307 - Atonement

“Atonement” is a tragic love story that conceals its many weaknesses with a shiny veneer of impressive visuals. Good love stories on film are rare, and have to tread carefully between sappy and stale. “Atonement” manages the difficult feat of avoiding the thin line and treading on both sides of it, being a glossy, sentimental rice cake of a film.

It begins in the 1930s on one of those vast British estates where the English gather around and talk about the most boring things imaginable. Cecilia Tallis (Keira Knightley), one of the women of the estate, and Robbie Turner (James McAvoy), the gardener, are in love, but unable to express their feelings for one another. This problem gets solved when Robbie accidentally sends Cecilia an obscene letter, the kind that get my friends restraining orders, but this actually works to his favor.

Their sordid little courtship is witnessed from afar by Briony (Oscar nominated Saoirse Ronan), Cecilia’s thirteen-year-old sister. At least it looks pretty sordid to Briony; a combination of childish naivete and an attraction to Robbie results in her labeling him a “sex maniac.” If Briony were older she’d know that term applies to all men, but whatever.

Later, when Briony witnesses the sexual assault of her cousin by a wealthy family friend, she labels Robbie the culprit, and I probably don’t have to tell you that the poorer man finds himself taking the blame. A few years pass, World War II breaks out, and Robbie is released from prison to join the army. He is trapped in France during the British retreat in 1940 while, back in England, Cecilia and Briony (now played by Romola Garai) are nurses tending to the endless numbers of wounded coming in.

Though “Atonement” follows their story through the years, we never come to know anything insightful about Robbie and Cecilia other than that they love another. Even their time together is largely wordless, relying on the actors ability to appear lovelorn and look pretty while doing it (both of which they do admirably). In fact, making them pretty essentially seems to be the filmmaker’s attempt at character development; if the actors are good looking and young, then the audience can like them instinctively, and extras such as character development can be treated at vestigial organs to be discarded.

Later on, Briony becomes the film’s focus, the guilt over her false accusations leading to a lifetime of suffering. It ends concludes with a reveal of drastic phoniness, a massively annoying slight, one that serves to highlight the hollowness of what has come before. I won’t reveal exactly what transpires, but I’ll warn that the easily frustrated or those with the radical notion that a film shouldn’t deliberately waste the audience’s time should seriously consider seeing something else.

Director Joe Wright spruces up the narrative with a shifting chronology and snazzy visuals, which works well enough at fooling the audience into thinking they’re watching something of substance, at least until it becomes evident otherwise at about the halfway point. Thus far, the film has at least developed a story, only to then bounce back and fourth between the characters as they go about their lives and Look Sad about what a waste it all is. Sort of like the film itself.

2 out of 5

306 - The New Dog

Ms. Pickles, or as we call her, Pickles, the tea cup poodle. To my surprise, I'm very fond of her. She's smarter than a quarter of the people I know.

305

An article in the Wall Street Journal about 24 asserts that the series recent drop in ratings is the direct result of the dip in President Bush's popularity. Even showrunner Howard Gordon appears to agree with this theory, assuming the accuracy of the piece.

But I don't buy it. Frankly, that sounds like a copout, a way for the creators to justify their diminishing returns. I doubt many will argue that 24 doesn't lean right, but if the series is a giant ad for the Bush administration, how come it gets nominated for (and occasionally wins) all of these awards in Hollywood, a town that despises the president? Would the likes of Bill Clinton be praising the show if that was akin to supporting Bush? Note that not once does the series mention "Iraq" or "Afghanistan," for those thinking it's a commercial for war.

If I had to guess, I'd propose that there are likely about as many 24 fans who are on the left as there are on the right, though perhaps they usually don't have the connection to it that their ideological opposites do. Allow me to forward a few real possibilities as to why the show's rating declined last season:

1. DVD - With the emergence of TV on DVD, viewers no longer have to insist on watching every episode of a series as it airs. In fact, many fans of series such as 24 prefer to get the DVD set and watch it all in a row instead of going week by week.

2. Age - Like it or not, we get old, and so do TV shows. Even if what we're seeing are Jack Bauer's best exploits yet, there isn't much question as to what will happen: shooting, twists, turns, terror, screaming, a little physical coercion here and there.

3. Serial Format - Whereas a show like Law and Order or CSI can easily be watched one time and forgotten about, watching a season of 24 requires a viewing commitment, the labyrinth plot, grim setting, and constant action demanding the viewer's attention. If people have done it before, they might not do it again, even if they enjoyed it once.

4. Quality - Fans and critics alike simply didn't care for season 6. While I maintain that it had many great moments and works much better upon a continuous repeat viewing, the show's quality dropped from 5 to 6, and that explains the ratings drop better than some loony theory about President Bush's poll numbers ever could.


And one last note; from what I could tell, it seems highly unlikely the writer of the piece, nor any of the show's critics she interviewed, have ever watched the show. Remember how Michael Moore fans would scold people who heaped scorn on his films without seeing them? This is worse, because where Michael Moore's films are basically one man shows with a clear partisan opinion, 24 has 144 episodes of TV developed by hundreds (or thousands) of people, making it impossible to single out the politics of one or two men in general to account for every action in the series. Actual fans will note that torture fails as often as it works in 24, and certainly does not provide any character, good or bad, a guarantee of success.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I am glad the produces opted not to gut the show and label Jack Bauer a bad guy, but instead decided to defend it. The earlier idea would have broke my heart, but the new one sounds pretty rockin'.

304 - I Am Legend review

“I Am Legend” might be the first film to convincingly portray contemporary New York City as a nature preserve. It’s 2012, and a plague has wiped out most of the world, leaving but a handful of survivors. That the plague started out as a cure for cancer suggests a thing or two about how man’s efforts to better himself can backfire spectacularly and violently.

Will Smith stars as Robert Neville, the last man alive in New York City, and for all he knows, the entire world. Neville spends his days alone except for his dog Sam, cruising the streets in a sports car, competing with lions for deer in Times Square, testing out plague vaccines on animals, and cowering in an armored house by night.

See, Neville is immune to the plague, but so were millions. Unfortunately, most that did not die from it turned into mutants of the bloodthirsty variety, as if there were any other kind. The mutants are vulnerable to UV rays, so they avoid the sun like the plague (pun intended) and wait until night to prowl the streets.

Neville has a lab in his basement that he uses to experiment on various animals, and if he’s lucky, a captured mutant. Through a few flashbacks, we see how Neville lost his family and what society looked like immediately before it shattered. Every day at noon he heads to a dock and waits for other survivors that never arrive.

Seeing as Neville spends the majority of the film alone, it’s up to Smith to carry the film, and it shouldn’t surprise moviegoers that he’s more than up to the task. The gee-whiz attitude typical of his action heroes is mostly gone, replaced by a grim determination to survive and an isolated persona that often teeters on the edge of madness. It’s a performance at least as strong as his Oscar-nominated one in “The Pursuit of Happyness,” and probably a more difficult one to pull off. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that the only sure-thing movie star left alive plays the world’s last man.

For a big budget holiday film, “I Am Legend” is bleak and creepy, not shying away from gruesome encounters with unfortunate results, nor the hopelessness that pervades Neville’s day-to-day struggle. A scene that sees Neville searching a pitch-black, mutant infested warehouse is particularly unnerving, a feat considering that it’s a certainty that the last man on earth and star won’t be killed 40 minutes in.

Director Francis Lawrence, along with screenwriters Akiva Goldsman and Mark Protosevich, introduce a number of keen details, from the calm news report at the opening to the way the decaying billboards advertise a nonexistent film featuring Batman and Superman. The action sequences, while effects-heavy, are also more subdued than expected, analogous to the strong character work.

Though adapted from Richard Matheson’s 1954 vampire novel, many will undoubtedly think of “28 Days Later,” a similar horror film that sees a Britain annihilated by a contagious disease that transforms its victims psychotic. “I Am Legend” follows a similar (albeit vastly more expensive) formula, even replicating the way “28 Days Later” closed with a fair but somewhat contrived third act.

It finishes on a slightly awkward note, leaving behind a few too many questions. Are we really to believe that the mutants couldn’t find Neville’s house for three years, or that he wouldn’t take more care when dealing with them than he does? Assuming he develops a cure, does Neville expect the mutants to set up appointments to get the shots? Minor quibbles, I suppose, considering that “I Am Legend” will allow most viewers to leave saying “I am satisfied.”

3.5 out of 5