Whispers of a Cinematic Echo

705 - Haywire review

2012-01-29T11:24:00.002-06:00

“Haywire” is to Steven Soderbergh what “Kill Bill” is to Quentin Tarantino. Both are examples of auteurs taking a swing at genre films, though the similarities end there. Whereas Tarantino is the cinephile, the fanboy’s fanboy whose love and adulation for these types of film grace every frame, Soderbergh is the artist, the prolific creator who enjoys a good experiment.

Thusly, “Haywire” comes out somewhat on the arty end for an action film, albeit one played straight and with few moments of self-awareness. Pedigree aside, it seems crafted to deliberately occupy late-night timeslots on cable, the kind of well-crafted, efficient thriller that’s just good enough to recommend and not purge from one’s memory. Its ambitions are squarely, accurately, unabashedly aimed somewhere towards the middle.

Gina Carano plays the hero, a privately contracted secret agent with the suitably stern moniker Mallory Kane. Carano isn’t an actress by trade, but a professional mixed martial arts fighter, apparently retired at the ripe old age of 29. Soderbergh has extensive experience placing non-actors in leading roles (see “Bubble” or “The Girlfriend Experience), and here he again proves to have an apt eye for finding talent where none was readily apparent.

Carano’s suitably beautiful and wholly convincing as hand-to-hand combatant capable enough to dispatch men with a great deal of weight on her. After seeing waifish actresses like Zoe Saldana pretend to pulverize 200 lbs men, Carano’s a borderline revelation. That she seems uncomfortable in the quieter moments doesn’t do much to diminish the charisma that Soderbergh brings out during the trailer-worthy parts.

The plot’s what I like to call a Ten Dollar Plot, which is to say that I’ll hand a ten dollar bill to any viewer who can coherently explain the details to me immediately after a viewing. Somehow I was able to ascertain that it involves Kane’s betrayal by her contractor employer, the U.S. government, and possibly the Spanish government, though it’s hard to say.

Here what matters is the action, suitably brutal and filmed in long takes so that we can enjoy the choreography, and the mood, a sort of amalgam of the director’s indie sensibilities and genre convention. Soderbergh is sparing with the music and light with his actors, lending an easygoing feel not common to straight action films that see the deaths of the lion’s share of the characters.

Carano might be virtually unknown outside of MMA fandom, but not the rest of the cast: Antonio Banderas, Michael Douglas, Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Bill Paxton, and Channing Tatum, all of whom play spies, tough guys, or bureaucrats. Their stardom not only lends gravitas to the picture and supporting roles which otherwise prove generally unremarkable, but it’s always nice to see a familiar face when you’re watching an action heroine smash it in.

3.5 out of 5

704 - War Horse review

2012-01-18T13:31:00.002-06:00

Steven Spielberg has said that before he directs a movie, he watches four films: Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai,” Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life,” David Lean’s “Lawrence of Arabia,” and John Ford’s “The Searchers.” Perhaps in none of his films has this been more obvious than in “War Horse,” an epic war drama that’s both remarkably personable and expansive.

“War Horse” is easily one of the best films of 2011, a majestic work that many of the old masters would have been proud to call their own. Nothing else from 2011 that I’ve seen so stirred my emotions, or made me so yearn for an era of Hollywood long past, where grand films told widely appealing tales that left only those with hearts of stone unmoved.

The story begins in England with the birth of Joey, a thoroughbred, soon to be purchased by Ted (Peter Mullan), a drunken farmer that should be buying a plow horse for his farm. His wife Rose (Emily Watson) is aghast at the waste, but his son Albert (Jeremy Irvine) instantly adores the creature. Albert and Joey bond, but soon World War I begins, and Ted sells the horse to the army to be used as an instrument of war. Albert swears that he will be reunited with Joey one day, a vow that seems hard to keep.

After Joey’s shipped over to Europe, he drifts from owner to owner, the narrative introducing us to a number of personalities throughout the war, both military and civilian, English, French, and German. Audiences have now become accustomed to films depicting the harshness of war, in great part thanks to Spielberg’s own “Schindler’s List” and “Saving Private Ryan,” but here we’re forced to consider the toll of destruction as wrought upon a noble beast. War in, all its hellishness, seems to engender qualities of heroism and cruelty in large doses, with fear being the only commonality.

With this story Spielberg has found some of his best scenes. Some are idyllic, such as Albert racing an automobile in the countryside, or a French girl attempting to train him to leap. Others are terrifying, such as moments that see horses thrust into the middle of the war, thrown into terror by violence they can’t understand. Perhaps best is a mutual effort between an English and a German soldier to free Joey from a tangle of barbed wire, a strikingly humane moment in the bloodletting of war. The imagery is lush, exciting, breathtaking, startling, and always beautiful, whether it be a ride through a scenic countryside or a muddy, corpse strewn deathtrap between trenches.

The film’s detractors have sneered at Spielberg’s empathetic filmmaking, deriding its heartfelt story as obvious. Leave it to bad critics to label films they don’t like as “manipulative,” as if there was a film in the market that didn’t actively try to stir certain emotional responses with every scene. It’s telling that the lion’s share of this film’s detractors are those who fancy shallow, pretentious analysis, scoffing at classic filmmaking while paying lip service to the efforts of great storytellers.

The fact is, few films of any sort from any era are this good. Spielberg paints with a broad brush emotionally, crafting a picture replete with stark feelings of sadness, terror, and ultimately, joy. Little of “War Horse” couldn’t have been made 60 years ago, and through Spielberg’s impeccable grasp of storytelling and cinematic history, that pays the highest compliment.

5 out of 5

703 - The Iron Lady review

2012-01-13T20:47:00.002-06:00

I'm happy to report that my review of "The Iron Lady" appears in my absolute favorite D.C. newspaper, the Washington Times. Check it out here.

702

2012-01-11T10:09:00.002-06:00

The Master List has been updated again with some 30 new scores.

Here are some links to updated spreadsheets:

One in Excel format.

And another in Open Office, the program I used to create the spreadsheet.

701 - Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol review

2011-12-29T10:00:00.005-06:00

There was the kind of moment in “Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol” a critic almost never sees. Invincible superspy Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) finds himself ascending the world’s tallest building in Dubai, only he’s on the outside, and doing so with the aid of an unreliable pair of gloves that give him a Spider-Man-esque purchase on the glass. If there’s ever a time one needs reliable equipment, it’s climbing a building over 120 stories tall. When the gloves fail, he falls, and I found myself in that rarest spot: panicked for a character that I know can’t, for any reason, die.

That speaks much not just to the construction of that amazing sequence, but to the film as a whole. Each “Mission: Impossible” installment has had its own distinct vibe courtesy of different name directors, though this entry, the first live action feature by Brad Bird (“The Incredibles,” “Ratatoullie”), seems uniquely inspired. The action set pieces, including a Russian prison breakout and a fight in a high-tech parking garage, are realized with the creativity and energy necessary to make this not only one of, if not the best of the series, but also the quality to return Tom Cruise’s to where it once was, as mandatory event viewing.

Cruise, whose career has lost much of its luster following disastrous publicity and years of under-performance at the box office, clearly went into “Ghost Protocol” with the intent that this would put him back on top, and if grosses and critical consensus are any indication, it worked. I’ve contended for years that Cruise’s status as an iconic megastar have belied his actual effectiveness as an actor; how many other stars have an intensity that, when suffused with wonderful characters such as those he portrayed in “Magnolia” and “Collateral,” can make something mesmerizing?

Here, Cruise actually hung from the Burj Khalifa, albeit securely fastened with a litany of cables. Nonetheless, he was out there, and Robert Elwit’s photography makes certain the audience appreciates the severity of the distance. In “Mission: Impossible II,” Cruise famously allowed a knife to be thrust within a quarter of an inch of his eye. Actually, he insisted. Some actors are hailed as brave for performances where they allow themselves to be photographed without makeup, but Cruise has actually risked life and limb, just like his characters.

The story involves Hunt and his team pursuing an evil Swede (Michael Nyqvist) bent on triggering a nuclear war, ostensibly to speed up the evolution of the human race. His team consists of the specific types that populate most cinematic spy groups: a beautiful woman (Paula Patton), a witty computer geek (Simon Pegg), and a guy played by an actor who would be the leader in a much cheaper movie (Jeremy Renner).

My question about the villain: what about the areas of the world unlikely to be directly involved in this exchange? If the Swede is an environmentalist, is the destruction wreaked by thousands of nuclear warheads worth the trade?

These films aren’t renowned for their story, and in fairness, this one’s isn’t particularly bad, though it’s not especially good, either. Especially problematic is the epilogue, which I’ve been offering a cash reward to anyone who can adequately explain its logic to me. No winners, so far.

But never mind. Blockbuster action films with great stories are sadly rare (think “Inception”), but these pictures triumph financially because of the wonder they provide, the escapism. Right now, this is the movie to see on the big screen. Just beware if you have a fear of heights.

4 out of 5

700 - Fear and Desire review

2011-12-24T11:30:00.003-06:00

“Fear and Desire” is Stanley Kubrick’s famously unseen first film, a work the auteur despised so much that he went all out in trying to ensure that cinephiles couldn’t see his freshman effort. Now, after an airing on TCM, I see why. It’s bad enough that even Robert Osbourne was just barely able to avoid describing it in pejorative terms. Present in here is virtually none of the craftsmanship or thematic sophistication that distinguished everything he made from his third film up.

Pic centers around four soldiers trapped behind enemy lines during a fictional war, ostensibly to comment on the universality of the war experience, one I suspect more aimed at budgetary constraints. When they stumble upon the chance to assassinate an enemy general (in a foolish plot that seems to make a point of divorcing itself from plausibility), they discover that, *gasp*, the general and his aide looks like a couple of them! This sort of faux-insightfullness couldn’t be farther from the grim absurdity of his other war masterpieces, “Paths of Glory” and “Dr. Strangelove,” both of which were made soon enough after this that one could be forgiven for not believing they were by the same director. Its seriousness of intent separates it from other B pictures of the time that exist for sensationalistic thrills, but here Kubrick is an artist who knows what he wants to say, but lacks the skill and means to do so.

The only unmistakably Kubrickian element of the film I caught during my single viewing was what my film professor Scott Cawelti referred to as his “bottomless pessimism,” a near-complete absence of faith in the decency of man. Here, even a seemingly heroic soldier is in actuality making a desperate grab for purpose, and a captured civilian girl meets the grisly sort of fate not common even in today’s films. But these horrific moments are diluted by clumsy direction and hammy, dialed to eleven performances. Should this ever see a proper video release, I’d have to endorse it for comparison’s sake; screen this, then “The Killing” or “Paths of Glory,” and discuss what difference a couple years can make.

2 out of 5

699 - The Sitter review

2011-12-15T15:54:00.004-06:00

And the devolution of David Gordon Green continues. You might not know Green from the more esoteric films at the start of his career. They were pictures like “George Washington” and “All the Real Girls,” works that announced him as a director to watch. They were understated and deliberate, demonstrating tenderness with a quiet melancholy.

Then came “Pineapple Express,” a stoner comedy with a surprising amount of humor and heart. Then came “Your Highness,” an emphatically stupid medieval stoner comedy for stoners, by stoners, written and produced while enjoying their illicit product.

Now Green’s arrived at “The Sitter,” a wretched, miserable piece of trash that would be embarrassing for the least-talented kid in a high school AV club, much less a name director once critically acclaimed.

It’s essentially a dirtier version of “Adventures in Babysitting,” a 1987 pic revered by more than a few people my age. That was actually a kids’ movie, with a hint of vulgarity designed to assure children into thinking they were watching something edgy. Conversely, “The Sitter” proves the folly of a habit of bad writers: when one has nothing interesting or funny to say, take another story and make it dirtier.

A lot dirtier, in this case. Most scenes defy polite or tactful description by family newspaper standards. The nastiness might not be offensive on its own. People worshipped “The Hangover” because of (or in spite of) its vulgarity and raunchiness, those guys were all adults. Here, scene after scene involves children exposed to sex, drugs, danger, violence, not to mention saying a lot of swear words. When shooting a film, actors usually give many, many takes of any given line. So when an eight-year-old girl says something aggressively ugly, one must wonder, how many times did she have to repeat that line on set?

I leave the having and raising children thing to others, though I worry nonetheless. How many parents will spot “The Sitter” on video shelves or at an automated kiosk and assume the film to be kid friendly despite its R rating? If you’re a parent considering watching this with your kid, skip it and go for something more wholesome, like “Blue Velvet.”

Jonah Hill plays the titular babysitter, a ne’er-do-well imbecile that packs up his three charges in order to score some drugs for pseudo-girlfriend. What did she promise him? Can’t say, family paper. It’s to Hill’s credit that his character, who drags these awful children through a witless freakshow of dopeheads, lowlifes, and murderers, ends up seeming just stupid than what he would actually be, which is sociopathic and evil. Scenes designed to demonstrate the character’s humanity are just perfunctory balderdash, any attempt at sensitivity instantly ruined by the picture’s inherent cruelty.

The fine character actor Sam Rockwell shows up as a demented drug dealer in pursuit of Hill’s character, giving a performance that he doubtlessly will leave off his resume for years to come.

Even at 81 minutes, which really means 75 unless you’re one of those hopeless cinephiles who sits through the credits, this runs incredibly long. I’d say about 75 minutes long or so.

1 out of 5

698 - Larry Crowne review

2011-12-01T12:13:00.002-06:00

The great hit of 1994 that never was, the Tom Hanks starring and directed “Larry Crowne” holds a mirror up to American society and boldly declares that everything’s going to be fine, as long as you’re unfailingly simple and polite.

That’s the chief character arc of the titular protagonist, Larry Crowne (name repeated in full several dozen times), a middle-aged milquetoast who finds himself unexpectedly discharged from his duties at a big box store. The reason: since Larry Crowne didn’t go to college, he can’t advance into the corporate structure, and this violates policy. With this you’re told early on that writers Hanks and Nia Vardalos aren’t taking this whole making a movie thing too seriously.

But for a while, Hanks’ laid back performance, light directorial touch, and sunny outlook grant “Larry Crowne” an easy flow that makes Larry Crowne, and that’s Crowne with an ‘e,’ a sympathetic everyman embodying the economic downturn. Larry Crowne’s at that age where it’s too late to truly start over but too early to call it quits, and the crass indifference his plight meets in his supposed peers will ring true to those who have had to suffer the laughs of their moral inferiors. Even Larry Crowne's initial life step, trading in a gas-guzzling SUV for a scooter (the primary image of the ad campaign), possesses a certain charm in its tacit proclamation of slimming rejuvenation.

“Larry Crowne,” both character and film, nosedives when Larry Crowne attends community college, where he’s immediately surrounded by a litany of phony, irritating supporting characters, not the least of which is Julia Roberts’ sulky, disenchanted speech instructor. Her husband, played by the great Bryan Cranston, whose performance on “Breaking Bad” just might be the most marvelous thing I’ve ever seen an actor do, is a porn enthusiast, something the script treats as if Hanks and Vardalos had believe such a thing to be the height of contemporary aberrance.

Larry Crowne befriends an insufferable twerp (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) who promptly rechristens him ‘Lance Corona’ in a way that suggests Hanalos finds this endearing rather than obnoxious and insulting. She also throws out his clothes and dresses him up as if he were 20 years younger, which anyone with a brain can tell you doesn't make a 55-year-old man look 35, it makes him look stupid. Ever notice how free spirits are incredibly bossy?

By the end, Larry Crowne, or Lance Corona, if you prefer, learns to master Econ 101 and Speech, winning his professor with his charms and basically proving that redemptive power of community college. Who knew that starting over would be this easy, or this irritating?

2 out of 5

697

2011-11-21T20:29:00.002-06:00

I've updated the Master List spreadsheet, which has a rating for every film I've seen for the past seven years or so. If one doesn't feel like downloading a spreadsheet, one can also check out the online version.

Here's an Excel version.

And here's a version in Open Office format.

696 - J. Edgar review

2011-11-19T12:39:00.002-06:00

J. Edgar Hoover is a singular figure of American history, an enigmatic, vicious and effective lawman who lorded over the FBI and its predecessor for over 50 years. He had a part to play in seemingly every major American event during this time period, and was so influential that presidents were afraid to fire him. Despite this, his name today mostly conjures images of cross-dressing.

It’s with these things in mind that Clint Eastwood approaches Hoover’s life in “J. Edgar,” a biopic that will be revelatory for those not in the know and an effective but uneasy mix of facts and speculation to everyone else.

Leonard DiCaprio plays Hoover, proof that Hollywood will never discriminate against the extraordinarily handsome when it comes to portraying real-life figures. The film’s chronology plays out portions of Hoover’s life congruently, with his rise to power and famous cases occupying one timeline, the last months of his life (still heading the FBI) on the other.

As history, “J. Edgar” can be flawed at best, as it heavily explores Hoover’s personal life, the details of which largely belong to the dead. Hoover’s relationship with Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer), his second in command apparently only friend, receives heavy emphasis here. Most speculate the two were lovers, and certainly a glance at the evidence makes that conclusion highly likely to be true, though this film plays it somewhere in-between.

The film, establishes a number of facts about Hoover that explain why he was so important. An egomaniac and eager public figure, he became a fixture in public announcement films and agency produced propaganda. He happily presented himself as the face of the FBI, and readily allowed others to believe he more or less was the FBI all by himself, when in fact other men physically did all the dangerous work. And it was an open secret to those in power that Hoover aggressively wiretapped and monitored anyone he found a threat, from politicians to Martin Luther King, Jr. The findings all went into his personal file cabinet, the contents of which intrigued and frightened anyone worth keeping a file on.

The Hoover of Eastwood and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (“Milk”) struggles mournfully (and very privately) with his sexuality, fueled by a doting yet severe mother (Judi Dench). In a wonderfully written and acted scene, Hoover listens as she recounts the sort of torment that open homosexuals could expect at the time, illuminating why he keeps a perpetually respectful distance from Tolson, keeping his lascivious desires checked even when shielded from the eyes of the world. Even though cloaked in the sexual morality of the day, Hoover readily used the homosexuality of others, real or invented, against them.

Hoover himself would certainly despise this film, even though his treatment falls short of the harshness one would expect. Other than an odd (though thematically appropriate) scene where Hoover does don a dress, his behavior never crosses into outrageousness, and certainly stays far away from many of the worst things said about him. One gets the distinct impression Eastwood sympathizes with a myriad of Hoover’s decisions, ranging from lobbying for a technologically sophisticated FBI to his virulently anti-communist investigations. This Hoover’s not a monster, but a mournfully repressed, self-aggrandizing bureaucrat whose good works coexist uncomfortably with autocratic abuses of his organization.

At the end, we’ve come to know this Hoover, though perhaps not entirely in the best possible way. His personal story as told here imbues him with pathos and respect rarely afforded individuals of his controversial nature. That said, with work history and storied and important as his, one must ask, does what he did in the privacy of his own home matter much? “J. Edgar” portrays Hoover just effectively enough to tease the possibilities of a film that cared even more about his career than his desires.

3 out of 5

695 - Footloose (2011) review

2011-11-02T10:52:00.003-05:00

“When dancing is outlawed, only outlaws will dance.” That’s not a quote from the advertising for Craig Brewer’s “Footloose” remake, though perhaps it should be. It’s the sort of brain-dead ad-speak chicanery that would work well with undiscerning audiences and those who like to take their dancing very seriously.

Here, as in the original, the action takes place in the Southern town of Bomont, a rural dystopia that has banned “underage dancing” in the wake of a high-fatality car accident. This probably seemed more poignant in 1984, the year of the original, a whole 27 years close to times when puritanical laws might have actually been enforced in one backwater or another.

If it was an awkward fit then, it’s triply so now, though certainly viewers familiar with small-town Southern life will find things to recognize. Socially, the communities can seem repressive and uptight even compared to many in Iowa, much less in even Bluer states, though director Brewer understands the true tone of things. There are bullies who use a perfectly good religion to impose their own personal sensibilities upon others, but there are many people of noble intent and a sense of fairness. Compared to “Straw Dogs,” another recent remake set in the South for the sole purpose of ridiculing Southerners and fetishizing their grisly deaths, this is a remarkable work of anthropology.

But I’m beside myself, because the audience doesn’t go to these films for lessons on American culture. Here, Kenny Wormald takes the role of Ren, an outsider whose arrival in this town sets off a chain reaction that results in an explosion of dancing, or teenage depravity, depending on your perspective. Originally, the role was played by Kevin Bacon, who probably would have been better cast as the town bully.

A glance at Wormald’s credits reveal that he has been credited simply as “Dancer” in several films, so it’s no great surprise that his screen presence largely limits its charms to the dancing sequences. “Dancing with the Stars” pro Julianne Hough plays Ariel, the town tramp (at least that’s how I read it) who catches Ren’s eye and becomes his favorite dance partner. The two spark up a romance that consists largely of hormone-drenched stares, reminding most of us fondly of that time in our lives where we weren’t great looking, adequate dancers, and had bigger problems on our minds than silly, unconstitutional town ordnances.

Dennis Quaid plays the town preacher, a man whose opinion carries so much esteem in Bomont that the town can practically be labeled a theocracy. I agree with the critic and former Roger Ebert sidekick Richard Roeper, who notes that Quaid “always looks like he’s about to say, ‘Ah hell, let’s go smoke a bowl!’”

Confession: I’ve never seen the original film, and perhaps as a result I’ve missed out on context. Then again, I doubt it. Here’s a remake that sees a character proclaim that his town is in fact part of the 21st century, with computers, cell phones, and internet, though I spotted none of those on my viewing. There was an iPod, but even that looked like an older model. Kids today might not be able to conceive of a world where dance is forbidden, but they’ll have an even harder time thinking of what it would be like to go through high school without a cell phone.

2.5 out of 5

694

2011-10-28T15:54:00.004-05:00

Recently, I was able to talk to the majority of the 2012 Republican presidential candidates. Since time was short and I had few policy questions, I asked them all about their favorite movies. Fortunately, I was able to parlay this into something I could get paid for. My new piece in the Washington Times is up. Check it out here.

Michele Bachmann's favorites:

Herman Cain's favorite:

Newt Gingrich's favorite:

Gary Johnson's favorite:

Ron Paul's favorite:

Rick Perry's favorite:

Rick Santorum's favorite:

693 - 50/50 review

2011-10-19T21:54:00.002-05:00

We all die too young, though some arrive at their end too much sooner than others. “50/50” takes the story of a man in his twenties facing such mortality and turns it into a comedy, albeit one with a cloud hanging over. There’s not as much cheap sentimentality here as one might expect, nor are the laughs designed to be uproarious or outrageous. What unfolds feels largely real and understated, even when saddled with one film convention that’s a requirement of every studio picture.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Adam, the man with the titular odds. A health nut and teetotaler, he’s surprised when at 27 years of age he’s diagnosed with spinal cancer and given a coin toss’ chance to live beyond the immediate future. He doesn’t delve into full-bore panic or sadness, though he can be forgiven for the general moodiness that ensues.

Seth Rogen plays Kyle, Adam’s best friend, and to great effect; the screenplay was written by his friend Will Reiser, who himself was stricken with cancer. The film’s based on their own experiences with the disease, and thus the moments between Adam and Kyle are unfailingly the film’s best.

Besides his best friend, Adam finds varying degrees of support. Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard), his girlfriend, puts on a cheerful front at first, but quickly proves that she’s not up to the task of caring for a dying man. Howard, daughter of Ron, is a good actress whose high profile jobs tend to be in abysmal franchise fare such as “Spider-Man 3” and “Terminator: Salvation,” does well at humanizing Rachael, making her somewhat sympathetic despite the character’s inherent unlikeability. Angelica Huston shows up as Adam’s mother, a woman already familiar with handling the diseases of others, whose presence presents a challenge to the protagonist: who does one spend the time they have left with?

The TV ads worked hard to push “50/50” as a routine sex comedy with a disease drama in the background, but the humor’s more measured than that. Sure, there are plenty of sex jokes, but they’re remarks and actions that could actually occur.

Anna Kendrick plays Katherine, Adam’s therapist. Kendrick plays the character as ineffectual, overwhelmed and outmatched by the requirements of a difficult job. It’s thus hard to swallow when Adam and her foment a romance, as if a. There wasn’t enough room for an extra character and b. This therapist was willing to risk her career to inappropriately bond with a patient facing the worst kind of stress.

Still, there’s a lot of heart and sincerity in this film. Certainly, there are films that present a much more unrelenting and pessimistic view of potentially fatal illness. “50/50” doesn’t spend much time on the physical pain, and its most intense moments of mental anguish likely won’t move many to tears. Perhaps in some ways it’s too optimistic. But it explores the potential ending of a life with appropriate seriousness and humor, whereas so many films use disease for crass manipulation, or trivialize it altogether. Here, we have something funny, but not too funny, and sad, but not enough to ruin our day, and uplifting, but not feel-good.

3.5 out of 5

692 - Midnight in Paris review

2011-10-11T13:32:00.007-05:00

Leave it to audiences to reward this mediocre late Woody Allen film with generous box office receipts, enough that it's thoughtlessly celebrated as his highest grossing film. Of course that's balderdash spouted by PR hacks and media buffoons unaware of the concept of inflation, but this unfortunately means cinephiles can expect "Midnight in Paris" to make consistent appearances in list of his notable filmography.

Allen's stock shots of Paris didn't offend my sensibilities as it did some critics (they are perfectly pleasant if cliched establishing shots), though two deficiencies on Woody's part were glaring obvious. One isn't so much his pandering cheap shots at conservatives as it is his Republican characters, square businessmen that don't even rise to the level of caricature. Certainly, it's possible that one such as Allen could spend his entire life in place like New York City, Los Angeles, London, and Paris without ever having to suffer an entire conversation with a right-of-center individual, though when one fancies themselves a worldly intellectual, such a gap in life experience presents a problem when bringing such characters to screen. These moments are brief and infrequent, though made even more embarrassing as a result.

The other is the treatment of his surrogate, here played with effective affability by Owen Wilson, a screenwriter who dreams of transitioning into serious literature. There's much talk about how Wilson's character pens shallow but high-grossing studio pictures, with apparent carte blanche to work in Hollywood as he pleases. Allen, of course, has enjoyed something akin to this for decades, though his works are prestigious and always filmable on a modest budget. The consistent dissonance between Allen's view of things and reality should be beneath a filmmaker of his esteem.

Here, Allen takes a look at nostalgia and the tendency to perpetually romanticize the past as artistically and spiritually (in a secular way) superior to the present. He's not inherently wrong, though he commits a major sin by neglecting (or refusing) to acknowledge that not only are some eras better than others, but that artistic success is as much a "right place, right time," affair than it is one of transcendent talent. Eras create great artists and great artists define the eras, though to Allen different periods just appear to be meandering celebrations laden with the staples of high school and college English and art classes (at least before a devotion to "multiculturalism" began to erode their prevalence in the curriculum). It's disappointing to see one of the hardest working filmmakers alive put out something so profoundly lazy.

2 out of 5

691

2011-10-10T09:53:00.004-05:00

"Drive," my favorite film of the year so far, hasn't gone over so well with audiences. Though revered by critics, it received a Cinemascore of C-, an exceptionally poor rating. Some sample Cinemascores of recent films:

The American: D-
Bridesmaids: B+
The Dilemma: B
Fast Five: A
The Help: A+
Mr. Popper's Penguins: A-
Priest: C+
Something Borrowed: B
Sucker Punch: B-
Transformers: Dark of the Moon: A

The prevailing trend is that if a film more or less delivers what its audience expects, and does so well, the score goes up. "The American" might be the best film in that sample list, but with a contemplative tone, deliberate pacing, and ads that hinted more towards a standard Euro-thriller than an existential assassin drama, audiences were displeased.

Similarly, "Drive" has only two car chases, which might as well be zero to an audience accustomed to the "Fast and the Furious" series. An exercise in style and genre, "Drive" is crafted with the cinephile in mind, which in this case meant the average viewer got left out of the loop.

Over in Detroit, a woman's who's either utterly shameless in her pursuit of attention or suffering a severe mental handicap has filed a lawsuit against the film's distributor, citing misleading advertising. Of course, suing because you don't like a film is utterly frivolous, because movies are one of the only products around that are sold without an assurance that you'll like them. Below is one of the trailers for "Drive," which, while emphasizing the action aspects, does give a reasonable idea of what the product is actually like.

690

2011-10-06T12:36:00.002-05:00

A few days ago my review of "Drive," my favorite film of the year so far, went up at Big Hollywood. Check it out.

689

2011-09-30T12:52:00.005-05:00

Here are links to the Master List spreadsheet I made up. Listed are 1711 films along with director, score, and year of release. The most recent film on the list is "Moneyball," and the most common score is 3.

I'm not experienced with setting up file downloads, so my apologies if it doesn't work quite right. I've linked to two different file types, both an Excel file and one for Open Office, which I used to put them together.

Excel/Microsoft Works

Open Office

688

2011-09-21T00:23:00.007-05:00

Last week the Washington Times ran a piece I came up with about the persistent cinematic abuse my home state has received from the film industry. Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times writes a rebuttal, though not much of one. His counter-argument consists entirely of naming a few long dead Mississippi political figures and citing some reality TV shows. Goldstein is inherently offended whenever someone to the right of Karl Marx critiques anything about the culture, which explains why he'd even take the time to write this. He essentially says, as he has before, "What do those inbred retards think we have against them?"

Scan the comments section of the articles, as well as news stories at sites like the Huffington Post and even the IMDB, and you'll find no shortage of semi-literate tirades about the purported dreadfulness of the South. Though someone like Goldstein enjoys wrapping his concealing feelings up in a blanket of moral outrage over ill treatment of minorities (hardly something exclusive to states south of Mason-Dixon), the antipathy in truth just stems from partisan and (to a lesser extent) cultural distaste. The South, in particular the Deep South, ensures that politicians he doesn't like get into office, and that's infinitely more offensive to him and guys like Lurie than mistreatment of blacks.

Finally, I've updated the Master List. Not only are there 120 or so new titles, I've gone over every previous entry, which has resulted in a lot of scores being lowered and a few getting a boost. I also put together a spreadsheet with the list that also contains the directors in addition to title, year, and score, an effort that made me learn to despise accent marks. I'll be posting a link to that soon.

687 - Straw Dogs review

2011-09-20T11:04:00.003-05:00

I've got a review of Rod Lurie's dreadful "Straw Dogs" remake up at Big Hollywood. Check it out.

686 - Our Idiot Brother review

2011-09-11T18:49:00.004-05:00

Ned, the titular character of “Our Idiot Brother,” is indeed a colossal idiot, but of the sort you would like to know. He’s more Forrest Gump than Michael Scott, a dimwitted fellow whose sweet nature robs him of the minimum skepticism required to function in our society. We see this in the first scene, where Ned gives marijuana to a uniformed cop. A massively stupid move, to be sure, but it almost makes sense when Ned explains that he just wanted to help out someone having a bad day.

Ned is played by Paul Rudd, Hollywood’s current go-to guy for nice guy roles. Two of his recent films, “Dinner for Schumcks” and “How Do You Know,” put Rudd in the nice guy role, but did so incompetently, mistaking timidity for kindness. He’s about perfect here, his likeability dialed up to eleven, his actions genuinely scrubbed of malice or cynicism. There’s so much rich humor here to be enjoyed from his interface with a world that doesn’t share his disposition.

Eight months after his drug arrest, Ned walks out of prison early, awarded Most Cooperative Inmate several months running. He returns to the farm he called home to discover his girlfriend has taken another lover, as well as having staked a claim to Willie Nelson, his beloved Labrador. He then turns to his three sisters, none of whom share his sunny disposition or wholesome (minus the drug use) sensibilities. He first crashes with Liz (Emily Mortimer), an uptight woman who forces her cruel documentarian husband (box office superstar Steve Coogan) to give Ned a job. In one of the film’s funniest scenes, the stupidity of Ned’s drug arrest pales in comparison to his willingness to believe anything, no matter how preposterous, after catching the husband in a compromising position with a ballerina.

Next comes Miranda (Elizabeth Banks), a dedicated career-woman who makes an unwise choice when she asks Ned for slight help with an assignment. And at the end there’s Natalie (Zooey Deschanel), a laidback bisexual comedian who initially seems a bit like Ned until we observe habits that render her somewhat less than sympathetic.

Pic functions as a character dramedy, with Ned’s cheery presence gradually ruining his sisters’ flawed lives through his naïve honesty and occasionally self-destructive goodness. It works pretty well until the final 15 minutes, where characters unanimously cease to adhere to the logic of their own behavior for the convenience of wrapping up the plot. Ned cheerfulness drops a notch almost at random, and everyone else suffers a memory wipe in order to rally around the black sheep.

Someone this nice wasn’t cut out for life outside a storybook. So many films feature protagonists that are difficult to sympathize with because they demonstrate such miserable judgment. But Ned’s such a kind person that we can forgive his faults. I wouldn’t want to know the person who doesn’t like Ned.

3 out of 5

685 - One Day review

2011-08-23T12:43:00.005-05:00

There’s basically two kinds of in the movies. One sort ends happily, often with a kiss celebrating the fresh union of the characters. We don’t see the parts where they get old, feud, divorce, die, or any of life’s actual afflictions. The other kind leaves those parts in.

“One Day” falls into the latter category, and makes unusually good use of life’s more depressing moments. This is made more impressive by the fact that the film manages to stay moderate in tone, not delving deep into despair or treading too lightly.

The story told on one day, July 15, as it moves from 1988 to 2011. This device works as more than a gimmick, as it allows the plot to effectively avoid endless details about the characters’ lives, in addition to mandating a swift pace.

Its lovers are Dexter (Jim Sturgess) and Emma (Anne Hathaway), who in 1988 are just graduated from the University of Edinburgh. At first, they’re not lovers, but good friends, though we can predict what trajectory their relationship will take courtesy of a certain law of cinema: two very attractive people of opposite sexes must inevitably get together.

Most scenes represent a different year than all the others, but the script makes good use of these moments, allowing us to peer into their lives enough to get the picture. Dexter and Emma’s separate fortunes vary dramatically before they finally connect and equal one another. Dexter becomes a famous TV host right out the gate, though he’s the sort of grating TV personality whose enthusiasm and youth temporarily masks a shallow personality. He’s a decent man, but away from Emma, he gets worse.

She graduates and moves to London, hoping to be a poet. There, she finds the true calling of most educated writers, which is to be a waiter, then a teacher, once being a waiter becomes too tiresome. But sure enough, persistence at her craft eventually yields dividends, just as Dexter’s career implodes.

Sturgess proves to be the film’s best point, imbuing his initially arrogant character with an affability that makes his eventual travails that much more sad. Hathaway’s less interesting when alone, but she and Sturgess make a good screen pairing, both aptly attractive and with convincing chemistry. David Nicholls, adapting this screenplay from his own novel, knows the language of two people so profoundly correct for one another. Their conversations flow easily, with the undercurrents of emotion that are inevitable after a long relationship. Since we spend decades with these characters, its fortunate that they’re enjoyable to watch.

Perhaps most enjoyably, there’s some wisdom in the way its format shows how life can take us in sad, strange, unexpected directions. How many at 45 can say that they accurately predicted where life would take them at 22?

3 out of 5

684

2011-08-18T21:01:00.007-05:00

My pal Christian Toto wonders which is better: the Coen Brothers' surreal caper "Raising Arizona," or their Chandlereqsue comedy "The Big Lebowski." Christian's all-time favorite is the former, though the latter is undoubtedly the more revered of the two, having generated enough rabid fans to inspire an entire festival in its name.

Count me as a fan of "Raising Arizona," though I'm a genuine devotee of "The Big Lebowski." It's undoubtedly the funniest movie I've ever seen, a structural delight as it deftly threads its stoner would-be detective through a Chandleresque web of bizarre personalities and layered criminality. It's perhaps the only film I can think of that could be described as both fevered and mellow, a wonderful synthesis of tone that exemplifies the Coens' extraordinary talent as both writers and directors.

I've always been baffled by the common description of the film as one that needs repeated viewings to "get," as I loved it upon first viewing in 8th grade. Then again, I had an initially lukewarm reaction to the Coens' brilliant "Burn After Reading," which morphed into adoration once I saw it on video.

683 - Cowboys and Aliens review

2011-08-09T14:48:00.004-05:00

“Cowboys and Aliens” is so high concept that what would normally serve as a pitch to studio executives functions as the title. In it, aliens invade the American West, show little regard for the residents as they kidnap locals for torturous experimentation, and, perhaps even worse, vacuum up all the gold.
Most filmmakers would likely approach this material from a satiric, jokey angle. Director Jon Favreau (helmer of “Iron Man”) actually does the opposite, making a straight-faced amalgam of Western and sci-fi that doesn’t wink at the audience or expect us to laugh. The campiest thing here is the title.

Yet, the serious take on an idea normally reserved for micro-budget TV or home video fare proves to be a wise choice. What would normally be pure kitsch becomes something genuinely entertaining, if not particularly interesting.

Daniel Craig stars as Jake, a gunslinger who awakens in the desert with no memory and a piece of alien machinery attached to his wrist. He dispatches some highwaymen and confiscates a horse, making his way to Absolution, one of those cinematic Western towns populated by a cast of colorful archetypes.

Harrison Ford shows up as Colonel Dolarhyde, a cattleman who runs the town with an iron fist and a steel revolver. Olivia Wilde plays the girl, Ella, both an object of Jake’s affection and the one person around that actually knows what’s going on. And that great character actor Sam Rockwell takes the part of a bitter businessman, that sort of man profoundly uncomfortable with violence whose involvement becomes all the braver for it. Others characters, played by not-quite-name actors like Adam Beach, Clancy Brown, Keith Carradine, Paul Dano, and Walton Goggins further flesh out the world, which feels familiar but not derivative.

The aliens make their presence overt upon kidnapping half the townsfolk, in particular the loved ones of the characters played by more recognizable actors. They’re large, hideous bipedal cave dwellers, a nasty sort of species that has no recognizable culture other than their spaceships and a thirst for gold. They die, alright, but it takes a lot of shooting and stabbing, the kind that makes for a protracted showdown. We’re informed that they consider us to be “insects” too insignificant to even consider defending against. I’ve never seen an ant colony come up with dynamite or constitutional democracy, but when was the last time movie aliens took us humans seriously as a threat to their safety?

Craig’s rugged appearance works as well here as it has anything he’s ever starred in, and he reminds us that he fits this kind of intense, blunt action better than most movie stars from this side of the Atlantic. And Ford, very nearly 70, remains remarkably effective as an actor who can convey the physicality of a man more than competent in his violence.

Favreau keeps things moving at a steady clip, and the special effects are more impressive than usual, with the aliens and their equipment rendered convincingly. His action pushes the PG-13 boundary, but has a cautious respect for the plausible; sure, none of it’s realistic per say, but it never succumbs to cartoonishness the way most mega budget summer movies do. There’s a nagging feel to be had about the subject matter, though, treated seriously in one way, but also presented without much historical or political context. A potentially provocative parallel between the alien invasion and the virtual annihilation of the Native Americans of the West is ignored, even as the white men ally themselves with the Apaches to assault the alien base at the climax.

But I was surprised here, first at the tone, and then at the craftsmanship of story and visuals. These characters might be readily identifiable archetypes, but they’re imbued with weight by a fine cast and a story that treats their actions with meaning. What a pleasant surprise this was, a film that seemed like it could only be a joke but turned out to be one of the best blockbuster experiences of the summer.

3.5 out of 5

682

2011-08-03T11:07:00.002-05:00

I've got another piece in the fabulous Washington Times. Check it out here.

681 - Transformers: Dark of the Moon review

2011-07-17T13:33:00.003-05:00

“Transformers: Dark of the Moon” features an ending sequence where the city of Chicago is annihilated, an event that would be just barely more expensive than the production of the film itself. Michael Bay, the director, reportedly stands to make somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 million for his efforts, which have already been rewarded as it has easily become the highest grossing pic of the year, domestically. Critics collectively scream in terror at Bay’s every success, and truth be told, it’s difficult to argue that any “Transformers” film is any good, unless you’re making your case in a middle-school classroom.

But if nothing else, Bay is an auteur, a director whose stylistic and thematic fingerprints are visible on every frame. There are a couple dozen mega-budget films released each year, but rarely do more than a couple carry a remarkable aesthetic signature. Bay’s films, always violent, kinetic, and tonally acerbic, feel like he directed them. You like it, or you don’t.

That’s a good or a very bad thing, depending on one’s tastes. Consider the subject matter of the “Transformers” series: giant alien toys. They’ve come to earth, and then proceed to tear it to pieces, with a college kid (Shia LeBeouf) somehow managing to be at the center of the action. The U.S. military, never filmed more heroically than here, always show up to take a lot of causalities and kill a couple of the toys. If one finds this even the least bit appealing, then it’s unlikely they’ll be disappointed. A few years ago Bay directed “The Island,” a fairly thoughtful adventure about clones. It became his only flop, and I’m sure taught him an unfortunate lesson: the dumber, the better. You like it, or you don’t.

Despite the toys and the PG-13 rating, it’s crammed with violence, language, and schoolboy sexuality. Bay is the sort of director who will begin with a tracking shot from behind of a woman in her underwear, and then a few minutes later have a giant toy give a heartfelt lecture on his fondness for humanity. It’s a testament to how well it’s made that the tone never reaches self-parody, or becomes so bad it’s funny. Rest assured, if you hate this, you won’t find it humorous. You like it, or you don’t.

The characters are played by a number of recognizable faces that aren’t short on talent by any stretch. John Turturro, Frances McDormand, and even John Malkovich lend support of a kind, playing roles that might be embarrassing if the audience didn’t innately understand that they were receiving generous paychecks. I’m fond of saying that good actors in stupid movies must be in need of a kitchen remodeling, but with what these actors got, I’m sure they’ll just buy new mansions.

There's no such thing as a review-proof movie, but this comes close. That countless people enjoy these films doesn’t make them good, though there’s something indicative about the quality with which it was done judging by the support. Over the course of two and a half plus hours (!), the toys fight, have a final battle where good achieves a major victory, and all comes to a close. I can’t imagine there are more than a handful of directors that could make something this innately terrible into something so technically impressive, exciting, and draining. You like it, or you don’t.

2.5 out of 5

680 - The Dilemma review

2011-07-02T00:06:00.002-05:00

I hadn’t expected Ron Howard’s “The Dilemma” to be so serious, though I can hardly fault the film for a misleading ad campaign. What I can fault the film for is the general unpleasantness, its oppressive, manic yet dreary energy. There’s a moment where Vince Vaughn invades a man’s home and gets in a knockdown, drag-out fight, smashing doors, killing fish, bashing in classic cars, hysterically screaming threats to burn the face off his opponent. What conceivable audience member would enjoy this scene in any movie, much less what’s sold as a benign PG-13 comedy?

The titular dilemma involves Vince Vaughn, who discovers BFF Kevin James’ wife in the middle of an affair. Vaughn agonizes about whether or not to tell his pal, while we agonize about our own dilemma, which is whether or not to finish the movie. Howard, allegedly the same director who picked up a Best Director statue some ten years ago, finds himself wholly unable to tackle the subject matter. He takes a scenario of moral and practical complexity and addresses it with the confused angst of a dim-witted teenager, hurling around limp platitudes about “honesty,” whittling what should be meaningful discussions and revelations into trite sitcom awkwardness. No adult men on earth understand friendship and discuss their feelings the way Vaughn and James do here, in a grating, awkward tone, as if secretly expecting the other to lunge at the other in a lustful fit.

There’s nothing to recommend here except Jennifer Connelly’s visage, though one can look elsewhere for that. As a bonus bit of awfulness, the project Vaughn and James are contracted to work on: making electric engines louder for Dodge. I’m guilty of occasional bad writing, but I could never dream up something that stupid.

Already famous as a flop for Vaughn and Howard, it's perhaps best known as the film that got GLAAD in a conniption over a few lines mocking a car as "gay." You won't find me advocating censorship of gay jokes any time soon, so imagine my shock when I discovered that it actually does sound pretty offensive when Vaughn says it.

0.5 out of 5

679 - Bad Teacher review

2011-07-01T10:31:00.003-05:00

“Bad Teacher” will likely be known largely as an unofficial companion piece to 2003’s “Bad Santa.” It could have been taken as a nasty swipe at the public education system, and at times it sort of is, though it’s too farcical and lacking the satirical arc needed to make a serious statement.

But anyone who has attended high school in the past couple decades should recognize a thing or two. On the first day of the semester, Elizabeth Halsey (Cameron Diaz), the titular educator, pops in “Stand and Deliver,” that nice little 1988 film about a wonderful teacher in an impoverished part of Los Angeles. During high school, I was screened “Stand and Deliver” no less than four times. “I use all sorts of multimedia in my education process,” Elizabeth says, as if films about teachers inherently taught the students something, but when ones about benevolent instructors run out, she switches to movies like “Scream.”

This, in addition to evoking a bit of reality, is pretty funny. To my surprise, “Bad Teacher,” which was largely savaged by critics, is actually pretty funny throughout, though one would be hard-pressed to flatter it as a cohesive story. Diaz proves to have apt comedic timing, and, she really wants you to know this, a nice figure. Her Elizabeth is a whiskey-swilling, dope-smoking, gold-digging tramp, a woman nakedly devoted to ensnaring the wealthiest man she can find. Rarely does a major release feature a protagonist so deliberately unlikeable. The main character of “Bad Santa” often did worse, but he was more pathetic than anything, a desperate wretch of a man. Elizabeth’s just plain mean, and Diaz manages the high-wire act of making her cruelty towards children and well-intentioned adults laugh-worthy.

Elizabeth finds herself teaching to pay the bills after being kicked loose by her fiancé. Public school probably doesn’t provide the best dating scene for women looking to marry rich, but as luck has it, the dim-witted new substitute (Justin Timberlake) comes from major money. He, along with every other faculty member save one, exudes good cheer and enthusiasm for teaching (good luck finding a teacher as bad as Elizabeth or as upbeat as the rest), meaning that most of the humor derives from the interaction of a shamelessly awful human being with those who occupy worlds filled with sunshine.

Where “Bad Teacher” falters is at the direction and editing level. The humorous scenes play more as vignettes than any part of a cohesive story; time jumps forward wildly and characters act without apparent motivation, giving the distinct impression of a film that saw aggressive cuts in the editing room. This consistently distracts, as it’s not until towards the end that we even discover what subject Elizabeth teaches, and gives the whole picture a distinctly disjointed feel. Notably absent is the serious development of any of the students, with only a couple token scenes thrown in revolving around a hapless social outcast.

Consider Elizabeth’s likeability. Contrary to popular belief, a protagonist does not have to be likeable, just involving. Elizabeth qualifies, though in the final ten minutes, her attitude takes a 180 degree turn to the sympathetic, without warning or development. I suspect that editing room contains some scenes that would clear this up, but what’s left is a weak, unearned grasp for audience approval.

Yet, with reservations, I’m able to endorse this, mostly by merit of its performances, with excellent supporting work by Lucy Punch and Jason Segel, among others. Here’s hoping that its apparent box office success results in a video version that supplies us with a story worth following and payoffs worth caring about.

3 out of 5

678 - Super 8 review

2011-06-24T10:14:00.003-05:00

“Super 8” is fan fiction on the macro level, one filmmaker's eight figure love letter to another filmmaker. J.J. Abrams, director of “Star Trek” and “Mission Impossible 3” (but perhaps best known for his contributions to the TV series “Lost”) is clearly a font of fondness for Stephen Spielberg, particularly his pre-90's work. There's a bit of “E.T.” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (aliens), “Jaws” (deadly creatures), and “Always” (father issues). The problem with such an imitation is that it invites a contrast to vastly superior work, never a good prospect when submitting a film for public consumption and critical analysis.

Abrams, who wrote the screenplay, spent a great deal of his childhood filming movies on Super 8mm, a format popular with amateur filmmakers before the digital revolution. It's thus appropriate that Abrams' protagonists are a group of kids in 1980, working diligently on finishing a short film on Super 8mm. These moments are the film's best, Abrams' familiarity with the details of childhood movie-making infusing “Super 8” with an otherwise lacking emotional and practical realism. Those with even minimal experience making their own movies with friends will recognize the guerrilla use of shooting locations, the cheap but heartfelt effects, the desperate attempts at authenticity.

But lines such as “He doesn't understand his son,” laborious with pop psychology, betray the script as inauthentic. Abrams has clearly learned the tone of Spielberg (who's a producer here), but little of the auteur's gift for storytelling, and none of his mastery of the medium's aesthetic qualities. When one watches “Jaws,” one of Spielberg's first and now over 35-years-old, the presence of a great is readily obvious from the camerawork, the pacing, the way story pieces are neatly locked into place. Here, we're expected not to notice when the kids have adopt blasé towards being in the middle of a train crash and witnessing their science teacher stick a gun in their faces.

In a sense, the draw of “Super 8,” a disgusting, expensively animated creature, is but a backdrop to the kids' movie. While shooting at a train station, the group bears witness to a spectacular train derailment, from which the creature, an enormous, rather brilliant being, escapes. Their small Ohio town subsequently suffers an array of unfortunate incidents; disappearing appliances, missing persons, power outages, and an invasion by a military officer searching for the train's valuable cargo. Exactly how a 15 foot tall, one ton alien is able to sneak throughout a town stealing microwaves without being seen is never explained, and though we're expected to shrug off questions like that, how can one enjoy a narrative so clumsily constructed? When did the world collectively decide that good scriptwriting was irrelevant when a feature is released in June and supported by an endless budget?

“Super 8” features some wonderful performances out of its child actors, particularly the lead, Joel Courtney, and Elle Fanning, younger sister of Dakota. They handle moments of emotional stress, youthful fancy, and heartrending discovery convincingly, bringing great pathos to their characters, adding real suspense to the moments where they face danger. But if you see or have seen the film, try imagining the story were the protagonists absent from it. Does that really have much affect on what happens in the world of “Super 8”? No.

2 out of 5

677

2011-06-23T12:19:00.003-05:00

My pal Christian Toto has a piece up on conservative dislike for the wretched "Cedar Rapids." He was kind enough to kick it off with a quote from my Big Hollywood review. My bud and fellow BH contributor Hunter Duesing is also quoted, and wrote his own piece responding to the matter. I'll note that as much as I hated "Cedar Rapids," possibly the morally ugliest thing I'd seen since Woody Allen's "Whatever Works," Miguel Arteta's "Youth in Revolt" was one of my favorite movies last year, certainly one of the funniest of the past decade.

676

2011-06-22T15:51:00.003-05:00

Wisconsin, one of two remaining states not to issue concealed weapons permits in any capacity, will now be issuing permits. I wrote a little about the issue in my own state a few months ago for the Washington Times. One factor that never changes when these laws are passed are politicians warning of gun battles in the streets, with huge shootouts initiated over the most trivial matters. Well, that stuff does happen, but there's no evidence in existence that lenient laws regarding concealed weapons encourage this. A look at the news in any major city with restrictive gun laws reveals this. The one state that still won't issue permits for any reason is Illinois.

675

2011-06-20T08:40:00.003-05:00

I've once again managed to infiltrate the pages of the Washington Times. This time, it's reporting on a controversial ordnance that has made waves in my town. The ordnance, which involves lock boxes posted on the outside of certain commercial and residential properties with keys inside, is nothing unique to the area, but the fuss has garnered national attention. Check it out.

674 - The Hangover Part II review

2011-06-03T08:54:00.003-05:00

“The Wolfpack is Back,” said some of the ads for “The Hangover Part II,” and indeed they are, though it’s the fans that will be the most disappointed. The first installment was a runaway success, the rare comedy not produced by Judd Apatow that saw enormous box office success, driven by great comic performances and a wild plot that often resembled a mystery more than a comedy. But those fans who memorized the dialogue and bought the merchandise aren’t getting so much a new movie as a location transplant, infused with an uneasy insidiousness to the humor. Others might just be appalled.

The plot follows that of its predecessor so closely that those with ticket stubs to the last film should be able to present it at the ticket counter for a discount. Director Todd Phillips (who also wrote the script with two others) demonstrates surprisingly little confidence in his characters, replicating familiar circumstances, only transplanting the action from Las Vegas to Bangkok.

There are laughs to be had, though fewer than in the original and usually still along well-traveled lines. But with the retread comes an upping of the intensity of the jokes, usually to a nauseating extent. Much of the original’s wit is traded for its lamer cousin, shock.

Here’s an example, worded carefully for a family newspaper: Stu (Ed Helms), a day away from getting married, discovers that during his bachelor party blackout, he had relations with a transvestite prostitute. Really, he did, there’s photos to prove it. He’s suitably horrified for about ten seconds, his friends laugh at his expense, and then the adventures resume.

Now, if you were one of Stu’s compatriots, would that really be so funny, especially at the time? Are we as moral creatures comfortable with giggling at unconsensual sex, occurring to an otherwise pleasant and well-meaning individual? Are we comfortable with the idea of being comfortable with it, and that a smash hit film features such a thing so casually? This is the same picture that saw Mel Gibson denied a cameo on moral grounds?

It’s this aggressive cruelty that makes a picture like “The Hangover Part II” so difficult to swallow, whereas otherwise we’re just left with a benign rehashing of a successful formula. What made the first so successful as a film was its characters and the way the story actually lent them a great deal of development. Stu learned how to stand up for himself, Phil (Bradley Cooper) got to appreciate his bland home life, and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) was able to fit in with the guys. The Vegas nightmare proved somewhat therapeutic for the group, but Bangkok provides no similar release. The Wolfpack shows up, they paint the town red, then pay the price for it.

Here, nothing’s learned that they didn’t know before. It would have been nice to see Phillips and Co. go farther with these characters, to examine them under stress but force them to continue to grow rather than purely react. Instead, come out with exactly what we came in, only rubbed raw by the relentless nastiness. And still not a word about the series’ true mystery: why would one who looks like Bradley Cooper hang out with a group of men that don’t?

2 out of 5

673

2011-06-02T17:28:00.002-05:00

“X-Men: First Class” opens tomorrow. The ads are a case study in silly pretentiousness, presenting the juvenile material as something of import akin to the Holocaust. Of course, the oppression of mutants is kind of like the Holocaust to geeks, so it makes a certain sense. So far, the newest installment is getting stellar reviews, a relief after the blood-curdling awfulness of the last prequel.

In 2000, I crammed into a crowded theater on a Friday night to see the first “X-Men.” At that time I was just beginning to realize that most comic books are terrible but was only a few years removed from an X-Men fascination, so those characters were fresh in my heads and my anticipation was high. Though both Batman and Superman had been turned into successful franchises before being run into the ground, there hadn’t yet been a big budget attempt to realize any Marvel properties, especially one that isn’t as culturally prevalent as those DC characters. Writers frequently wondered whether or not the Bryan Singer directed film was bound to be an $80 million flop for Fox, especially after reported difficulties.

Of course, “X-Men” was a huge success, heralding the beginning of a still going run on comic book movies. The first entry has aged terribly, with effects that now appear tame and a lumbering story, but at the time it was slick and rather grand.

The sequel, also helmed by Singer, is an improvement, streamlining the story and giving it a militaristic feel, particularly in a Waco-esque invasion of the X-Men’s base and a climax at a military installation. Building on the first, it got to the root of the amnesic Wolverine’s past and produced a story that was vastly more exciting than the original’s.

The third, a mega-budget spectacle overseen by professional half-asser Brett Ratner, scaled back the runtime of the previous two by a half hour and dumbed down the story to levels of previously unseen stupid. Though met by universal disdain by serious fans, “X-Men: The Last Stand” tends to play well with those who couldn’t care less if the entire mutant populace fell to a plague. Short, loud, and sweet, it basically closed up further plot with a deus ex machina weapon that saw demigods reduced to nothing with the prick of a drug-tipped needle.

Then came “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” a howlingly bad prequel with 90’s era special effects, the most notable of which was a roid-ripped Hugh Jackman hamming it up through one of the worst comic movie stories ever seen (watch Gambit fly Wolverine from New Orleans to Three Mile Island in a prop plane). Director Gavin Hood, whose previous experience was the left-wing anti-torture flop “Rendition,” proved utterly incapable of managing a nine-figure popcorn project, making this not only the worst of the series, but of 2009. Incidentally, I got more hate mail for my one star review of this than anything else (though my one star tirade against “The Darjeeling Limited” comes close), all from half-literate teenage comic fans.

“X-Men: First Class” is directed by Matthew Vaughn, whose adaptation of “Kick-Ass” made waves with critics but barely registered with mainstream audiences. The last film set the bar low enough that this one merely has to rise above dreadful to avoid the bottom ranking, and some of the money shots in the ads, such as an entanglement between Magneto (Michael Fassbender) a Soviet armada, look like they’ve got potential to impress. But allow me just one fanboy nitpick: if Mystique is a teenager in 1962, doesn’t that mean she’s in her late 50’s by the time the first films roll around? For reference, she was originally played by Rebecca Romijn, who was about my age when “X-Men” was filmed.

672

2011-06-01T19:34:00.003-05:00

My pal Christian Toto has a list of some of the web's conservative film critics, and wouldn't you know it, he found room for me. I can add to that list Danny Baldwin, a great critic and writer, as well as a staunch conservative. And I'd be remiss if I were to forget Victor Morton, the brilliant proprietor of the aptly titled blog Rightwing Filmgeek.

671 - Red Rock West review

2011-05-26T16:56:00.004-05:00

John Dahl’s “Red Rock West” is a sort of milder cousin to the Coen Bros’ “Blood Simple,” lacking the latter’s intensity but featuring a strong protagonist and creative, energetic plotting. Nic Cage, long before he went bankrupt from buying islands and fossils, is superlative as Michael, a drifter caught up in a murder plot after being mistaken as “Lyle from Dallas” by a murderous husband (J.T. Walsh) seeking an end to his wife(Lara Flynn Boyle). Michael, an honest man and survivor of the 1983 Beirut bombing, proves an unusually compelling and sympathetic protagonist, one that could easily head a few films like this had it been a greater financial success. Things take a customarily bad turn when the real Lyle shows up, and wouldn’t you know it, he’s a cad played by the great Dennis Hopper. Hopper largely keeps the psycho in check, realizing Lyle as a bastard professional that discovers potential in an easy gig gone sour. Dahl and brother Rick’s screenplay never stops to take a rest, always unfurling another insidious twist without blowing the fuse on believability. After a strange path from cable to video to art-house theaters, this gem can be found on Netflix’s streaming service as of this writing.

4 out of 5

670 - Bridesmaids review

2011-05-22T14:20:00.002-05:00

“Bridesmaids” almost does it. The newest comedy produced by Judd Apatow, the creative force famously behind sick-but-sweet sex comedies such as “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up,” “Bridesmaids” is entirely about women, that lovely gender many comedies pigeonhole as insufferable wenches, carnal objects, or neglect entirely. Here, they’re front and center, the engine of a deliriously vulgar kind of chick flick, one that succeeds at the laughs even as it ultimately falls short as film about people.

The last major example of a woman-driven gross out comedy might have been 2002’s “The Sweetest Thing,” which saw then-freshly minted A-lister Cameron Diaz pursue love via road trip. Others might think of “Sex and the City,” which relentlessly tried to pervert the romantic and sexual attitudes of an entire generation of women. Where “Bridesmaids,” flawed as it is, does treat the friendship of women seriously, “Sex and the City” largely realized it as bourgeois fantasy, something wholly obsessive about material rewards yet not existent outside of a fawning audience’s imagination.

In “Bridesmaids,” or at least the first half, we can recognize these ladies from life, at least until the plot demands action and they become more functions of the plot than people. Kristen Wiig stars as Annie, the down-on-her-luck heroine. She’s broke, living with two repulsive roommates, and her love life consists of dalliances with a wealthy and distinctly uninterested playboy (Jon Hamm, in a blisteringly funny cameo). Her life’s descent speeds up when Lillian (Maya Rudolph) assigns her the maid of honor spot at her upcoming wedding. Also in the titular crew are Helen (Rose Byrne), a wealthy woman of impeccably regal looks who does little to hide her resentment of playing second fiddle to a mere mortal, and Megan (Melissa McCarthy), the pic’s funniest character, a crass ball of blunt force with a compassionate edge. Wendi McLendon-Covey and Ellie Kemper round out the group as the bridesmaids with the least amount of screen time, but do well with what they are given.

Wiig, the de facto star of today’s “Saturday Night Live,” proves a game lead. Her impeccable timing and humble use of ample wit often function as a cure for the more famous Tina Fey’s snarkiness and self-aggrandizing demand that the audience adore her. A better script than this one, which was co-authored by her, would serve to utilize her obvious gifts as an actress, as opposed to just marching her along a plot littered with standard obstacles for completion.

Comedy convention today mostly seems to mine humor from unexpected vulgarity and increasingly awkward spectacles, with less emphasis on clever wordplay and satire. Wiig and Annie Mumolo’s script follows the trend, but it’s courtesy of talented performers that lame jokes force-feeding us awkward lines about sex work at all, and miraculously, they often do.

At once cluttered and meandering, we’re expected to wholly digest Wiig as a sympathetic, modern woman suffering from an unlucky streak. Yet we’re then to absolve her of any responsibility when she selfishly ruins every pre-wedding ritual in the interest of her insecurity and self-pity. The filmmakers fail to turn a series of Annie’s outrageous temper tantrums into the redemptive moments of empowerment they’re clearly intended to be, as evidenced by a final 20 minutes that see every character rally around her, as if her reign as maid of honor was anything other than a disaster.

Largely ignoring romance, nearly skipping the wedding altogether, save a lurching subplot involving an Irish Wisconsin State Trooper (does that makes any sense?), “Bridesmaids” works on the strength of its cast, faltering as it winds down from a comedy about meaningful adult friendships to boilerplate rom-com. Too bad, because it came so close.

2.5 out of 5

669

2011-05-15T10:32:00.002-05:00

I've got a review of "Thor," an enjoyable Marvel romp, up at the indispensable Big Hollywood. Check it out.

668 - Fast Five review

2011-05-05T13:16:00.003-05:00

I surrender. Five installments into this series, and I no longer have the will to express contempt for the brainless plots or scorn the preposterous developments. My review of “Fast & Furious” begrudgingly admitted excellent craft but derided the machinelike commercialism; now, I’m confessing to digging it. There’s skill here too impressive to be dismissed, a muscular energy that bursts off the screen.

Vin Diesel and Paul Walker return, heading up a team of expert crooks out for a $100 million score in Brazil. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson joins the series as a seriously ripped lawman who’s serious about catching the thieves. How serious? Seriously. When he and his team arrive in Brazil, sporting an armored vehicle and a few dozen machine guns, he tells the Rio police captain, “Stay the fuck out of my way,” an inspired moment of diplomacy as foreign law officers arrive in the country so that they can arrest and kill a few dozen of its residents.

His character’s a real tough guy, a classic anti-villain (an antagonist on the side of the righteous), at least until he and Diesel bond over fisticuffs and shootouts. Cops in the “Fast” universe are happy to put their integrity on hold when they meet a likeable criminal. Johnson seems to be a good sport about films which don’t feature him in the lead, and here he made a wise choice, since he’ll undoubtedly be in any sequels.

Director Justin Lin, who helmed the previous two “Fast” installments, has unveiled enormous potential as a maker of fine blockbusters. Unlike Michael Bay, he demonstrates a desire to keep the action fast without blowing out the engine. His action scenes, covering everything from preposterously elaborate car heists to gunfights, are fantastically choreographed and shot with a clarity that rises above workmanlike competence into exciting artistry. Some critics, apparently those with science degrees, like to admonish the film’s casual approach towards physics, even though the true fiction comes in when Diesel bests Johnson mano y mano. These action scenes are so good that one might almost fail to notice that certainly some hundred or so Brazilian police perish courtesy of the heroes’ plot.

The characters have lines, to be sure, and they’re delivered appropriately, but the real dialogue here occurs through facial expressions. Sound’s a necessity in a film so replete with revving engines, crashes, gunfire, and explosions, but when the words, well, are more a formality. Here themes are expressed through actions, smiles, frowns, and grimaces. Only an intellectual uses his or her words to express emotion, and these real men aren’t wasting time writing letters and reading books. When Diesel and Walker exchange a nod (“I love you, bro.”), Walker and Jordana Brewester look into each other’s eyes (“I love you, baby.”), or the crime lord antagonist looks at his cash pile (“I love you, money.”), a mute button would nary cause a disruption.

This might sound like a complaint. But I’m getting more comfortable with the idea of big, loud, and dumb movies that exist just to brighten people’s days and make fortunes for its backers. And there’s definitely something very smart about a film like that which turns out this good.

3.5 out of 5

667

2011-05-02T15:48:00.002-05:00

At long last, Osama bin Laden has been killed. It’s enormously satisfying to see that he died not by kidney failure or some Pakistani flunky, but from the rifle of a Navy SEAL. I didn’t care at all for President Obama’s rambling announcement speech, in which he eagerly began the process of taking near total credit, stopping just short of claiming he fired the fatal shots. But this is certainly welcome news for a nation worn down by two (three) wars, a recession, inflation, soaring energy costs, and an increasingly bitter partisan divide. President Bush and his people do deserve an enormous share of the credit for starting the effort and for instituting policies that lead to it, though his inability to close the deal was certainly one of his administration’s more devastating failures, one that’s now a great Obama success. All Americans owe a debt of gratitude to countless individuals, in both administrations, the military, and the intelligence community, for bringing one of the worst chapters in American history to a close.

666

2011-04-27T16:29:00.003-05:00

According to Deadline, the Governator is looking to reprise his most famous role in a fifth "Terminator" film. This isn't much of a surprise, because franchise films are about the only guaranteed money-maker for big stars these days. Just look at Stallone ("Rocky Balboa" and "Rambo), Bruce Willis ("Live Free or Die Hard,), Nic Cage ("Ghost Rider 2," "National Treasure 2,"), Vin Diesel ("Fast and Furious" and "Fast Five,"), and so on. Of course, Arnold is nearly 64 years old, and even with a fantastic workout routine and computer assistance, he might be too aged to convincingly play the character. Unless, of course, they go in another direction, like having him play the inventor of the machines, or something silly like that. Still, I'll be excited whatever happens. The first two are classics, and I even enjoyed the much panned third installment, finding it a bit wicked in its nihilism. The fourth was a balls up catastrophe, a dreary, excitement-free, IQ-sapping stupid piece of garbage that's the worst use of a beloved franchise I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot. At least a fifth can't likely go any lower.

665

2011-04-25T22:26:00.007-05:00

Just saw this funny video pointing out a movie troupe: that characters often just hang up the phone without the courtesy of verbally signing off.

I've got another one, and it's bugged me for years. Think of virtually any movie with classroom scene. The teacher or professor will be giving a lecture, always in the middle of a subject(say, Matthew Broderick's character in "Election" discussing ethics vs. morals). The bell will then ring, sending the students on their way. Not only has the lecturer poorly timed his lesson, but, amazingly, none of the students seemed antsy about it. In real life, students start packing up their stuff within five minutes of the end, and by the thirty second mark most educators have given up speaking. File it under "heightened reality," I suppose.

664 - Scream 4 review

2011-04-19T11:05:00.003-05:00

You know a film franchise has had a great cultural impact when its minor characters in a new installment have their own Wikipedia pages a day after the opening. The “Scream” series, which in 1996 lit a fuse that resulted in an explosion of studio horror films continuing to the present, had Wikipedia pages explaining the new film’s every twist and turn before nightfall on opening day.

“Scream 4,” or “Scre4m” should you feel so inclined, continues its predecessors’ tradition of horror film literate teens falling victim to a serial murderer wearing a ghost mask. The killer usually calls to taunt his or her victims first, using a voice scrambler that gives the speaker a deliciously evil inflection (actually the sound of voice actor Roger L. Jackson). One of the first signs that times have changed a bit since the original film: when it comes to disguising your voice before committing a murder, there’s an app for that.

When we rejoin Sidney (Neve Campbell), the series’ protagonist tormented by a seemingly never-ending series of murderers upset about her promiscuous mother, she’s returning to a hometown to peddle a self-help book about her experiences. One might think that a survivor of multiple slasher films would be better off writing a straight memoir, but never mind. Courtney Cox and David Arquette return as Gale and Dewey, now married, just in time for the actors that play them to get a divorce.

The town treats the 15-year-old murders of the original film with a degree of perverse reverence, which indicates great tolerance on behalf of the kinfolk and friends of the original film’s victims. The series’ trio soon find themselves treading familiar ground when the killings resume, this time targeted at a new group of incredibly handsome and pretty high school students.

With that, a new batch of characters is introduced, all of whom serve one of two functions: to kill or be killed. These characters continue about their routine, not letting a bloodbath in which they are obvious targets affect their film analysis or wild parties. It never seems to occur to anyone that a baseball bat or a firearm might be a wise investment in the face of certain death, that is, since they obviously aren’t compelled to flee the town. After one encounter in which Sidney kicks the masked murderer in the face, something occurred to me: to solve the crime, which not check out which of the suspects has an unexplained broken nose? Dewey clearly hasn’t spent much of that ten year break between films to brush up on detective work (or marksmanship).

Consider this: the “Scream” films are known for their verbose, film savvy characters that continually analyze the scenarios they find themselves experiencing. With that, we’re served with constant postmodern commentary on film itself, usually making jokes at the expense of the genre. That said, the characters proceed to behave as idiotically as the same characters they’re mocking from other films. With a knife-wielding maniac on the loose, they split up, investigate suspicious noises, run upstairs instead of outside, fail to arm themselves, neglect to call the police, and so forth. These characters clearly know their stuff when it comes to film, so, if not motivated by survival instinct, how about mimicking cinematic survivors? There might be a commentary by the filmmakers in there somewhere, but it’s lost in the blood flow. Now, does acknowledging that you’re a hypocrite then relieve oneself of contempt, or make the sins worse? A clever joke can lose its luster when the teller constantly winks and nudges you with his elbow.

Still, these pictures aren’t really popular because the fans adore the slick meta-commentary, though this entry seems more interested in new technology that actual film trends. There’s a palatable desire amongst fans for the Jump! moments and intestine shredding carnage that these splatterfests deliver, and I’m hard pressed to think of a franchise in my lifetime that provides such with this level of sleekness and prestige. Director Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson could do this sort of thing in their sleep, and fortunately, decide to stay awake for most of it.

This incarnation even has a sort of underhanded bleakness that I didn’t notice before, as a post-viewing body count will reveal that almost all of the characters met a grisly demise. And, in a refreshing change of pace from one particularly gross horror movie trend that this film briefly pokes fun at, no one gets tortured to death by an elaborate machine. Thank goodness for traditional stabbings.

2.5 out of 5

663 - Source Code review

2011-04-11T11:45:00.002-05:00

The weakness of Duncan Jones’ sci-fi thriller “Source Code” doubles as its virtue: here we have a film that wants to be mostly brains with a bit of heart, but turns out to be mostly heart with a bit of brains. There’s nothing wrong with either, but since the film starts on one track and segues into another, we’re left with either two separate films, or half of one, depending on how you look at it.

It’s this tonal imbalance that will ultimately prevent “Source Code” from taking any sort of special place in film canon, which is a shame. Consistently engaging with the usual thriller language (bomb plots, twists, villains, deadly encounters) and perfectly functional as light sci-fi, it’s the performers who imbue the story with an empathetic voice that reaches for human truths.

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Army Captain Colter Stevens, who understandably panics when he awakens from his tour in Afghanistan to find himself trapped in a stranger’s body. The man’s on a train, which after a few minutes, explodes, killing everyone on board. Then Stevens wakes up in a capsule, where he meets Goodwin (Vera Farmiga), apparently his new commanding officer, and Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright), one of those scientists who works tirelessly to save human life while seemingly caring nothing about it.

It turns out that Stevens sits at the core of a nifty piece of technology that allows Stevens to occupy the physical body of a train passenger for the eight minutes preceding the train’s destruction. Stevens receives a mission: find the bomber, presumably a passenger, responsible for the carnage . When the eight minutes runs out, he goes back to the capsule, ready to brief his superiors and give the scenario another shot.

But there’s a sinister catch to the device not initially apparent. Though Stevens gets to relive that eight minutes in different ways, the experience doesn’t constitute time travel so much as another plane of existence. Saving the passengers and stopping the bomb doesn’t bring them back from the dead, as what he sees are just echoes of the memories of the passengers. This gives Stevens’ adventures on the train a decidedly fatalistic tone.

And there’s where the drama gets compelling. Through repetition, he gets to know the passengers, particularly Christina (Michelle Monaghan), a pretty, kind woman who he begins every eight minute period with. There remain lives to be saved by success, but what about the train passengers, who Stevens becomes familiar with?

Beyond the train, Stevens discovers another complication with the technology, one not to be revealed here. Gyllenhaal’s performance carries the story through its developments and hurdles with considerable fortitude. Gyllenhaal has evolved into an actor, who, despite a penchant for bleak roles, carries an aura of moral clarity suited for heroics. Farmiga puts in great work as his officer who places high value on both the mission and a sense of obligation to her subordinate, possibly in that order. And are there any working actresses who can better balance adorable luminosity with a womanly sensibility than Monaghan?

Duncan Jones’ (son of rock star David Bowie) first film was 2009’s “Moon,” about a solitary astronaut occupying a mining outpost on the moon. Both that and “Source Code” share the same DNA; both concern good men who find themselves deviously trapped by technology, trying to discern a way out of a situation that appears hopeless. Both films waver in the final moments in favor of a conclusion more suited to the uplifting than the cerebral. Both are excellent, but just out of reach of film canon.

662

2011-04-02T11:31:00.005-05:00

661

2011-03-29T11:53:00.001-05:00

I have once again infiltrated the pages of the Washington Times, this time with a piece about collective bargaining and Midwest states. Check it out here.

660 - The Lincoln Lawyer review

2011-03-25T12:00:00.001-05:00

“The Lincoln Lawyer” is the sort of film that, were you to recast most of the roles and scale back the production values, could quite comfortably be a movie of the week. Based on the novel by Michael Connelly, pic sports a solid mystery that’s the basis for a more-than-adequate legal thriller, with all the elements that entails. Virtually every night of the week sees a drama about lawyers or police where a charming protagonist navigates a web of legal intrigue to mete out justice to a heinously evil wrongdoer, and here, the story’s nothing that attempts to transcend the tube’s routine offerings.

Of course, the production values are well above TV, with good photography and convincing scenery. But what we’re really being sold here is the cast, one that, even in an era where name movie stars take TV roles, offers much greater wattage than an hour long series. The supporting roles alone include Marisa Tomei, William H. Macy, and Ryan Phillippe, among a litany of other famous faces. Matthew McConaughey plays Mick Haller, the titular Lincoln Lawyer, a marginally sleazy but brilliant attorney who practices law out of the backseat of his Lincoln Continental. Haller makes a point of only defending guilty clients, and has reasoning that’s difficult to argue with: an innocent client means a chance of an undeserving soul being punished unjustly, and that’s harder to live with than letting a guilty party escape the noose.

Years of blistering criticism over McConaughey’s selection of lame romantic comedy starring vehicles has undoubtedly made him unmarketable to some, but here he strives to remind us why he got onto the A-list in the first place. Truly dreadful as some of his movies might have been, his rapport with the camera is undeniable, with a athletic handsomeness and leisurely delivery that’s engaging. Remember back in the late 90’s when some touted him as the next great actor? So much unfulfilled hype, but he has avoided that backslide into straight-to-video or TV that afflicts most stars. He fits especially well into Haller’s shoes, because it would take a guy with genuine likeability to play a guy with such a seedy vocation as moral and kind to those he loves. Even with the supporting cast, “The Lincoln Lawyer” is his show, and it’s an effort he can be much more proud of than nails-on-a-chalkboard material like “Failure to Launch.”

You could probably guess the plot: Haller gets a new client (Phillippe), a rich pretty boy accused of assault that, unfortunately, might actually be innocent. “The Lincoln Lawyer” then unfolds in scenes that all viewers will recognize as obligatory. The setup. Client meetings. Chats with investigators. Courtroom drama. Danger on the home front. Guess whether or not it ends well. You don’t need a reviewer to tell you that, but perhaps it’ll be good to know that it beats a back-to-back viewing of “Law and Order.”

3 out of 5

659

2011-03-18T09:59:00.002-05:00

My review of "Battle: Los Angeles" is up at the splendid Big Hollywood. As of the moment I write this, I'm in the Featured position, which is quite an honor to share the same spot as a number of people I greatly admire and respect, including a few celebrities such as Jon Voight.

658

2011-03-15T13:40:00.003-05:00

I've got a review of the loathsome and unfunny "Cedar Rapids" over at Big Hollywood. Also, I had a little piece on Chloe Moretz for the Muriels, which ended a bit ago. The winner? "The Social Network," which was no surprise, but I was thrilled to see "True Grit" come in second. The Muriel voters certainly are a sharp bunch, which makes me proud to be a part of the group.

657

2011-03-05T15:37:00.004-06:00

Over at the fantastic Muriel Awards, which I'm proud to say I've been a part of since the beginning, Hailee Steinfeld rightfully won the prize for Best Actress. And who else but moi to write the blurb? Check it out.

656 - Unknown review

2011-03-02T11:10:00.003-06:00

The man wakes up in a Berlin hospital. He was just in a car accident, and only remembers bits and pieces. He recalls his name, a wife, a biotechnology conference, missing baggage. When the man approaches his wife, she doesn’t recognize him, and introduces an interesting new player: himself.

Thus is the premise of “Unknown,” the most recent thriller starring Liam Neeson, who since 2008’s “Taken” has been reborn as somewhat of an action hero. Impressive, considering that the career path started in his late 50’s. It’s through Neeson’s newfound tough-guy gravitas that “Unknown” has been sold, and judging from the box office receipts thus far, it was a good bet. But beyond image and marketing there’s a good thriller, here, well-paced and enjoyable.

Neeson plays Dr. Martin Harris, or at least that’s who he thinks he is. After that crash, his wife Liz (January Jones) denies knowing him, and points to another Martin Harris (Aidan Quinn) as proof. Understandably a bit upset and disbelieving that his injuries have made him a lunatic, Martin, or whoever he is, sets out to uncover the truth. First stop, Gina (Diane Kruger), a Bosnian illegal immigrant and the cab driver who saved his life. In minor but clever segue, her German employer rails at her for destroying the cab and declares, “Illegal immigration is ruining this country!” Certainly, Martin’s lucky that of all cab drivers he could have gotten, his was beautiful, brainy, brave, and Bosnian. Thrillers tend to work better with sidekicks like that.

Amidst a series of chases and battles with gun-toting assassins, Martin and Gina seek the help of an ex-East German secret police agent (Bruno Ganz). The agent’s specialty is tracking people down, so Martin puts him to work at finding out the who’s, when’s, where’s, and why’s of the situation.

And what does he find? Let’s just say that any further discussion would enter major spoiler territory. Important players arrive, nefarious plots are unveiled, reality comes in and out of focus. What’s not a spoiler to discuss is Neeson’s performance, one of those rock-solid jobs that manages to find that balance between sympathetic everyman and supremely capable agent of heroism. Director Jaume Collet-Serra doles out the excitement and labyrinthine plot in safely acceptable doses, and the script narrowly sidesteps being too convoluted or nonsensical for its own good. Were Hitchcock alive and working today, this might be the sort of film he’d be making. While superficial and slick at times when a better film would go deeper, “Unknown” hits the right notes, which tend to involve mystery, intrigue, and car chases. May Neeson’s action hero track endure.

3 out of 5

655

2011-02-28T16:05:00.002-06:00

The Oscars are done and over with. My predictions were largely correct, with the exception of a Wally Pfister upset over Roger Deakins, and Tom Hooper's monstrously stupid win over David Fincher, amongst others. The Oscar poll I held on this blog indicated that my readers overwhelmingly favored "The Social Network," giving it five times as many votes as "The King's Speech," and more than twice the number of "Black Swan," the runner-up.

As for the show, hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway were widely panned, though I admittedly didn't think it was so bad. I enjoyed the show much more than the year Hugh Jackman hosted and got the impression the Oscars were only watched by gay men with musical theater degrees. Melissa Leo came off looking the worst to me, first pulling the "I'm so surprised" nonsense a child could see through, then stumbling through a curse-word laden speech. I'm thinking a couple of voters wish they'd marked someone different on the ballot after that one.

654

2011-02-27T16:23:00.003-06:00

Here are some last minute Oscar predictions:

Best Picture: "The King's Speech"
Best Director: David Fincher, "The Social Network"
Best Actor: Colin Firth, "The King's Speech"
Best Actress: Natalie Portman, "Black Swan"
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, "The Fighter"
Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo, "The Fighter"
Best Original Screenplay: David Seidler, "The King's Speech"
Best Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin, "The Social Network"
Best Cinematography: Roger Deakins, "True Grit"

Plenty left, but I'll skip those here. See if you can outguess me in the comments section. I'll award anyone who beats me or gets them all right a trivial but existent prize.

653

2011-02-21T15:44:00.002-06:00

If you glance to your right, you'll see a poll question: which film should win the Best Picture Oscar on Sunday? Vote away.

652

2011-02-17T03:06:00.001-06:00

The Master List has been updated, with a whopping 110 new ratings! Check it out.

651 - The Roommate review

2011-02-12T12:06:00.002-06:00

“Competently photographed.” My readers might recall that I used that phrase in my one-star review of “No Strings Attached,” in reference to the huge number of films whose only redeeming merit is that they’re filmed well enough. I can’t even be that generous with “The Roommate,” which in addition to being poorly written and acted, is lit like a truck stop men’s restroom.

“The Roommate” is a thriller made by the same people who once saw “Single White Female.” Its heroine is Sara Matthews (Minka Kelly), one of a group of college freshman in their late 20’s that populate this and most other university-set films. Talking about Los Angeles, she tells her friend “It isn’t safe here like in Des Moines,” which confirms for us that the writer has never been to certain parts of our state capital, or possibly the nicer parts of LA. Sara’s one of those movie characters unafflicted by a personality or quirks that could loan her dimensions. I think filmmakers aim for this so that the maximum number of women in the audience can transpose their own values onto the character. It works for “Twilight,” though that’s like Shakespeare compared to this.

The antagonist, other than the key grip, is Rebecca (Leighton Meester), Sara’s roommate at the dorms. We first suspect that Rebecca must be crazy after seeing the film’s ads, though we know for sure when she tortures Sarah’s BFF in the shower. You should see Rebecca at work, frightening the BFF with creepy mind games, disappearing from sight with Batman-esque speed. If she’s going to just torture the friend, why bother with the initial trickery? Just cause, I suppose. Rebecca also kills Sarah’s cat, though it’s not like she did something really unforgiveable, like kill a dog.

The downside of film criticism involves listening to the people who think criticism doesn’t matter and watching bad movies. This is the sort of movie so bad that it proves criticism does, in fact, matter, even as the film’s more putrid qualities almost seem to constitute a deliberate insult to those in the audience who fancy themselves the possessors of good taste. Scenes go nowhere, plot threads dangle untied, and that lighting, oh, that lighting, which probably won’t show up on the cinematographer’s resume any time soon. And what of the poor actors? People become actors for two reasons: to date attractive members of the opposite sex, and to perform in great art. I don’t personally know anyone on screen, but I’m guessing in their youth, when asked why they wanted to be thespians, movies like this had nothing to do with the answer.

You don’t need to have seen “Single White Female,” or perhaps any obsessive psycho pic to know that the last 20 minutes contain a murder, a hostage-taking, and a deux ex machina. In this case, the fate of the world hinges on a catfight over a pair of box cutters, which might be more violent than, say, the climax of “The Social Network” or “The King’s Speech,” but manages to be far less interesting. The most I can say about my experience was I that enjoyed the part where the college-age couple in front of me drank Four Loko and went to second base. At least someone in the theater had a good time.

0.5 out of 5

650

2011-01-31T11:47:00.001-06:00

Today I got an article published in the Washington Times. You can find it here. Many thanks to my gracious and brilliant editor Victor Morton.

649 - No Strings Attached review

2011-01-28T17:02:00.001-06:00

I really can’t use traditional descriptors like “sweet” or “mean” to describe “No Strings Attached,” because there are no humans in it. Granted, there are human actors captured on film, and they mimic human behavior, but it’s all too forced, consistently lacking the sort of logical thoughts or predictable responses to stimuli that have come to characterize us as a species. The script doesn’t feature characters, just instructions for the actors.

Take Adam, the male protagonist, played here by Ashton Kutcher, who really does treat the script like an instruction manual. Adam is one of those cinematic creations, a line-delivery vehicle that exists so that his situations might be packaged and sold to the moviegoing public. Working a production gig on an insufferable musical TV series suspiciously like “Glee,” he bounces from one romantic entanglement to the next as if stuck in the Movie Dating pinball machine. “I did some writing in college” he says at one point while pitching his script to friends, though if he’s witty or intelligent, we’re kept in the dark about it.

I can say the same for Emma, our leading lady, played by Natalie Portman. It’s an odd film to follow her potentially Oscar-grabbing turn in the aggressively intense “Black Swan,” and we’re reminded for various reasons that she’s incapable of playing an adult. She didn’t do so in “Black Swan,” (psychotic ballerina), nor in “Garden State,” (quirky love interest) or in the “Star Wars” prequels, (cartoon monarch) and certainly not in “The Professional.” (12-year-old girl) Here, she’s a Movie Doctor, which means that though she hangs out in a hospital and has a title attached to her name, Emma mostly just talks about her sex life (and then enthusiastically lives it) instead of actually working.

Portman’s unable to speak without smiling and toning the lines as if they were all jokes, mugging for the audience as if trying to sell even the skeptics on her cuteness. It’s not her cuteness we don’t buy, it’s her ability to play a real person not in the throes of some strange obsession or misbehavior.

Directed by Ivan Reitman, once behind hits such as “Ghostbusters,” “No Strings Attached” adds itself to the ranks of contemporary films that have nothing going for them other than competent photography. Apparently it’s not particularly difficult to find a good cinematographer in the industry, because most major studio films look fine, but decent directors and screenwriters are in critically short supply. Take this film’s idea of comedy, which subscribes to the recently trend and disastrously erroneous idea that true comedy should consist of characters publicly discussing their sex lives in the most graphic and awkward and public ways. I’ll give another of my free filmmaking tips: public discussions of sex life and preference can be funny, though they need a willing audience, or at least a captive one powerless to do anything about it.

The film’s premise, or perhaps I should say marketing hook, sees Adam and Emma as platonic friends who agree to have casual intercourse without the requisite penalties of such an act, like jealously or commitment. Certainly, one could make an entertaining, thoughtful film out of this subject, and an excellent episode of “Seinfeld” covered the subject matter rather well. This, on the other hand, could have been written by a robot, which could help explain why there are no humans in it. Since nothing in this film demonstrates an interest in people, I can’t express surprise that it ignores our cultural and social concerns.

1 out of 5

648

2011-01-23T23:52:00.002-06:00

Returning visitors might notice a slight style change for this blog. This is most definitely a cause for concern and panic. Please forgive any technical hiccups that may occur as I give the new look a spin.

Also, please notice that each post now has a widget that allows users to post my writings to their social networking accounts. I actively encourage everyone to do this, even if for the purpose of ridicule or scorn.

647 - Dinner for Schmucks review

2011-01-21T12:53:00.003-06:00

I won’t mince words: Steve Carell is awful in this. Sporting a strange dye job and with a goofy expression plastered on his face, his character isn’t so much a schmuck as a borderline retarded charisma vacuum, an unceasing reminder that Carell wants us to know he’s trying very, very hard to be funny. Note to Carell: the only actors who can do well with letting the audience know they’re in on the joke are the ones physically incapable of playing a humorous role straight. Think Schwarzenegger.

Paul Rudd is awful in this. Getting the nebbish nice guy act down so well he could play it in his sleep, Rudd proceeds to sleepwalk through this, seemingly disinclined towards adding dimensions to his milquetoast money man or even encouraging us to sympathize. Rudd’s character, who finds himself compelled to participate in his boss’ monthly competition to see who can bring the most spectacular idiot to dinner (that’s where Carell comes in), fails to be a compelling protagonist or even an amusing one. Maybe director Jay Roach carries some blame, and certainly the dreadful script does, but a serious downside to being an actor is that they own their performances, and “Dinner for Schumcks” counts as a strike on Rudd’s record. Rudd did superlative character work in the rather enjoyable “Role Models,” but his subsequent parts have been so uninspired and blandly acted that his earned goodwill nears exhaustion.

Jemaine Clement is great in this. His performance the inverse of Carell’s, Clement’s narcissistic crackpot artist refuses to wink at the audience or pander to its tastes, approaching the absurd as if it were the ordinary. This is how screen comedy is done. Clement’s fantastic usage of terrible material ends up trumped by his status as fourth lead, meaning that the waits for an actual laugh are frequent and far between.

Casting aside, pic squanders the opportunity for real socio-political satire, which the material begs for. What we’re served is a moral about being sensitive to people’s feelings, which I agree with wholeheartedly at the grade-school level, though anyone with two digits in their age and a couple of brain cells to rub together should know better, itself a lame moral as a sophisticated opinion realizes that mockery of ridiculous behavior has its place. The same people who wrote this surely laugh uproariously at the pranked subjects of "Borat" or the unintentional ineptitude of "The Room." So here the moral's not only stupid, but even worse, disingenuous. Not everyone deserves our respect, do they?

1 out of 5

646

2011-01-17T18:12:00.003-06:00

I have a review of Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan" up at Big Hollywood. Check it out, and don't forget to comment!

645 - The Fighter review

2011-01-15T09:52:00.000-06:00

“The Fighter” is an aggressively conventional film made by a notoriously strange and combustible director, David O. Russell. Much attention was paid to the “mainstream” turn the Coen Brothers took with their “True Grit” remake, but “The Fighter” is a more surprising example of audience-friendly entertainment from a creative force known more for cinematic exploration than pleasing the average moviegoer. A theory, though likely not a very original one: directors need to occasionally give studios an incentive to continue funding their unusual projects, and a picture that can be placed in the financial win column can do wonders for securing eight figures for something most unconventional.

Russell previously directed “Three Kings,” not utterly bizarre by any stretch by still quite strange for an action-comedy, and “I Heart Huckabess,” which might be the widest-release ever that would be comfortable in a concept art showroom. “The Fighter” has no mainstream idiosyncrasies or edgy stylistic choices to throw anyone off, and the script’s based on a true story, real names and all. Even the title seems selected out to be innocuous and appealing, a declaration of straightforward intent.

The titular fighter is Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg), who enters the picture as a never-was boxer. He comes across as sort of sweet-natured and passive, perhaps odd traits for a professional pugilist, though his dim-wit could easily be explained as the result of having another man’s fist driven into the skull thousands of times.

Then again, his family life could explain his benign demeanor. Micky’s older brother and trainer Dicky Ecklund (Christian Bale, actually several years younger than Wahlberg) is a has-been, a drug-addled local celebrity who can’t go a full minute without reminding everyone that he once knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard, though that he lost the fight doesn’t make the reminiscing. A HBO documentary crew follows Dicky around, which he explains as a film about his comeback, though the producer candidly informs an observer they’re doing a piece on crack addiction.

The rest of Micky’s family doesn’t hold much more appeal, though for different reasons. His mother Alice (Melissa Leo) acts as manager, though what she knows about the business seems like it could be written on the back of a postage stamp. Alice manages Micky right into a fight where he’s outweighed by 20 pounds, but doesn’t feel bad enough about it not to become incensed at the notion that he should be managed professionally. Micky’s girlfriend Charlene (Amy Adams) sees that his career needs course correction, and tries to help, but he’s not the sort that dismisses family easily. We sense a lifetime of guilt trips from his mother, who would rather live vicariously through a failed child than see him succeed without her management. He has seven loud sisters, all of whom never leave their mother’s house, and offer little support beyond encouragements to toe the line.

The performances are uniformly excellent, evoking a sort of cultural authenticity not often seen from actors whose names adorn the top of posters. Wahlberg has both the physical menace of a boxer coupled with an unassuming demeanor, not an inflection he’s generally known for but has proven capable of over the years. Most noticeable (and most likely to secure an Oscar nom) is Bale, who disappears into this yammering junkie so thoroughly that thoughts of Batman and Patrick Bateman never come up. He’s famed for losing and gaining huge amounts of weight, but here he has a collection of tics, a nervous energy that carries his scenes.

The film maintains a good degree of interest for the first three quarters, before segueing into pure formula for the end. Anyone familiar with “Rocky,” and that’s just about everyone, could predict with unfailing accuracy the trajectory and tone of each second of the final 25 or so minutes. There’s even a training montage, and the family, romance, and drug issues that the film’s drama was predicated vanish, replaced by sobriety and team spirit. As evidenced by the Coens’ “True Grit,” mainstream films from offbeat can be a blessing, but they can also come with a heavy cost.

3 out of 5

644

2011-01-11T15:51:00.003-06:00

For my first post of the New Year, I'd actually like to look back to last, for a feature that went back yet further. I did a feature called You Aught to Know, which proves that I'm not great with titles, though I think it turned out rather well. Here's a link to the final post, complete with a listing of all participants.

That said, the first year of the new decade is completed. So what's the best of the 10's thus far? I have three in mind: "Inception," "The Social Network," and "True Grit." Also, I'm pretty keen on "Youth in Revolt," which has greatly impressed everyone I've talked to that actually bothered to see it. Easily the best Michael Cera film last year, and, yeah, I saw "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World." At this stage, it's a little too early for me to put together a top 10, as I haven't seen "127 Hours," "The King's Speech," and a number of others, though I doubt any of them will impress me as much as those above. I'm eager to hear what everyone else thinks about this decade's films thus far, from top picks to emerging trends or speculation. And if you're reading this on Facebook, please steer yourself to the site proper and post there.

643 - True Grit (2010) review

2010-12-31T12:39:00.001-06:00

The Coen Brothers’ “True Grit” isn’t a remake of the 1969 Western that won John Wayne an Oscar, but an incredible work of its own based off the same source material. Wayne was a Movie Star, arguably the greatest to ever live, and that film was His and His alone. Jeff Bridges is as fine a screen actor as has ever been seen, and he thus is but part of a wonderful cinematic tapestry of humor and violence. After the Coens insufferably myopic 2009 film “A Serious Man,” this is a readily accessible work, in effect a sort of rebuke, however unintentional, to the idea that small, frustrating independent movies are in any way superior to excellent mainstream pictures.

The real star of the film is 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld, who gives a singularly sharp performance as Mattie Ross. Mattie is defined by laser-like focus and a keen intellect, qualities that Steinfeld realizes with clarity and firm presence, a potentially star-making turn.

Her Mattie has arrived in town to collect her father’s body, the elder Ross gunned down by half-witted thug Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). She asks the sheriff about the Marshals she can hire to track Cheney down: one’s a helluva tracker, another an upstanding lawman. Then there’s Rooster Cogburn (Bridges), the meanest and certainly the drunkest. It might not come up often, but one’s choice in a situation like that one speaks volumes about their character.

Bridges refuses to sentimentalize Cogburn, a filthy, cantankerous, one-eyed drunk. Wayne, great as he was, rarely played a character so much as variants of his own magnetic personality. But this incarnation of Cogburn is realized as a complex man, a presence whose status as a lush belies a cunning intuition for violent work. The pair are joined by LeBeouf (Matt Damon), a Texas Ranger who’s a crack shot but apparently a poor investigator, as he’s been evaded by Chaney for months. LeBeouf represents a complication for Mattie, who wants to see her father’s murderer punished for his crimes in their native Arkansas rather than Texas, but also helps even the odds, as Chaney has taken up with a gang of outlaws destined to meet Cogburn in a famed cinematic charge.

The Coens are renowned for their films’ dialogue, which ranges from the bleakly amusing to electrically playful. But here they faithfully transmute from the pages of Charles Portis’ novel, their cast and technique filling the witty dialogue with liveliness and vigor. Whereas the 1969 incarnation was largely forgettable outside of Wayne’s presence, it’s a delight to watch these actors, from the stars to small roles, haggle with and harangue one another. The plot’s nothing special, serving as a vehicle to allow us to watch these characters interact.

Photographed by the Coens longtime cinematographer Roger Deakins, the film depicts a West that’s often gorgeous in its desolation, littered with rotting bodies and elements of nature nearly as insidious as the men being pursued. Even as “True Grit” proves revelatory as proof that the Coens can flawlessly craft a mainstream film whilst lacing it with their signature motifs. Westerns often emphasize the “True Grit” emphasis the harshness of the 1800’s landscape, but the severity often seen here imbues a sense of melancholy that enriches the humor and quick, brutal moments of gunfire. This is a fantastic picture, and if the Coens can do this well in the mainstream, I’d just as soon see them leave the high-budget art film realm behind.

4.5 out of 5

642 - Easy A review

2010-12-28T12:09:00.003-06:00

“Easy A” is one of those high school pictures that appears written by someone who never went. There’s hardly a sincere second of its depiction of the high school experience, from the casting (nobody looks under 21, most look older than me) to the social details (no public school would expel model students after two curse words). Even the film’s political charge, a screed about gay rights and acceptance of sexual behavior, rings utterly false, as no one could be compelled to believe that a California public school would have a student body so aggressively uptight and scornful of such activities. Emma Stone’s Olive takes great delight in being thought of as the school tramp after telling a white lie about laying a college man, but these days very few teenagers think of that sort of thing as particularly promiscuous, whether or not they actually approve.

Essentially, this film’s philosophy is that the proper response to bigotry is more bigotry, as “Easy A” ranks just a shade under “Religulous” for its virulent hatred of all things Christian. You’ll find Nazis portrayed more sympathetically than the leader of the school prayer group (Amanda Bynes, who is either incapable of or unwilling to humanize her character, neither of which would surprise me). That this earned high marks from a large number of critics speaks poorly for their ability to keep their own contempt of the religious right in check long enough to properly score a movie. Things briefly look up when “Easy A” addresses the potential dangers of allowing oneself to be publicly perceived as a nymphomaniac, but this is quickly discarded for more Christian bashing and a love story uncomfortably wedged in during the final quarter to satisfy the mandatory genre pic checklist.

And poor Emma Stone, a rising star with a nearly infinite reservoir of effervescent charm, is stuck with this lame script. The amazing thing is that she alone (with assistance from Thomas Haden Church) almost makes this work. But, for the all of the film’s many cultural gaffes, who would ever believe that this lovely woman has a hard time getting boys to ask her out, or pay attention?

2 out of 5

641 - The Road review

2010-12-23T11:11:00.003-06:00

“The Road” was maddeningly obtuse novelist Cormac McCarthy’s Oprah Novel, his most commercially accessible and perhaps sentimental work. Of course, for him that still includes an apocalyptic landscape, cannibals, so much ash you’ll taste it as you read, and even the incentive to look up the word “catamite.” It’s as harrowing a work as I’ve ever read, McCarthy’s vision of a poisoned earth resonating with fierce gloom and ultimately a bright beam of light.

John Hillcoat’s adaptation gets the look right, but the human element never clicks like it should. The unnamed father (Viggo Mortensen) and son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) meander down the eastern United States in what amounts to an episodic series of events when played onscreen, with only two cartridges remaining and a vague hope of a more livable climate in the south. Hillcoat doesn’t manage to build much tension over the course of their trek, and a series of non-book scenes featuring Charlize Theron don’t add the contextual power that was clearly hoped for. Even as the pair travels, emotionally, the film’s static, taking us nowhere into the desperation and fear of a father for his son shown in the novel. It’s easy to see why this failed to register even as a blip on the awards circuit last year.

2.5 out of 5

640

2010-12-17T23:34:00.004-06:00

Apparently, the Cuban government banned Michael Moore's documentary "Sicko" because it painted a somewhat too rosy picture of the nation's health care system. Kinda makes you wonder if Moore knew this when he offered to help bailout Julian Assange.

Update: A reader pointed out that Michael Moore took to the Huffington Post to reject claims that the film had been banned in Cuba. I'll get back to this when the smoke clears.

639 - Despicable Me review

2010-12-15T22:08:00.005-06:00

It’s rather fashionable now to treat comic book material in an ironic fashion, drawing attention to the many outlandish conventions and archetypes. “Despicable Me” is just about the latest screen example of this (the true latest being “Megamind”), though all this irony comes at the cost of wit or the ability to successfully draw upon the strengths of the tradition. Comic book villains might seem (and be) silly, but the good antagonists have motivation, the foundation of character. In “The Incredibles,” a wonderful example of this new subgenre, the villain wanted to be a legendary superhero. The villainous Gru (voice of Steve Carrell), on the other hand, wants to steal the moon because…well, just because, though half-hearted allusions to his mother’s approval are made. He comes to adore the three girls he adopted to steal a shrink-ray because…they had a fun day at an amusement park. There’s too much just ‘cause here, and not enough reason for us to devote our concern to what happens. It has some laughs, though they’re more cute than clever. And I doubt I'm the only one who noticed that for all the talk about super-villany, there's only two villains, Gru and his rival, and no superheroes, which seems a bit lazy for a film like this.

2.5 out of 5

638

2010-12-14T09:38:00.002-06:00

The 2011 Golden Globe nominations were released today. Among the contenders for Best Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical are "Burlesque," "Red," and "The Tourist." What, no room for "MacGruber"? Or, better yet, "Youth in Revolt," which was easily the funniest movie I saw all year.

637 - The Tourist review

2010-12-13T19:57:00.003-06:00

“The Tourist” is another example of the increasingly apparent limitations of star power. Take its two leads, Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie. You’d have to leave the first world, possibly even the second, in order to find a person unfamiliar with either. Their They’re both talented and pleasing to the eye, with enough clout to pick projects from ranging tiny indies to massive blockbusters, though their involvement alone prohibits any film from being too small. So now here they are, headlining a sort of Euro-thriller set in beautiful Venice. But if the grosses are to be believed, few want to see it. Why?

Well, the term “Euro-thriller” might be a clue. By this I mean a slow-paced, chatty film, where there’s lots of fancy hotels and uptight police officers and nothing particularly interesting ever happens. Sure, it’d be exciting if it were happening to you, but audiences have standards. We’ve been enthralled by movies before and look to replicate that feeling like a drug.

We like to watch Depp and Jolie and stars like them, or at least I do. But they need to pop off the screen; we want to see them in extraordinary action scenes, surprising us with uproariously funny jokes, tugging at the heartstrings with moments of intense personal discovery. Here, even though a vast fortune and several lives are at stake, there’s no romantic tension, the plot moving forward with the suspense of a Harlem Globe Trotters game.

Jolie’s character, a British agent named Elise, could have been as ably played by any number of gorgeous actresses. Few, if any, would have the potential drawing power Jolie does, but the role’s surprisingly limp, supplying her with a series of banal tasks largely designed to support the male protagonist. This is Frank, played by Depp as if he were receiving alternating directions on whether or not to play it lightly. Frank, who would be an ordinary tourist if he didn’t look just like Johnny Depp, is picked up by Elise on a train, dragging him into a cat and mouse game involving lots of stern European men in suits. “I teach math,” he says, pretty much all the information we get about him, presumably because the writers think math teachers must generally be nebbish twerps incapable of standing up for themselves.

Thus the plot’s in motion, which takes the characters on a chase through Venice in a search for that fortune. Frank learns to be a man despite being in the second half of his life ala Cary Grant in “North by Northwest,” and Elise gets to float from scene to scene, existing to help move along the plot when necessary. On a couple of occasions Depp and Jolie have dialogue that hints at the potential of the minimum chemistry required for a film like this to work, but they disappear just as quickly, returning to dialogue that sees her deliver thankless lines like a pro, while he pretends to know what it’s like to be a man who doesn’t know how to handle a stunning woman. It moves along well enough, but why do I get the feeling that Depp and Jolie’s love lives are much more interesting in a tabloid than in this movie, which purports to be an electrifying thriller?

2 out of 5

636 - The Purple Rose of Cairo review

2010-12-10T17:24:00.002-06:00

If I were to list all the Woody Allen films I’ve seen and were asked to chose the most idiosyncratic, this would be the instant choice. I don’t know if he’s made anything else that’s so whimsical, this clever without being overtly cerebral, or so unapologetically romantic. Allen, who remains behind the camera, proves at ease with humor that gently pokes fun at film convention while honoring the importance it has to its devotees. The characters, a combination of “real” people and film-within-a-film aristocrats, are treated with an amount of affection unusual for Allen, which makes the inevitable dose of world-weary cynicism all that much more heartbreaking at the close. Rather warm and casually engrossing, this reverberates with a love of the cinema and the stirring of emotions it’s known for.

4.5 out of 5

635

2010-12-10T17:20:00.002-06:00

The guys over at Big Hollywood were exceptionally generous and offered me the chance to sound off on a recent experience over at The Huffington Post. For a few hours, my face was in the same spot previously occupied by movie stars and career political and film writers, so it was an almost surreal experience. Many thanks to the guys at BH and to my pal Christian Toto, who was kind enough to recommend me.

634 - Predators review

2010-12-09T12:01:00.003-06:00

“Predators” is one of those sequels that feels a bit like fan fiction, because in essence, that’s what it is; an entirely different group of artists expanding on the work of others. That said, this is a solid work of franchise thrillery, fast-paced and with a good mixture of what we expect (the alien hunters, machine guns, explosions) and some surprises (I won’t spoil those). Many complained that pic’s alpha male, Adrien Brody, paled in comparison to Arnold, but he’s in fact a fitting choice, a fine actor who brings a thinking-man’s tough guy verve to the role. He’s a mercenary whose skills make him the de facto leader of a group of warriors and killers (multi-ethnic and gender, of course) brought to an alien world, in particular a province that functions as a game preserve. Of note out of a fine cast is the fantastic Walton Goggins, who makes a despicable killer believably sympathetic at a couple of key moments. Director Nimród Antal stages the action competently and without much fuss, though a talented cast ultimately deserves the lion’s share of the credit for making this good enough that I’d welcome another installment. Extra points for a hellaciously enthralling opening sequence.

3.5 out of 5

633 - The Twilight Saga: Eclipse review

2010-12-08T17:54:00.004-06:00

I’ll go ahead and say here what I’ve been telling people for a year or so now: I don’t watch the “Twilight” movies for the girl-themed story. I don’t watch them for the bland cinematography. I don’t watch them for Kristen Stewart’s ubiquitous thinking-very-hard-in-distress expression that the script and director always calls for. I don’t watch them to help make up my mind about whether or not to join Team Edward or Team Jacob, because they both suck ass. And I certainly don’t watch them for dialogue that would need to be a thousand times more clever to be too clever by half. I watch them because I want to keep up with the films before I get saddled with reviewing the series finale and then feel obligated to cram them all in a marathon viewing session. That said, “Eclipse” is a little bit like a long, average day at work: while happening, you just wish it was over, and once you’re done, it doesn’t seem all that terrible. Three down, two to go.

2 out of 5

632 - Stardust Memories review

2010-12-07T11:03:00.001-06:00

A buddy versed in every Woody Allen film told me that this was his favorite, so I was surprised when I found it to be tepid and meandering, a Fellini homage largely lacking the atmosphere that made the Italian auteur’s films so celebrated. Then I did my homework and discovered that this is one of Allen’s most hotly contested works among the fans, half of whom hail it as one of his masterpieces, the remainder discarding it as forgettable and more self-indulgent than usual. Count me in the latter category (obviously). His best films somehow manage to encapsulate a wide range of human experiences, an incredible feat seeing as Allen himself seems to be aggressively myopic as a person, but here there’s nothing to latch on to, no serious truths perhaps other than to the artist himself.

2 out of 5

631 - The Ballad of Cable Hogue review

2010-12-06T21:00:00.004-06:00

If the Internet is to be believed, Sam Peckinpah’s favorite of his own films wasn’t one of his actual violent Westerns, but this, a plodding comedy that outstays its welcome by a solid 45 minutes. Starring the great Jason Robards as the titular Hogue, pic plays like the two hour joke of a bawdy old man, replete with gags about whores, preachers, and temperance folk. It's as if Peckinpah decided to make a movie to screen in the background while getting smashed with his blue collar friends.

There’s personality here, but little in the way of interesting craft and virtually nothing to challenge its characters, revealing the non-surprise that Peckinpah had much more to offer when dealing with people facing enormous moral and physical adversity than with folks who just hang out all day. Without hardship, Peckinpah's grit and grime approach just translates to unnecessary unpleasantness. After his sensationally bold and affecting masterpiece “The Wild Bunch,” fans must have been deeply disappointed to find that the film’s total number of gunshots could be counted on a single hand. Punctuated with one of the worst endings I can remember, one could easily imagine that this represents Peckinpah in a fine mood, which I’m sorry to say didn’t suit him much an artist.

2 out of 5

630 - Faster review

2010-12-02T10:26:00.002-06:00

In “Faster,” Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is like a piece of living granite, all business and frown as he stomps from one scene to the next, killing his way to vengeance. He’s filmed in such a way that turns his every second into a violent one, with simple acts such as crossing the street hammering the audience in a way usually reserved for gunshots and explosions. His revenge kills are efficient and without trouble, just one name on a list after another getting crossed off. There’s no joy or excitement in it for him, who comes off as so angry that the possibility of satisfaction itself has seemingly been removed.

Now, can you see what might be the problem with this? Johnson is an action star capable of enormous charisma, with good comic timing and a flawless movie star grin. So what’s up with “Faster,” a grim slog of a thriller that presents us with a protagonist who possesses both the charm and depth of a puddle of mud? Johnson needs to be funny, light-hearted, winking just a bit to the audience. Here he’s presented as aggressively unpleasant, devoid of personality and without function other than to butcher one person after another. What pitch sold Johnson on this?

His character is named Driver, a habit the film gets into with its characters, who have monikers like Cop and Killer. Like most films that attempt to derive postmodern awareness out of drawing attention to archetypes, this primarily serves to remind the audience of how tiring such tropes can be in unskilled hands. Driver is fresh out of prison, ready to avenge the death of his brother, something we’re reminded of approximately every ten minutes when he breaches the subject. He’s so tough that he crosses the street through heavy traffic, causing countless motorists to slam on the breaks and us to wonder if Driver considered that a Honda to the midsection could end this mission pretty quickly.

His first stop after prison sees him pick up a stored classic Chevelle with a gigantic revolver stashed under the seat. Roger Ebert often points out (and does so in his review of “Faster”) that contemporary action heroes usually drive classic cars because newer models don’t seem manly enough. I’ll put fourth another observation: though there are much better guns to use as a weapon than a gigantic revolver, action heroes often use them because contemporary automatics don’t seem manly enough.

Driver’s pursued by Cop (Billy Bob Thornton), a drug-addled detective just days from retirement, and we all know what that means. Also pursing Driver is Killer (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), a retired computer mogul who freelances as an assassin for the challenge. Shots of fancy equipment and his boasts of impeccable skill seem exaggerated after he bungles one attempt on Driver’s life after the other, and we’re later told that his fee is somewhat less than pricey. Take note, audience members: when hiring hitmen, you get what you pay for.

There’s not much to celebrate here, and as a fan of films such as “The Rundown” and “Walking Tall,” I’m sorry to see this step in Johnson’s career, though perhaps not as much as I was to see him headline a succession of dopey children’s movies. A moment towards the end of “Faster” contains real suspense and a moral challenge worth noting, but one fine scene amidst so many stale and mediocre ones does little to rectify the situation. And what about Billy Bob Thornton, easily one of the greatest screen actors alive, slogging this out for a paycheck in-between gigs for his band that nearly no one has ever heard of? I take solace in knowing that his fee must be about a million times higher than that of the hitman.

1.5 out of 5

629 - Unstoppable review

2010-11-18T11:48:00.002-06:00

“Unstoppable” is about the crisis that ensues when an unmanned train runs at full speed through Pennsylvania. The cargo, of course, is a rather hazardous chemical that threatens to annihilate all human life in a pretty sizeable area should it crash, which it will very soon.

What I found myself especially admiring about “Unstoppable” is both its greatest strength and weakness: a laser-like focus on telling a story that’s fundamentally exciting and uncomplicated. Most of the better action-thrillers (and genre pictures period, for that matter) know their purpose and get to work. Usually, there are a few steps to this: scenario, character introduction, action, character buildup, action again.

Here, the heroes are played by Denzel Washington and Chris Pine (of “Star Trek” fame). They’re an engineer and a conductor, respectively, who devise and execute a risky way to stop the runaway train before it derails in a heavily populated area. For a big-budget thriller with its two main stars receiving such a prominent spot on the poster, the characters are of a surprisingly everyman quality, their powers limited to that of competent men with the bravery to rise to the occasion. We don’t get to know either very intimately, as the film’s entire plot from beginning to end only covers a few hours, but we’re already familiar with their archetypes from other movies, and the actors portraying them signify that these men will play a key role in solving the crisis. Washington in particular is seemingly infallible, able to play both regular guy protagonists and nigh-invincible killing machines with equal amounts gravitas and charisma (I think the only role he’d be incapable of is that of a coward).

Over at the train HQ, where the crisis began courtesy of a local nitwit’s lack of concern for safety, a rather lovely train executive (Rosario Dawson) battles with a less-than-kind superior (Kevin Dunn) over potential monetary loses. The greedy executive is the closest thing “Unstoppable” has for an actual villain, a sort of necessary evil to appease the audience members who aren’t content with the potential destruction to be caused by an inanimate, agenda-free object. Scott and writer Mark Bomback aptly imbue these scenes with an energy that makes them near-seamless with the action.

“Unstoppable” is directed by Tony Scott, who I complimented last year for toning down his typically aggressive style in “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3.” He’s even better here, his camera capturing the deadly train and the efforts of those on and off the tracks with an urgency that’s exhilarating and never overwhelming.

Will the train be stopped in time? you might ask, if you’ve never seen an American movie before. It comes down to one of those scenes where the heroes’ loved ones (two of whom are in Hooters outfits, no less) watch the action through TV screens, wrought with suspense over whether or not it’ll work out. Of course “Unstoppable” could be dismissed as ridiculous, a piece of fluff escapism that adds up to zero thematically. You wouldn’t be wrong. But does it work? Well, I was breathless for the last twenty minutes.

3.5 out of 5

628 - Robin Hood review

2010-11-09T10:44:00.003-06:00

Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood” takes the step of rewriting the universally known story of heroism and class warfare for contemporary audiences, but to what purpose? It’s one of those films where dozens of studio meetings saw pitches about smearing grime over an established tale, though all they’ve done here is swap a fun, lighthearted story for a dim, straight-faced one. Russell Crowe’s fine as the titular hero, though at 45 he’s noticeably far too old for a role that ideally should go to someone my age (which is still a few years short of medieval England’s life expectancy).

Joyless and overlong, the film’s meddling with tradition means nothing when it’s this barren of insight into the characters, which are written as flat archetypes with two settings: Noble and Evil. We’re mostly acquainted with them as they discuss the political climate of medieval England, and though the droning on about liberty and rights might be stirring to some of the more rabid Tea Partiers, I suspect most others will be waiting for the next battle. The film's name-trading is perplexing in light of how little fidelity it shows to the widely known version of the story. Those expecting a witty swashbuckler will doubtlessly be disappointed, as Robin tends to hammer his enemies with a sword as if wielding a sledgehammer, and if he said anything clever, I certainly don’t remember it. The combination of Scott and a nine-figure budget results in some stellar cinematography and action scenes that would be rather enthralling if we cared the slightest about the outcome. Destined to go down as a franchise nonstarter courtesy of lukewarm domestic grosses, this does deserve credit for being vastly superior to the 1991 Kevin Costner/Kevin Reynolds train wreck.

2 out of 5

627 - Red (2010) review

2010-11-03T10:35:00.003-05:00

I left “RED” with the sneaking suspicion that I’d been ripped off. Not by the benevolent local theater chain, but by the filmmakers, who withheld from us some rather interesting characters. Sure, those characters were on screen, but they had nothing good to say, and little to do other than your usual action picture work.

Look at the cast: Bruce Willis as the head spy. John Malkovich as the crazy one. Helen Mirren as the ice queen, Morgan Freeman as the black guy. They’re played by actors we love and have each spent decades engaged in secret, extremely dangerous work. These people should be the ones hope you get seated next to a dinner party.

Thing is, they’re not, at least not while the camera’s rolling. Their secrets and experiences and skill sets are hidden behind layers of banal, cliched spy movie gab. The dialogue ends up as a list for code words one has heard endlessly in this sort of films since childhood: black ops, Afghanistan, asset, blah blah. I’ll bet a CIA assassin could have some great stories to tell, but we’re not privy to them. They talk as if they’ve heard the lingo and are aping it as well as they can. One character even passively mentions that he has stage 4 cancer, though don’t worry, it’s that kind of cinematic cancer which refuses to inhibit a character from pretty much anything.

Willis plays Frank Moses, a retired spy who passes the time by flirting with the pension lady (Mary-Louise Parker) over the phone. Of course, if you show a retired spy in a movie in the first act, he had better have killed something by the third. Frank obliges us by killing roughly ten people by the end of the first. He then sets out on a road trip to get to the bottom of a mystery too weakly written for us to care about, picking up his old comrades and even the pension lady along the way. “Do you think she likes me?” Frank asks one of his buddies about his civilian love interest, causing us to ask “Do you think a hardened killing machine would ever ask that?”

Though story credit is given to a comic book by Warren Ellis, the film “adaptation” bears virtually no resemblance to its supposed source material. A few of the action pieces manage to rise above being mildly diverting and into watchable, though there’s a lot of muzak blaring during the shooting, like elevator tunes scored to sound just a bit more like it belongs in a spy movie. And the sequences have the habit of seeing thousands of rounds expended in exchange for a flesh wound. I suppose if terminal cancer can’t slow these characters down, why should a bullet through the shoulder? Moviemakers: please do the audience the courtesy of pretending that there’s a serious threat to the leads when guns are going off.

It’s a shame to witness these great actors at work with nothing to do. It might be fun to fire machine guns and dodge explosions, but I’m going to wager that few actors enter the profession so that they might one day shoot a pistol filled with blanks in front of a camera. Look at Morgan Freeman, one of our greatest living actors, stuck in this action movie so bereft of ideas that the only thing his character does for the group is pretend to be an African diplomat. And Richard Dreyfuss, who cameos as the evil mastermind behind the nonsense, whose once lustrous career has been reduced to cameo roles in claptrap like this and “Piranha 3D.” There was a bright spot, though: the great Ernest Borgnine puts in an appearance as a CIA record keeper. It’s nice to know that he has been forgotten by major filmmakers, though I wish they had remembered to do something with everybody else.

1.5 out of 5

626 - The Killer Inside Me (2010) review

2010-10-30T11:50:00.002-05:00

Destined to go down in film canon as the film where Casey Affleck slowly mashes Jessica Alba’s face into a pulp*, the second adaptation of pulp writer Jim Thompson’s novel gets one detail chillingly correct: the values of a psychopath. Lou, Affleck’s seemingly mild-mannered sheriff’s deputy in 50’s Texas, is one of the more accurately realized psychos put to screen, a combination of charm and insidiousness that feels naturally benign as he spouts off banal platitudes one moment and appropriately vicious the next as he murders a loved one. Watch how he blames a blackmailer for the murder of someone he committed; to the psycho, nothing’s his fault, and everyone’s as disposable as Kleenex.

That said, director Michael Winterbottom’s pacing and story construction is all off, with characters and details flying about practically at random, with the motivations of the moment just plucked out of the air as the plot requires. As if that weren’t difficult enough, its strength in recognizing the behavior of a psychopath is a double-edged sword, since we’re then left with nothing to grab onto. Remember how in Hitchcock’s “Frenzy” we allowed ourselves to want that serial killer to escape, just for a moment? That’s amazing direction, and we’ve nothing like that here.

2 out of 5

*Alternatively, it could go down as the job Casey Affleck took to finance his hijinks with Joaquin Phoenix.

625 - Red Heat review

2010-10-28T19:32:00.002-05:00

I watched this as part of a Walter Hill kick, and was baffled at what a mess had unfolded. Not that a star-vehicle actioneer comes with high expectations for plot, but “Red Heat” features a mystery that’s damn near impossible to follow, and characters that entirely lack any of the pizzazz we would expect from such a production. Arnold’s strength as a star was his sense of humor and willingness to wink at the audience, but here his gig as a Soviet policeman saps all the fun out of his lines. If the Terminator can be funny, why can’t a stone-faced Russian? And everybody knows that Jim Belushi is a walking charisma vacuum, an awful choice for virtually any major role. But I was surprised by the film’s treatment of his character, which is to say as a worthless, blithering moron. Aren’t buddy cop movies supposed to feature a pair whose skills complement one another? The despair over the material seems visible at times, especially by Peter Boyle, who handles his thankless role as a nagging police chief with a pout on his face, as if trying to encourage casting agents not to consider him for more roles like this one. Hill’s trademark action, which features macho men shot in close up engaging in close-quarters gun-fighting, supplies the few interesting frames.

1 out of 5

624 - Jackass 3D review

2010-10-23T13:39:00.002-05:00

Johnny Knoxville and Co. are back, and though age has undoubtedly brought them a great deal of chronic pain, there’s no sign of mellowing. The “Jackass” films and TV series, which showcase a gang of jolly sadists’ at work on stunts and pranks that always fall somewhere between humorous and revolting, culminates here with its most disgusting installment yet, filmed in 3D to accentuate the juvenility.

Back when I was a neophyte film reviewer, I tackled the second picture with brow-furrowing seriousness. It’s funny, I said, but at what cost? There’s something undeniably gruesome about watching people brutalize and degrade themselves for a laugh. At what price do we get our laughs? If virtually anything the “Jackass” guys do were put to use on terror suspects, it’d be called torture. These guys volunteer, so it transmutes to a riot. Or does it?

Those in need of a plot description need not apply, because the film’s divided into a few dozen small sequences. Sample of a funnier moment: the guys rig a giant hand to slap people as they walk through a doorway, often carrying things one wouldn’t want to spill. Pretty funny. Sample of a disgusting moment: a camera is placed in a rather graphic position to capture the action as one man relives himself on several others. Believe it or not, this wouldn’t crack a list of the film’s five grossest sequences, most of which would be indescribable in a newspaper. The film wears its repulsiveness on its sleeve, making a point of showing that even the cameraman vomits about every other joke. Editing this must be just a touch more pleasant than putting together a Holocaust documentary.

It’s with reluctance I confess that there’s doubtlessly a charm to the antics of these heavily-tattooed and dignity-free stuntmen, a cinematic machismo purchased through their abandonment of standards and common sense. With rare exception, even the most sickening blows bring smiles to their faces, pleading with the audience to overlook the macabre aspects of their work and to just enjoy the shocks. Central to any analysis of “Jackass” is this: do the compelling moments adequately compensate for the repulsiveness of their misadventures? One way or another, I don’t want to know the person who watches this without wincing.

2.5 out of 5

623

2010-10-18T21:59:00.003-05:00

My apologies for the recent lack of updates, but was on vacation for over a week. A couple of points of advice:

1. If you're visiting Zion National Park and don't particularly care about nature photography, I advise bringing along some liquor, or perhaps a laptop with several spare batteries.

2. The Las Vegas Blue Man Group show hasn't changed a second in five years. Something to think about before you attend twice.

3. On another Las Vegas note, cab drivers are scum. The pimps and hookers and pickpockets are model citizens in comparison.

More reviews on the way!

622 - The Social Network review

2010-10-08T08:24:00.003-05:00

I try not to make bold predictions about the direction of pop culture, but allow me to make one about a potential contribution of “The Social Network”: this film will inspire countless ambitious teens to decorate their lockers and desktop backgrounds with photos of Mark Zuckerberg, the most famous co-founder of Facebook. At least, those pictures might be of Zuckerberg, or they may be of Jesse Eisenberg, who portrays him as a brilliant wunderkind whose success stem equally from his strengths and flaws. Last week I reviewed the sequel to “Wall Street,” another film which inspired people to admire a character with few redeeming personal qualities who parlayed his talents and lack of morals into enormous success. People have the tendency to strip-mine fascinating characters for their positive traits and admire just what they choose. Difference is, Zuckerberg’s real.

There are lots of characters here, though Zuckerberg’s essentially the main one (protagonist certainly isn’t the right word to describe anyone). I’ve not done the homework that Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin have, though no one will have a difficult time understanding why Zuckerberg doesn’t like it. His onscreen counterpart is one of a man with a eerie clinical detachment from others, joyless and savant-like in his myopic obsessions with work. There’s work, and only work. Many wealthy men think of money as score-keeping, but Zuckerberg doesn’t seem to even care about that, because such an activity requires an amount of self-reflection that proves distracting. His eye’s on the ball. When outside events intrude in his field of view, his responses are acerbic declarations of his own superiority, a bitter lash at those who would waste his time with their questions and concerns.

Sorkin’s screenplay, under Fincher’s direction, is astounding in its ability to transmute real events that would read as dry into provocative and thrilling drama. The plot, which jumps between flashbacks and ongoing depositions for lawsuits, covers Facebook from its inception to the period where its creators were either billionaires or suing for the right to be. The witty, often hilarious dialogue fires quickly and lands with shattering force, filmed and edited in a sleek style that raises the stakes beyond wealth and ingenuity into a portrait of strong personalities colliding. What has already been deemed “The Facebook Movie” really has about as much to do with Facebook as “Citizen Kane” does newspapers. It’s interested in the men behind the phenomenon. So many films are about saving the earth or finding love that it’s a rush to see one that treats issues of mental power with such enthusiasm.

Consider the effect of Facebook on its users . Scenes are cleverly written to demonstrate the ah-ha! moment of the sort of genius idea that seems obvious once someone else has thought about it. In one scene, Zuckerberg is hammered with questions about a girl by one of his staff members: is she single, and if so, is she looking to date? Bingo. Relationship status is born. I can say without exaggeration that myself and nearly everyone I know my age has skimmed the Facebook page of a love interest in search of such pertinent information, just as now people aren’t likely to consider anything about their romance official until their status has been changed. Presidents and kings sometimes struggle to have as much effect on human life as this.

As “The Social Network” tells it, Facebook begins when Zuckerberg, then a Harvard sophomore, starts a site to compare the looks of sorority women, creating it in an evening, while drunk, crashing the university servers within hours. Twins and Harvard rowers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (Armie Hammer) recruit him to develop a social networking site. Zuckerberg and his best, only friend Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield, soon to be Spider-Man) start their own site, thefacebook, though the former neglects to inform anyone of his blatant idea theft. Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), the creator of Napster, arrives and manages to impress Zuckerberg with a sleazy charm that speaks to his innate social disconnect. The core of the film’s interpersonal drama is here, as Eduardo, a nice guy and instrumental Facebook founder, sees his grip on the company slipping. In a sense, it’s not as villainous as it sounds, and in another, it’s far more.

Zuckerberg’s quick to gain enormous popularity and financial success, though much of this doesn’t directly concern him (as a teen, he passed on a million dollar deal from Microsoft to sell a music program of his design, uploading it to the web for free instead). Much of his success serves as revenge against those who did better with girls and have been blessed with greater gifts, but he never seems conscious of the fact that the fruits of his labor have now put him above those he ever envied. Zuckerberg might consider the rewards to be hollow, and to focus on what he knows works for him.

There have been questions about the film’s truthfulness to life. I’m not sure this matters so much, unless you were there. “All creation myths need a devil,” says one of Zuckerberg’s attorneys, and that’s a moment of amazing candor. The real story’s always infinitely more complicated than the ones we see transmuted from reality to screen. We instinctively crave something digestable, malleable enough to be chewed as we please, soft enough to be swallowed comfortably. “The Social Network” provides this, the story of the world’s youngest billionaire, a sort of visionary that gave his generation one of its most prized possessions. The screen Zuckerberg’s story keeps from being uplifting because there’s no happiness found, and it only keeps from being sad because we don’t sense he cared about happiness to begin with. There’s notable irony that Facebook might have been created by a man with little use for it to begin with.

4.5 out of 5

621 - Magnum Force review

2010-09-30T18:19:00.005-05:00

About 30 seconds into “Magnum Force,” I realized that Dirty Harry (Clint Eastwood) had already become a cultural icon less than three years after his first appearance. You don’t need to be a film historian to realize this, as the opening is a close-up of Clint’s famed .44 Magnum revolver against a deliciously comic-book red background, titles going by, the gun steady, before Harry’s famed boasting of the weapon’s decapitation capability plays before a SHOT! signals the start. The message is clear: Harry’s back, a cinematic legend already, and he’s going to blow the living shit out of some bad guys.

There’s nothing wrong with that, though it’s interesting to see how quickly that character got wrestled from its roots and pumped into an icon that belongs more to the fans than the creators. The first film, a true masterpiece of socio-political thriller filmmaking, actually only saw Harry kill two people. But the audience wants what the audience wants, and in “Magnum Force,” the first sequel of four, he waxes anyone who even gives him a funny look, a trend that would continue for the remainder of the series. Doubtlessly, Clint’s fondness for films that feature him as an invulnerable badass had something to do with it, but at least he can pull it off, unlike some other actors.

Though far from a masterpiece, “Magnum Force” actually stands on its own as highly potent action/thriller material. Written by legendary gun fanatic John Milius and would-be genius turned laughing-stock hack Michael Cimino, there’s almost two scripts here: one about cops-turned-vigilante, the other an episodic series of events where Harry butchers San Francisco creeps without so much as mussing his hair. The core plot makes no sense, especially considering the final reveal, but the sumptuously colorful design, witty dialogue, and Clint’s fine-tuned performance make this a sequel that should have satisfied everyone, as long as they aren’t too married to the deeper content of its predecessor.

620

2010-09-29T18:31:00.002-05:00

My pal Andrew Bemis has just concluded a fine feature on his blog about the aughts' best films. Making a guest appearance is me, with a comment on "Burn After Reading," a pic that I gave a 3.5 after my first viewing, only to later deem it a masterpiece of the decade. Check it out!

619 - Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps review

2010-09-28T13:23:00.002-05:00

Gordon Gekko is back, out of prison and as ruthless as ever. 22 years after “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good,” became a cultural staple representative of a destructive thirst for wealth, Oliver Stone has returned to Wall Street just in time for our generation’s great financial meltdown. Some things, like greed, never really change, but others do. If I weren’t aware of Oliver Stone’s documentaries lavishing such fine chaps as Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro with praise, I might be tempted to say that he’s cooled down a bit.

Look at the film’s treatment of Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas). He’s out of a decade’s worth of prison and seemingly a little repentant, though his use of the phrase “victimless crime” calls his remorse into question. But he’s not the villain we saw in Stone’s “Wall Street” back in 1988. Gekko loves his estranged daughter (Carey Muligan), warns crowds of an upcoming market crash (this is set in 2008, mind you), and kindly gives elderly women financial advice. Sure, he’s still a bit of a cad, as we know he has to be. But now he’s just short of being the hero, a bad guy that we all want to believe has a heart after all.

It’s funny how our culture often takes popular villains and then insists on turning them into sort of heroic characters. Think Darth Vader, the Terminator, or even the Devil. I just never figured that I’d see Oliver Stone participating in such a thing, but then again, I should remember those documentaries. In “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” there’s Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf), a new hotshot Wall Street trader who inherits the role that Charlie Sheen, another great guy, had in the first film. Jake’s engaged to Gekko’s daughter, a liberal blogger, and is himself a gooey liberal at heart, his pet project being to get $100 million for an alternative energy company. He takes a job with his mentor’s nemesis (Josh Brolin), whether for revenge or an insatiable desire to ascend the ladder, I’m not sure, but then again, I don’t think Jake is, either. But his wheelings and dealings are surprisingly scandal-free, filled with little idealistic lectures about changing the world for the better while he makes a fortune. Jake’s such a bleeding heart that he lectures his real estate agent mother (Susan Sarandon) on the need to get “honest” work as a nurse.

Now, you tell me: would a Wall Street trade ever say that to anyone? It’s preposterous, but actually part of this film’s charm. This is the second least vitriolic film Stone has ever made after “World Trade Center,” one without bitterness or even a great need to lecture. There’s a fairly involving, fast-paced, and occasionally even stylish little thriller here, with financial underhandedness and stock market wizardry in place of sex and violence. No doubt the economic climate of the past few years inspired a return to this setting that has come to be cinema’s most well-known depiction of business run wild, though I was pleasantly surprised by how easy-going Stone is. Hang on, things can be made right, he seems to be saying. Ideologically, I can think of much worse messages than that.

3 out of 5

618- Resident Evil: Afterlife review

2010-09-18T10:11:00.001-05:00

Just a question to get the ball rolling: if the Umbrella Corporation, the malevolent entity behind the destruction of civilization in the “Resident Evil” film series, occupies an earth that has been stripped of life with the exception of its own members, why do they keep experimenting on new drugs? Are their shareholders that dedicated to maintaining stock price?

Forgive me for asking. I was recently telling an old professor that I thought nitpicking plot points was likely the lowest form of film criticism. Anyone can do it, and the practice is often used to inflate the ego rather than to examine the artwork. But a picture like “Resident Evil: Afterlife” looks the viewer in the eye and dares them not to engage in the practice. Nothing makes much sense, and as the body count skyrockets and the slow-motion stretches out the running time by ten percent or so, there’s little else to think about.

The fourth entry in a series thoroughly devoted to impressing every 12-year-old boy on earth, we once again follow Alice, a nigh-invulnerable secret agent/assassin/fashion model/whatever, as she wages war against the Umbrella Corporation and its endless supply of monsters, zombies, and soldiers. Alice is played by Milla Jovovich, a staggeringly gorgeous actress who has played this role so many times that by now she must be nothing short of a world-class expert on firearms and abdominal exercises. She’s directed by her husband, Paul W.S. Anderson, who also wrote the screenplay, and apparently learned at some point that filmmaking at its best consists of beautiful women, gushing blood, and 3D effects (to enhance the childishness). Let him not be confused with Paul Thomas Anderson, the genius auteur behind films such as “Boogie Nights,” “Punch-Drunk Love,” and “There Will Be Blood.” The latter Anderson doesn’t seem to care much about action in his films, but wouldn’t you know it, he actually spends time writing them.

Let me be clear: there’s nothing wrong with movies about gunfights, hot babes, and zombies. Not every movie needs to make even half logical sense, as long as what’s going on feels genuine to the characters. But here, you’d have to ask: what characters? Sure, there literally are characters, such as Alice, her sidekick Claire (Ali Larter), Claire’s brother Chris (Wentworth Miller), NBA star Luther (Boris Kodjoe), and movie producer Bennett (Kim Coates). Take those last two characters: Luther was a superstar athlete before the world fell apart. What might the screenwriter have in mind for this detail? And Bennet was apparently a big shot in the film industry. So some seeds are planted, right? Forgive a minor spoiler: Luther’s celebrity means nothing, and Bennett is apparently just Anderson shooting the bird to old colleagues.

So why should we care? Or, more accurately, why should I care? I don’t, but some will enjoy the relentless violence, the sparkling eye candy, the cheekily ominous tone. I’ve sat through all four of these, and I think I’ve earned a reprieve: count me out of number five.

1.5 out of 5

617 - The Last Exorcism review(s)

2010-09-10T10:29:00.004-05:00

“The Last Exorcism” is a clever mockumentary/horror that makes a critical misstep in its final stages. Nothing unusual about that, but what’s depressing here is that the filmmakers more or less have a whole movie on their hands, until they seemingly decide that what they came up with wasn’t scary enough, and then got to work on something more devilish. The ending twist essentially sets up a third act that never arrives, which, to my surprise, is a shame; what comes before frights and intrigues with unexpected effectiveness.

The protagonist, a reverend looking to discredit the practice of exorcism, is played impeccably by Patrick Fabian, an actor recognizable from TV who proves himself readily capable of carrying an entire film. Fabian’s reverend, a sham exorcist armed with megawatt charm, oscillates between noble (he wants to stop the harm of children through exorcism) and shameful (when the exorcism comes, he pulls out his bag of special effects and audaciously accepts a wad of hundreds). The film’s dichotomies, one between the reverend’s intentions and methods, the other over the plausibility of exorcism, imbues the film with a sense of moral crisis that far outlasts the effective creepiness of the demonic happenings themselves. But the final moments, while filmed rather well, are a bit of a cheat, reducing the picture's finer points to an exclamation point.

3.5 out of 5

Another review I wrote of the film can be found here.

616 - Killers review

2010-09-08T10:41:00.004-05:00

On the special features for “Killers,” one of the film’s producers says that it was an attempt to capture the sort of charm and romance as seen in pictures with stars like Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. Really? Is there anyone, and I mean anyone, who if forced to tell the truth, would compare Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl with Grant and Hepburn?

When watching Heigl interviewed on late night TV, my pal Dustin brought up a valid point: some people, like, say, Christopher Hitchens, could go on a talk show and talk about absolutely anything. Heigl can talk about her dog, how she met her husband, and … that’s it. She’s pretty, but empty, and that’s always reflected in her screen performances. What self-respecting intelligent viewer would ever want her or one of her characters as a friend? Meanwhile, Kutcher has the lady-killer looks, but his acting will always be best suited to the Michael Kelso roles, goofy slackers that are a lot of fun to party with but not a whole lot else. Kutcher’s a world-class assassin, though he looks decidedly uncomfortable with a Glock clasped in his hand, as if afraid a misfire will send the slide soaring into his skull. Anyone who can ascend from Iowan obscurity to household name has to have some brains, though Kutcher has never figured out how translate them into his performances.

So there you have it: Heigl as the finicky, shallow housewife, screaming in terror every time an assassin’s bullet meant for hubby Kutcher soars by. There’s a bit of “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” here, only the woman is certifiably useless, and in the earlier film, the leads actually belonged in starring roles, not showboating for MTV prank shows or paper-thin TV dramas. And “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” at least had the smarts to present its action as a metaphor for marital dysfunction, whereas “Killers” awkwardly merges the romance and action pieces, stumbling from trite arguing to low-intensity shootouts without direction or purpose. It’s a lame attempt to cash in on key demographics of both genders, and another illustration of Hollywood’s mistaken ideas about the marketability of star power.

1.5 out of 5

615 - 5 Tips for Aspiring Screenwriters

2010-09-02T06:12:00.008-05:00

Why should you heed my screenwriting advice?

Maybe you shouldn't. I’ve never had a screenplay filmed, nor have I sold one for any amount of money worth mentioning. I’ve only entered one competitively, and it lost to a short story about futuristic abortion. I don’t live or work in the film industry and I’ve never taken a scriptwriting class.

On the other hand, I have written a few scripts of my own. I’ve got a Master’s in Creative Writing and not only do I watch and write about countless movies, I’ve read more than my share of screenplays (and even a book or two on the subject). There’s not much I have to say that a veteran of the trade would find enlightening, but on the other hand, a lot of what I cover is underemployed by those same vets. I got to writing this when I considered that after years of study, I must have learned something that could be helpful to one who is either considering screenwriting or has started but could use some pointers. Here are five, in no particular order.

1. The Most Important Important Question:

Storywriting 101 will challenge the authors to ask “What does the protagonist want?” It’s key, for obvious reasons.

Luke Skywalker wants an adventurous life battling the Empire.

Forrest Gump wants to be with his beloved Jenny.

Benjamin Braddock wants purpose in a world filled with alienation.

John McClane wants to be with his wife.

Dorothy Gale wants to return to Kansas.

Woody wants to be Andy’s favorite toy.

And so on. These can even change as a film goes on. For example, Woody’s goal goes from being Andy’s favorite toy to returning home.

A natural extension of this question is “What is keeping the protagonist from his/her goal?”

Luke Skywalker encounters some droids with invaluable military information and must avoid Imperial agents to get the data into the right hands.

Forrest Gump’s lady love is a wild tramp that actively resists his attempts to be close to her.

Benjamin Braddock’s struck with an existential crisis and finds no solace in a remote, distant world.

John McClane comes to visit his wife, but her office building is stormed by terrorists, forcing him to rescue her and a large group of hostages.

Dorothy Gale is placed in a fantastical land whose peace is threatened by an evil witch determined to halt her progress.

Woody is separated from Andy and must survive the experiments of a child miscreant.

Going through descriptions like that are useful for understanding how story works. But on the other hand, I’ve long felt that yet another question is vastly underutilized by writing instructors, and is even more important to a story. That question is “What is the protagonist doing about it?”

Everybody has desires, and everybody has an obstacle to easing their wants. But it’s what a person actually does about these wants that determines audience sympathy. Just as one gets frustrated with a friend or family member who does nothing to clear up their problems, an audience member will rarely sympathize with a screen character who takes no action.

Luke Skywalker enlists a motley assortment of team members to help deliver the data and defeat the Empire.

Forrest Gump, using his limited intellect and bountiful positivity and athleticism, wins many personal victories while awaiting Jenny’s return.

Benjamin Braddock begins an affair with an older woman, and later lunges for a chance at happiness with her daughter.

John McClane uses his police skills to thwart the terrorists’ plans and reunite with his wife.

Dorothy Gale, amassing an offbeat group of friends, journeys to find the land’s most powerful force in the hope of returning home.

Woody works together with his archrival to return to Andy and regain the affection of the other toys.

All of these characters are doing something. Consider some alternative paths:
Luke Skywalker, dejected over the death of his aunt and uncle, goes into hiding and opens a small droid repair shop.

Forrest Gump, well aware of his pathetic intellectual acumen, decides to cut grass and collect government assistance for the remainder of his life.

Benjamin Braddock, sick of a society he doesn’t belong in, takes his own life by tying weights around his waist and dropping into his parents’ pool.

John McClane, terrified of what could happen should he intervene, finds a cozy hiding spot and waits the crisis out.

Dorothy Gale, flummoxed by her arrival in Oz, breaks down into tears and refuses to move.

Woody, facing certain death at the hands of cruel Sid, submits to fate, allowing himself to be blown up via firecracker.

OK, none of the above sound like better movies than the ones that were actually made, right? This isn’t to say there aren’t places for stories where the protagonist refuses to even try to help themselves, because there are. But you won’t see many in the local multiplex, because few people care about stories like that. A picture about the Holocaust will involve concentration camp revolts and great acts of kindness. Movies about battered women will see the lady go on the run or take revenge on her abuser. A film about a man who needs money to pay for his son’s operation will see him rob a bank or master the world of poker.

To simplify, action is where a story is. When writing a script, ask all three questions, but pay special to the third question, because that’s where the action is.

2. End at the Ending

I often ask a rhetorical question to people: “What does every cinematic masterpiece have in common?” There’s a lot of answers, but only one correct: “They all end the moment they need to end.”

What I mean here is that a film needs to end with power, leaving the viewer breathless, enthralled, touched, or whatever reactions you’re going for. A way to dilute those feelings is to keep going after the final punctuation mark has been put in place.

“The Dark Knight” ends immediately after Batman, having killed Harvey Dent, decides to take the blame for the villain’s crimes. Batman drives into distance as Commissioner Gordon powerfully explains society’s need for such a hero. Cue music, wow!

“Sideways” ends as Miles, having received an uplifting message from Maya, goes to her door and knocks, the screen cutting to black, leaving us the knowledge that their relationship can resume and his life can gain purpose. Incredibly moving and touching.

“Blue Velvet” ends as Jeffrey, having stopped the villainous Frank and reunited troubled singer Dorothy with her kidnapped son, leaves the darkness behind, basking in the light with his family and new girlfriend, the world at rest. Simultaneously creepy and uplifting.

“A Clockwork Orange” ends with Alex, now cured of his “cure,” visualizes a fantastic orgy with an adoring crowd. Chilling and provocative.

"Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb," concludes with the politicians bitterly arguing with how to ensure the continued survival of the human race, followed by a montage of nuclear explosions, suggesting the utter annihilation of the human race courtesy of these buffoons. Kinda makes you think, doesn't it?

And so on. There’s not a frame to add to any of these films, and doing so would substantially reduce their impact. But many films drone on well after what had to be said has been. Consider, for example, any Spike Lee film, which always drone on and on (and on) well after we get the point. Lee’s a talented filmmaker who can’t help but blather. Also consider “Lethal Weapon 4,” the final installment in that series. Riggs and Murtaugh defeat the Chinese Triads and close the case. Then the film goes on another ten minutes or so, proceeding to wrap up every facet of their personal lives. At this point, just about nobody cares. That closing scene could have been shifted ahead of the climax and would have been a better fit, but instead it occurred after the tension had been defused. Another good example is Kevin Costner’s “Open Range.” It’s a good Western that climaxes when Costner and Robert Duvall butcher the evil cattle baron and his goons. Town saved, right? Immediately after we’re treated to an epilogue where Costner professes his love for local lass Annette Benning. He walks into the sunset, only to turn around, come back, and give another monologue. Enough already.

A recent example of a film that ends right as it should and avoids the temptation to meander around is Antoine Fuqua’s cop drama “Brooklyn’s Finest.” The three protagonists, all cops immersed in varying degrees of corruption, resolve their respective stories at a cesspool of a tenement block on the same evening. After the conclusion, the only survivor of the three walks off, splattered in blood, his morality having been put to the test. It would have been easy to add one or more epilogues, but Fuqua just lets it end there, a superb decision.

An example of a film that ends too soon is the recent mocku-horror "The Last Exorcism." Spoiler alert: After spending the film teasing the viewer about whether or not the poor teenage farm girl really is possessed, we're suddenly thrust into a plot about a Satanic cult and a demon child. The protagonist rushes off to confront the demon while his crew is slaughtered. The end. Kinda anti-climatic for the filmmakers to boot up a new plot just to let it last a mere three minutes.

So when’s the right time to end? Pick a point where you’re considering ending and ask a few questions:

Have the characters’ problems been solved? If not in any case, is it necessary that they be?

Does ending at this point end with a kick, or does it let the audience down gently? Which is appropriate for the material?

If there were more scenes after this point, what would they contribute to what we’ve already experienced?

Give those questions a spin, then write your ending accordingly.

3. Let the Story Tell the Story

This is analogous to the literary advice “Show, Don’t Tell.” For books and short stories, this advice is somewhat clichéd and overused. For screenwriting, it’s invaluable. Audiences simply don’t care about being spoon-fed exposition. It slows down the action and thus distracts the script from moving forward.

The best way to handle exposition is to let it come from the mouths of the characters during pertinent discussions that lend themselves to believability. In other words, it has to sound like something they’d actually talk about.

For example, say you’re writing a script about a group of expert hackers. In the script, a new law has been passed that increases prison sentences for convicted hackers. Now look at this dialogue:

MIKE: Did you hear about the new law?
RICK: What law?
MIKE: The president just signed a new law that mandates a ten year prison sentence for convicted hackers. That means us.

A little obvious, isn’t it? That’s just feeding us the info as if we were reading it in the newspaper. And is it likely that one of these hackers won’t be aware of such important news? Let’s try again:

MIKE: We’ll hit it with the XY protocol and see how the firewall holds up.
RICK: Are you sure about that? We don’t even know if it’ll work, and I have better things to do than go to jail.
MIKE: Come on, like you have anything better to do with those ten years.

Better, right? We both learn that they risk a ten year prison sentence and we get an idea of the rapport between the characters at the same time.

I’ll return to “Sideways” as an example that handles this rule well. Miles, its protagonist, is a drunk, an unhappy middle school English teacher, and a failed novelist on the verge of throwing in the towel. In the film’s greatest scene, he tells his love interest why he favors Pinot Noir:

MILES: Um, it's a hard grape to grow, as you know. Right? It's uh, it's thin-skinned, temperamental, ripens early. It's, you know, it's not a survivor like Cabernet, which can just grow anywhere and uh, thrive even when it's neglected. No, Pinot needs constant care and attention. You know? And in fact it can only grow in these really specific, little, tucked away corners of the world. And, and only the most patient and nurturing of growers can do it, really. Only somebody who really takes the time to understand Pinot's potential can then coax it into its fullest expression. Then, I mean, oh its flavors, they're just the most haunting and brilliant and thrilling and subtle and... ancient on the planet.

Of course, he’s talking about himself as much as he is about wine. What makes the dialogue so poignant is that he’s unveiling his soul, perhaps without even fully realizing it. Imagine the dialogue if he had bluntly said “Let me tell you about myself,” and then proceeded to say the same things. Instead of being poignant, the character would look like a colossal blowhard. Ideal dialogue will both advance the plot and reveal character. In the case of great dialogue, by such masters as Quentin Tarantino or David Mamet, the dialogue very well may itself be the plot.

4. Beware of Dream Sequences

It’s stunning that I even have to write this down, but as a recent film that shall go unnamed demonstrated, the disastrous practice of turning some or all of a movie’s plot into a dream has survived into the 21st century. I’m generally not a fan of dream sequences at all, but they do have their place (Coppola’s “The Conversation” comes to mind). But how much of a rip off is it when we’re told that everything that just transpired onscreen was all just a figment of some character’s imagination? A film is already something dreamed up; why go further? I’m not counting films like “Inception,” in which the fact that the characters are dreaming is key to the action.

5. Don’t Write Yourself

Writers are often told to write what they know. An interesting piece of advice, one that, were we to assume all writers take, would mean that we have a lot of scribes who’ve lead extremely dangerous lives as gun-fighting police detectives, web-slinging superheroes, and psychotic serial murderers. Of course, most real writers tend to be intense and highly introspective folks, and in general don’t have personal experience with shootouts and vampires and other commonly written about subjects.

Thus, don’t worry about writing what you know. In fact, what you know is probably not that exciting. The politics of your workplace? The local bar scene? The odds are that no one will care. What’s important when writing is to get to the human truth of your characters. If your hero is a guilt-wreaked detective, keep in mind that you know what it feels like to feel guilty for your failures and wrongs, even if they’re not as intense as the character’s (unless you’re a sociopath, in which case it’s doubtful that you’d be interested in writing to begin with). We can relate to Forrest Gump because we admire his gentle spirit, kindness, and simple tenacity, though I’m willing to be that the writer wasn’t mentally disabled, nor was he a star football player, a war hero, or a shrimp tycoon.

Of course, this rule offers a lot of room for exceptions. The politics of your workplace could translate into a hilarious satire ala “Office Space.” The local bar scene could offer some insights into the artistic process as seen in “Barfly.” I’m just suggesting that if one wants to be a good storyteller, they’re likely going to need to be able to weave tales that aren’t wholly representative of their own life experience.

614

2010-08-27T09:43:00.002-05:00

The Guinness World Record holder for movie-watching, a 65-year-old Welshman, has died. His claim was 28,000, which was actually fewer than I would have guessed. How did Guinness confirm the number to be accurate? He most have had an honest manner about him. Apparently he was a patriot, because his favorite films were all British, including one of my old favorites, "Zulu."

613 - Charlie St. Cloud review

2010-08-26T12:33:00.002-05:00

When Paul Newman died and I was reading the retrospectives, something occurred to me about the late great star: he was too good looking. At least, for his roles. Although it would be difficult to lodge a complaint about his ability as an actor, his choice of roles weren't conducive to stunningly handsome actors; prisoners, lowlifes, slob cops.

I'm reminded of Newman when I look at Zac Efron, a dashing young pretty boy who himself appears to possess more talent that his visage would imply. Handsome and at ease on camera, the star talent is obvious. It's not a total stretch to imagine him in the Tom Cruise vein, a dashing star that could open a wide range of pictures, assuming he can prove his versatility.

"Charlie St. Cloud," Efron's latest and an obvious attempt to stretch, is less than an ideal vehicle for such a purpose. A plodding melodramatic ghost story that unfolds across a scenic New England coast, it's the sort of project that must have seemed ripe with potential for the sort of actorly moments Efron-types would lunge at to prove their worth as thespians. There are, in fact, plenty of moments to please his faithful fans, which as far as I can tell almost exclusively consists of girls born in either the 80's or 90's that prefer a shirtless Efron on a big screen to that of one on a computer monitor.

Whereas few contemporary men will rush to the cinema to ogle an actress they find attractive, many women will, and director Burr Steers (who also worked with Efron on "17 Again") lovingly displays Efron as the fulfillment of girlish fantasy; stunningly handsome, tinged with gentle angst, staring thoughtfully into the sunset on his impeccable sailboat. I'd hate to compete with this guy for female attention; even my usual method of posing as the son of an oil billionaire might not work.

His character, the titular Charlie St. Cloud, is an expert sailor who forfeits a scholarship to Stanford after a devastating car crash. Charlie and his little brother are killed, though the former is resuscitated by an EMT. Two questions spring to mind in no particular order: what’s Ray Liotta doing playing the EMT, a kind and devoutly religious man? And what would the world do without the handsomeness of the elder St. Cloud child?

Charlie now tends the local graveyard and spends an hour in the woods each day to play baseball with the ghost of his brother. When a person who looks like me talks to the dead, he's considered insane. When a beautiful person does it, they're tortured and interesting. Of course, it helps that Charlie really does communicate with the dead, or the nearly-dead in some cases, but hey, no one else knows that.

So begins the plot for the fantasy, in which Efron gets to pose for the camera and fall in love with a lovely local girl who's also a fellow sail boat expert. Well, she is quite lovely, but is no match in the looks department for Charlie, which means all the non-models in the audience might have a chance themselves. There's a scene where the couple makes sweet love in the graveyard near all the corpses, which I only hope Efron’s admirers have the good sense not to replicate. I also hope that Efron's next go at being a movie star shows the good sense not to replicate much from this picture.

2 out of 5

612

2010-08-21T17:01:00.002-05:00

The Master List, a listing of every film I've seen in the past six years or so, has just been updated.

611 - Scott Pilgrim vs. the World review

2010-08-19T14:02:00.002-05:00

“Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” is a dazzling, starry-eyed rush of a romance, the frames adorned with the digital effects and imagination-tingling colors of a classic video game. There’s so much to behold visually and so much to laugh with that one can almost forget that the film’s actually a thoughtful story of maturity and coming to terms with the faults of others and oneself.

Directed by Edgar Wright (“Shaun of the Dead,” “Hot Fuzz”) and adapted from a series of graphic novels, the film’s injected with a constant awareness and affection for pop culture, from the video game graphics that often accompany the characters (life bars, coins for overcoming challenges) to unexpected flourishes, such as a popular sitcom beat that opens a scene. If Quentin Tarantino’s films synthesize pop culture into art that’s nakedly about itself, then Wright’s films wrap that same culture around stories that address real issues (“Hot Fuzz” concerned a critique of certain British cultural insularity, for example).

The titular Scott Pilgrim is a 22-year-old bassist, medium on the talent and light on the maturity. Pressed with breaking up with an adorable girl that fancies him, he can only remark “It’s haaard.” This is Wright’s sort of person an affable loser from a contemporary society that treats people as children until their early 30’s. It’s because of Scott that the video game motif gains poignancy; this generation often associates mixes its emoting with the simulated, with interactive representations of life gaining much of the value of the real thing.

Scott is played by Michael Cera, who has become the subject of endless complaints about typecasting. “He always plays the same role,” I hear, as if an actor selecting parts that suit his talents is galling. What’s often left unmentioned is how effective Cera is at modulating his onscreen persona to fit the tone; in this year’s “Youth in Revolt,” he played both hapless and scoundrel to great effect. Here he wears Scott Pilgrim like a glove, someone likeable yet in need of growth. I’m unsure what his career has in store for him and us, but this is sure to be one of his most referenced roles, the one where he becomes a sort of anti-action hero action hero.

The film plays quite effectively with genre, segueing from comedy to romance and into a sort of zany action thriller with surprising ease. Scott’s life takes a turn for the difficult when he meets Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a purple-haired geek bombshell who reluctantly returns his affection. What she neglects to mention is the League of Evil Exes, a consortium of her past romantic interest who seek to kill her future love life by killing her present lover. Scott’s progressively difficult fights with the exes are framed as video game clashes, replete with martial arts moves, colorful violence, a bombastic announcer. The visually arresting device does suffer wear by the film’s lengthy climax, but

It’s a delicate balancing act of aggressive style and thematic seriousness that ultimately renders “Scott Pilgrim” so touching and exciting. Even after Scott’s bested every level, there’s a note of ambiguousness, one that addresses how maturity has more to do with looking forward than backward. This just might wind up as one of the defining films of the first video game generation, for those who care about such a thing.

4 out of 5

610 - Heckler review

2010-08-18T14:15:00.005-05:00

“Heckler” purports to be an examination of people who disturb comics during their routines but quickly transforms into part-examination of critics, part wound-licking party. Featuring and produced by Jamie Kennedy, this documentary begins by examining literal hecklers. An impressive roster of well-known comedians chime in with their best heckler stories (intercut with footage) and observations on the mindsets of those who would interfere with their shows. Kennedy brings a few hecklers backstage for interviews, where they shamelessly declare their belief that it’s their God given right to interrupt any performance they don’t enjoy. It’s an effective moment Kennedy and director Michael Addis let these damn themselves more than talking heads like Louie Anderson and David Cross ever could.

Alas, the title is just a cover for the film’s true topic: critics. Why are those damn critics so mean, Kennedy asks, over and over, clearly carrying deep wounds from the thrashings his performances and films have received from those in the know. Stars such as Harland Williams and Jon Lovitz, no strangers to dreadful reviews, keep the tone consistent: why can’t they see “The Benchwarmers” is good because 12-year-olds enjoyed it? What do they have against us personally? If they’re so smart, why don’t they perform better comedy routines and make better films?

Allow me to draw upon my humble credentials to answer such questions: If “The Benchwarmers” was good, it would be funny to a wide age range (see “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”). We don’t have anything against you personally, we just don’t like it when you foist awful movies upon the cinematic consciousness. And it’s our job to review your work, not to one-up you. These points are obvious, but entirely ignored by Kennedy and Addis, who are happy to let this documentary devolve into a pity party.

Kennedy brings on a few critics who trashed his work, most of whom make me look like Brad Pitt and are at a loss for words. One poignant scene occurs, however, when Kennedy confronts a loathsome blogger who declared that Kennedy needed to be dragged to death by a truck, amongst other things. “Dude, that’s just … evil,” Kennedy says without humor, and he’s right, though this film would have you believe that most critics share similar views. Notable is Richard Roeper, who doesn’t budge when Kennedy asks him if “Son of the Mask” was so bad, Leonard Maltin, who probably sounded too reasonable because he’s hardly in the thing, and Devin Faraci of CHUD, who gets angry at Maltin for disregarding the aforementioned website’s legitimacy (the geeks at CHUD do good work, actually).

The film’s conclusion is that critics, are, in fact, just a heckler with more ink. Pardon me, but that’s bullshit. No matter how vile some blogger or indie newspaper reviews in the Southwest might be, critics don’t hassle artists during their process, but analyze and advise afterwards. The truth is, when one puts their work out there, be it a comedy routine, a film, an NBA game, or even a review itself, one must know that they’ve opened themselves up to criticism, good and bad, from others. “People are either creators or destroyers, and I prefer to side with the creators,” says George Lucas, demonstrating the same wit and grasp of reality that propelled the last three “Star Wars” films to universal critical acclaim. It’s almost a bit shocking to me that so many successful performers seem to have a difficult time grasping this fundamental fact about performance, but then again, Kennedy seems to seek out those who have had a rough time. What would, say, a critical darling have said when asked their opinion on the subject? Is Kennedy so lacking self-consciousness that he’s willing to use “Son of the Mask” as a rallying point for why critics don’t get it? Did Kennedy and Addis think that portraying Uwe Boll's monstrously stupid "box the critics" stunt as righteous was a good idea? The public hates that moron's films just as much as the critics do, and if any filmmaker ever deserved intense vitriol from the critics, it's Boll.

The real surprise is an interview with Carrot Top, that critical punching bag and target of endless ridicule from critics and peers alike. When asked about bad reviews, he replies that they do hurt, but when asked what he’d say to his harshest critics, he simply replies that he hopes he can change their mind. Negative reviews or no, I think the Top gets it; most critics ultimately want people to do well. But I think that thought hurts more than just writing critics off as mean and vindictive. Nonetheless, the star of “Kickin It Old School” might do well to think about that.

2 out of 5

609 - The Expendables review

2010-08-14T16:47:00.006-05:00

“The Expendables,” written, directed by, and starring Sylvester Stallone, is a celebration of the three B’s: Blood, Brawn, and Bullets (you weren’t thinking of something else, were you?). That, and Stallone’s massive ego. This joyously brutal actioneer, about a group of invincible mercenaries, gets the job done right, dispensing a thrill-a-minute in such fashion destined to please anyone (like me) who was titillated by the premise.

The battles, particularly an aerial assault on an island dock, are first rate, though I sense a bit more than what most viewers so far seem to report. In between the sequences of extreme carnage are some scenes that unveil a sort of simple and sincere story about the way hard, scarred men express their affection more through actions rather than emoting. Those folks too smart to enjoy movies will smugly deride this as a sort of homosexual fantasy, when in fact it’s as asexual as a gender pic can get, one about men who would have little use for psycho-analysis babble. Mickey Rourke’s retired merc Tool gets the film’s sole monologue, a nice moment that’s not even close to overwritten and flawlessly delivered. While it’s easy to deride the corniness of the film’s one liners (“Bring it, Happy Feet!” being the memorably worst), Stallone’s dialogue is still light years ahead of ugly-geek tripe like the comparatively violent but significantly more disgusting “Kick-Ass.” Someone who finds too much wrong with the dialogue here is just adjusting the data to match the hypothesis.

Plot is dispensed sparingly, as is character development, but the film then functions, quite knowingly, as a lesson on the reason why star power matters, whether or not the lights have dimmed over the years. With recognizable faces on virtually every character, casting fills in parts of the story that the script itself does not. While Stallone, Rourke, and Jason Statham are the only Expendables we get to know much about, it’s impossible not to let our minds fill in the blanks when we watch characters played by action icons such as Jet Li and Dolph Lundgren (nice to see him again on the big screen). Arnold and Bruce’s much vaunted cameos offer a couple of funny lines in the midst of a film that really could have done without them; it’s a thrill to watch the rest of these old pros at work.

4 out of 5

608 - Kick-Ass review

2010-08-05T13:24:00.005-05:00

A sample scene from “Kick-Ass:” A twelve-year-old girl and her father, dressed as poor imitations of superheroes, have a gangster chained to his steering wheel, his car in a giant vehicle compactor. As he pleads for mercy, the girl, with Dad’s approval, starts the compactor, crushing the man to death and spitting him out with his car, now a giant cube. The girl’s analogy? “What a douche.”

“Kick-Ass” is a revolting comic book actioneer that’s so immoral and disgusting that I’d be surprised that even the lowlier elements of Hollywood would crank it out, much less some for which I hold a modicum of respect. I’m coming in late to the debate about whether or not Hit Girl (Chloë Moretz), the film’s pint-sized heroine with an attitude towards human life to match the Joker’s, constitutes an egregious breach of the common morality all members of this society presumably learn.

Handled well, the material could be very effective, and in fact, the source material, a comic series by Mark Millar, actually does a better job of this. But there’s no satire or parody of social commentary with Hit Girl, just wanton slaughter with a preteen visage.

Really, what’s to enjoy about this? Am I just not cynical enough to spot the appeal? Is the thought of a twelve-year-old girl with the combat skills of Rambo funny? Or insightful? Or subversive? Forget how insane it is when Hit Girl dispatches a dozen armed men at a time; doesn’t the face of a child pulling the trigger give people pause? The weight of the violence in this film derives from the repulsion factor, not in even a glancing consideration of morality or consequences. Even the “Rambo” films were actually infused with moral considerations about the cost of violence. Here, Hit Girl ends the film with a big grin on her face, satisfied at her triple-digit kill count. Even the titular hero, a teen with a comparatively normal upbringing, seems unfazed by the gruesomeness, as if all in a day's work for a dimwitted high school doofus.

For a moment I’ll compare this trash to “The Wild Bunch,” another ultra-violent film I’ve been thinking of lately. There’s an even higher body count than “Kick-Ass,” and the action is highly stylized. But when its heroes (all grown men, I lamentably have to add) engage in gun battles in which dozens are chewed apart by bullets, there’s unmistakably a sense of sorrow, an understanding of the moral and societal decay that brings such violence into our lives. Sam Peckinpah made stylized violence into a thing of beauty, a lamentation of man’s brutality transmuted into a thunderous adrenaline rush.

“Kick-Ass” doesn’t have a moral bone in its body, nor a logical one, for that matter. The script, worked on by director Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman, and Millar himself, frames this monstrous evil with a fractured, hole-ridden, only semi-coherent story, driven by characters that range from vile to even worse pejorative adjectives. “Kick-Ass” is merely a butcher’s knife, indiscriminate in its ugliness, as brain-dead as its stupid, insipid characters.

0.5 out of 5

607 - Inception review

2010-07-29T12:56:00.002-05:00

"Inception" is a cinematic rarity, a highly original, 2½-hour work of amazement that's an embodiment of the classics. Writer/director Christopher Nolan has produced a story of redemption and forgiveness, a timeless sort of tale that comes shrouded in ideas inventive and dazzling. We can watch enthralled because we don't know what to expect, and leave touched because emotional truths have been spoken.

The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Cobb, a tortured soul who happens to be the best "extractor" in the world. Extraction concerns a technology that Nolan wisely neglects to explain in serious detail, one that literally allows for the construction of worlds. A combination of drugs and machines allow Cobb and his team to invade the dreams of an unsuspecting mark, with the purpose of stealing their most valuable secrets.

Cobb assembles a dream team of dream thieves for his latest mission, a seemingly impossible challenge to alter an individual's subconscious perceptions. Among the crew is Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), an expert researcher; Eames (Tom Hardy), an impersonator; and Ariadne (Ellen Page), an architect who designs an entire world to be plugged into the victim's mind. There are many more characters played by wonderful actors, but to avoid turning this review into a list, I'll simply acknowledge that casting and performances alike are all spot on.

Nolan's concept of the dream, for all its morphing scenery and unreliable gravity, is rooted in reality. The surreal takes a backseat to the emotionally resonant, the architecture of the mind providing a realistic simulation for moving experiences. Even as those aware of the dream are capable of manipulating the fabrication to their advantage, it's still a place where the subjects kill or be killed, and can experience pain and heartbreak of tremendous proportions. Cobb's own mind is threatened by Mal (Marion Cotillard), a mysterious woman who, as lost loves tend to do, stalks his dreams, even when he knows the world isn't real.

There's much more to be said about the plot, but I'll decline to do so. "Inception" is there to be experienced, a cerebral web to be untangled by audience members. The film's intricate action sequences and lavish special effects belie the deeply personal tone. Nolan's films, from his early ("Memento") to his most recent ("The Dark Knight,") show a consistent interest in deception and identity. "Inception" must certainly be the largest film in cinematic history to convincingly address the way our memories and feelings add up to ourselves.

Like many of Nolan's protagonists, Cobb carries a tremendous burden of guilt, and his profession means the resulting dangers become more literal. Nolan takes that emotion and makes beautiful art out of what might happen were we able to face the demons of the mind head on. Allow me to borrow a phrase from another great film: This is the stuff that dreams are made of.

5 out of 5

606 - The Last Airbender review

2010-07-09T11:40:00.004-05:00

Have you ever had a child attempt to explain the mythology of a stupid cartoon you don’t watch? “The Last Airbender” is like having a once renowned and exciting director spend $150 million to explain the mythology of a stupid cartoon you don’t watch. The characters, if you can call them that, sit around and discuss their magic powers and mythical bloodlines, occasionally punctuating the exposition with a poorly directed action scene. A small child sitting behind me in the theater remarked “This is just like an episode of the show.” Well, at least he cleared that up for me.

The film is directed by M. Night Shyamalan, who burst onto the scene over ten years ago with “The Sixth Sense.” His films’ prestige have steadily declined ever since, and this, his biggest project yet in scope, doesn’t speak well for his capabilities as a filmmaker of any kind. I often tried to overlook the dreadful story and appreciate the exorbitantly expensive production values, but this was no help. The designs are lazily pirated from countless other fantasies, the ocean looks like the water from the tank on a studio backlot, the environments look as warm as a July afternoon despite being largely drenched in snow.

The plot’s borderline incomprehensible, relying heavily on the target audience’s foreknowledge of the source material. To an outside observe such as myself, I can just report that it concerns several otherworldly nations filled with people who each can control elements such as fire or water. Total control over such things might allow for some startling advancements or interesting culture, but no, the people mostly just use these powers as an excuse to do yoga, practice a religion that’s vaguely Buddhist, and have magic fights.

There’s a boy, the titular “airbender,” which means he can manipulate the wind. He’s played by Noah Ringer, a young actor whose career would be better off with any other debut feature than this. I’m tempted to slam the acting as weak, but that’s a touch harsh; this dialogue is of such a low quality that Laurence Olivier would struggle to make it sound good. Then again, some of the acting is just bad.

The story’s action ends up centering on a magic pond filled with magic fish. By then the details are largely irrelevant, because you’re either bored to tears, or you’re a child. Then again, that child behind me in the theater shared some additional insight about halfway through when he told his mother “I’m tired of watching this movie.” I might not know the show, but I knew how that kid felt.

1.5 out of 5