168 - The Number 23 review

"The Number 23" has been widely criticized for relying too heavily on its premise, but I think it stopped short. When a film decides to take hold of a nutty idea and build the story around it, the creators should have the good sense to dive right in. Here, they play a few games, but make no serious commitment to craziness.

Jim Carrey plays Walter Sparrow, an animal control man (dog catcher) who has few remarkable qualities other than that he makes jokes like Jim Carrey on mute. He loves his wife Agatha (Virginia Madsen) and son Robin (Logan Lerman), and has no apparent interests of any kind. Not bad for a guy married to Virginia Madsen.

For his birthday (February 3, 2/3, get it?), Agatha buys him a novel called The Number 23. Walter is struck by the similarities between Fingerling (also Carrey), the book’s hero, and himself. Similar upbringings, memories, and even childhood storybooks are recognizable, and soon he has adopted Fingerling’s obsession with the titular number, claiming that pretty much any and every important event in world history can be added, subtracted, divided, multiplied and cooked to 23, assuming you aren’t using a Chinese calendar, of course.

In a serious test of the audience’s suspension of disbelief, it takes days for Walter to plow through the novel, which doesn’t appear that big. Most college students have more than a few nights were hundreds of pages get read for subjects they don’t even care about, much less are captivated by, but never mind. His reading sessions unfold onscreen in a colorfully grim noir fantasy that actually look so cool that I could have sworn that they were filmed for a better movie. When he discovers that Fingerling murders his gothic girlfriend (Madsen again) in a fit of rage, Walter does the logical thing and goes to a psychiatrist.

Wait, wait, my apologies, that’s how I would have written the script; Walter imitates a bunch of thrillers that he has seen on TV and checks into sleazy motel rooms, harasses suspicious old men, visits prisons and loony bins, and takes a shovel in search of buried corpses. Yes, that’ll clam down your psychosis.

The film’s largely bungled components do manage to click together just enough to imbue watchability on a straight-to-video level. Despite taking itself very seriously, it never truly utilizes the premise, and while Walter spits out numbers like a numerology expert, we’re never really sold on the proceedings as a mystical phenomenon worthy of ripping lives to shreds, just as a reason for Carrey to skip shaving for a little while. By the heavily monologued ending, the script has outright cheated so much that it felt like they had cut 23 minutes of necessary plot threads and character development.

Director Joel Schumacher specializes in this sort of picture. Throughout his long career, he has essentially only made mainstream films that range from mediocre (Batman Forever) to good (Phone Booth), and "The Number 23" keeps that track record alive and well. I couldn’t help giggling at some of the dead serious parts where Walter raves like a maniac, but I found nothing inherently hatable about what was unfolding. I do wonder about Carrey, whose career has been stalling as of late. Was this his attempt to demonstrate further elasticity in his acting range, or a serious swipe at a hit? It’s a bigger mystery to me than some stupid theory about numbers.

Just for fun, lets see what happens when I divide 23 by 5, the maximum rating I issue a film; a long stream of digits beginning with .21, which rounded down is zero. Plus 3/3, the date I saw the film, we’ve got 6. I first checked my watch to see how close I was to the film’s end at 1:33, which then brings the score to –1, but then if I add the total number of times which I checked my watch, which is 3, we’ve got:

2 out of 5

167- Who Killed the Electric Car? mini-review

Good question. This persuasive film illustrates how auto companies deliberately sink their own products and ruthlessly stifle any competition. I usually don't buy into relentless attacks on big business, but the evidence here is damning, as we are shown how General Motors essientially released a workable electric car with the intention of killing it and rolling out Hummers instead. There's profit to be had, but at colossal expense to the welfare of this country (pollution, Middle Eastern wars, etc). Sharp points lose edge amidst footage of people treating the cars like people, phony funerals, Mel Gibson, and the mere hint that America's most reviled peanut farmer did anything good whatsoever made me want to throw fruit at the screen. Nonetheless, it makes a very strong case for the electric car, which, despite GM's claims to the contrary, I'd be thrilled to own.

3 out of 5

166 - An Inconvenient Truth mini-review

94 minute campaign commerical for Al Gore presents arguments for man-made global warming but never bothers to tie them together. Problems range from the obvious narcissim (Gore as savior of the world) to the bogus assertions (the gutting of our industrial base as beneficial to our economy) to the outright sloppy (failing to explain what the Kyoto Protocol is, failure to produce a real smoking gun) to the dishonest (Reagan & Bush Sr. as part of the global warming problem while ignoring the Clinton administration) to the convenient (neglecting to tell his audience what they would have to give up to satisfy his radical agenda, neglecting to mention how many people could REALLY even survive without our great energy expenditure). And after blaming Republicans for all of the world's problems (very insightful), he then goes on to claim this is a non-partisian problem. All this from a guy who uses more than 20 times the power a year I do, and not all on green campaigning, as his defenders weakly assert. If global warming is as serious a threat as Gore suggests, we deserve a better film than this.

1.5 out of 5

165- The Illusionist mini-review

Surpriginly frothy tale of a 19th century Austrian magician (Edward Norton) who puts in motion a plot to snatch his childhood sweetheart (Jessica Biel) from the clutches of a treacherous prince. The magic tricks themselves are mostly done with CGI, which makes them unimpressive at best. The cast, however, which also includes Paul Giamatti as a conflicted detective, seems to having a ball, allowing us to enjoy the silliness. We're never explained how the magic tricks work, which feels like a big cheat on the writer's part. It's an easy watch, but it pales in comparison to another magic film from 2006, The Prestige.

3 out of 5

164 - Breach review

In 2003, a criminally overlooked film called "Shattered Glass" was released. A fusion of biopic, drama, and thriller, it told the true story of a Stephen Glass, a popular journalist who fabricated many of his stories. The film’s great strength was that Glass was shown from the perspective of those around him, never diving into his psyche or offering a concrete explanation as to why he did what he did, leaving that up to the audience’s imagination.

"Breach" is the follow up film of Billy Ray, who also wrote and directed "Shattered Glass." There are many similarities; both tell a recent true story, are centered around the sins of one man, refuse to delve into detailed explanations of his psyche, and unfold through the eyes of his colleagues. The key difference is where the journalist of the former film only deserved to be fired, the subject of this one deserves a fate worse than death.

Chris Cooper stars as Robert Hanssen, a long-time FBI agent who in 2001 was arrested for selling secrets to the Soviet Union and later Russia. The damage he caused was catastrophic, resulting in the deaths of at least a few valuable spies and untold other losses.

If the film is to be believed, it’s easy to see how he fooled those around him. Hanssen’s outward personality is that of a devout Catholic who attends mass daily, a feverish patriot honored to serve his country. On the other hand, we have a cunning double agent that sells the nation’s secrets for stacks of $100 bills and trades sex tapes of him and his wife that were recorded with a hidden camera. Except for when he steals documents and corresponds with his handler, these personalities seem completely separate, two entirely different individuals residing in the same shell.

As part of their sting operation, the FBI assigns Eric O’Neill (Ryan Phillippe) to work underneath Hanssen and to take meticulous notes so that a solid case can be built. At first, O’Neill is only told the investigation concerns Hanssen being a "sexual deviant." Despite several thorny exchanges, he begins to admire Hanssen, who appears to be a model public servant and dedicated family man. But after being introduced to the true nature of his assignment, as well as the dozens of fellow agents working on it, O’Neill struggles to maintain the trust of the man who prides himself on being able to detect the smallest lie.

Cooper’s complex performance would likely be generated Oscar buzz if the film were released during Oscar season. Since the audience goes in knowing the back story, it’s up to the actors to inject importance into the proceedings, and the first rate cast that also includes Gary Cole, Dennis Haysbert, and Laura Linney does a remarkably good job. The screen crackles with enthrallment whenever Hanssen and O’Neill interact, though the younger man’s side story, involving his impatient wife (Caroline Dhavernas), tends to bring the momentum to a screeching halt so the two can feud.

But while the performances are more notable and the topic matter vastly more important, "Breach" never quite reaches the level that "Shattered Glass" did. Both films avoid the "why," but while we can use our imaginations for Glass, Hanssen’s misdeeds and character flaws and endlessly more complicated. Ray has difficulty handling such a perplexing figure, one who could handle a treasonous double life for decades before it came to an end. Do we really need to know why Hanssen did what he did? Maybe, maybe not, but for crimes this bad and a man this vile, I’d sure like to hear it.

3.5 out of 5

163 - A little bit about me...

Though most of my loyal readers may think they know me very well, there is a commonly overlooked part of my personal history that receives little attention, at least in the United States.

Several years ago, I was the piano player for a jazz band, Jagged J. Frazier and the Funkateers. My good friend Jerky White played trumpet and the incomparable Kaiser Perkins was on trombone. We would play at smokey Harlem nightclubs, where I would sit at the piano and begin to play, the room turning silent except for the clanking of drinks and lighting of joints, my fingers dancing the Charlston across the keys as beads of my heart and soul spilled out of my forehead, the nicotine air turning sharp and mysteriously vibrant, the waitress generously delivering double blackjacks on the rocks to me when the previous one was depleted. After the show I played with nice drugs and loose women, my life unfolding like a wonderful French film with all the bad parts edited out.

Our debut (and only) album sold poorly in the U.S., but was a smash hit in Peru, selling nearly 400 copies, which made it the third most purchased album that year. I eventually participated in a Peruvian Big Brother-style reality show, where I came in 5th place behind a gorgeous model and ahead of a deposed Bolivian dictator. Oh, how the music makes my joy shake and tumble into a delicately fond heartache.

Kaiser Perkins, defiantly shooting the bird.

Jerky White shortly after his infamous decision to personally deliver the alimony payments to his second ex-wife. His subsequent self-imposed exile from the U.S. resulted in the demise of the band.