Mostly Movies

84th Academy Awards Predictions

2012-02-12T01:32:00.000-05:00

I'm making these predictions still with two weeks to go before the ceremony. There remain several films I haven't managed to see yet, mostly in the technical and short film categories. My goal is to have seen everything except 1 of the documentary short films, and probably two of the foreign language films. It will require great focus and a lot of time, but I'm aiming high. With that in mind, I might revise my final predictions before the 26th, but this is how I'm calling it at the moment. Any updates will be noted as such.

You can find the full list of nominees with links to any reviews I've written here.

Picture - The Artist
Director - Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist
Actress - Viola Davis for The Help
Sorry Meryl, you won't be winning again.
Supporting Actress - Octavia Spencer for The Help
Actor - Jean Dujardin for The Artist
Supporting Actor - Christopher Plummer for Beginners
Adapted Screenplay - The Descendants
Original Screenplay - Midnight in Paris
I'm not really sure any of the other nominees will really connect with Academy voters. Woody is a sentimental favorite who hasn't won an Oscar in more than 20 years.
Film Editing - Hugo
Cinematography - The Tree of Life
Art Direction/Set Decoration - Hugo
Costume Design - Hugo
Musical Score - The Artist
Without the musical score, this movie is almost nothing.
Original Song - "Real in Rio" from Rio
Makeup - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II
Sound Mixing - Hugo
Sound Editing - Hugo
Most voters don't know the difference between these two categories and tend to vote for the same film, especially one that is likely as popular with the Academy as this one is.
Visual Effects - Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Animated Feature - Rango
Still with two films to see in this category I feel confident in this prediction.
Documentary Feature - Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
I've only seen two so far, but this is my prediction.
Foreign Language Film - A Separation
Animated Short - The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
I haven't seen any of the films. The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is on YouTube, but I'm waiting to see the full program next week. La Luna is Pixar's (nearly) annual entry in this category, so even though Cars 2 didn't make the cut for feature animation, at least they got on the board in this category.
Live Action Short - Time Freak
Again, I haven't seen any of the films in this category, but based on what I've read...
Documentary Short - Incident in New Baghdad
I haven't seen any of these films.

Oscar Trivia 2012

2012-02-11T14:41:00.004-05:00

General

- Among all nominees, the most nominated is John Williams (47th and 48th nominations this year). He is followed by Woody Allen (22nd and 23rd nominations) and Meryl Streep (17th nomination).

- Among all nominees, the individuals with the most Oscars is sound designer Gary Rydstrom with 7 wins followed by composer John Williams with 5 and visual effects artist Joe Letteri with 4.

Acting

- In the Supporting Actor category Jonah Hill is the only first time nominee, the first time that's happened in 12 years and only the second time ever.

- In the same category, Max von Sydow and Christopher Plummer are both 82 years old. They are the 2nd and 4th oldest ever nominated in the Supporting Actor category and across all acting categories. If either of them wins, he will not only be the oldest winner in the category, but the oldest acting winner ever. Current record holder is Jessica Tandy, aged 80 years when she won for Driving Miss Daisy 22 years ago.

- Like last year, all but one of the Best Actress nominees are previous nominees.

- Glenn Close and Max von Sydow have the longest gaps between nominations of all the acting nominees. Both were last nominated 23 years ago.

- Meryl Streep is the most nominated among the acting nominees with her 17th career nod. She is followed by Close who earned her 6th nomination.

- Streep and George Clooney are the only nominated actors who already have Oscars (Streep has 2 and Clooney has 1).

- George Clooney has earned acting nominations in every odd numbered year since 2005. Hmmm....

Directing

- Woody Allen, at age 76, is the 6th oldest director ever nominated. If he wins, he will be the oldest directing winner, besting Clint Eastwood's win at age 74.

- This is Allen's first Best Director nomination in 17 years. Thinking this might be close to a record time gap I checked it out. It turns out many directors have had gaps of more than 17 years between nominations, but the record is held by John Huston who had a 33 year gap between Moulin Rouge and Prizzi's Honor.

- Michel Hazanavicius is the only first time nominee in the Director category. This is the first time that's occurred in 18 years.

- Martin Scorsese and Allen are the most nominated directors this year, each with 7 previous nominations in the category and each with 1 win. Allen also has 2 writing Oscars.

Film Editing

- Thelma Schoonmaker earned her 7th nomination. She's the most nominated of this year's nominees. She's also the most decorated with 3 film editing Oscars.

- This nomination also makes Schoonmaker one of the 4 most nominated film editors in history. She draws level with William Reynolds, Barbara McLean and Michael Kahn. Only Kahn is still active, typically cutting all of Steven Spielberg's films. He also has 3 wins.

Foreign Language Film

- In Foreign Language Film Israel picks up its 10 nomination with no wins. Iran gets its second nomination 13 years after its last one. Canada is the only nominated country with a prior win.

Music

- John Williams gets his first nominations in 6 years, his longest gap without a nod since his first nomination 44 years ago.

- John Williams extends his record as the most nominated composer in Academy history with his 47th and 48th career nominations.

- This is the first time there have been only 2 nominated songs in the Best Song category. The reason for this is a rule change a few years ago. No longer do they nominate 5 songs, but committee members award a score of 1 - 10 for each eligible song. Only songs with an average score of 8.25 or higher are nominated.

Best Picture

- Kathleen Kennedy and Steven Spielberg are the most nominated producers of this year's crop, each with 7 career nods for Best Picture. Kennedy has never won. If War Horse doesn't win Best Picture (and it probably won't) she will be the most nominated producer ever without an Oscar.

Animated Feature

- This category has existed for 11 years. Until this year, Pixar has been a nominee every time it's had an eligible film, including wins the last four years.

- This is the first time that 2 foreign language films are nominated in the Animated Feature category.

Sound

- For Sound Mixing Greg P. Russell (15 nominations) inches closer to Kevin O'Connell (20 nominations) for most nominations with no wins. Andy Nelson (16 nominations) is the most nominated among this year's group. Gary Rydstrom and Gary Summers (4 wins each) are the most decorated.

- For Sound Editing Richard Hymns and Gary Rydstrom (8 nominations and 3 wins each) are the most nominated and most decorated in the category.

Writing

- This is Woody Allen's 15th nominated screenplay, extending his record well beyond Billy Wilder's 12.

Une vie de chat (A Cat in Paris) Movie Review

2012-02-10T14:34:00.003-05:00

Animation as a medium can be a wonderful and oftenbeautiful way to tell a story. It’s a shame that more filmmakers don’t use it. Herein the United States animation tends to be thought of as a children’s mediumand it is generally used solely for such. Feature film animation was theexclusive purview of Disney until the late 1990s when Pixar (acquired byDisney) and DreamWorks started producing their own imaginative, though stillchildish, films.

However, in recent years we’ve been seeing brilliant workfrom foreign filmmakers who specialize in animation being recognized here andalmost every year since the inception of the Animated Feature Oscar, a foreignfilm with adult oriented themes has been nominated. There’s been the darkearth-toned work of Sylvain Chomet in TheTriplets of Belleville and The Illusionist, the Iranian film Persepolis,Waltz with Bashir from Israel. Twoyears ago a little known (in the USA) Irish film called The Secret of Kells made the Academy’s cut and received anomination. This year they’ve gone outside the box again – the exclusion ofPixar’s Cars 2 – and nominated twofilms, one of which has not yet been released in the United States.

A Cat in Parisfrom France has not yet received a commercial release more than what was necessaryto qualify it for Oscar contention. It’s directed by Jean-Loup Felicioli andAlain Gagnol from a screenplay by Gagnol and Jacques-Rémy Girerd. The film is notentirely adult themed, it’s probably suitable for older children with itselements of suspense and threats to a small girl named Zoé. It is noirish innature, incorporating subtle hints of gangster films (I caught references toboth Goodfellas and Reservoir Dogs) and Hitchcock, but nevergoes too dark. Perhaps the best thing about it is its trim 64 minute runningtime that manages to cram in a decent little story of a jewel thief, a littlegirl whose father was murdered sometime in the recent past, the crime lordresponsible and a ubiquitous cat that saves the day more than once.

Zoé doesn’t speak, a kind of annoying plot contrivance writteninto the story so that at a crucial moment she’s unable to explain to hermother Jeanne, a police detective searching for her husband’s killer, who thebad guy is. Zoé’s cat goes out every night to its other owner, Nico, a jewelthief who scurries along the Paris rooftops to break into museums and such toacquire his loot. The city of Paris is rendered in simple line drawings thatput the buildings at odd angles to one another giving it a sinister look thatreminded me of The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari. With high angle shots that show the Arc de Triomphe and theEiffel Tower we know this is Paris, but at street level it’s not recognizableas the City of Lights, but as a place where danger is afoot around everycorner.

The plot employs one of the (literally) biggest MacGuffinsin film history – a gigantic museum-bound statue of the Colossus of Nairobi.The crime boss Victor Costa wants it for himself (I’m not sure how he plans tosteal it or where he plans to hide it). He even uses the criminal codename “Colossus”on the job, an unsubtle metaphor for how Jeanne thinks of him. She has dreamsof him as a creature with far-reaching tentacles that choke the life out ofher. This is the kind of inventive and unique storytelling you don’t tend tofind in animated films intended for small children. It gives the film moredepth, both in terms of story and character.

A Cat in Parisis a sweet little example that we don’t need overblown computer animation andtrumped up action sequences to tell a decent story with animated characters.These characters are hand drawn and have just as much life to them as what you’llfind in a Pixar film. For that alone, I suggest that it’s worth seeking out.

Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory Movie Review

2012-02-10T11:34:00.000-05:00

From left: Joe Berlinger; Jessie Misskelley, Jr.; Damien Echols; Jason Baldwin; Bruce Sinofsky at the film's premiere in NYC.

The third and most recent entry in the Paradise Lost documentary series, titledParadise Lost 3: Purgatory, by JoeBerlinger and Bruce Sinofsky has a much more focused plan of attack. Much morethan its predecessors, it seems somehow more professional, more bona fide,which I suppose is a reflection of the fact that they’ve incorporatedcontemporary documentary film techniques to tell their story.

Because the case of the West Memphis Three and theirconviction in 1994 for the 1993 murders of three 8-year-old boys involves somuch information and has such a varied cast of characters, that gives them amassive job for this final piece. That is, if it is actually the final piece,but more on that later. The movie’s narrative is organized into distinctchapters, the first of which is a condensed recap of everything that’s comebefore. If you’ve just watched the first two films in succession or havefollowed the case with studied interest, the prologue will be tedious. Forthose who are new to the story, it is informative if incomplete. Even each ofthe first two films is incomplete so there’s no way a 25 minute segment of asingle film can accurately sum up all the pertinent information.

We know that three teenagers were convicted for thecrimes despite professing their innocence. We know there is a wealth ofevidence that wasn’t originally investigated thoroughly and new evidence thathas come to light. We remember that John Mark Byers, stepfather to one of themurdered boys, was implicated by the teenagers, the filmmakers and by thenational movement to free the three prisoners. And we certainly remember thatByers was a man who came across as basking in the spotlight of fame. Nothing hesaid ever had the ring of truth to it. It always felt staged, prepared andfalse.

Now, a decade after the second film, Byers seems morenatural in presenting himself before the camera, although I still get the sensehe’s parading a bit. The difference is that now he’s turned to side with theFree the West Memphis 3 movement based on new evidence that may help eliminatethe teens as suspects. A hair found in the shoelaces used to tie one of theboys was determined that it belongs neither to any of the victims nor any ofthe defendants. It could – and that’s very important to remember even whenBerlinger and Sinofsky perhaps don’t – COULD belong to Terry Hobbs, stepfatherto another of the three victims. A forensic scientist says it could belong to1.5 percent of the population at large, among them is Hobbs. So now the focusof the defense and the movement has shifted its gaze toward Hobbs.

By most accounts, Hobbs is no saint. He’s had troublewith the law including domestic abuse and shooting his brother-in-law during analtercation following such abuse. And according to witnesses who were neverinterviewed by investigating police, he was the last to see the boys alive, althoughhe denies this. Most experts will probably tell you that eyewitness testimony18 years after the fact is about as unreliable as it gets. No bother, as theMovement needs a scapegoat.

I’m as convinced as anyone that the three defendants arenot guilty – or at least that there simply isn’t enough evidence to convictthem. I don’t believe Jessie Misskelley’s coerced confession for one moment.Without that confession, it’s never made clear in any of these documentarieshow the prosecution connects the murders in any way to Damien Echols and JasonBaldwin. And here lies a major problem in the trial of Echols and Baldwin. Theconfession was inadmissible as Misskelley refused to testify, even though he couldhave gotten a lighter sentence. Yet there is some evidence of jury misconductin which they considered the confession as a piece of evidence to convict. Thisis a major, I mean MAJOR miscarriage of justice in my opinion. But my problemwith the Movement generally, and with these filmmakers specifically, is thatthey have a strong enough case to get the three men out of prison withoutpointing fingers at other people who are just as likely to be innocent.

In the first decade of the millennium, celebrities beganto join the cause and Natalie Maines of The Dixie Chicks made some damningaccusations toward Hobbs. He sued for defamation thus opening himself up toquestioning under oath about the murders. Here is where he gets caught in someerroneous statements. This side plot to me is secondary and almostinconsequential.

To me the most interesting parts of this documentary arethe interviews with the three defendants, now grown men with very interestingperspectives on their situations. Damien was always the most articulate of thethree and he still is. The way he has kept himself sane through 18 years ondeath row demonstrates remarkable will.

Berlinger and Sinofsky had expected to release this filmin September. But a sudden and surprising plea deal was struck in August,forcing them to add an epilogue and delay the film’s release. Finally having anew judge assigned to the case (the original trial judge heard all the appealsfor a new trial over the years), the three men were granted an evidentiaryhearing for December of last year. Then suddenly they took Alford pleabargains. This is a guilty plea that allows the defendants to assert theirinnocence for the record. They were sentenced to time served and released. Onthe books, they are guilty murderers, but in reality they are now free men whoare likely to continue from outside prison to get their convictions overturned.

Essentially, the State recognized that they were mostlikely going to be granted a new trial and they didn’t feel they had sufficientevidence to convict them again. In the interest of everyone involved, theyoffered the plea deals so the three would not have to spend more timelanguishing in prison. As Baldwin states, this is not justice. He was reluctantto plead guilty to a crime he didn’t commit, but did so for Echols’ sake, whowould have been executed if they were found guilty again.

It occurs to me that I’ve said a lot more about the factsof the case than about the documentary that presents them. I think that’sbecause Berlinger and Sinofsky have put together a compelling portrait over thelast 17 years of all that has happened. They present a convincing case for theinjustice of it all. I’m not personally 100 percent convinced that the WestMemphis 3 are innocent, but these movies have certainly convinced me that therewas not sufficient evidence to put them away for life and to kill one of them.For that, I think these filmmakers have done an astounding thing. Without thefirst documentary in the series there never would have been such a strong publicmovement which ultimately helped set them free.

Kung Fu Panda 2 Movie Review

2012-02-10T01:30:00.002-05:00

Kung Fu Panda 2,the sequel to the hit computer-animated action comedy from DreamWorks Animation,follows the standard rules of sequels. It is bigger in scope, louder, and moreboisterous. And it expands the cast list, already overflowing with celebrityvoiceovers, to include even more. Part of the fun is trying to identify thatvoice you recognize but just can’t place. In addition to the stars of the firstshow, Dennis Haysbert and Jean-Claude Van Damme appear as kung fu masters fromanother province and Danny McBride is here as a badass wolf.

If you recall the first film, Jack Black voices Po, anoverweight panda who was destined to become the Dragon Warrior – the mostfearsome kung fu fighter China had ever seen. He was trained by Master Shifu(Dustin Hoffman) and fought alongside Tigress (Angelina Jolie), one of theFurious Five (David Cross, Seth Rogen, Jackie Chan and Lucy Liu fill out theposse). All have returned for the second outing which has Po becoming unsettledby his past. He’s having visions of his infancy and has begun to suspect thathis dad, Ping the goose (James Hong), might not be his natural father.

Returning screenwriters Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Bergerprovide a pretty good story that convincingly moves this sequel along. Thistime, Po and the Furious Five must prevent a megalomaniac from gaining ruleover all China using newly minted weapons that could spell the end of kung fuas an effective tool against bad guys. Shen the peacock (voiced by Gary Oldman,taking Ian McShane’s place as the stock British-accented baddie), once banishedfrom the kingdom for reasons never really elucidated, returns with hisexplosive cannons. It seems he has invented gun powder. How can kung fu be amatch for that kind of firepower? Po, always the irreverent jokester (as voicedby Jack Black how could he be anything else), laments that he just got kung fuand now it’s about to be rendered useless.

The story borrows a lot from Chinese mysticism, fantasyand fortune telling. Michelle Yeoh voices a soothsayer whose prognosticationslead to Greek tragedy level troubles. I like how it incorporates a historicaldevelopment that forever changed warfare, but someone should tell Po and hisfriends that kung fu will survive for at least a few more centuries and that itwill actually make for a film genre unto itself one day.

In some of the big action set pieces I did feel thatdirector Jennifer Yuh Nelson, a story artist on Kung Fu Panda, cranked up the kinetic energy a little too high.When dealing with animation and not real actors, it’s possible to show yourcharacters doing anything. So I don’t understand why the action sequences areedited precisely to resemble a live action film in which cuts are made toconceal the limitations of the actors. Instead of giving in to AttentionDeficit culture, she should have slowed it down to keep our heads fromspinning.

But the animation looks spectacular. It’s as good or evenbetter than the first film and the voice characterizations are some of the bestI’ve heard in any animated feature film. KungFu Panda 2 isn’t quite one for the ages, but it’s rollicking good fun withthe occasional smart joke. Best of all is that it comes by the emotionalelements honestly – by using an old technique called writing to buildcharacters we care about.

Paradise Lost 2: Revelations Movie Review

2012-02-07T20:18:00.000-05:00

John Mark Byers (right) gives an interview on local TV news.

The impression I got from Paradise Lost, Joe Berlinger’s and Bruce Sinofsky’s documentarythat focused on the trials of the West Memphis Three and the crimes they wereconvicted of committing, was that their intent was to present an objectiveportrait of those events. Five years later they returned to follow up andexplore new evidence and accusations to make Paradise Lost 2: Revelations, a documentary that is much moreunabashed in its partisan view of the crime, investigation and trial.

We remember from the first film that victim Chris Byers’stepfather John Mark Byers occasionally ranted and raved like a fire andbrimstone preacher and at the end there was some speculation that he may havebeen involved in the deaths of the three boys because of a knife he gave thefilmmakers as a gift that turned out to have some blood on it. His storiesabout how blood might have gotten on that knife were often inconsistent. Now,after the death of his wife Melissa – Chris’s mother – in 1996 with the medicalexaminer listing cause of death as undetermined, more suspicion has cropped uparound him. It doesn’t help that he and Melissa were accused of felony theftprior to her death and that John has had other troubles with the law. The listof people who don’t want him living in their neighborhood continues to grow.

The three boys who were convicted are all interviewedagain, now in their early 20s. Damien Echols spends the most time on camera asthe documentary is ostensibly there for the appeals process in the Arkansas StateSupreme Court. Jessie Misskelley appears briefly and is obviously older andmore articulate. The same is true of Jason Baldwin, little more than a boy inthe first film, he’s now becoming a man. He’s able to speak more clearly abouthis situation. Damien Echols, the most intelligent and articulate of the threehas grown more mature, eschewing his teenage fascination with the Goth look andfocused on getting people to believe his story.

Interestingly, John Byers is the only parent of the threevictims who agreed to participate in this sequel and he steals the show. He isubiquitous in the film, appearing over and over in stunning displays oftheatricality. All of his speeches reek of falsehood and play acting. When herevisits the crime scene and stages a symbolic visitation of the graves of the threeconvicted murderers the effect is not that we are witnessing a distraughtparent exorcising personal demons, but of a madman playing up for the camerasas he lights the grass on fire and stomps around shouting about them burning inthe fires of hell.

The third major element that plays a role in this sequelis the movement of people from all over the country to free the West MemphisThree. They gather in a meeting with a local journalist to discuss how they allcame to be a part of this movement. What they seem to share in common is thatthey all felt like outsiders when they were teenagers and saw the firstdocumentary and saw immediately that something was wrong and justice was notserved. Their movement has latched onto Byers as an alternative suspect and inone uncomfortable and rather inappropriate exchange, they all but accuse himdirectly to his face of having committed the crimes, asking him why he hasn’tsubmitted himself for bite impressions and a polygraph.

Well, he does submit to a polygraph – on camera no less. Hepasses it. But Berlinger and Sinofsky throw in a title card that lists severalprescription medications, including Zoloft, that he’s on during the test. Whatpossible reason could they have for giving us that information except tosuggest that somehow they’ve rendered him capable of beating the polygraph? Yetthey don’t provide any medical expert to say that those drugs can have aneffect on the physiological responses measured in such a test. The reason for thedemand for bite impressions is because of new evidence that says the body ofChris Byers had bite marks. Jessie Misskelley’s defense attorney, who hascontinued to work on the case pro bono, brings in a crime scene forensicscientist who refutes most of what the prosecution originally asserted. Theyclaimed those marks were left by a belt buckle. Bite impressions done after theconvictions allegedly eliminate the three young men as suspects. The problemwith John Byers’ giving impressions is that he now wears dentures, the storyfor which changes periodically – first he says he lost them in a bar fight thenhe claims it was a side effect of a medication he was taking (it turns outthere is no such known side effect for that medicine). He also changes hisstory of when he lost his teeth. First it was several years after the murders –in 1997. Then he claims it happened before the murders. This is certainlysuspicious behavior, but not enough in my opinion to get a retrial.

I find this documentary a little bit dangerous andincredibly irresponsible in the way it tosses unfounded accusations aroundconcerning Byers’ guilt. There is nothing but circumstantial evidence pointingto him and what the documentary never reveals is that he was questioned byinvestigators following the murders and his alibi was supported by severalpeople. That said, I think Byers has a great love for the spotlight and hischoosing to take part in this film reflects that. All his theatricality doesn’tseem to me to be an attempt to cover up wrongdoing, but something more likechildish attention seeking. The way so many people have focused on Byers as thereal killer is not any different than how they came to so easily believe thatsome boys who listen to heavy metal were guilty. Byers is a freak to them. He’seccentric, he sports odd-looking facial hair occasionally. Isn’t pointing thefinger at him for those reasons exactly the same as suspecting teenagers whodon’t fit the social norms of their school?

In the end Echols is denied a retrial on appeal and the finaltitles inform us he could be executed as early as the following year. Of coursewe know now that never happened. I feel the filmmakers did Echols, Baldwin andMisskelley a disservice by focusing so much energy on making Byers look bad. Itgives the impression that they’re just trying to cast doubt on the convictionsusing any means possible. A more focused and poignant film would have stuckwith the holes in the prosecution’s case, of which it’s clear there were many.

If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front Movie Review

2012-02-07T10:52:00.000-05:00

Daniel McGowan’s t-shirt showing a picture of George W.Bush with the caption “International Terrorist” just about sums up the way heencounters the world. That he chose to wear that shirt while a documentary filmcrew was interviewing him during his house arrest prior to receiving a criminalsentence indicates that knowing what a shorthand signal it is, he wants theaudience to know just how far to the left he stands from the political fence.I’m going to make a bold guess in saying that how you respond to the message onhis shirt will be a fairly accurate litmus test for your opinion of theenvironmental warriors that are the subject of If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front.

As it turns out, the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) is anenvironmental activist group that was responsible for several acts of sabotageand arson perpetrated against lumber mills and corporate offices of companiesdeemed by the group to be engaged in inexcusable practices. No deaths have everbeen attributed to their fires, but they have caused extensive property damage.I knew little to nothing about this group before seeing the documentary. To theextent that I now feel like I have a strong base knowledge of their philosophy,motivations and activities, the film is successful. I give strong accolades todirectors Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman who have made one of the fewdocumentaries in recent memory that seems to honestly present as objective aviewpoint as possible. I believe anyone can come into this film and take awaythe facts that led to McGowan’s conviction. Staunch environmentalists arelikely to be angered by this film as much as the more right-leaning capitalistswho see deforestation as a necessary part of modern life and who, you know,think that arson is a crime that should be punished.

Helicopter shots of forest-covered mountains dotted byenormous clearings; freight trains loaded with freshly milled lumber; the sightof gigantic and majestic trees being cut down will either anger theenvironmentalist in you or have you shrug your shoulders. Curry and Cullman don’tdress it up with editorializing, emotional music or Indians shedding tears.They do, however, give time to wood cutters who explain that it would make nosense from a business perspective to cut down all the trees and that Federallaw actually dictates that for every tree they cut down they are required toplant five more.

The film chronicles McGowan’s early involvement withfirst environmental awareness, then activism followed by his rise to criminalaccomplice and the inevitable transition to criminal arsonist. Curry andCullman give equal time not only to McGowan and his sister, who remarks that itis sometimes difficult to understand his politics especially when he recycledthe paper labels from her unopened cans, and to former confederates from hisdays in the Pacific Northwest staging protests and setting fires, but also tofederal agents involved in the investigation into ELF’s practices.

The most incredible thing about the ELF is how secretivethey managed to keep everything. Initially, investigators couldn’t get anyinformation about them. They kept their communications off the Web. They used asystem involving books and a code to identify page, line and word numbers topiece together messages. Most importantly of all was a solemn vow to never turnon your brothers-in-arms so to speak, a promise that was ultimately not upheld.At the end of the day these people are not hardened criminals who know from ayoung age that they may end up rotting in prison. They are basicallypeace-loving hippies who, when faced with the prospect of long prison sentences,suddenly wake up to reality and decide that life is better on the outside evenif it means turning on someone. McGowan and some others left the movement whensome of the crazier among its members started predictably talking about movingfrom property destruction to exacting some kind of human toll.

One of the most controversial issues brought to light inthe documentary is McGowan’s official status as a domestic terrorist. Becauseof new regulations in place after 9/11, he and his activist criminal friendswere branded as terrorists and subject to harsher prison sentences to becarried out in special detention centers. McGowan, his family and his formerconfederates strike me as a bit delusional when they insist that he doesn’t fitthe definition because a terrorist is someone who seeks to hurt or kill people.They’re actually completely wrong about the goal of terrorism and if the filmhas a minor drawback, it’s that Cullman and Curry never get any governmentofficial or terrorism expert on camera to explain what terrorism really is.That is, it’s designed to instill fear and terror in a group of people, usuallyfor politically motivated reasons. It so happens that killing lots of people isoften an effective way of quickly accomplishing that goal. To the filmmakers’credit, they do include a scene of lumber mill owner-manager talking about theparanoia and nightmares he experienced after his offices were burned. The goalof the ELF was clearly, unequivocally, and without doubt to scare people intochanging their practices. In spite of McGowan and friends’ insisting that he isnot al Qaeda, that is precisely what al Qaeda and their ilk are doing, albeitwith a higher body count.

Albert Nobbs Movie Review

2012-02-06T22:21:00.001-05:00

Did anyone notice while making Albert Nobbs that the title character is just not that interesting?Didn’t it occur to anyone that a supporting character, one in a very similarlife situation as Albert is not only portrayed in a far better performance buthe is more vividly drawn with a more compelling history. Is this a fault of thescreenplay by Glenn Close and John Banville or the short story “The SingularLife of Albert Nobbs” by George Moore?

Close plays Albert Nobbs. This is not a Linda Hunt caseof a female actor playing a male character. Albert is a woman who has beendisguised as a man for an undetermined number of years, but it’s certainly longenough that his entire identity is essentially male. For that reason I refer toAlbert with masculine pronouns. Only at two moments in the film did his actualgender come to the fore. Set in the late 19^th century, Albert makeshis living as a waiter at Morrison’s Hotel in Dublin.

The setting features a typical upstairs-downstairs dividebetween the help and the wealthy guests and features a cast of characters notquite as colorful and varied as an Agathie Christie story. There are severalmaids, most prominent in the story being the lively Helen (Mia Wasikowska); acouple of waiters including the elderly and nearly deaf Patrick and the errorprone goofball Sean (Mark Williams); finally there’s the good house doctorHolloran (Brendan Gleeson) who tends to have some fun with booze and one of thechamber maids. Jonathan Rhys Myers makes a brief and pointless appearance as awealthy hotel guest. I have to point out that his acting is on the level ofwhat I’d expect from a teenager playing dress-up in a high school theaterproduction.

Albert has flown under the radar as a quiet and oddlittle fellow. He stashes his earnings under the floor boards of his room anddreams of buying a little tobacco shop of his own where a future wife he mighttake would work at the counter. Things turn around for him when Hubert Paige,the man hired to paint part of the hotel, is directed to share his bedroom andhe is discovered for his true gender. MINORSPOILERS AHEAD: Hubert (Janet McTeer) somewhat improbably reveals the nextday that he is also a woman disguised as a man. I recognize this development asnecessary for the narrative to shuffle along to its next point, but really? Inthe same city there are two women who have spent many years going unnoticed asmen? And they wind up not only in the same hotel but sharing the same bed?Okay, it’s a minor issue, but also a transparent narrative convenience thatsettled like dust in my eye for the remainder of the film.

Hubert is the much more interesting character. His originstory is more believable and McTeer’s performance is elicited much moresympathy from me. She lives in matrimonial bliss with a woman named Cathleen, adressmaker. It’s fairly clear that they are lesbians who have found a uniqueway of circumventing the social mores of nineteenth century Ireland whileAlbert’s back story provides a curtly explained tragedy followed by his dressingas a man for the first time: “This terrible thing happened. I went around as aman and got a job as a waiter.” The problem is that there isn’t enough in thecharacter on screen to show us what it’s like to be a woman living as a man.There is one brief scene that shows Albert putting on a dress alongside Hubertand walking along the beach. For a few moments, Albert loses himself. His armsfall by his side in a more feminine pose and he takes off running, becoming forthe first time in many years the woman he really is. It is the only scene thatleft me with any emotional connection to the character.

Albert’s assessment of Hubert’s situation, however, isbased on unbelievable naiveté as if we’re meant to believe that in addition toliving as a man, he has also lived under a rock. He wonders when Hubert toldCathleen he was really a woman – before the wedding or after – and questionswhether he should reveal his own secret to Helen, whom he has begun to “walkout with” once a week. It’s as if he’s never once given consideration to thefact that marriage is not, for everyone, about convenience as it would be forhim. It just makes no sense. What he doesn’t know about Helen is that she andher boyfriend Joe (Aaron Johnson) are taking advantage of his kindness to bilkhim for money so they – Joe and Helen – can run off to America.

The conclusion is like a big narrative cheat. So as notto reveal too much I’ll just say that a choice is made for the direction ofAlbert’s character that is not the logical result of choices he’s made, but aconvenient turn to help the other characters complete their own journeys andprovide only the suggestion that somehow it will work out for them. But if youfollow through on the line of thought that the closing scene hints at, you’llprobably realize how absurd it is.

García directs without managing even a modicum ofemotional resonance apart from the scene I described above. His previous twofeatures that I’ve seen, Nine Livesand Mother and Child, deal maturelywith women’s issues and show the promise of a filmmaker who might have gone onto make a film with a great female character at its center. Sadly, he didn’tachieve such heights with Albert Nobbs,which fails spectacularly to provide any hint of the woman beneath Albert’sclothes. If only he’d extrapolated an alternative story with Hubert at thecenter.

Jane Eyre Movie Review

2012-02-05T23:59:00.000-05:00

I feel a little ashamed that I came into Cary Fukunaga’slively adaptation of Charlotte Bronte’s JaneEyre without ever having read the book or even seen an older film version.This is in spite of the existence of about ten versions from both cinema and televisionin the sound era. I didn’t even know the story. So my approach to the film haslittle to do with the film as an adaptation of a novel and story I’m familiarwith and much more to do with how Fukunaga’s telling, from a screenplay byMoira Buffini, affected me as I watched.

I’m amazed at Fukunaga’s adept hand at directing anineteenth century Gothic novel for the screen when his only other feature filmwork has been the Mexican gang story SinNombre. The stories could hardly be more dissimilar, but his approach inestablishing two competing storylines that converge functions effectively inbuilding suspense in both stories. In SinNombre it was Casper’s story in parallel to Sayra’s until the two meet andtravel together. In Jane Eyre thetitle heroine, played by Mia Wasikowska, is the sole protagonist and she hasone story, but in this adaptation (I presume it is a function of Buffini’sscreenplay) we meet her mysteriously fleeing through barren and ragged countryuntil she stumbles, exhausted, upon the home of St. John Rivers (Jamie Bell) andhis two sisters. By having St. John be as ignorant of Jane’s identity andbackground as we are makes us sympathize with him more later in the story. Itis only in flashback that we find out about Jane’s childhood and young adultlife, occasionally shifting back to her physical and mental recuperation withthe Rivers until past and present meet one another and the story shifts intoits third act and reconciliation.

Jane’s story is a true tale of woe. As an orphaned childleft in the care of her cold and repressive aunt, Mrs. Reed (Sally Hawkins),she has no recourse when her cousin abuses her and then lays the blame on Jane.She is sent off to a boarding school under the brutal tutelage of Mr.Brocklehurst (the best Dickensian name outside of a Dickens story). I got thesense that the scenes at the school were truncated, but to excellent effect asat this point in the story we really want to see Jane reach adulthood so shecan get to the terrible predicament that had her crawling through therain-soaked moor to St. John’s feet. Jane’s takes a job as a governess atThornfield Hall, an imposing Gothic structure isolated in the countryside. Inthe absence of the Master of the House, Mr. Rochester (Michael Fassbender),Mrs. Fairfax (Judi Dench) keeps order.

But there are strange goings on in the house. Odd soundsemanate in the night. Adele, the little girl whom Jane tutors, speaks of ghostshaunting the halls. When Rochester finally arrives he is fully of mystery andobviously guarding a secret. The middle section of the film is staged with manyof the trappings of a Gothic horror story. It is not frightening, but it ismoody, atmospheric, and occasionally chilling. It calls to mind AlfredHitchcock’s Rebecca more stronglythan anything else. Fukunaga often uses only candles and other availablesources to light the interiors of Thornfield Hall, the characters bathed in thewarm glow of burning wicks and lanterns contrasted by the cold and imposingstone walls. The result is gorgeous cinematography by Adriano Goldman on theorder of Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon.Dario Marianelli’s score features a repeated mournful violin melody that underscoresthe sadness of Jane’s life, conscripted to never-ending servitude.

Though it has elements of suspense, Jane Eyre is a story of enduring love. Of course Jane and Rochesterfall in love. Or so we believe he loves her. Rochester is nearly impossible toread. Fassbender truly had a breakout year in 2011. He was the most watchablething in an overblown Hollywood action spectacle. He was brilliant and tragicas a sex addict whose life is turned upside down. And in Jane Eyre he demonstrates his deft handling of nineteenth centuryliterary prose. He is as comfortable in a business suit in contemporary NewYork City as in period dress. As Rochester he has expressive eyes that are sopiercing he could break the will of the most determined, but not Jane. She is anineteenth century feminist hero. She would make Jane Austen proud. Jane Eyrerefuses to submit to anyone’s will. She is her own person and can not conceiveof marrying someone for social expediency. She is truly a wonderful match forRochester, whom I suspect had never met his intellectual equal before Jane.Wasikowska plays her not as fragile, but with a strong exterior that masks thehardships she’s endured in her very short life.

My biggest criticism is that the last half hour feelsrushed. If I had to guess, I’d say that a lot has been excised from the novelin order to push through the climax quickly. The first 90 minutes buildup isendlessly watchable because Jane and Rochester is great characters. I’m surethey are wonderful as written by Bronte, but you can’t deny that Buffini’swriting and the two lead performances bring them off the page to have themteeming with vibrancy. After that major events and revelations occur so quicklyit was like I was blindsided. Before you know it the film has reached itsconclusion and you have to quickly put the pieces together in your head. Itprobably could have done with an additional ten minutes or so, but at the sametime I’m grateful to have found a concise telling of a classic story thatbrings it in under two hours. That’s quite a rarity these days.

Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills Movie Review

2012-02-05T18:46:00.001-05:00

Damien Echols waived his 5th Amendment rights and, perhaps mistakenly, took the stand.

The so-called West Memphis Three have become very wellknown in recent years, garnering a large following on Facebook and otherInternet outlets. I’d heard the phrase and read passing headlines related tothe case, but knew nothing about the crimes that three men from Arkansas wereconvicted of and for which they spent 18 years in prison. I saw the newsflashes last year when they were released after signing an Alford plea deal inwhich they maintained innocence for their crimes but admitted that theprosecution had sufficient evidence to convict – a bizarre facet of the legalsystem if ever there was one. And so after nearly two decades in prison (they wereteenagers when convicted) and long-standing public campaigns demanding reviewsof the evidence, appeals and retrials, the West Memphis Three went free.

The three accused are Jessie Misskelley Jr., DamienEchols and Jason Baldwin. Informational inter-titles inform us that Jessie hasan IQ of 72, he was interrogated for 12 hours by police without any legalrepresentation or family present, and he eventually recorded his confession inwhich he implicated the other two boys. Only the last 45 minutes of theinterview were recorded on tape. Damien and Jason are good friends drawntogether by their affinity for heavy metal music – Metallica in particular,though Damien also lists U2 as one of his preferred groups among such heavymetal pillars as Megadeath and Slayer. Damien is known for dressing in black,wearing his hair colored jet black and having a curiosity about the occult andalternative religion that frankly doesn’t strike me as all that odd for ateenager. He is well-spoken and strikes me as one of the most intelligentpeople interviewed in the film. Jason comes across as a scared little kid. Heis small and scrawny and doesn’t say much. The film, and to some extent Jason’slawyer, makes it appear as if he was along for the ride with Damien. Theconnection between Jessie and the other two is not made clear apart from thefact that he named them in his confession. Were all three friends? Did herandomly identify them? This is one of the film’s shortcomings in that I didn’tunderstand why Jessie named these two particular individuals.

The crimes for which they were convicted are among themost horrific imaginable. To know absolutely nothing of the case and walk into Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at RobinHood Hills is shocking, to put it mildly. The HBO documentary from 1996,the first of three documentaries by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky on thesubject (the most recent of which has just been nominated for the DocumentaryFeature Academy Award), opens with police video footage of the crime scene. Wesee the naked bodies of three 8-year-old boys lying in a ditch in a woodedarea, detectives surveying the scene, a small creek gently flowing past. If wesaw these images in a work of fiction, most people would have to turn away. Therealization that these are real boys, savagely murdered at such young andinnocent ages, is revolting. From the outset the film throws us into the throesof the crime and forces us to confront the inescapable emotional aspectstherein.

Emotions are a large part of what Berlinger and Sinofskyfocus on in their film. Yes, most of the major facts are covered, but we rarelyhear the documentarians’ voices. They turn the camera on their subjects, whichinclude the families of the victims and the accused as well as the accusedthemselves and the investigative officers and lawyers on the case. It is anhonest attempt to capture the full breadth of horror imposed by these eventsfrom the perspective of parents who lost their young children and from parentsand siblings and girlfriends who were on the brink of losing theirs to lifeimprisonment.

That the three may have been guilty is of littleconsequence to their families. Your blood is your blood, says Jessie’s father,who insists he will continue to help him out with money and whatnot if he’sconvicted and sent to prison. Jessie Sr.’s girlfriend is less forgiving,insisting that if the boy is guilty she will cut him off completely. We seethis is a bone of contention between them. The families of Jason and Damien aredevastated, horrified at what it will mean for if they are convicted.

By contrast the families of two of the murdered boys(Stevie Branch and Chris Byers) come across as callous and angry. I can’t evenimagine what these people had to go through emotionally, but I was surprised bythe lack of tears on their part. Their on camera interviews show them asvengeful and full of vitriol, invoking wrath of God fury. They talk aboutwanting to tear the skin off the face of the accused, wanting to shoot them,wanting them dead. These are absolutely reasonable emotions to feel, but I keptwaiting for the tears, the mournful professions of how sweet their boys were.The parents of Michael Moore break down talking about their son. They focus onthe boy more than the defendants.

The purpose of the documentary, much more than mostcontemporary popular docs, is to examine an issue as objectively as possible.There is no editorializing. Berlinger and Sinofsky are there to follow thetrials (Jessie got a separate trial because of his confession), covering aperiod of approximately two months a little less than a year after the murders.What becomes clear through the evidence presented in the trials and from the oncamera interviews with the three suspects is that there are enough lingeringdoubts that if I were on those juries I could not have voted guilty.

For one thing, most of the emotional rage directed at thesuspects comes in the form of religious fervor. The two characters that standout most are Damien and John Mark Byers, stepfather to the murdered ChrisByers. When Byers visits the crime scene with the documentarians heproselytizes like a fire and brimstone preacher. Most of his speeches come fromthe heart of an Evangelical. Similar manners of speaking are used by all thefamilies of the victims. This is a crucial point to focus on because Damien andJason were convicted partially based on the belief that they were Satanworshippers.

Any thinking person has to look at this ‘evidence’ andstare aghast as people accuse them of being freaks because of their fashionstyle. This is the same kind of fear that was endemic in Littleton, Colorado,for example when it came to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, two youths who shotup their classmates and teachers after enduring bullies who picked on them forwearing black trenchcoats. Harris and Klebold were obviously guilty, but I can’thelp drawing a comparison between misunderstood teenagers who don’t seem to fitin and a community that insists on labeling them as outside the mainstream ofsociety, as if so called normal people can’t possibly commit atrocious acts ofviolence.

In the case of the residents of West Memphis, Arkansas,it’s not just that social outcasts who listen to strange music and readalternative books are capable of doing evil, but they must also be in leaguewith Satan and so the prosecution spins a fantastic tale of Satanic worship,brings in an expert on paganism who testifies that human sacrifice is ahallmark of their kind and the younger the blood the better. The prosecutionalso brings up the fact that Damien changed his name from his birth nameMichael and insinuates that it was in honor of the evil child in The Omen. At first I told myself that these ridiculous beliefs could onlyrear their heads in court in the South or the Midwest. I comforted myselfthinking of West Memphis as a world apart from where I grew up on Long Islanduntil I remembered that my hometown received similar national attention onlyten years earlier when one teen was murdered by a trio of others in what wasdubbed a Satanic ritual killing. The suspect was wearing an AC/DC t-shirt atthe time of his arrest.

It’s hard to know what to think of the material in Paradise Lost. The way the facts arepresented I believe there was reason to seriously doubt the guilt of the threesuspects even in 1994, although I think the defense gets a little desperate inalternative theories, one of which is that Byers committed the crimes. Thedetails that led to this suspicion are hazy and suspect. Another theorymentioned on Wikipedia but only obliquely referenced in the film concerns abloody and agitated man in the restroom at a local fast food restaurant only amile from the crime scene. The investigation of this individual comes across asamateurish. He disappeared from the restaurant before police arrived.

Knowing all that has come out in the intervening yearsdeepens the experience of watching this film. We know that the three boys we’rewatching will have their lives altered forever after spending 18 years inprison – and they’re most likely innocent. I look forward to watching the nexttwo parts to see how these boys grow into men and approach their lives ascondemned prisoners.

A Better Life Movie Review

2012-02-03T15:21:00.001-05:00

There’s somethingabout a white director and a white screenwriter making a film about animmigrant Latino family in Los Angeles that doesn’t sit right, like StevenSpielberg or Norman Jewison directing movies about the African-Americanexperience. That director Chris Weitz was able to make such a simple and movingfamily drama that portrays real characters without resorting to stereotypes showswillingness and empathy on his part to get it right. He could not have beensuccessful without the touching screenplay by Eric Eason from a story by RogerL. Simon and surely it helped that it was financed by smaller independentstudios, freeing the filmmakers to work outside the constraints of the studiosystem that otherwise might have insisted on a story in which a white characterachieves self-actualization by helping non-white characters. Not that we’veseen that before in a popular film nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.

Though gang life is present in the background of A Better Life – as it should be if we’regoing to believe a film about a Los Angeles gardener and his son – it is notthe heart of the story. It’s a fact of life, one that Carlos (Demián Bichir,nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for his role) is acutely aware of withoutever discussing it directly with his teenage son Luís (José Julián). Luís has abest friend, Facundo (Bobby Soto), who wants them both to join a gang. Luís isalready in tight with several gang leaders because he dates one of theirsisters, Ruthie (Chelsea Rendon). We see that Luís admires the security of thegang and the chance to be someone that matters, but we also see the trepidationin his steps, a fear that Fecundo doesn’t have. We sense that Carlos is knowsthe path his son is headed if he doesn’t take steps to make a change quickly.As a director Weitz tells us so much with glances and with the expressivenessof his actors’ eyes, Bichir in particular, who can communicate a wide range ofemotions with nothing but a facial expression and the body language of a mancontinually beating his head against a wall.

Carlos works for Blasco, a successful landscaping businessowner getting ready to move back to his home after saving enough money that hecan retire comfortably in Mexico. He wants to sell the truck, and essentiallythe business, to Carlos, who doesn’t think he can find the money. He swallowshis pride to ask his sister, an immigrant who has had much better financialsuccess, for a loan and he buys the business assuring Luís they will be able tomove to a nicer neighborhood and better school. Carlos, as a representation ofthe immigrant story, has about the worst luck in the world as his truck hisstolen on his first day recruiting day laborers. Ready to throw in the towel,his son convinces him they have to go looking for the truck.

We think this will turn into a hero’s journey-cum-roadmovie with Carlos and Luís learning something about each other, but Eason andSimon’s story has some devastating turns in store. Yes, father and son do forma closer bond with Carlos having the chance to see what has become of Luís, whois often brutal and unforgiving in laying down the law of the streets.Miraculously they get the truck back, but the story doesn’t end there. Thereare further developments that I shall not reveal. I will say, however, that Carlos,an undocumented immigrant, knows what the consequences are to his actions. Luísknows too and encourages his father to do something that would ultimately bemore detrimental to everyone. Here is one of the film’s beautiful moments when Carlossimply gives in, recognizing that it’s the best and perhaps final lesson he cangive his son.

The performances are understated and real. Bichir is rocksolid in his stoicism until the heartbreaking emotional climax, a conversationwith Luís about his future. It is wonderful that both the Screen Actors Guildand the Academy have recognized this wonderful performance because it is thecomplete opposite of the grandiose displays of Acting with a capital ‘A’ thatis so often rewarded.

Weitz has great sympathy for the plight of undocumentedimmigrants. It is outside the scope of this film to decide what the politicalposition should be. He simply presents the life of one man and his family as afact of life. He is in the country illegally and any false step can havelife-altering consequences. We can clearly see the difficulties inherent in alife of hiding, but neither Eason in his screenplay nor Weitz in the directiondetail this as anything more than something Carlos has to live with. This approachmakes A Better Life a modest filmthat, in keeping the story simple, does more to evoke our sympathies than alesser film that loses control. It’s not a great film by any means, but it is alittle gem that’s worth seeking out.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon Movie Review

2012-02-03T01:29:00.000-05:00

Transformers: Darkof the Moon is one of the great movie mysteries. It poses seeminglyimpossible conundrums and then refuses to solve them. Some of them include suchquestions as: Why is it called “Dark of the Moon?” What happened to the word“side?” Was it too long for the movie posters? Other riddles to behold arewhether or not action screenwriters actually know what the word “triangulate”means and how can a screenplay so irreparably dumb know how to use “whom”correctly? Also, is there a book of action movie dialogue clichés from whichEhren Kruger took about 33 percent of the lines? Is it possible to release aHollywood mega-budget film that isn’t overflowing with expository dialogue? Diddirector Michael Bay and his visual effects teams understand the actionsequences? Did they actually try to make them coherent and fail miserably or isit just pure laziness. This movie is wondrous to behold. I’ve never seen itsequal.

My recollection of the first two Transformers films is quite hazy and I’m sure given enough distance(about two hours is my guess) this one will fade from memory as well. Thereason for this is not only the complete absence of memorable story, charactersor dialogue, but also because the action sequences are an incoherent mess. It’sabsolute chaos and disorder. I found myself several times asking my wife nextto me if she had any clue what was happening. She was as lost as I was. It isso bad at times we didn’t even know who were the good guys and bad.

This movie is a perfect example of Hollywood, and MichaelBay more pointedly, run amok. Here is a filmmaker so enamored with his abilityto make movies that generate countless dollars at the worldwide box office thathe’ll just turn in whatever garbage he can pick out of the trash heap of theediting room, submit it to the studio and reap the returns. At least The Rock was a halfway decent actionfilm that had some semblance of visual coherence. There’s no doubt in my mindnow he’s one of two things: inept or inexcusably lazy. His action sequences inthis film lack any kind of discernible visual grammar. They are a melee ofCGI-enhanced shots featuring character pummeling each other with bullets,rockets and metal arms. The writing is so bad I laughed out loud more than afew times. It’s so bad some of it sounds identical to the writing for theoriginal animated series on which it is based. Those cartoons were basicallyjust half hour commercials to sell toys to boys under the age of 12. That’s thelevel of screenwriting Kruger has achieved.

Since story and plot are secondary or even tertiary to thesefilmmakers, I will provide only the tersest of summaries – and only because thewhole premise is so absurd it can’t go unmentioned. The basic premise is thatthe NASA moon landing was not staged, as some idiot conspiracy theoristsbelieve (sorry, can’t help the dig), but was in fact a cover for a conspiracyof a different sort – namely to investigate an alien ship that crash landedthere in 1962. The Americans knew the Russians were aware of its existence andso it was a race to be the first to reach it. This ship, it turns out, camefrom the planet Cybertron in the din and chaos of a war that left the planetdestroyed. Sentinel Prime (voiced by Leonard Nimoy), the Autobots leader beforeOptimus (the heroic leader of the 1980s animated series and of the first twofilms), contains some kind of important pillars that can open up a teleportdevice. The Decepticons plan to use this device to transport their entireplanet and park it right next door to earth, saving themselves the cost oftransporting the human species as slave labor across galaxies I guess. It seemsno one told the Decepticons (or Ehren Kruger for that matter) anything aboutthe physics of a solar system and what might happen if another planet suddenlyappeared immediately next to earth. They should have consulted Lars von Trieron this.

So basically it will inexplicably come down to SamWitwicky, the hero of the first two films. I’m not sure why it’s necessary forhim to play an active role in saving the world. It seems to me the Autobots andthe Navy guys led by Josh Duhamel as Lennox and Tyrese Gibson as Epps couldhave done it themselves. But the movie needs a human hero and the middling starpower of Shia Lebeouf, refusing to hit the road like Megan Fox, who is replacedby Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, an equally non-descript character and just a prettyface to fill in as Sam’s girlfriend.

John Turturro returns for a third go-round, turning it upto 11 once again to play Simmons, the former government agent who knows what’sreally going on. Joining him are fellow actors Frances McDormand as theDirector of Intelligence and John Malkovich as Sam’s rather eccentric new boss.Why would actors of such stature and talent agree to appear in a movie thatshould be relegated to the trash heap and set on fire? I suppose the money wasa pretty good motivating incentive. More importantly, why was it important forthe filmmakers to get real actors for supporting roles? Do they believe that wewill be fooled into thinking that their presence lends it some credibility?Admittedly, their performances are quite simply the best aspects in the movie.Well, the visual effects and sound design are remarkable technical feats. Theyquite obviously don’t take themselves too seriously – Malkovich in particularhas a blast hamming it up with his lines. How could they? The dialogue isatrocious. It’s so bad that Sam’s father (Kevin Dunn) comments that a line heused on Sam’s mother years earlier sounds like it came from a bad sci-fi movie,as if being ironically self-referential about your clichéd writing absolves youof your crimes.

My biggest complaint overall is that, to be perfectlyfrank, I was bored. I was just plain bored especially as the film droned intoits third hour. The big climactic action spectacular rages on endlessly forwell over a half hour. During this time every character faces mortal dangerfrom which they can’t possibly escape about three times. And they escape everytime even as the Chicago skyscraper they’re in tilts, threatening to toppleover, hinging on its heavily damaged midsection. Then a Decepticon that is akind of mechanical version of the creatures from Tremors tears ass through the thing, shredding the whole buildingto pieces. All the major human characters inside escape virtually unscathed. Iwas not only bored, I just didn’t care. Was that because my willing suspensionof disbelief had long since been abandoned or because the characters are sothin they can’t even qualify as stock action movie types? Probably a little ofboth.

I’ve now spent 7.5 hours watching this trilogy of films.I find it important to remind myself every now and then just how bad movies canbe. It helps put things in perspective. As bad as I thought The Iron Lady was, it looks like amasterpiece by comparison.

Haywire Movie Review

2012-02-02T11:50:00.000-05:00

Before going to see Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire I kept referring to it as “theass-kicking movie.” It’s hard to argue that I was wrong in my tersedescription. The whole thing is a ruse to showcase the talents of Mixed MartialArts competitor Gina Carano in several brutal action fight scenes.

The film opens with a cracker of a fight scene. The stageis set in a tranquil roadside diner somewhere in upstate New York. Mallory(Carano) approaches cautiously, enters and sits down. She’s soon joined byAaron (Channing Tatum) and their conversation reveals tidbits of a plot we’renot yet privy to. The dialogue here is not the lazy expository garbage of yourtypical action film. Instead they speak like characters who already know thehistory and have no concern for the audience’s knowledge. Suddenly and withoutwarning, Aaron has thrown his coffee in Mallory’s face and smashed the cup onher head before they start brawling in the tight confines between the counterand the booths.

The sound design sets the tone for the rest of theaction, using more natural effects than what you’re probably accustomed to.Despite what movies have led us to believe, when someone gets punched there isno earth shattering crack and smash. Soderbergh’s editing (under the pseudonymMary Ann Bernard) is controlled, allowing us to experience the fights in a waythat doesn’t confuse our brain’s innate understanding of the laws of motion andreality. We can see that the actors are doing their own stunts, a task that wasprobably fairly simple for Carano, but a Herculean task for Tatum, whoseexperience in romantic dramas has not prepared him for this.

Mallory manages to escape, commandeering a young man’scar and taking him along for the ride. This guy Scott (Michael Angarano) isremarkably calm considering what he’s just witnessed. He’s also veryaccommodating in listening to her story, which takes us back to Barcelona andthe job that set up the eventual diner incident.

Mallory is one of these ex-Marine private contractors whogoes in and conducts little covert operations that the US Government can’t beofficially involved in. The Barcelona job – which had Aaron as a team member –was to ‘extract’ a kidnapped man named Jiang from his captors and hand him overto Rodrigo (Antonio Banderas), a man working for the US State Department. Thejob goes as planned and then Mallory is asked to do another job within hours ofarriving home. Her employer and recently ex-boyfriend, Kenneth (Ewan McGregor –slightly unbelievable as a private contractor) sets her up on a job in Dublinwith a British agent named Paul (Michael Fassbender). There she discovers Jiangdead with evidence in his hand that will incriminate her as the murderer. Backin the hotel Paul tries to kill her.

Nothing makes much sense either to us or to Mallory,though she’s adept at evading the Irish Garda and making her way back to theUnited States on fake IDs. The one ally she has to help her come in safely is agovernment bureaucrat named Coblenz (Michael Douglas). He’s the man whospecifically requested her for the Barcelona job, in a scene that unfairlybreaks the narrative construction of using Mallory’s perspective to tell thestory.

The mysterious details are filled in late in the filmwith a couple of half-clever devices. First is Mallory’s father (Bill Paxton),the one person with whom she is completely honest. As an ex-Marine they share abond that stretches further than the typical father-daughter relationship.There’s a scene that takes place in his secluded New Mexico home that starts tobring the details of the plot to light. The second is a new spin on the talkingkiller scene. Instead of the scene remaining with the hero and the killertelling his story, the film takes us to the flashbacks in a style similar toSoderbergh’s sleight of hand techniques used in the Ocean’s films to explain how it all happened.

For a January release Haywireis about as good as they come, its occasional narrative inconsistenciesnotwithstanding. It’s a slick production as Soderbergh’s films typically are.Lem Dobbs’ story and screenplay, like TheLimey (also directed by Soderbergh), inflects some much-needed freshnessinto the action genre. The presence of actors like Douglas, McGregor, Banderasand Fassbender, who can really deliver on a performance is key to selling it. Tatumleaves something to be desired or maybe he just irks me on a personal level.But Gina Carano is the real find. Soderbergh may have found a new female actionstar who can be convincing as tough while delivering convincing dialogue.

Like I said, though, the plot is a device used to putsome really great looking stunts and fight scenes in a movie. It maybe hasslightly more to say about the world than Ocean’s11 with its subtle commentary on the nature of black ops and privatecontractors and the lack of transparency and oversight involved, but it fallsseverely short of something like Traffic.At the end of the day Haywire is anaction film and most action film plots are mere inconveniences that stand inthe way of producers who want to blow stuff up real good. If you decide to seeit, just count yourself lucky that there are still filmmakers who want toentertain but do it in such a way that is both brief (the film’s running timeis about 1 hour shorter than the last Transformersmovie) and not mind-blowing in the way it insults your intelligence.

25 Years Ago This Month: February 1987

2012-02-02T00:59:00.000-05:00

Paul Schrader's misfire but well-intentioned Light of Day starred Michael J. Fox and Joan Jett as sibling rockers trying to get their band off the ground to the detriment of Jett's young son. Gena Rowlands played their mother. Michael McKean also starred as a member of their band. This was Fox's first attempt to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor even before Bright Lights, Big City and Casualties of War.

Judd Nelson starred in From the Hip, which the New York Times called a "one-joke comedy" and Roger Ebert said was "as accurate about the law as Raiders of the Lost Ark was about anthropology and Dumbo was about flight." What else should we expect from director Bob Clark who up to that point was best known for directing Porky's AND Porky's 2 and later went on to direct not on Baby Geniuses, but it's sequel. The man is no longer with us, so perhaps it's not polite to speak ill of him. But here's the interesting bit: it's David Kelley's first screenplay, written before he was involved in "L.A. Law" and his string of hit TV shows centered on law including "Ally McBeal" and "Private Practice.

After the dismal sequel to Nightmare on Elm Street two year's earlier, Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors was released. It was still inferior to the first film, but sufficiently scary. They brought back Heather Langenkamp to reprise her role and it was Patricia Arquette's film debut. It was the top box office earner for the month.

Morgan Stewart's Coming Home starred Jon Cryer as a rich kid returned home from boarding school trying to reform his parents. Not worth your time, I assure you. I've seen it so you don't have to.

Probably the best movie of the month was the John Hughes penned Some Kind of Wonderful with Lea Thompson and Eric Stoltz. It's basically a retread of Hughes' much better Pretty in Pink about a boy from the wrong side of the tracks who falls for a rich girl. Social constraints won't allow her to have anything to do with him, but in trying to get back at her ex-boyfriend she decides to go on a date with him.

We were subjected to the horror of Mannequin, regrettably one of my earliest cinema-going experiences.

But the one movie that trumps all from this month has to be Sylvester Stallone in Over the Top, otherwise known as the movie about the guy who drives a truck and arm wrestles. That's pretty much it. That's the movie. And by winning the arm wrestling tournament he wins a nice shiny new truck. Awesome!

Historical Events

2nd and 11th - the Constitution of the Phillippines was ratified and went into effect on these two dates 25 years ago.

Births

1st - Giuseppe Rossi, an Italian-American with dual citizenship and raised in New Jersey who plays club football for Villarreal in Spain and chose to play for the Italian national team rather than the United States. Jerk!

2nd - FC Barcelona and Spanish national team player Gerard Piqué, also boyfriend to Shakira.

21st - Ashley Greene, who plays Alic Cullen in the Twilight film series.

21st - Ellen Page, star of Juno and Inception.

Deaths

4th - Liberace, aged 67 from AIDS related complications

22nd - Andy Warhol, aged 58 from complications following gallbladder surgery

The Iron Lady Movie Review

2012-02-01T01:44:00.001-05:00

Somewhere in the life of Margaret Thatcher I’m sure thereis a compelling story waiting to be told. After The Iron Lady it will have to wait a while longer I suppose. Directedby Phyllida Lloyd from a screenplay by Abi Morgan, it present just so manyflashes of Thatcher’s life from girlhood through her resignation as the BritishPrime Minister while concurrently following her in the present day as sheslowly succumbs to dementia and reflects on the glory of her fantasticpolitical life.

I can’t figure out what Morgan and Lloyd have to sayabout either Thatcher the woman or Thatcher the politician. Surely such apolarizing political figure warranted a biography that highlights someexploration of the woman’s life. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a polemic,but it should have some argument one way or another given the way she isrevered by conservatives and reviled by liberals.

By devoting approximately half the film’s screen time tothe elderly Thatcher it misses the opportunity to really delve into her rise toleader of the Conservative party and ultimately her historic run as the firstfemale PM. It would be fine to use her later life to draw some connectionbetween the two periods of her life or to depict a period of thought andreflection on a life and her standing in modern history. Instead Morgan missesthis opportunity and uses these scenes to show a doddering old woman everforgetful of where and when she is and hallucinating the presence of herhusband (played by the always reliable Jim Broadbent), dead eight years, butever-present in her mind to bolster her confidence or chide her for some minortransgression.

The present day thread never gets beyond the superficialwhich forced me to continually evaluate what the point of them was especiallywhen they did nothing more than detract from the narrative of Thatcher’s lifein politics, which is presented in flashes of facts with little context. Wefirst see Thatcher as a girl (Alexandra Roach) looking up to her father, agrocer and local politician, with the eyes of a young movie character who willgrow up to do great things. These early scenes are presented in a visual stylethat signals a Formative Moment in the life of the film’s subject. This iscinematography on the same plain as the occasional use of a tilted camera tolet us know that something is off-kilter in her worldview. It’s pedestrian andfar beneath a movie whose subject matter should demand higher esteem.

We all know, I’m sure, that Meryl Streep plays Thatcher.Streep is a master actress, brilliant at her craft and totally believable inevery role she takes whether she’s donning an accent as in countless films orjust plays straight as in It’sComplicated. Her performance as Thatcher is a great example of mimicry but thefilm doesn’t give her anything to do except imitate the woman. Except for thefact that few others could have so convincingly pulled off the physicaltransformation, you have to ask why Lloyd bothered casting someone of Streep’sstature and ability without giving her a greater challenge. Who was MargaretThatcher? What made her tick? Give us some pathos please! Give us some reasonto care about what she did in her life.

Thatcher’s past is presented in flashes and providedlittle context. She’s running for office as a young woman in 1950 and loses,but she meets her future husband Denis. Then we’re back in the present for awhile before she’s being elected to Parliament and making waves as a toughgo-getter in the House of Commons. Then back to 2011. Then she’s considering arun for party leader to stir things up, but BAM – she wins and then before youknow it she’s the bloody Prime Minister.

All these moments are shown in sequences that areglorified montages. Nothing is given room to breathe. We don’t learn anythingabout Thatcher’s motivations for decisions apart from the ideology instilled byher father that she must strive to improve the country. We learn that Thatcherhad to contend with IRA terrorists who blew up one of her closest colleaguesand confidantes with a car bomb. She was staying in a hotel in Brighton thatwas bombed. She led England to war against Argentina over some insignificantislands in the South Atlantic and then gave the Alexander Haig, the USSecretary of State a dressing down by comparing the situation to Pearl Harbor. Atthe end of the film, what have we learned about Margaret Thatcher? She handledsome difficult moments in Britain’s history. She was down, then up, then downagain in popularity and she was selflessly devoted to public service. Thanks,but I could have gotten all that off her Wikipedia page.

Newlyweds Movie Review: Presented by Director Edward Burns at Huntington Cinema Arts Centre

2012-01-30T14:14:00.001-05:00

Edward Burns' newest film was released digitally at the end of December. It is available for digital download here and also on iTunes.

In my years away I’ve missed everything Edward Burns haswritten and directed in the last decade. I’ve followed his career with someinterest because he’s a Long Island film maker and I like supporting mycommunity, but he hasn’t quite lived up to the promise of his first feature The Brothers McMullen. He received agreat deal of recognition for that film made on a shoestring budget at a timewhen I was just getting interested in cinema. His follow up She’s the One showed what he could dowith a bigger budget and A-list stars, but he fell backward after that. Sidewalks of New York, released in 2001was his last film I saw. After that nothing really made a big enough splashthat I was enthused enough to seek it out. Recently he’s begun releasing hisfilms on DVD and the Internet to avoid the hassle of distribution and strikingfilm prints. Eschewing the offers the direct studio pictures, he’s come back tothe kind of small personal films that he’s passionate about.

His newest film Newlywedswas released in late December simultaneously on DVD and various Internetoutlets such as VOD and iTunes. I was lucky enough to attend an event at mylocal Arts Cinema where Burns was an invited guest for a Q&A and receptionfollowing the screening. As an added surprise, he brought along two of hisco-stars in the film.

I want to preface my review by saying that despite mylukewarm view of the film overall, it’s difficult to sit down and writeanything negative about a film made on a $16K budget after you’ve listened tohow it was done, heard tell of the passion and enthusiasm that went into it andafter shaking the director’s hand and having a brief conversation with him. ButI will do my best to be both objective and charitable because I think hedeserves to have an audience for his movies, but I also want to be fair as acritic.

The first thing that struck me about Newlyweds from an opening brunch scene involving the two couplesthat are central to the story is how similar his characters’ cadence and rhythmof speech is to Woody Allen’s. I recall having a similar reaction to Sidewalks of New York but it’s a stylethat I think is missing from his first three films. That it calls to mindAllen’s dialogue is probably a sign that Burns is succeeding in his attempt towrite the way New Yorkers talk, or at least the way Allen thinks they talk.

The couple of the title are Buzzy and Katie (Burns and CaitlinFitzgerald). The other couple is older, married for eighteen years and justsent their son off to college. They are Max and Marsha, Katie’s sister, playedby Max Baker and Marsha Dietlein. As the young couple just starting out (thoughboth of them are on second marriages), Buzzy and Katie have an optimistic viewof the way the strength of their relationship is based on the fact that theyhardly ever see each other while one works days and the other nights. Max andMarsha, on the other hand, have reached a point well beyond the elation offresh marriage and past the stasis of feeling settled. Now they have disdainfor one another, although Burns’ screenplay is slightly one-sided in presentingMarsha as a judgmental and spiteful person whom Max has tired of. Marsha alsohas no love for Buzzy, believing all men to be liars, a mantra she continuallyinjects into conversations with her sister.

The catalyst for upheaval is Buzzy’s half sister Linda(Kerry Bishé), a free-spirited and unsettled young woman who drops in fromCalifornia to stay with them for an unspecified period of time. Linda is fullof passion and energy. She loves hard and she falls hard. She came to New Yorkchasing Miles (Johnny Solo), an old flame who is also newly married. When Lindabrings a strange man home to Buzzy’s apartment in the middle of the night, heand Katie are perturbed, to put it mildly.

Because Katie and Buzzy have complete honesty andopenness as the foundation of their marriage – a method of trust building thatstrikes Linda as “a really bad idea” – she finds the situation impossible. Shedoesn’t want Linda in her house (there are other more minor mitigating factorsincluding the disappearance of a very expensive designer coat), but recognizeshow understanding Buzzy is when it comes to both Marsha and Katie’s ex-husbandDara (Dara Coleman), a pompous actor who often comes round asking for money tooffset his dire financial situation, a fact conveniently ignored when it comesto showing off what must be a very expensive SoHo loft that he lives in.

I’ve always liked and enjoyed Edward Burns’ writing stylewhen it comes to dialogue. He’s not afraid to let his characters sound natural,more or less the way real people talk. It doesn’t have the woodenness ofdialogue that exists to advance the plot and he doesn’t strive for a stylizedkind of hyper-real dialogue the way David Mamet or that other Long Islandfilmmaker Hal Hartley. Mamet and Hartley are both writers I admire a greatdeal, but Burns plays to his own strengths. And truthfully, I laughed quite alot. There are some very funny moments and the actors inhabit their charactersso well thanks to the relaxed, collaborative and improvisational approach Burnstook to the film.

I just wish he had the storytelling and filmmaking skillsto match his ear for New York. Like Sidewalksof New York, this latest film is shot in a faux-documentary style usinghandheld cameras a la Woody Allen’s Husbandsand Wives (an influence cited specifically by Burns when I asked him aboutit) and jump cuts that both eliminate the unnecessary bits and help land ajoke. There’s also the stylistic element of having the characters directlyaddress the camera at the end of most scenes as if answering a documentarian’squestions. Obviously we’re not meant to view Newlyweds as if it’s a fictional documentary, but then there arethese breaks that disrupt the flow. It strikes me as a lazy and artificialstorytelling device that allows us to know what’s going on inside the characters’heads without doing the heavy lifting of infusing it into the story itself.

One of the storytelling faults I found with Newlyweds is a problem I’ve encounteredwith his other relationship comedies – he doesn’t ever get very far beyond thesuperficial issues that plague people in relationships and marriages. There areamusing motifs like discussions about the absence of oral sex once the ring ison the finger – an injustice Max seeks to rectify within twelve hours of askingfor a divorce – and the presence of universalities like the way the littleannoyances are what build over time to destroy long-term partnerships. Burnsrarely goes farther than observing that these problems exist. I suppose he’sokay with that because it doesn’t ever really seem like he’s trying to take itto the next level, but this time it had the effect of leaving me wanting more.Perhaps that says more about me than the film.

We Need to Talk About Kevin Movie Review

2012-01-29T00:56:00.000-05:00

Director Lynne Ramsay takes us on a journey through somedark places of the human condition, although it is not a story of her creation.She and Rory Kinnear co-wrote the screenplay for We Need to Talk About Kevin, an adaptation of the novel by LionelShriver. The story’s subject matter is how a mother copes with the aftermath ofa murderous rampage conducted by her teenage son that left several people dead,his classmates among them.

Tilda Swinton plays Eva Katchadourian, the woman who hasto live in a community that rejects her. She has red paint thrown on her houseand car, her neighbors stare at her and wave hello merely out of somesocietally enforced manner of politeness. Occasionally she is accosted and toldshe’s going to rot in hell. To some extent she even believes this, as evidencedin the film’s only moment of humorous uplift when a couple of proselytizers askat her front door if she knows where she’s spending the afterlife. But this isn’tabout how a mother continues loving her child even after he’s done something sohorrible. In fact, there’s some indication that she never had any genuinemotherly affection for her first child.

Everything that occurs up to and including the incidentis seen as flashbacks from Eva’s current life, which is a major step down fromthe affluent New York suburban life she was accustomed to. No longer living ina sprawling McMansion with lots of yard space she now lives in a tiny house alongsidethe railroad tracks and is ecstatic to be hired as a secretary in a low-renttravel agent’s. She tries to remain inconspicuous in her daily life as when shefinds in the supermarket that someone has smashed all the eggs in her cart whenshe wasn’t looking. She buys them anyway and tediously picks bits of eggshellout of her mouth while eating her scrambled eggs, reminding us of herimprisoned son, who has a habit of biting his fingernails during her visit andplacing the bits in a tidy row on the table.

This parallel that Ramsay lays out is part and parcel of Eva’sfeelings of guilt for having neglected Kevin (played by three different actorsat different ages, most notably Ezra Miller as a teen) after believing him to benothing but antagonistic toward her. She has good reason for believing thatKevin is out to get her. As a colicky infant he never stops crying when she’saround. As a toddler he has a stubborn refusal to play games or say ‘mommy.’Even his lack of potty training eventually comes to be seen is willfulness onhis part and her anger causes her to accidentally break his arm – the mosthonest thing she ever did, according to Kevin.

The question of blame, which quite honestly is not thesubject of the film, is not entirely clear. Obviously, when Kevin commits hiscrimes he is a minor, but certainly old enough to understand the differencebetween right and wrong. When Kevin is born we see Eva sitting in the hospital bedstaring coldly into space while her husband Franklin (John C. Reilly) cuddlesand caresses their infant son. This established dynamic will continue right upuntil the crimes. Eva’s attitude toward the child is one of general distasteand ambivalence, but as he grows up the fault begins to lie more with him.Although as seen through Eva’s eyes, it’s hard to know if his transgressionsare the innocent misbehavior of a child or the result of sociopathictendencies.

There is strong suggestion that Kevin is an irredeemablesociopath. He displays absolutely no remorse for any bad behavior. His eyeseven reveal a certain amount of glee. He demonstrates strong affection for hisfather. With Reilly cast in the role, Franklin is a big teddy bear of a dadwith his mop of curly hair and pudgy frame – the kind of soft and cuddly manwho would make an understanding and forgiving dad. But Kevin’s bond with hisfather eliminates the possibility of antisocial personality disorder unless it’sall a ruse designed to further alienate his mother. That seems plausible exceptthat the behavior begins when he’s far too young to devise such a plan unlesshe’s meant to be imbued with evil of the supernatural order. However, We Need to Talk About Kevin is not Rosemary’s Baby or The Omen.

Ramsay’s direction has a tendency to be a bit tediouslyheavy-handed. She opens the film with a shot of Eva being carried over a crowdof exuberant tomato-covered festival goers at La Tomatina in Valencia, an imagemeant to illustrate her days of independence and freedom before starting afamily. The color red becomes a motif throughout the film. It is the color ofwrath, passion and guilt – all emotions that consume Eva and Kevin. White isused in abundance to contrast with the red, representing the lost innocence ofstarting a family and then obviously of Kevin crossing over from acts of maliceto the disturbed actions of a criminal mind.

Though we are treated to hints of Kevin’s crimethroughout the film, nothing can quite prepare you for the full brunt of whathe actually does, revealed to us in the end. The acts themselves are left offscreen, making it that much more disturbing when we see only Kevin’s expressionand then the aftermath of what he’s wrought. The realization of just howhorrible it is settles in the bottom of your stomach and keeps a grip on you.It held me longer than I would have expected.

What’s most powerful about the film is the sense that wecan’t exactly lay the blame at anyone’s feet entirely. There are importantquestions to ask about these seemingly senseless acts and important issues toconsider when it comes to criminal youth. I think there’s an extent to whichthe American justice system is misunderstood – though it is kept outside thescope of the film, it’s not clear exactly why Eva loses a punitive damageslawsuit as a result of the crimes. Ultimately it’s about how we handle thesesituations. It’s not enough, as we have a tendency to do, to say it was violentvideo games or absent parents that caused the behavior. This is a film thatspeaks to a much deeper level of understanding and refuses to be satisfied witheasy answers. Because of that, We Need toTalk About Kevin is a film that will insidiously seep into yourconsciousness long after you’ve left the theater.

Cars 2 Movie Review

2012-01-28T13:49:00.002-05:00

The rational person in me who understands business andmoney-making enterprises can grasp why Pixar decided that a sequel to Cars was necessary. But the movie critic,or more aptly, the fan of cinema in me wishes that studios wouldn’t continue tomake sequels to undeserving films. The first was very high-grossing, but theworst reviewed of all their films, most of which rank among the best in Hollywoodcinema (animated or not) of the last 15 years. Cars is the only Pixar film with under 90 percent on RottenTomatoes and it’s the lowest scoring on Metacritic. But it grossed nearly $250million domestic.

Thankfully, Pixar has very strict standards when it comesto their sequels. They will only produce one if they feel they have anexcellent story to support it. We can contrast this with Disney, a studio witha habit of producing cheap sequels to beloved animated classics and releasingthem direct-to-video in an obviously cynical money grab. However, I was notcrazy about the first Cars, and itssequel Cars 2 just doesn’t measure upto the high standards I’ve come to expect from their feature films.

In an obvious attempt to spruce up the story of a racecar that races around in circles, Cars 2opens with a James Bond style sequence involving characters that are new to thefranchise. A spy car infiltrates a field of oil wells in the middle of theocean, taking photos of various ‘lemons’ being led by Professor Z, aGerman-accented, monocle-wearing scientist voiced by Thomas Kretschmann. Itwouldn’t be a proper spy film without some British accents, so Michael Cainevoices Finn McMissile, the spy who came in from the past to spruce up the storya little. Later his spy partner Holly Shiftwell will be voiced by the BritishEmily Mortimer and Eddie Izzard will give life to Sir Miles Axelrod, theinnovator behind a newer, cleaner, greener form of fuel for cars.

The star of the show is the cool and confident LightningMcQueen (Owen Wilson, reprising voice role), showing a little more humilitythis time around. Another 90 minutes spent in Radiator Springs would be alittle too much, so the story by Pixar guru John Lasseter – among a cadre ofothers – takes him there for the briefest of glimpses, just long enough for therequisite appearances of the characters from the first film. Bonnie Hunt isback as Lightning’s girl Sally, as are Tony Shalhoub, Paul Dooley, Cheech Marinand Jenifer Lewis to continue their stereotyped voice work. In honor of PaulNewman, however, his character Doc Hudson has been relegated to memorialstatus. Larry the Cable Guy is also back as the beloved Mater, Lightning’s slow-wittedbest friend.

A challenge by the Formula 1 racer Francesco Bernoulli(John Turturro, relishing a thick Italian accent), gets Lightning and Mater outof Radiator Springs and into the world for a fish-out-of-water adventure story.As Mater visits far-flung places like Tokyo, Italy and London we’re treated tothe usual display of goofy faux pas when confronted with cultural differences. Theplot, which is really just an excuse to send Mater around the world and togenerate some half-clever spy movie spoofs, involves a plot to make oil thedominant fuel source for cars for the foreseeable future. Oil tycoons asvillains is neither original nor particularly interesting.

John Lasseter’s direction keeps the pace of the enginerevved way up giving Cars 2distinctly higher energy than its predecessor, but it’s all a lot of rumbling.The most notable thing about Cars wasthe incredibly rich detail in the landscape rendering. This film looks great,but it loses that lush beauty by transferring the setting to various citieswith angular buildings and facades without character.

There’s plenty here to keep the kids transfixed and lotsof little jokes that adults will appreciate (like the first film, Cars 2 is replete with automobile puns),but probably not laugh out loud as much as with Pixar’s previous work. Like thegang of villains central to the plot, this is an unfortunate lemon staining thestudio’s excellent history.

Shame Movie Review

2012-01-27T15:42:00.000-05:00

Steve McQueen’s Shameis about a man who is compulsively addicted to sexual pleasure. Like any otherkind of addict, his cravings continue to push limits and take control of hislife. He takes new sexual partners (sometimes paying for it) with stunning regularity.He is also a frequent masturbator, sometimes unable to hold off while at work.His boss informs him that the IT department came across a trove of pornographyon his computer’s hard drive, but assumes it must have been an intern.

The sex is not treated as prurient, erotic or, as the titlewould suggest, shameful. For Brandon Sullivan it is a fact of his life and onethat imprisons him in his own sense of shame. But he’s not creepy. In allaspects he is a normal working man. Except that he’s also got the movie stargood looks of Michael Fassbender with his hard jaw line, piercing eyes and justa hint of an Irish lilt when he speaks. It’s the eyes and body language thatexudes a take-charge attitude that allows him to seduce a young married womanon the subway by doing nothing more than staring at her and allowing theslightest hint of a smile.

His ability to maintain a cool distance makes him successfulin a bar one night celebrating with his colleagues. His boss David (James BadgeDale) is one of these guys who rides high on his own feelings of importance,which turns out to be a complete turnoff to the sexy blonde in a business suitat the bar with two friends. But she notices Brandon, and after David has beensent off in a cab, she comes round with her car to pick up him up.

He seems like a normal New York lothario until he getshome and finds a woman in his shower. He’s obviously not expecting anyonejudging by the swiftness with which he locates his baseball bat and barges intothe bathroom screaming. Both Brandon and the naked woman scream, but theyobviously know each other and exchange a brief catching up conversation whileshe stands there stark naked in front of him. A line of dialogue reveals she’sthe woman who’s been leaving him the voicemails we hear in the first minutes ofthe film, but who is she?

It’s a testament to the performances of Fassbender andCarey Mulligan as Sissy, the naked shower woman, as well as McQueen’s directionthat the ensuing scene in which she asks if she can stay with him gave me thedistinct impression that they were brother and sister. But they couldn’t be,what with the way they both casually stood in the bathroom while one wascompletely exposed. Sure enough, Sissy is his troubled sister, whose back storyis not entirely fleshed out (although that’s not a bad thing) but she’s beenliving in different places over the years without much stability, as herbrother would probably complain.

Mulligan and Fassbender give unbridled performances, notjust because they lay bare their bodies for McQueen and cinematographer SeanBobbitt, whose lighting makes no attempt to conceal or obfuscate their physicalpresence, just as the screenplay, co-written by McQueen and Abi Morgan insistson being candid when it comes to the sheer duress Brandon and Sissy live under.They are broken individuals, scarred it would seem by a past that is neverrevealed. But Shame is not about howthe past affects them, it’s about the here and now, how each is a prisoner ofpersonal demons and both have difficulty connecting emotionally with someonelong term.

Brandon has what appears to be one of the nicest and probablymost realistic movie dates ever written with Marianne (Nicole Beharie), alovely work colleague. They enjoy dinner and talk about where they’re from,siblings, and a bit of relationship history. She’s going through a divorce andhe’s never had a relationship that lasted longer than four months. Marianne isastonished by this news and his assertion that he thinks marriage isunrealistic. This is not a ground-breaking idea. Brandon is certainly not thefirst person to make such a claim, but it is entirely within the parameters ofhis character to believe and to have no qualms about revealing it on a firstdate. Perhaps it is this very conversation combined with her constant presencein his life at the office that causes him an inability to perform sexually thenext day. This is just one of myriad ways he feels shame as well as the timeSissy catches him masturbating and then snoops into his live sex chat. Hisalmost violent reaction signals something very wrong in their relationship.

Whereas Brandon mostly internalizes the wreckage of hislife, Sissy is more outwardly an emotional disaster. Trying to make it as alounge singer, she invites Brandon and David to a gig at a swanky bar where sheperforms a mournful rendition of “New York, New York.” “If I can make it there,I’ll make it anywhere,” she sings, reminding us that New York City is thetoughest of towns, maybe too harsh at times for someone like Sissy. She is alsoquick to jump into bed with strangers, but when she does so with David, we seethe first signs of Brandon’s near inability to control his rage, an emotionthat for him is inextricably wound with feelings of lust.

Every protagonist needs to have an arc, should go throughsome kind of change and come out the other end of a story knowing more than hedid at the start. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what change takes place inBrandon except that his sexual proclivities become more and more dangerous. Hisredemption is subtle, but comes in a moment when he stops being self-absorbedfor a moment to understand the full ramifications of a voicemail Sissy leavesfor him saying, “It’s not that we’re bad people, we just come from a bad place.”The closing scene of the film is suggestive, though not explicit, of a changein Brandon, when he has another silent encounter with the same woman on thesubway. When we see her wedding ring again, we recall his admonition of Sissyfor not just going to bed with a married man, but continuing to call him after.It’s an enigmatic ending, not unlike Brandon as a character, that McQueenwisely leaves to the imagination what he’s going to choose.

A Separation Movie Review: Best Movie of 2011

2012-01-26T16:22:00.000-05:00

Newton’s Third Law of Motion tells us that to everyaction there is an equal and opposite reaction. Newton was referring to the physicalworld, but it would seem that something similar is at work in the metaphysicalworld as well. For every action we take as individuals, even when it’s apersonal and private action that seems to only affect ourselves, somewheresomeone else receives some reaction to it. Maybe that’s true. I really don’tknow. But the idea that lives are intertwined with neighbors and family, thatdecisions have far-reaching implications beyond immediate gratification is thecentral theme of Asghar Farhadi’s brilliant family drama A Separation.

I was not particularly fond of Farhadi’s last film, About Elly, but now that I’ve seen thefull extent of the subjects he’s interested in presented in a film thispowerful and absorbing, I understand the previous film a little more. Theseparation of the title immediately refers to the marriage between Nader (PeymanMoadi) and Simin (Leila Hatami). She is asking for a divorce because they havealready gone through the extensive process of procuring a visa to live inanother country, they have forty days before it expires, and he’s refusing toleave Iran because his father, stricken with Alzheimer’s, needs constant care.Simin is not content to raise their 11-year-old daughter, Termeh, in a countrywhere she has no future.

Farhadi places his camera in the objective position ofthe state official they’ve brought their case to. Neither party is placed in a morefavorable light. We can sympathize with both positions. Nader and Simin areeach right and they are each wrong. This scene with its shades of gray sets upthe difficult reality of decisions and consequences featured in the story. Howis truth decided when each person has their own take on a particular situation?How is justice meted out with regard to truths that should be objective but areso often found to be subjective? And when justice for one party means injusticefor the other, what is the fair decision? Life is not lived on one side or theother, but rather somewhere on a spectrum between just and unjust, right andwrong. Farhadi’s intricately woven and complex screenplay understands thisinstinctively.

Simin moves out of the house, leaving Termeh with Nader,who refuses to give his permission for her to go. Her moving out has a deepermotivation in her desire for Nader to simply express his wish that she stay.Because Simin is no longer around to look after Nader’s father, he is forced tohire a woman to come every day. This sets up the central conflict. He hiresRazieh (Sareh Bayat), who is 4 months pregnant, has a husband out of work, andbrings her 4-year-old daughter with her. She is rather unprepared for the taskof looking after an elderly man who sometimes can’t make it to the bathroom.Coming from a standpoint that finds religious fundamentalism completelybizarre, I can’t help but feel disturbed by a culture that causes a woman tocall a religious counselor to ask if it’s a sin for her to undress and clean aman who has wet himself.

On about the third day of work, Nader comes home to findthe house locked and his father on the bedside floor with his hand tied to thebed post. He is justifiably angry when Razieh returns claiming she had to runsome errands. He also discovers some missing money and makes an accusationdemanding she leave immediately. Razieh is concerned with honor and justice andso refuses to go until he retracts his accusation. Nader shoves her out thedoor, perhaps a little more forcefully than he should have especiallyconsidering her condition. Later he learns she’s in the hospital and has losther baby. She and her husband Hodjat (Shahab Hosseini) file charges of murderagainst him and so witnesses are brought in and angry accusations are hurledback and forth.

The issue is whether or not Nader knew she was pregnant.There is reason to suspect he did, but equally strong evidence to believe hedidn’t. If he sits in jail awaiting bail, then there’s no one to look after hisfather. If he’s found guilty he could go to prison for one to three years, andwho knows what consequences there would be for his daughter? If he pays bloodmoney to Razieh and Hodjat, who has debts that make some of his motivationssuspect, then justice has not been served because he will be admitting guiltunjustifiably. Hodjat feels he deserves justice for the loss of his unbornchild. If he doesn’t receive compensation, his family will be ruined.

Farhadi’s screenplay looks at this problem from variousangles even though the protagonists are Nader and his family. There is no resolutionthat has everyone coming out the other end better or feeling like justice hasbeen served. Razieh is in many ways the most interesting character because sheclaims she was pushed hard enough to fall down the stairs, but the physicallayout of the door and staircase would suggest the impossibility of such afall. Is she lying? To what end? The only fact in the case is that she lost herbaby. Is she concealing something?

This is undoubtedly one of the best movies I’ve seen in along time. I’m continually finding that the most interesting films are comingout of other countries, where film makers have great storytelling skills andhave learned the craft of movie making without the formulas found in studiofilms. Farhadi writes his characters not as heroes and villains in anextraordinary circumstance, but as ordinary people dealing with the realitiesof life. The four adults at the center of the story are generally decent people(although an argument can be made for Hodjat being the least sympathetic withhis outbursts of anger) who have decisions to make with far-reachingconsequences. This is the stuff of life. And everything can be tied back to theseparation begun in the first scene, a decision that sets in motion a chainreaction that leads to an altercation and the loss of a baby. But we know it’snot fair to blame it all on Simin, even if Nader implicates her at one point.She made what she thought was the best decision at the time, as we all try todo.

The final scene of the film is of Termeh called forth toannounce her decision about which parent she chooses to live with. The scene isdrawn out to create tension, but ultimately Farhadi doesn’t go for any simpleconclusion. The shot that closes the film is a perfect summation of the dividebetween Nader and Simin and the fact that no life-altering decision is easy ornecessarily right.

How Hollywood Condescends to Its Audiences

2012-01-26T14:21:00.002-05:00

Here's a really interesting roundtable discussion with several prominent actors who have all been the recipients of year-end awards and nominations for films in 2011. Without the hindrance of a TV audience and the need to be conciliatory for the sake of promoting a film, they give honest opinions and use honest language. We don't often get to see movie stars in this light - just regular people discussing the industry they work in without the gloss. Normally we either get speeches of praise for directors and costars or the occasional YouTube video that reveals how stars sometimes fall to pieces.

Top Ten Movies of 2011

2012-01-26T11:17:00.002-05:00

updated at 11:30 pm on 30 January after someone pointed out that I titled this post "Top Ten Movies of 2012." It only took a little more than 4 days for someone to alert me to my error.

updated at 4:30pm on 26 January to reflect the glaring oversight of having accidentally left off The Tree of Life.

I still have a handful of movies from 2012 to see, but nothing that is likely to make any real impression on this list. Of course these lists are arbitrary, but I like to put together a list of the films that had the strongest emotional effect on me.

First, some honorable mentions. These are movies that I really admired, but I like to stick to the tradition of a top ten: 50/50; Contagion; Martha Marcy May Marlene; Moneyball; Rango; Warrior; We Need to Talk About Kevin.

10. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo dir. David Fincher - Beautifully shot. Excellent sound design. As usual, a Fincher film gets all the technical details exactly right. Then he goes and creates a suspenseful thriller that is moody, eerie and melancholy. The story admittedly leaves a lot to be desire, but Fincher and his team did a phenomenal job with their source material. Rooney Mara completely loses herself in the character of Lisbeth Salander.

9. Take Shelter dir. Jeff Nichols - A disturbing portrait of a man succumbing to severe mental illness and the effect it has on his wife and child. Michael Shannon gives a brave performance that isn't afraid to go to some very dark human places.

8. Shame dir. Steve McQueen - Speaking of brave performances going to dark places, Michael Fassbender is a kind of nonchalant Casanova in New York City who blinds women with his intense gaze. He's almost debilitatingly addicted to pleasures of the flesh - sex with women he's just met, with prostitutes and with himself. A beautifully realized portrait of an emotionally broken man.

7. The Artist dir. Michel Hazanavicius - A beautiful and moving little ode to silent film that is not only silent and in black and white, but adheres to the storytelling conventions of that bygone era.

6. La piel que habito (The Skin I Live In) dir. Pedro Almodóvar - A brooding psychological melodramatic thriller. Almodóvar continues exploring his pet themes of identity and sexuality with one of the best efforts of his career.

5. Hugo dir. Martin Scorsese - Another ode to early cinema, this one stretching all the way back to the birth of narrative film making and early special effect. All of this is presented in a film that utilizes the most up-to-date effects. Scorsese uses 3D better than anyone has to date, even if I still think it's mostly pointless.

4. The Tree of Life dir. Terrence Malick - A beautiful, lyrical, poetic rendering of the meaning of life. In many ways this is the apotheosis of what Malick has been trying to achieve with his movies previously. Not satisfied to use traditional narrative conventions, he employs experimental film techniques to give an impressionistic view of a boy's relationship with his father, using a stern hand, and his mother, providing the nurturing forgiveness that everyone craves sometimes. I admire this film for its grand vision, even with its imperfections. It's bold and daring in its scope, made by a director who isn't afraid to reach for big ideas.

3. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy dir. Tomas Alfredson - A wonderful labyrinthine spy thriller that defies convention to present not the thrills of the spy business, but the human toll on those who commit to the daily slog of sifting through intelligence and embedding themselves in other lives for the benefit of their country.

2. Des hommes et de dieux (Of Gods and Men) dir. Xavier Beauvois - I saw this well over a year ago and it opened in the United States in early 2011. I use US release dates to make my top ten lists, so that's how a movie that no one is talking about now made it. This is a film of tremendous power and empathy about an order of Trappist monks who were kidnapped and murdered in Algeria during the civil war in 1996. It's not so much about the events that occurred as it is about these men in this time and place and how they come to see their role in the world. Pensive, studied, focused, brilliant and moving.

1. A Separation dir. Asghar Farhadi dir. - For a year I thought I had my number one film, but this excellent Iranian family drama bumped it down to second position. My review is coming soon, so I'll save my comments.

X-Men: First Class Movie Review

2012-01-25T22:41:00.001-05:00

Superhero movies used to mercifully few and far between.Now they’re ubiquitous along with their various sequels, prequels and spinoffs.I understand why Hollywood studios continue to return to the same sourcematerial. It’s guaranteed box office receipts without having to do the heavylifting of crafting new character. And basically the stories are ready-madeclotheslines that have basic garments that always hang on them and the hiredwriters just have to decide on the occasional undergarment or accent to place alongsidethe old and familiar. So it is with X-Men:First Class, the fifth iteration of the X-Menfranchise, this time going back to the origins of Professor Charles Xavier,Magneto née Erik Lenscherr, and the special school established by Charles tonurture and guide other mutants to learn to control their abilities.

In a prologue that recaps what we already saw in X-Men more than a decade ago, Erik isseparated from his parents in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1944 and in his ire bendsthe metal gates separating them. Nazi scientist Klaus Schmidt (Kevin Bacon)observes and sees the great potential. Across the Atlantic, young CharlesXavier meets the young shape-shifting Raven (played later as an adult by Jennnifer Lawrence) and allows her to stay, keeping heras a kind of pet. Charles and Erik cross paths through a chance encounter in1962 after Erik has tracked Schmidt, who is now known as Sebastian Shaw andlooks miraculously young for his age. Because of some absurd attempt to includeAmerican government agencies in these movies (Transformers is infamously guilty of this sin) there is a CIAoperation that encounters Shaw meeting with top U.S. Army Colonel in a LasVegas club. Shaw, working with other mutants Azazel (Jason Flemyng), Riptide(Alex González) and the telepathic Emma Frost (January Jones), is planningsomething that will bring the world to a fiery end. MacTaggert (Rose Byrne),the CIA operative tracking them, discovers something that her superiors willpredictably scoff at. Thankfully, the screenplay by Ashley Miller, Zack Stentz,Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn (who also directs) from a story by SheldonTurner and Bryan Singer finds reason for her to strip to her underwear duringmost of the Las Vegas sequence.

The convoluted plot takes us to the Cuban Missile Crisis,which this movie co-opts for its own purposes so that Shaw can convince theSoviets to place missiles in Cuba and push the two world powers into nuclearwar. It will fall to Charles and Erik (James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender) tostop it. They’ll have help, once again, from a gaggle of mutants collected inone of those montages that introduces a mélange of characters and showcasingtheir powers. In a redundancy, there’s one of those scenes when the charactersshow off their powers to the audience, I mean to each other. Then there’s theobligatory training montage in which Charles helps them all to hone and controltheir powers. If this is all feeling like a lot of exposition, introduction andlist-making that’s because it is! Like just about all new iterations of comicbook movies these days, X-Men: FirstClass is obviously the introduction to a new series, probably a trilogy.

In an aside above I mentioned the movie was directed byMatthew Vaughn. That mention and my deliberate use of the passive voice in theprevious sentence should be a strong indication that it hardly matters whodirected this piece of boilerplate action that is so generic it even countsMichael Ironside among its cast members. It’s competently made unlike so manyother recent blockbuster action films, but it never rises above the level ofpop entertainment even when the screenplay at least attempts to infuse thestory with something topical and interesting. The first X-Men trilogy hinted at some philosophical musings with its allusionsto the Holocaust through the singling out of mutants by some people in power ascreatures to be tracked and feared.

More interesting than that theme are the diametricallyopposed approaches to the issue represented by Xavier and Magneto. McAvoy andFassbender are excellent and charismatic actors who bring heft and gravitas toroles originated by two giants of stage and screen. There are hints at and thebeginnings of what could have been developed into some great conversationsabout whether to join the non-mutant humans or to oppose them outright. Theirphilosophical discussions are the best parts of the movie, but just a tease,like the one between Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen to open X2. Seeing the same characters as youngmen beginning their long and complicated antagonistic friendship is excitingand informs the earlier trilogy to some extent, but the meat of it gets lost ina plot that packs in way too much.

Still, I look forward to a possible next installment inthis franchise if the same actors return and a more self-assured screenwriteris brought on board to flesh out the themes a bit more.

From My Collection: State and Main Movie Review

2012-01-25T18:07:00.002-05:00

Robert Altman’s brilliant 1992 return to form The Player gets all the ink when itcomes to Hollywood satire. It is a fantastic piece of work – suspenseful anddarkly comic. But re-watching State andMain, David Mamet’s comedy about a Hollywood production that tears apart asmall New England town, I realized this has to be ranked as one of the greatsatirical films. What makes it more remarkable is that Mamet was primarilyknown for his thrillers, set up as complex confidence games. Although it wasnot nearly as much a departure as his 1999 film The Winslow Boy, a G-rated period piece family drama about a boyaccused of theft at his school. State andMain is as biting and funny as his great screenplay for Wag the Dog, a satire of the politicalprocess.

Mamet seems to have a way of presaging calamitousnational events as when the plot of Wagthe Dog closely mimicked the Monica Lewinsky scandal before the story evenbroke. Similarly, a well-placed and offhand remark about the absurdity of theelectoral process gained a whole new resonance shortly after its Toronto FilmFestival premiere when the great Bush/Gore debacle began in Florida. That kindof serendipity is like catching lightning in a bottle once and he did it twice!

The first time I saw Stateand Main I didn’t quite catch just how pointed the satire is. I thought itwas incredibly funny, but it didn’t occur to me that Mamet was attemptingsomething bigger. Now older and perhaps a bit more cynical I wonder if thephoniness of the relationships and the transparently insincere affection andappeasement between cast and crew (generally the most appeasement is directedat the cast) found its beginnings in what Mamet himself witnessed throughouthis career up to that point.

Mamet worked as a screenwriter for hire on several bigHollywood films before directing his own first feature. It should come as nosurprise that the closest thing to a protagonist in State and Main and the only honorable person in the production isthe writer, Joseph Turner White (Philip Seymour Hoffman). He keeps tellingpeople that his screenplay is about the quest for purity. And he finds it inAnnie, the owner of the town bookstore and leader of the local drama club.Annie, in all her hokey small town innocence is played by none other than Mamet’swife Rebecca Pidgeon. But she’s engaged to Doug (Clark Gregg), an upstartpolitician dead set on milking the movie production for as much money aspossible. William H. Macy is Walt Price, the film’s director, whose job veryoften involves being the mediator between the unsparing producer (David Paymer)and Claire Wellesley, the leading lady played by Sarah Jessica Parker with thekind of pep and vigor you would expect from a Hollywood starlet tryingdesperately to maintain her image. Alec Baldwin is her costar Bob Barrenger, abig time movie star on the level of someone like Alec Baldwin.

Rounding out the cast of recognizable faces is JuliaStiles as a teenager who gets in over her head with Barrenger, a man with apenchant for getting into trouble with underage girls (a fact that is tossedaround like a joke amongst the crew without even a hint of irony), and RickyJay as her unsuspecting father. Finally Charles Durning is the mayor and PattiLuPone his wife, eager to please what she sees as West Coast sophisticates bydressing up her home and guests as if it were the middle of the 19^thcentury.

Everyone on the production needs coddling: Bob gets threeadjoining rooms in the town’s hotel and Claire arrives to a room decked outwith lilacs, her favorite flower. Disgruntled crew members are placated with “anassociate producer credit,” which one character informs is what you give yoursecretary instead of a raise. Walt has a little pillow he can’t shoot without.The cinematographer, an Italian artiste,insists he can’t get the opening shot he needs without altering the firehouse.Even Joseph needs his manual typewriter to get cracking on the rewrites thatare necessary due to the town’s lack of an old mill. This is only a minorinconvenience to Walt even though it’s a movie called “The Old Mill.”

Mamet’s screenplay is rife with wonderfully genius littleone-liners. At times it feels like a hodgepodge designed to air many of hisgrievances with his chosen profession, but that doesn’t keep it from being ariot. And of course the dialogue bears the tell-tale rhythms of Mamet-speak,that enviable and inimitable style utilizing such precision of language thatevery punctuation mark is deliberate and his actors must know that and includeit in their performances.

The central romance between Joe and Annie gives it someheart and keeps the movie from becoming a dull list of gripes and complaintsabout Hollywood phonies. But there’s no denying that he intended to depict thescreenwriter as a put-upon nobody and the least valued person on set even whilethe bosses pay lip service to his words being the most important thing. EvenClaire can’t help heaping bogus praise on the beautiful speech he’s written.

Mamet is an equal opportunity offender, however, as noteven the townspeople escape unscathed. Though they are depicted as aspiring tohigh morals and clean living, they are also sycophants, reveling in thepresence of perceived greatness. The hotel manager stammers at the prospect ofhaving a real live movie star in his place of business, and ushers the adoringchildren away just to stand next to Bob Barrenger. Annie’s drama club falls topieces when her cast decides to try for parts as extras in the more illustriousHollywood drama. Doug appears to be the only one immune to the beguiling waysof the production crew, but even he, like most people, eventually succumbs tothe allure of the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

As the last line of the film, spoken by Baldwin, tells us,“It beats working.” Indeed it does. I’m not sure Mamet agrees with thatsentiment, but I don’t think any character in State and Main would disagree.

How Did I Do (2012 Edition)

2012-01-24T10:18:00.000-05:00

So let's take a look at my predictions against the actual nominees and round up my score and make some comments along the way.

In the top 9 categories my score is 34/44 (77%) compared to last year's 39/45 (87%).
If I include Animated Feature (which I did last year) in top categories then I drop to 36/49 (73%).

Total score: 63/94 (67%) possibly my worst ever. A big letdown after my possibly best ever last year.

Picture

There was little chance I was going to equal my 10/10 from last year's predictions, but I'm pretty satisfied with my result. I said there would be 8 nominees and there were 9, but I'm not holding that against myself. Here's the list:

The Artist

The Descendants
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (not predicted)

The Help
Hugo

Midnight in Paris
Moneyball

The Tree of Life
War Horse
predicted but not nominated: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
score: 8/9

Director

I'm not extraordinarily surprised by this result. Malick's nomination was a spoiler on my list

Michel Hazanavicius - The Artist

Martin Scorsese - Hugo

Alexander Payne - The Descendants
Woody Allen - Midnight in Paris
Terrence Malick - The Tree of Life (not predicted)

predicted but not nominated: David Fincher - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
score: 4/5

Actor

I think the inclusion of both Demián Bichir AND Gary Oldman is simply phenomenal. Academy voters collectively did the right thing here even if it means Michael Fassbender (I haven't yet seen Shame) was left off.

Demián Bichir - A Better Life (not predicted)
George Clooney - The Descendants

Brad Pitt - Moneyball

Jean Dujardin - The Artist

Gary Oldman - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

predicted but not nominated: Michael Fassbender - Shame

score: 4/5

Actress

I haven't seen the movie, but the exclusion of Tilda Swinton is somewhat surprising. Still, I can't say I'm disappointed in this list.

Meryl Streep - The Iron Lady

Michelle Williams - My Week with Marilyn

Viola Davis - The Help
Glenn Close - Albert Nobbs (not predicted)

Rooney Mara - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

predicted but not nominated: Tilda Swinton - We Need to Talk About Kevin
score: 4/5

Supporting Actor
Jonah Hill? Really? Really? I didn't want to believe the buzz and prognosticators. He's nominated simply by riding the wave of tremendous good will (a bit oversold) toward Moneyball. He was included at the expense of Albert Brooks. Incredible.

Christopher Plummer - Beginners
Jonah Hill - Moneyball (not predicted)
Max von Sydow - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (not predicted)
Nick Nolte - Warrior
Kenneth Branagh - My Week with Marilyn

predicted but not nominated:
Albert Brooks - Drive
Patton Oswalt - Young Adult
score: a pitiful 3/5

Supporting Actress
We've been here before - the first three are locks. Although I'd prefer Chastain for either The Tree of Life or Take Shelter, but she'll get it for the less film. I'm leaving off Melissa McCarthy for Bridesmaids.

Jessica Chastain - The Help
Berenice Bejo - The Artist
Octavia Spencer - The Help
Melissa McCarthy - Bridesmaids (not predicted)
Janet McTeer - Albert Nobbs

predicted but not nominated: Shailene Woodley - The Descendants
score: 4/5

Adapted Screenplay
I called the spoiler of Tinker Tailor but certainly didn't count on the inclusion of The Ides of March.

The Descendants
Hugo
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (not predicted)
Moneyball
The Ides of March (not predicted)

predicted but not nominated: The Help and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
score: 3/5 - awful

Original Screenplay
Bridesmaids
The Artist
Midnight in Paris
A Separation
Margin Call (not predicted)

predicted but not nominated: 50/50
score: 4/5

Animated Feature
I totally tanked it on this one. And after 4 wins in a row in this category, Pixar tanked it with Cars 2 which fails to get a nomination. The last time Pixar didn't win this category was when Cars lost to Happy Feet, whose sequel Happy Feet 2 also failed to be nominated.

Rango
Chico & Rita (not predicted)
A Cat in Paris (not predicted)
Kung Fu Panda 2 (not predicted)
Puss in Boots

predicted but not nominated: Cars 2, The Adventures of Tintin, Arthur Christmas
score: 2/5 - Ugh!

Cinematography
The Tree of Life
Hugo
The Artist
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
War Horse (not predicted)

predicted but not nominated: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
score: 4/5

Art Direction
War Horse
Hugo
The Artist
Midnight in Paris (not predicted)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II

predicted but not nominated: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
score: 4/5

Costume Design
Jane Eyre
Hugo
Anonymous (not predicted)
W.E. (not predicted)
The Artist

predicted but not nominated: War Horse, My Week With Marilyn
score: 3/5

Film Editing
The Descendants
Hugo
The Artist
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Moneyball (not predicted)

predicted but not nominated: Contagion
score: 4/5

Makeup
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II
Albert Nobbs (not predicted)
The Iron Lady

predicted but not nominated: Hugo
score: 2/3

Original Score
John Williams picks up 2 nominations after his longest career Oscar dry spell since his first nomination in 1967. His last time on this list was a double nomination for 2005's Munich and Memoirs of a Geisha. Since then his only film score was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. This brings his total to 47 nominations. He's unlikely to ever best the all-time leading Oscar nominee which is Walt Disney whose career nominations total (not counting special awards) 59. Can Williams collect a 6th career statue next month? Or will his two nominations split the vote allowing one of the other three to sneak through?
John Williams - War Horse
Albert Iglesias - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Howard Shore - Hugo
Ludovic Bource - The Artist
John Williams - The Adventures of Tintin

predicted but not nominated: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
score: 3/5

Original Song
Only two nominees this year. The songs must have sucked. I've been saying for years that this category should be eliminated or seriously re-tooled.

"Man or Muppet" from The Muppets (not predicted)
"Real in Rio" from Rio (not predicted)

predicted but not nominated: "Lay Your Head Down" from Albert Nobbs and "Hello Hello" from Gnomeo & Juliet
score: 0/2

Sound Mixing
War Horse
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (not predicted)
Hugo
Moneyball (not predicted)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

predicted but not nominated: Super 8 and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
score: 3/5

Sound Editing
Drive (not predicted)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (not predicted)
War Horse (not predicted)
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Hugo

predicted but not nominated: The Adventures of Tintin, Cars 2, Super 8
score: 2/5

Visual Effects
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II (not predicted)
Hugo (not predicted)
Real Steel (not predicted)
Rise of the Planet of the Apes

predicted but not nominated: X-Men: First Class, Super 8, The Tree of Life
score: 2/5

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Movie Review

2012-01-24T01:20:00.000-05:00

Extremely Loud andIncredibly Close is one hundred percent Oscar bait and shamelessly so. Itco-stars two Oscar-winning actors as the parents of a precocious child who setsout on a journey of discovery after the death of his father. There’s aninternational screen legend (once Oscar nominated) cast an elderly man whodoesn’t speak. It’s penned by Eric Roth, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Forrest Gump, and directed by StephenDaldry, the only person ever nominated for the Best Director Oscar for each of hisfirst three feature films. To top it all off it’s a post 9/11 drama thatcenters on the breakdown of a family after a tragic loss on that day.

These facts alone don’t make it a bad movie, but it doesstrike me as a rather craven attempt to capitalize on the real-life tragedy of9/11 for the sake of both profit and accolades (the film was originally timedto coincide with the tenth anniversary) just as Roth’s source material, thenovel by Jonathan Safran Foer, does. Any film dealing directly with 9/11 assubject matter is automatically going to face criticism for attempting to makepop culture out of an event from living memory that affected the lives ofcountless millions. To be sure, there are interesting ideas at stake and theyare worth examining, but they deserve a platform with less treacle and forcedsentiment.

It probably doesn’t help matters very much that OskarSchell, an 11-year-old boy and protagonist in the story, is in many waysunsympathetic. He is cold and emotionally detached, obsessed with finding orderand patterns, and deathly terrified of public transportation. He was muchcloser with his father Thomas, played in flashbacks by Tom Hanks, than he is orever was with his mother (a constantly forlorn Sandra Bullock). But hisrelationship with his father seems more built around bonding over commoninterests than emotional connection. Reconnaissance Mission was a favorite gameof theirs in which Thomas set extravagant clues for Oskar to follow, a methodemployed to get the boy out of shell and talk to people. No one seems to mind verymuch that this usually means hobnobbing with homeless men or conducting nighttimesearches in Central Park with a metal detector. As Oskar, the first time actorThomas Horn, is about as good as child actors come. He is totally convincingeven when the character as written is not. He has a commanding control of hisvoice and can portray Oskar the child who needs guidance as well as Oskar theburgeoning adult trying to figure it all out.

More than a year after Thomas’s death, Oskar discovers akey in his father’s closet. The envelope that contained it bears only the name “Black.”He takes this as a final mission set by his father and begins cataloging allthe people named Black in the city of New York and vows to visit them all untilhe finds where that key fits. His fear of public transportation dictates thathe must walk everywhere which sort of makes you wonder how he manages to gofrom his home on the Upper East Side to Fort Green, Brooklyn, and back in asingle day without being absolutely exhausted. The woman he meets there is AbbyBlack (Viola Davis), whose husband William (Jeffrey Wright) happens to bemoving out that day, leaving her in a state of melancholy. She’s far too quickto allow a strange boy into her home and you just want to scream at everyone, “Whatthe hell are you doing? He’s a child!” The casting of Davis and Wright allowsme to reference the Law of Economy of Characters for the second time in as manyweeks.

The specter of 9/11 hangs all over the film, with theopening title graphics that subtly mimic the shape of tall towers and the ghostlysilhouettes (perhaps only imagined by me) that look like those sad human shapesthat signaled to those watching on TV just how terrible the inferno must havebeen at the tops of those towers that jumping was the best option. Oskar evenhas a printed image of a falling man blown up so large it appears as a clusterof square pixels, but still he thinks maybe he sees his father’s glasses theresometimes. He gently hints at his knowledge of the universality among allfamily members of 9/11 victims when he admits that maybe other children thinkit’s their dad in that picture. Alexandre Desplat’s score helps guide theemotions at the core of the movie. His piano and string melodies gently lull usinto the story even when we see the mechanical workings of the cloyinglymanipulative script tugging at us.

Oskar’s search continues every weekend for several monthsbefore he gets some help from the renter (Max Von Sydow) who takes a room inhis grandmother’s apartment across the street. This man has a mysterious pastthat he won’t divulge to the boy. He has lost the ability to speak, but is ableto carry on Thomas’s difficult task of help Oskar come out of his shell, butonly after an overwrought montage of Oskar hurriedly explaining his quest tothe old man. It’s not long before we begin to realize that Oskar’s journey isan attempt to heal psychological scars and find answers, an allegory perhapsfor the American, or more to the point, New Yorker condition in a post-9/11world. The facile message that this commercial pop drivel delivers is that somethings are random. There are not necessarily answers, reasons or explanationsfor everything. When your father dies in a collapsing skyscraper, it hadnothing to do with any vendetta against him.

However, Daldry’s film averts its eyes when it comes toany potentially polarizing political implications. I’m sorry to point this out,but there’s no denying that 9/11 was political. It was not without explanation.It was not a random act of violence. The hijackers certainly were not out toget Thomas Schell, but to deny the existence of motive, justified or not, is toignore the horrifying implications of that day. And lest we believe for amoment that Daldry is not exploiting 9/11 to generate a fixed set of emotions,pay special attention to the only scene in the film that is not seen throughOskar’s eyes. The point of view abruptly shifts to his mother taking a finalphone call at the office from Thomas as she looks downtown toward the burningtowers. The inclusion of that single scene does nothing except to have anexcuse to include an image that we’ve already got burned in our memories and topresent an example of a phone conversation we heard over and over in theensuing months – between husbands and wives when those in the towers knew theywould never get out. Leaving out that scene could have set an entirelydifferent tone over the film, which is otherwise a professionally well-made,but sappy and not particularly interesting Hollywood film.

War Horse Movie Review

2012-01-23T17:05:00.003-05:00

Having plumbed the depths of WWII era stories, I supposeit was just a matter of time before Steven Spielberg worked his way to WorldWar I. The source material for War Horseseems almost destined for Spielberg territory. Originally a 1982 children’snovel by Michael Morpurgo its themes include childhood dreams and lostinnocence as seen through the prism of violence and the torment of war.

Interestingly, the central viewpoint is through the eyesof a thoroughbred named Joey. There is a principal human character, a teenagernamed Albert Narracott and played with unending earnestness and wonderment byJeremy Irvine. The early scenes are through Albert’s eyes as he sees the foalborn and follows him growing up until he’s brought to auction, where his father(Peter Mullan), a veteran of the Boer War with a bum leg and a drinkingproblem, overbids on him as a plough horse just to spite his wealthy landlord(David Thewlis). Emily Watson is Albert’s stalwart and sensible mother. Theirlivelihood in jeopardy if they can’t make their rent, Albert sets his sights onbreaking Joey and having him plough a new field. And goshdarnit, wouldn’t youguess that he breaks that horse, and that horse defies the odds andmiraculously ploughs that field. But bad luck strikes again and Albert’s fathersells Joey to the army, readying themselves for war with Germany.

This whole prologue to the war taking place in Devon,England, and eating up about 45 minutes of screen time is so dripping with ranksentimentality, the same kind that Spielberg so often relies on instead oftrusting his skills as a gifted storyteller. It may not help that the task ofadapting the novel fell to Lee Hall and Richard Curtis, whose previous work(Curtis is known for writing popular British rom-coms like Love Actually and BridgetJones’s Diary) has not exactly prepared them for a historical war epic.Spielberg’s at his best when pushing straightforward adventure as in theIndiana Jones series and lofty futuristic visions as in Minority Report and A.I.It’s when he strays from what he does best and tries too hard for the bigemotional payoff that he loses me. And it happens over and over again, undoingthe goodwill he earns with some battle scenes that as impressive as anything he’sfilmed during his impressive career.

The England scenes are shot in a way that reveals theartifice, given a rich golden hue by cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, whosework is typically stylized by washed out backlighting shining through windowsand doors that accentuates the interior design. Here, they seem to bedeliberately calling to mind Gone Withthe Wind, which had a similarly artificial lighting design for itsexteriors partially due to its being shot on a soundstage. Location shootingwas obviously used in War Horse, butthey’ve gone out of their way cover it up in some instances. Perhaps the ideawas to give it a more Old Hollywood feel but the result for me was that it feltless cinematic. I like the use of open spaces in location shooting that revealsthe vastness of the land giving a sense of perspective to how I view thecharacters.

Moving to the continent and war, the viewpoint shifts toJoey. He has a human owner in Captain Nicholls (Tom Hiddleston), whose promiseto Albert that he will look after Joey until the war’s end is cut short by apoor strategic decision that sends a cavalry brigade charging directly intoGerman machine gun fire, the first instance of old confronting new and one ofthe major factors in the inordinate number of combat deaths in WWI. Joey’spresence on the front belongs to another time before new technologies likeartillery, tanks and machine guns were employed. In the ensuing battle as thecavalry charges into a German encampment, Spielberg doesn’t go full tilt likehe did with Saving Private Ryan.Instead, in his obvious desire to receive a PG-13 rating, he shies away fromgraphic blood and deaths and hits upon a shot that is eerie and more evocativeas we see only the rider-less horses charging on into the words, bounding overthe gunners. The slaughter is of men is suggested rather than revealed, givingthe scene a different kind of power than if we had seen the carnage with our owneyes. Later he will use a turning windmill to cover up another human tragedy, atechnique that doesn’t evoke the same feelings because the sail’s position inthe foreground calls attention to the camera.

As the story moves from place to place and owner toowner, the sensation I got was that the protagonist kept changing. Then Irealized that we’re so accustomed to the human characters being the heroes thatI wasn’t allowing for the possibility that it was Joey who is the real star.After the death of Captain Nicholls, Joey falls into the hands of the Germanarmy, specifically two young brothers (David Kross and Leonard Carow). Then ayoung Belgian girl comes across him. Her grandfather (Niels Arestrup) onlywants to protect her and his property from the invading army and so the horsesare soon back with the Germans, this time pulling artillery – a task thatquickly kills most horses. Events lead to Joey eventually charging unmannedthrough the no man’s land between German and British trenches, getting caught upin barbed wire in a scene so harrowing it will have the more sensitive membersof the audience clutching at their companions for comfort.

I found the structure of shifting viewpoints distracting.I have no problem with an omniscient point of view, but that’s not quite what’shappening here. Albert is established early on as the film’s principal humanprotagonist. His disappearance from the narrative for an hour forces us tofollow Joey, who is essentially his surrogate. But the story is not, strictlyspeaking, told from the horse’s point of view so the other humans who come inand out of his life are also protagonists in their own little short stories. Thatwe spend so little time with these supporting characters and that theirdepartures are sometimes tragic is a fact of the nature of war. Land and homesare pillaged, soldiers are killed and work animals die of exhaustion. This is atruth that can not be avoided. Although Kaminski’s camera turns away from thegoriest parts, Spielberg’s story is actually a depiction of the cruelties ofwar, a thematic element that is ultimately betrayed in favor of a cynicallysentimental ending.

Apart from one heart-wrenching scene that honestlytouched me for a moment involving Albert’s reunification with Joey after fouryears of war, about the only part of the film that I truly enjoyed was JohnWilliams’ beautiful score. Williams doesn’t do much in the way of film scores thesedays (from 2006 through 2010 he only scored IndianaJones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), but this year he had two. The Adventures of Tintin deliberatelycalled to mind many of his previous scores, but his work on War Horse, though distinctly JohnWilliams, is an original work unto itself, with melodies that bolster theemotions without tugging them out of us. There will come a day, sooner ratherthan later, when there will no longer be a new film score by this great man whohas written some of the most memorable movie music of the last 40 years. Thatmay not be reason enough to sit through WarHorse, but it helps ease the experience.

Oscar Nomination Predictions

2012-01-23T01:58:00.000-05:00

Just my predictions for the nominations which will be announced tomorrow morning. After the announcement I'll be back with commentary.

Picture

A difficult category to accurately predict given the fluidity in the number of nominees (there can be as few as 5 and as many as 10). I've listed my predictions in my personal order of likelihood. So the first five I would consider locks. I'm going with a field of 8 nominees, but putting money on a possible 9th and 10th spot as well.

5 for sure...
The Artist

The Descendants

Hugo

The Help

Midnight in Paris
the 6th, 7th and 8th...
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Moneyball
War Horse
if there's 9...

The Tree of Life
if there's 10...

Bridesmaids

Director

I'm predicting a clean alignment with the Director's Guild nominees.

Michel Hazanavicius - The Artist

Martin Scorsese - Hugo

Alexander Payne - The Descendants
Woody Allen - Midnight in Paris
David Fincher - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Actor

The first three listed are the sure things. My three personal favorites are Michael Shannon, Michael Fassbender and Demian Bichir, but did enough Academy members see their movies? My fear is that DiCaprio gets a totally undeserved nomination this year. I think he's a phenomenal actor, but I really didn't like him in J. Edgar. Gary Oldman was really fantastic, but I'm not sure there's enough support for the movie. As always, so many deserving men in this category and not enough space for all of them.

George Clooney - The Descendants

Brad Pitt - Moneyball

Jean Dujardin - The Artist

Gary Oldman - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Michael Fassbender - Shame

Actress

Remember when Kirsten Dunst won this award at last year's Cannes Film Festival? Neither does anyone else and she's not going to make it on the Academy ballot. Like the Best Actor race, the first three are locks. As deep as my admiration was for Elizabeth Olsen in Martha Marcy May Marlene she's not getting nominated. So really there are 6 women vying for 5 slots. Tilda Swinton is probably pretty close to a sure thing. So who will take that fifth spot? Rooney Mara or Glenn Close?

Meryl Streep - The Iron Lady

Michelle Williams - My Week with Marilyn

Viola Davis - The Help
Tilda Swinton - We Need to Talk About Kevin

Rooney Mara - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Supporting Actor
SAG loved J. Edgar but I just thought Armie Hammer was dreadful. I can't include him. There's a lot of buzz about Jonah Hill in Moneyball and Patton Oswalt in Young Adult. I don't see it happening for either one of them. Branagh, though undeserving, will probably get it. Again, I'd call the first three on this list sure things. I'd love to see a real surprise like Benedict Cumberbatch for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or John C. Reilly for Carnage. On second thought, maybe Oswalt sneaks in for that fifth spot.

Christopher Plummer - Beginners
Albert Brooks - Drive
Nick Nolte - Warrior
Kenneth Branagh - My Week with Marilyn
Patton Oswalt - Young Adult

Supporting Actress
We've been here before - the first three are locks. Although I'd prefer Chastain for either The Tree of Life or Take Shelter, but she'll get it for the less film. I'm leaving off Melissa McCarthy for Bridesmaids.

Jessica Chastain - The Help
Berenice Bejo - The Artist
Octavia Spencer - The Help
Shailene Woodley - The Descendants
Janet McTeer - Albert Nobbs

Adapted Screenplay
The first four are pretty much certain. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a major spoiler possibility for the last spot.

The Descendants
Hugo
The Help
Moneyball
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Original Screenplay
Bridesmaids
The Artist
Midnight in Paris
A Separation
50/50

Animated Feature
Again, tricky here because up to a maximum of 5 films may be nominated given the 18 animated features released last year.

Rango
Cars 2
The Adventures of Tintin
Arthur Christmas
Puss in Boots

Cinematography
The Tree of Life
Hugo
The Artist
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Art Direction
War Horse
Hugo
The Artist
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II

Costume Design
Jane Eyre
Hugo
War Horse
The Artist
My Week With Marilyn

Film Editing
The Descendants
Hugo
The Artist
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Contagion

Makeup
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II
Hugo
The Iron Lady

Original Score
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
War Horse
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
The Artist

Original Song
I'm predicting only four nominees this year. But there can be as few as two.

with only 2 nominees...
"Lay Your Head Down" from Albert Nobbs
"Hello Hello" from Gnomeo & Juliet
3 nominees...
"Life's a Happy Song" from The Muppets
4 nominees...
"Coeur Volant" from Hugo
in the event of 5 nominees...
"The Living Proof" from The Help

Sound Mixing
War Horse
Super 8
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Hugo
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Sound Editing
Super 8
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Cars 2
Hugo
The Adventures of Tintin

Visual Effects
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Super 8
The Tree of Life
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
X-Men: First Class

Rango Movie Review

2012-01-19T21:32:00.000-05:00

I think Gore Verbinski has found his true calling as adirector. I don’t know why I didn’t see it from the Pirate of the Caribbean movies, but he is most suited to directinganimated adventures. After all, the exploits of Captain Jack Sparrow arenothing but cartoon action using live actors amid a whole bunch of CGI. Butlast year’s Rango, Verbinski’s firststab at an animated feature, is a marvelous little gem of a movie.

Johnny Depp gives full life and voice to the titlecharacter, a chameleon who gets lost in the desert and unwittingly becomessheriff to a dying town replete with rats, muskrats, lizards, tortoises andother desert vermin. It begins with Rango staging heroic plays and tableauxwith literally lifeless supporting characters. This is because he’s a pet in a dioramabeing transported by car along the highway. It suddenly occurs to him that inorder for his stories to be more interesting, to give his eponymous hero moredepth of character, there needs to be an ironic twist that flings hisprotagonist into an unexpected situation. Then what do you know? His cubiclehome gets flung from the car and smashes on the highway leaving him to fend forhimself in the desert.

Like most animated films these days, it’s computeranimated with non-human characters. As far as I know this is NickelodeonStudios’ first computer animated film since JimmyNeutron: Boy Genius. Boy have they come a long way, although IndustrialLight and Magic is primarily responsible for the animation this time. Still,great animation is nothing without a good story and screenplay to support it.And this story by Verbinski, John Logan and James Ward Byrkit with a screenplayby Logan (who also recently gave us Hugo)is the stuff that Western heroes’ dreams are made of. In Rango’s first 20minutes lost in The West he makes a daring escape from one of the many hazardsin the world, meets a no-nonsense female lizard named Beans (Isla Fisher), tellswild tales of his fictional exploits as a gunslinger, meets the Mayor of Dirt(Ned Beatty) and gets appointed sheriff. Not bad for a day’s work.

If I had to guess, I’d say Verbinski, Logan and Byrkithave studied the Pixar oeuvre to get a feel for the cadence and timing ofadult-oriented jokes and references. As with Pixar’s films, these things willfly over the kids’ heads, but then with its depictions of smoking and the occasionalcharacter death and some colorful language, Rangoisn’t an all-ages family film anyway. It will most appeal to aficionados of thewestern genre, particularly spaghetti westerns and Clint Eastwood. References,some general and many specific, abound. To begin with there’s Hans Zimmer’sexciting score that calls to mind just about every western you’ve ever seenwithout outright stealing from other composers. Then there are the moments thatcould be out of any western like when Rango orders a water in the saloon to thejeers of all the other patrons or the clock tower that strikes high noon andsignals an impending gunfight. There’s also the real Injun character WoundedBird, who speaks in the stereotypical broken English, two or three wordsentences prevalent in old westerns. The coup de grace however if the appearanceof the Spirit of the West coming in the form of none other than the Man with NoName and voiced by Timothy Olyphant doing a convincing enough Eastwood that Ihad to check the credits to be sure.

The animation too is on a par with the incrediblerendering that Pixar has achieved in recent years. The amphibian and reptilecharacters have beautiful almost tangible texture to their skin. Especiallygood is the universally feared black hat villain Rattlesnake Jake (Bill Nighy,relishing every slithery word he utters). Then there are the furry friends withalmost photorealistic hair. It’s the sand and water that most captured myattention. The detail in terms of the granular qualities of the desert sand andthe way it pours from a bottle demonstrates probably years of high qualityproduction. The water, which is central to the plot, is equally impressive inthe way it flows.

You see, the town of Dirt is desperate for water. There’snone flowing, Beans is about to lose her father’s ranch if she doesn’t getsome, and the bank is near run dry (literally). Rango promises the townspeoplehe will get their water back. “Whoever controls the water, controls everything,”the Mayor tells him. When you realize that with his hat and suspenders, theMayor looks an awful lot like Noah Cross and that this is a story about waterbeing siphoned off, you should have a pretty good idea who’s responsible. Andif you’re completely baffled by what I just wrote, then nothing’s been spoiled.If you know who Noah Cross is, then you’ll get it as quickly as I did watchingthe movie and I’ve still spoiled nothing.

Carnage Movie Review

2012-01-19T01:24:00.001-05:00

Carnage is aninteresting choice for director Roman Polanski. It’s been 25 years since hislast comedy, Pirates, and that was acomplete flop. He tends toward dramatic thrillers more than anything. Perhapsafter the recent troubles he’s had with his arrest in Switzerland and nearextradition back to the United States he needed some light-hearted fare to easethe stress. In the French stage farce Godof Carnage by playwright Yasmina Reza, who co-wrote the screenplay withPolanski, he found material for his next movie. Among the themes that tie hismovies together is an often nihilistic view of a Godless world. The personaltragedies of his life may or may not have contributed to his being drawn tosuch subject matter, but being stripped of his parents in the Holocaust andlosing his wife and unborn child to the murderous Manson family are events thatcan hardly be ignored when evaluating his work. Though Carnage is a comedic farce, it retains some of the motifs we findin his other work.

The premise and staging of Carnage are quite simple: two couples meet in one apartment to havea civil discussion about how best to handle a violent altercation that tookplace between their 11-year old sons. The parents of the victim, who sufferedthe loss of two teeth, are Penelope and Michael Longstreet (Jodie Foster andJohn C. Reilly). Christoph Waltz and Kate Winslet play Alan and Nancy Cowan,whose son Zachary whacked Ethan with a stick. Structured in a standard three actsbeginning with the four behaving civilly even when Alan, a lawyer, continuallyanswers his cell phone to discuss a potential pharmaceutical recall well pastthe point when all three are visibly uncomfortable. Eventually there’s atransition to building tension and airing of grievances, signaled mostsickeningly by Nancy vomiting all over the Longstreet coffee table and Penelope’shighfalutin art books. Finally, there’s a turn as Michael and Alan brieflyunite in a show of masculinity while drinking Scotch, butting heads with themore pragmatic women.

It’s the first two acts that garner the biggest laughs ofthe film’s mercifully brief 80 minute running time. Alan’s detached, slightlyperturbed nonchalance about the whole ordeal and Michael’s blue collarconservative posing as liberal have the greatest opportunities and meatiestmoments. These two actors, Reilly especially, give perhaps the bestperformances of their careers. Winslet and Foster are equally splendid throughthe first two acts. Nancy is a bit underdeveloped and Winslet does everything shecan with her. Penelope, on the other hand, is the juiciest role. A liberal witha straight-forward way of looking at morals in the world, she’s writing a bookabout the conflict in Darfur, a fact about which Alan has some insensitiveinsights. As tensions rise beyond the breaking point and the four imbibe morethan they should the script passes from witty comic farce to hysterical mania.Foster in particular pushes her performance well past the point ofbelievability. She loses control and forces the character in the end.

It’s a tricky thing to take a play set in one locationand turn it into a film. The conventions of the stage are quite different andto take something static and make it cinematic has to be handled well or elsenot attempted at all. Given the action of the story, the claustrophobic settingmakes sense to help build the tension. Polanski might have studied Sidney Lumet’s12 Angry Men which employs a shootingstyle that reflects the action. Carnage,as created by Polanski, is bookended by dialogue-less scenes of the boys in thepark. This not only gets us out into the open a bit, but in the case of thefinal one which plays out under the end credits, provides an ironic twist tothe disagreements the parents had over the previous hour and a quarter. Insidethe apartment, Polanski and cinematographer Pawel Edelman use reflectivesurfaces as often as possible to help open up the space within the tightconfines of the Longstreet domicile. The blue screen shots of the Manhattanskyline through the windows and the occasional tell-tale sounds of distantsirens help establish the New York setting (we know Polanski can’t travel tothe U.S. to shoot movies).

What do we learn from this movie? What can we say abouthuman nature and the difficulty of raising children in a modern society inwhich people still fall prey to base instincts? In the end, nihilism wins. TheLongstreets have concerns and questions, all legitimate as far as I’mconcerned, that never reach any sort of resolution. They all initially establishthat Zachary is the guilty party and that he owes Ethan an apology, but thefirst sign of disagreement comes when Penelope scoffs at the idea that hisparents will force him to apologize. Within her fair-minded liberal ideology,he must come to it himself or it’s meaningless. It doesn’t take very longbefore a quest for a fair resolution gives way to revelations about discordwithin both marriages. Despite all their attempts to be better than the moraldepravity all around them, these are four people who, much to Penelope’ssurprise, resort to those base instincts she thinks she’s risen above.Hopefully finishing her book on the Darfur tragedy will bring some peace to herlater because she certainly won’t find it in this company.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Movie Review

2012-01-18T11:45:00.001-05:00

David Fincher’s TheGirl With the Dragon Tattoo, adapted from Stieg Larsson’s book byscreenwriter Steven Zaillian, is the second such adaptation of the novel, thefirst being a Swedish production from two years ago. It represents the growingtrend in Hollywood of taking popular and well-crafted films from overseas andreshaping them for American audiences. Fincher’s version, which should reallybe considered an alternative adaptation of the book more than a remake, is anexpertly made, great looking, moody and atmospheric yet totally conventionalthriller. Which is sort of like having the New York Philharmonic perform acomposition by a middle-schooler with mediocre musical ability. The conductoris brilliant and his orchestra top-notch, but the music itself insists that weask why such talents were wasted in pursuit of something so pedestrian.

Larsson’s Milleniumtrilogy (unread by me), of which this is the first, has a loyal following ofreaders and if the movie is any indication, you can see why. It’s got all thehallmarks of a popular thriller, plus it’s extra violent and full ofmisogynistic men (the book’s original Swedish title is Men Who Hate Women) for good measure. Fincher and productiondesigner Donald Graham Burt – collaborators on Fincher’s previous three movies– as well as cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth keep a bleak and wintry look thatmirrors the subject matter. Even the most brightly lit interior is decorated ina cold modern minimalist style. The effect is the impression that Sweden is aplace I never want to live in and that it is just as dreary as many peoplebelieve.

The film suffers from a surfeit of characters, many ofwhom are present only in description and recounting of past events. The mainprotagonist is not the ‘girl’ of the title, but Mikael Blomkvist (DanielCraig), a recently disgraced journalist who lost a libel suit (and his lifesavings) to Wennerström, a wealthy businessman. He is given an opportunity toregain his fiscal security and the evidence to bring down his adversary bymanufacturing magnate Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer, but would have beenbest portrayed by Max von Sydow). Vanger is one of several patriarchs of amulti-generational Swedish manufacturing empire. He has little time left onthis earth and he wishes to solve the mystery of the disappearance and presumedmurder of his grand-niece Harriet some 40 years earlier when she was only 16.

Visiting Henrik for the first time on the family’sprivate island in the north of the country, Mikael gets lost in the description(as do we) of both living and deceased Vangers, who speaks to whom and whodoesn’t and whatnot, and where they all reside on the island. Henrik isconvinced a family member is responsible for Harriet’s death and afterinitially laying out the circumstances of the day in question, Mikael movesinto a small cabin on the property and begins a detailed investigation, onewhich many family members, for varying reasons, don’t wish to reopen. Mikaelmeets everyone in time as the mystery is splayed out, both in the screenplayand in photographs and post-its on Mikael’s wall. The most recognizable actorsin the Vanger clan apart from Plummer are Stellan Skarsgaard as Harriet’sbrother Martin and Joely Richardson as their cousin Anita, now living in Londonand having no contact with anyone.

The character I haven’t yet mentioned, and she is themost interesting thing about the film, is Lisbeth Salander, a young savantcomputer hacker with a troubled history and the tattooed girl of the title. Sheis played by Rooney Mara, that sweet girl who breaks up with Mark Zuckerberg atthe beginning of The Social Network,with equal parts introverted quiet reserve and devastating menace. Herbackground is presented rather dismally. As a ward of the state she has reliedon the kindness of an elderly foster parent whose incapacity from the effectsof a stroke leave her at the will of a new guardian, Bjurman (Yorick vanWageningen), a sadistic misogynist who is willing to file positive progressreports in return for sexual favors. This leads to an excruciating rape scenethat is shot almost as unsparingly as the revenge scene she exacts. RememberFincher is the director who was unflinching in both Seven and Zodiac when itcame time to lay bare to gruesome details. What Bjurman underestimated was Lisbeth’scapacity not only for physical violence, but to discover everything aboutsomeone using her skills with a computer.

Her abilities as an investigator supply her withlucrative work at the security firm that investigated Mikael before Vangerwould hire him. Upon learning this, Mikael decides she would be an excellentpartner to have to aid him in his search. Although she spent most of her teenyears in a psychiatric institution, I suppose we’re meant to take it on faiththat she somehow developed unparalleled hacker abilities. Some suspension ofdisbelief may be required, but that’s okay.

The multitude of characters and extended development of Lisbethleave less room for character development where it matters. We learn littleabout Mikael’s relationships outside the immediate scope of what the plotdemands. His daughter shows up once to illustrate Mikael’s revulsion towardreligion and then later to supply a key detail that will break theinvestigation open: Those codes are Bible verses! His other key relationship iswith Erika Berger (Robin Wright), his co-editor at the magazine he’s recentlyhad to resign from. We learn their affair broke up his marriage and has had adeleterious effect on hers, but beyond that we know very little except that he’swilling to come and go when it suits him or the plot.

To call the resolution to the big mystery disappointingis a huge understatement. It not only predictably leads to the discovery of aserial killer (of women, no less), but relies heavily on Roger Ebert’s Law ofEconomy of Characters, and turns out to be utterly conventional. Really? That’swhat happened? That’s the guilty person? That’s the killer’s motivation? MINOR SPOILER WARNING: Isn’t childhood sexualabuse getting a little bit worn out as a plot mover?

If the film had simply finished after Mikael wraps up theVanger family drama and truncated the book’s final coda, it might have had abetter effect on me. Instead it launches into an unnecessary and somewhatimplausibly simplified taking down of Wennerström that involves complicatedinternational travel, hacked bank accounts and large monetary transactions.This all adds 20 minutes to a film that could have been a tight two hours plus anda much better film overall. It’s still difficult to come down hard on the film,though, because Steven Zaillian, who is one of the best studio writers workingin Hollywood today, has provided a sharply written screenplay, Rooney Mara issimply mind boggling and Fincher and his technical crew have once again crafteda beautiful looking piece of cinema. And after their Oscar-winning score for The Social Network, Trent Reznor andAtticus Ross return as composers here, lacing the film with a wonderfulelectronic score that underscores the tension of the dramatic arc. Their workon these last two Fincher films demonstrates clearly that movie scores don’thave to be all horns and strings. If only their bold originality could have beenpaired with a better story.

The Tree of Life Movie Review

2012-01-17T01:28:00.000-05:00

Do yourself a favor if you’re going to watch The Tree of Life: set aside a block oftime during which you won’t be interrupted. This is a movie that needs to beexperienced in its entirety as single entity. It is not a traditional narrativefilm. Containing experimental elements, it is more a philosophical explorationof life’s origins and the binary nature of the world we live in. If you’re opento new experiences and ready for a thought-provoking movie, then by all meansgive it a shot. If, on the other hand, this doesn’t sound like your cup of teaor you read some kind of plot description somewhere that sounded like it’s agood story, then turn back now. This isn’t for you.

There’s little in the way of plot to speak of. There is afamily and events occur in their lives in Texas in the 1950’s with somecontemporary scenes involving the eldest son, but their story, such as it is,remains secondary to writer and director Terrence Malick’s vision. Brad Pitt isMr. O’Brien and Jessica Chastain his wife. Jack (Hunter McCracken as a boy;Sean Penn as an adult) is their oldest. Early in the film they receive the newsthat their middle son has been killed, presumably in Vietnam. I’m not sure whyI’ve mentioned that particular piece of information as if it has some specialrelationship with the other events in the film. It seems to be more about Jack’sdifficult relationship with his father, representing the way of nature, and hismore nurtured connection to his mother, who represents the way of grace.Forgiveness and love are grace. Strength, strife, war, defense, struggle –these are the ways of the natural world. Or perhaps indifference is more apt.We get flashes of Mr. O’Brien’s interactions with his boys. He teaches them tofight. He demands respect. Their mother shows compassion when Jack tends towardactivities signaling his loss of innocence – vandalism and animal torture amongthem.

If you’re familiar with Malick’s previous work, whichspans more than three decades, but only four films prior to The Tree of Life, then you’ll recognizethe impressionistic nature of his films that I’ve described above. His filmshave become increasingly cerebral exercises and decreasingly plot focused andmuch more driven by a desire to get to the heart of man’s place in the naturalworld. The Thin Red Line and The New World both have a lost paradiseas central themes and both have multiple character voiceover narration that’smore stream-of-conscious than explanatory.

Approaching it as a purely cinematic event, The Tree of Life can be exhilarating.Malick’s films have always employed some of the most gorgeous cinematographyand Emmanuel Lubezki’s work here is no exception. They catch the ‘magic hour’in nearly every shot, which must have taken quite a lot of preparationconsidering you’ve got a window of 30 to 45 minutes every day to catch thebeauty of the sunset in the perfect position for the most marvelous effect onfilm. Lubezki’s camera floats around capturing poetry in motion: a hand grazingsomeone’s back; a child’s glance; the way a branch recedes and moves back whentouched; a butterfly landing on Mrs. O’Brien’s outstretched hands. There is aheavy focus on human interaction with the world and the beauty that surroundsthem. The camera isn’t there to capture scenes, but to record life.

For sequences depicting Creation and the origin of lifeon earth, Malick went to special effects wizard Douglas Trumbull (the manbehind the glorious effects in 2001: ASpace Odyssey), who hasn’t worked on a film since Blade Runner. For scenes of the cosmos forming and galaxies beingborn, they avoided computer effects. Instead they relied on various innovativetechniques including mixing liquids of varying viscosity into a tank of waterand film it at different speeds and with different lighting techniques. Thisgives the effects an organic look that more closely represents photographicimages sent back from satellites and far-off spacecraft like Voyager.

From a standpoint of trying to understand something ofthe film’s narrative functions, my only real complaint is that Sean Penn’spresence seems unnecessary given the way the final edit turned out. Malickquite famously shoots a great deal of footage and his actors are shocked to seewhat comes out in the final product. I definitely got the feeling that Malick’sscreenplay contained a lot more development of the troubled and antagonisticrelationship between Jack and his father with Jack the adult a lost soul tryingto find his way and reconcile with the old man. All of that seems to have beenlost in the editing room, leaving contemporary scenes that don’t quite fit and afantasy sequence of the older Jack reuniting with his family as he remembersthem from childhood that has less power as a result of what’s been excised.

It’s a beautiful, painterly film that demands your fullattention of faculties. It’s worth coming back to several times, I’m sure, andI’m thankful that there are still producers willing to let a filmmaker likeMalick have his way when it comes to making movies. There’s very little ofcommercial value here apart from Brad Pitt’s presence (hence the reason somecinemas had to post disclaimers warning viewers that they were about to enter aphilosophical experience and not to demand their money back if they didn’t likeit) which is perhaps part of why I liked it so much.

The Artist Movie Review

2012-01-14T14:14:00.000-05:00

They just don’t make ‘em like they used to. So goes thelament of the traditionalist, the old curmudgeon, the aging aficionado who,like me, thinks the state of commercial filmmaking these days is severelylacking in skilled craftsmen to write a screenplay and cut together a coherentfilm. Perhaps that’s why French filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius’s silent drama The Artist has garnered so muchattention and accolades. It’s not just a film shot without dialogue in acontemporary style. It’s a complete throwback to classical storytellingtechniques used from the 20’s through the 50’s.

What a movie like this does is illustrate how theinclusion of synchronized sound is often an unnecessary encumbrance on a story.Hollywood made films – some of them masterpieces – for three decades before theintroduction of sound. The Artistshows us that it’s still possible to be moved by images and music alone.Although I think it’s unlikely that the success or popularity of this moviecould lead to more silent black and white films being made. It’s a gimmick, butone that works.

What’s most interesting about The Artist is the suspicion I have that if it had been made withdialogue and sound effects it would not be nearly as good, even from a storyperspective. How is that possible? For one thing we don’t have to be burdenedby actors who give poor line readings. They have only their bodies and facesfor performance. In the silent era (and beyond in many cases) actors tended touse big gestures and bold facial expressions to build their performances. Theidea was that without spoken words, the emotional impact had to be made up withother techniques. The result is that when we watch most silent films today wefind a lot of the acting off-putting. King Vidor’s The Crowd is a notable exception to that style and The Artist is more similar to that filmin terms of acting technique – still exaggerated, but in a minimalist way. AlsoI get the sense that with only images and music to tell the story it feels morelike a fairy tale. The story itself has fairy tale qualities, but it comes offas more of a fantasy as a silent film and that allows me to forgive it some ofits more quaint elements that I might otherwise disdain in another film.

Like Singin’ in theRain, the film is about the transition from silent filmmaking tosynchronized sound and dialogue and the effects of that transition on theindustry. In this case, the effect is focused on and most felt by GeorgeValentin, a dashing matinee idol on a par with Rudolph Valentino or DouglasFairbanks played by the French actor Jean Dujardin. George is the toast ofHollywood, the biggest star at a movie studio run by Al Zimmer (John Goodman).He’s a ham with a big ego. During a curtain call after the premiere of hislatest film, he hogs the stage taking bow after bow, primping and preening forthe audience while leaving his costar waiting in the wings. Once he finallybrings her out he continues to vie for all the attention. Right away,Hazanavicius’s screenplay is begging us to dislike the hero of the film. Welaugh at his antics, but recognize that if we knew someone like that we’d thinkhim a prat. So when Zimmer introduces George to sound films as the future ofcine a, he scoffs and turns his back. Of course this lands him on the outside lookingin when the studio calls off all silent film production.

Where one person’s career falters, another slides in totake his place. That role is filled by the charming Peppy Miller (BéréniceBejo), a young ingénue who gets her big break in a tiny role in one of George’sfinal films. No one but George notices her (her name is spelled incorrectly inthe film’s credits). He continually ruins take after take by becomingtransfixed with her gaze. A montage shows us her increasing popularity over thenext couple of years as her name gradually climbs to top billing and shebecomes the new toast of Hollywood after Valentin’s career is all but finished.He self-finances his next film, which turns out to be a flop, his wife(Penelope Ann Miller) sends him packing along with his valet (James Cromwell)and then the big stock market crash sends him into permanent financial ruin.

I won’t reveal the final plot elements of the film exceptto say that they are filled with all the dramatic grandiosity you might find ina classic Hollywood drama. It’s the charm of the performances by Dujardin andBejo that really solidify the film. They make it work because we believe themin their roles. George with his self-satisfied smirk that eventually melts intosmile intended to cover up his sadness and loss, and Peppy with her brightdisposition, her happy-go-lucky attitude toward life conveyed entirely throughher physical demeanor.

The film is clever in its use of the silent medium totell a story of a silent film star’s fall from grace after the advent of sound.There’s a touch of irony in it and Hazanavicius sprinkles little amusingtouches here and there like a dream sequence in which George has no voice butis surrounded by synchronized sound effects, a portent of the impending doom tohis career signaled by the thunderous crash of a feather falling to the groundor the use of a “Bang” inter-title at a tense moment involving a gun that cleverlytwists a convention used time and again in sound films. The film is also shotin the old 4:3 Academy aspect ratio that was the standard for films until Cineramaand cinemascope attempted to compete with television. This helps not only withthe feeling of its being on a par with the silent classics, but also keepstight framing around the actors maintaining the characters as the focus. Sincetheir performances sell the story, they need to fill the frame as much aspossible. Of course the film would be nothing without the wonderful score byLudovic Bource which has to fill in the dramatic gaps left by the absence ofdialogue. He also borrows quite a lot from some classic film scores includingthe controversial use of Bernard Herrman’s love theme from Vertigo intended to connect TheArtist with classics we already know and love.

If nothing else TheArtist has the power to show modern audiences that silent and black andwhite doesn’t have to mean something not worth seeing. The power of the storyis enough to move people and if that means that more people are willing to takea fresh look at older classics, then Hazanavicius has succeeded in my book.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Movie Review

2012-01-12T16:46:00.001-05:00

If you find yourself asking “What happened?” at the endof Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, don’tassume you’re alone. This is not because it’s confounding to the point of beingindecipherable, but rather for its insistence on avoiding the clichés of spy thrillersthat we’ve grown so accustomed to.

To summarize the plot could take all day. Based on theJohn le Carré novel, the story is set at the upper echelons of BritishIntelligence in the thick of the Cold War, when Britain and Russia each hadspies working to subvert the other and each likely had moles working in theother’s foreign office. Le Carré knows something about British Intelligence,having worked there for many years before retiring and devoting himself fulltime to writing spy thrillers. His work is the antithesis to Ian Fleming’sJames Bond series, which rely heavily on action and thrills, where Bond’s moralclarity is rarely, if ever, questioned. The characters that le Carré createslive in a world of moral ambiguity. Their conflicts are within their ownoffices and directed internally much more than toward any foreign power. Thatthis story involves the presence of a well-placed mole at the top of BritishIntelligence is just par for the course.

The sense I got watching Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (the novel remains unread by me) is thatthe novel’s plotting is deliberate, intricately well-constructed, and designedto induce more brain than heart exercise from the pounding you might experiencefrom other spy thrillers. Directed by Tomas Alfredson and written by BridgetO’Connor and Peter Straughan, it is an exercise in precision – of characterdevelopment, plotting, scripting, framing, and editing. The more time thatpasses after having seen it (and as I write this it’s already been more thantwo weeks), the more impressed I am with its ability to insinuate itself intomy thoughts. This is a movie that not only requires, but demands, multipleviewings. Deep concentration during the first viewing may be enough to give youthe gist, but to appreciate how well-constructed it is, my instinct tells meyou need to return to it.

This is not a spy thriller for anyone expecting a kind ofBourne Identity or even Manchurian Candidate suspense. The wholeof the movie is pitched more or less at the same level. There are few actionbeats, and those that are interspersed are low-key enough to recede into thebackground. The beautiful, fluid and sometimes haunting score by AlbertoIglesias doesn’t swell to telegraph to the audience when something dramatic orimportant is happening. There are no thumping and thudding notes to pump up theadrenaline levels during tense scenes (probably because the whole movie rideson high tension). It functions very much like I imagine the real business ofespionage works – with a lot of time spent trolling through paperwork andinterviewing people and very little running, jumping and shooting. Because ofle Carré’s background, we can guess that he writes his novels from theperspective of someone who knows the life. He builds the tension aroundcharacter and mystery rather than thrills.

Alfredson, who previously directed the wonderful Let the Right One In (the originalSwedish version), gives this film a similarly stark look. That film wasvisually marked by the white winter snow against dark nighttime settings withuncomfortably long lingering shots. He brings similar techniques to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, but insteadof the white snow to level out the palette, the film is bathed in beiges,browns and ambers giving the London of the film a downtrodden feel, a city thatstill seethes from the effects of WWII. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema keepsthe camera distanced from most of the action, using close-ups sparingly givingthe sense that we are observing the action from afar.

The film is studded with fantastic actors who have theability to play their parts with severity, maintaining stone-cold expressionsthat depict the long slog of their jobs. There’s John Hurt as Control, the headof Intelligence forced into retirement after a botched operation involving anagent (Mark Strong) who is gunned down in Budapest at the beginning of thefilm. Gary Oldman is George Smiley, Control’s right-hand man also forced out,but then brought back for a surreptitious investigation to discover theidentity of the mole. Percy Alleline (Toby Jones) takes over operations after that.His close-knit group of confidantes – all of them suspects – are Toby Esterhase(David Dencik), Roy Bland (Ciarán Hinds), and Bill Haydon (Colin Firth). BenedictCumberbatch plays Peter Guillam, a lower-level officer who assists Smiley. TomHardy is the final major player as Ricki Tarr, the field agent who originallybrought the possibility of a mole to “The Circus,” the nickname for theintelligence headquarters used in the story. The unfortunate drawback to havingso many first-rate actors is that many of them simply aren’t given sufficientscreen time to enjoy their presence. But then that’s always going to be one ofthe sacrifices made in adapting a complex novel for the screen.

Oldman’s performance, however, stands out as a thing ofbeauty. It’s a performance so inward that not only does Oldman disappear intoSmiley, but Smiley almost disappears from scenes. Subdued and understated arealmost too strong for what he does. Smiley is one of the most interesting spycharacters I’ve seen. He exudes melancholy from a lifetime dealing with sordidmaterial and losing his wife in the process. Most everything is in the eyes,and so little in what he says and does.

The plot is so intricately woven and structured it takesdeep concentration to puzzle it all out. It operates in two different timelinesas Smiley interviews various former employees of The Circus and learns newfacts from each encounter. I mentioned earlier that the film isn’t crafted asmost conventional spy thrillers are. The result is a film that leaves youfeeling uneasy primarily because we’ve been conditioned to expect a particularset of formulaic plot developments and results from thrillers. When the bigreveal occurs and we learn who the mole is, it’s downplayed so much so that Iwasn’t sure I was actually being told the answer to the mystery. Then Iquestioned whether or not some additional plot twist was on the way. The moviegot me. It’s a straightforward mystery that doesn’t rely on surprise endings,shoot-outs, chases or talking killers. Ultimately the film ends with a mildbang, but the effect in keeping with the tone of the whole film is that it goesout with a whimper – one that you’re likely to puzzle over for some time.

25 Years Ago Movie Review: Woody Allen's Radio Days

2012-01-11T01:26:00.000-05:00

This review was originally posted on 20 May 2010. I am re-posting in recognition of its 25th anniversary this month. This year I would like to add one review per month as part of my "25 Years Ago This Month Series" in which Radio Days was featured this month. All the other options from January 1987 are not worth my time.

Whereas watching The Purple Rose of Cairo 12 years on allowed me to bring a new perspective that allowed my appreciation to deepen, the intervening years have not been quite as generous with Woody Allen’s Radio Days from 1987.

Each film is a manifestation of Allen’s deep appreciation for two very different media: film and radio. While the earlier film focuses on the ability of cinema to transport individuals to a fantasy world (or as in the reversal that his film does so brilliantly – to move a fictional character from screen to reality) and has a single central character, the latter has the radio itself as the central figure including the ways it carries information to people, affects individuals in different ways (including the performers), and brings people together emotionally and socially.

Having been born in 1935, Allen would have spent much of his childhood listening to radio programs, either actively or passively. That makes this his most autobiographical film. He doesn’t appear in the film, but provides a voiceover narration for the events depicted and the connections between them. There’s no single main character, but the film centers on the narrator’s family with himself as a child (a young Seth Green) figuring in the occasional scene.

There’s his mother (Julie Kavner), a homemaker, and his father, who is ashamed of his own profession and so refuses to share it with his son. There’s aunt Bea (Dianne Wiest) gradually becoming an old maid and desperately seeking a husband. There’s uncle Abe and aunt Ceil and their daughter, Ruthie, who listens to the neighbors’ conversations on the party line. Grandma and Grandpa are there too, but remain mostly in the background. All these people share a single home (and the radio) in Rockaway, Queens.

The whole movie has an episodic feel to it, leaping from anecdote to anecdote. Many of the stories are not even connected with the family, but involve the radio personalities in their off-air time. The main character in that half of the story is Sally White (Mia Farrow), an aspiring actress and singer who carries on an affair with a big radio star on the empty promise that he’ll help her get her big break.

The film is not exactly structured with a standard narrative. There’s little in the way of a story of character arc, but this is intentional. After all, when you consider your own childhood memories, are they punctuated by epiphanies, dramatic reversals and denouements? Or do they come in small bites highlighting what made the biggest impression on you?

That is Allen’s point here, coupled with the power of radio in the days before television to provide entertainment and bring people together. From this we get scenes as varied as the “Masked Avenger” stories, the presentation of musical numbers to which Bea often dances and one unifying moment when the nation sits attuned to the news report of a young girl stuck in a well while a live broadcast awaits her rescue. Watch how the father changes during that report from angry and abusive to sad and affectionate.

That sequence is reminiscent of the incident involving "Baby Jessica", a toddler who fell into a well in 1987 (only 9 months after the release of the film) and the nation sat with bated breath awaiting her rescue. Allen uses the scene to demonstrate the power of radio as a mass communication device and ends up being eerily prescient of the power of TV in the Jessica McClure case.

In terms of consistent laughs and poignancy it is one of Allen’s best screenplays. He also manages to capture a time period with natural grace. But somehow the disjointed nature of the story detracts from its ultimate power. It’s a less focused and less inspired piece than The Purple Rose of Cairo, but onveys a palpable sense of the personal. It’s worth seeking out for Allen aficionados, but if you don’t see it, you won’t be missing a great deal.

Sherlock Holmes - A Game of Shadows Movie Review

2012-01-10T12:01:00.001-05:00

I wish I could remember more than a few vague detailsabout Guy Ritchie’s first Sherlock Holmesso that I could make some kind of pithy comparison between it and its sequel Sherlock Holmes – A Game of Shadows.Unfortunately the first was a mostly forgettable exercise in style oversubstance. Ritchie’s films have always tended toward a strong emphasis oncamera tricks, bits of slow motion spliced together with regular speed actionand a cacophony of thudding and popping sound effects to conduct a symphonicoverload of the senses. It worked for his first two outings but now growstiresome.

The inimitable Robert Downey, Jr., who elevateseverything by his mere presence, reprises the title role of the master sleuthof Baker Street. The twist on his character, rather clumsily introduced in thisfilm’s predecessor, is that Holmes appears inept and a bit daft while comingout the other side as if he had everything planned out all along. As asuspense-generating device this has severe limitations when we can assume atevery moment of peril that Holmes has something up his sleeve.

This second installment in what could become a franchisefor Warner Bros. pits Holmes against his arch-nemesis Professor James Moriarty(Jared Harris). There is such wonderful potential with this character, who isthe only intellectual equal to the great Holmes in the canon, to develop asmart script. Screenwriters Michele and Kieran Mulroney have squandered a greatopportunity. There is an obvious attempt at making their antagonisticrelationship something special, employing a chess motif (the game of the super-intelligent)throughout to suggest that their moves against one another are carefullyplanned out, devised with the odd sacrifice in mind to eventually achieve acheck mate. The best they could offer up for the great Moriarty is amegalomaniacal and greedy scheme to buy up several weapons factories aroundEurope and then set the pieces in motion for a world war beginning with the assassinationof a single politician.

If this sounds vaguely familiar it’s because that’s howWWI actually started in 1914 – 23 years after A Game of Shadows takes place. That Holmes’ goal is to thwartMoriarty and prevent global catastrophe is tinged with irony – fact that doesn’tgo unmentioned by the villain himself- because regardless of any success he hasat averting disaster now, we know that war is inevitable later.

Jude Law also returns as Holmes’ trusty sidekick and protégé,Dr. John Watson. His impending marriage to Mary Morstan (Kelly Reilly) isalmost ruined before it has a chance to get started, which I suppose isMoriarty’s warm-up to his world war. Stephen Fry makes a welcome addition tothe cast, helping stir up the blandness whenever he’s onscreen as Holmes’ olderbrother Mycroft. Rachel McAdams makes a brief appearance as Irene Adler, Holmes’love interest and foil from the first film, but she is quickly dispatched,leaving the gap for a female supporting role to b e filled by Noomi Rapace as agypsy fortune teller whose brother, an anarchist, is deeply involved inMoriarty’s plans.

Rapace, as is so often the case for women in actionmovies, has so little to do in most of her scene that she functions as littlemore than set decoration. And why her brother is mixed up in the plot is neverelucidated in any satisfactory way especially considering gypsies, nomadicpeople with few ties to or cares for modern society, are not particularly knownfor their active political aspirations. But Guy Ritchie seems to have a slightgypsy fetish, using them for a bit of (slightly) offensive comic relief as hedid in Snatch where Brad Pitt playedan Irish gypsy no one could understand.

A Game of Shadowsis perhaps marginally better or more interesting than Sherlock Holmes. Ritchie outdoes himself with a little twist on hisfight scene breakdown technique that he employed in the earlier film, using twonew techniques to make them somewhat surprising this time around. But thisalone is not enough to outright recommend the movie. Arthur Conan Doyle createdan indelible character and set of stories. Guy Ritchie has plumbed it formediocrity. I don’t have much patience for mediocre anymore.

We Bought a Zoo Movie Review

2012-01-07T02:20:00.001-05:00

Oh Cameron Crowe! Where, oh where did you go? Once upon atime you made movies I really enjoyed. now I have to return to my copies of Say Anything and Almost Famous for a taste of your past glory. Maybe it’s me who’schanged and I no longer fall for the genial affability of your characterswrapped up in kitschy sentiment. Crowe’s latest serving of pop sentimentalityis based on a memoir by Benjamin Mee. That the film is “based on a true story”makes me dislike it even more as that’s generally a red flag that it’s tryingto absolve itself of criticism by virtue of the fact that it really happened.

We Bought a Zoois about a thrill-seeking journalist played by Matt Damon who, in the wake ofhis wife’s death, quits his job and uses his dad’s inheritance money to buy an18 acre farm that is home to a defunct and dilapidated zoo. His older brother(Thomas Hayden Church, channeling his character from Sideways), drawing on his own experiences, warns Benjamin not toengage in simple escapism. But there wouldn’t be much of a story if he didn’tforge ahead with a project that would ultimately become life-affirming andself-actualizing. And by the way, it will also help his teenage son Dylan (ColinFord) in the end, a youth whose social troubles are signaled, with no sense ofirony whatsoever, by his propensity for creating art that is morbid in nature. “Whycan’t he express himself with less disturbing images,” his obtuse art teacherlaments. I’m not making this up. This is Crowe’s idea of how to depict ateenager with issues.

Benjamin also has a daughter, Rosie (Maggie ElizabethJones). She is cut from the same mold as Jonathan Lipnicki in Jerry Maguire, as shameless tug ataudiences’ hearts that was later lampooned by Aaron Sorkin in “The West Wing”of all places. She’s one of these characters that doesn’t speak at all like achild – even a precocious child – speaks. She sounds like a screenwriter (inthis case Crowe and Aline Brosh McKenna) created a little girl who could be bothconscience and voice of reasoned simplicity for her troubled dad. She’s alwaysgot the right thing to say and it’s always SO adorable! But I resent the notionthat life is so simple, it’s just adults who complicate everything and we needan innocent to ground us. Please! Dorothy was a child who was whisked away to afantasy world and when she awoke she’d gleaned a greater appreciation for herreality. Did Crowe learn nothing from TheWizard of Oz?

The cast is filled out by the oddballs who maintain thezoo. They are led by head zookeeper Kelly (Scarlett Johansson). Do you supposea beautiful young actress was cast for some reason other than having a romanticinterest for our leading man? Like father, like son – Dylan is provided alittle love interest in Kelly’s niece Lily (Elle Fanning). There’s also Peter(Angus Macfadyen) as a hard-drinking no-nonsens Scotsman who has an old grudgeagainst Walter Ferris (John Michael Higgins), the government inspector whoneeds to give his approval for the zoo to open to the public. Here is a man soofficious he comes across as little more than a cartoon distraction from thedrama at the center of the film, which is really about a family coping withtremendous loss. Why populate a story that’s based on fact with unbelievable characters?It seems to undermine the whole project and makes it all feel quite uneven.

Thankfully Crowe gets the most important relationship inthe film dead right. The interaction and dialogue between Benjamin and Dylan isperfect and the only thing in the movie that struck me as being even close togenuine. This is a relationship between two men who don’t know how to speak toone another, although they each desperately want and need to. The scene whentensions finally reach a breaking point for these two was some of the finestfamily drama writing I’ve heard and also some of Damon’s finest acting.

As usual, thanks to Crowe’s history as a rock journalist,the film is peppered with great rock songs including Tom Petter, Bob Dylan andNeil Young. However, it’s not enough to save this middling success from feelinglike it was made on auto pilot.

Important Cinema Anniversaries Marked in 2012

2012-01-06T01:13:00.000-05:00

* The Oscar winners noted are those that received the award in the given year, but were released the previous year

10 Years Ago (2002)

The beginning of Sam Raimi's Spider Man trilogy starring Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst. The film had the biggest opening weekend box office in history to that point and was the only film to gross $100 million in its opening weekend.

Another trilogy also began with Matt Damon in The Bourne Identity.

The year is also notable for seeing the last feature film appearance by Paul Newman in Road to Perdition.

Top grossing film for the year: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winner: The Pianist
Academy Awards Best Picture winner*: A Beautiful Mind

Notable deaths: directors Billy Wilder and John Frankenheimer; actors Richard Harris and James Coburn

15 Years Ago (1987)

The great L.A. Confidential, directed by Curtis Hanson

Hollywood Golden Boys Matt Damon and Ben Affleck wrote and starred in Good Will Hunting which would garner them Oscars for Original Screenplay the following year.

The Star Wars Special Editions were released, ushering in an era in which George Lucas would commit serial revisionist history, continuing to tinker with and alter a beloved trilogy.

Top grossing film of the year: Titanic
Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winner: Taste of Cherry and The Eel
Academy Awards Best Picture winner*: The English Patient

film debuts: Orlando Bloom; Paul Bettany; Samantha Morton; Eric Bana
notable deaths: actors Robert Mitchum and James Stewart (one day after the other)

20 Years Ago (1992)

Two indie star directors had debut films. Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs) and Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi) were part of the film geek movement in the early 90s. They became good friends and continue to collaborate to this day.

Two aging legends had great films. Robert Altman returned to the quality of his greatness in the 1970s with The Player and Clint Eastwood made what I consider to be his best film and one of the greatest westerns ever made, Unforgiven.

Top grossing film of the year: Aladdin
Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winner: The Best Intentions
Academy Awards Best Picture winner*: Silence of the Lambs

film debuts of four future Oscar winners: Penélope Cruz (Jamón Jamón); Jamie Foxx (Toys); Hilary Swank (Buffy the Vampire Slayer); Heath Ledger (Clowning Around - uncredited); plus Ralph Fiennes and Laura Linney, who maybe should have won already.

directorial debuts of David Fincher (Alien 3); Ang Lee (Pushing Hands - Berlin Film Festival); Baz Luhrmann (Strictly Ballroom)

25 Years Ago (1987)

John Huston's final film, the starkly beautiful The Dead, starring his daughter Anjelica, based on the final story in James Joyce's Dubliners.

Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire, the film that may have inspired the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification.

Top grossing film of the year: Three Men and a Baby
Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winner: Under the Sun of Satan
Academy Awards Best Picture winner*: Platoon

film debuts: Sandra Bullock; Ben Stiller; Patricia Clarkson; Alec Baldwin; Courtney Cox, George Clooney, Chris Rock, Kenneth Branagh, Brad Pitt
directorial debuts: Chris Columbus (Adventures in Babysitting); Peter Jackson (Bad Taste); David Mamet (House of Games)
notable deaths: Fred Astaire; John Huston; Lee Marvin

30 Years Ago (1982)

E.T. the Extra Terrestrial made aliens cute and Reese's Pieces candies famous.

Sam Raimi, who went on to direct all three of the Spider Man movies noted above, had his feature directorial debut with The Evil Dead, also the first in a trilogy that continued with The Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness.

Ridley Scott's inspired, visionary and bleak Blade Runner was released.

The THX sound system was introduced to American movie theaters.

Top grossing film of the year: E.T. the Extra Terrestrial
Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winner: Missing and Yol
Academy Awards Best Picture winner*: Chariots of Fire

notable deaths: German New Wave director Rainer Werner Fassbinder at age 37. In the span of 16 years he directed 23 feature films, 4 shorts, 2 documentaries, 14 TV movies, and 2 TV mini-series. Also John Belushi, Grace Kelly, Ingrid Bergman and Henry Fonda.

film debuts of four future Oscar winners: Angelina Jolie (Lookin' to Get Out); Geena Davis (Tootsie); Kevin Kline (Sophie's Choice); Forest Whitaker (Tag: The Assassination Game); plus Glenn Close and Gary Oldman (who could both become Oscar winners this year); and Eddie Murphy; Hugh Grant; Antonio Banderas; Michael Keaton

directorial debuts: Amy Heckerling (Fast Times at Ridgmont High); Barry Levinson (Diner); Neil Jordan (Angel)

40 Years Ago (1972)

Deliverance made audiences fearful of Appalachia. Deep Throat changed the porn industry. Fritz the Cat was the first X-rated animated film. Divine at dog shit in John Waters' trash film Pink Flamingoes. What a year for film.

Oh yeah, also The Godfather

Top grossing film of the year: The Godfather
Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winner: The Working Class Goes to Heaven and The Mattei Affair
Academy Awards Best Picture winner*: The French Connection

film debuts: future Oscar winners Jodie Foster (Napoleon and Samantha); Sissy Spacek (Prime Cut); future Oscar nominees Ned Beatty (Deliverance); Madeline Kahn (What's Up, Doc?); James Woods (The Visitors)
directorial debut of Wes Craven (Last House on the Left)

50 Years Ago (1962)

David Lean's desert epic Lawrence of Arabia.

The wonderful Gregory Peck in the wonderful To Kill a Mockingbird

Top grossing film of the year: Lawrence of Arabia
Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winner: Keeper of Promises
Academy Awards Best Picture winner*: West Side Story

film debuts: Jackie Chan, Sydney Pollack (acting); Robert Duvall; John Hurt
directorial debuts: Bernardo Bertolucci (The Grim Reaper); Roman Polanski (Knife in the Water)
notable deaths: Charles Laughton and Marilyn Monroe

75 Years Ago (1937)

Jean Renoir's brilliant WWI drama Grand Illusion.

The first animated feature film, Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Top grossing film of the year: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Academy Awards Best Picture winner*: Mutiny on the Bounty

Centennial (1912)

The first gangster film, The Musketeers of Pig Alley, was produced.

Mack Sennett forms Keystone Studios which would become famous for giving Charlie Chaplin his start and for producing the renowned Keystone Cops comedy shorts.

Lillian Gish has her film debut. Her career would span 75 years until 1987's The Whales of August.

The Adventures of Tintin Movie Review: Tintin, We Welcome You to America

2012-01-04T17:20:00.000-05:00

The opening credits of Steven Spielberg’s motion captureanimation The Adventures of Tintin isprobably the most exciting opening credits since the same director’s Catch Me If You Can. The title designsare similar, both based on the classic Hollywood work of Saul Bass withspritely jazz compositions by the great film composer John Williams. His Tintin opening theme highlights suchinstruments as are not often heard in orchestras, but which lend themselvescredibly to the time period (1930s) and setting (Europe) of the “Tintin”stories. Amid the fluttering flutes, dancing clarinets and staccato brass wehear accordion, harpsichord and bells all featured prominently. It’s a sequencethat offers the promise of excitement and adventure to come. It’s been a longtime since I had that feeling in the first moments of a movie. Unfortunately,what followed turned out to be a slight letdown.

The “Tintin” adventure stories by Belgian artist Hergéare virtually unknown to American audiences but have been beloved forgenerations in Europe. Tintin is something of a conundrum. He has the physicalfeatures of a teenage boy, but he lives alone and has a gun for protection. He’sa journalist with clippings of the big stories he’s broken hanging on hisapartment walls, but we never see him writing or going to the office. Hisexistence is solely about adventure and traveling to distant lands. Theoriginal comic books (which might be referred to as graphic novels by today’sstandards given the copious amounts of text on any page) took him to far-flungplaces all over the globe.

In Spielberg’s version (his first animated film), adaptedby Steven Moffat, Joe Cornish and Edgar Wright from three of Hergé’s books,Tintin stumbles upon a model ship that is highly desired by several peoplewilling to pay any price for it. It turns out to contain a secret that may leadTintin to a big story and Captain Haddock (a regular supporting character inthe books making Tintin’s acquaintance for the first time in the movie) to someheirloom treasure. No time is wasted in launching Tintin into action and fromthere it’s a nearly breathless series of action set pieces through the endincluding a daring escape from a steamship, a place crash landing in the Saharaand a high-speed high-wire chase through a Moroccan port city.

Prior to Tintin’s having other human characters to sharehis thoughts with, the movie suffers from too much monologue delivered to hisdog, Snowy. I imagine this works much better on the page where it functionssimilar to reading what a character is thinking, but in the movie it feelsforced and expository without a creative solution. Generally speaking, this isa screenplay designed mainly to service an adventure plot. It’s primarily comprisedof exposition with little in the way of deep character development. But thenthis is designed for kids. Or is it? It contains a couple of harrowing momentsof danger involving gunplay, near drowning, and a ship full of sailors sinking,thus sending hundreds of men to their watery deaths. The story also has one ofthe most gaping holes I can recall in a big studio movie. SPOILER WARNING: The main antagonist, a character named Sakharine ismeant to be the descendant of the pirate Red Rackham, who cursed the Haddockline of descendants just before dying. So how does Sakharine know that he’ssupposed to have some kind of Hatfield and McCoy rivalry with Haddock? END SPOILERS

Watching the film I kept thinking of Indiana Jones. Isuppose that’s inevitable given the Spielberg-directed action and the JohnWilliams scoring – one of his best, but aren’t they all? – which recalls atvarying times Raiders of the Lost Ark,Star Wars, and Harry Potter. More thanthat, however, Tintin has a similarglobe-trotting adventure series feel to it. I learned later that Spielbergfirst learned of the series when a review of Raiders likened it to “Tintin.” The difference here is that withCGI motion capture, Spielberg is able to pull off more incredible feats ofaction and adventure than can be accomplished with real humans (although thatdidn’t quite stop him from executing absurd action sequences in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the CrystalSkull).

As we know from TheLord of the Rings trilogy and the Gollum character portrayed by AndySerkis, motion capture technology has come a long way since Robert Zemeckismade the first feature film using the technique in The Polar Express. Peter Jackson is a producer on Tintin, helping bring the technology tofruition and uncanny lifelike levels of expression. Having real actors behindthe characters – Jamie Bell as Tintin, Daniel Craig as Sakharine and Serkis(now making a full time career as motion capture specialist actor) as Haddock –provides the CGI animation with fluidity still unachievable even by Pixar, thegold standard of computer animation. The movie looks great to my eyes. My guessis that those familiar with the original comics will be put off by the toorealistic-looking animation which bears virtually no resemblance to Hergé’sclean and simple drawings, but for American audiences it’s a feast for theeyes. I saw the film in 3D and I think I’ve decided I’m done with 3D. Spielberguses it sparingly to the point that it’s often unnoticeable, which begs thequestion, “Why use it at all?” My feeling about 3D has been that it’s best employedin animated films, but my suggestion is to pay less money to see The Adventures of Tintin in atraditional cinema and you’re likely to get the same level of enjoyment out ofit.

25 Years Ago This Month: January 1987

2012-01-02T02:07:00.000-05:00

The January doldrums. Studios traditionally hold back their best films for December to qualify for year end awards season and then dump their garbage in the first month of the year. It seems 25 years ago was hardly any different. The most surprising thing is that Woody Allen's Radio Days saw a January release and then managed to earn two Oscar nominations a full year later. Apart from the Allen highbrow fare there was a cheap comedy, a cheap teen comedy, two cheap horror/thrillers, and a cheap adventure film desperately trying to capitalize on the success of Indiana Jones.

It's ironic that the Allan Quatermain series starring Richard Chamberlain and a very young pre-Total Recall and Basic Instinct Sharon Stone attempted to piggyback on the Indiana Jones series because Jones is so obviously inspired by H. Rider Haggard's series of Allan Quatermain novels. At any rate, January '87 saw the release of Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold. I wonder if, bad as it is, it could actually be better than Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Try to follow this: Patrick Dempsey plays a geeky teenager desperate to lose his virginity. Sally Kellerman is a porn star who dies and has to commit a good deed on earth to get into heaven. She decides to offer advice to Dempsey so he can score with The Love Goddess (Shannon Tweed - who else?), who is his boss's wife. This is the absurd plot summary to Meatballs III: Summer Job. Sadly, I've seen this.

Acclaimed director Michael Apted, he of Coal Miner's Daughter and the Seven Up documentary series begun on British TV in the 60s that focused on a group of 14 children as seven-year olds and then revisited them every seven years (the next installment is due this year) brought Critical Condition upon us 25 years ago. Probably most notable for being Bob Saget's first significant film role.

Terry O'Quinn from "Lost" starred as the titular homicidal maniac in The Stepfather, the first in a series of poorly-made and not particularly scary horror movies. He plays a psychotic who searches for widows with children who represent the perfect family, marries into the family and then kills them when they don't measure up to his incredibly high standards. I watched this years ago because it inexplicably made an Entertainment Weekly list of 25 scariest horror movies. I was unimpressed.

Horror High was such a smashing success in 1974 that it produced such actors you've never heard of as Pat Cardi and Rosie Holotik. It was so successful, you've probably never heard of the movie. But a sequel was necessary in 1987. Return to Horror High starred a whole bunch more people you've never heard of except...George Clooney in his film debut!

Non Movie News

3rd - Aretha Franklin becomes the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

6th - The 100th United States Congress convenes with Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate. John Stennis was Senate Majority Leader while future Republican Presidential Nominee Bob Dole served as its Minority Leader. Jim Wright was Speaker of the House. Notable Freshman Senators included John McCain (R - AZ), Tom Daschle (D - SD) and Harry Reid (D - NV), all of whom had previously served in the House.

22nd - Pennsylvania Treasurer Budd Dwyer, after being convicted of bribery, fraud, conspiracy and racketeering, put a revolver in his mouth and pulled the trigger during a live TV press conference. We've seen violent gun deaths in films, some of them suicides by gun to the mouth. Nothing you've ever seen in a fiction film can compare to the horror of what it actually looks like when it happens in real life.

Births

24th - Argentine soccer player Luís Suarez.

Deaths

14th - Director of such melodramas as Imitation of Life and Written on the Wind Douglas Sirk, aged 89, in Lugano, Switzerland.

15th - Ray Bolger, the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz. The last surviving principal cast member from the film, he did of bladder cancer at age 83.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol Movie Review

2012-01-01T01:57:00.001-05:00

With the exception the second (because John Woo is anexceptional action director), I’ve generally been less than impressed by the Mission: Impossible series of films. Theytend to be keyed up James Bond knock-offs employing high-tech non-existentgadgets, but going a few steps beyond 007 by staging spectacular stunt andaction sequences. What has generally impressed me most is Tom Cruise’stremendous physicality and propensity for doing nearly all his own stunts. Thathe is willing to dive in head first (sometimes literally) lends the series abit of authenticity. It allows the action sequences to be shot at distancesthat simultaneously reveal the actor’s face and the sheer danger involved.Seldom do I notice use of green screen in these films, a fact I attribute toCruise’s hands-on control as a producer of the series.

Whereas the last film focused more on Cruise’s characterEthan Hunt’s romantic involvement with Michelle Monaghan (who makes a cameohere), Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocolcasts a pall over Hunt by coyly alluding to the loss of his wife. What it hasin common with the other three films is its reliance on exotic locales to stageimpossibly complex action sequences. This time Ethan travels to Moscow (whereEthan is nearly blown up along with the Kremlin), Mumbai and Dubai. Does theplot that takes him to these places really matter? Not a whole lot to behonest. The other films have relied on a MacGuffin to sustain the raison d’etre of the action. This onedoes too, although it’s hard to keep track of what it is as I think it changesperiodically. First it’s a rogue Russian politician (Michael Nyqvist) intent onstarting global nuclear war. Then it’s Russian nuclear launch codes. Then inthe hurried finale it’s some other thing to abort the launch. If you think I’mgiving too many details away then you obviously haven’t seen enough actionmovies.

To sum up the premise: a series of events leads to thebelief that Ethan and his team – this time consisting of computer expert Benji(Simon Pegg), analyst Brandt (Jeremy Renner), and Jane (Paula Patton) – being disavowedwith the President implementing “Ghost Protocol” (a severe sounding policy)which disbands the IMF. Luckily the IMF Secretary (an uncredited Tom Wilkinson)recognizes the importance of preventing nuclear destruction of the planet andarranges for the team to continue with a mission to prevent it. If they fail,he tells them, they will be branded as terrorists out to incite global nuclearwar, which hardly seems to matter because if they fail there will actually be aglobal nuclear war and not a whole lot of people left to care about Ethan Hunt.

As someone who enjoys a good action thriller I must say I’mhappy to see that the fall of Eastern Bloc communism more than two decades ago hasn’tdeterred Hollywood screenwriters (in this instance Josh Applebaum and AndréNemec, best known for TV’s “Alias”) from dreaming up scenarios in which somehowor another some big bad Russky will destroy the world. Why would someone wantto start global nuclear war, you ask? Please, there’s no room for such logicalquestions here. But just in case you wanted to know, a thoroughly satisfactoryanswer has been provided: the man is certifiably insane and following some sickphilosophy through which he believes the weak must be annihilated for thestrong to survive and take human evolution to the next level. Uh-huh.

The really important part is that the plot takes the teamto Dubai and the Burj Khalifa, now the world’s tallest structure, standing at awhopping 2,717 feet with 163 habitable floors. That’s fully 902 feet tallerthan the previous record holder CN Tower in Toronto. It’s important to get asense of how tall this building is because the film’s major action set piecetakes place both inside and outside it. That’s right, Ethan will have to scalethe outside of the building to reach his destination and yes, Tom Cruise didhis own stunt and wire work on the outside of the Burj Khalifa about 2,000 feetup. This is an impressive feat and action sequence and if you’re lucky enoughto see it in a real IMAX theater I’m sure it will be astounding. I wasunfortunately duped into a fake IMAX, or “Liemax,” cinema where the effect waslost.

I have to say that my feeling during most of the moviewas of sheer apathy. I’ve grown weary of movies that string a vacant plot ontoa series of set pieces. Even when those set pieces are excellent, I can onlyfind myself superficially involved. Director Brad Bird, working in live actionfor the first time, has an adept hand at action pacing, a skill he hasdemonstrated extraordinarily well in his animated features The Iron Giant and TheIncredibles. Tom Cruise is an exciting action star to watch, Jeremy Rennerhas the potential to take over the series whenever Cruise decides to call itquits, and Simon Pegg brings a welcome wit to the serious proceedings, butultimately my expectations weren’t quite met.

So Much To Do...

2011-12-30T14:14:00.001-05:00

You know how it goes.

I started this blog while my wife was pregnant with our first child. Some form of movie website had been in the recesses of my mind for many years and I always intended to get it going once I moved back to The States. Knowing that it would be unlikely after my son was born that I would ever find the time to start this project, I decided to get into the habit early.

My goal was to write a review for every movie I watched whether it be in the cinema, on DVD, illegal download or in-flight movie (I've reviewed all such examples) and whether it was a film with which I was intimately familiar, a classic I was revisiting or coming to for the first time or an altogether new movie. In all this time, after 221 posted reviews, the number of films I've watched without reviewing is probably about a dozen. I'm proud of that.

Last year at this time I was making myself crazy downloading most of the year-end American releases that were up for serious awards consideration. Only a handful of them would open in Seville's original version (subtitled, not dubbed) cinema and some not until February or later (for the most part, those I'd seen on download I also paid for if they arrived in the cinema). As a teacher, I had two weeks off for the holidays. And as the baby was barely 2 months old he required (in hindsight) very little direct attention. He would often sleep for extended periods of time allowing me time to write. And when he was awake he was immobile, just hanging around in his baby chair.

This year I work full time out of the house with not time off for the holiday period and my son runs around and gets into everything. Writing or viewing movies while he's awake and playing simply doesn't work. He might play on his own for a 10 or even 15 minute stretch, but then he's understandably complaining for attention. This is no way to watch a DVD or write a review (the quality of my reviews has suffered as a result of many rushed jobs over the last six months). So I nip off to the cinema when I can - an occasional afternoon before work and sometimes a late show if I finish work early enough. Getting the writing done is the hardest part. Sometimes I'm not home from work until after 11. I'm hungry and need to eat dinner, then I'm too tired to really write even though I constantly tell myself, "I will write a review tonight."

December and January have always been stressful months for me when it comes to movie-going. But before last year I never concerned myself with writing. It used to just be about packing the movies in. In the past two weeks I've squeezed in six trips to the cinema in addition to four movies on DVD and written full reviews on six of them. On the left sidebar you can see the last ten films I've watched with links to posted reviews.

But then I look at the list of things to see and I wonder how I'll do it. Just looking at cinemas on Long Island there are 5 movies I still want to see: Sherlock Holmes; Tintin; War Horse; The Artist; The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. And this does not include the films currently playing in Manhattan that are on my list: Pariah; Carnage; Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; The Iron Lady; Shame; A Separation. Nor does it include films that have qualified for 2011 Oscars but not yet opened in New York: Rampart; Albert Nobbs; Coriolanus. Finally there are films I missed from the first half of the year that I should like to catch on DVD now (many of these are at the very bottom of my 'to do' list): Captain America; The Tree of Life; Cars 2; Anonymous; Rango; Win Win; X-Men: First Class. Not to mention whatever documentaries and foreign films I might want to seek out.

What's that? 22+ films? Next week I'll probably knock five in one day on an epic all-day trip in Manhattan. I've done it before. Five in one day is exhausting and I recall I could barely focus on the last one after starting at about 10am and finishing after midnight. But as I do every year, I'll fret about how I'll never get it all done and somehow I will.

Keep checking back for more reviews. When things calm down for me next month I'll hopefully get back to posting more things related to older films, classic films and classic directors. For now, there's a task at hand and I have a mission.

Young Adult Movie Review

2011-12-29T21:36:00.000-05:00

What happens to the prom queen and most popular girl inschool 20 years after graduation? Does she become successful, remain confident,popular and beautiful? The truth is they go on to lead varied lives just likeanyone else. Like the vast majority of humanity I’m sure they turn outordinary. It may be comforting for those of us who were on the outside lookingin to that level of popularity to think that the gorgeous girl who never gave amoment’s notice is now alone and wallowing in self pity. To a certain extent,that’s what Young Adult is about.

Charlize Theron plays Mavis Gary, a woman who was oncethe most admired and desired girl in her small hick town in Minnesota. When wefirst meet her she’s reading an email about the arrival of a new baby to an oldflame. As a divorced woman fast approaching middle age and no kids to help easeher transition into obscurity, especially as her series of popular teen fictionbooks sees reduced sales, she is deeply affected by not only the news that the“love of her life” has moved on, but the realization that she’s got little toshow for her years on this earth. We could look at Mavis and see a case ofextended adolescence, but she strikes me more as a case of regression to a timewhen her life seemed far less complicated and much more pleasant.

Mavis works up a scheme to return to her hometown in avain attempt to seduce her high school boyfriend, Buddy (Patrick Wilson), andwoo him away from his life as a family man. After years living away inMinneapolis (“The Mini Apple”), an apparent unreachable dream for so many stillstuck in small-town life, she drives around observing that her town looks moreor less like every other small town with corporate fast food establishments andpharmacies that strip all individuality from our cities. This is either acomment on the universality of Mavis’s story and that she could be returning toany town in the U.S. or an illustration of why she has little interest instaying there. Either way, she has to pass herself off as some kind of landbaron involved in a real estate deal (her excuse for being in town) and alsoapply layers of pancake makeup to cover up her real age so that Buddy – andeveryone else for that matter – will see her as the embodiment of eternal youthand success.

Between herdesperate meetings with Buddy, she meets up (accidentally at first) with Matt(Patton Oswalt), an old geeky classmate who, during senior year, was severelybeaten by a group of “jocks” leaving him with a permanent limp and a nearlyunusable penis. He becomes her conscience, advising her to steer clear of Buddylest she come across looking pathetic. The co-dependent relationship thatdevelops between Matt and Mavis rings of the poetic justice every geek dreamsabout: to one day be able to compare your life to that of the prom queen andsee that she’s sadder than you and to know that her ticket to starting a betterlife is by listening to your advice. The co-dependence is manifested in Matt’shobby as an amateur spirits brewer fueling Mavis’s alcoholism while herdownward spiral provides a glimmer of hope for his dead-end life ofself-imposed isolation and self-pity.

Theron has gotten a good deal of attention and even aGolden Globe nomination for her role. She is an actress of often remarkable andsurprising ability. Mavis is a broken woman, emotionally stunted and completelydelusional. She is a train wreck waiting to happen and if I met someone likeher in real life I’d probably be disgusted, but Theron makes it work, drawingmy sympathy by making her more than the sum of her actions. Oswalt has alsoreceived good notices for his acting, but I’m less impressed by what seemed tome a solid but ordinary performance. I wonder if the praise he’s drawing isrelated to the phenomenon of heaping accolades on any actor who does at least amediocre job at playing a disabled person. He’s effective as Matt, but let’s easeoff on the awards consideration.

As a director, Jason Reitman continues to impress mainlywith his choice of material. He is clearly comfortable in the niche genre ofhighbrow ironic social satire tinged with real human drama. Young Adult is not as full of wit asReitman’s first two movies, Thank You forSmoking and Juno and not nearly asgood as Up in the Air, a fact Iattribute to the screenplay by Diablo Cody, who won the Oscar for penning Juno. Making Mavis the writer of a Twilight-style series of young adultnovels is a stale attempt at connecting her career to her personal life. Whileshe’s writing about characters who obsess about the beautiful boy in school andwhich girl he really likes, Mavis is engaged in a similar dance in her own headwhen she thinks about Buddy. She listens to real-life conversations ofteenagers in retail outlets to draw inspiration for her characters’ dialogue.Then, as if we didn’t already catch the parallels, she uses one of these absurdlines on Buddy. As we groan with pain for how pitiful she is, Buddy finallyrecognizes how far gone she is. We all know Mavis is headed for an inevitablemeltdown. We can also guess with some degree of accuracy that it will be inpublic. What I could never have guessed was that her parents would somehowinexplicably be present for it. If you see it, please explain to me why thehell they suddenly appeared.

Ultimately the parallel Cody draws between Mavis’s stuntedlife and her predilection for writing characters as emotionally stunted as sheis facile and not particularly interesting. She writes Young Adult novels. Andshe behaves like a young adult. And the movie is called Young Adult. Get it? It adds little, if anything, to ourunderstanding of Mavis. In the end I couldn’t help thinking that the wholescreenplay is Cody’s way of exorcising her own high school demons rather thanexploring a universal human condition.

The Descendants Movie Review

2011-12-26T01:11:00.000-05:00

As a writer and director, Alexander Payne is out to showthat Hollywood studios can produce small character-driven dramas that are alsosuccessful. As a screenwriter he’s one of the great contemporary satirists,having given the great social commentary pieces Citizen Ruth and Electionfollowed up by the equally impressive, though less satirical, more dramatic About Schmidt and Sideways. He comes back to us now after a lengthy break fromfeature film directing with The Descendants.

Payne’s specialty as a writer is building a story around characterswho are usually as normal as any workaday American. There is very little, ifanything, extraordinary happening in their lives except perhaps to themselves.Often his characters have simply arrived a crossroads and watching how theyarrive at their choices and the resultant outcomes can have an effect on us. Asa director one of his greatest skills is his ability to make the settings feellived in. The cars are not perfect. They are sometimes dirty. Houses andbedrooms look, well, the way my house might look if I didn’t expect a visitor.Ever notice how most Hollywood movies have well-polished settings andproduction design? Not so in an Alexander Payne film. He wants us to seeourselves in his characters.

In The Descendants,Payne ventures away from his comfort zone of Nebraska and away from thecontinental United States to the paradise of Hawaii. Ah, Hawaii! That land ofvacations, surfing, honeymoons, luaus, pig roasts, beautiful landscapes, activevolcanoes and endless wonder and adventure. That’s what most of us continentalsprobably think of when we think of that string of islands (thefamily-as-archipelago metaphor is pushed a little hard) in the middle of thewide Pacific. As it turns out, Hawaii is full of real people living real liveswith real problems. They have families. They have jobs and careers. Their kidsgo to school. They pay bills and taxes and all the rest. And with all thatcomes a life that is not all whimsical and perfect. Matt King (George Clooney) tellsus as much in an opening narration providing a brief introduction to his life,the entirety of which has been lived on the island of Oahu.

Matt’s life has been running on auto-pilot for a while.He’s the self-described back-up parent to his two daughters, Scottie (newcomerAmara Miller) and Alex (Shailene Woodley). He has admittedly not given enough attentionto his wife, Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie), who is now tragically lying in a comaafter a boating accident. Like Warren Schmidt in Payne’s earlier film, Matt’slife is thrown into sudden upheaval by the unexpected loss of his wife. Matt isthe sole trustee to a large swath of untouched land on the island of Kaua’i. Heand his numerous cousins fell into this trust by accident of birth, a stroke ofluck treated by most of them with caprice as they’ve blown all their trustmoney so that they are now more than eager for Matt to sign the land over tothe highest development bid offer they can. Matt, in the style of WarrenBuffett, has lived a modest life relying solely on the income from his lawpractice and intends to leave his children “enough money for them to doanything, but not so much that they can do nothing.”

If you’ve seen the commercials for the film, you knowthat Matt learns his wife was having an affair with another man. Left unable toconfront her or deal in any real way with the marital discord, he seeks out herlover, a man named Brian Speer (Matthew Lillard) he learns from a couple offamily friends. Speer’s connection to Matt’s life turns out to hinge on morethan an inappropriate relationship with Elizabeth.

The Descendantsturns out to be part road movie as Matt takes his daughters and, ratherinexplicably, a friend of Alex’s on a trip first to inform family members thatElizabeth’s living will stipulates the removal of life support and later to Kaua’ito look at the land one last time. Alex’s friend is Sid (Nick Krause) half-witwhose sole purpose seems to be to provide the least interesting and mostinappropriate comments at the most inopportune moments. My hat is off to you ifyou can find his purpose in Payne’s screenplay, co-written by Nat Faxon and JimRash from the book by Kaui Hart Hemmings. Payne is a good writer and otherwisestrikes me as a filmmaker who values intelligence and wisdom derived fromexperience and intellect. Unfortunately Sid’s wisdom stems from a school ofanti-intellectualism that suggests even the dullest of souls have something meaningfulto contribute to the conversation even if every word out of their mouths isgarbage. This is a character who is cold-cocked by Elizabeth’s father (RobertForster) for snickering at his Alzheimer’s-stricken wife. This is not thetypical Alexander Payne brand of ironic humor. It is simply in poor taste,poorly executed and without merit.

There’s something interesting about Clooney playing afather. If memory serves, I believe this his first role as a family man. Thoughhe’s meant to be a detached father with one daughter off at boarding school andthe other at an age where she’s beginning to pick up difficult andinappropriate habits, he wears the part well. As for the jilted husband, hedoesn’t overplay it. He has some excellent moments of private anger toward hiscomatose wife and then toward her lover, but mostly he’s just George Clooney,the bumbling Cary Grant-like Hollywood star who occasionally graces anart-house movie with his professional presence. Shailene Woodley is the actorto watch for. As the older daughter, she perfectly hits the cusp betweenchildhood and adulthood that a seventeen-year old sits on. She reveals justenough of Alex’s animosity toward her parents for their faults, but also herneed for guidance and approval from her father.

I like the location shooting that makes the suburbanneighborhoods of Hawaii look like they could be Anytown, USA. If Payne intendedto blow the lid off the notion that Hawaii is an exotic paradise, he’ssucceeded in that. The houses, yards, streets and signs could be my town onLong Island, they could be New England or some other random place in thecountry. Although Matt lives in a generic-looking American suburb, he and hiscousins are the owners of a substantial piece of honest-to-goodness paradise. Thougheverything else in his life is thoroughly ordinary, it is the extraordinarythat it turns out is worth holding onto. I just think Payne could have provideda less ordinary film to service that end.

Love Actually Movie Review: A New Perennial Christmas Classic

2011-12-25T00:22:00.001-05:00

Released in the United States one week after Elf, a film I think should become aholiday classic, Love Actually warmedaudiences' hearts and for many has become perennial viewing at this time ofyear. It’s easy to see why as I found it thoroughly enjoyable in the cinema inNovember, 2003, and still find it emotionally fulfilling eight years later. Atthe time I might have written it off as high-end fluff that I fell for at atime when I was returning from the emotional high of three months backpackingEurope, a trip during which I saw London for the first time. So watching themovie, I experienced nostalgic excitement over seeing that skyline again, forrecognizing Heathrow airport, for hearing those London accents. It turns out,however, that the film has a lot more to offer. It has staying power built on awitty script by Richard Curtis, who also directs with a light touch, keepingmore than a dozen major characters suspended over two hours bringing everyone’sstory into resolve in the final scenes and brief coda.

The stories dreamed up by Curtis are at once amusing,cute, sweet, touching, inspiring, and in one case devastating. Of course heearned his screenwriting stripes with FourWeddings and a Funeral, another British film that succeeds in tellingseveral simultaneous stories punctuated by defining moments in the characters’lives. Love Actually takes place inthe final five weeks before Christmas as people jockey around trying to getlast minute gifts and find a bit of happiness. It’s a movie that buyswholeheartedly into the season of brotherhood and love our cultures (Britishand American) try so hard to achieve during the holidays.

Love Actuallydoes not have a plot that can be easily summarized. This is merely a fact ofthe film’s structure, not a criticism of its quality. If you were to graph theplot with different lines representing each character or group of charactersyou’d have at least a half dozen different threads that converge almost, butnot quite, to one similar line. That’s because by the end we see how thesedisparate characters are connected to one another, an illustration of how allpeople are tied to one another and how our actions can have far-reachingeffects on people we may not even know. This is especially important given thefilm’s Christmas-time theme, which intends to demonstrate the importance ofinterconnectedness at a time when most people are more attuned to being lovingand nice. The basic premise, as spelled out by Hugh Grant in an openingvoiceover, is that if we open our eyes, we can find that love actually is allaround.

The characters are comprised of Hugh Grant as a bachelorPrime Minister who is captivated by one of his Downing Street assistants; EmmaThompson and Alan Rickman as a married couple entering that stage of marriagewhere things have become complacent and Rickman’s wandering eye is caught by ayoung and forward colleague; there’s Andrew Lincoln as the lovelorn Mark whosebest friend (Chiwetel Ejiorfor) has recently married the radiant Juliet (KeiraKnightley), whom he has a secret and unrequited crush on. There’s also a couplewho rather hilariously meet and get to know each other while working as nudestand-ins on a film production and have to simulate sex in various positionswhile struggling to make small talk. Don’t forget about the sex-starved Colin(Kris Marshall) who dreams of traveling to the States where he plans to meet beautifulgoddesses so turned on by his British accent that they’ll immediately jump intobed with him. This particular storyline has a hilarious resolution (spoiler hint in the photo above).

That’s not all. There’s still Jamie (Colin Firth) as arecently jilted boyfriend who spend the holiday season in a cottage on southernFrance where he falls for his Portuguese assistant, Aurelia (Lucía Moniz);Laura Linney plays a woman who has spent years building up the courage to tella colleague about her feelings, but she’s too distracted by a mentally illrelative; Bill Nighy is a fading rock star out to reach glory one last time byrecording a Christmas pop tune to compete with a popular boy band; and finally LiamNeeson is a widower left to care for his 11-year old stepson, who is by his ownadmission in love with a girl who hasn’t noticed him.

How’s that for a cast of characters? What they mostlyhave in common, apart from being in the same movie and finding love indifferent and surprising ways, is that they are all held up by problems incommunication of some sort. Communication, they say, is the key to a healthyrelationship. Rickman and Thompson don’t really talk and so one loses sight ofthe importance of the other. Jamie and Aurelia literally don’t speak the samelanguage yet fall in love in spite of this impediment. Mark is incapable ofeven being cordial with Juliet what for his feelings. The nude stand-ins havedifficulty making a first move despite spending most of their working day nakedtogether. These situations provide funny circumstances that we can chuckle atas we watch, but Curtis knows full well that these are serious issues that makeor break potential and actual love.

A movie like this typically doesn’t demand a lot of itscast. Mostly Knightley, Firth, Grant, et al have to show up, look pretty, actcute and the job is done. That’s not to suggest their jobs are easy, but thelight subject matter keeps them having to do much heavy lifting. The notableexceptions here are Rickman and Thompson, especially the latter, who have themost serious storyline in the movie. How great is it that they got two seasonedpros to play this couple. Thompson has two moments that are among the bestacting I’ve seen from her career: the first is her realization that thenecklace she spied earlier was not bought for her and she has to excuse herselffrom her children and husband for some alone time; the second is afterrevealing to Rickman that she knows there’s another woman and she has to switchimmediately from that to all smiles when her children come out to meet her. Ibelieve it is this particular story that lends the film its power overall.

It’s easy to be pat and remark that Love Actually is a warm-hearted feel-good movie. It is thosethings, but Curtis worked hard at it. He didn’t sloppily toss together somesappy moments and a bunch of stars like some Hollywood directors and screenwritershave done with movies centered on other holidays to create a built-in boxoffice success. Love Actually putsthose other movies to shame because although it deals with serious issues in arelatively superficial manner, it at least has the good taste to deal with themhonestly.