, nothing with that much hype could be as good as all that. Just goes to show that as Chuck Berry once said, "You never can tell." For once, all the hype is 100 percent correct.

Juno is a sarcastic, snarky 16-year-old who discovers after her very first sexual experience that she is pregnant, and decides that rather than getting an abortion she'll have the baby and give it up for adoption to a couple who can't can't have children but really want them. This leads to an extended series of comic complications that virtually never take the easy-to-figure-out route... when you think the movie is going to go one way, it turns around and heads off somewhere else. And just when you think you've at least figured out that the movie as all about snappy, quick-paced dialogue and "smart" remarks, it turns out to be ultimately sweetly sentimental... but an HONEST and not overly sappy sentimental.

Cody obviously likes all of her characters, and nobody comes off as the cardboard bad guy deliberately set up to be one because the movie requires it... even Juno's parents (the wonderful J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney) are kind and understanding. And Jennifer Garner & Jason Bateman as the baby's prospective adoptive parents turn out to be much more fully-rounded characters than most writers would feel the need to create. But it's Juno herself who is the most memorable character... even just on paper she's a terrific character, but Ellen Page's performance in the role lifts both it and the movie to another entire level.

It's understandable, after seeing so many huge popular favorites turn out to be favorites because they pander to the lowest common denominator, to assume that any film so almost universally well regarded has to be full of stereotyped characters, predictable plot developments, and a minimum of actual creativity. But "Juno" has enough creativity for several regular movies, and makes you all the more eager to see what Diablo Cody will come up with next. And after making his directorial debut with last year's terrific "Thank You For Smoking", director Jason Reitman looks to have an equally promising career ahead. More and more major studio comedies in recent years have become increasingly "by the books" productions, by film makers going through the motions. "Juno" gives us an idea of what genuine fun they can still be with a little originality and enthusiasm thrown into the mix. It's enough to give you hope for the future of Hollywood comedy.

From The Land Of Predictability

2007-12-18T13:19:00.000-08:00

It seems that the overwhelming majority of American moviegoers have a deep, burning need to know exactly what is going to happen to every character far in advance, and a need to know exactly how each plot element is going to resolve itself within a few minutes of said element being introduced. I don't happen to be one of those people, which is probably why "P.S. I Love You" was a somewhat less than thrilling experience for me. The rest of you may very well love it.

In case you need to know: Hillary Swank plays a young widow whose late husband (Gerard Butler of "300", seen alive only in the opening scene but frequently in flashback thereafter) has just died of a brain tumor. But he thoughtfully realized how emotionally devastated she was likely to be, so he has written a series of letters and arranged to have them delivered (along with occasional gifts) over the course of the following year, the intention being to help her through her emotional ordeal and learn to enjoy life again. Armed only with this information... not even having seen any of the TV ads or theatrical trailers... my cousin successly summarized the entire plot in every major detail. Anyone who's seen more than two or three romantic comedies (or dramas) in their entire lives ought to be able to do the same.

Anyone reading this who can contradict this idea, feel free to write and do so... but I think it's pretty safe to say that romance in real life is NOT always sweet and predictable and comforting and all of the rest of that warm and fuzzy stuff. But this is the land of MOVIE romance, which is another dimension entirely. The acting of the two leads doesn't exactly help: Hillary Swank has tended to burn hot and cold in her performances, and this is definitely on the cold side. But at least she has a discernable personality, which is more than can be said for Butler. And not only is the script predictable in the extreme, but the dialogue is clumsy and corny beyond the tolerance of all but the staunchest lover of romantic cliches. This is especially surprising and disappointing coming from writer/director Richard Lavgravanese, who managed to take one of the worst-written romance novels of all time, "The Bridges Of Madison County", and turn it into a warm and sincere film. "P.S. I Love You" is also based on a novel (unread by me), but either Lagravanese has lost his touch, or the novel must have set a new world record for sappy, poorly constructed awfulness.

All of that said, there are at least occasional moments and stray elements that should hold viewers' interest enough to keep them from falling asleep. The ever reliable Lisa Kudrow contributes some snarky attitude that keeps the film from going overboard TOO often, and Harry Connick has a nice supporting role as the one and only character in the entire film whose story arch isn't completely easy to figure out within a minute of their first appearance. And for fans of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" (such as, for instance, myself) it was very interesting to see James "Spike" Marsters in the role of Butler's best friend, a character about as far removed from Spike as you could hope to find.

Still, those are primarily compensations for those who happen to find themselves stuck with the prospect of sitting through the movie for two hours. I certainly wouldn't recommend you go to see it JUST for those moments. Unless, of course, you're one of those fans of the easily foreseen plot developments that I mentioned at the beginning of this review. Instead, if you get the opportunity, you might try to find "Things We Lost In The Fire" and check out how some of the same basic ingredients can be blended together into a powerful, emotionally effecting film that will stick with you for a long time. "P.S. I Love You", on the other hand, is a film that most people won't even remember for as long as it takes to... ahh... err... um, what was I talking about again?

Two Creepy Movies

2007-12-06T11:04:00.000-08:00

Now, I happen to like creepy movies, so keep in mind that that is meant in the nicest way possible.

1. "The Orphanage". Guillermo Del Toro, as either director or producer (and sometimes both), has been responsible for some of the most creepy, shivery ghost and supernatural stories of the past decade or more... at least when he makes them in his native Spain and isn't influenced by the "requirements" of Hollywood schlock. Acting this time as producer, in (thankfully) another Spanish production, he has given us a movie that fans of the "Saw" and "Hostel" franchises will probably loath, but that those who savor a little elegance in suspense along with the scares ought to cherish.

It's the story of a young mother who moves, along with her husband and their adopted son, back into the building that, long ago, used to house the orphanage she grew up in as a young girl. She hopes to turn it into an orphanage once more and run it herself, but it seems that the ghosts of some of its former inhabitants are still hanging around. Furthermore, due to her adopted son's illness, he is able to communicate with those children (he apparently has Haley Joel Osment's disease, too... he sees dead people)).

There is precisely one and only one scene in the entire film with any amount of blood or gore, and it's over almost before you know it. What we have instead is a film packed to the brim with the kind of subtle, eerie atmosphere that hardly any American mainstream movies know how to do any more. Sure, you've probably seen horror movies where the entire audience mutters things like "gross!" and "ick!"... even sometimes laughing where they weren't meant to... but when was the last time you saw a supernatural drama where an entire theatre full of people were gasping in simultaneous shock and surprise every ten minutes or so? Or, for that matter, actually applauded at the end? That's exactly what happened when I saw a sneak preview of this film (scheduled to open at the Uptown Theater at the very end of December)at the Oak Street Cinema last week.

If you're a fan of horror movies but have grown weary of the same old tired Hollywood cliches, you couldn't do much better than "The Orphanage". Guillermo Del Toro has had a perfect batting average (yeah, I know that's a sports metaphor, but it's baseball, so that's okay), and with this new film he hits it out of the park again.

2. "Sweeney Todd". What a perfectly appropriate, sweet subject for a musical. A wrongly imprisoned man returns to his old life after 15 years to find his wife dead and his daughter become the ward of the same evil judge who put him away years ago. He restarts his old barber shop with the aid of new friend Mrs. Lovett (baker of "The worst pies in London") and with the aid of his razors, begins his quest for revenge (as the song puts it, "He shaved the faces of gentlemen who never thereafter were heard of again"). Sounds just like something you'd expect to see in a Disney cartoon, doesn't it?

Well, maybe not. But it does sound exactly like something you'd expect to see starring Johnny Depp and directed by Tim Burton (their sixth collaboration). Stephen Sondheim's very, VERY dark hit musical needs a director... and star... who are perfectly attuned to its sinister sensibilities in order for a film version to work. In the wrong hands, this material could be dreadful and campy. Fortunately, the combination of Burton and Depp are perfect, and they are ably aided by a cast featuring Helena Bonnom Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall ("Secrets And Lies") and Sacha Baron Cohen, A.K.A. Borat (doing an ITALIAN accent this time).

It should be noted that aside from being quite dark (which I don't think anyone familiar with or interested in "Sweeney Todd" would have any trouble with), it is also very explicitly bloody. On stage (as in the local production I saw over twenty years ago), you obviously don't see a lot of graphic blood and guts when Todd starts working the old razors, but Burton takes full advantage of this being a film and features blood spurting longer and further than is probably possible. He even goes a little further in that department than I personally think is really necessary, but by no means enough to ruin his otherwise impressive achievement.

None of the cast is exactly a veteran musical performer, but while they don't exactly give Pavarotti (or even the Beatles) a run for for their money, they do quite a respectable job vocally. Depp, in particular, manages to avoid the frequent musical trap in which the actor stops ACTING the role while they're singing a tune and just "performs"... he's acting in every scene. And maybe it's just me, but knowing his habit of often basing his ACTING performances on various actual people (like Keith Richards as the basis for Jack Sparrow), I couldn't help wondering whether it was a coincidence or not that at frequent moments in various songs he tends to sound a bit like David Bowie.

This is clearly not a musical meant for fans of "The Sound Of Music". But as gruesome as it can sometimes get (though what else could it be and remain true to the source material?), "Sweeney Todd" is a fascinating glimpse of a very different kind into the world of some fascinating characters and their dark world and lives (and the cast does indeed make each character very real). Burton "opens up" the stage play just enough (in some very creative ways), without going hog wild about it. If you have a taste for the dark and sinister... not to mention for some impressive film making and acting... "Sweeney Todd" could be just what you're looking for. It opens at Christmas.

There He Goes Again

2007-11-10T08:41:00.000-08:00

1. "Music Within". This is definitely a movie whose heart is in the right place. It tells the story of the man who was responsible for the creation of the Americans With Disabilities Act, and an inspiring story it is too: a Vietnam vet at the beginning of the 1970s who became virtually deaf (with a permanent ringing in his ears) when a shell landed right next to his tent, he struggled to be accepted in both work and school, and when he eventually started a company designed to find work for disabled people, and realized the barriers they faced, began dedicating himself to the cause of getting congress to pass this new act.

Great material there, and there is a lot to admire in this film. But great material and good intentions (not to mention great performances) aren't always enough when faced with a script that follows all the usual patterns of the "Inspirational TV movie of the week" sort. There are a lot of people who will love this movie, and there certainly are some who I would recommend it to. I was even very impressed by certain parts of it. But too often I felt like I had seen most of it before, done better... and with better, less cliched, dialogue and situations. It might not be exactly true to say "you've seen one true-life overcoming adversity story and you've seen them all", but this particular movie IS one that made me THINK OF that expression.

That said, it wouldn't be fair to not mention that several of the performances were among the best I've seen this year. Ron Livingston does a very good job in the lead role, and in particular Michael Sheen is truly outstanding as his best friend, an intellectual genius confined to a wheelchair by cerebral palsey and barely able to communicate coherently to anyone but Livingston. I was very impressed by Sheen early this year as Tony Blair in "The Queen", but until I saw his name in the credits I had no idea it was the same person. You do not see and actor playing a character here... Sheen completely BECOMES the character and obliterates an memories you may have had of him in any other role. THIS is great acting, when you get no sense that it IS acting. And the use of humor at just the right moments is quite effective, as well. "Music Within" is by no means a bad film, and it MIGHT be worth seeing just for Michael Sheen alone. But I do feel the material could have been done better, and I can't QUITE give it a thumbs up.

2. "Wristcutters: A Love Story". What could be a more natural subject for a romantic comedy than suicide, right? Well, okay, I suppose there might be one or two. But that is the subject we have with this particular one. A young man (Patrick Fugit of "Almost Famous") commits suicide after a disastrous romantic break-up, and is surprised to wake up in an afterlife specifically reserved for suicides that is much like the one he left, only more drab and dark. When he finds out that his ex girlfriend has also killed herself, he and a new friend (a Russian would-be rock star) go on an afterlife road trip to find her, picking up along the way a young woman hitch hiker (Shannon Sossamon of "40 Days and 40 Nights") who insists her death was accidental and therefore she doesn't belong here.

This low-budget indie picture takes a subject that most sane people would find absolutely nothing amusing about and twists it into a gently amusing and entertaining story. It never trivializes suicide, but actually gives us comparitively real characters with real problems and regrets... and who still manage to be funny. It's not one of those loud, obnoxious Hollywood comedies... I'm sure Adam Sandler was never considered for any of the major roles... and audiences who need a movie to be loud and hyper to laugh at it will not find "Wristcutters: A Love Story" to be their cup of tea. But those who appreciate a low-key, subtle and deadpan style of humor will appreciate this film like nothing else that's playing right now (or recently, for that matter). It's definitely the very definition of "quirky", but then again, I like quirky. And any movie that gives us Will Arnett ("Blades Of Glory") and Tom Waits as rival cult leaders has a lot going for it.

This movie is currently playing as a Twin Cities exclusive at the Lagoon Theatre. I know some of you in St. Paul will probably not want to travel into "foreign territory", but if you have a taste for quirky comedy that, ultimately, is also surprisingly sweet, trust me on this: it's worth the trip.

3. "Lions For Lambs". I wanted to review this one just so there could be one single review actually said what I felt about this movie, and so far I haven't seen one. So here goes.

I have been astonished at the plethora (I don't get to use that word often enough) of reviews this picture has gotten complaining about it beeing "talky" and insufficiently action-packed. "Show, don't tell" they keep saying, and even bring up such modern classics as "My Dinner With Andre" as other examples of movies that weren't "cinematic" enough. The consensus also seems to be that the movie is more like a lecture on contemporary political concerns than it is a story about them. I don't happen to agree with any of that.

The film gives us three parallel but intersecting stories: Robert Redford (who also directs) as a college professor trying to inspire a sense of involvement and political commitment in a promising young student, and using as examples two former students (Michael Pena of "World Trade Center" and Derek Luke of "Antwone Fisher") who are now fighting in Iraq (theirs is the second of the three stories), while slick Republican congressman Tom Cruise tries to persuade journalist Meryl Streep to help him sell the White House's new troop surge plans... which Pena and Luke are currently part of.

This is a film that argues very persuasively for an end, or at least drastic reduction, in U.S. Involvement in Iraq/Iran/wherever else we may be trying to take over by the time you read this, but it never once seemed like a "lecture" to me. What I got out of it was a group of genuine, real characters who were passionate about these issues... and naturally, as a result of being so passionate about them, they talk about them and try to persuade others. And stage plays often tend to be speach & dialogue heavy too, aren't they? (But then, I suppose there are those who'll call "Lions For Lambs" "Stagey" too. You just can't please some people.)

And while clearly from a liberal viewpoint (anyone who's read many of these reviews knows I have no problem with that), it certainly doesn't let the liberals off without criticism, either. For instance, Redford, for all his dedication to getting others involved, has used very little of his potential and taken very little direct action to change things, and as Streep comes to realize, as part of the so-called "liberal media" (now, THERE'S one of the great myths of all time) she has played just as much of a part as congressman Cruise has in selling the administration's war plans and policies to the public with its too-rarely-questioning acceptance of the "facts" and intelligence they've been given. There's enough blame to go around here.

Yes, "Lions For Lambs" is a "talky" film (even the Iraq combat scenes have a surprising amount of dialogue). But I happen to think it's a stronger one for all of that, because some stories need that approach and while "Show, don't tell" is frequently the best approach, it would have been mighty difficult to put forth the ideas this movie does by just showing them. When dialogue is as... alright, let's use that word again... passionate as it is here, and delivered by actors of this caliber (amazingly, even Cruise does a decent job), resulting in the level of both intellectual and emotional content this film has, then the film makers have taken exactly the right approach. And if that's not enough for some critics (you know, I'm actually beginning to understand why some people resent and dislike movie critics)... well, that's just too bad. For the critics, that is... their loss.

Rush Hour 3

2007-08-21T09:18:00.000-07:00

The word on this second sequel to the Jackie Chan/Chris Tucker original is that it is one of the worst movies of the year, according to the the bulk of the nation's critics. Then there are those die-hards you can always rely on to provide positive reviews for the newspaper ads: according to them, "Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker have never been funnier!" Well, if they had never been funnier than they are in this movie, they wouldn't be as famous as they are today. But the film still isn't the complete turkey many would have you believe.

It starts out promisingly enough, with Tucker completely lost in the Prince song playing on his headphones, singing and dancing along... problem being, he's supposed to be directing traffic, and his dance routine is causing more than a few problems. (In "Rush Hour 2" Tucker was a bit too manic and over the top for my tastes, so the fact that I found several of his scenes here to be actually funny is a good sign. I also enjoyed his "Lou Costello" role in a kind of variation of "Who's On First?".) The presence of Max Von Sydow (significant supporting role) and Roman Polanski (two cameo scenes) give the film a little class (Von Sydow more than Polanski), and in spite of his being a bit past his physical prime, Jackie is still capable of doing some amazing stunts.

HOWEVER... the plot, such as it is, isn't much. If you've seen the original "Rush Hour", you've essentially seen this one (a lot of movies, like the Jason Bourne series, repeat elements from one film to the next, but many... including the Bourne films... manage to do so with more imagination and panache). And it's becoming increasingly obvious that Jackie is in it either just for the cash or because of some kind of contractual obligation. I've rarely seen any star of any film who so clearly has no enthusiasm for what he's doing, and the joy and enthusiasm Jackie brings to his best roles is one of his great appeals. Virtually the only time you see him smile is during the out takes over the closing credits. And after a first half that at least shows a certain minimal amount of creativity and sense of fun, the picture falls apart as it goes on and revives only briefly when Jackie does one of his best stunts (watch for the French flag in the Eifel Tower scene).

There are a lot of other movies you could see to get a better idea of what Jackie Chan at his best can do. Many of them are quite recent, too... but most of them are made in Hong Kong, not Hollywood. And Chris Tucker at his best? Check out the FIRST "Rush Hour", or Ice Cube's "Friday". If you're already a fan of this film's stars, it won't destroy your fondness for them and will even provide you with a few memorable moments to add to their "galleries" of highlights. But for those who aren't, this would definitely not be the best first Jackie Chan or Chris Tucker film to see... or the best first "Rush Hour" to see either, for that matter.

If A Reviewer Writes A Review, But No-one Is There To Read It, Does It Make Any Sense?

2007-08-18T09:22:00.001-07:00

It's just like with characters like Jason, Freddy Krueger and "Halloween"'s Michael Meyers (and how often in life have I been compared to that crowd!)... every time you think you've finally got him and he's gone for good, he comes creeping back (usually to a smaller and smaller audience each time, too). Well, here's my equivalent of those cheesy pictures: Joe's Corner returns. There are a few movies I've seen in the past month and a half or so that are simply so good I had to recommend them, so here are some brief comments on five of them. Of course, there are also some turkeys I've seen during this same time, but those are beyond the scope of this current column, so you will find absolutely no reference whatsoever to movies like "Mr. Brooks", "Disturbia" or "Fantastic 4: Rise Of The Silver Surfer" here. Nope, sorry... you won't even see me mentioning their names. What? What do you mean, I already... ahh, forget it.

1. "Death At A Funeral". A British comedy (directed by American Frank Oz, maker of films like "Little Shop Of Horrors" & "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels") that raises the question "Why aren't more wacky comedies set at funerals"? After seeing this movie, I have to wonder myself. One of the classic disfunctional families of all time gathers together for the funeral of the family patriarch, hoping for a traditional, respectful service and nothing more. But when family jealousies intrude, when an American stranger (Peter Dinklage of "The Station Agent") shows up trying to blackmail the family with some secrets about dad, and when one of the family members unknowingly takes some home-made LSD thinking it to be a tranquilizer and goes more than a little crazy, things become quite a bit more undignified than a respectable British family would like. I honestly haven't laughed this hard at any comedy this year... it might beven be MORE than a year. I'm a bit of a sucker for British humor, of course, and this film is a prime example of it... the most outrageous, outlandish situations played with a totally straight face by people who have no idea that what they're doing is supposed to be funny, causing it to be all that much funnier as a result. I cringe at the thought of how utterly stupid this story could have been if Hollywood had gotten hold of it first and turned it into an Adam Sandler vehicle. See it now before that inevitably happens.

2. "The Bourne Ultimatum". People have sometimes accused me of being a film snob, only going for independent, art house or foreign language type films. Absolutely not true: I grew up (to the extent that I have, of course) on commercial Hollywood movies, and few things leave me feeling more satisfied than watching a really good Hollywood production that does the things commercial movies can do best as well as they can do them. It's simply that as time goes by, Hollywood seems to be doing that kind of thing less and less. With "The Bourne Ultimatum", we get a brief respite from that trend. In this third installment, amnesiac assassin Jason Bourne comes to the conclusion of his search for his true identity, and finds the men responsible for turning him into the killing machine he has become. He does this in a movie that gives us a perfect blueprint for what all action movies ought to be like, but very few are (and practically none that are made in America). Actual good acting, a solid, twisty script, a lead character who accomplishes as much with his brains as with his fists and guns (although he's good with those, too)... and perhaps most importantly, absolutely no computer generated special effects. If you see it on the screen, it's really happening, which helps enormously towards making the whole thing believable. And of course although the ending brings things to a nice conclusion, it does at least leave open the possibility of more Bourne adventures. Well, the Robert Ludlum estate has authorized Eric Van Lustbader to write more Bourne novels, and he's turned out a couple already, so who knows? If the film could be on the same level as the first three, I would welcome another go-round.

3. "Please Vote For Me". Watch for this one on cable, in the video stores, wherever you can find it. Screened a few times over two days recently at Minneapolis' best theatre, the Riverview, this documentary from China shows, in both amusing and somewhat scary ways, that many of the elements of modern American elections seem to be deeply ingrained even in children in other parts of the world. A group of Chinese school children are introduced for the first time to the concept of democracy and voting by being allowed to run for Class Monitor, a position that previously had been by appointment only. Before long, they're involved in "debates" consisting basically of each candidate saying nothing at all about why you should vote for them and just devoting the whole time to insulting their opponents and talking about why they're so evil (nothing like that could ever happen in American politics, right?). Then there's also the dirty tricks, the single issue campaigning, the nepotism... these kids have literally no idea what voting and campaigning is, but they take no time at all becoming miniature versions of Richard Nixon, Karl Rove and George W. Bush. I'm not sure whether this movie is ultimately scarier or funnier. It's probably so effective because it's so much of both. In any event, catch it if you possibly can. It will be a long time before you forget it.

4. "Hairspray". Another example of what Hollywood can do right, but often doesn't. I approached this movie with extremely mixed feelings, based on the experience of the highly disappointing film of the musical version of "The Producers"... and Mel Brooks actually wrote BOTH of them, including the songs in the musical! So how could the new "Hairspray", with absolutely no input from John Waters other than an opening scene cameo, possibly be good? Well, it's not good... it's extremely, delightfully good. Unlike "The Producers", the songs here actually relate to the story, and are terrific songs in their own right (I still get "You Can't Stop The Beat" stuck in my head several weeks after seeing the movie). The cast is absolutely sensational, including Christopher Walken (finally getting to show the song & dance stylings he mastered on Broadway), Amanda Bynes, newcomer Nikki Blonski, and, surprisingly, John Travolta in the Divine/Harvey Firestein role of Edna Turnblad (giving the role a surprising touching vulnerability)... and of course Michelle Pfeiffer (we all remember from "The Fabulous Baker Boys" that she can sing). It's been a long, long time since I've seen a musical film filled right from the opening scene (with Blonski's wonderful "Good Morning, Baltimore") to the final one ("You Can't Stop The Beat") with such a sense of absolute fun. This is why musicals were once so popular. If more films could equal this one, they could be again.

5. "Away From Her". Canadian actress Sarah Polley, who is only 29, makes her writing & directing debut adapting a short story by Susan Minot about an older married couple (played by Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsett) who face serious challenges to their 45-year relationship when the wife comes down with Alzheimer's disease. Can their relationship continue as it's been? Well, no... but what will it become? And can the husband manage to make some extreme personal sacrifices for his wife's sake, knowing that they will be traumatic for him? The ultimate, most important reason I go to the movies is to experience a story that draws me in so completely that I forget I'm watching a movie and feel like I'm experiencing someone else's real life. In a really good year, that might happen three, maybe four times. It happens with unusual power and strength in "Away From Her". At 29, first-time writer & director Polley has made an amazing film that makes real life seem like the most exciting and dramatic thing you could experience (it often is, but not enough film makers seem to realize that). A lot of people I try to talk to about this film say they think it sounds depressing. I suppose you could look at it that way, but it also says a lot about the power of love, and how even the most extreme circumstances can never really completely wipe it out. Does that sound depressing to you? Take the chance and see "Away From Her". It is SO satisfying to be able to say, on those all too rare occasions, "THIS is why I go to the movies".

Catching Up

2007-02-28T11:14:00.000-08:00

Through the use of a Landmark Theatres gift pass, I finally caught up with the performance that should have won the Supporting Actor Oscar this year, Jackie Earle Haley in "Little Children". Haley reminded me a bit of Sean Penn in "Dead Man Walking"... another performance that should have won the Oscar but didn't. The similarities being that both actors took a thoroughly despicable character doing horrible things and never at any point made you LIKE him, or even try to do that... but nevertheless made you see life through his eyes and empathize with his plight. And any actor who can do that has accomplished something pretty amazing. The film as a whole is pretty good, but not as impressive as Haley. His performance, though... well, in a better, more just world, he would have been giving an acceptance speach last Sunday.

Also, I finally caught up with "Babel" on $1.00 Tuesday at a local second-run discount house last night. An absolutely amazing film. It reminded me of "Crash" (controversial as that film is among many, it was my favorite of 2005) in that it is also about the stupid, pointless things that needlessly divide us when we have so much more in common than we realize, and the way we too often feel no need to communicate and see common ground with anyone who's in any way different from us. Just imagine "Crash" taking place over several continents instead of only in L.A.
It also has much to say about how the pointless violence that adults start all too casually far too often catches innocent children in the crossfire. I realize that many people, including some of my best friends, look askance at stories that place children in danger. I totally respect their feelings about this, and in fact share them when this is done for exploitation's sake. But the world we live in often isn't kind to the young, and the young often get their minds poisoned by the thoughtless behaviour of their adult role models, with tragic results. It seems to me that this is the point of the children's roles in a film that, as far as I am concerned, should have won the Original Screenplay Oscar instead of "Little Miss Sunshine", and possibly even "Best Picture" as well instead of "The Departed" (much as I liked "The Departed" and as pleased as I was to see Scorsese get Best Director for that film). It was interesting to walk out of the film and overhear other moviegoers talk about how unimpressed they were, and mention other films they didn't really care for but thought were "at least better than BABEL". Most of them appeared to really have loved LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE. Guess that's one consequence of seeing movies like this in a regular commercial theater instead of the art houses they open up in. Well, what can you say? There are also people who voted for George W. Bush and thought they were doing the right thing...

Valentine's Day

2007-02-14T10:06:00.000-08:00

Okay, we all know there isn't actually anyone reading this, but if there were, they might be thinking about the "special occasion" that today is for many, namely, Valentine's Day. Well, far be it from me to ignore observing the day in the style it deserves, so in the movie tradition of this "column" let me recommend that if it's possible, you could perhaps watch "Divorce: Italian Style" or "The War Of The Roses" to get in the proper spirit. Then you listen to "Weird Al" Yankovic singing his original (non-parody) song "You Don't Love Me Any More". For those unfamiliar with it, here it is:

We've been together for so very long
but now things are changing, oh, I wonder what's wrong
seems you don't want me around
the passion has gone and the flame's died down
I guess I lot a little bit of self esteem
that time that you made it with the whole hockey team
you used to think I was nice
now you tell all your friends that I'm the Anti-Christ
oh, why did you disconnect the breaks on my car
that kind of thing is hard to ignore
got a funny feeling you don't love me anymore

I knew that we were having problems when
you put those pirhannas in my bathtub again
but you're still the light of my life
oh darling, I'm begging, won't you put down that knife
you know, I even think it's kind of cute the way
you poison my coffee just a little each day
I still remember the way that you laughed
when you pushed me down the elevator shaft
and if you don't mind my asking,
what's this poisonous cobra
doing in my underware drawer?
Sometimes I get to thinking you don't love me anymore

You slammed my face down on the barbecue grill
now my scars are all healing, but my heart never will
you set my house on fire
you pulled out my chesthairs with an old pair of pliars
you think I'm ugly and you say I'm cheap
you shaved off my eyebrows while I was asleep
you drilled a hole in my head
then you dumpted me in a drainage ditch
and left me for dead
oh, you know this isn't really like you at all
you never acted this way before
Honey, something tells me you don't love me any more,
oh, no, no,
got a funny feeling you don't love me any more.

There. I think that sets the proper mood.

Revised Top Ten

2007-01-23T08:46:00.000-08:00

Due to the graciousness of several friends (thanks much, folks!) I have been the recipient of a number of Landmark Theaters passes that have enabled me to catch up with a number of 2006 releases I've missed, including two that were so good I felt compelled to revise my previously published art house top ten list to include them. The commercial top ten list stands as originally published. Also, I have recently been able to see "Letters From Iwo Jima", which I thought very highly of and which will almost certainly make my top ten list... however, the list for 2007, since I count a film's WIDE release (assuming it has one) as my criteria for what consitutes a release of any given year. Anyhow, here we have the revised art house top ten.

10. Gilaneh (Iran)
9. Cache (France)
8. Jesus Camp (USA)
7. An Inconvenient Truth (USA)
6. Sweet Land (USA)
5. Volver (Spain)
4. The Great New Wonderful (USA)
3. The Shutka Book Of Records (Serbia)
2. Tristram Shandy (U.K., England)
1. The Hidden Blade (Japan)

2006

2006-12-29T09:33:00.000-08:00

Okay, so this is what I consider to be a slow, very slow, movie-going year. Most of these being seen second-run I didn't review them here (and as I said, some of them are retro screenings as well), especially since I've been so lax about keeping the postings current. But some of them I loved, some I hated, most were somewhere in between. This is the entirety of what I saw in movie theatres during calendar year 2006.

JANUARY... 8
1. Just Friends
2. Rent
3. The Family Stone
4. Looking For Comedy In The Muslim World
5. The World's Fastest Indian
6. Bubble
7. Aeon Flux
8. Grizzly Man
FEBRUARY... 6
9. When A Stranger Calls
10. Pride And Prejudice
11. The Three Burials Of Melquidas Estrada
12. Cache
13. Date Movie
14. Why We Fight
MARCH... 10
15. Gilaneh
16. Hustle And Flow
17. Tristram Shandy
18. One Night
19. Mary Ryan, Detective
20. Tsotsi
21. The Locket
22. Last Holiday
23. Underworld: Evolution
24. Nanny McPhee
APRIL... 18 (MSPIFF Month)
25. Match Point
26. Hoodwinked
27. Find Me Guilty
28. Freedomland
29. Firewall
30. The Pink Panther
31. American Dreamz
32. Wah-Wah
33. John And Jane Toll Free
34. Shanghai Dreams
35. A World Without Thieves
36. The Hidden Blade
37. The Milk Woman
38. Street Fight
39. The Shutka Book Of Records
40. Love
41. My Dad Is 100 Years Old/Uso Justo/Ashaman (program of 3 shorts)
42. Thank You For Smoking
MAY... 15
43. Friends With Money
44. 16 Blocks
45. The Promise
46. Inside Man
47. Mrs. Henderson Presents
48. Failure To Launch
49. Slither
50. She's The Man
51. United 93
52. Lucky Number Slevin
53. The Da Vinci Code
54. Just My Luck
55. V For Vendetta
56. Mission: Impossible III
57. The Benchwarmers
JUNE... 10
58. X-Men: The Last Stand
59. The Sentinel
60. Hoot
61. The Break-Up
62. Over The Hedge
63. Ice Age: The Meltdown
64. Silent Hill
65. The Wild
66. Scary Movie 4
67. Akeelah And The Bee
JULY... 12
68. RV
69. The Road To Guantanamo
70. The Omen
71. Little Miss Sunshine
72. Poseidon
73. Sullivan's Travels
74. Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
75. Loverboy
76. Lady In The Water
77. Young Frankenstein
78. Garfield: A Tale Of Two Kitties
79. Nacho Libre
AUGUST... 12
80. Bringing Up Baby
81. The Night Listener
82. The Great New Wonderful
83. The Lake House
84. Adam's Rib
85. World Trade Center
86. Clerks II
87. Cars
88. A Prairie Home Companion
89. The Illusionist
90. Edmond
91. An Inconvenient Truth
SEPTEMBER... 16
92. Factotum
93. Trust The Man
94. You, Me And Dupree
95. Mini's First Time
96. Miami Vice
97. The Last Kiss
98. A Scanner Darkly
99. Three Times
100. Scoop
101. The New One-Armed Swordsman
102. The Boxer From Shantung
103. Al Franken: God Spoke
104. The Magic Blade
105. The Devil Wears Prada
106. The Jade Tiger
107. The Clans Of Intrigue
OCTOBER... 13
108. Superman Returns
109. Jesus Camp
110. The Departed
111. Idlewild
112. Alambrista!
113. Hester Street
114. The Grudge 2
115. My Young Auntie
116. Monster House
117. Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby
118. Accepted
119. The Wicker Man
120. The Covenant
NOVEMBER... 10
121. Hollywoodland
122. The Black Dahlia
123. (Jet Li's) Fearless
124. The Fountain
125. Happy Feet
126. Man Of The Year
127. Flags Of Our Fathers
128. School For Scoundrels
129. Stranger Than Fiction
130. The Architect
DECEMBER... 11
131. Who Killed The Electric Car?
132. The Science Of Sleep
133. Flyboys
134. Flushed Away
135. The Holiday
136. A Good Year
137. The Prestige
138. Marie Antoinette
139. Dreamgirls
140. The Pursuit Of Happyness
141. Blood Diamond

Yes, that's what I call a slow year. I am truly a very sick individual.

Top Tens

2006-12-28T12:40:00.000-08:00

Even though I've stated that I don't see much purpose in reviewing films I see second-run, I've still seen enough new releases (through free previews and such) since I last posted on this site back in the stone age to have filled a few more columns. And I do hope to get back to doing that soon (I also hope to bring permanent peace on earth and a cure for all diseases, but I suspect my chances are slightly better with the movie review thing... just slightly). In the meantime: a few years ago, I was one of several movie fanatics profiled in a Pioneer Press article called "Movie Addicts" where you learned that in calendar 2001 I saw a total of 391 movies, more than one for each day of the year. In 2006, I will have seen 141 films... down 250, and closer to one for every 2 1/2 days of the year. And that's including a certain amount of retro titles that can't be counted as 2006 releases. I wondered whether there was even a point to doing the usual top ten lists (one for commercial theatres and one for art houses), especially the art house list, since I've only been able to see a small fraction of 2006's local art house releases. But I figured that if there actually is anyone who still keeps coming to this site after all this time, eagerly anticipating not finding any new postings and breathing a huge sigh of relief at their narrow escape once again, well, I don't want them to get too complacent. Once in a while they should have to suffer a little, so they can appreciate the good things in life. Therefore, I present the Joe Bunce list of favorite films seen in commercial theatres and in art houses during 2006. If there's some really great movie you think should be on this list but isn't... it's entirely possible that I didn't see it.

COMMERCIAL THEATRES

10. The Prestige (Riverview)
9. Inside Man (Har Mar)
8. Flags Of Our Fathers (Riverview)
7. Akeelah And The Bee (Riverview)
6. Hollywoodland (Hopkins)
5. A Prairie Home Companion (Hopkins)
4. A Scanner Darkly (Riverview)
3. V For Vendetta (Roseville Four)
2. Thank You For Smoking (Southdale)
1. The Departed (Highland)

ART HOUSES

10. Street Fight (USA) (Mpls./St. Paul International
Film Festival, MSPIFF)
9. The Illusionist (USA) (Uptown)
8. Gilaneh (Iran) (Walker Art Center)
7. Cache (France) (Edina)
6. Jesus Camp (USA) (Lagoon)
5. An Inconvenient Truth (USA) (Lagoon)
4. The Great New Wonderful (USA) (Parkway)
3. The Shutka Book Of Records (Serbia) (MSPIFF)
2. Tristram Shandy (England) (Lagoon)
1. The Hidden Blade (Japan) (MSPIFF)

Watch this site for news about the exciting return of ongoing movie reviews to this very spot! After all, you'll want to know when to avoid it!

__________________________________________________

It Lives Again!

2006-09-07T15:06:00.000-07:00

"Joe's Corner" lives again, that is. Due to the fact that I have a little time to kill after work, I figured I may as well try to fit in some reviews of as many of the films I've seen (free sneak previews, free passes, whatever) at places other than second-run discount houses over the past few months. They'll be shorter than usual so I can fit in as many as possible, and any I don't have time for... well, maybe tomorrow.

1. "The Road To Guantanamo". Michael Winterbottom is one of the most accomplished and versatile directors in the world, with films ranging from "24 Hour Party People" and "Tristram Shandy" to the marvelous drama "Wonderland" and the touching "In This World". But he's never done anything before like "The Road To Guantanamo": a combination of documentary and fictional recreation that tells the story of a couple of British-born & raised citizens of Afghan descent who travel to their ancestral homeland just as war is breaking out and wind up in Guantanamo. The official Bush story that these shameful places "save lives" and are not only necessary but don't pose a threat to innocent people is thoroughly demolished in a highly forceful and extremely emotional manner. It might seem like an unorthodox method of telling the story at first, but by the end of the film it will seem like the only way it could have been told. While this will not win any fans among the Republican National Committee, it's a movie that anybody who's at all concerned about the direction this country is taking needs to see.

2. "Little Miss Sunshine." Talk about your stereotypical "Big studio's indy division idea of what an indepent film is": a family consisting of a heroin-snorting, foul-mouthed grandfather, a suicidal teacher, a failed motivational speaker, a teenage son who never speaks, and a fairly normal mother travel cross-country with their young daughter when she becomes a contestant in the "Little Miss Sunshine" pageant. Gosh, a road trip with a highly colorful bunch of characters. Original, huh? It does take some getting used to, but you eventually begin to realize that the fine cast (Alan Arkin, Steve Carrell, Greg Kinnear, Tony Collette) are beginning to make these stereotypes into real people, and are actually making you laugh at and care about them. They even do get around to dealing with the fact of just how incredibly creepy pre-teen "Beauty Pageants" are. That still doesn't mean that "Little Miss Sunshine" is an Oscar-worthy classic for the ages, but it should have been a complete turkey and it turns out to have quite a bit to recommend it. That ain't too shabby.

3. "Pirates Of The Caribbean; Dead Man's Chest". In this sequel, Johnny Depp runs afoul of the Legendary Davy Jones, to whom he owes a VERY big favor, and Orlando Bloom & Keira Knightly are blackmailed into bringing Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow to justice. The movie is way too long (2 1/2 hours) and drags from time to time accordingly. it also doesn't have quite the same zip and sense of fund the original had... and as is so often the case with the middle installment of a trilogy, it seems at times to be (pardon the expression) treading water, just killing time until the next and concluding installment. But Depp is still a joy as Sparrow, there are some amazing action sequences, and it's hard not to be amazed by Bill Nighy behind a squid-like make-up as Davy Jones. Even if this installment isn't as exciting as the first, it still has me looking forward to Part 3... especially with Chow Yun-Fat as a pirate and Keith Richards as Sparrow's father. Avast!

4. "Loverboy." In a film directed by Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgewick stars as a woman whose extremely dysfunctional upbringing has left her with a desire to have a child... but not a husand... and make that child the absolute center of her world, not letting anyone else come near him. The original novel on which the film was based gave you a much stronger sense of just how much of a victim of her upbringing the character is, and makes you sympathize with her even as you watch in shocked astonishment as her madness begins to destroy her son's life just like her parents did to hers. The film version, however, essentially presents her as just a crazy person... and even seems to imply that her desire to have a child on her own is part of her madness (a woman's got to have a man, right?). Sedgewick is marvelous in the lead, and a string of cameos by people like Marisa Tomei, Matt Dillon, Sandra Bullock and Bacon himself are on the same level. But great acting can't really overcome a questionable story poorly presented. Read the novel (by Victoria Redel, published by St. Paul's Greywolf Press) instead.

5. ""Lady In The Water". Well, there can't be anyone left who hasn't seen the negative reviews about how M. Night Shyamalan's latest is pretentious and too complicated and how that ruins and overpowers the movie. Well, I can't honestly disagree with most of the comments... it's a film that's a long way from perfect... but these critics talk as if the elements they have problems with are the only thing the movie is about, when in fact this fairly tale about an apartment building caretaker who discovers a water nymph in the building pool and helps her on her mission to find the man who can save the world before evil forces stop her (yes, it IS sometimes silly) still has some important things to say if you can shut off your cynical nature long enough to listen. It's also well acted and told in a very effectively spooky manner. Maybe some of these critics were just upset about the fate of the movie critic played in the film by Bob Balaban... personally, I found that highly amusing. So what if it isn't perfect? Even so, a thumbs up.

6. "The Night Listener". Robin Williams stars in an adaptation of the novel by Armistead Maupin. Loosely based on an incident in Maupin's own life, Williams is a radio story-teller who is befriended (long-distance) by a fan, a 14-year-old boy dying of AIDS, who has written a book about his experience. But when questions begin to arise about the legitimacy of the boy's story... and even his very existence... Williams becomes obsessed with finding out the truth. The film scores points for a very atmospheric story telling style, and top-notch performances by Williams and Collette as the boy's adoptive mother (it's a real shocker to see her as this psycho character shortly after "Little Miss Sunshine"). In the end, though, it just seems as if this story could have been told in a short film... like there just isn't a full feature in all of this. I haven't read the novel... maybe Maupin fleshes it out more interestingly... but at the end I was echoing Peggy Lee and asking "Is that all there is?"

7. "The Great New Wonderful." It's probably true that it's too soon after 9/11 for a movie that really tells the story effectively, and it may even be impossible for an event so complicated to be reduced to a simple two-hour story on film. So "The Great New Wonderful" is probably the most effectiv 9/11 movie we're going to get, largely because it isn't actually a 9/11 movie... not exactly. It takes place exactly one year AFTER 9/11, and tells multiple intertwining stories about a group of New Yorkers who are still reeling from the aftermath of that day and not entirely certain that it might not happen again. By almost never directly dealing with the actual attacks, the film gives us a much better sense of the complex emotions we all felt then (and are still feeling) than any other film is going to do. Not to mention some marvelous performances by Maggie Gyllenhaal, Edie Falco, Tony Shalhoub, and others. All from the director of "Dude, Where's My Car?" and "Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle". Talk about shocking!

8. "World Trade Center". Like I was saying... if you were still wondering if the events of 9/11 could be readily distilled down to a simple story of survival and heroism, here's your answer: nope! At least not by Oliver Stone. The story of two real-life rescue workers who became trapped in the collapse of the tower and had to be rescued themselves, this film does make an honorable attempt to pay tribute to the genuine heroes of that day, the self-sacrificing people who saved so many lives at the risk of their own. But by concentrating so much on just these two guys, the actual PEOPLE who were killed in the attacks almost become an after thought... suddenly at the very end of the movie it's like "Oh, yeah, some other people were involved, too." And it's a little difficult to watch the formerly radical Stone create this piece of warm & fuzzy fluff and try to put a happy, smiley face on the unsettling events of that day... especially after watching "The Great New wonderful" effectively give you a sense of hope without trying to give you a conventional happy ending. Nicholas Cage seems to be be sleepwalking through his role, as is Maria Bello as his wife. On the other hand, Michael Pena as his partner and Maggie Gyllenhaal as Pena's wife are both fantastic... Gyllenhaal may be even better here than she was in "The Great New Wonderful." If you can catch the film cheaply... maybe when it hits the discount houses... it could be worth it for them. But I wouldn't recommend it full price. (And when are we going to get a narrative film about the political implications of that day? Or is that too much to hope for?)

9. "The Illusionist". I'll admit that I am inclined to enjoy a movie that keeps "pulling the rug out from under me" time and again right up until the final scene... that never hides anything from me, but winds up revealing that a lot of what I saw doesn't mean what I think it did. This is possibly the best example of that kind of movie that I've seen, at least the best one that doesn't involve a bunch of con artists. It's the story of master magician and Illusionist Eisenheim (played by Edward Norton), who is surprised to be reunited with his childhood love (played by Jessica Beil)... only she is now engaged to a ruthless, evil nobleman (Rufus Sewell) who is obsessed with learning his secrets, and pursued by a police inspector (Paul Giamatti) who has a grudging admiration for him. A very effective period piece that is wonderfully acted (well, maybe not by Biel, but even she isn't bad) and written, this movie would probably be thoroughly enjoyable even if it wasn't so incredibly good at constantly surprising you with twists that make perfect sense when you look back on them later. If you enjoy a movie that can keep fooling you throughout as much as I do, then this is the film for you.

10. "Edmond." It's David Mamet time again. In this film adaptation of an early Mamet play, William H. Macy... who appears to be contractually obligated to be in every Mamet project... plays the title character, an put-upon businessman who abandons his job and marriage for a night of the kind of wild abandon he's never known before, to very dark consequences. It's not exactly "Glengarry Glen Ross", "Oleana" or even "American Buffalo", but it is at least interesting to see the seeds from which Mamet's more accomplished work sprung, and Macy is positively riveting in the lead, a frustrated blend of helplessness and fury who doesn't make himself at all easy to like (what with his racism, homophobia, misogeny and so on). But "interesting" doesn't necessarily equal greatness, and it's a little frustrating to watch a parade of accomplished actors like Joe Mantegna, Julia styles & George wendt (as well as less accomplished ones like Denise Richards) stroll onscreen barely long enough to introduce themselves and then vanish. "Edmond" is ultimately an interesting failure, but a failure nonetheless.

11. "An Inconvenient Truth". It's EXTREMELY hard for me to imagine anyone watching this film with a genuinely open mind (read: not pre-determined to follow the Bush "It's only a theory" agenda) without becoming completely convinced that something needs to be done about the situation, and soon (not to mention becoming very, very frightened). I never would have imagined that watching Al Gore give what is essentially a 2-hour power point presentation about global warming would be a fascinating film, but the message of this movie (presented in as direct and startling a way as you could ever imagine) should leave you stunned and determined to take action. And if you're really reluctant to see it because you think it might be too "partisan": well, it's like Gore says in the film: global warming isn't a political issue, it's a moral one. And it isn't one that's too overshelming to do anything about. But as this film makes perfectly clear, it's also one with too much potential for anyone who cares about the future of this planet to ignore.

12. "Factotum". Charles Bukowski was probably equally noted as a writer and a drunk. But the films that have been based on his work... including Bukowski's own screenplay for "Barfly"... might leave you thinking that he never did anything else with his life other than get plastered every day. "Factotum" doesn't really do anything to change that history. Matt Dillon stars as the Bukowski surrogate, stumbling from one job to another until he inevitably gets fired for his drunken behavior, all the while trying to become a published writer. Dillon is one of the best actors around today, but he's SO wrong for the role of Bukowski that I'm truly mystified as to how he was cast. A top-notch supporting cast including Lily Taylor and Marisa Tomei don't really have much to do, and while I'll admit that it is fun to see a bunch of familiar settings in the movie (it was filmed in Minneapolis and St. Paul) it certainly never for one second makes you think it's Los Angeles. Not that it claims to be, mind you, but it can't really be Bukowski anywhere else but LA. Does watching an argumenative drunk abuse his significant others and act totally self-important sound like a good movie to you? Then you'll probably love "Factotum". Me, I would have preferred a film about what made Bukowski the WRITER that he was.

13. "Trust The Man". Or, this week's entry in the Maggie Gyllenhaal Film Festival.
She stars as one half of a long-time couple (Billie Crudup is the other half) who are at a crossroads: she wants marriage and children, he likes things the way they are. They're contrasted with David Ducovny and Julianne Moore (Moore playing Crudup's sister), a MARRIED couple whose relationship seems to be deteriorating as the result of some seemingly irreconcilable differences. Gyllenhaal and Crudup manage to make their somewhat cliched storyline interesting by making their CHARACTERS interesting, but Moore and (especially) Ducovny just seem to be going through the motions... this film will do nothing to change Ducovny's reputation as a non-acting actor. You just never really care about their selfish, self-absorbed characters, and the predictable, sitcom turns the plot takes don't do them any favors (the conclusion, particularly, is hoky almost beyond belief). You could stay home and watch a typical evening of TV comedies and get almost as much out of it. And while you might not want to miss Gyllenhaal and Crudup, who ARE good, well... the movie will hit the second-run discount houses eventually. Hmmm... I WOULD think of that NOW!

Hey, how about that... I made it through all of the movies!

What To Do

2006-06-22T10:45:00.001-07:00

First, let me say that the reason you ("you" being the mythical, probably non-existent person who's allegedly reading this) haven't seen reviews here as often, and when they have appeared, they haven't covered as many films as they used to, is financial... the only films I've seen in first-run theatres in a fair while are either the two I've seen at Block E courtesy of the 2 free passes from Management (Thanks, Bob Strong) and the six I've seen at AMC theatres courtesy of the 6 AMC passes from my sister (thanks, sis). And then there was the ten-film pass to the Mpls./St. Paul International Film Festival courtesy of still another "sponsor" (thanks, Bonnie). I've seen a bunch at second-run discount houses, but to my mind, by the time a movie gets to one of those places, it's almost time for it to come out on video, and what's the point of writing a review then?

As a result of this, there are a number of films I'd like to see but haven't yet been able to. And for lack of a personal review by me of the Al Gore documentary "An Inconvenient Truth", let me point you towards a web site previously mentioned here... http://worldcantwait.net. There you can find not only a very insightful review of "An Inconvenient Truth", but some suggestions about actions you can take if the film makes you really want to do something about the situation (as it probably will). I would never actually review a film I haven't seen, but in this case recommending one... this particular one, anyhow... well, I have no problem with that.

By the way, if any of you Spam comment masters are reading this, do not interpret any of my comments about finances to mean that I'm interested in any of your fabulous money-making plans. Thanks, anyhow.

Message From George W. Bush IV

2006-06-13T09:28:00.000-07:00

"I think that if you know what you believe, that makes it easier to answer questions. I can't answer your question."

Over The Hedge

2006-06-09T14:03:00.000-07:00

Disney and Pixar have both had a considerably higher average of quality work than the live-action stuff Disney grinds out, and on the whole, Dreamworks has done better with their animated films as well (though their live action track record is better than Disney). I wonder what this tells us about the adults who are in charge of so-called grownup film making in Hollywood? Whatever it tells us, it's happened again: Dreamworks' latest bit of feature-length CGI animation is more clever, inventive and just plain fun than the majority of what passes for "serious" movie making... and it even has a little bit of a serious point to it, as well!

The star of our story is R.J. (voice by Bruce Willis), a racoon who's angered a very nasty bear (voiced by Nick Nolte) by stealing his storehouse of food, and has been given just one week to make up for what he took. Impossible on his own, but not with the help of the group of forest creatures he runs into. Of course, he has to tell a tiny little lie about why he wants them to help and how he considers them his "family"... but hey, a racoon's gotta do what a racoon's gotta do, right?

The cast is perfect: Gary Shandling as the turtle who ran the group until R.J. came along, Wandy Sykes as the proud skunk, Levy and Catherine O'hara as a pair of hedge hogs, William Shatner as an over-the-top, over-acting (quite a stretch, eh?) possum & Avril Lavigne as his daughter, and perhaps the real star of the show, Steve Carrell as a squirrel who's hyper enough that if he actually added any caffeine to his system, he could probably fly (or at the very least win a cross country foot race in just a few hours). Lavigne is a little bland in her first acting role, but everyone else is positively a hoot. Not only are there plenty of laugh-getting lines, but lines that probably weren't especially hysterical on paper come across as funny they way this crew does them... particularly Carrell.
The man (or the squirrell) is genuinely insane... and I mean that in the best possible way.

But what about that serious stuff, you might wonder? Well, the forest animals have just run into a strange new obstacle in their quest to forage for their usual woodland goodies... suburbia. Urban sprawl is quickly destroying any trace of the natural environment where they have made their home, and nobody knows how to deal with an enemy... good old human greed... that's even more powerful than any grizzly bear. This doesn't by any means turn this lighthearted comedy into a somber message movie, but it does add an interesting layer of seriousness into the humor that makes the film something more than JUST a comic romp.

And on top of all that, the film features five terrific new soundtrack recordings by one of the most creative singer/songwriters in pop music today, Ben Folds, that actually don't bring the movie to a screeching halt every time one of them begins (now there really IS a switch!). The film is supposed to be based on a comic strip of the same name. Since I had never even heard of it before reading about the film on Yahoo Movies and IMDB, much less read it, I have no idea how well it translates the source material to film. But as a film, it's nearly non-stop fun that genuinely will appeal to adults and children alike (though mostly for different reasons... though Carrell's squirrel should amuse everyone). And if the comic strip is actually as funny as the movie, the folks who get it in their paper are lucky. Hmm... I wonder what it would take to persuade the Star & Tribune to carry it?

At Last, Another Sequel!

2006-06-06T10:25:00.000-07:00

1. "X-Men: The Last Stand." In this alleged conclusion to the mutant "trilogy", a cure for the mutant gene has been found, and controversy has sprung up among the mutant community about whether to become "normal". Naturally, Magneto and company is by no means in favor of this, and mounts an all-out war to obtain the "cure" and destroy it.

I haven't read an X-man comic in over a decade, but I used to be a fan, and my impression of the first film was that it was a pretty decent attempt at translating the source material to the screen. The second film, not so much. Now those films' director, Bryan Singer, has left the series to revive Superman, and legendary Hollywood hack Brett "Rush Hour" Ratner has taken the reigns. The result: a film that's way too short for the huge cast of characters it contains, that has too much in the way of fights & explosions and not enough in the way of character... but that still manages to be a step up from the second film. I wouldn't give Ratner the credit for that, though.

There's a second major storyline, as well: Jean Gray (Famke Jansen), apparently killed at the end of the second film, is back as "Dark Phoenix", with a distinctly sinister side to her personality now... and a homicidal one, even. This, combined with the whole "cure" plot and its definite parallels to efforts to "cure" gay people add a certain element of gravity that hadn't been present before and overcome some of the film's other difficulties. Many of the characters become a bit more fully-rounded and easier to sympathize and/or identify with. And as always, a film featuring both Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen is going to contain some great acting.

Then again, there's Kelsey Grammar provoking unintended laughs as The Beast, who is kind of like what a Smurf might be like if it was born and raised next to Chernobyl. There are also what appear to be significant subplots that wind up not going anywhere, and characters from previous films who appear to be in this one only because people will expect them to be, even though they have virtually nothing to do. And some of the dialogue is quite lame... I wish I could forget the "I hear you're quite an animal" bit, but it continues to haunt me. Ratner does have some powerful material to work with, but it succeeds in spite of his failings... I still have to wonder what Singer could have done with this story.

Still, overall, though this is definitely not a movie that I would recommend to those who have never been "X-Men" fans before, for followers of the team it's a fairly exciting adventure with a little more depth than we've sometimes gotten in superhero films (granted, it's no "Batman Begins"). One strong suggestion: if you do go to see it, do NOT get up to leave when the end credits begin. The film's ACTUAL last scene doesn't happen until after the very last of the end credits roll, and it's a very significant one. Of the 120 or so people in the audience when I saw the film, only five (including me) were still around for that scene... don't be one of the "left too early" crowd. And if this truly IS the last X-men group effort (there's talk of solo spin-off movies), it really wouldn't be all that bad a way for the series to say goodbye.

2. "The Break-Up". After first meeting at a Chicago Cubs game at the very beginning of the film, the couple played by Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston go through their entire courtship and relationship with no dialogue underneath the opening credits, and we pick up again after the credits as the relationship is beginning to crumble and showing us why the movie has this particular title. Most romantic comedies never show us the "happily ever after". "The Break-Up" not only shows it, but suggests that whoever came up with that name for it was out of their tiny little mind.

I'm not really qualified to make any definitive judgments on this, but it at least seems to me that this movie feels more realistic and true-to-life than most others of its type, given of course the usual exaggerations that all movies, especially comedies, always have. However, that's not necessarily enough when the film doesn't have enough funny lines or situations (this IS a comedy, folks!), and when the leading lady seems content most of the time to continue playing a variation on the same character she played on TV for a decade. And oh, yeah... there's the terrific supporting cast (Ann-Margret, Jon Favreau, and a bunch of others) who, other than the memorable John Michael Higgins as Aniston's brother, are totally wasted.

Then again, Vaughn continues to show why he has become one of the biggest names in contemporary movie comedy. The guy can take the most tedious line (and he's given his share of them here) and still manage to wring laughs out of it, and also manages to make you not hate him even while exhibiting the behavior of the ultimate male chauvanist pig. And much of the movie is essentially a love letter to the city of Chicago, a place I wouldn't mind living some day... so a lot of it looks terriffic simply because Chicago does too. The endless, tedious arguments do manage to slip in a few isolated funny lines from time to time as well. Of course, it's nearly always Vaughn who says them.

On "Rotten Tomatoes.com" (a site which compiles critics' reviews from around the country for a national average) this film is currently rated "rotten" at 32% (meaning 32% of the reviews are positive). That seems about right. I've seen much worse, and I do appreciate that the film's ending isn't the usual hollywood romantic comedy cop-out. And maybe if you've been through an experience like this recently you'd be more interested (though why would you want to re-live it?). But ultimately, if you pass over "The Break-Up", you probably won't be regretting it for the rest of your life. You won't have missed all that much.

Message From george W. Bush III

2006-06-01T12:50:00.000-07:00

"If this were a dictatorship, things would be a lot easier... just as long as I was the dictator."

A Tale Of Two Toms

2006-06-01T12:32:00.000-07:00

1. "The Da Vinci Code". Here's the pointless part (assuming that ALL the parts of these reviews aren't pointless): the part where I explain the premise of a movie that is known even to the dozen or so people who haven't read the book (I was one of those people until about two days before I saw the film). It seems that there is a secret about the origins of Christianity that could cause disaster to the Church if revealed, and certain parties... including those with close ties to the Catholic Church... will do anything, including kill, to prevent that from happening. Meanwhile, a "symbologist" and an officer of the French police are racing to both uncover that secret and avoid the pursuit of French officials after them for a murder they didn't commit.

Okay, so much for the TV Guide summary. Now, for the controversy. For the record, I am on the one hand not a member of any organized religion (so I do not have any great emotional investment in whether the traditional doctrines are or are not true) and on the other I do not for one second believe that a single aspect of Dan Brown's novel is anything other than complete, 100 percent fiction. It's not true, folks: he made it all up. ALL of it. So I'm approaching this story not as a Dan Brown disciple praising him for uncovering the truth, or attacking him as a heretic. I'm just interested in this film as a movie like any other.

So, I guess that's all. Oh, what did you say? You want to know if the movie was any good? Oh, yeah, I guess I did forget to mention that, didn't I? Well, actually, in spite of what more than 3/4 of the nation's professional critics have said... yeah, I do think it was a decent movie. Not a great cinematic achievement, mind you... no Oscar-winner, no classic for the ages. But in a time when Hollywood often seems incapable of producing quality movies even in the commercial summer action blockbuster mode that is supposed to be their strength, "The Da Vinci Code" provides 2 1/2 hours of entertaining fun (I was going to say "uncomplicated" fun but that's not exactly accurate) at the movies, and manages the difficult task of turning a 489 page book into a 149 minute movie with most of its significant points intact. There's nothing to be ashamed of about a well-made "popcorn movie", and that's what we have here.

Tom Hanks strikes me as a quite believable as an unconventional action hero who instead of running for an arsenal to grab a bunch of guns, exclaims "We've got to get to a library... fast!" (a great line). Paul Bettany, who has rarely been sinister in his previous roles (other than "Firewall") is marvelously creepy as the albino monk assassin Silas. And of course Ian McKellen is as wonderful as always in the role of Sir Leigh Teabing (a Grail scholar who aids Hanks in his quest). Audrey Tatou is perhaps a little weak as the French officer along for the quest, but at least the role is well-written and not just your typical female who's only there for some vague romantic interest. The movie manages to make a series of tricky puzzles in several languages (numeric codes, too) the center of an action movie and succeeds quite well.

Not that everything about the film is perfect, understand. Certainly veteran film composer Hans Zimmer could easily have toned down his musical score by a factor of ten and it still might have been too melodramatic. And yes, sometimes the dialogue does get a little hard to swallow. But approached fromas objective a standpoint as there can be, going into the movie with no "agenda" of any kind, it seems to me that "The Da Vinci Code" is something that, Spider Man and Jason Bourne aside, is becoming increasingly difficult to find: a summer Hollywood movie that provides a few hours of effective escapism and is actually worth coming in out of the nice warm weather for. Of course, this puts me in an extremely small minority position. But as someone who voted for George McGovern in his first election, I'm used to that. Ron Howard doesn't have a perfect track record ("The Grinch", anyone?) but even though this film is no "Apollo 13" (to my mind, his best) it's still one he should be pleased to be able to put on his resume.

2. "Mission: Impossible III". From the not quite sublime to the genuinely ridiculous. I'm pleased to say that I'm not part of the recent Tom Cruise backlash: with an occasional exception ("Born On The 4th Of July", "Magnolia", "Collateral") I've never found him to be much more than a typically shallow and self-involved pretty-boy type. The man can act, but rarely bothers to. So my expectations for "Mission: Impossible III" weren't tremendously high, especially since the first two films in the series were directed by genuine talents (Brian DePalman and John Woo) while this third film is the directorial debut of TV director J.J. Abrams. Even with diminished expectations, however, it still managed to disappoint.

The story? Well, i suppose there was one, kind of. Cruise's Ethan Hunt is now semi-retired and only TRAINS agents for the IMF. But a mission he can't refuse involving the disappearance of one of those trainees brings him back into the field, and up against a sinister villain out to obtain a potentially world-destroying device called "The Rabbit's Foot". Simple, basic stuff compared to the labarynthine twists and turns of the first two movies, which is a point in its favor. That's pretty much the only aspect of the movie that is, however.

Cruise, as usual, sleepwalks through every scene, including the big action and stunt sequences. Abrams tends to cast the supporting roles with non-movie caliber tv performers he's worked with in the past, such as Keri Russell and Michelle Monaghan. And when he does use a genuine actor, such as Oscar winner Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the principal villain, he winds up appearing to have "Tom Cruise Sleepwalking Disease" and gives a performance that you would never connect with the guy who's starred in films like "Capote". The one
bright exception to this is Laurence Fishburne, who gives his role as the current head of the IMF a surprising degree of complexity and believability. However, the role is so small that he doesn't really have a chance to offset the effect of all the rest of the sub-par cast.

The film can't even get us worked up or excited about the explosions and stunts. Each time some chase or action sequence starts you only wind up remembering another scene in one of the first two movies that was just like it. The one time in the film I saw something different... a genuinely exciting scene in which Cruise slides down the outside of a very steep glass tower... I very briefly got my hopes up, until it occurred to me how much more I had enjoyed the very same stunt when I first saw Jackie Chan do it about six years ago in his movie "Who Am I?". The comparison does not do Cruise any favors.

In spite of all the news reports about the supposed box office disappointment of this film, the fact remains that it made almost $50 million on its opening weekend and there will most likely be a fourth title in the franchise. But after seeing the downturns the series has taken in this installment, the mind boggles as to how it could go further down next time out. Perhaps it could be written and directed by a first-time feature director who had only made COMMERCIALS before, and star Rob Schneider as the villain with Jenny McCarthy as the love interest? You know, there are times I'm glad that nobody is actually reading this stuff... I wouldn't want to give them any ideas...

Message From George W. Bush II

2006-05-24T10:28:00.000-07:00

"Teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test."

Today's Message From George W. Bush

2006-05-18T10:32:00.000-07:00

"Our enemies are bold and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking of new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

Four You've Heard Of

2006-05-16T12:50:00.000-07:00

1. "Thank You For Smoking". There have been a few attempts at satire in recent months from Hollywood folk who don't seem to grasp that the lowest-common-denominator approach they so often take is completely at odds with what satire needs to succeed ("American dreamz", anyone?). Satire needs to be a virtual attack dog, and at last there is a mainstream American movie that understands this. It's almost unbelievable that "Thank You For Smoking" came out of Hollywood.

Aaron Eckhart stars as Nick Naylor, a dedicated lobbyist for the tobacco industry. If a film producer wants to place cigarettes in films to make them cool again, if a manufacturer wants to figure out new ways to get kids addicted at an even younger age... well, Nick Naylor is proud to be able to help them out. There are forces working to stop him, like a dedicated Vermont Senator (William H. Macy), but they're so weak and ineffectual that they don't stand a chance.

This film never takes the easy out of "American Dreamz" in trying to make Naylor likable or a figure of pathos... this is a guy who is, simply, nasty and unapologetic from first to last. He's the kind of guy who regularly meets for lunch with lobbyist from the gun and alcohol industries and tries to top them with stories of how many more people HIS industry killed than theirs. If you're one of those people who insists on being able to like the protagonist of a film, you're out of luck here. You won't even be able to like the people who you might think are supposed to be "good guys", such as Macy's Senator or the crusading reporter played by Katie Holmes. This is a movie which, in addition to deservedly bashing big tobacco, also wonders in amazement how the general public can be so naive as to continue to consume a product they know is so lethal. Nobody gets off the hook in this movie.

And yet, with all the bite and nasty characters, director/writer Jason Reitman (son of Ivan of "Ghostbusters" fame, working from a novel by Christopher Buckley) never loses track of the fact that the film is a comedy: there are more laughs per minute in this movie than anything I've seen out of Hollywood in several years. An amazingly witty script, a terriffic directorial debut, and flawless performances by the entire cast (well, okay, except for Holmes) add up to the sort of film you rarely see from the big studios... satire done right. You might as well catch this one while you can. Who knows when you'll get a chance to see that sort of thing from Hollywood again?

2. "Friends With Money". Nicole Holofcener is a rare director who can tell stories about ordinary people doing and saying ordinary things and make them fascinating. In "Walking And Talking" and "Lovely And Amazing" she made the stuff or everyday life among friends absorbing. Which is kind of what makes "Friends With Money" a bit of a letdown.

This is the story of a few weeks in the lives of a group of female friends played by a stellar cast of actresses including Holofcener regular Catherine Keener, frances McDorman and Jennifer Aniston. Most of the members of this little clique are indeed "with money"... except for former schoolteacher Aniston, now working as a maid in the homes of those much wealthier than her, and a bit of a kleptomaniac (and pothead). There's obviously a bit of a gap between her and the rest of the bunch... as one of them remarks, they probably wouldn't be all that close if they met for the first time now. This is just the sort of real-life contrast and conflict that Holofcener has mined for emotionally effecting material in the past. But this time, you just wait for the moments of impact that never quite arrive.

One of the central problems of the film is that it seems not quite finished. Important plot points are brought up, as when Keener finds out that Aniston has stolen from one of the homes she's cleaning... we even see her wrestling with the question of what she's going to do with this knowledge... but then it's never brought up again. McDormand's obviously gay husband isclearly being led to the brink of acknowledging his sexuality as he becomes more and more attracted to another man... but the man in question disappears from the story and the whole issue is dropped. And the ending is one of the biggest anti-climaxes in ages... the movie doesn't so much come to a conclusion as it merely stops, right in the middle of a scene, with numerous questions still unanswered, including what in the hell Aniston's boyfriend means by his final line of dialogue.

Even all of this would be at least somewhat forgivable if too many of the characters weren't so hastily sketched. Aniston's character never really comes alive, for one, and McDormand's husband at times comes just a little too close to the usual limp-wristed gay stereotype. There are isolated moments in "Friends With Money" that give you a glimpse of the kind of creativity that was in evidence in "Walking & Talking" and "Lovely & Amazing", but if this were the first Holofcener film you had seen, you probably wouldn't feel very inclined to seek out those two. I don't have any doubt that she will be able to come up with another gem the next time out, so for now we should probably just content ourselves with them and hope for the best next time. Holofcener is a director who's going to be going places, even if this particular film isn't.

3. "Inside Man". Spike Lee has a 20-year history of bringing us some of the boldest and most confrontational films in recent memory on subjects no other film maker would take on: "Do The Right Thing", "Jungle Fever", "Get On The Bus"... the list goes on. Now he has given us a suspenseful semi-action thriller about a masterful policeman who goes up against an equally masterful criminal who's holding a bank full of hostages. Has Lee sold out? Well, don't hold your breath waiting to see Spike Lee's superhero comic book adaptation just yet.

"Inside Man" might not be quite on the level of "Dog Day Afternoon" (which it blatantly references in dialogue in one scene), but it's not far off, either. And in spite of the fact that Lee himself did not actually write the screenplay, you still get plenty of sharply observed insights into racism and the abuse of authority (particularly in a scene where a hostage who has just been released is revealed to be wearing a Turban). And remember those trademark Lee scenes in which a character remains stock still, totally unmoving, but somehow continues to advance past the people and buildings surrounding him? Well, Denzel Washington has one such scene late in this film. It's enough to make you wonder if Lee had a hand in an uncredited rewrite.

It helps, as well, that the film has such an accomplished cast, all of whom are working at the height of their powers here. Washington is striking as the detective assigned to the case, Clive Owen is strong and extremely cool as the eloquent and surprising mastermind of the bank heist, Jodie Foster is enigmatic and fascinating as a mysterious figure with unspecified ties to local government figures who has her own personal agenda in the case, and in the relatively minor role of a cop who assists Washington in his job, Willem Dafoe makes his presence strongly felt. Then there's also Christopher Plummer as the bank president... I could go on for a long time like this, the cast is that good. And they're all playing characters with plenty of sharp incisivie dialogue and multiple dimensions to their characters. "Inside Man" is one of the better written, acted, and (it pretty much goes without saying) directed movies in commercial theatres of late.

So even if it is of a slightly more commercial nature than his usual style, "Inside Man" shows Spike Lee to still be a director who is interested in character more than spectacle, and very strong characters at that... one who has no interest in making a movie that doesn't give you something to think about, and doesn't contain dialogue and performances that you'll carry around with you long after you've seen the film. If this time out he's done all of that in a movie that fits comfortably into a commercial genre, well, just think of the "radical" film he'll be able to make next time out with the profits from this one. And while you're at it, you might also want to remember how REALLY cheap & commercial this film COULD HAVE been if it had been directed by someone like, say, Michael Bay or Brett Ratner. On second thought, maybe you might not want to.

4. "United 93". Okay, I certainly don't need to describe the plotline of this movie. You all know what it's about and what happened on September 11, 2001. The real question is whether the film is exploitative, whether it dishonors the memory of the passengers who died in that flight, whether it buys into any of the more outlandish conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11... those sorts of things. Well, anyone who has seen the previous movies of director Paul Greengrass knows that he is not a "tabloid" director and approaches his real-life stories such as his earlier film "Bloody Sunday" with a sense of wanting to tell the story as it happened with documentary-like realism. Whether that makes, in the this case, for a strong film that really needed to be made is still ANOTHER question, and one that I'm not completely certain can be answered in the positive.

Greengrass gives us plenty of footage dealing with the air traffic controllers and news people and government officials of the U.S. as they react to both the World Trade Center attacks & the one on the Pentagon, as well as the news about United 93... but we get absolutely nothing about the Arab community and their reaction to the news. The only Arab presence in this movie are the hijackers, portrayed as the typical flaming Anti-American fanatics. Now I'm not saying it wasn't possible that they were exactly that way, but how much effort could it have taken to present a small fraction as much of the Arab response to the day that we get of the American response?

Then there's the amount of time the movie devotes to people in front of screens (either the air traffic controllers, people watching news coverage of the events, or both), every minute of which takes time away from scenes giving us insight into WHO these people are, other than heroes (I mean, even heroes are individuals). There must be at least a half hour to 40 minutes about the attacks on the World Trade Center... okay, obviously you can't ignore that. But you never actually see any of the people involved in those events... it's all more people watching screens. And this is supposed to be a movie about United 93, after all. You wind up with a movie that doesn't really tell you anything about the people who died in the World Trade Center, and not very much about the passengers of United 93.

I could also, of course, bring up the whole question of the Bush government and their reaction (or non-reaction) to these events, and their lack of action that might have prevented them... which is more than this movie does. In the end, what you have in "United 93" is a film that definitely respects the courage and sacrifice of the passengers on that plane, and sincerely intends to honor the memories of everyone who died in whatever situation or circumstance on 9/11. This is not a cheap, expoitative film. But it's also not quite the film those people deserved, and it raises the whole question of whether it really is still too soon, less than five years after that day, to be making a film about it, to which I can't really give a definitive answer (though I suspect it may be). There will probably be a really memorable movie made some day about the events of 9/11... possibly even Oliver Stone's upcoming "World Trade Center" might be the one... and a movie that accomplishes all this one clearly intended to do is one that does need to be made. However, "United 93" did not.

MSPIFF, Part Two

2006-05-12T16:34:00.000-07:00

Okay, you can relax now, it's finally here: the concluding installment of a batch of short reviews of films you've never heard of and will probably never see. What could possibly be more exciting? Couldn't think of anything, could you? Well, here they are...

1. "The Milk Woman". From Japan comes this fairly average story of romance that is elevated slightly by its rather less blatantly sentimental approach and its low-key style. A young woman who was too shy to tell her high school love how she felt about him watches him go off and marry another. More than 30 years later, still as isolated and single as ever and working delivering milk to area homes, she's surprised to encounter her old love and his wife... but his wife is not only dying, she also wants him to go on and find someone new? Will they become a pair now? And if they do, will it last? This is the sort of story that cheap romance writers turn into the stuff of overwrought melodrama in the West, but this refreshing Japanese approach makes the material come across more like an understated Haiku, and the cast never overplays it for vulgar sentiment. This definitely is a nice change of pace, but still a love story is still a love story (well, okay, with very few exceptions). And the conclusion takes just a step too far into the romantic cliches that the film had avoided up until that point. The romantically inclined may very well have a grand time, and even the non-romantics will find it above average of its kind. Still, it DOES help to be predisposed toward liking that kind.

2. "Street Fight". In 2002, the Newark, New Jersey mayor's race pitted the long-term, well-entrenched incumbent against a rabble-rousing newcomer, and when the incumbent decided that it was no holds barred as far as defeating his opponent, things really got ugly. Nothing unusual there so far... except that both men were Democrats. "Street Fight" (an Oscar nominee for Best Documentary) is a very enlightening look at a downright ugly and brutal aspect of American politics, where none of that stuff about being polite and respectful to members of your own party applies. If you vote regularly but are not politically involved beyond that, you'll learn a lot... and whatever your involvement, it will probably scare you. And by the way, if you wind up finding yourself an enthusiastic supporter of the incumbent, I don't want to know about it.

3. "The Shutka Book Of Records". In the remote regions of what was once Yugoslavia, a large population of Roma (the West knows them as "Gypsies") lives and competes. Competes how, you might wonder? It's more like how do they NOT compete. One man determinedly struggles to have everyone acknowledge his as the largest collection of suits. Another takes equal pride in his hats. Others strive to convince the largest number possible of their rather... well, let's just say "unorthodox"... spiritual and religious beliefs. And while you will never look down on them (the film has a genuine love and respect for them), you will nonetheless wind up laughing as hysterically as at any Christopher Guest mockumentary. The difference is, this is all real. It really does take all kinds to make a world (and a village), and "The Shutka Book Of Records" is a great illustration of how much duller a world this would be without the more eccentric among us. Long live the odd!

4. "Love". Like "The Shutka Book Of Records", this film has a Yugoslavian connection. But that's as far as the similarities go. "Love" is a deadly serious, somber story about a former soldier and assassin from Serbia, now living in New York City among the immigrant community there and continuing to carry on his trade. The very bland, emotionless narration informs us that as he watched his former country disappear, he gradually became more invisible himself and is now as non-existent as his former homeland. But what he really is, is simply an underwritten character whom you never get to know and probably wouldnt want to. Virtually the entire cast of characters consists of people with absolutely no emotion and flat, bland speach and who go through life mumbling everything they say like a bunch of bad actors. Having partially grown up in the midst of a heavily Yugoslavian community with grandparents who were born & raised there (one Serbian, one Croatian) I can testify that Yugoslavians are among the most emotional people in the world... you NEVER have any doubt what they're feeling. The fact that some of these characters have been through virtual Hell on Earth can't account for the WAY too understated manner ALL of them are portrayed...
and then there's the editing that leaves too many plotlines unresolved, and the way so many of those that are resolved are so predictable. "Love" is a film that had a lot of potential to make some powerful comments on the political in the context of a story about the very, very personal... but in this case that potential was far from realized. The one bright spot is the character of an American CIA agent after our "hero". Sly, amusing and sinister all at once, he makes you wish the whole film had been about him. But as those great philosophers, the Rolling Stones, once told us, you can't always get what you want.

5. "My Dad Is 100 Years Old"/"Uso Justo"/"Ashaman." This was a program consisting of three short films.

"My Dad Is 100 Years Old" was made for the centennial of the birth of the great Italian neo-realist director Roberto Rossellini, directed by Canadian Guy Maddin and written by and starring his daughter, Isabella Rosselini. Far from the realism that Rosselini specialized in, it nonetheless encaspulates what made him great and suggests why as accomplished an artist is no so well remembered today. In a highly surreal scenario, Rosselini plays Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin and many other contemporaries of her father as they debate his film making style. The film verges on pretentiousness at times but succeeds in transcending it. It also succeeds at being a fascinating curiosity recommended for anyone interested in why directors make films.

"Uso Justo" might remind some of Woody Allen's "What's Up, Tiger Lilly?": the director has taken a segment of an old black & white Mexican soap opera and dubbed completely absurd and totally unrelated new dialogue on top of it, about a film crew descending on a Mexican village to make a strange, experimental film. While just as thoroughly silly and hilarious as the Allen film, "Uso Justo" also IS a GENUINE experimental film in its own right, one which in many ways has as much to say about the art of storytelling and film making as "My Dad is 100 Years Old". It can't have been easy to come up with an appropriate film to play on the same bill as that one, but Minnesota Film Arts has succeeded.

"Ashaman." Well, two out of three ain't bad. Like "Uso Justo", "Ashaman" takes found footage... in this case, a selection of clips from the films of a semi-legendary Mexican leading lady of the 1940's... removes all dialogue and sound, and replaces it with a new soundtrack, in this case a series of Mexican pop songs of the day. The goal, according to the film's "director", is to create a commentary on "pure film"... totally removed from the art of storytelling. But the result is more like a series of 1940's black & white music videos. And all the pretentiousness that "My Dad Is 100 Years Old" avoided, "Ashaman" steps right into the middle of. If you really want to see a film that creates its effect from pure images and sound without conventional storytelling, try to catch one of Matthew Barney's films. And if you really want more of what "Ashaman" offers, MTV does it better.

Well, wasn't that thrilling? Aren't you glad you came back? Oh, well, I thought I might as well ask. Coming soon, in the next installment: titles like "Thank You For Smoking", "Inside Man" and "United 93". In other words, movies that have actually played somewhere that you're likely to be able to see them! You just never know what to expect in the blog...

MSPIFF, Part One

2006-05-02T08:52:00.000-07:00

Being the first installment of short commentaries on films that have played at the just-completed Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival.

1. "Wah-Wah". The title is the equivalent among upper-crust British in the African colonies of "Yaddah-yaddah"... as in "It's all just a lot of wah-wah". The writing and directring debut of actor Richard E. Grant, "Wah-Wah" is the semi-autobiographical story of his growing up in the African colonies. The film may very well be an accurate portrait of Grant's youth, but it doesn't always make for an absorbing film... Grant's surrogate character is pretty much your generic resentful kid, Gabriel Byrne as his father seems to think that his being an alcoholic for most of the film gives him license to over-act as broadly as he feels like, and Miranda Richardson as his first wife is your typical movie witch (or similar word). However, Emily Watson is absolutely spot-on as Byrne's second wife, a brash American barging into this outpost of dignity and upsetting everything. Unlike Byrne, she reigns herself in just enough (in spite of the outgoing nature of her character) to make you forget you're watching Emily Watson performing and just see the character. You might wind up just a bit teary-eyed at the end, but that will probably be more of a tribute to Watson than anything else.

2. "John & Jane Toll-Free". A documentary from India about several native Indian citizens who work for one of those American call-in centers that you reach whenever you order something you've seen on TV. The film takes a fascinating look at how people of other nations, who have lived in and absorbed the native culture of their own land for more than 20 years, can find themselves not merely absorbing that of a different nation, but actually becoming ashamed of being who they are and trying to pretend to be "the other". One of the workers even talks about how he has no desire at all to have any contact with his fellow Indians or their society and wishes he could literally live in the call-in center so he'd never have to go out into the world surrounding him. For those who don't think globalization can ever be a bad thing, "John & Jane Toll-Free" might give you some second thoughts about how America is trying to gradually become the entire world, and the frightening extent to which it's succeeding.

3. "Shanghai Dreams". Many urban families relocated to the countryside during China's Cultural Revolution of the 1960's and 70's, and not all of them became adjusted to their new environment. "Shanghai Dreams" tells the story of a father who still longs to return to Shanghai some 15 years later and resents the wife who persuaded him to agree to move in the first place. On the other hand, his teenage daughter was born in the small community in which they now reside, and considers it her home... she loathes the very idea of moving back to Shanghai. A relatively typical dysfunctional family (people may not be totally alike all over, but sometimes it's close) has some unique elements added to their story by the cultural and historical context as well as some nicely restrained acting and directing to result in a "family" movie of definitely above average interest.

4. "A World Without Thieves". Hong Kong superstar Andy Lau stars as a dedicated professional thief working various scams with his increasingly reluctant girlfriend, who wants out of the game. The two of them encounter an extremely innocent (you mnight say naive) young man one day in their travels who is carrying his vast life's savings with him on his way home to get married (the young man believes nobody would think of stealing it from him and believes he lives in "A world without thieves", a notion of which Lau longs to cure him). The job is complicated by the fact that a totally different set of thieves have also set their sites on the man. It can't really be disputed that this film is very much a commercial effort, down to Lau's starring role... nothing of the art film here. That being said, it's still a well-made one, with attention to the smallest details in the story, casting, and all other elements. It moves along at the kind of brisk pace a film like this should and gets the viewer caught up in the complicated scheming and counter-scheming. Hong Kong commercial film making has been going through some difficult times at the box office in recent years, but it's still in strong creative shape if this film is anything to go by.

5. "The Hidden Blade". A few years ago, there was a Japanese film called "The Twilight Samurai" that was nominated for a foreign language film Oscar (and should have won), that played around with accepted notions of what a Samurai film is supposed to be while still exemplifying all the qualities of the best of such films. The same director now brings us "The Hidden Blade", and once again works the same kind of magic he did in his earlier work. At the heart of "The Hidden Blade" is an impossible love story between a dedicated, loyal Samurai and a housekeeper who, being of a different caste, is forbidden to him. The film also tells the story of a man who has dedicated his life to the service of a profession and a government governed by a rigid code of honor, and what happens when he finds that those he has been serving are not nearly as honorable as he had thought (no, I'm not suggesting there are any parallels here for the associates of George W. Bush to think about... no, not at all). And as if all of this wasn't enough, it's also a story that mourns the passing of an era... it's set in the same time as Tom Cruise's "The Last Samurai" (and is of course a much better film), as Western weaponry is entering Japan for the first time and changing the function and purpose of the Samurai (and as a result giving the film some moments of slapstick humor as the Samurai forces try to master the use of this unfamiliar technology). All of these very disparate elements are blended together smoothly and seamlessly into a genuine modern masterwork about a very human man trying maintain his beliefs and dignity as he's swept up into all kinds of vast events beyond his control. And, by the way... there is ONE major duel in the film (only one), but it's almost at the very end of the film. I TOLD you this was a director who likes to play with people's preconceived ideas of Samurai films. "The Hidden Blade" is a truly outstanding film, and one of the two best of the ten films I saw at this year's Festival.

Coming soon, reviews of the other five films I saw at this year's Fest, including the other of the two best... as well as reviews of a couple of new releases including "Thank You For Smoking" and "Friends With Money". Be here, or you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life.

Blogs To Check Out

2006-04-26T12:55:00.000-07:00

While you're eagerly, breathlessly waiting for my next batch of movie reviews (you ARE eagerly, breathlessly waiting, aren't you? Oh, well, I guess I'm not surprised), here are a few other blogs well worth spending some time reading.

http://www.humanophone.com
This is the blog of Janet Holmes, award-winning poet and former co-worker of mine at Merrill Corporation in St. Paul. Janet will enlighten you not only about the world of poetry (which you do like, though you may not know it yet) as well as a lot of other things going on in the world, and the latest works of both herself and her multi-talented writer husband, Al Greenberg. Always something interesting going on here.

http://sunsara.blogspot.com
The blog of Sunsara Taylor, one of the major forces behind the organization "The World Can't Wait/Drive Out The Bush Regime" (whose web site can be found at http://worldcantwait.net). Anyone who has the mistaken notion that "the Younger Generation" doesn't care about what's happening to their world will have their eyes opened in a big way at these locations, and maybe even be moved enough to do something themselves. Check it out. She makes a lot of sense.

Meanwhile, reviews of films at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival will be coming very shortly, and thanks to my "Underwriter" for supplying the funds to make those reviews possible.

American Dreamz

2006-04-20T16:17:00.000-07:00

A nation so obsessed with a TV "Reality" show singing contest that they vote for its contestants in greater numbers than for their own government. A president too dim-witted to know what's going on around him, and a vice-president determined to keep him that way. A terrorist plot to "punish" the U.S. for its policies in the Middle East. In the right hands, this could be the stuff of classic satire, almost for political satire in 2006 what "Dr. Strangelove" was for 1964. In fact, it's difficult to see how they could go wrong, isn't it? But remember... all things are possible.

First, what went right. There could not possibly be a better choice to play the Simon Cowell surrogate than Hugh Grant, who seems to have been rehearsing for the role for years. Nobody else could pull off lines like "You were like a musical Ebola virus" or "you made me want to projectile vomit" and make you laugh at the character rather than want to kick his teeth in... or at least laugh at him BEFORE you kick his teeth in. Willem Dafoe, who VERY rarely gets to do comedy, but is wonderful at it, is possibly the best thing about the film as the Dick Cheney character, scarily close to the real thing. There are some amusing one-liners scattered throughout. Now, let's get on with the rest of it...

What went wrong? There's a VERY, VERY ill-advised attempt to make Grant's character sympathetic and add a little pathos to the film that leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth and comes across as totally phony. Dennis Quaid is a terrific actor, but he's wasted in the underwritten role of a Bush-like president who is persuaded to boost his approval rating by appearing as a guest judge on the "American Dreamz" season finale... and worse (apologies if any Bush supporters are reading this... but how likely is that?), the character is depicted as being just as dim as George W. is often portrayed, but still concerned with the well-being of the country and genuinely wanting to do good for the people. Sorry, I just don't buy it. This is way too nice a guy. Besides Quaid, too many other good actors are also wasted, including Mandy Moore (she was great in "Saved", a much more biting satire than this one) as the show's leading contestant, Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden as the Laura Bush clone, and Jennifer Coolodge (veteran of Christopher Guest films) as Moore's trailer-trash mom. And while I did appreciate that there was a certain amount of effort made to show that not all people from the Middle East are terrorists determined to destroy America, there was still just a bit too much of a perpetuation of those same old stereotypes to allow the scenes that contradicted them to really be effective. And did I already mention the ill-advised turn towards pathos? Well, it bears repeating.

When a movie has such easy targets as this one it's difficult to see how it could miss so many of them by such a wide margin. I really wanted to like this movie and have a couple of hours of laughs. I wound up having maybe 30 minutes of laughs and liking bits and pieces of the film. After doing such a good job with Hugh Grant on "About A Boy", I was expecting bigger and better things from the Weitz Brothers. Maybe the problem was that they've done character-based comedy... and done it quite well... in the past, but have never really done satire before, and still haven't learned the ropes. I honestly have no problem with light, sweet-natured humor. But for satire to work, it has to have sharp teeth. It has to BITE. And too much of "American Dreamz" is just plain toothless.

I'm Back...

2006-04-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

I'm Back...

This is a notice to the friendly person who is so diligent and dedicated to the task of going through not only all of my blog entries but those of seemingly every other blogger who works through Blogspot.com, sending those little Spam messages disguised as "Comments" ("I see a lot of awful blogs, but yours is great. Check out mine on how to make a billion dollars answering surveys from your own home" or whatever) under a variety of different names. I realize how difficult it must have been for you these past few months with no new entries here and no way for you to inform me of all the great opportunities coming my way that I have undoubtedly missed out on. Well, you will be pleased to know that while I won't be able to keep this thing up as regularly as I once did, I do plan on returning to the fold and approximately five to six hours from now will be postingmy first actual new review (barring December's Top Ten lists) since last September. You probably have tons of those helpful little messages accumulated, desperately hoping I would return so I could once again be the beneficiary of all the help they provide. Thank you so much. Believe me, you have no idea how exciting this will be for me, too.

I really do mean that. YOU HAVE NO IDEA.

2005 Top Tens

2005-12-29T15:35:00.000-08:00

When I first started doing top ten lists, I found that, inevitably, 7 or 8 titles out of each top ten were foreign language or American independent films that had only played in the art houses, and over half the people who read my lists had never heard of any of them. So for the purpose of getting some more "popular" titles that people are familiar with (and to acknowledge that the two worlds really ARE different and probably shouldn't be competing against each other), I began doing separate top ten lists for the commercial and art house theatres. So I now present my personal choices (FAVORITES, mind you, not the absolute unquestionable BEST) for the top ten movies in those two categories that played in the Twin Cities area in 2005...

COMMERCIAL THEATRES
10. Kung Fu Hustle (Grandview)
9. King Kong (Block E)
8. Walk The Line (Har Mar)
7. Wallace And Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit (Highland)
6. Munich (Block E)
5. North Country (Highland)
4. Syriana (Har Mar)
3. Hotel Rwanda (Har Mar)
2. The Constant Gardener (Highland)
1. Crash (Grandview)

ART HOUSES
10. Downfall (Uptown)..........Germany
9. Howl's Moving Castle (Uptown)..........Japan
8. Enron: THe Smartest Guys In The Room (Uptown)..........U.S.
7. March Of The Penguins (Uptown)..........France/U.S.
6. 2046 (Uptown)..........Hong Kong
5. Brokeback Mountain (Uptown).......... U.S.
4. Zaman, Man From The Reeds (Mpls./St. Paul International Film Festival)..........Iraq
3. Yes (Lagoon)..........U.K. (England)
2. Good Night, And Good Luck (Uptown)..........U.S.
1. The Welts (Mpls./St. Paul International Film Festival)..........Poland

You're Probably Wondering Why I'm Here

2005-12-29T08:09:00.000-08:00

...considering the fact that I haven't been here in about three months. That is, you WOULD probably be wondering that if anyone was actually reading this thing, which i seriously doubt. But let's pretend that someone is. Without getting into long, boring details nobody cares about, let me just say that the past three months have been three of the craziest in my life, leaving me with very little time to do these reviews... since I have no home computer, and when I get to the library I've had to devote all my computer time to other things (you only get one hour per day in Minneapolis). However, I do still hope to pick this thing up again very soon... if anyone cares... and if I can grab some time later today I hope to post my year-end top tens (one for commercial theatres, one for art houses). So if anyone cares, I am still here and I am still planning to come back... and the top tens will be here soon. And for those who don't care... well, I can't say that I blame you.

A Sound Of WHAT?

2005-09-07T17:41:00.000-07:00

Speaking of "Oops", I just typed this entry almost in its entirety, then accidentally deleted all of it and had to start all over again. AARRGGHH!!
Anyway...

1. "The Constant Gardener". John LeCarre has had an up-and-down history in the movies, mostly down... his low-key spy thrillers often being jazzed up beyond all recognition. In "The Constant Gardener", the movies have gotten it right for once.

This is the story of a quiet, nondescript British diplomat who falls in love with a woman dedicated to taking dangerous chances with radical social causes. When she is killed (this happens at the very beginning of the film) while investigating some unsavory doings involving a huge pharmaceutical firm's handling of distributing AIDS drugs in Africa, he takes up the case himself, and definitely does not like what he finds.

Ralph Fiennes is one of our very best actors, capable of giving great performances even in schlock like "Red Dragon" and "The Chumscrubber", and when he has a decent script and director he can be positively riveting. He has both in this film, and creates a character of an amazing number of levels who fascinates on each one. As he grows from a quiet man who doesn't like to make trouble into a courageous crusader who has to make a great deal of it in order to bring some very bad people to justice, he makes every step of his journey believable. Freed from the chains of movies like "The Mummy Returns", Rachel Weisz is also terrific as his wife, a passionate crusader for social justice that might even make Dick Cheney sympathize with her plight. Well, okay, maybe not Cheney, but you get the idea.

Being such an accurate reflection of LeCarre's work, the film gives us a story that will disappoint those expecting the typical car chases, explosions and gadgets of, say, a Bond movie. But stay with its low-key but relentless style, and you'll find a film that slowly builds to a conclusion with far more impact than any action movie, that takes you far more deeply into the lives of its leading characters than any other commercial film in a long time, and that tells an edge-of-your-seat suspense story without ever losing track of the film's message about what a lot of multinational corporations are doing to third world countries in the name of profit. You'll remember "The Constant Gardener" long after the last ten action films you saw are nothing but faded memories.

2. "El Crimen Perfecto." A lot of people believe that comedies should be sweet and light and not deal with the dark side of human nature. Clearly, the people who made this Spanish import are not amont that number.

This is the story of the manager of the Women's Wear department of a prominent department store who dreams of being promoted to floor manager. He has only one serious rival, a number reduced to zero when a heated arguement between the two escalates into murder. But there was a single witness to the crime, and that witness begins making trouble in the life of our protaganist such that complication piles on top of complication until it seems as if another murder might be the only way out.

What's that, you say? This doesn't sound like the typical comedy premise? Well, no, it certainly isn't "typical." But it is hysterically funny for anyone who laughed at the woodchipper scene in "Fargo" and thought that the constant but futile attempts to hide a corpse in Hitchcock's "The Trouble With Harry" were the height of humor. The film manages to take the basic ingredients of classic farce and turn them on their head, resulting in a twisted version of slapstick that Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd never imagined.

It also contains not one single character who is genuinely likable, and nobody with whom most audience members will be able to identify or sympathize. This will be an insurmountable barrier for some. But the film is a warped masterpiece of dark comedy, with pitch-perfect performances. It's very difficult to create a genuinely funny and well-acted farce decades after the form reached its peak of perfection, but for those with a willingness to take a walk on the dark side to find some laughs, "El Crimen Perfecto" ("The Perfect Crime") makes it worth the trip.

3. "A Sound Of Thunder." Well, you knew they weren't ALL going to be good, didn't you? Ray Bradbury has an even more up-and-down history at the movies than John LeCarre, and this is not one for the "up" side.

In the year 2055, a time travel technique has been developed that allows travellers to journey back to the time of the dinosaurs on unique hunting expeditions. But the hunters must be very, very careful not to do anything that might disturb the fabric of time and change the "future" as a result, and even the smallest things can make major changes... as one hunting party finds out when they return to a world very different from the one they left... and the changes keep escalating to the point where their world has become a nightmare.

Okay, I grant you, the original Bradbury story was a short story that, if filmed straight, would have made at most a 30-minute short, so obviously changes and additions had to be made. But the memorable emotional impact of the original story's conclusion is extended into a boring, technically inept and badly acted attempt at ripping of "Jurassic Park" as prehistoric creatures find their way into a futuristic Chicago in their attempt to rid the world of wooden performers like Ed Burns and a slumming Ben Kingsley. When you're not laughing at the horrible acting, you're laughing at the unintentionally funny dialogue, and I can't help thinking that's not the effect the film-makers were after.

In a film-making environment were CGI can achieve startling realism for the most unlikely creatures, it's also shocking how totally unrealistic much of the film looks. The actual time travel device bears an uncomfortable resemblance to a car was, the semi-prehistoric creatures that seem to be a cross between a dinosaur and a baboon are downright embarassing, and for anyone familiar with the actual architecture of Chicago, it's bordering on hysterical to see the combination of many of the actual present-day Chicago buildings standing side-by-side with obviously phony futuristic versions thereof, the latter not the least bit convincing. Nor, for that matter, are several scenes with clearly fake backgrounds that make the old 1940's "rear projection" technique look like the height of authenticity.

Ray Bradbury has been one of my favorite writers since I was about 12. A large part of his appeal is not just in his plots, but also in the specific words he uses... his prose is often like poetry, which is certainly something difficult if not impossible to get across in a movie. But it has happened occasionally, and it's obvious that the makers of "A Sound Of Thunder" weren't even trying. They were too busy trying to create a cheesy dinosaur movie that could have been made exactly as is fifty years ago. At least in that one thing, they have succeeded.;

One... Two... Oops!

2005-08-30T13:53:00.000-07:00

1. "2046." Though there are filmgoers who haven't acquired the taste, there are many others who are convinced that Wong Kar-Wai is one of the genuine genius film-makers in the world. His latest, "2046", might not convince anyone who wasn't already on his side to begin with, but true believers such as myself will find all the more reason to believe.

Five years ago in "In The Mood For Love", Mr. Chow (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) came very close to an affair with his great love, an unhappily married neighbor played by Maggie Cheung), but never actually crossed that line, a fact which has haunted his life ever since. He has since become a serial womanizer, pursuing affairs with a string of beautiful women while attempting to find with one of them the feelings he knew with his lost love, inevitably failing. Meanwhile, he writes the science fiction novel "2046", about a future in which nothing ever changes and where people who have been separated can reunite.

The film moves back and forth in time, and back and forth between the "real" world and the fictional world of his novel in a style that might frustrate those accustomed to straightforward, linear narratives, but which long-time Wong fans know adds depth and impact that standard storytelling techniques couldn't hope to do. Wong is also the master of loneliness, and together with Leung has created one of his classic lonely characters in Mr. Chow, a man who knows even as he desperately tries to recreate his great past happiness that he's doomed to fail. And as in Paul Haggis' "Crash", where a strong script inspired great performances in less than great actors, Wong's brilliant screenplay has brought forth surprisingly forceful acting from performers who haven't given us a lot of that lately, particularly Zhang Ziyi, who FINALLY reminds us once again of the promise she had in her earliest films.

"2046" is a unbelievably beautiful-looking film with a story at its heart that is painfully sad, and yet beautiful in its own way as well. It once again proves Wong Kar-Wai to be one of the world's great film makers, and Tony Leung Chiu Wai to be one of the world's great actors. You clearly don't need car chases and explosions to make a good movie... nothing makes for a more powerful story than the simple emotions that people struggle with every day. And nobody knows how to work that kind of magic better than Wong Kar-Wai.

2. "Cronicas." American moviegoers have gotten to know John Leguizamo as an over-the-top comedian and wise guy. And while he is a very good comic actor, he's capable of a lot more than that. The Mexican film "Cronicas", while by no means perfect, at the very least earns itself many points by allowing him to demonstrate that to us.

Leguizamo stars as a Miami-based tabloid television reporter not tremendously unlike Geraldo Rivera, who likes to put himself at the center of all of his stories. As the film opens, he has travelled down to Mexico to report on the serial killer who has murdered over a hundred area children. When a prisoner in the local jail attaches himself to Leguizamo and begins giving him exclusive tips that could lead to the killer's identity, he figures he has the story of a lifetime. But while it might make him a legend, the story could also destroy his reputation, or even his life.

Leguizamo's performance is expertly understated most of the time, with his flashes of intense emotion coming only where they're appropriate, and never going too far. His is a character you have to understand but not sympathize with... a very difficult combination... and he pulls it off perfectly.
The movie is an indictment of a too common kind of journalism, a kind that has inspired American movies that have taken easy aim at too many easy targets, reducing a complicated problem to a too-simple solution. "Cronicas" supplies us with none of those simple solutions, and in fact leads us to a point that has us shivering and uneasily asking ourselves how much of what it depicts is happening every day in the U.S.

On the other hand, the plotline could have used a few more complications. The lack of any real questions about the killer's identity go a way towards reducing the suspense. And there doesn't seem to be any real reason for Leguizamo's affair with his married co-worker other than that the script requires it. And why put an actor as accomplished as Alfred Molina in a film, only to give him just three scenes... and even then just glimpsed on a TV screen? But what the film does wrong is minor in comparison to what it does right. Most American thrillers are lucky if they can just accomplish the "thrill" part. "Cronicas" is a thriller that ALSO makes you THINK, and at a fraction of the usual Hollywood budget. Twin Cities audiences should seriously think about getting over to the Oak Street Cinema to check it out.

3. "The Brothers Grimm." Terry Gilliam has one of the most brilliant cinematic minds today... and I don't say that merely because he was born in Minneapolis. With a string of films like "Time Bandits", "Brazil", "Baron Munchausen", "The Fisher King" and "12 Monkeys", you had to wonder when he was finally going to show that he's only human after all, and give us a movie that just doesn't live up to his reputation. That time has finally arrived.

If you were expecting a biography of the famous brothers, forget it. This story re-imagines them as European ghostbusters, but phony ones... traveling from town to town claiming to be able to rid villages of assorted supernatural menaces, but faking every menace so that they will be guaranteed to triumph and the grateful villagerrs will reward them handsomely. But when they encounter the real thing, their abilities are really put to the test.

The central plot conceit is old and hackneyed, and a little too reminiscent of a film from about ten years ago called "The Frighteners", starring Michael J. Fox and directed by Peter Jackson. That's not really the kind of film that should serve as your role model if you want to impress audiences. Neither Matt Damon nor Heath Ledger seem to be giving it their all, or even their half. And the well-publicized battles over control of the film that Gilliam fought with the notorious Weinstein brothers, resulting in his walking off the movie and making another entire film (the upcoming "Tideland") before coming back to finish "The Brothers Grimm", show time and again throughout the movie.

But then there are the segments when the brothers encounter the very supernatural beings and situations that would "later" inspire their legendary fairy tales. These are the moments that show what a incredible creative imagination Gilliam has and are indeed worthy of any of his previous best work. Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, an extremely creepy/frightening and at the same time silly Gingerbread Man... these are the kinds of creations nobody else could hope to do as well, and that will make this film's audiences all the sadder that Gilliam wasn't able to give us an entire movie just with the fairy tales. Or maybe it WOULD HAVE also worked as a biofilm of the brothers with their famous characters added. We'll never know, unfortunately. As it is, I'm just eagerly awaiting the release of "Tideland" (in which Gilliam reuinites with his "Fisher King" star Jeff Bridges) and hoping that IT will be a genuine showcase for his strengths.

Long Overdue, Part Three

2005-08-25T16:02:00.000-07:00

1. "The Skeleton Key." There are times I just wish that Hollywood would give up trying to do haunted house stories. I mean, haven't films like "13 Ghosts" and "The Haunting" taught them anything? Apparently not, because they're at it again in "The Skeleton Key", and by and large they're not doing it any more successfully than they have in the recent past.

Kate Hudson stars as a hospice worker who takes a job at a typically spooky southern mansion inhabited by a typically spooky southern couple played by Gena Rowlands and John Hurt. Hurt seemingly doesn't have long for this world, but Hudson soon learns that there may be SUPERnatural rather than natural reasons for his illness. And those forces seem to be coming for her, not caring in the least about the rule (repeated at tiresome length throughout the film) that magic and the supernatural "don't work if you don't believe."

Hudson's character is jaw-droppingly naive, doing things and going into places that nobody with half a brain would think of doing or going. And the script seems to be unsure of whether she's supposed to be a typical helpless horror movie female or a Sigourney Weaver/Ripley-like warrior against the forces of darkness. Rowlands and Hurt don't really fare much better either, and it's embarassing in particular to have to watch Hurt stuck in a nothing part that doesn't even let him use one of his greatest strengths, his voice. There's also the way that the very "Southern-ness" of most of the characters is supposed to make them all sinister and evil and out to get poor Northern Kate... and there are even times when the film is a touch racist.

On top of all of this, either the script was just badly written or the film was poorly edited, because we're constantly being told that the "rules" of the supernatural are such and such, only to have some spirit completely contradict them a little later in the movie. With all of this, though, it should be mentioned that the final ten minutes or so provide a real whallop... the kind of thing that might have made for a real gem of a movie if the entire film could have been on the same level. But Murphy's Law of Modern Horror Movies once again has proven to be too powerful a force to be defeated.

2. "The Great Raid." One of the final Miramax films to actually involve the Weinstein Brothers, "The Great Raid" is a relentlessly, ruthlessly, doggedly (sorry for the Nick Danger reference that most readers won't get) old-fashioned war movie, the kind that John Wayne would have been proud to star in back in the 1940's. (I do believe that Wayne made some fine films, mind you... it's just that all of THEM were WESTERNS.) The eerie thing is that although this is a World War II story, there are more than a few echoes of both the first and second Iraq Wars in its plot, and how you feel about that conflict can't quite help but effect part of your response to this film.

Even strong supporters of the Bush Iraq policy, though, may find themselves dismayed by the movie's wooden acting (Benjamin Bratt is not going to become an A-list star on the basis of his role in this film, and Joseph Fiennes continues to give us evidence that his performance in "Shakespeare In Love" was a fluke), and even though the film supposedly tells a true story, I can only say that it's amazing how much reality sometimes imitates war movie cliches.

It seems that near the final days of the war in Europe, the Allies were making a final push to retake territory near a notorious Nazi POW camp. But since the Nazis were aware of them, the Allies were concerned that they would kill all the prisoners before they got there rather than let them be rescued... so, a select group of soldier were given the assignment of conducting the great raid of the title to break into the camp and free the prisoners before the Allied forces arrived. With the utmost respect to the actual men who went through this experience... both the prisoners and the soldiers... this movie trivializes their experience and makes the reality of what they went through seem like something out of a bad war movie. It also makes the "Pearl Harbor" (hello, Michael Bay) mistake of too often giving us the actual historical events of the war as background to a love story, as if the romance is more important than the literally earth-shaking and history-making events going on around it.

We're treated to a musical score that's often more appropriate to a romantic film, as well. And perhaps most disappointing of all, director John dahl, who has given us such imaginative gems of modern noir as "Red Rock West", "Rounders" and "Joy Ride", has completely erased any detectable trace of his distinctive directorial style, and made a war movie that could have been made by any talentless assembly-line hack. I don't believe that directors should ONLY make films in what the public perceives as their little niche areas, mind you... only that I hope Dahl never tries to make another war movie. "The Great Raid" has actually been on the shelf unreleased since its completion about two years ago. Once you see it, you'll understand why.

3. "The Aristocrats." It's not that I am personally OFFENDED by "dirty" jokes, it's just that I feel that they're usually too easy a way of getting a laugh... people will laugh at the "dirty" element even if the joke isn't all that funny. With a few exceptions, it's the sort of material that doesn't produce even a mild grin for me. So when I heard the premise of "The Aristocrats"... a star-studded lineup of comedians telling their individual variations on what is claimed to be the dirtiest joke ever told... I wasn't very hopeful. Surprise, surprise.

The actual joke "The Aristocrats" really ISN'T all that spectacular, as several of the comics in this film note. What it DOES do, however, is allow every comic who tells it to improvise on it like a great jazz musician and do so many individual variations that they make it their own. As long as they open with a guy walking into an agent's office to talk about his new act, and finish with the agent asking the name of the act (which is, of course, "The Aristocrats!"), absolutely anything goes in between, as long long as it's guaranteed to offend somebody. It's absolutely amazing to see how many possible alternate versions there can be, and how each one is so very different from any of the others.

George Carlin manages to take perhaps the filthiest material of any of the versions and make it hysterical. Kevin Pollack does a very funny story about Christopher Walken telling the joke, and performs the joke imitating Walken. Tommy Smothers tells the joke to an uncomprehending Dicky (who has never heard it before), eliciting a response from Dicky that produces as big a laugh as the joke itself. Cathy Ladman even manages a version in which the middle portion describing the act is not just just clean and wholesome but extremely sweet, only to FINISH with an obscene PUNCHLINE. It really is like a summit of the greatest jazz players of all time... imagine a documentary featuring Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Chet Baker and dozens of others each performing their own personalized version of the same song. That's not far from what "The Aristocrats" is like.

"The Aristocrats" is obviously not for everyone. Anybody who finds "blue" material offensive should probalby go to see "March Of The Penguins" (which does happen to be a very fine film) instead. But they'd be missing out on a rare lesson in just how comedy is created, sometimes out of the least promising material. I've often watched some of my favorite comedians and wondered how they shaped the jokes they're doing and how much of the humor is in the material as distinguished from the person performing it. This movie finally provided me with answers.

4. "Red Eye". Back inthe 70's and 80's, Wes Craven was a master of horror, one of the best makers of scary films of his time. But after the endless string of ever less impressive "Nightmare On Elm Street" movies, and pictures like last year's well-written (by Kevin Williamson) but badly directed werewolf film "Cursed", he had clearly lost the touch. In "Red Eye", he abandons the supernatural for a sinister villain who is entirely human, but is unable to stop his continuing downhill slide.

Boarding a latenight "Red Eye" flight, Rachel McAdams ("The Notebook") is surprised to find that the handsome, charming stranger she had run into in the airport is seated directly next to her... what a coincidence! But it's no coincidence... the stranger (played by Cillian Murphy, The Scarecrow of "Batman Begins") works for a very nasty group who plan a political assassination at the hotel McAdams works at, and it's Murphy's job to force her to reassign the victim's room to another location that will make the murder much easier. If she doesn't? Well, they have her father under close watch, and if she refuses, he dies.

The movie starts out quite promisingly, and for a while builds up a nice tension-filled atmosphere, in large part due to the performances of McAdams and Murphy. Murphy, in particular, makes for one of the best villains in a long time... I have honestly not seen any actor since Christopher Walken first came along over 25 years ago who just radiates such intense creepiness with everything he does and every line he says, but at the same time can be convincingly charming and sweet. If he turns out to have the kind of RANGE that Walken does, he's in for a great career, and we're in for some very interesting films.

This isn't ultimately one of those interesting films, though. For one thing, it takes the wonderful Brian Cox... the ORIGINAL Hannibal Lecter... and completely wastes him in the nothing part of McAdams' father, mostly just seen talking to hsi daughter on the phone. Then they make the major, major mistake of having the plane land at about the one-hour point, and when the characters get out into the world the claustrophobic tension dissipates and the movie becomes just another chase flick, and Murphy somehow apparently becomes as indestructible as The Terminator. I suppose that Craven did an overall better job with "Red Eye" than he did with "Cursed", and MAYBE this indicates an upturn in his career, but if this had been the kind of movie he started out making at the beginning, he wouldn't have the reputation he has today.

5. "Junebug." In "The Skeleton Key", Hollywood asked us to believe that everyone in the south was sinister and evil and out to corrupt and/or kill the pure, innocent northerners. In the independent "Junebug", we get a broader look at the American south, and find it to be a place where the range of people is just as wide as it is anywhere else... and the problems are very much the same, too.

Embeth Davidtz stars as a sophisticated art dealer who travels down to the south to convince a mentally retarded artist that he should grant her the right to do a New york gallery show of his paintings. Her husband is from the same area, so he travels down with her to visit the family (whom Davidtz has never met before), and her presumptions of superiority and assumptions that she knows everything about these people are definitely challenged. And yes, a lot of people go through a lot of changes as a result of the experience. But the movie isn't out to teach you any lessons, it's out to tell you a story.

And that story is a strange kind of "road" movie where the road being travelled is as much "inside" as it is an exterior path. This is not a "slam the big city northerner" movie either, and Davidtz plays a fully-rounded character who is simply the victim of some common prejudices and misconceptions, who winds up making a big journey along a road toward understanding that "others" are not so other. And some of the more reactionary southerners come to realize that northerners are just people, too.

Considerable, and poignant, drama is added to the proceedings by the most outstanding performance in the film... Amy Adams as Davidtz's sister-in-law, pregnant with her disinterested and emotionally distant husband's unwanted (by him) child, but still able to see the things that make life worth living. The combination of pain, joy and fierce optimism in Adams' character is amazing to watch, and if I had an Oscar vote, she would have a lock on a nomination right now.

"Little", quiet movies can sometimes have just as much impact in their own subtle ways as films that are big productions, often because they tend to be a lot closer to life as most people live it. "Junebug" is a fine example of that kind of film.

Long Overdue, Part Two

2005-08-24T10:31:00.000-07:00

1. "Must Love Dogs". Well, since romance itself isn't really my "cup of tea" you naturally wouldn't expect romantic comedies to be my favorite movies, but that hasn't stopped me from enjoying some of the classic of the forties or more recent efforts like those from British writer Richard Curtis ("Notting HIll", "Love Actually"). And the cast of this film is exceptional. But the movie itself? Not so much.

Diane Lane play a 40-ish divorcee whose family feels she's been out of the dating game long enough, and are constantly tries to find her the perfect match. Her sister goes so far as to place an ad for her at an online dating site, which gives us the inevitable montage of losers... until she meets mister perfect, played by John Cusack. At which point the movie ought to logically be over, since there's absolutely no obstacle to their relationship. But this is Hollywood, where these things don't have to make sense, so it's stretched out for another hour.

Lane, Cusack, Christopher Plummer (as Lane's Father), and Elizabeth Perkins (as her sister) are all excellent, and there are some scattered witty one-liners here and there. But there simply is nothing for any of these people to work with. We know how the story's going to end, we know for that matter everything that's going to happen prior to that ending... and I guess there are people for whom that kind of thing is comforting. I just don't happen to be one of those who finds this much formula reassuring.

In the midst of all the formula, though, there is one genuinely real sub-plot. Christopher Plummer makes you feel both the pain he still has over his wife's death and the lonelyness he's trying to eliminate from his life by finding a relationship of his own, and the relationship he eventually strikes up with the widowed Stockard Channing has all the sense of reality that the rest of the film lacks. If there were ever a sequel to this film starring Lane and Cusack, I probably wouldn't bother, as much as I like them both. But if it were about Plummer and Channing, I'd be among the first in line.

2. "The Chumscrubber". Or, Hollywood tries and fails to get hip once again. This so-called independent film (distributed by a division of Dreamworks) tells the story of a group of alienated teens who spend most of their time spaced out on drugs... until the local supplier commits suicide. Then they're determined to force the dealer's best friend (played by "Billy Elliot"'s Jamei Bell) to tell them where his remaining stash was kept. Even if it means kidnapping his younger brother.

Of course, the kidnapping doesn't go as planned, and all kinds of mayhem results. Problem is, the stuff that's supposed to be funny is just lame, and the supposedly dramatic moments are totally unconvincing, especially when the characters are supposed to be having big, significant crises of conscience... they come across more like the characters being just mildy peeved.

It would probably help if the script bore even the slightest resemblance to how actual teens in real life act, talk or behave, but the writers of this film have apparently never met a real kid and have based everything they wrote about them here on characters from other teen movies. A lot more attention is spent on getting the supporting characters of the parents real, and the film actually manages that from time to time. Glenn Close makes up for her lackluster performance in "Heights" in her "Chumscrubber" role of the grieving mother of the suicidal drug dealer. Ralph Fiennes and Rita Wilson as the town Mayor and his fiancee give brief, fitful glimpses of the kind of "American beauty" horror underneath the perfect suburban marriage that few movies get right. And Allison Janney is both scary and funny as Bell's mother.

Unfortunately, all of them are only token supporting characters in a movie that devotes most of its time to trying to show how hip and contemporary the film-makers would like us to think they are. And all their efforts do is to show us how totally out of touch they are with what's going on with a generation they're no longer a part of. Does that sound like something you want to go to a theatre and pay to see? I didn't think so.

3. "Broken Flowers." After films like "Stranger Than paradise", "Mystery Train" and "Dead Man", Jim Jarmusch had established himself as one of the quirkiest... and most wonderfully inventine... truly independent film makers around. But when I heard the premise of "Broken Flowers" I was genuinely concerned that this would be the movie where Jarmusch sold out. Turns out I needn't have worried.

Bill Murray stars as a wealthy guy who's made tons of money off computers (but who doesn't actually own one), who one day receives an anonymous letter claiming to be from an former girlfriend, telling him that they had a son about twenty years earlier whom he doesn't know about, and that son is now trying to track down dear old dad. Murray's neighbor convinces him to go on a cross-country search looking up the five women he calculates might be the one who sent the letter, and is on the receiving end of some surprises from old flames like Sharon Stone and Tilda Swinton.
You can understand my concern.

But Jarmusch gives these characters all the quirks and eccentricities you'd expect from his previous films, and the cast absolutely refuses to play them with any of the standard over-the-top Hollywood style. Jarmusch is even still using the same kinds of camera tricks he used back on "Stranger Than Paradise" (as in when each scene fades completely to black before fading back up again for the next scene), and the story refuses to make any (well, hardly any) commercial compromises.

"Broken Flowers" is a SLIGHTLY more accessible Jarmusch film that is still clearly Jarmusch all the way. The film is alternately funny (in a very low-key way), serious and touching, and the cast is uniformly fine. Yes, even Sharon Stone. You don't find many directors these days who will take all the unhurried time a story and characters need to establish themselves, but when you can, the resulting film is almost always one you will remember. And more and more as time goes by, Jarmusch seems to slowly becoming very nearly the only game in town.

4. "Saraband". Ingmar Bergman announced his retirement as a director more than twenty years ago, and since then he has worked in theatre, in television, written a couple of novels and written a series of screenplays directed by others, but has stuck to his vow about directing. Now, in his late 80's, he has directed what will probably be his actual last film. Is it a classic on the same level as the ones that made his reputation? Not quite, no. But it's still head and shoulders over a huge portion of contemporary cinema, and not a bad film at all on which to go out.

In 1973, Bergman gave us a brutal analyses of a modern marriage in "Scenes From A Marriage". In "Saraband", we meet that same couple 32 years later, still played by the stars of that film, Erland Josephson and Liv Ullman. They haven't spoken in years, but some recent tragedies in Ullman's life have gotten her thinking about Josephson again, and wanting to get in touch. When she does, it seems like all the bitterness had never happened. But it doesn't take long...

It's one thing to simply have two people arguing and trying to tear the other apart. You see that all the time. It's quite another to see two people who clearly still care about each other as much as they did when they first married, but are unable to resist their personal, petty, selfish needs that lead them to destroy the other person out of sheer spite. This is strong stuff indeed for an American moviegoing audience that is not exactly accustomed to investing themselves emotionally in the films they see. In "Saraband", you may find yourself almost feeling guilty for eavesdropping on such sensitive subjects as Ullman and Josephson try and fail and try again to re-establish some kind of familial connection between themselves and their now-adult children.

A lot of moviegoers react the same whenever I try to recommend a movie to them that is definitely not typical "feel-good" stuff: "Oh, that sounds depressing, I don't want to see that!" But it's long been my contention that a movie doesn't always have to make you feel good to be a good movie, and that you can often learn valuable things from movies that take you outside of your normal comfort zone. Nobody has ever done that better than Bergman, and he does it yet again in "Saraband." Since he very likely won't ever be doing it again, you'll probably never get another chance to see it done this well. Better take that chance while you have it.

5. "The Edukators". This German film mostly features characters sitting around talking and debating ideas and philosophies. There is some occasional action... a break-in, a kidnapping... but those are over quickly and we get right back to the talking. Yes, this is actually a movie about IDEAS. Terrifying, isn't it?

The "Edukators" of the title are three German youths... two men and one woman... who break into the homes of the wealthy and powerful, not to steal anything, but to simply scare them with the knowledge that their secure homes can be violated so easily... and leave notes saying things like "Your days of plenty are numbered." These young people are what folks like George W. Bush would call radical leftists, and are beginning to realize that they will have to find some other way of getting their messages across, when they pull their last break-in, and wind up kidnapping the house's owner... who turns out to be a former student radical himself, now turned conservative and wealthy like so many of his former peers.

When so many people formerly dedicated to righting society's wrongs and helping the defenseless turn into selfish greedy types willing to step on anyone if it will help them get ahead, it isn't easy to maintain a belief in what matters most... especially when confronted with someone who used to be "one of your own", and who now lives by the philosophy of "Under 30 and not a liberal, no heart. Over 30 and still a liberal, no brains." How do you remain dedicated to doing what's right when everything you see around you seems to indicate that those who do what's convenient are the ones who get rewarded?

Instead of car crashes and explosions and the like, these are the kinds of things this movie is about. But that doesn't mean that you don't get well-rounded, well-written characters or weak performances. All of those are top notch. It's just that all of those things are in service of the film's ideas, and the debate over them is as fascinating as the action in any Michael Bay film. No, wait, what am I saying, that's way too much of a compliment to Michael Bay. It also has what has got to be a strong contender for the best ending of the year. "The Edukators" is a movie that will not only make you think, it will make you GLAD it did. How often are you going to get that in a movie theatre?

Long Overdue, Part One

2005-08-24T08:10:00.000-07:00

It's been so long since I've sat down to do one of these things (no, I didn't used to do them standing up!), and I've accumulated so many films, that even after carefully selecting a few titles I've seen but won't review (don't worry that you'll miss a "Dukes Of Hazzard" review... haven't seen it, not going to), there are still too many to do in one column. So I'm going to TRY to do reviews three nights in a row, with five films in each column, and see if that works. Here goes...

1. "Yes". Some people... including movie critics... just don't know how to deal with films that present them with something they really haven't seen before, and they can actually become hostile and trash the film as a result. That's the only way I can account for the negative responses that have been received by Sally Potter's film "Yes", which I found to be one of the most original, passionate and fascinating films I've seen in a long time.

This is the story of a woman (played by Joan Allen) whose marriage to a respectable but dull man (played by Sam Neill) is falling apart. In the midst of this crisis, she meets and falls in love with a Lebanese chef (Simon Abkarian) who also happens to be a Muslim. All of the differences between the two cultures, and the hostilities too many in the West instinctively feel towards all Muslims, come into play... not only regarding their relationship, but the attitudes of others towards them. And, by the way, the entire script is written in Shakespearean-like Iambic Pentameter and rhyming couplets.

The story does NOT come across as phony or artificial at all. Seriously, folks... the average common person did NOT actually talk like that during Shakespeare's time, and people don't say HE was artificial! This is actually a stunningly effective way to communicate the heightened feelings and tensions that Potter is dealing with in her story. These characters make their passion and pain felt all the more deeply and artfully through this stylized dialogue than they ever could have with lines like "Hey, what's up?"

And then there's the powerfully direct insights into the Muslim/Western world. As Abkarian is filled with so much pain and rage he is barely able to speak lines like "You hear our children's screams, but you do not cry, because they are not yours", you get a very different look at who Muslims are and what they feel than George W. Bush will ever show you. But the film is not anti-Western any more than it's anti-Muslim (which it clearly is not). It's very pro-understanding, and argues that we need to become aware that what we have in common is more important than what separates us.

"Yes" is an incredible film that deserves more respect and attention than it's gotten. You can do your part by checking it out if you get the opportunity, and then spread the word. This film deserves it.

2. "Heights". I saw this film later the same day I saw "Yes". Maybe that accounts for my lukewarm reaction to it, because few films wouldn't seem inferior after seeing "Yes". MAYBE that's the reason, but I doubt it.

"Heights" is pretty much art-house soap opera. A photographer (Elizabeth Banks) has a fiancee (James Marsden) who has secrets from his past he's trying to conceal, secrets that seem to involve a neighbor in the apartment above theirs. Her mother (Glenn Close), a broadway diva starring in a production of "MacBeth", hates the fiancee and is willing to do anything she can to dissolve the relationship. And so on and so forth and blah blah blah...

Every line of dialogue and every plot twist is milked for its maximum melodrama, and the actors do their overwrought best to keep the performances on the same level. This might not seem so surprising from someone like Marsden, best known as Cyclops in the "X-Men" movies, but it's strange to see a performer as expert as Close resort to such tired hackwork... at least she's much better as one of the few highlights of "Chumscrubber", which you'll be reading about in Part II of this series.

With all of that, and plot twists that telegraph themselves from miles away, you wouldn't expect anything to get very excited about. And guess what... you'd be completely right. You can definitely afford to skip "Heights".

3. "The Island." Michael Bay strikes again. And you know what that means... a couple of ciphers as central characters, running, jumping, riding vehicles that explode as they leap out of them, firing exotic weapons... all this plus Steve Buscemi as the one element that keeps the film from putting you to sleep in spite of all the noise. Bay isn't the kind of guy who likes to surprise his audience, so that's exactly what you get in "The Island."

The story? Huh? Oh,yeah... I guess now that I think back, there was a kind of story. Sort of. In a sterile, futuristic, overpolluted society in which the only pure spot left is a place called "The Island", a lucky few are occasionally selected to leave the scummy world behind and go to The Island as the prize in a lottery. But there really is no Island, and those who "win" the chance to go there are never seen again. When a young woman played by Scarlett Johannson wins the lottery, she and her friend (Ewan McGregor) find out why, and go on the run... and run... and run... and very exhausting, repetitive run... from the authorities who try to keep them from letting their secret get out.

Most of this happens in the first half hour of this 2 and a quarter hour movie. The rest? The usual Bay fireworks. At least in "Armageddon", Buscemi has a substantial supporting role. Here, he's only on screen long enough to make you frustrated that he's on so little.

You don't even have an interesting futuristic world to distract you. "Logan's Run" is just one of tons of science-fiction movies of the past thirty or so years that are virtually cloned (hah!) to creat the society the heroes of "The Island" live in. It's not really true that if you've seen one science fiction movie you've seen them all... however, if you've ever seen even one, you've probably seen THIS one already.

So, folks, if you were wondering what kind of movie Michael Bay could make as a director without Jerry Bruckheimer as a producer any more, this is the depressing answer: one every bit as bad as the ones he made WITH him. If you were holding your breath waiting for Michael Bay to make a good film... well, actually, if you were, you aren't reading this column, because you're either dead or unconscious by now.

4. "Mail Order Wife". This is a very unusual and at times uneven film that takes a lot of risks that don't always pay off. But enough of them do to make it worthwhile.

A young man who epitomizes the classic slob loser tires of trying to find a mate in any of the usual ways, and orders a mail-order bride from Burma. But no sooner does she arrive than his inner sinister, controlling creep comes to the surface, and his new wife is forced to do degrading, depersonalizing things that send her running for comfort to the film-maker who's shooting a documentary about her and her American spose/captor. She has a few surprises regarding him, too... but everyone involved also has some major shocks coming when they find out more about the young Burmese woman they had assumed was so sweet, innocent and powerless.

"Mail Order Wife" starts out as a Christopher Guest-like mockumentary, switches abruptly into intense, harrowing and uncomfortable drama, and then turns back into a comedy... but of a somewhat different kind... about a half hour before the end of the film. You might find yourself a little uneasy at the transitions at times, laughing just minutes after some emotionally scalding sequence. But ultimately that helps the surprise factor... there are so many movies where you know exactly what's going to happen next. That certainly isn't the case with this film. And then there's also the amusing little "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" reference (you know a show has really arrived when it's being name-checked in no-budget independent films like this one).

If you like surprises around every corner, you're probably disappointed by a good many films... not only those from big studio Hollywood, but many of the ones from independent companies as well. So if the opportunity to see "Mail Order Wife" presents itself, you should take it. You'll most likely be glad you did.

5. "Murderball." "March Of The Penguins" isn't the only documentary in theatres deserving your attention. "Murderball" is such a powerful, sometimes brutal, occasionally inspiring (but never sappy) and always unique film that it even got me, notorious hater of all sports except baseball that I am, glad I went to see it.

Quad Rugby is a sport so violent it was originally called "Murderball" (but you couldn't sell that name to corporate sponsors). Quadriplegics, confined to wheelchairs through illness, accidents, and other causes and who were given no hope of achieving anything in life, took to it with a passion. Slamming into each other in motorized wheelchairs tricked out to become something more like a mechanical gladiator's chariot, they created a sport that brought them international fame and gold medals in the Paralympic games. This film looks at the American Paralympic team over a two-year period from 2002 to 2004, as the jealousy and bitterness of one team-mate causes him to leave and begin coaching the rival Canadian squad, aiming at defeating his former comrades. The American team responds to this about as well as you would expect them to.

The players are one of the most fascinating groups you've ever seen. Having been given up by society, they've determined not to let their disabilities limit them and have achieved amazing things. But if this sounds hokey and "feel-good", just wait... the movie has the same total lack of sentimentality about its subjects that they have about themselves, and not for one second does it ask you to pity them... in fact, if you told them you DID, they'd probably run over you in their chairs. These are guys who happen to BE IN wheelchairs, but they aren't defined by them... in either good or bad ways.

No matter how many "sports movies" you may have seen, you haven't seen one like "Murderball"... so any and all fans of sports movies should definitely go see it. And if you don't like sports movies at all (like I usually don't), it nonetheless tells an incredible story about a fascinating group of protagonists... just exactly what any good movie should do, so YOU should go to see it too. I'm not saying that "Murderball" is for everyone, but so many different groups who probably THINK they wouldn't like it will find themselves pleasantly surprised, that it would probably have a box office three or four times what it's gotten if everyone who would appreciate it gave it a chance. So why not you?

Joe And The Movie Factory

2005-07-18T16:46:00.000-07:00

1. "Happy Endings". Writer/director Don Roos has shown himself in his previous films, "The Opposite Of Sex" and (to a lesser extent) "Bounce", to be an original, creative talent with a tendency to go for wrapping up plotlines too neatly and not always making all of his characters as fully rounded as all the others. Those same traits are in evidence in "Happy Endings", but this film is certainly a major step ahead of "Bounce", and the good parts of "Happy Endings" are SO inventive that I didn't really care about what was lacking.

This is another of those ever-more-popular multi-character films, in which a bunch of characters each interact in their seemingly separate story archs, until the connections they have with each other become apparent and they each begin turning up in each others' stories, all of them coming together for the big finale. In this case we have: a counselor at an abortion clinic (Lisa Kudrow), who is seeking information about the baby she gave up for adoption more than 15 years ago, her step-brother (Steve Coogan), part of a gay couple who is convinced that a lesbian couple they know used his partner's sperm to conceive their son, a conniving gold-digger (Maggie Gyllenhaal), who sets her sites on a lonely, wealthy widower (Tom Arnold), and a number of others.

A lot of reviews of this one have complained about the story-telling device in which the screen often splits and is filled on the right-hand side with Roos' comments on the action or information about the past and/or future of a given character. It must say something about my peculiar tastes that I found it very entertaining and thought it often added a nice touch of sarcastic humor to the proceedings. I was just as surprised as most to see what a genuinely touching dramatic performance Tom Arnold turned in, and I thought that Maggie Gyllenhaal (who has yet to disappoint even in her lesser films) took what could have been a stereotypical, one-dimensional character and gave her real heart and soul. Sharp dialogue, too.

Then there's that ending. Or, I should say, THOSE endings. With the number of characters whose stories this film tells, you'd think it wouldn't be possible to bring all of them to the same place (literally) and wrap allof them up neatly in just a few minutes, but Roos does it... and it comes off so utterly artificial that I wanted to groan, following the sharply-observed plotlines we'd been following up until then... this is even beyond the old sitcom "Everything is solved in a half-hour" formula. And the gay and lesbian characters, let's face it, are a bit more cartoonish that the others... especially surprising considering that Roos himself is out of the closet and proud of it.

But I found myself so wrapped up in so many of these characters and their dilemmas that I came away from the film glad that I had spent a couple of hours with them and their stories. Even if the resolutions are too simple, you genuinely like these charactes, even the ones who are much less than perfect, and you want to know how they wind up and hope for the best for them. That happens so rarely that I'm willing to cut the film some slack on its less satisfying elements. I'd still like to see where Roos goes next, and all of that is enough to earn "Happy Endings" a thumbs up from me.

2. "Wedding Crashers". No thumbs up HERE, folks. I've liked Vince Vaughn a lot inother films (he was just about the only thing worth watching in "Mr. And Mrs. Smith"), and Owen Wilson pretty well co-starring with Jackie Chan and in the Wes ANderson films (not to mention Christopher Walken in just about anything he's done), but this movie overpowers their best efforts.

This is the story of two divorce lawyers who use their off-hours mostly to crash weddings of total strangers in order to pick up women who will be especially vulnerable emotionally to their games. When they crash a wedding at the home of a prominent politician (Christopher Walken), though, they may have met the two women who could make them reconsider their ways and actually settle down.

Not the worst of plot concepts, and if the movie had taken the road of mocking the title characters and their emotional inadequacies it could have been a sharp little satire. But this is essentially one more slob comedy about a couple of low-lifes whose low-life ways are actually CELEBRATED right up until the moment they suddenly decide they need to change, and who even THEN never actually REGRET the shallow lives they've led or the emotional pain they've caused. And aside from Rachel ("The Notebook") Macadams as Wilson's love interest, there'snot a female in the case who isn't depicted as the kind of brainless ditz that could make the dimmest male look like ALbert Einstein. The deck is a bit stacked here, folks.

Vaughn and Wilson aren't nearly at their best, and even Walken seems to be operating on a lower voltage than usual. The dialogue is rarely funny, the "plot" is predictable to the extent that you'll know everything that will happen in the second half of the movie after the first 15 minutes, and there's something else fatal for a light comedy... it's way too long. No light comedy, as far as I'm concerned, should be very much longer than 90 minutes, and "Wedding Crashers" is just two minutes short of two hours.

Of course, if you were to cut everything out of "Wedding Crashers" that kept it from being a really funny film, you'd wind up with about 20 minutes' worth of a quite amusing short film about the incredibly eccentric members of Walken's family, who can actually make HIM seem normal. It's too bad there's no market for that kind of thing any more. It would really have been something. "Wedding Crashers" as is, is something too... something dull and not very much fun.

3. "Charlie And The Chocolate Factory". I enjoyed "Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory" (which I didn't actually see for the first time until it played a revival engagement at the Riverview in 2002), but I was fully aware of how much it diverged from Roal Dahl's orginal book, and have never had any problem with the idea of a more faithful remake. And it seems to me that Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, along with Burton's usual composer, Danny Elfman, would be just the guys to do it. Turns out I was right... at least as I look at it, for what it's worth (which may not be much).

In case you didn't know the story: the mysterious, reclusive candy tycoon Willy Wonka holds a contest in which five children and one gues each are awarded a tour of his wonderland-like candy factory, with one of them getting a prize beyond their wildest imagination. The result is a children's story that's genuinely surreal, at times creepy and at times sweet (and I'm not referring to the candy). Burton makes a few false steps on the way, but not enough to fatally damage his film.

As likeable as the wonderful Gene Wilder was in the original film, Depp's strange, sometimes frightening oddball is much closer to the Willy Wonka of Dahl's novel, and the tone is closer to Dahl's usual "let's make the kids a little uneasy before we give them their happy ending" style than "WIlly Wonka". The children (except for Charlie himself) are even more clearly despicable, and you get the feeling that Dahl would have enjoyed this version much more.

What mistakes did Burton make? Chiefly, I think, in trying to supplu backstories for a number of the characters that never appeared in either the book or the original film. In particular, it got a little hard to take to watch Burton once again try to work through his issues about being abandoned by his father when he gives Wonka a similar family background... it worked well enough in "Big Fish", which was based on a novel ABOUT that subject, but it just doesn't fit into Willy Wonka's story. Of course, I probably shouldn't complain about any story element that allows Christopher Lee (as Wonka's father) to steal a few scenes.

Overall, though, this is a movie with a magical sense of fun that doesn't feel obliged to always present children with a rose-tinted view of the world. Tim Burton has always been at his best in strange, colorful worlds that might slightly resemble our own, but are definitely NOT ours... and that are populated by characters who are definitely un like any we know. In "Charlie & The Chocolate Factory", he's found a world created by someone else in which he seem totally at home, and manages to make his audience feel at home there for a couple of hours as well.

"A Catchy Title Should Go Here, Too"

2005-07-11T17:42:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the two-part column... this computer was going nuts and I had to shut it off and restart. As I was saying...

The Fantastic Four actually appeared in an extremely low-budget movie back in 1994 that was made strictly for contractual reasons and never got an official release. I have the feeling, though, that aside from the higher-class effects, there may not have been that much difference.

As fans know, the Four were a group of family and friends who got zapped by the rays of a "cosmic storm" while on a scientific mission into space and turned into a group of super-powered characters, along with their future nemesis, Victor Von Doom (soon to become "Doctor Doom"). The fact that the characters acted like real people, didn't always get along, and had the same everyday problems that "normal" people have was pretty radical stuff back in 1961. But other characters have done it better since then... most notably Spider-man... and the characters don't have all that much unique to differentiate them from your basic, standard super-characters.

The acting isn't much help, either... half the cast is unknown and never lets you forget WHY, and the other consists of TV performers who are clearly out of their depth on the big screen. The dialog isn't cring-inducing awful like in some comics adaptations I won't name ("Elektra"), but it never rises above "Look out, Ben! Von Doom's behind you!" and similar lines. And unlike "Spider-Man", the Four never really become realistic, believable people.

Mind you, "Fantastic Four" LOOKS great, and there are some scenes that sweep you away in spite of yourself. And it rarely is a genuinely bad film. But there's nothing in it that tons of other similar films haven't done as well, or that a number of others have actually done BETTER. It's neither bad or good enough to make me work up much enthusiasm one way or the other about it. If you're a major fan of the comic, you might want to check it out.Or, you might just prefer to catch one of the "Spider-Man" movies again instead.

6. "Dark Water". Based on a novel by the author of the book that inspired the original Japanese film "Ringu" (basis for "The Ring"), this is yet another Americanized version of a recent Japanese horror film. It has its moments, but they don't ultimately add up to much.

In this movie, a young divorced single mom, still fighting her ex-husband for custody of their daughter, moves into a run-down new building in which too many strange things appear to be happening, particularly in the apartment directly above her, with its mysterious leaking water and strange sounds when nobody is supposed to be in the apartment.

I greatly admire a really good scare film (like "The Blair Witch Project") that achieves its scares without ever showing you what the menace is, and aI like that "Dark Water" attempts that... but there are only just so many ways to make tubs and sinks overflowing look sinister and menacing. It doesn't take long before you just want to go "So, just call the plumber already!" And faucets spouting ominous dark liquid haven't been scary since at least back when the original "Amityville Horror" over-used that gimmick back in 1979.

The film definitely has a great cast and crew... class actors like Jennifer Connelly, John C. Riley ("Chicago"), Pete Poselthwaite ("The Usual Subjects") and Tim Roth ("Reservoir Dogs"), a script by Rafael Iglesias, who gave Jeff Bridges possiblty the best role of his career in "Fearless", and featuring the American debut of director Walter Salles of "Central Station" and "The Motorcycle Diaries". But for all the high pedigrees of its creators, the movie comes across as every horror movie cliche that could be dug up out of the Movie Maker's Guide To Genre Formulas. If ever there was an over-qualified group of folks to be working on a movie like this, this is that group.

So... one again, we have a group of creative people working on material that's beneath them. Do you really want to go to a theatre and pay even matinee prices to see that? That's what I'm here for...

7. "March Of The Penguins." OKAY... anyone who knows me personally at all knows that there's no way I'm going to give this documentary anything less than a rave. There was never any chance of anything else. I've been a fanatic about penguins for just over twenty years, I collect anything penguin-related, I go see them in zoos. So a documentary about a year in the life of a colony of Emperor penguins in the Antarctic is my kind of film.

Therefore, this will be a shorter review, but I will say that the crowd at the screening I saw was made up of a very diverse bunch of adults, kids, families, solo moviegoers such as myself... and I'm pretty sure they weren't all penguin fanatics. After 80 minutes of watching the funny, endearing, and amazingly tough birds survive and even thrive in one of the most incredibly harsh environments on the face of the planet, they applauded at the end of the film and from the overheard conversations on the way out clearly were enthralled by the film. The Emperor penguin shouldn't be able to survive, much less raise its family and achieve any kind of real life in this environment, and watching how they accomplish the seemingly impossible will likely be as fascinating an experience to you as it was to the audience I saw this film with. And if it isn't, you'll at least know a little more about me and what I find fascinating. Not that I'd recomment the movie just on that basis, certainly. But I definitely WOULD recomment it for the penguins.

"A Catchy Title Should Go Here"

2005-07-11T17:03:00.000-07:00

1. "Bewitched". I suppose you can't really say you didn't know what you were getting into when you go to a movie version of "Bewitched" from the director of "Sleepless In Seattle". But there have been some cases of subversive, sarcastic with making their way into a few of the recent film versions of old TV chestnuts, and there was reason to hope that might have happened again in this instance. HOWEVER...

In case you didn't know, this is not a straight-ahead adaptation of the 60's TV series. Rather, it's about a TV network that decides to remake the show for the new millenium, and the actors who play Samantha (Nicole Kidman) and Darren (Will Farrell) who sign on as the leads and fall in a rather combative love, without Farrell ever knowing that Kidman actually IS a REAL witch. That's not a bad way to approach the subject, but it's about as far as the cleverness goes.

Kidman has played some of the most dynamic, forceful female roles around, and it's rather disconcerting to see her reduced to a simpering ditz that would have been embarassing to watch back in the sixties. The huge popularity of Will Farrell in the past few years is a mystery whose solution has eluded me, and I didn't get an answer in this film. And it was REALLY depressing to see performers of the caliber of Michael Caine and Shirley McLaine in such trivial roles. Michael, I KNOW you don't need the money THAT badly.

The dialogue is third-rate Ryan/Hanks stuff, and once you've seen Kidman and Ferrell's first break-up over her Witchy status and tentative reunion, you've seen the whole movie... it'll happen about a half dozen more times, but there won't be anything you haven't seen already at that point.

If you want to see a good Kidman film, there are many others to choose from. If you want to see a good contemporary story about a witch, check out any of the "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" episodes centering around Alyson Hannigan as Willow. And if you want to see a great Will Ferrell movie... well, I can't help you there. I can, however, help you by suggesting that you don't see "Bewitched."

2. "War Of The Worlds". Confession up front: I'm no great Tom Cruise fan. There are some movies of his that I like in spite of him, but I've actually liked his performance in only three films: "Born On The Fourth Of July", "Magnolia" and "Collateral". This film is definitely not part of that select group: once again, Cruise sleepwalks through yet another role as a self-centered boy in a man's body, who gradually learns to be a good man, this time in the midst of an alien invasion. But it IS, perhaps surprisingly, an addition to the list of Cruise films I like in spite of him. Slowly but surely, this picture won me over.

The old H. G. Wells classic gets an update in more ways than one: not only set in the present in the U.S., we also get that modern classic: the distant, uncaring father whose love for his family is brought to the surface by an earth-shaking (literally, in this case) crisis. Doesn't sound much like the Wells original. But the general outline is still there, even down to some specific scenes and characters clearly taken from Wells' book (the strange character played by Tim Robbins even has a connection to the novel). The opening and closing narration (by Morgan Freeman), and the ultimate fate of the invaders, is straight from the novel, and surprisingly, the rather old-fashioned tripod look of the aliens' machines is retained from the original. None of this would have mattered if the movie wasn't gripping, and well-made... but Spielberg succeeds here where it counts.

In a wise move, he keeps the aliens off-screen for most of the movie, making them all the more ominous and frightening. There are plenty of sequences of alien menace that involve nothing more than creative camera angles, strange sounds and unusual lighting... no special effects at all... and they had me riveted. Even the actual special effects spectaculars aren't monotonous and repetitive the way they almost invariably are in most big budget blow-em-ups... Spielberg knows his craft.

Which brings up the thing that keeps "War Of The Worlds" from being a great movie (of its type): it really is a masterpiece of craftsmanship more than it is one of emotion and feeling. So no, I didn't love this film. But on a pure, adrenaline-fueled, alien invading level, it works quite well. This one won't win any Oscars other than perhaps some technical awards, but I will admit I had fun in spite of myself (and in spite of Cruise).

3. "Land Of The Dead". After 20 years, George A. Romero returns to the modern zombie genre he more or less created with "Night Of The Living Dead". But he does so after there have been quite a string of rather imaginative zombie films over the past few years. Has he equalled the work of the contemporary film-makers who have followed in his footsteps. Well, sometimes. But not often enough.

Romero always went for social commentary as much as horror: racism, military madness, consumerism... they all took their hits in his earlier films. In this movie, Dennis Hopper stars as a far-removed-from-his-constituents politician lording over the residents of a walled-off, zombie free community, not really concerned over what fate befalls "his people" as long as he and his crew can survive. I'm not saying he's based ONLY on George W. ... but if you see a few similarities there, I wouldn't say you were wrong. But ultimately he's really George and far too many others of his ilk. The zombies, however, are beginning to actually be able to reason, and learn how to use guns... even to communicate with each other. The walls of this city may soon come tumbling down.

Romero's attempts at wit are nowhere in the same league as "Shaun Of The Dead" or "Return Of The Living Dead", and the zingers that do come across tend to be because of Hopper's deadpan delivery. "Zombies, man... they creep me out" doesn't read like much on the page, but wait until you hear Hopper SAY the line. The social commentary is sharp and cogent in the first half of the film, but as the story proceeds to the point of the big climactic invasion the film loses track of itself and becomes just scene after scene of "Look, here come the zombies! Shoot them in the head!" And brilliant as Hopper is in the lead, none of the other stars (not even the normally very good John Leguizamo) make much of an impact.

So check out "Shaun Of The Dead", or "28 Days Later", or pretty much any of the other recent films of this genre, if you have a taste for these kinds of chills. As far as Romero is concerned, if he retired now, he could still get an honored place in horror movie history. Too many more films like "Land Of The Dead", however, and all bets are off.

4. "Intimate Stories". This is a genuinely sweet and charming movie. I might add that it's also not a Hollywood film, so the words "sweet and charming" don't automatically equally sticky-sweet or fomulaic.

An Agrentinian dramedy, it tells the stories of several sets of characters from a small town who all wind up having their own various reasons to travel to the big city at the same time... one woman has won a prize from a quiz show and has to go there to claim it, a lonely elderly man hears that his long-missing dog has been seen there and has to go see for himself, a businessman has both personal and professional reasons for the trip. On the way, they sometimes cross paths for short periods of time, learn a little from each other, and complete their journeys. yes, it is indeed that staple of both American and World cinema: the road movie.

It's also a film that manages to be in turns both hilariously funny, somber and dramatic, and strongly sentimental without ever descending into diabetes-inducing territory the way your typical Hollywood movie would, given the same kind of material.

The "Feel-Good" movie has gotten a bad name over the years as a result of far too many sappy pieces of fluff with no characterization and attempts at persuading the audience that life is always wonderful and always works out for the best. You don't have to follow that predictable formula to get a REAL feel-good movie, the kind that will have you leaving the theatre with a GENUINE warm feeling that will stay with you instead of fading as soon as you're out of the auditorium. "Intimate Stories" is a fine example of exactly what I mean.

5. "Fantastic Four". The 3,000th movie adaptation of a Marvel comic this year (what? It's not that many? Well, it seemed like it) brings Marvel's first big superhero TEAM to the screen at last. Was it worth the wait? Well, I'm not the fan I used to be (I haven't read the comic in several decades), so maybe I'm not the best judge. But I thought the two "Spider-Man" movies were terriffic, and "Batman Begins" (yes, I know Batman isn't Marvel) was pretty decent. "Fantastic Four", on the other hand... well, can a movie be called "aggressively average"?

Two For The Price Of none

2005-06-21T16:26:00.000-07:00

1. "Up For Grabs." Showing at one of the Twin Cities' truly independent theatres, the Parkway, this documentary is genuinely not for a wide, mass audience. But it is also about a lot more than it seems to be on the surface, and of interest to a lot of people who don't think they could care about a film dealing with this picture's nominal "topic".

What is that topic, you might ask? Baseball, he responded. Specifically, it's about the ball that Barry Bonds hit to get his record-setting, season ending 73rd home run several years back. Two different men both claimed to have caught it and therefore have the right to it, and they took each other to court, employing a small army of lawyers to fight a small war that nearly destroyed an unbelievable number of lives. And by the way, it's one of the funniest documentaries this side of the MOCumentaries of Christopher Guest.

What the movie is ultimately about is how the country has changed over the past decades, a former selfless, giving attitude gradually giving way to a greedy, "looking out for number one" philosophy. As illustrated by baseball, of course. Just watch the film of the 19-year-old who caught Roger Maris' record-setting home run in 1961 as he tells an interviewer he plans to return the ball to Maris, then is taken aback when maris tells him to keep the ball and make some money from it... contrasted to the "every man for himself" attitude of the case this film is about. Something has definitely changed about this nation in the past 45 years, and not for the better.

This doesn't mean that the movie is somber and downbeat. On the contrary, it's possibly the greatest example of satire you'll ever see that wasn't deliberately written as such. And you'll be shaking your head in stunned amazement when you're not laughing.

Every time a sports movie comes out somebody will say something about it "isn't really about (fill in the name of the sport)". "Up For Grabs" definitely IS about baseball, but it's also about so much more than that, that anyone missing out on it will be missing out on a film they'll prob654ably find highly entertaining on several levels. You should check it out 654if you can. (The Parkway is located at 48th Street and Chicago Avenue South in Minneapolis.)

2. "Batman Begins". For the first time in a theatrical film, the origins of Batman are shown, and the tone is darker by far than any of the previous films in the series. Is that enough to make "Batman Begins" a great film? No, not really. Is it enough to make it so superior to the previous films that it's still worth checking out, especially for the comics die-hards? Definitely.

Batman's primary villain here, Ras Al Ghul, was a magnificent figure in the original comics, a character of powerful nobility you had to admire and hate at the same time. As depicted in this film by Ken "Last Samurai" Watanabe, he's more of an afterthought, a character seemingly tamed down so that the villain won't outshine Batman himself the way the villains always have before. The second villain, the Scarecrow, is wonderfully played by Cillian Murphy of "28 Days Later", but doesn't show up until far too late in the movie. And even at 2 and a quarter hours, the film zips by too fast to pay as much attention to some of the significant events in Batman's life that it should.

AND YET... Christian Bale is undoubtedly the perfect actor for this role, his barely surpressed madness and fury deolishing all memories of George Clooney's and Val Kilmer's performances in the role (he's also better than Michael Keaton, but Keaton at least was OK in the part). Class acts Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Tom Wilkinson and Michael Caine as Alfred lend the film some welcome touches of dignity, and it's especially nice to see the character of Alfred rescued from the "You rang, sir?" cliches of the TV series and the previous films, and given a real depth. The atmosphere is every bit as brooding and the visuals (filmed in both Hong Kong and Chicago, among other places) are spectacular, easily the equal of anything in the Tim Burton films. Aznd like I said, the darker tone is very, very welcome... I happen to think that it's almost impossible to make a "Batman" movie that's too dark.

So yes, it's not perfect, and maybe even a little further from perfect than some of the critical raves it's received might lead you to believe. But I happen to be a long-time fan of the original comics who still very nearly gets ill whenever I even THINK about the TV show or the Joel Shumaker films... and this is one that I quite enjoyed. If there is sixth movie, I can only hope that Christopher Nolan writes and directs that one, too.