The Modern Critic

Overlooked Masterpieces: Hoffa

2011-06-30T22:12:00.005-04:00

The Hangover Part II

2011-06-30T22:12:00.002-04:00

X-Men: First Class

2011-06-30T22:11:00.002-04:00

Super

2011-05-29T12:10:00.023-04:00

Around this time last year I reviewed a film called Kick-Ass. In that zero-star review, I wrote that the movie “played like a snuff film with a laugh track.” I felt at the time, and still do, that the violence in Kick-Ass was an unjustified, exploitative attempt to get cruel laughs from a jaded audience. Now comes Super, a film with so synonymous a plot that the similarity cannot be ignored. Both films postulate the concept of an average man becoming a masked superhero in a realistic world. Both films are meant, to a degree, to be comedies. Both films contain vulgarity, moments of nihilism, and depictions of graphic violence. Where Kick-Ass took these elements and created a baffling, ugly movie, Super takes the same elements and creates a sort of deranged masterpiece. For all their similarities, they are nothing alike. Super is the antidote to Kick-Ass, an example of what comedy is and how violence can be properly placed in cinema.

Rainn Wilson plays Frank, a cook at a crummy diner, who begins the film by informing us that he has lived only two perfect moments. The first is marrying his wife Sarah (Liv Tyler), whom he considers to be out of his league. The second was directing a police officer which direction to take while chasing a purse snatcher. We can see right away that Frank has led a dull, uneventful life. These are his perfect moments, and the rest is just a haze. It doesn't take long for us to see that Frank is on the precipice of losing his wife, and thus one of his only perfect moments. Sarah is a recovering drug addict, and when Jacques (Kevin Bacon) a smooth-talking, drug-peddling strip club owner enters her life, it isn't long before Frank comes home to an empty house. He goes to the strip club to confront Jacques and bring Sarah home. Instead, what Frank receives is verbal humiliation and physical abuse at the hands of Jacques' lackeys, namely Abe (the great Michael Rooker) and Toby (Sean Gunn).

Defeated, Frank returns home and contemplates. He has had visions his entire life, and he is convinced they are messages from God. In one particularly vivid vision, tentacles descend from Heaven, slice Frank's head open, and the finger of God touches his brain. After this moment, he sees, floating before him, a symbol – that which will become the insignia of the Crimson Bolt. With the aid of Libby (Ellen Page), the clerk at the local comic book store, Frank picks and chooses from all the established superheroes that do not have any supernatural powers. Armed with nothing more than a red suit and a heavy pipe wrench, Frank sets out to clean the streets of his city, ending his crusade with Jacques and his entire drug compound. As the Crimson Bolt, Frank is single-minded in his attempt at pure justice. Regardless of the crime, be it child molestation or cutting in line, a crack to the skull with the pipe wrench of justice is your punishment. This, followed by Frank's attempt to instill fear in the hearts of evildoers everywhere with his catchphrase: “Shut up, crime!” It doesn't take long for Libby to catch on to Frank's plan, and soon she becomes Boltie, his “kid” sidekick.

Super works on multiple levels at any given time. Firstly, it is incredibly funny, be it Wilson's inability to understand why Sarah's leaving him cannot be categorized as kidnapping, or Libby's overly enthusiastic dishing out of justice. Like Frank, Libby does not seem to have a firm understanding of justice in moderation, and punishments do not fit the crime for the Crimson Bolt and Boltie. A man who keys her friends' car is beaten nearly to death, and it is Frank who must pull her back to reality before she crushes his head with a marble bust. “He really keyed your friends' car?” Frank asks her. “Yeah, yeah. I'm pretty sure it was him.”

Unlike Kick-Ass, the humor in Super does not stem from the violence. The fact that Frank and Libby fracture the skulls of innocent people who are simply being rude is not the joke. What is funny is their single-mindedness, their inability to see scale or moderation. Everything is black and white on Frank's scale of justice. What's more important in separating the film from the dregs of Kick-Ass is its understanding that violence is not only unfunny, it has serious implications and consequences. When Libby takes things too far, slashing henchmen to death with makeshift Wolverine claws, there is a very real, very painful end result. Like the character Hit Girl of Kick-Ass, Libby is a young woman dispensing justice with ferocity and unyielding carnage. But unlike Hit Girl, Libby's actions are not a punchline. Murder isn't funny, and just because Super is a comedy does not mean it attempts to depict it as such. Similarly, Jacques is not a cartoonish villain as is Kick-Ass' drug lord Frank D'Amico. Jacques' threat of violence is real and terrifying. Yes, he is mocked and held up as an object of ridicule in scenes which have a comedic tone, but Super gets that it is okay to shift tone depending on a given scene. There is nothing funny about the scene where Jacques grants a fellow drug lord permission to rape Sarah. Even in Super's universe, where a masked man can single-handedly take on an entire mob cartel, drug use still has realistic, disturbing consequences.

Super is not based on a comic book or cartoon series, but rather is an original work by writer/director James Gunn, who made the very funny horror-comedy Slither a few years ago. He is not afraid of gross-out gags or excessive blood loss on screen, but as a writer he has an ear for realistic dialogue and a sense of decency that was lacking in Matthew Vaughn's mean-spirited screenplay for Kick-Ass. Here, Gunn establishes himself as a dangerous director, one who will alter an audience's expectations at any given moment. We do not expect certain characters to die, or others to survive. Nor do we expect a drastic shift in tone in the final act of the film, but Gunn does not bend to preconceived norms of the established Syd Field style screenplay. A movie should be unexpected, daring and bold. Gunn allows Super to be just that. Add to this a powerful, genuinely funny performance by Wilson and an equally bizarre but engaging performance by Ellen Page, and the end result of Super is a brilliant sort of pop art. It is fresh, inventive and resonates thanks to its sincerity. It is one of the best films of the year so far, and one of the best superhero films ever made.

Four stars.

Words Words Words

2011-05-29T12:10:00.013-04:00

Bo Burnham is a raw talent, and it shows. His comic ability lies in his high intellect, of which he is aware. He is a great wordsmith, lyricist and performer. There is something to his act, and he shows flashes of brilliance. But at times he falters and falls back on lazy material or, to be more precise, lazy delivery. In his concert film Words Words Words, he showcases his talent for writing highly clever, profoundly well-crafted songs. He also showcases his lack of experience as a performer, and how he is still, in many ways, finding himself as a comic voice.

Mind you, these are small critiques of Burnham, of whom I am a great fan. I think he is one of the most unique, original comics working today. But being unique does not mean you are inherently interesting at all times. Words Words Words is a mixed bag if there ever was one. A garbled mess of the highest highs and very low lows. Burnham is at his best when he sits in front of his keyboard and lays out the songs which he, no doubt, worked tirelessly over. He has a great young mind, and his jokes are at times so dense that you wish he would go back and repeat himself for fear you may have missed something. In all likelihood, you probably did. But, unfortunately, he does not sit in front of his piano for the duration of Words Words Words, instead he peforms a sort of one-man variety show. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, of course, but the problem is that Burnham does some things so very well and others so very poorly.

His show lacks structure and form, is poorly paced and has far too many lulls as he switches from one set to another. He also flounders when he gets caught up in exposition, as is often the case when he prefaces jokes that he claims are “ironically racist”. He has a tendency to rely on what could be perceived as unambitious humor. His comic persona is one of someone who lacks self-confidence, constantly looking out into the audience for approval. I have said many times before that self-deprecation is important to comedy, but there is a difference between mocking oneself and pretending that you are unworthy of our laughter. Clearly, Burnham has confidence, otherwise he wouldn't be onstage. His moments of “woe is me” style comedy can be grating, and detract from his natural ability. Similarly, as a concert film, Words Words Words is badly edited and awkwardly cut together. There are reaction shots intercut that clearly do not correspond with a given joke or moment, and it is distracting from the material.

These are quibbles, but nothing that can't be fixed, and I have confidence that Burnham will continue his meteoric rise, and eventually discover that he does not need to pander to anyone. The show hits its stride when he abandons irony, expressing himself with passion. He is hilarious and, in a way, profound when he talks about the Catholic Church via rap, or mocks what he considers to be sacred topics. He seems to stumble when he plays to his audience, which is still an amalgamation of what most comics get in their early days: a variety of people who get it and people who don't. Several times throughout the show, it felt as though jokes weren't getting laughs not because they weren't funny but because the crowd was struggling to keep up. Simply put, he's a smarter comic than they're used to, and as his following grows a nice audience will form for him. Bo Burnham is a good comedian, and he will be for some time to come. He will find an audience and one will find him, but at the moment he does not need to do anything more than be himself and showcase his ample abilities. I have no doubt that each subsequent concert film will be an improvement upon the last, and one day he might create something that matches the work of the comedy elite. Words Words Words is not that film.

Two and a half stars.

Your Highness

2011-05-29T12:09:00.007-04:00

It's a rather common occurrence when discussing our reactions to a film that someone says “I don't know what they were thinking.” It's hyperbolic, but it gets the point across. What the person really means to say is that, whatever the filmmakers thought they had as an idea, concept or script has truly failed to translate into the finished product. There are bad movies that are, no doubt, very funny on paper. You can imagine the actors in the reading rooms, sitting around the table, laughing at the absurdity of one joke or the wordplay of another. And then, for whatever reason, the those jokes do not resonate the same way in post-production. I can, with all honesty, talk about Your Highness without being hyperbolic and still say that I have no idea what they were thinking.

In a sort of magical, medieval kingdom, Thadeous (Danny McBride) is the younger brother and second fiddle to the Prince Fabious (James Franco). While Fabious slays dragons and demons, Thadeous causes international incidents with neighboring kingdoms. As the film begins, Thadeous is in the hangman's noose in the kingdom of dwarfs. His punishment of death has been ruled upon after he seduced the King's wife. The signal is given, the planks give way and the floor drops out, and Thadeous falls. He is saved, however, when his feel hit the ground, and the camera pulls back to reveal that this particular Gallows Pole was constructed with little people in mind. At this point, the audience should be very worried.

Thadeous returns home to see that his brother has come back from his latest quest, this time with the lovely Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel), a virgin princess he rescued from a tall tower. She had been held there her entire life by the evil wizard Leezar (Justin Theroux), a part of his evil plan to create a dragon that will allow him to rule the entire kingdom. Needless to say, Leezar returns for his would-be-bride, and re-kidnaps Belladonna. In an effort to thwart Leezar's evil plans, as well as win back his one true love, Fabious sets off to rescue her with the begrudging Thadeous at his side. Along the road on their journey, they are eventually joined by Isabel (Natalie Portman) a warrior woman who seeks vengeance of her own on Leezar.

Your Highness is terrible not because this is an inherently bad idea for a movie, although it is far from inventive or exciting as far as plot is concerned. It fails for the very simple reason that it is not funny. At all. Not even a little bit. Usually, in bad comedies, jokes are said and fall flat. Here, jokes are barely attempted, and when they are they run along the lines of middle school humor. Take, for example, one of the (unfortunately) more memorable exchanges of the film:

Belladonna: How are you going to make me love you?

Leezar: If your vagina is anything like my hand, there will be no problem.

Part of the problem, I think, is that the screenplay was co-written by Danny McBride, who is a tremendous onscreen talent, but has yet to prove himself as a capable writer. The film was directed by David Gordon Green, who made the very funny, commercially successful Pineapple Express, and the astoundingly thoughtful All the Real Girls. This movie is his first major misstep as a director, and I think the fact that he is friends with McBride may be to blame. Perhaps they thought the idea of Danny McBride walking around medieval times was so funny that it had to be a feature length film instead of a five-minute short. I can assure them, it did not.

As for the other wasted talent, their presence can be explained rather easily. Zooey Deschanel has worked with Green before, as has James Franco, and they must have thought the movie sounded like a lark. Justin Theroux, similarly, is a friend of Green's, and I imagine the prospect of wearing silly costumes and speaking in a British accent for a few weeks while filming in Ireland was an easy choice to make. The only question mark here is Portman, whose character is not only sexually objectified but isn't even allowed to attempt humor. Why an actress of her stature would choose to take a straight-man supporting role in an action comedy is beyond me.

And so, Your Higness is very bad. It is a dissapointment particularly because of the talent on and off camera, but perhaps it's best not to over analyze films like this. These things happen. There have been worse films, more objectionable, more offensive. This is simply lazy and hastily written, a half-idea thrown on the screen for our enjoyment. Lucky us. All of the people involved are too talented to lose faith in. They have all been funny before and they will be again. In the end, it's best to shake our heads and move on.

One star.

2011 Oscar Predictions

2011-02-13T13:58:00.004-05:00

Best Supporting Actress:

Who will win: Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech

Who should win: Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

Best Supporting Actor:

Who will win: Christian Bale, The Fighter

Who should win: John Hawkes, Winter's Bone

Best Adapted Screenplay:

Who will win: Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network

Who should win: Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network

Best Original Screenplay:

Who will win: David Seidler, The King's Speech

Who should win: David Seidler, The King's Speech

Best Film Editing:

Who will win: Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter, The Social Network

Who should win: Jon Harris, 127 Hours

Best Cinematography:

Who will win: Roger Deakins, True Grit

Who should win: Jeff Cronenweth, The Social Network

Best Original Score:

Who will win: Alexandre Desplat, The King's Speech

Who should win: Hans Zimmer, Inception

Best Documentary:

Who will win: Exit Through the Gift Shop

Who should win: Gasland

Best Actress in a Leading Role:

Who will win: Natalie Portman, Black Swan*

Who should win: Natalie Portman, Black Swan

*There is an outside chance for Annette Benning, The Kids Are All Right

Best Actor in a Leading Role:

Who will win: Colin Firth, The King's Speech

Who should win: Jessie Eisenberg, The Social Network

Best Direction:

Who will win: Tom Hooper, The King's Speech

Who should win: David Fincher, The Social Network

Best Picture:

Who will win: The King's Speech

Who should win: Black Swan

The Fighter

2011-02-13T13:57:00.009-05:00

The Fighter could just as easily be called Montage: The Movie. It is an exercise in paint-by-the-numbers filmmaking, in which characters are weakly established, a goal is stated, an impediment is produced and an ending is manufactured. It would like to be a boxing film, but what it is instead is a lazy rehashing of well-known sports movie cliches, right down to an ending where an underdog overcomes a personal struggle to win The Big Fight.

Mark Whalberg plays Micky Ward, a working-class boxer from Lowell, Massachusetts. He has raw talent, but without proper training and work ethic he has seemingly reached the ceiling of his unremarkable career. Micky is managed by his mother Alice (Melissa Leo), who is content with keeping Micky in Lowell and close to the family. She places the family's needs above Micky's career, as evidenced by the fact that Micky's crack addict brother, Dicky (Christian Bale), is his trainer. Dicky had a career of his own once, and experienced his highpoint when he knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard during a boxing match on HBO. But since his early success, Dicky has spiraled downward into the world of crack dens and crime. He is a shadow of his former self, and a terrible influence on Micky.

Hope for Micky's future comes in the form of Charlene (Amy Adams), a bartender who likes Micky because – well because the script says so, I guess. She encourages him to seek new management, and to train with someone who will be better at shaping his talents. Micky's shift in allegiance causes friction with his family, who would seemingly have larger problems since Dicky is arrested for grand theft auto and impersonating a police officer. The conflict comes to a head when Charlene confronts Alice and Micky's hoard of cackling sisters on her front stoop, demanding that she let Micky have his one big shot at the title.

Recapping this plot just now, I struggled to not constantly sound sarcastic. The Fighter is an insanely frustrating film, in that its main conflict shouldn't be a conflict. Within the first five minutes of meeting Micky's family, the audience knows what his problem is and how to solve it. Why then does this movie take nearly two hours to resolve itself? It presents his dilemma as a struggle between being loyal to one's family and being true to one's dream. But when a family so abuses their position, so clearly ignores a person's hopes and desires, how can we then sympathize with that person's uncertainty? Should Micky cut ties with his family and move to Las Vegas to be trained by professionals? Yes. That much is apparent within the first reel of the film, and it doesn't take a hard-talking Amy Adams to make the audience realize it. The film has flashy performances, namely by Christian Bale, who is very good, and disturbingly thin, as Dicky. I far would have preferred to see an entire movie about his fall from grace than to have his story used callously as a cautionary tale. He is, of course, what Micky might become should he stay in Lowell. Indeed, Lowell seems to be the problem for all of the members of Micky's circle. Maybe they should all move to Vegas.

Mark Whalberg's bland, uninspired performance as Ward is a hindrance to an already dull plot. He meanders through the film looking sullen and defeated. I can't recall a single moment in the film where Micky smiles. Perhaps it is unfair to constantly compare every boxing movie to Rocky, but we do this because Rocky is a great film, perhaps the greatest boxing movie of all time. In that film, Stallone's performance carries a weight because it not only establishes him as an underdog, but as an underdog we actually care about. He's a nice guy, one who has had hard times, but who is willing to change himself and his environment in order to succeed. Whalberg's character is whiny, always wondering if what he is doing is right or not. He's an underdog, but through circumstances of his own choosing, and I have no sympathy for that. Ultimately, when he succeeds in the end, we are left with less of a feeling of accomplishment and more of one of relief. And as Micky raised his hands in victory, I thought again about Rocky, and how his victory wasn't in defeating his rival, but in going the distance.

"Ain't gonna be no rematch," Apollo Creed said.

"Don't want one," was Rocky's reply.

One and a half stars.

The King's Speech

2011-02-13T13:56:00.015-05:00

I remember seeing a television program when I was younger about a girl who had a terrible stammer. She was filled with ideas, poetry, and emotion, but felt unable to express herself. In her desperation, she decided to become a writer. This, she felt, was the most rational way she could get her words out. But not everyone is a writer, not everyone can express themselves as thoroughly in the written word as they can through plain, direct speech. What is one to do, then, if they are trapped within a prison of their mind, a voice desperate to be heard?

The King's Speech is not simply an examination of how King George VI overcame his speech impediment. It is an exploration of what courage is, how we define it, and how it can so often go unnoticed. The most basic example of courage within the film is Prince Albert (later King George VI) played spectacularly by Colin Firth. Albert, or “Bertie” to his loved ones, has struggled his whole life with a crippling stammer, one which is only heightened by his place in the public eye. The son of a king, and second in line to the throne of England, we first see Bertie speaking in 1925 at Wembley Stadium. An attendant explains to him that, once in front of the microphone, a red light will appear, and everyone in the stands will be able to hear him. The light blinks three times and then turns a solid red. Bertie stares at it and it stares back. He is not simply petrified, not merely afraid of embarrassing himself. He is already defeated, bested in his mind before a single word can fall from his lips.

At the behest of his wife Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), the Duke tries several speech therapists, each more incompetent and foolish than the last. He loses hope, and ultimately accepts his fate as a stammerer. But the ever persistent Elizabeth continues on, dragging her husband to one final speech therapist. This one, she explains, is rather unorthodox but comes highly recommended. He is Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), an Australian actor turned speech therapist who doesn't have any idea at first that his client is the future King of England. He does something considered highly inappropriate: he asks questions. Logue is, in many ways, more of a pshychiatrist for Bertie than just an expert in human speech. Ultimately, it becomes clear that his methods may be the only thing that stand between Bertie and his perpetual humiliation and self-subjugation.

The King's Speech is a great movie, an exciting movie in the same way that an action film is exciting. It builds to a climax that, rather than an explosion or shootout, is an achievement by a solitary man. It is beautifully shot, paced, written and acted. Every performance is a good one, especially the very funny and heartfelt Geoffrey Rush, who is stern but caring, determined to be both a healer and a friend to the future King. An equally great performance belongs to Helena Bonham Carter, whose quiet Queen is so soft spoken, so well defined, that it is easy to miss on first glance how spectacularly she embodies everything that a Queen ought to be. She is regal when it is required of her, and she is a gentle and loving wife, but she is by no means subservient. A modern woman, she controls her husband's fate as much as he does. Her forcefulness is the result of true affection and love.

As I said, these are stories of courage. The Duke's courage is in his attempt to overcome his fears, to become something that he is unsure he can be: a King. Logue's courage is in challenging him, in treating a royal as he needs as opposed to wants to be treated. He also is courageous in his own life, dedicating himself to helping others who suffer, despite the fact that his true passions lie on the stage. He can never be a great actor, and it takes a courageous person to set their dreams aside when they can do something for the greater good. There is courage in Bertie's brother David, who renounces the throne for love, unheard of at the time. And there is courage in Elizabeth, who is her husband's anchor and closest friend. This is a movie not about the words we say but the meaning behind those words. About how we say what we mean in a manner which showcases the nature of our convictions. It is an inspiration, both as a work of art and as an exercise in humanity.

Four Stars.

Dogtooth

2011-01-27T20:36:00.005-05:00

Coming soon.

Winter's Bone

2011-01-27T20:35:00.010-05:00

The most important line in Winter's Bone comes very early on in the film. Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) is helping her little sister look through the refrigerator for something to feed their dog. The little girl finds an old container near the back, and Ree opens it and smells it. The food is off, possibly rancid, but she shrugs her shoulders.

“It's better than nothing.”

This is a summation of Ree's young life to that point. Her drug-addicted mother is essentially catatonic, and her father is in prison for running a meth lab. Only seventeen, the responsibilities of adulthood have been thrust upon Ree, who must act as the soul caretaker of her six-year-old sister and twelve-year-old brother. One morning, when getting her siblings ready for school, the local sheriff (Garret Dillahunt) comes by and tells Ree that her father has bailed himself out of prison by using their house as collateral. He's been missing for a few days now, and if he doesn't show up for his court date the home will be seized. Ree takes the information in, contemplates it, and resolves herself:

“I'll find him.”

“Girl, I been looking.”

“But I'll find him.”

Thus begins Ree's quest to save her shabby shack of a home, and keep her brother and sister in their tattered clothes. It's a terrible, unhappy existence, but it's better than nothing. This is the life of those in the poverty-stricken Ozarks. The people form a tight-nit community, one with rules and customs. So seriously taken are the unwritten rules, that the very act of asking too many questions could cost someone their life. But that's exactly what Ree must do, ask her neighbors where her father is and how he got there. Despite it being so simple a question, Ree's inquisitions shake the foundation of the community, and she is warned more than once to go home and quit asking questions. Even her uncle, Teardrop (John Hawkes in a stellar performance) tells her that his brother is likely dead and buried, and even more likely had it coming for snitching to the cops. Ree doesn't care much whether her father is dead or alive, she just needs him at his court date. Or, at the very least, his cold dead hands.

Jennifer Lawrence's turn as Ree is astounding. She is, in no uncertain terms, one of the great heroes in recent cinema. She does not fight back when assaulted, but she does not back down when threatened. She is quiet, confident and persistent. She has nothing else to lose, and has been formed by her surroundings into a type of warrior. Lawrence has never had an opportunity to showcase her talents before, her prior credits include a handful of television series and bit parts in small films. This is an example of why independent cinema is more important than ever. Here is a great film, one that not only tells a gripping, unnerving story about a world most of us are completely foreign to, but it also has the ability to catapult a young, deserving actress into stardom. So many mediocre actresses rise to prominence through happenstance in Hollywood. Here is one that had an opportunity and showed that she is capable of great range, being profoundly soft spoken, funny, stern and tender all at once. This is a performance we will discuss and talk about for years to come, and this is an actress who will, I have no doubt, be a perennial Oscar nominee before her career is over.

The film was written and directed by Debra Granik, adapted from the novel of the same name. She has created a film that is disturbingly realistic, filled with character actors who could just have easily walked out of a documentary about the Ozarks. The landscape is bleak, filled with ramshackle houses that would be abandoned anywhere else, but here they shelter a family of six. Credit must go to her sense of style, her pacing and her willingness to be patient. Here is a film that twists and turns, bobs and weaves, and ultimately builds to a moment in a boat with a chainsaw. It is a true original of modern American cinema, and it is more than deserving of all the praise it has received.

Four stars.

Why Peacock Was the Best Film of 2010

2011-01-27T20:35:00.005-05:00

Coming soon.

The Best Films of 2010

2010-12-30T10:46:00.025-05:00

Each December, when it comes time for everyone to divulge what they consider to be the best films of the year, I find that I have the same argument with myself. Top ten lists are stupid, arbitrary and serve no purpose. But they're fun, aren't they? It's a silly and simple way of comparing tastes and, perhaps, a way of motivating others to see a film they normally wouldn't have. As I said when I posted my list of the best films of the last decade, I openly acknowledge that I have not seen every film. Over the course of the last year, I've managed to miss some big movies, including Danny Boyle's Oscar contender 127 Hours, which is gracing many top ten lists this time around. I have also missed some of 2010's most talked about independent and foreign films, including Blue Valentine and Dogtooth. Lists like these are always subject to change, but I've tried to be as thoughtful as possible when choosing what I consider to be the elite films of 2010.

Every year I feel as though I must justify not only my choices, but the very act of creating a list. The great A.O. Scott of The New York Times recently published a magnificent article, which you can read in its entirety here. In it, he plays the same guessing game all critics play, but is honest enough to sum up the motivation for a top ten list like this:

“The ritual of year-end list making is a way of sifting through scattered, memorable moments and forcing them briefly into focus. A handful of movies from 2010 will still be interesting in the future, in which case the date of their first appearance will be little more than the answer to a trivia question. Was it a good year for movies? A great year? Hard to say, and finally, who cares? The movies — good and bad alike — shed a blinking, blurry light on the times, illuminating our collective fears, fantasies and failures of will. An attempt at synthesis can only fail, so in lieu of a comprehensive theory of Cinema Now, I offer a handful of postulates on the Cinematic State of Things. I trust they will stimulate sober discussion and principled argument as well as outright ridicule.”

And so, with the tentative, frivolous nature of list making now having been openly discussed, here are the ten best films of 2010.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Peacock

2. Black Swan

3. The Killer Inside Me

4. The Social Network

5. Gasland

6. Casino Jack and the United States of Money

7. The King's Speech

8. The Crazies

9. Cemetery Junction

10. Temple Grandin

The Kids Are All Right

2010-12-28T14:14:00.005-05:00

Jules (Julianne Moore) and Nic (Annette Bening) have been married for some time. They have two children. Joni (Mia Wasikowska) is the smart one. Her younger brother Laser (Josh Hutcherson) is athletic, but lacks the drive and focus of his sister. As Joni prepares to leave for college, Laser begs her to make an inquiry at the sperm bank. She is eighteen, and can now legally request information about their father. Unbeknownst to their mothers, the two children meet Paul (Mark Ruffalo), the charming hippie who donated his sperm nearly two decades before. The children are taken with their new father, and Paul soon works his way into the lives of everyone within the family unit.

That's all I will say about The Kids Are All Right, a film which has been praised and admired by countless critics and audiences. It has already landed four Golden Globe nominations, and is considered a contender in all the major Oscar categories. It has been included on many top ten lists, most notably that of Roger Ebert, a critic whose opinion should always be taken seriously. Armed with this information, as well as the brief synopsis which I just gave, you should be able to figure out whether or not this sounds like a movie you might enjoy. I certainly thought I would.

I have tried – with no success – to figure out why I did not like The Kids Are All Right. Was it a victim of its own success? Perhaps. Try as I might to remain objective about a film before I see it, the fact is that I don't live in a vacuum. When a movie is being praised or panned by the critical community, one tends to hear about it. But I have entered into films with high expectations before, including Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, which lived up to the hype, and Chrisopher Nolan's Inception, which did not. I do not fear being in the minority when I write about a popular film, but what I do fear is seeming inarticulate. Despite having contemplated this film for a few days now, I am unable to express why I felt so detached, so uninterested by it all.

The parts are all here. The performances by everyone involved with the film are of a high caliber, most notably Mark Ruffalo, whose performance as an over-the-hill hippie is nuanced, sad and sometimes very funny. I appreciated the fact that the relationship between Jules and Nic was treated with respect and dignity. Simply put: the film does not really care that they are lesbians, and nor should it. These are two people who love each other, who have raised a family together, who have experienced ups and downs, and just happen to be of the same gender. I also enjoyed the fact that the children are good kids, there is no melodrama, no false conflict. They do not resent their mothers for being gay and raising them in a non-traditional family unit. They approach their birth father more out of innocent curiosity than some longing for a male figure in their lives. The screenplay is smart. Characters act irresponsibly at times, but never for the sake of creating plot. It contains an honest depiction of two people in love and the people around them.

Movies like this cause me to question my purpose as a critic. Am I here to tell you if the movie is any good or not? To an extent, yes. And The Kids Are All Right is, in that sense, a good movie because it contains all the elements of a good movie. But the real job of a critic is not to tell you how you ought to feel, but to be honest about how they experienced a film. I felt no connection to this movie. While I appreciated all of the individual factors which usually comprise an excellent film, I did not experience a culmination of those factors. Movies are more than simply the sum of their parts. For me, this story had no resonance, no human interest, and no touching moments of truth or beauty.

I recognize that I am in the vast minority. I intend to watch the film again, and perhaps when I see it in years to come, with new experiences behind me and older eyes to watch it, I might shake my head at this review and wonder how I could have so badly missed the point. That may very well happen, and that's fine. It is okay to be wrong, but it is not okay to be dishonest. I briefly considered not reviewing this movie, but that would have been unfair, both to the film and to myself. It's easy to write glowing reviews about masterpieces, or to scathingly destroy a terrible waste of time. Most movies exist in the middle, and those are the hard ones to discuss. The Kids Are All Right, for me, exists in that area of limbo. There is more to it than most films out there, but not enough for me to care.

Two and a half stars.

Black Swan

2010-12-27T19:22:00.007-05:00

There is a haunting moment in Black Swan, an image so brief that it can easily be missed. A music box sits open on a bedside table. Its small porcelain ballerina is cracked and broken, but continues to spin on its one remaining limb. It is a shadow of its former self, no longer elegant or beautiful, but still it soldiers on. It does so because it serves no other purpose – it has only ever danced.

Black Swan is a masterpiece, a dark and disturbing story of jealousy, fear, and inadequacy. It bears a striking resemblance to other famous films about betrayal in the world of art, most notably the great All About Eve. But where other films are simple observations about the competitive world in which artists live, Black Swan is an examination about the very essence of competition within oneself. Why do some people strive for perfection when others settle for less? What drives such a personality, and at what point does persistence become obsession?

Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) is and always has been a dancer. We learn very little else about her, because there is not much else to learn. Her mother (Barbara Hershey) was also a dancer, but never achieved the heights she desired, and had to retire when she became pregnant with Nina. As a result, Nina's life has been dedicated to training, to achieving the dream her mother could not. Though she is a repertory player in the New York Ballet Company, she has spent four years in the background. Now, as the company's starlet (Winona Ryder) is forced into retirement, Nina's opportunity to become the face of the organization emerges. She dedicates herself to obtaining the role of Swan Queen, and manages to convince Thomas (Vincent Cassel), the company's cruel and demanding director, that she can handle the part. But Nina's rise to prominence is not a success story. After years of striving for recognition, she has finally realized her goal, and is now desperately afraid of losing it. When the sensual and exotic Lily (Mila Kunis) arrives and catches the eye of Thomas, Nina tries to maintain focus. But as she becomes more and more aware of Lily's presence, Nina begins to lose her grasp of her dreams and reality.

But Black Swan is not about Lily's attempt to undermine or backstab Nina. Rather, it is about how Nina perceives her. First as a threat, then as a possible escape from her overbearing mother, and then again as an obstacle standing between her and perfection. Lily, like everyone else in the film, is oblivious to how she is seen by Nina. What would otherwise be, in a sense, supporting players in her life, are overemphasized by Nina, given significantly more thought and importance than needed. Darren Aronofsky shows us Nina's downward spiral as though it were a horror film. We see her body break, her joints ache, her nails crack and bleed. She is fragile – always precariously close to the point of breaking. Her mind and spirit are as battered and abused as her body, but it is significantly Nina's own doing. Her pursuit is perfection, and her youth, health and even life are merely things to be sacrificed in order to obtain it.

In purely physical terms, the performances by Portman and Kunis are astounding. There is never a moment when one doubts their abilities as classical dancers, and Aronofsky makes a point to show their faces as often as possible during the dance routines. He has created two classically trained ballerinas, and he's showing off. Similarly, the decision to shoot the film as a psychological thriller shows bold innovation. The same story could have been made into a straightforward, bland tale of a self-loathing artist. Instead, the screenplay by Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz and John McLaughlin focuses on the inner torment of Nina, of her fragmented reality and inability to disassociate her competition, her mother and herself. There is a moment in Nina's bedroom when she thinks she is alone, but discovers her mother sitting beside her at the most inopportune of times. Such a moment is simultaneously frightening and intriguing. Is her mother's presence a sign of her overbearing nature, or is she truly watching over her? Similarly, is Nina's failure to notice her simply an unfortunate oversight, or does it signify an unnatural closeness that their relationship seems to convey?

Natalie Portman is graceful, heartbreaking and frightening as Nina. It is a performance worthy of an Oscar, and is her finest in a young but already distinguished career. Mila Kunis also makes a startling transformation in the film. In her previous work in movies like Forgetting Sarah Marshall, she has shown her potential as a movie star. Here she showcases her ability as a character actress, and delivers an exceptional supporting performance. She may, perhaps, be overshadowed by the flashy, terrifying performance of Barbara Hershey, but Kunis' Lily is understated but sensual. One scene she shares with Portman in particular would be extremely sexy if it weren't so disturbing.

Darren Aronofsky has quietly become a great director. It is no surprise, as anyone who could make an unflinching film like Requiem for a Dream is not short on talent or ingenuity. But after his magnificent foray into the mainstream with The Wrestler, and now again with the profoundly beautiful Black Swan, Aronofsky is cemented in my mind amongst the elite – Scorsese, Tarantino, and P.T. Anderson. History may very well show Black Swan to be his best film. While it lacks the emotional payoff of The Wrestler, it is far more haunting and memorable. This is the kind of film that gets under your skin, it establishes a mood and then forces you to live with it for days to come. Good movies can transport our imagination to a time and place, great ones leave us with lingering sensations and fragmented memories, as though we were truly there. Black Swan transports us into the mind of Nina Sayers, but leaves us to find our own way out.

Four Stars.

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

2010-12-26T20:26:00.003-05:00

If she is nothing else, Joan Rivers is funny.

There is not much else to say about Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, the documentary which chronicles the life of the self-proclaimed “quasi-legend” of comedy. Filmmakers Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg were granted full access to Rivers for an entire year, and the end result is a film of unflinching honesty. Rivers allows herself to be seen for what she is: old, annoyed, a workaholic and desperate for attention. I do not write those words in an attempt to be critical or cruel. All great performers are, in one way or another, all of those things. At least Rivers has the guts to be honest about it.

There is one scene early in the film when she speaks directly to the camera. She does not, she says, fear growing old or seeming like a freak to outsiders. She shows us her event book, and flips through all of the empty pages in the coming months. “That's fear,” she says, “If I'm not working, it means they forgot about me.” She craves approval, and does whatever she can to get it. Whatever it takes to stay relevant. She speaks with disdain about the path her career has taken, she hates the award shows, the Hollywood phonies. She doesn't want to be on reality TV or doing commercials for questionable products that center around self deprecating humor. She allows herself to be the subject of a roast where she is the guest of honor. The members of the roast panel are mean, taking the opportunity to make obvious jokes about her appearance and age. She smiles the whole way through it, then tells her friend afterward what an awful experience it was. It's not the cruelty she minds – it's the lazy material.

There isn't much insight into the mind of Rivers, but perhaps that is because there isn't much to her. She is a comedian, and that's what she wants her obituary to say. There isn't much talk about why she is funny, or why she grew up with such a desire to be funny. She doesn't discuss personal loss or tragedies, apart from the death of her husband. Even then, the topic turns from his suicide to her sense of betrayal and abandonment. She feels like show business got to him and he quit. Nor does Rivers share many amusing anecdotes about all of the legends she has met throughout the years. She relates a story involving Johnny Carson, but it is a story about her. Joan Rivers needs to be the topic of conversation, and name dropping is just another way for her to underscore her importance to the world of comedy. She simultaneously desires to be a legend and resents being one. “I hate when women comics tell me I opened doors for them. I'm still opening them!”

What is it about Joan Rivers that keeps her relevant? Her comedy is timeless, to a degree. She is fearless, and archive footage of her telling abortion jokes on the Tonight Show in 1960 are still rather stunning. On stage, her honesty is jarring at first, but becomes rather endearing. There is never an instant in the film when one feels that she is holding back. I particularly enjoyed a moment at an event honoring the late George Carlin. The announcer lists off the names of the comedians performing that evening, and without hesitation Rivers begins to rank them aloud: “Funny, funny, decent, clever, very funny, smart, okay, lucky...” She is even honest about how she sees herself. Her appearance, though somewhat grotesque, almost makes sense. It suits her in a strange way. Her jokes can't get old, so neither can she.

After the premier of her play, which she wrote and directed, the cameras capture her and her assistant pouring over reviews the next day. Each positive one is tossed aside – the negative ones she focuses on, responding with venomous rants as though the critic were in the room. I imagine she'll do the same with reviews of this film, since a criticism of this movie is essentially a criticism of her. Perhaps the movie could dig deeper, perhaps it could be more focused, but one thing it cannot be faulted for is holding back. Here, we get to know Joan Rivers. Toward the end of the film, Rivers is heckled during a performance. She's made a joke about the deaf, and a man with a deaf son takes exception. She chastises him: “Don't you get it? Comedy is about making us laugh so we can get through things. I lived with a man for fifteen years who was disabled. He lost his leg in World War II. He never bothered to go back and get it.”

Three and a half stars.

Easy A

2010-12-26T18:59:00.011-05:00

Few things are as unpleasant as a bad teen comedy. They can be mean spirited like John Tucker Must Die. Gross and dim-witted like Miss March. Even intelligent but hopelessly misguided like Not Another Teen Movie. The most aggravating thing about these movies, for a critic at least, is the fact that in a world where countless talented directors will never get the chance to have any sort of mainstream success, these mindless, unworthy shells will be produced, released and seen year after year. It is important, however, not to dismiss any genre. Yes, most teenage comedies are bad, but that does not mean there cannot be a good comedy about teenagers. Easy A is a great example, a clever film which remembers that just because teenagers are still developing doesn't make them stupid.

Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone) is a lovely young woman who goes unnoticed by the opposite sex because she is primarily focused on her schoolwork. When her friend Rhiannon (Aly Michalka) invites her on a camping trip with her “progressive” (aka: nudist) family, Olive lies and says she has a date with a college guy. Come Monday, Rhiannon wants to know all the dirty details, and Olive finds herself in a girls' room, telling her best friend that she lost her virginity in a fictitious one night stand. Unfortunately, the school Christian Club founder, Marianne (Amanda Bynes) is in one of the stalls, and it isn't long before the lie which Olive herself started finds its way around school. She is soon approached by Brandon (Dan Byrd), who is gay but would like to appear straight. He figures that if Olive is pretending to give it away, why not with him? Out of the kindness of her heart, Olive agrees, and pretty soon all the teenage dorks in town are lining up to pretend to get it on with the fake school slut.

Easy A gets off to a rocky start with this overly complex set up. Olive develops a reputation, that is the crux of the movie, but the screenplay takes about a half hour to get there. Couldn't assisting her gay friend just have easily been the primary cause of her new slutty persona? Add to this the fact that Easy A exists in the kind of movie high school with sprawling campuses, inspirational teachers, and is populated with students who literally stop and gawk at Olive when they learn that she's open for business. These early scenes ring false. We have all been to high school, and a majority of students are sexually active. Do kids stop and stare at every girl with cleavage or a short skirt? Would so mundane a rumor really spread with such fierce expedience? In all likelihood, news of Olive's virginity would be more noteworthy than her act of losing it.

That having been said, Easy A spends enough time outside of Olive's school to develop her as a character, giving her wonderful, richly defined parents played marvelously by Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci. They are a rare thing in the teenage movie universe: good parents. They are not oblivious or overbearing, nor do they exist only to share one or two scenes in which they give their daughter a heartwarming pep-talk. Olive's parents love and trust her, and her relationship with them helps us understand how a young woman could be so caring, intelligent and charming. There are also strong supporting performances, most notably Lisa Kudrow as Olive's guidance counselor. Though she offers Olive advice, she has no idea how to run her own life, and her terrible decisions and lack of credibility are ultimately dealt with in a realistic, honest way.

The younger characters are not as well written in Easy A, whose adults are clever and never without a snappy comeback. The other students are also bland compared to the charismatic Olive, who has the benefit of being played by a future movie star. The supporting players of the high school are somewhat thin. Brandon is gay so he makes comments about wardrobes and decorating. Rhiannon is blonde and has a bimbo persona. Then there's Todd (Penn Badgley), the nice guy who doesn't care what kind of reputation Olive might have earned herself. Do you think he might be the guy for her?

The most interesting performance amongst the younger actors, apart from Emma Stone, belongs to Amanda Bynes. She plays her overly enthusiastic Cross-wearing busybody with an undertone of insecurity and desperation for recognition. In her scenes with Olive, there are extremely subtle hints that Marianne might have romantic feelings for girls. These moments are fleeting and never picked up upon by the other characters. That is not a failure on the part of Easy A. It is Marianne, not the film, that doesn't want to look that deeply into herself.

Three stars.

After.Life

2010-12-26T17:32:00.006-05:00

Generally speaking, thrillers are supposed to keep the audience guessing about what will happen, not about what has happened. Such is not the case with After.Life, whose plot, similar to its unfortunate and aggravating title, manages to be simple yet confusing at the same time. This is a ten minute short squeezed into an hour and forty minutes – a befuddled mess of a movie.

Christina Ricci plays Anna Taylor, a middle school teacher who seems thoroughly unhappy with her life for no good reason. Yes, she has a selfish, controlling mother (the great Celia Weston in a wasted role), and a dimwitted fiance in Paul (Justin Long), but the movie doesn't really bother to explain why Anna is so irrationally depressed. Any filmmaker, it would seem, could see that the slightest bit of backstory could have aided in explaining Anna's emotional state – an abusive parent, a stressful job, or even just downright clinical depression. But no, Anna is sad because the movie wants her to be sad, it is the state in which she must exist for the screenplay to force her into the most convoluted of scenarios.

After a unnecessary fight over dinner with Paul, Anna rushes into the rain and speeds off. She drives along the freeway, sobbing and recklessly weaving in and out of traffic. You may ask what the fight was about. Well, I watched it, and I'm still asking that question. But none of that matters, because any loyal moviegoer knows that a film does not showcase a speeding car and a slick road and then deny its audience an accident. Anna crashes and, in rather gruesome fashion, is impaled by the flatbed in front of her car, which was carrying metal pipes. She wakes up on the mortuary table of Eliot Deacon (Liam Neeson), who coldly informs her that she has died and he is preparing her body for her funeral. Anna refuses to believe him – how can she be cognizant and dead? It's a good question, and if Deacon really was in charge of assisting the dead as they cross over, as he claims, you'd think he'd be used to getting it by now. But no, he sighs and goes into the next room, leaving Anna alone on the cold metal slab, wondering if she is dead or not. I hate it when that happens.

After.Life has an interesting premise at its core. Is Anna truly dead or merely being convinced she is dead by a sick man? But the film doesn't play fair with its audience, nor does it attempt to hide what really ought to be the big reveal at the end. It ignores important questions that need to be asked. An example: If Deacon is telling the truth, then his actions do indeed make sense, although he is not very good at his job of helping the dead cope with their passing. However, if he is a serial killer who gets his jollies by convincing people that they are dead, how did he get a hold of Anna? Does he kidnap his victims from the sites of accidents before authorities can arrive? Does he bribe hospital staff to forge death certificates so he can openly hold funerals for the families of the people he kills?

The movie doesn't want to exist in the world of logic, but it trudges along at such a slow pace that we can't help but think of all the holes in the plot, and of all the obvious solutions that the characters just can't seem to come up with. It's a stupid movie filled with stupid people who say and do stupid things. While no one could accuse it of being predictable, it chooses instead to be illogical. Things are shown to us and then never mentioned again. Forgettable characters are called back upon in a cheap attempt to shock us. It closes with a happy ending followed by a gruesome one, because, hey, why not kick an audience while it's down?

Though I am tempted not to, I feel as though Christina Ricci's nudity in this film is worth mentioning. She is a lovely woman, and has made the choice to show her body in various other films before this one. Here she spends most of the movie in a state of undress, or at the very least topless. There is also an awkward and out of place sex scene early in the film which doesn't lend to anything other than the cheap titillation of seeing two people fumble over each other while the camera lingers on the female form. Ricci also starred in Black Snake Moan, another film where she was either nude or barely clothed for much of the movie. That film was about a woman dealing with her nymphomania and inability to love, and it only made sense that she would be depicted in a sultry, provocative way. Here she is laid out on a metal table, on display like a cut of meat. Perhaps director Agienzska Wojtowicz-Vosloo felt that she was making a statement about the objectification of the female body in film, but I couldn't help but feel as though she was merely adding to the problem.

One star.

The Killer Inside Me

2010-12-18T11:45:00.010-05:00

Lou Ford is slim, unassuming and soft-spoken. He blends in nicely with the world around him, and his small town persona seems to fit his surroundings perfectly. Lou wears his Deputy Sheriff's badge with pride. The job suits him. He's the sort of man who'll do you a favor and not ask anything in return, who watches out for troubled youth, and who always makes sure to say “sir” or “ma'am” when it's called for. Lou ought to be the hero of this or any other story, and it's this disconnect with how the world sees him and who he really is that makes him all the more terrifying.

One summer's day in 1950, Lou is instructed to go to the outskirts of Central City, his hometown, and politely ask a prostitute named Joyce Lakeland (Jessica Alba) to please leave his jurisdiction by sunrise. But when the woman gets indignant and strikes Lou, it leads to a scuffle that ends with her face down on the bed and being spanked relentlessly by the officer of the law. What neither one expects is how much they ultimately enjoy the exchange, and the two soon begin a torrid affair that sets into motion one of the darkest, most disturbing films of the last ten years. The Killer Inside Me is a visceral experience, a film littered with pain and violence. It is a virtual reinvention of neo-noir, as faithful to the genre as any film I have ever seen, and yet simultaneously more willing to take risks. The camera doesn't flinch in The Killer Inside Me, and when we are given a firsthand look into the sick and unpleasant world of Lou Ford, we see all of it in every bloody detail.

The film's plot is as convoluted and complex as any noir film, suffice it to say that, like any of the film's of the 50's, it starts with a bad idea for some quick cash that leads to one murder after another. The difference, however, between Lou Ford and other noir protagonists, such as insurance salesman Walter Neff in Double Indemnity, is that Ford doesn't mind the killing. This is not a haunted man, no demons are chasing him – he is the demon. And while the film provides a vague, quasi-psychological explanation as to why Ford has an affinity for hitting beautiful women, it never attempts to explain his blood lust or cold, calculating nature. He's a bad man, and that's that. The only question the movie has is this: Will he get caught?

The Killer Inside Me was directed by Michael Winterbottom and, I felt, played as a companion piece to the Cohen Brother's No Country for Old Men. That film was also a southern noir about a bad man looking to get rich, but the difference between the hopeless nature of the two films is that No Country is about the chase, while The Killer Inside Me is about how much Ford enjoys the chase. He's smarter than all the people after him, and he knows it. What's more, the binds he gets himself in would prove unsolvable for any other protagonist, but because Ford has no limits, no fear, and no soul, he finds ample ways to wriggle out of the most precarious of situations.

The movie contains strong supporting performances, not the least of which is Jessica Alba's Joyce, who doesn't just allow herself to be treated badly but might actually desire it. Additionally, Kate Hudson delivers her best performance since Almost Famous as Amy, Ford's fiancee. Like Joyce, Amy also allows herself to bend to the will and whim of Ford, and both women manage to be blind to the terrifying truth that lurks just beneath the surface of the man they think they know so well. The film wisely makes Joyce and Amy look very similar in body type, clothing and even their hair style. To Ford, they're interchangeable and disposable. And, if the movie's vague revelation about Ford's childhood is to be given credence, both women are already serving as placeholders to a figure from Ford's past, his first love and the person who caused him to associate pain and pleasure with one another.

I have spent this entire review avoiding the topic of Casey Affleck, who play's the film's ghastly lead. So complete is Affleck's performance, so disturbing on a fundamental level, that it is almost best not to associate the actor with the role. Here, Casey Affleck, who is usually loveable, charming, and often times sort of goofy, has an intensity and unexpected wrath within him that demands recognition. This is the type of performance that causes us to reevaluate what we think we know about an actor, and reexamine his past films. To call it Oscar worthy would be faint praise. Affleck's Ford is one of the great movie villains of the last twenty years.

The Killer Inside Me works because of this and other performances. It is extremely, brutally violent. In a year in which I criticized Kick Ass for its overuse of cartoonish gore, here is a film which is even more explicit, upsetting, and violent. Yet the ugly brutality on display in The Killer Inside Me is not a geek show, it is not spectacle for our amusement. People get hurt in this film, and the movie doesn't celebrate it. Even Ford, after committing atrocities, seems to have some appreciation, albeit from a distance, of the horrible acts he has committed. He relates this to another character in a line that sums up his mentality:

“Nobody has it coming. That's why nobody sees it coming.”

Four stars.

The Social Network

2010-12-18T11:44:00.007-05:00

Charles Foster Kane had Rosebud, Mark Zuckerberg has Facebook. Just like the dying words of Orson Welles' most famous character, Zuckerberg's Facebook is the driving plot device behind a film that, though centered around it, could just as easily exist in its absence. It is Zuckerberg, not Facebook, that is up for examination in The Social Network. As a character, he is eerily similar to Kane – condescending, aloof, powerful and desperately alone.

The film opens in a bar on the campus of Harvard University in 2003. There, Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) rants to his girlfriend Erica (Rooney Mara) about a whole host of topics. His mind races and his mouth, as well as Erica, struggles to keep up. Zuckerberg is a worrier – he fears he will be excluded from the most prestigious clubs on campus, clubs which will open doors for him, if he does not find a way to prove himself. Erica lists his accomplishments, which are already ample, but that's not enough for Mark. He does not actually care about what he creates or how he creates it, the only thing he desires is the recognition those creations bring him. Sick of his whining, condescending manner, Erica assures Mark that he's destined to get exactly what he wants, and then leaves him.

That night, after a few too many beers, Mark decides to hack into the University computer system, steal photos of all the female students, and create a website called facemash.com, a website where male students can vote on which of two randomly generated college girls is hottest. He creates the site using an algorithm of his best friend Eduardo (Andrew Garfield), and by four in the morning, facemash creates so much traffic that it crashes the University's server. The website does exactly what Zuckerberg had intended it to do: it gets him noticed. He is placed on probation by the Harvard Council, even though he informs the board that he did them a favor by showcasing the gaps in the online security system. Rather than probation, Zuckerberg requests that the board grant him some recognition for his accomplishments.

Soon thereafter, Mark's abilities get him noticed by a trio of entrepeneurs who have an idea for a dating website that requires a Harvard email account to be accessed. Mark borrows – or steals, depending on your point of view – the idea and sets out to create a website of his own, built on the same principle of exclusivity. The film then jumps back and forth between the subsequent founding of Facebook and the depositions of two lawsuits Zuckerberg eventually becomes embroiled in two years later. One lawsuit comes via the Winklevoss twins (both played by Armie Hammer), the entrepeneurs from whom Zuckerberg borrowed his founding idea for Facebook. The other lawsuit is between Mark and Eduardo, his former best friend and co-founder of Facebook. The reasons behind Eduardo and Mark's falling out are not explained during the deposition, but we watch them unfold later in the film.

The Social Network is fast paced, intelligent and, in its own way, sort of beautiful. It provides a fascinating story about a man who managed to foster the creation of friendships while having no social skills of his own. Eisenberg's performance as Zuckerberg is thoroughly impressive, and while some have been critical of his acting abilities in the past, implying that he is rather one-note, here that note is exactly what the screenplay calls for. Eisenberg's sardonic, disinterested tone is simultaneously irritating and endearing. It's funny when he puts someone, mainly his superiors, in their place with by using his intellectual prowess to verbally eviscerate them. At his core, however, Zuckerberg is as sad and lonely a character as Kane, locked away in Xanadu. He looks out over a world which he has conquered and yet remains an outsider.

The film thrives thanks to strong supporting performances, namely from Garfield, but most notably from Justin Timberlake in his turn as Napster founder Sean Parker. Timberlake's Parker is the polar opposite of Zuckerberg – he is, if anything, too in touch with people and their desires. He is the worst influence on Zuckerberg, and he establishes a foothold in Facebook at a pivotal moment of its development. Timberlake plays him as a smooth talking pitchman, a man who can sell anything, especially the idea that it's better to be cool than popular. He has some of the film's most memorable lines, including a haunting moment where he informs Mark and Eduardo not to be so quick to sell advertising space on Facebook. “You can make some serious money here. Because a million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? A billion dollars.”

The Social Network was directed by David Fincher, who brings as much flair to the performances as he did to those in Se7en or Zodiac. He makes excellent use of a core group of young talent, who could have easily become lost in this complex story. But Fincher never misfires, pacing his story quickly enough to keep things going but slowly enough to let us keep up. Credit must go especially to the exceptional screenplay by Aaron Sorkin, who has written good movies in the past (Charlie Wilson's War, A Few Good Men), but has never dazzled us like this. It is likely the best script of the year, and a frontrunner for Best Adapted Screenplay at the upcoming Oscars.

Some have criticized the film, and I think fairly, on a few grounds. One is for Sorkin's dialogue, which is fired off so quickly and with such venom that some feel it rings false. This, I suppose, is true. The characters in The Social Network do not speak like regular people, but then again, neither do the characters in Woody Allen or Quentin Taratino films. The film is effective enough that the dialogue should be viewed more as impressive writing than unrealistic speech patterns. The other critique is that the film is highly fictionalized, and that the events within it are not accurate. To that I can only be frank and say that I don't care. We don't go to movies for history lessons, we go to experience and feel things. The Social Network isn't about Facebook, or even about the real-life Mark Zuckerberg. It's about a man whose desire to be included is so great that he can never realize that it's the very thing keeping him on the outside looking in.

Four stars.

Alice in Wonderland

2010-11-30T20:32:00.028-05:00

Alice in Wonderland is an assault on the senses, as monotonous as it is unnecessary. This is the sort of movie where the trailer is conceived before the script is written. It is an attempt to cash in on a name brand, in this instance the novels by Lewis Carroll and the far superior Disney film of the same name. It is a cinematic dead zone, an exercise in pretension on the part of Tim Burton. I can only imagine that his primary purpose in making the film was to have an opportunity play to dress up and allow his loyal fans to fawn over his visual genius.

I will not discuss the plot, because there is none to be discussed. No, that's not quite fair. There is a plot, and you know it by heart. There are some minor tweaks and alterations to the original Alice story, but basically this is the same movie you saw as a child, only with bad performances and with far less warmth. Alice (Mia Waskowska) is at a party where she is set to be engaged to a man she does not love. Her high society friends speak to her in a garish, unpleasant way. This stilted opening sequence, complete with overacting on the part of every performer, sets the tone for what is sure to be the longest 108 minutes of your life.

Naturally, Alice doesn't want to get married, even though she's at the ripe old age of 19, and so she runs off and winds up down the rabbit hole and back in Wonderland. We get to watch her grow and shrink and grow and shrink. Then she talks to a rabbit with a watch, a cat that can smile, and a hatter who is mad. There's a Queen who wants her dead, and a fight with a Jabberwocky which has no real importance. Then she goes home, explains to her friends and family that she doesn't want to get married, and the credits role. This is the skeleton of a story around which Tim Burton has fashioned an unhappy, blurry, uninteresting fantasy world. Those characters which should look cartoonish are frightfully realistic, those which should be realistic are cartoonish. There is not an interesting performance in the bunch, an unexpected plot twist, or an inventive action sequence. The movie starts, the movie happens, the movie ends. Thank you for coming, we really enjoyed taking your money.

This is a very bad film. It is unoriginal the point that one must wonder if any effort went into it whatsoever. Ultimately, behind the makeup and CGI and star power of a gap-toothed Johnny Depp, there is absolutely no substance, no humanity to cause emotion or elicit empathy. The movie, in similar fashion to Avatar, is a shallow exercise in style, but unlike that film fails to deliver on the thrilling visuals in addition to its story. And so, an audience must look at the 200 million dollar budget for Alice in Wonderland and question not if the money was spent wisely, but if it was spent at all. I feel bad for everyone involved in the project, most notably the talented Johnny Depp and lovely Anne Hathaway, who probably had no idea what they were getting themselves into. As for Mia Wasikowska, she has it in her to be a movie star someday, if only she is given a script that asks more of her than to look surprised and confused the whole time.

In the broadest of terms, Tim Burton is not a very good director. He usually has a brilliant flair for visual style, and has created some of the most memorable settings in movie history. This is the man who shaped the vision of Gotham City, who summed up suburbia with a single street in Edward Scissorhands, and who suspended a Buick in an oak tree in Big Fish. He has originality and creative ideas, and he is best suited as a first-class set designer. There is no shame in this, and were he to make it his primary purpose in cinema, he would go down in history as the greatest the profession ever saw. Instead, he has settled for being a mediocre to poor director, one who cannot effectively tell a story, and who has coaxed some of the most leaden performances out of great actors.

A director directs. It sounds simple, but there truly is more to it than pointing a camera at random images you find interesting and hoping an audience agrees with you. Tim Burton seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how movies work, and whatever talents he may possess are washed away by the others he clearly does not. Any good films he has made seem to be in spite of himself, and the bad ones he is responsible for are beginning to pile up.

Half a star.

Megamind

2010-11-30T20:32:00.018-05:00

Megamind confirms what Despicable Me hinted at earlier this year, which is that villains are far more interesting characters than superheroes. Unlike Despicable Me, however, Megamind does not bother introducing an outside influence into the life of its main character. Rather, it takes the time to reflect upon the idea that, perhaps, people fall into the roles which are written for them. Nobody is born bad, they simple react to how the world perceives them.

The story is a familiar one, which most likely represents copyright infringement, but never mind. A distant planet is about to explode, and two parents shoot off their infant son into outer space with Earth as his destination. Unfortunately for the infant, two other parents on the planet had the same idea, and their son manages to bounce the first child off course. The second, handsome child lands before a loving, rich family in Metro City, whereas the first child winds up in a prison yard, raised by the inmates and feared for his blue complexion and all around strange appearance. They attend the same school, interact with the same children, but good fortune always shines on the handsome child, and the little blue boy with the bulbous head is quickly pigeonholed as the outcast. The cruelty of those around him causes the boy to embrace the persona which has been thrust upon him, and he decides that, if he is going to be the bad guy, he's going to be the best bad guy there is.

He dubs himself Megamind (Will Ferrell) and declares himself to be an evil genius. His nemesis, meanwhile, takes on the monicker Metro Man (Brad Pitt), defender of Metro City. The two do battle week after week and, as Megamind describes in his opening narration “He would win some, I would almost win others.” This one-sided rivalry earns Metro Man the affection of the entire city, as well as the beautiful local reporter Roxanne Ritchi (Tina Fey), who may or may not be Metro Man's number one gal. And so, the protagonist (or is the antagonist?) of Megamind is a lonely, unhappy person, who's only companion is his sidekick Minion (David Cross), a talking piranha with a mechanical body.

But one day the unthinkable happens. During the opening of the Metro Man Museum, Megamind kidnaps Roxanne and uses her to bait Metro Man into yet another confrontation. The kidnapping has become a routine for Roxanne, who yawns as Megamind rolls out one elaborate torture scenario after another – she's seen it all before. However, somewhat accidentally, Megamind actually manages to trap his arch rival in an abandoned observatory before shooting the facility with a death ray from a rerouted satellite. When the smoke clears, Metro City and Megamind both realize that Metro Man is dead, and that Megamind has finally won. The city weeps, Megamind cheers, and soon he and Minion march into City Hall to declare victory. When asked there by the press what his demands are, however, Megamind soon realizes that he has none. He's been living his life chasing a goal, and now he has to figure out why he's actually been chasing it for all these years.

Megamind is a good film for the simple reasons. It's funny and has a good mixture of clever jokes and slapstick humor to keep both younger and older audiences amused. The voice acting is of a high quality, and Ferrell joins Jack Black and Mike Meyers on the list of comedians who are able to convey a wide range of emotion in their performances. Likewise, the animation in Megamind, while not spectacular, is crisp and serviceable, far superior to the halfhearted efforts by Disney and Dreamworks this year. There are a couple of action sequences that go on for a bit too long, but for the most part the movie is also well paced.

Where the film succeeds is in its story, which is original and inventive, as well as challenging for younger audiences. It raises questions about what it means to be a good or bad person, as well as an examination of how ostracizing those who are different can only cause them to lash out against such negativity. It's a sweet, smart film with a good moral message, and a few unexpected twists as well. By not presenting the battle between good and evil in such black and white terms, Megamind has more nuance than most of the mid-range animated films of recent years. While it is not in the same class as WALL-E, Up, or Ratatouille, it is one of the more solid efforts of recent memory.

Three stars.

Get Him to the Greek

2010-11-30T20:31:00.015-05:00

Get Him to the Greek is a fundamentally sound movie and is to be appreciated on that level. Much in the same way that we are aware of the structure of a bridge, so too can we see the framework of this film. All bridges are, in a sense, the same structure, they serve the same purpose. But if they have differing designs and enough eccentricities, we can ultimately appreciate them for more than simply getting us from point A to B.

Russell Brand reprises the role of Aldous Snow, the sex addicted rock star from Forgetting Sarah Marshall which made him famous in the United States. Here, we are pleasantly surprised to see that sometimes more is more, and the character who stole scenes in the previous work by director Nicholas Stoller can support his own feature film. The film opens with a very funny behind the scenes interview of Aldous and his wife Jackie Q (Rose Byrne) on the set of the new music video for his album “African Child.” Aldous is wearing gold bracelets and an unbuttoned white silk shirt. “I told the wardrobe staff to make me look like a white, African space Christ,” he says, “I'm not saying that I am like Christ – that's for others to say.” The album is overproduced, pretentious, racist and a huge flop. We see a montage of Aldous' downward spiral, off the wagon and back into the party scene. Jackie Q leaves him and goes on to be an international success. Aldous stops performing, refuses to record another album, and walls himself off in a world of drugs, sex and non-stop debauchery. All this before the opening credits.

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, talent scout Aaron Green (Jonah Hill) is in the middle of a very intense meeting with Sergio (Sean Combs), the head of Pinnacle Records. Sergio lays in to mindless yes-men, disgusted with their lack of originality and out-of-the-box thinking. Aaron offers up an idea to get Pinnacle back on the map: The ten year anniversary of Aldous Snow's performance at the Greek Theatre is approaching. Aaron wants to mount a comeback and revive Aldous' career. Sergio agrees, and Aaron has two days to fly to London, get Snow, and get him to the Greek.

That is the set up. Indeed, that is the movie – all set up. The rest of the film, quite literally in its entirety, is a series of events in which the straight-laced Aaron must get the reckless Aldous on a plane, then a limo, then onstage. To say that the movie is simple minded is an understatement, but we don't go to movies like this to watch people grow and develop, or to watch a clever, intricate plot unfold. The fact that the movie consists of a series of set ups and punchlines is fine by me, if for no other reason than those punchlines are very funny. Jonah Hill plays twitchy and nervous better than just about anyone in Hollywood, and Russell Brand shows that his charisma works in more than just short bursts, as it did in Sarah Marshall. Aldous Snow is a relatively well-defined character, someone with an ex-wife, a son and drug problems. Brand's charm helps to disguise the character's pain, but the movie is smart enough to acknowledge that Snow's behavior is not funny so much as it is tragic, and that all the good times he's having are just a way to make himself forget how unhappy he is.

There are good performances all around in Get Him to the Greek, including a very funny supporting role for Rose Byrne as the bimbo pop-star Jackie Q. Her music videos are meant to be a parody of the current pop scene, but are almost too close to reality to be funny. Similarly, the music of Infant Sorrow, Snow's band, is reminiscent of the music in A Mighty Wind. Is it funny? Perhaps. But mostly it's just good music, well written and with surprisingly good vocals by Brand. He has the aura of a rock star, and it's likely that he could have been one had he not chosen comedy instead.

Once you know the premise and primary conflicts in Get Him to the Greek, you know the entire movie. Aldous will be a thorn in Aaron's side, resent him for dragging him across the United States and attempt to undermine him at every turn. Eventually, the two will share enough adventures that they will come to realize that, you know what, this guy's all right. Will Aldous get to the Greek Theatre on time? It may come as a surprise to many, but there is actually a chance in this film that he might not. But that's to be appreciated. Characters realize what's truly important in a cheesy way, like they always do in movies like this, but in Get Him to the Greek, they actually apply those lessons, regardless of what the story may want them to do.

Three stars.

Cemetery Junction

2010-11-30T20:31:00.011-05:00

The most impressive thing about Ricky Gervais is his willingness to take risks. I once heard him in an interview speaking about the creation of The Office, the British TV show which launched his career. When the BBC approached him and his partner Stephen Merchant about the possibility of making their short film into a sitcom, his only stipulation was that he and Merchant be granted complete creative control. He felt it was important to get it right, and if that couldn't happen then he'd rather the project not be started at all. He emphasized to the BBC that he was serious about taking his project and going home: “I didn't just want to be on telly,” he said.

It is this fearlessness which drives what I consider to be one of the most creative forces of the last ten years. When he made his much anticipated big screen debut, he chose the sweet, old fashioned romantic comedy Ghost Town. People thought he could not play a convincing romantic lead. They were wrong. When he directed his first feature film, he chose harsh satire in the form on The Invention of Lying, a film that took aim at religion, politics, corporate sponsorship and (to an extent) human nature itself. Now comes Cemetery Junction, his first feature film with long-time collaborator Stephen Merchant. It is unlike anything he and Gervais have attempted in the past, and only bears their mark of involvement in that it, like all of their previous efforts, is a rousing success.

In a working class neighborhood in the seventies, Freddie (Christian Cooke) buys himself a suit and manages to secure a job as a local insurance salesman. He still lives with his parents, to whom he attempts to sell a policy. His father Len (Gervais) doesn't care for his son's new job, so he attempts to discourage his success. “What do I need a policy for if I'll be dead?” Think about the funeral costs, Freddie persists. “Bury me in the garden when I go, that's where I put the old washing machine. I'm not paying the city to take rubbish away.” Len has worked in a factory all his life, and he considers it to be an honest living. He has a point. Consider the scene when Freddy and his associate Mike (Matthew Goode) sell insurance to an elderly couple. Mike plays off their fears, insinuates it is the husband's duty as a Christian to ensure his wife has a future, he even plays off his patriotism. “What did this country fight Hitler for if we're just going to let our wives go off to the poorhouse?” The couple had been planning on taking their dream holiday. They buy the policy instead.

Freddie dreams of escaping Cemetery Junction, the area of Reading in which the film is set. His friends Bruce (Tom Hughes) and Snork (Jack Doolan) seem content with staying. Snork doesn't mind the place because he's got a decent job and what he considers decent prospects for sex. He thinks he could be a chick magnet, as evidenced by the self-rendered tattoo on his chest depicting a sexy lady vampire watching Snork pleasure himself. Bruce doesn't like Cemetery Junction, but doubts he'd like any place else either. He's spent his whole life getting in and out of trouble, picking fights wherever possible. To Bruce, leaving Cemetery Junction would also mean leaving some good brawls behind. And then there's Julie (Felicity Jones), the daughter of Freddie's new boss (Ralph Fiennes) and Mike's girlfriend. Julie wants to be a photographer, to travel the world and see new things and amazing places. Mike tells her father that he encourages her hobby, but thinks it is only a phase. “Besides, she can always take pictures of the children.”

Cemetery Junction does not having astoundingly original source material. The story of a boy struggling to escape his surroundings is nothing new. Countless coming-of-age tales revolve around a character's fear of ending up like his parents, trapped in what he perceives as a mundane, ordinary life. But Cemetery Junction is brutally honest, it does not romanticize Freddie's options or possibility of success. He could stay on his new chosen career path, settle down, watch his friends age and decay around him. His other option is to leap into an abyss of the unknown. The prospects there have more variety, but failure and unhappiness are always possible outcomes. Is a quiet, dignified life of isolated longevity more noble than a thrill-seeking burnout?

The performances here are strong all around, most notably Tom Hughes, whose character has rage simmering just beneath the surface. Like Joe Pesci in GoodFellas, Bruce is always a threat to explode, and his short fuse stems from an unresolved resentment of his father, which in itself is rooted in a deep misunderstanding. Emily Watson also has a few touching, understated scenes as Mrs. Kendrick, Julie's mother. She has been mistreated by her husband, or at the very least undervalued and ignored. Not only does she represent the possible life Julie has before her, but she is wise and loving enough to offer her a chance at the alternative. In a film genre where most parents tell their children to get their heads out of the clouds, here is one that desperately urges her to dream bigger.

The screenplay by Gervais and Merchant is minimalist but exceptional. It contains moments of good humor, tragedy and sincerity – all in the appropriate portions. It is not without its flights of fancy, however, and one scene in which Snork takes over a concert hall reminded me of the musical number in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Unrealistic? Perhaps. Unnecessary? Completely. But there is no denying it contains a jolt of electricity, a moment of farce when a sullen screenplay needs it most. This is Gervais' first attempt at drama, and he and Merchant have made a great film. Like Woody Allen before him, Ricky Gervais contains an ability to recognize and dissect the human condition. Good comedians make us laugh, the great ones show us why we're laughing. With Cemetery Junction, Ricky Gervais shows us something about ourselves, the things we value, and what we're willing to leave behind.

Four stars.

Comparison: 12 Monkeys and Oedipus

2010-10-03T19:03:00.006-04:00

The study of a character's fate or destiny is hardly untouched territory in drama. What's more, it could be supposed that all dramatic works with linear, driving plots are, in a sense, the exploration of a character's journey to their ultimate destination. This destination, however, is presupposed by the author of a given work, and not all drama is actually concerned with the very concept of fate. Great works challenge not just their audiences, but the ideas and prejudices which those audiences hold. Sophocles' King Oedipus and Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys are such works. They are not simply an observation of fate, but of the ultimately unanswerable questions which accompany such a concept.

On the surface, these two works seemingly have very little in common. With King Oedipus, Sophocles achieved the pinnacle of Greek tragedy, drawing upon an ancient story known by any common man of his time. Though the story is of a great and wise king, it is a tragedy not on a grand scale, but is a solitary, extremely personal fall from grace. In contrast, the protagonist of 12 Monkeys is James Cole (Bruce Willis), a prisoner and essentially a slave to his captors. His story, unlike Oedipus', is of a part he must play in a worldwide tragedy – a plague which has killed ninety percent of the world's population, and driven any survivors underground. How, then, can a futuristic science fiction film compare with a timeless story of an ancient king? While their stories are at opposite ends of the spectrum, their primary theme of fate is exactly the same.

It can be safely said that throughout King Oedipus, there is not a single event which either occurs or has occurred that is not a direct result of the prophecies received by Oedipus and his father Laius. The instant King Laius receives the news that his son will murder him and marry his wife, Lauis' immediate decision is to have the child killed. Likewise, when Oedipus hears that he will kill his father and marry his mother, he flees as far away from what he thinks are his birth parents as possible. The implication of these actions is clear. Both Oedipus and his father are seemingly conflicted about the idea of prophecy. They clearly respect and fear it enough to take such warnings seriously, and yet they believe that this fate is somehow avoidable, that they can escape their very destinies.

Indeed, Oedipus' relationship with prophecies is a complex one. He accepts all of them as truth, and yet he works toward some and to avoid others. When told that an “unclean thing” must be purged from Thebes in order to stop the suffering of its people, Oedipus is more than willing to seek it out. Is it his belief that destiny is optional, and that one may pick and choose the fate one ultimately wishes to have? And yet, Oedipus does not only indulge himself in the prophecies which he wishes were true. After discovering his incestuous relationship with his mother, Oedipus accepts forthwith all that Teiresias, the blind prophet, has told him. Ultimately, by his own hand, Oedipus is blinded, just as was predicted. The question is never raised that, if Oedipus chose not to blind himself, would he have been by some other fashion?

Unlike Oedipus, Cole originally fully accepts the idea of predestination, and refuses to struggle against it. Cole, through the miracle of technology, is sent back in time by those in charge, simply referred to as “the Doctors,” to the year 1990. Unlike most films which involve the subject of time travel, such as Back to the Future or Donnie Darko, Cole has no interest or intention of saving mankind by stopping the plague, thus altering the timeline. He is there to gather information, this is his duty and he accepts it. He also accepts that there is no changing events which, in his mind, have already occurred. When he is placed in a mental institution in 1990, he is questioned about his knowledge of the future. He explains his situation and is condescendingly asked by the psychiatrists: “And, you're here to save us, is that it, Mr. Cole?” “No,” Cole responds, “How can I save you? This is the past. This already happened. No one can change that.”

It is interesting that Cole should be locked away and deemed insane for his prophecies of doom. Such a situation parallels the very nature of Oedipus' relationship to his fortune – an unwillingness to hear of an unfortunate fate. Indeed, the concept of unbelieved prophecies is one which arises very often in Greek drama, most notably with the case of Cassandra. 12 Monkeys, well aware of its Greek roots, makes reference to the predicament Cassandra so often found herself in. While giving a lecture in 1995, Doctor Kathryn Railly, a psychiatrist who will come to love and believe Cole, explains Cassandra's story to her audience. “Hence,” she says, “the agony of foreknowledge combined with the impotence to do anything about it.” Both Cole and Oedipus share such an impotence.

King Oedipus and 12 Monkeys share another similarity in that both Oedipus and Cole are, at any given time, surrounded by characters which have a different perception of the same knowledge that the protagonists have. If Teiresias, or any of the prophets for that matter, were to speak plainly to Oedipus, the identity of the man he has killed and the woman he has married would become apartment. Cole's foil is Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt), the man Cole believes to be responsible for the release of the plague. In a similar fashion to Teiresias, Jeffrey speaks in riddles and rhymes, dancing around countless issues. Were he to openly state his intentions, Cole would understand that Jeffrey is not the threat he perceives him to be, thus allowing him to see the truth. Both King Oedipus and 12 Monkeys rely on the vagueness of certain characters, and their withholding of certain key facts. It is a credit to both works that these instances of withheld information do not seem forced within the plots themselves. Teiresias not forthcoming for fear of the wrath of Oedipus, and later out of anger at the King. Jeffrey is insane, and while he occasionally makes rational criticisms of society, the ramblings he usually spouts seem like nothing more than the crazed rants of a disturbed man. It is understandable why neither character would be forthcoming with their pivotal information.

The fact that both protagonists know their fates raises the main question of the two works, that is can one change one's destiny with foreknowledge of it? The irony, of course, is that it is this very foreknowledge which causes Oedipus to fall victim to his fate. And yet, while it is true of the story of King Oedipus that the prophecy is a self-fulfilling one, the question can be asked as to whether or not Oedipus' destiny would have taken shape in some other fashion were he not to try and avoid it. Likewise, Cole's attempt to gather information about the plague, while not directly responsible for the outbreak itself, may have been the inspiration for the creation of the virus. This was not Cole's intention, but it may very well have been his destiny.

The ultimate fates of both Oedipus and Cole are simultaneously similar and extremely different. Oedipus has fallen from grace, and in agony goes forth as a blind beggar into the wilderness. He was once a man of authority and greatness and is, by the play's end, reduced to a homeless wanderer. As previously mentioned, Oedipus ultimately accepts his destiny, and no longer tries to avoid it. To the contrary, Cole begins his journey with an acceptance that the past is unchangeable, but slowly grows to believe that he is in a position to help save humanity. For much of the film, Cole's sanity is called into question, and we the audience are never quite sure if he is truly a time traveling hero, or a mentally divergent schizophrenic. Ultimately, however, we learn that he is indeed from the future and that his knowledge is accurate. Armed with this knowledge, Cole ascends to the level of would-be savior and struggles against the predestination of his own life and of all those who will die in the plague. He, like Oedipus, eventually learns that his fate cannot be changed, that the wheel of time turns on.

Both King Oedipus and 12 Monkeys come to the ultimate conclusion that destiny cannot be avoided. But how do they come to such verdicts? Oedipus' fate is clearly brought about by his own actions. The rash and irresponsible killing of Laius, and his equally hasty decision to make a public declaration banishing his murderer, lead to his ultimate downfall. Cole is gunned down in an airport in 1995, where the child that Cole once was witnesses his own murder. From his earliest moments, Cole has known his fate, he was simply not aware of it. Both endings, such as they are, speak less to the concept of destiny and more of the actions of the protagonists to insure that destiny. Cole and Oedipus both, at times knowingly and others unknowingly, make the choices which ultimately lead to their prophecies coming to fruition. And yet, they were never urged to make one choice or another, they did so of their own free will. Is their destiny, then, merely the series of reactions to the events within their lives? Are their fates predetermined because of their mentalities, and thus their actions? Or are their lives part of a larger scheme which they are merely a bit part in? Neither the play nor the film answer these questions, but do they need to? Oedipus and 12 Monkeys leave these questions unanswered. This open-endedness is a strength of both works, and not a flaw.

Overlooked Masterpieces: Mulholland Dr.

2010-09-26T16:47:00.008-04:00

More than any other film I have ever encountered, Mulholland Dr. haunts me. My memories of it feel less like those of a film I have seen than fragments of a dream. This is a film which transcends cinema as an art form and becomes something greater, something new. Some films make you think, others make you feel. Mulholland Dr. is an exercise in raw emotional reaction, one which surprises us with how much we ultimately care.

There is no plot to speak of in Mulholland Dr. Well, that’s not completely fair. There may be no plot or there may be several - take your pick. What Mulholland Dr. does have is relatability, though not in the sense that the audience can identify directly with any given character. Rather, it is relatable in its approach, in the way it is unwilling to use real world logic to solve any of its characters' problems. We have all had dreams where something completely absurd seems rational, and where the dynamics shift and realign. Mulholland Dr. might be someone’s dream or, ultimately, the fantasy of a deeply disturbed woman. Either way, in some manner or another, it makes sense to us as we watch it unfold. Like the dreamer, we don’t question that which we should, nor are we bothered as we travel from one non sequitur to another. We are adrift, and completely content to be that way.

As I have said, there is no formal plot in Mulholland Dr., but this is not to suggest that nothing happens. Things happen, so many that we cannot properly keep track. When one thinks back on the film, we remember it out of order, key pieces of information come and go in our memories. This is not a flaw in the film but a strength. One could possibly see the scenes in any number of orders and still experience a remarkable film. Each sequence works independently, and yet, strangely builds toward a whole. I will not pretend to understand what that whole may be, but it’s there in an intangible sort of way.

When Betty (Naomi Watts) comes to Los Angeles with all her bright-eyed optimism, we assume that the film is setting her up to knock her down. That the dirty, unpleasant realities of LA will soon shatter her idealized life. But that never happens, or at least I don’t think it does. Betty’s honesty and goodness are the qualities which lead her to come to the aid of Rita (Laura Elena Harring). After serendipitously escaping her attempted murder, Rita quite literally wanders in to Betty’s life, and it is only because of the kindness shown to her that the film is able to progress in the manner that it does. Betty’s a good person and, if I understand the revelation about her and Rita’s relationship correctly, she has to be. She quite literally has no other choice than to be a wonderful person.

What astounds me most about Mulholland Dr. is the fact that it was written and directed by David Lynch. Lynch has always been a director who, like Tarantino or Haneke, seems to divide people. How many people regard his work simply as “Hey, that’s Lynch, love him or hate him.” Before Mulholland Dr. I regarded David Lynch merely as the man who unleashed Blue Velvet upon an unsuspecting populace. It was a vile and cruel film, one I felt to be completely unnecessary. His other works did not elicit the same reaction, it frankly bored me. I cannot think of any other director whom I have disliked so strongly and yet who has produced as fine a masterpiece as Mulholland Dr.

The film has an ending which may be a twist, it may explain everything or it may just be yet another fragment of the same dream. I don’t know, and I frankly don’t care. Mulholland Dr. contains fascinating ideas, amazing execution, wonderful performances, eroticism, horror, and humor. I would be fascinated to watch an impatient, passive audience be confronted with this film. I remember how put off audiences were with the lack of resolution and anticlimax of No Country for Old Men. If they thought that was confusing, I’d love to see them wrap their heads around Mulholland Dr.

The Other Guys

2010-09-26T14:07:00.012-04:00

Few things are as enjoyable as being pleasantly surprised at the movies. We try and walk in to every movie with the best of hopes, but there are some films which strike us as unnecessary the first time we see the trailer. So imagine my surprise when I saw The Other Guys, an action comedy starring the sometimes bland Mark Wahlberg and the sometimes grating Will Ferrell.

Those descriptions of Wahlberg and Ferrell are not meant as a slight. Mark Wahlberg, like Will Smith, has transformed himself into a great actor over the last two decades. Similarly, Will Ferrell can be obnoxious and goofy, but when he gets the right part, as was the case in Stranger Than Fiction, his performances can border on Oscar worthy. But The Other Guys struck me as a film that was about to go all wrong. An action comedy starring these two actors seemed to lazily write itself. Will Ferrell is the comic relief and Mark Wahlberg is there to handle the badass action role. But that’s not what this movie is. If anything, Ferrell is more often than not playing the role of the straight man.

The Other Guys opens with a bit of a bait and switch. Detectives Danson (Dwayne Johnson) and Highsmith (Samuel L. Jackson) are the super cops of New York City. They exist in the world of the buddy cop movie, where Danson can be on top of a speeding car and still have time to crack wise with his partner over the walkie-talkie. “Tell me once again why I got on this roof?” Danson shouts. “I’d chalk that up to bad life choices!” Highsmith yells back, while firing a gun from the car behind him. In other movies, this is how people would talk. Explosions ensue, and Highsmith and Danson get their medals of honor - despite the fact that they caused over eleven million dollars worth of damage to the city when the suspects were only carrying an ounce of marijuana.

But the film quickly shifts from the super cops to the other guys: the cops who sit at their desks and never see any danger at all. Detective Terry Hoitz (Wahlberg) is increasingly frustrated by his desk job and extremely annoying partner, Detective Allen Gamble (Ferrell). Allen couldn’t be happier with his duties as an accountant for the NYPD, he likes the stability and the safety. But when Allen and Terry arrest Sir David Ershon (Steve Coogan) on a simple count of tax evasion, they unknowingly stumble into a massive conspiracy which places them in the middle of their own action movie.

The Other Guys is an exceptionally funny movie. The way Wahlberg and Ferrell play off each other is comedy of a high order - they are very much a duo I’d like to see reunited in future films. But more than the simple interplay and good comic timing between the two leads, it’s extremely refreshing to see an action film where one of its main characters does not want to be involved in any action. Terry lives for the excitement of being a super cop, but Allen wants to get back to his desk where he knows nothing can go wrong. Allen shows Terry what he has to lose in a very funny scene in which he introduces Terry to his wife, Dr. Sheila Gamble (Eva Mendes). Wahlberg is dumbfounded, and unable to fathom why she would be with him. “Seriously, who is this?”

Credit must go to director Adam McKay, Ferrell’s frequent collaborator. With Anchorman and Talladega Nights, and now The Other Guys, McKay shows his understanding of Ferrell’s abilities, and he knows how to use his talent best. There is no bathroom humor or over the top antics of other, lesser Will Ferrell comedies. Rather, The Other Guys has him say and do funny things, showcasing his impeccable comic timing.

Another great element of the film is the supporting performances. The aforementioned Eva Mendes is very funny as Ferrell’s loving, exceptionally hot wife. Even funnier is Michael Keaton as obligatory police captain who has to reprimand Terry and Allen. The refreshing catch in The Other Guys: the Captain doesn’t want to reprimand them. He’s a nice guy who genuinely likes the detectives. He also is forced to moonlight as a manager at Bed Bath and Beyond in order to put his bisexual son through art school.

What I enjoyed most about The Other Guys was the fact that it was more patient and thoughtful with its conspiracy plot than most actual action movies. It creates a situation and lets it unfold naturally, only then culminating in an extremely entertaining and well crafted action sequence. Even these scenes are funny, however, thanks to real-time narration by Ferrell’s character: “Did you see that truck? It spun around and then landed on its side. I can’t believe it just did that!” Neither can we.

Three and a half stars.

Piranha 3D

2010-09-26T13:34:00.013-04:00

Piranha 3D begins with an homage to Jaws and ends with a reference to Deep Blue Sea. In other words, it’s a movie that knows it’s a movie, and it would very much like for you to know that it knows. The film is intended as a self-referential romp through the “monster in the water” genre, but winds up being little more than another monotonous chapter in the same stilted book.

To its credit, Piranha 3D does not claim to have a premise of its own. Its plot is a shameless retread of that of Jaws, the original stay-out-of-the-water movie. As the film begins, the small town of Lake Victoria, AZ is rocked by an earthquake. Deep under the surface of the town’s eponymous lake, the quake creates an opening in an enormous chasm. This underwater cave just so happens to be home to thousands of prehistoric piranhas, which have been lying dormant for centuries. The earthquake jostles them out of hibernation, and they wake up hungry.

Unfortunately for Lake Victoria, but quite fortunately for fans of gore the world over, the unleashing of these ravenous CGI monsters coincides with Spring Break. Lake Victoria, it would seem, is the prime destination for horny coeds looking to let loose for a week of debauchery. Sheriff Julie Forester (Elisabeth Shue) begins managing her worst week of the year expecting the usual rowdy teens and public fornication, but quickly comes to realize that there’s a bigger threat in the lake than some drunk teenagers. Anyone can see what is bound to happen in this scenario. It’s movie math, as simple as naked teens plus flesh-eating fish equals a ninety minute horror film.

Piranha 3D tries really hard to show that it has a funny bone - even if it is being gnawed on by man-eating fish. It introduces some standard movie scientists played by the goofy Christopher Lloyd and the ever-dry Adam Scott. It specializes in lots of unnecessary, but not unappreciated, senseless nudity. And for a while it doesn’t even take its special effects too seriously. I smiled when I saw some rubber arms and legs go flying as the cheesy looking piranhas munched on their earliest victims.

But the film fails to properly balance its dark humor and horror. More often than not, Piranha 3D strays between intentionally over-the-top and a more serious tone. Part of the problem is the casting of Elisabeth Shue, who can do comedy well (as we’ve seen in Hamlet 2) but here is meant to play it straight while outrageously violent things happen around her and almost no one notices. Compare Shue’s down-to-earth character with that of Derrick Jones (Jerry O’Connell), the sleezeball Girls Gone Wild producer who doesn’t care when the piranhas eat his legs, so long as they leave his penis intact. These performances aren’t on the same plane of existence, and therefore should not be in the same movie.

I cannot deny that I enjoyed much of the first half of Piranha 3D. I smiled at the camp factor, laughed at some of the tasteless humor, and even enjoyed some of the tried and true clichés. But a strange shift in tone occurs in the final half hour of the film, when the piranhas finally make their way toward the thousands of Spring Breakers just begging to be eaten. After the first person is eaten and panic ensues, I found that I wasn’t watching a campy horror-comedy anymore.

Suddenly and inexplicably the film substitutes its bad special effects for state of the art ones. The violence in the film was suddenly gruesomely realistic. As I watched people clawing over each other, covered in blood, screaming and gasping for air, I was flooded with images of real life disasters and tragedies. The panic was too real and upsetting for me to find it to be escapist humor. Pain and suffering are not things to be casually placed on display for our amusement. Call me crazy, but I don’t find anything particularly funny about people getting hurt.

Two stars.

The Balcony Is Closed

2010-08-31T21:13:00.016-04:00

After 35 years on the air, At the Movies has left us. It had, in a sense, been gone for quite a while. Many people stopped watching the show after the passing of the great Gene Siskel. To them, Siskel & Ebert, with their trademark thumbs, were as much a cinematic staple as the Hollywood sign or Sunset Blvd. And while the show continued for six more years under the supervision of the incomparable Roger Ebert and his new co-host, the thoughtful and honest Richard Roeper, there was little denying that the glory days of At the Movies had passed.

Ebert & Roeper had a connection, but it never matched the chemistry that existed between Gene and Roger. How could it? That was a spark which burned so brightly, one which was the result of years of bitter rivalry turned into mutual respect and, later, friendship. Their relationship was difficult to grasp, and to the outsider might seem contentious. They would be laughing one minute and in a bitter argument the next. Once, on the Tom Snyder Show, Gene remarked that he and Roger had a relationship that could be seen as similar to that of two brothers. The problem, he said, was that they both thought they were the older brother.

People loved their arguments, and I include myself in that group. My earliest memories of Siskel & Ebert are not of thoughtful, well-reasoned reflection about film, but of the Gene and Roger bitterly disagreeing over this summer blockbuster or that romantic comedy. They actually disagreed quite rarely – about 15% of the time – but the arguments were memorable. This left an impression on me. Whether I was aware of it or not, it wasn't so much the fighting I enjoyed, but the passion. The idea that art – any art – could elicit such a strong emotional response captivated me. This realization has, at the risk of sounding hyperbolic, shaped my very concept of what art should be. All forms of art, cinema chiefly among them, have the ability to convey ideas, to garner strong emotional reactions, and to create heated discussions. The beauty of art does not end the instant we leave a museum or empty out of a theater. Art lingers, and great art lasts within us, in some manner or another, forever.

I am indebted to At the Movies in ways I cannot properly describe. I can declare, with positively no reservations, that Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert are responsible for my love of movies. Their program opened a door to me, one which would have likely remained closed otherwise. They used their show as a platform for all forms of cinema. They championed the independent film, the foreign film, the documentary. I remember that I had never even heard of Hoop Dreams until both men named it the best film of 1994. I was only seven, but for some reason the title stood out to me. Years later, when I finally had the chance to see it, it was because of this memory that I seized the opportunity.

My memory is full of standout moments like that. I remember, albeit vaguely, the episode where Gene and Roger were in black and white – an episode devoted to the condemnation of colorization. It was in that episode that Siskel made a shocking declaration, one which I have since thought over and chosen to echo (or steal, if you prefer): “If given the choice between having to see every film for the rest of my life in color or in black and white, I'd choose black and white every time.” It's a bold statement, but after reflecting upon it, I realized the truth in it. There are countless films which I cannot imagine ever seeing in color. There are none that I cannot imagine seeing in black and white.

Health complications forced Roger to leave the show in 2005, although his name remained attached while a string of capable, often times interesting guest critics filled in. It was somewhat surreal to see Fred Willard reviewing a serious picture like All the King's Men, but he had a unique perspective on it, one which I would have never thought of. Then came the dark times. Disney forced Richard Roeper out, and took the show in what they infamously called a “new direction.” The new, glitzy At the Movies premiered helmed by Ben Mankiewicz, who did his best to review the films with some dignity, and Ben Lyons, who couldn't have cared or known less about the man whose chair he was sitting in.

For the last year, the show was returned to its rightfully understated, dignified approach. It was hosted by A.O. Scott, a critic whom I have agreed with very infrequently, but respect a great deal. His co-host was Michael Phillips, a man who, in the same show, dismissed future Best Picture nominee Babel as meandering, and praised James Gunn's schlock sci-fi horror film Slither. Such conviction demands admiration.

And now, with the show gone, I turn to my memories. The fact is, as much as I enjoyed the insights of Scott, Phillips and Roeper, it will always be Siskel & Ebert to me. In a world before the internet, where criticism was about elitism and exclusivity, Gene and Roger made it mainstream. They received accusations that they were dumbing down the act of criticism – and to an extent they were. But the ideas they promoted certainly made up for any simplification they may have had to make. Two people, of similar background, belief and intellect walk into a movie theater. They sit, watch the same movie, but have two completely different experiences. At the Movies taught me that was a possibility, and Gene and Roger taught me that it was okay.

Gene Siskel had an oft repeated question that he returned to over the years: “What do you know for sure?” Well, I know that I wouldn't have the passion I have without the influence of At the Movies. I know I would be a lesser person for want of all of the great cinematic experiences I would have never been exposed to without Gene and Roger. I know that the ability to respectfully disagree with someone has hopefully made me a better, more understanding person. And I know that, if it weren't for my stumbling upon an episode where Roger Ebert was tearing apart Saw, I would have thought I was the only one who could ever hate a movie that everybody else seemed to love.

Lastly, I know everything I know about criticism because of Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. I know that it's important, but not to take myself too seriously. Once, during an argument about Spielberg's War of the Worlds, Richard Roeper forced Roger to explain his negative vote. Roger had given his support to a couple of mediocre summer comedies – The Honeymooners and The Longest Yard. Richard demanded to know how Roger could tell people to spend their hard earned money on those films over a Spielberg blockbuster. Roger's response has always stayed with me, echoing in my mind with each review I write:

“How many times do I have to explain to you that ratings are relative and not absolute? I'm saying that if E.T. and Close Encounters get four stars, this gets two stars. People should be smart enough to listen to what we say instead of looking at the dumb thumbs or the dumb stars. There are gradations and contexts. I'm giving this film thumbs down, and if you want to read my review or listen to what I said here, you should be able to understand why.”

TiMER

2010-08-31T19:53:00.009-04:00

If you could know the exact day of your death, would you want to? It's a rather morbid and silly hypothetical, but people pose it frequently. This likely has less to do with the actual concept than it does with the more complicated questions that follow. Would you want to know the exact minute, or how it was going to happen? Would knowing relieve you of a heavy burden of worry, or would it deflate your life of any spontaneity or excitement? The ultimate question, of course: could you use this knowledge to avoid your fate?

TiMER is a film which takes this same premise and, subsequently, the same questions, and applies them instead to love. If you could know the day you were to meet your soul mate, would you want to? In the world of TiMER, it is not only possible, it is commonplace. Thanks to a handy little device, whose scientific properties the film never fully explains, any man or woman can literally have a countdown to true love. The TiMER, as it's called, is installed in a person's wrist and goes off like an alarm clock on the day its owner is destined to meet their One. This development, as you might imagine, has drastically shifted the dynamic of the dating scene. No longer do people waste their time on doomed relationships. Rather, people simply sit and wait patiently for their TiMER to go off, and for happiness to find them.

There is, of course, a catch. TiMERs come in pairs, and until your One True Love gets one, yours doesn't start counting down. Such is the unfortunate case for Oona (Emma Caulfield), whose TiMER has stayed blank for all of her adult life. As she approaches her thirtieth birthday, Oona must face the very real possibility that if her One doesn't have a TiMER by now, he may not ever be getting one. And then there's the other unspoken, more somber possibility: there may not be anyone out there waiting for Oona. Desperate to find her soul mate, Oona sets out on a mission to meet a man without a TiMER and convince him to get one. Her plan takes a detour, however, when she finds herself amused by her checkout boy Mikey (John Patrick Amedori) and his very pathetic pick up lines. Mikey's got a TiMER of his own, and it expires in two months. Despite, or maybe because of, the inevitable failure of this relationship, Oona decides to enter into a casual affair with Mikey. Naturally, things don't stay casual for very long.

The premise of TiMER is uncommonly original and engaging. It may, at its core, be little more than a romantic comedy, but the concept of fate and predestination is a theme which is inherently fascinating to us all. Since ancient Greek theater, destiny has been the subject of countless works of high art. Is Oona and Mikey's love affair doomed from the start? Can they overcome an obstacle as grand as fate? If not, why not? TiMER is fascinating in the questions it raises. It shows relationships as they blossom, and as they whither. On some level, Oona and Mickey make sense. She is somewhat uptight and straight laced, and he has a casual nature which borders on immaturity. They complement each other – he relaxes her and she motivates him. And yet, as Oona lists off to her mother, there are countless reasons why the relationship seems ill fated. You don't need a magic clock to tell you this couple might be running out of time.

There are several nice touches within TiMER, not the least of which involves Oona's 14 year old brother Jesse (Hayden McFarland). Jesse has his TiMER implanted only to find that he will meet his true love in three days. When his future wife turns out to be Soledad (Bianca Brockl), the daughter of his family's maid, the forced pleasantries between the families are brilliantly awkward. What's more, the film manages to create a logical scenario in our minds as to how Jesse and Soledad might have, in a world without the TiMER, met and fallen secretly in love against their families wishes. This, again, raises the question as to whether or not their love is preordained, or if the TiMER, like the fate of Oedipus, is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

TiMER has the benefit of a strong premise supported by equally strong performances. Most notable is Michelle Borth as Oona's lovelorn step-sister, Steph. Her TiMER won't go off for another 20 years, so she figures she may as while have some fun while she's waiting. Oona's well-to-do, unintentionally offensive family scores some very big laughs with an unfortunate - but well meaning - Mexican themed Thanksgiving dinner. Similarly funny is the interplay between Emma Caulfield and John Patrick Amedori. They have very good chemistry, and a relationship with some moments of surprisingly understated sweetness.

The film was written and directed by Jac Schaeffer, in what is her exceptionally promising feature debut. The screenplay balances the quirkiness of a bizarre world where love comes with a guarantee and the very real and honest complications that occur in any relationship. TiMER, unlike countless other romantic comedies, is smart enough to understand that people are not puzzle pieces specially designed to fit together. Even when pairs make sense, even when someone is your One, there are eccentricities, peculiar details that might not perfectly fit in the relationship as a whole. Even more than relationships, the film has some very thought provoking, clever observations about fate. Some people march toward their destinies, some are dragged to it. Either way, the arrival of their fates may be equally satisfying.

Three and a half stars.

Inception

2010-08-21T20:24:00.009-04:00

Can a solitary action sequence raise an entire film into a higher level of cinema? I have no intention of attempting to answer that question, but after seeing Christopher Nolan's much anticipated Inception, I am forced to ask it.

In his previous work, Nolan has shown himself to be one of the very best directors of our time, possessing a firm understanding of storytelling, and an even higher aptitude in executing his ideas. This, after all, is the man who made Memento, a film that works both backwards and forwards. The plot of that film was, in its own way, just as circular and elaborate as Inception, unraveling a complex mystery while managing to avoiding abandoning its audience within its maze. But if Memento is an example of how well Nolan the writer can aid Nolan the director, Inception is quite the opposite.

The film begins with the image of waves crashing on a beach, while Hans Zimmer's haunting score immediately sets an ominous tone. Nolan is signaling to us that he is about to set us adrift in an ocean of uncertainty, one in which we may easily become lost. We are quickly brought to a more conventional setting, and we meet Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). They sit across a table from Mr. Saito (Ken Watanabe), and inform him that there are thieves who could, at any moment, gain entry into his dreams and steal his most valuable secrets. Cobb tells Saito that he can can help train him to guard against these so-called “extractors,” because Cobb is the best there is.

What Saito doesn't know, but soon becomes aware of, is that Cobb isn't really there to train him. Actually, he isn't really there at all. Saito is dreaming, and Cobb is working for a rival corporation in an attempt to steal Saito's secrets. Once the con begins to unravel, and Saito becomes aware of the dreamworld around him, it starts to collapse, leaving Cobb and Arthur without their information and with a powerful new enemy. After Saito tracks the extractors down, he gives them an offer they can't refuse: be turned over to forces that want them killed, or help Saito with a job of his own. Cobb goes to work assembling his team, which includes the new addition of Ariadne (Ellen Page) as a dream architect.

Cobb, in what Arthur feels to be a complete disregard for the safety of the group, takes the job with some strings attached. If Cobb succeeds, he can return home to the United States to his children, where he is currently wanted for murder. The catch, and of course there is one, is that Saito does not want information extracted from anyone's mind. Rather, he wants inception: for an idea to be so seamlessly planted within the subconscious of a subject that he will think the concept is not of foreign origin. In simpler terms, Cobb has to make an heir to a massive corporation (Cillian Murphy) have a sudden desire to dissolve his father's empire.

This is the premise of Inception, in all its complexity and brilliance. It cannot be denied that the best part of the film is the idea behind it. The fact that it is complicated, however, does not mean it is inherently difficult to understand. Within the first ten minutes of the film, we understand the basic rules of the universe, some of which are explained in more depth later in the movie. What Nolan might have realized is that what is almost more enjoyable is the act of wondering, of trying to comprehend what is happening, why and how. But instead of allowing the mysterious aura of the first scene to continue on for the film's entirety, Nolan opts instead for explanation, sometimes to a tedious degree. Ellen Page suffers through the most thankless role of her young but distinguished career, serving no other purpose than to be the newbie. For this reason, DiCaprio must explain the process and rules by which extractors enter and manipulate the dreamscape.

These explanations, however, are not uninteresting. Nolan is a good writer, and the long stretches of dialogue, while sure to seem unending to some, are engaging in their own right. The first half of Inception shows a refreshing patience, one which Nolan has used in his two previous Batman pictures. This restraint, however, is fleeting, and Inception eventually becomes little more than an elaborate con game wrapped within a pseudo-psychological fantasy world. In terms of visual spectacle, there is surprisingly little on display within the dreamworld of Inception. There have been criticisms of Nolan's take on dreams as being too linear and literal. While this is understandable, we have seen dreams captured well in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and elsewhere. We should grant Nolan his vision. What is fair to criticize, however, is the fact that that which was Nolan's vision is particularly uninteresting, save for one spectacular action sequence in which Arthur must fight (for ingenious reasons) in zero gravity.

The film is uneven and, at times, poorly paced. Its first hour, while engaging and involving, is quickly followed by an hour and a half of sloppily filmed action sequences, and overly drawn out scenes between Cobb and his long lost wife. Despite a good performance from the ever dependable DiCaprio, Cobb is an unlikable character for countless reasons. His desire to see his children is supposedly his primary motivation, and yet he himself seems unable to grasp this. By the end of the film, when Cobb makes what is supposed to be a heartbreakingly difficult decision, I found myself impatiently tapping my foot, waiting for the plot to catch up with me. Add to this another bad performance by Marion Cotillard, and an ending which, while justified in its ideas, is incompetent in its execution, and what we are left with is Nolan's weakest film.

Richard Roeper, a critic for whom I have a great deal of respect, has called the film a masterpiece, as many others have. He believes that, if for no other reason, Inception is a great film because it leaves people talking, having long conversations about what they have just witnessed. While it is true that the film leaves much to discuss, I have had equally long conversations about Avatar, a movie which I found completely bankrupt of ideas – but never mind, I understand his point. Inception is indeed complicated, this cannot be denied. However, there is a fine line between being complex and convoluted, and Nolan often strays from one side to the other. And yet, because of its strong premise, engaging first hour, and generally powerful performances, the film is certainly worth seeing – flaws and all. Most people have declared it to be a masterpiece, others have dismissed it as meaningless and trite. Alas, I must be one of those boring critics, telling you to see it, but beware of the hype monster.

Three stars.

Overlooked Masterpieces: Visioneers

2010-08-21T18:28:00.018-04:00

George stands outside of his son's room and tries to put on his best fatherly voice: “Howard? It's your father.” There is no response. “I brought some chicken, Howard. It's delicious.” Visioneers is a startlingly powerful film. One which has the audacity to pose simple yet disturbingly honest questions. Why did George bring home fried chicken? Why is he so sure that it will be delicious?

George (Zach Galifianakis) is an employee of the Jeffers Corporation, the largest business in the history of the world. He works as a “visioneer” on Level Three, and while it is unclear as to what his job entails, what is clear is the fact that George's primary purpose is to keep his head down, stay out of the way, and do as he's told. The Jeffers Corporation drives home its mission statement whenever possible: “What's good for the company is good for everybody.” They regard their employees as interchangeable drones, yet speak of the company as if it were a family. They arbitrarily assign nonsensical labels to all members of the corporation, forcing grown men and women to vie for absurd titles like “goob” or “tunt.” They blare an announcement every minute, reminding workers how many “minutes of productivity” remain until the weekend, and then wonder why their employees are exploding.

Set in the not-too-distant future, or what could more aptly be described as a not-too-alternate reality, Visioneers is an examination of one man's struggle against the structure of the world around him. What makes it all the more tragic is the fact that this man does not want to struggle against anything. George isn't interested in rebelling or rocking the boat, he is just trying desperately not to explode. He fears he might be a prime candidate for such a fate, since he has suddenly become prone to dreaming and fantasizing. This, the news informs him, is one of the first signs that you will eventually explode.

What frustrates George the most is that, on the surface, nothing should be wrong. He has a steady job at the world's most prestigious – indeed, it's only – company. He has a large house, filled will all the nice things that the advertisements have informed him he should want. Most of all, he has a dutiful wife, Michelle (Judy Greer), who waits at home for him every day, watching her daytime television shows and being told what products will make her happy. When Michelle's Oprah-esque idol, Sahra (Missi Pyle), tells her viewers to purchase “1001 Things to be Happy About,” Michelle informs George the moment he walks in the door: “There's a book I need to buy.”

Happiness as a commodity is one of the central themes of Visioneers. In this absurdist portrait of stifled, repressive American life, society has devolved into its most basic elements. The cynical advertising techniques we are all so accustomed to have been stripped down to the essentials. There is no longer a subtle association between beer and attractive women and so forth. Rather, products simply promise what they cannot deliver: fulfillment. On his drive home from work, George hears a jingle on the radio.

If you want to be happy, and have lots of friends,

eat fried chicken, fried chicken makes a difference.

If you want to have fun and not blow to pieces,

eat fried chicken, fried chicken is delicious.

Visioneers is a great film for the same reasons that movies like Office Space are so fondly remembered. Films that take on the topic of the soul crushing, mindless nature of office life strike a chord with audiences who can relate all too well. But where Office Space was merely an amusing observation of caricatures, Visioneers is something much more profound and deeply moving. The unsettling truth behind the film is that George's ultimate demise is not what he fears most. Rather, because his dreams are strange and out of the ordinary, he fears them more than his inevitable explosion. In the world of the Jeffers Corporation, the uncommon and unique are deemed unwanted and dangerous. It is better to be dead than different.

The film, written and directed by Brandon and Jared Drake, respectively, is a passionate plea for resistance, a cry out for emotion. Be it anger or sorrow, they want to encourage you to feel something – anything. The beautiful, minimalist cinematography of Dino Parks serves not only to mask what was surely a small budget, but to emphasize a world in which appearances are simultaneously everything and nothing. In Visioneers, a home is meant to be beautiful, so that is all it should be. An office is meant for productivity, therefore aesthetics are irrelevant.

But the true strength of the film lies within its performances, namely that of Zach Galifianakis. In his previous work, Galifianakis has hinted at something brooding and unsettling just beneath the surface. Here, in what is essentially devoid of dialogue, Galifiankis embodies the desperate, unhappy everyman. It is a credit to his gifts as a comic actor, and indeed as an actor in general, that upon first viewing one does not realize how rarely Galifiankis actually speaks. His muted, passive existence is capture perfectly, and plays beautifully against the forced chirpiness of Judy Greer's Michelle. Constantly searching for something new to fill the void inside of her, Michelle fears George's death as much as he does, though for different reasons. Toward the end of the film, Greer has a monologue that will leave any viewer wondering why she is so often cast as a supporting actress rather than the lead.

More than anything, behind the brilliant staging and painful examination of harsh truths, Visioneers is a darkly funny film. It sneaks up on its audience, presenting itself first as a farce and later as a dark character study. Its opening sequence, reminiscent of a similar scene in Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love, is intentionally aggravating, crafted to put off any lazy audience member who intends on being a passive viewer. After seeing the film for the first time, with no frame of reference as to what it was even about, I thought it best to take my time before reviewing it. After several viewings, I still struggled to convey its beauty to those who hadn't seen it. The best I could come up with was this: It isn't just a great film, but an important one.

Predators

2010-07-25T21:38:00.011-04:00

The opening of Predators is about as good as an action movie can get. Before the film burdens us with pesky little details like plot or motivations or, hell, even character names, we find our heroes hurtling through the air, seemingly having just been dropped out of an airplane while unconscious. As they wake up one by one, they suddenly realize their predicament, and grasp for rip chords they aren’t even sure exist. Now that’s a pre-title sequence for you.

The first person to land completely intact is Royce (Adrian Brody). He drops into a jungle landscape with a thud, a headache, and a machine gun. It isn’t too long until plenty of other armed amnesiacs come tumbling through the tropical canopy, and they all gather together to figure out where they are and how they got there. It doesn’t take long for the gang to figure out that they’re all killers. Professional hit men, convicted murderers, government assassins - it’s a diverse group alright. In fact, the only one who doesn’t have a violent past is Edwin (Topher Grace), a doctor who is so unskilled at warfare that he gets his parachute caught in a tree. The ranks of these mysterious killers are rounded out by an ethnically diverse cast of relatively unknown actors, with the exception of Chucillo (Danny Trejo) and Isabelle (Alice Braga).

The squad of killers wanders through the jungle and gets to wondrin’ where they are exactly, and why they have been chosen for what they think might be some government’s experiment. In a particularly well executed action sequence, they stumble upon a series of booby traps, which they just barely manage to survive. After the perfunctory introductions and some inevitable infighting, the group is attacked by a pack of giant creatures, which look like a cross between wild boars and antelopes. Soon thereafter, the real bad guys show up, and begin to stalk their prey. Royce is the first to figure out the situation the gang finds themselves in: “This place is a game preserve. And we’re the game.” He’s got that right, and pretty soon the Predators start the hunt.

Predators, by the very nature of its premise, is a frivolous film. The idea that a group of viscious aliens are hunting a dozen or so humans for sport doesn’t leave much room for character development. As a sequel/reboot of 1987’s Predator, the movie is loyal to its predecessor’s format and tone. For an action film it is surprisingly patient, and the characters are believable as trained killers. They make smart decisions, and I appreciated the fact that there wasn’t too much time spent on stupid squabbles or bickering. If you were on a foreign planet being hunted by giant aliens with dreadlocks, you’d want everyone to stick together, wouldn’t you? Brody is also very good as Royce, who figures out what’s happening and why before anyone else. Brody has a lot of exposition, which mostly serves only to explain elements of the plot which he couldn’t possibly know. What should be appreciated, however, is his reason behind his determinations. Isabelle asks him how he could possibly know the motives or strategies of the Predators, and his reply is sort of chilling: “Because, it’s what I would do.”

The first hour of Predators is exceptionally strong. It contains a few exciting action sequences sprinkled throughout some well paced scenes of tension. The performances are surprisingly understated, which helps ground the film in some semblance of reality. When the members of the group started getting picked off one by one, it was a pleasant surprise to see that there was an unpredictable nature as to who died when. Some of the bigger names get snuffed sooner than you might think. Brody shows, as he did in King Kong, that he is surprisingly well suited for the action hero role. Braga, though somewhat monotone, is intimidating as the lone female of the group, and Topher Grace provides welcome comic relief at the appropriate times.

Unfortunately, Predators slides downhill at a pretty quick pace. All of the patience and suspense which is carefully built up in the first half is abandoned by the film’s midway point. It loses itself in murky, poorly defined, uninteresting action sequences. And, despite the inspired addition of Lawrence Fishburne as the Robinson Crusoe of the Predator home world, his character fails to provide the additional energy the film requires of him in the final act. If only the film could have stuck to its format, and not pandered to the action crowd with so many bullet casings and things that go boom.

I suppose my reaction to Predators is somewhat unfair. Certainly, it will satisfy any fan of the franchise, and is by far the best sequel to the original film. I didn’t expect much from this movie. Had it been a dumb, blow ‘em up romp through the jungle the whole way through, I may have enjoyed it on that mindless popcorn level of entertainment. However, Predators starts off as a thoughtful movie and stays that way for such a long stretch of time, that when it does devolve into fireballs and explosions, the results are rather yawn inducing. I’m not sure if my feelings about the film make complete sense. It does, after all, satisfy the needs of its intended audience. Imagine, however, you were to watch the first half of Jaws and then the last half of Shoot ‘Em Up, and you might understand where my disappointment stems from.

Two and a half stars.

Despicable Me

2010-07-25T19:47:00.011-04:00

There is, in all actuality, nothing particularly despicable about Gru. When we first meet him, we watch as he engages in some borderline evil activities. He pops a child’s balloon animal and watches him bawl. He uses a freeze ray on a group of customers in a coffee shop just to avoid waiting in line. He takes up multiple lanes on the highway with his tank-like car, which is roughly ten times the size of an SUV. But these somewhat unpleasant actions simply make Gru more of a jerk than an evil super villain. After all, someone who employs an army of cute and cuddly little minions can’t be all bad.

Despicable Me is a film with a nice enough premise that gets off to a very rough start. We are introduced to the quasi-evil Gru (Steve Carell) and his reputation as a second-rate evil mastermind. It isn’t that he’s not trying hard enough to pull off dastardly deeds - he thinks of nothing else. But Gru’s high concept schemes are consistently tempered by his own bumbling incompetence. How else can he account for the fact that he has managed to steal the Statue of Liberty - but only the smaller replica from Las Vegas? But Gru has a plan that’s sure to put him on top of the FBI’s most wanted list. An incomparable act of evil which will earn respect from his fellow villains and, more importantly, his overbearing mother (Julie Andrews).

Of course, all does not go as planned. Gru’s sidekick, Dr. Nefario (Russell Brand) informs him that the Pyramids have been stolen by a new, even more outrageous super villain named Vector (Jason Siegel). In an act of desperation, Gru seeks to steal the shrink ray technology from Vector in order to one-up him by stealing the moon. In an attempt to gain access to Vector’s heavily guarded fortress, Gru adopts three cute little orphan girls and has them go to Vector’s door under the guise of selling cookies. The plan works well enough, but Gru is now stuck as the legal guardian of Margo, Edith and Agnes. And, wouldn’t you know it, Gru eventually grows fond of the little scamps.

The idea behind Despicable Me is fine, I suppose, and I certainly appreciate the fact that we’re finally getting a kids movie that focuses on the villain rather than the hero. Villains, as a general rule, are always more interesting as characters than their do-gooder counterparts. The motivations of Lex Luthor, for instance, are far more intriguing than those of Superman. The problem is that Gru is barely a villain. Sure, he does bad stuff - sorta - but he lacks a real mean streak. The film decides to play it safe with Gru, and makes him a misunderstood buffoon rather than give him a real dark side. That having been said, the scenes of Gru’s childhood, and the constant berating of his dream-crushing mother, do work well and give us a good enough understand of Gru’s thought process.

For the first twenty minutes or so, Despicable Me stutters and stops abruptly in several poorly conceived, awkwardly unfunny scenes. One particularly terrible sequence belongs to, of all people, the wonderful Kristin Wiig, who voices the uncaring, manipulative mistress of the orphanage. Her scenes contain some very thoughtless, glib jokes about child abuse which I found thoroughly inappropriate. The orphanage can either be a prison or a joke, but not both, and the movie tries to have it both ways. But a funny thing happens on the way toward mediocrity. After Gru spends some time running around and participating in some badly executed action sequences, the movie develops a real sense of heart. The development of Gru’s relationship with the kids, while predictable, is endearing on a superficial level.

The voice acting in Despicable Me raises the film above its hit-and-miss screenplay. I found it refreshing that, even in a high budget film loaded with stars, all of the actors chose to deliver unique performances that didn’t at all sound like themselves. Carell and Andrews have fun with their bad Russian accents, and Siegel revels in his inner nerd as Vector. The best performances of the film actually belong to the three little girls, played by Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier, and Elsie Fisher. The orphans may be a bit aggressively cute at times, what with their big doe eyes and all. But their relatively well developed characters aid in making the film seem plausible enough. And, if you can shed a few layers of adult cynicism, their being with Gru actually makes sense in a bizarre sort of way.

You certainly won’t find anything new in Despicable Me, but there are enough good laughs and a strong enough second half to make the film stand out from the disappointing animated movies we’ve been bludgeoned with this summer. I must, however, submit a word of warning to all parents who prepare to take their children to see this film. At the screening I attended, plenty of children loved Gru’s goofy yellow minions. Whenever they were on screen, their antics got big laughs out of the kids. However, there is far too much of them in this film, and the silly gibberish that they constantly spew only serves to make them more unlikable. Parents should be prepared to find them very annoying.

Three stars.

Peacock

2010-07-06T22:41:00.024-04:00

A young housewife goes about her morning routine. Though she is rather plain, she is graceful and elegant. She reads the morning paper, prepares breakfast, hangs clothes on the line in the backyard. When her chores are finished, she goes upstairs, removes her makeup, and slips out of her dress. She changes into a suit which has been neatly laid out on the bed. He fixes his tie and leaves for work.

His name is John Skillpa (Cillian Murphy), a bank clerk in the town of Peacock, Nebraska. It’s 1950, and John leads a quiet, invisible existence. Since the death of his abusive mother, John has lived alone in their empty house. His life consists of routine; riding his bike to and from work, buying his groceries at the local store. The people of Peacock smile politely for John, as they would for anyone. His boss (Bill Pullman) is demanding but does his best to be kind to poor John who, after all, is a bit off. He struggles and stammers through his conversations, always avoiding eye contact. While everyone can sense something is different about John, nobody could guess his secrets. Nobody could begin to imagine his fragmented existence, because the very concept is beyond their contemplation.

Despite the fact that John lives by himself, he does not live alone. The woman that he becomes every morning, Emma, is not in his life by his own choosing. John does not control Emma or her desires. In fact, he shares very little in common with her, and would prefer not to deal with her at all. Her existence, while a nuisance to John, has its benefits. He always finds his laundry done, the dishes washed, and a pot roast waiting in the refrigerator when he comes home. Emma takes care of John in the ways he can’t manage to take care of himself. She fills the void his mother has left, but like his mother contains a controlling, vengeful streak. John is aware of this, to the point that he has secrets that even Emma doesn’t know. Like how he always buys a candy bar for himself when he does the shopping. Or how he has thousands of dollars stashed away in a safety deposit box.

John and Emma have their lives drastically altered when a train comes off its rails and crashes through the backyard fence. Emma, who was hanging her laundry like always, is knocked unconscious. When she comes to, she finds the yard destroyed and, worse still, herself surrounded by several citizens of Peacock. John’s neighbors huddle around Emma and ask her if she is hurt. She rises to her feet and tries to compose herself. A woman politely asks Emma how she knows John. As she rushes inside, Emma makes the statement which will ultimately cause their world to unravel: “I live here.” From this moment on, the good people of Peacock want to meet John’s new “wife,” and even larger forces pressure John and Emma to make a public appearance.

Peacock is a haunting film. It is, without a doubt, a masterful use of the psychological thriller genre, to the point that one could declare Peacock to be a reinvention of it. The film brilliantly arranges itself in a such a way that the protagonist and antagonist are one and the same. More astounding still is the fact that while John and Emma inhabit the same body, they are completely separate in mind. What follows is a chess game between the two, where the outcome is not only the fate of the money, but John’s very existence as a human being.

The supporting performances lend a weight to Peacock that aids in fleshing out the town around John. Susan Sarandon is warm and welcoming as Fanny Crill, who runs the local women’s shelter in Peacock. Fanny takes a liking to Emma, who holds firm in the face of John’s will. Peacock, Fanny asserts, could use more women like Emma. A similarly strong performance belongs to the always dependable Ellen Page. Page plays Maggie, a prostitute and single mother who has a secret of her own, and who shares a disturbing link to John’s past. Page’s Maggie is as lonely as John, though for significantly different reasons. But also like John, her alienation is the result of the people around her, and their inability to properly understand her situation.

But the crux of the film, the element which either causes it to be brilliant or ludicrous, is the performance by Cillian Murphy. While he has been a steady, sometimes manic force in several films, here Murphy shows himself to be an elite actor. He has the ability to hit all the right notes, aggressively loud one moment and somberly soft the next. The entire premise of the film is dependent upon Murphy’s ability to be convincing as two characters, to the point that certain citizens of Peacock can speak with Emma and then with John and remain unaware that they are talking to the same person. Not only does Murphy convince the characters around him, but the audience as well. The characters of both John and Emma are so well developed that I began to view them separately, and their mind games became all the more engaging. It could be argued that Murphy deserves two separate Oscars for this film, because he has certainly delivered two immensely powerful, nuanced performances.

Not only is Peacock a sharp psychological examination of a deeply wounded and disturbed man, but of the town around him. The town that has allowed him to become this way. The people in Peacock are not monsters, but they are certainly not the good Christian neighbors they suppose themselves to be. No one in town desires to reach out to John in more than a superficial way. When Tom (Josh Lucas), the town sheriff, finds John weeping by the lake, terrified to go home for fear of what Emma might do to him, he does what any good neighbor would do - offers him a ride home. The town of Peacock has a sickness, though the residents are completely unaware of it. Peacock is a scathing indictment of the nostalgia associated with the 1950’s. The film submits that this was a time when the emotionally disturbed could not seek help, when single mothers were outcasts of society, when independent women were viewed as a threat to the patriarchy, and when the concept of gender dysphoria was not only foreign, but non-existent.

Credit must go to first time director Michael Lander, who co-wrote the film with Ryan O Roy. As a work of cinema, Peacock is exceptional on every level. The plot develops such tension, and builds such paranoia within its characters, that there is little one can say other than to call it a masterpiece. The film is beautiful to look at, and extremely well paced by long-time Tarantino collaborator Sally Menke. It works as a character study, a psychological thriller, and a painful examination of childhood abuse. The film never uses faux psychology to justify or explain any of John or Emma’s actions. It merely observes and wonders, leaving us to do the same.

Four stars.

Jonah Hex

2010-07-06T17:04:00.030-04:00

This just might be the next big cult film. Jonah Hex is bad in all the right ways. It contains so much hammy acting and so many absurd lines of dialogue that it’s just the kind of movie midnight audiences might someday adore. I can see it now: the cowboy hats, the homemade facial prosthetics, the 19th century prostitute costumes - this film will go down in history.

The movie begins during the Civil War, and treats its audience to some unnecessarily gruesome images of the conflict. We quickly meet our hero, Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin), a confederate soldier who, after disobeying an order to murder innocent women and children, betrays his unit. This heroic act comes at a cost to Hex, whose family is brutally murdered at the hands of his former commanding officer, Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich). Turnbull is a man more interested in shaming Hex than killing him. After burning Hex’s wife and son alive, he uses a hot iron to brand his initials into Hex’s face. You know, that old story.

Hex is left to die and - in what can only be called a baffling choice on the part of director Jimmy Hayward - we see a series of animated panels in which Brolin explains how this near death experience has gifted him with the ability to speak with the recently deceased. Yes, this plot development it ridiculous, but that isn’t the problem here. The film offers up this information almost begrudgingly. The comic panels provide a back story which, if done correctly, could have made for an entertaining twenty or thirty minutes of screen time. However, the film is more interested in getting anything original out of the way so we can watch Hex shoot Gatling guns from a horse, and see some stuff get blowed up real good. After Brolin has read the cliff notes to the audience, he boldly declares: “I’m Jonah Hex, and this here’s my story.” Didn't he just tell us his story?

After Hex gets branded, he dedicates his life to huntin’ down the evil folks where'er they might roam. He can’t seek vengeance on Turnbull because, as the narration informs us, Hex heard he died in a hotel fire. Hex believes this information, which is based solely on hearsay. We in the audience know better. After all, John Malkovich is too big of a name to only appear in one scene. So we wait for the inevitable plot twist where it’s revealed that he’s still kicking, which comes about twenty five minutes in, rather than in the third act. Jonah Hex is so bad that it doesn’t even know how to properly organize its stupid clichés.

Not only is Turnbull still alive, but he’s devising a scheme to bring down the newly restored United States government. President Grant (Aidan Quinn) respectfully requests that Hex lend a helping hand in tracking down and killing his old commander. Along the way, Hex meets up with Lilah (Megan Fox), a hooker with a heart of gold. She might be a working girl, but that doesn’t stop she and Hex from having feelings for each other. Given how noticeably inconsequential her role is, I have no idea why Megan Fox is even in this movie. Actually, I take that back - we all know why Megan Fox is in this movie.

What makes Jonah Hex so uniquely awful is how haphazardly thrown together it all seems. Clocking in at a brisk 80 minutes, the film’s standard story of revenge is told in such a way as to make it nearly incoherent. The movie is based on a popular comic book franchise, and I understand how this story might have an appeal in that medium. But the psychic-cowboy-superhero tale just doesn’t translate properly to film. Elements which would be acceptable in the comic book world are aggressively irritating onscreen. For example, why does Megan Fox’s character need to exist? Why is she kidnapped? I suppose it gives Hex more motivation to stop Turnbull, but don't you think preserving the United States government should be motivation enough?

Brolin is one of our finest actors, but he struggles with the material. Similarly, Malkovich hams it up, essentially doing a variation of his Con Air schtick and trying not to look too silly. A lot of people are going to be cruel about Megan Fox’s performance, which is admittedly stiff and monotone. Despite the reputation she’s developing, I still hold out hope for her as an actress. She has shown range and comic timing in Jennifer’s Body, and I suspect we are merely witnessing the growing pains of a young actress. In her defense, she does fulfill the primary function the movie gives her, which is looking good in a corset.

And so, Jonah Hex is a terrible movie. I am tempted to say that it's so bad it’s good - but it isn't. And yet, unlike so many other mean-spirited films this year, Jonah Hex is bad in an inoffensive, silly sort of way. Played with the exact same script this movie could have been a great comedy, what with all the goofy accents, historical anachronisms and unconvincing gunfights. I had great affection for some of the terrible dialogue. A movie cannot lack all entertainment value if it contains the line “I hung on that cross for days.”

One and a half stars.

Gasland

2010-07-01T21:17:00.020-04:00

A man and his camera can change the world.

Gasland serves as a call to arms, and should easily enrage any decent human being. It is a film which is beyond politics, partisanship or debate. Its fundamental purpose is to inform the American public about a crime of unspeakable proportion which is currently being perpetrated.

In 2008, Josh Fox received a letter from a natural gas company offering a small fortune for drilling rights to his family’s land in Pennsylvania. Most people would have signed the contract and collected their compensation. But in Fox’s mind echoed that unfortunate old fact: If it sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is. His curiosity piqued, Fox sought out to discover what exactly it was that these gas companies did and why his land was so valuable to them in the first place.

The end result of Fox’s inquiry is Gasland, a nearly two hour long documentary about the culture of corruption which has permeated the corporate landscape as well as Washington. It is also about the hardships that innocent people have had to suffer at the hands of corporations that are bankrupt of all decency and humanity. In a calm, understated manner, Fox provides firsthand accounts of people who have been victimized by natural gas companies, as well as provides disturbing and sobering facts to back up their claims. Claims which the gas companies dismiss outright.

Fox makes his outrage the the core focus of the film. In order to retrieve the natural gas located here in the United States, gas companies must drill into large slates of shale via a process called “fracturing” (or “fracking” for short). The gas companies use 596 chemicals in the fracking process, which they claim is actually only 12. The companies also claim that the chemicals involved in the fracking process are environmentally safe. Not that it matters, because the gas companies are exempt from EPA regulations thanks to something fittingly referred to as the “Halliburton Loophole.” Passed in the Bush energy bill in 2005, the loophole grants oil and gas companies complete immunity from the Clean Air and Water Act, as well as any EPA regulation. Simply put, these companies can dump whatever they want wherever they want, and it’s legal.

As you can imagine, the actions of the gas companies have led to countless problems, which Fox meticulously documents throughout the film. People who thought they were making a quick dollar, as Fox could have, were actually signing away their right to a healthy life, and unknowingly granting gas companies permission to pollute their property. Fox interviews countless farmers whose livestock are dying, families whose pets are losing their fur and withering away. Headaches, asthma, tumors and cancer - these are the fates of the people living in Gasland. Drinking wells go black with the toxic stew that the gas companies pump into the nearby groundwater. In several cases, natural gas has seeped into people’s water supplies, making their water flammable. Fox is aghast when one man lights his tap water on fire for the camera. The man laughs at the absurdity of the situation: “It’d be funny if it weren’t so damn scary.”

Gasland is a powerful film. It is extremely biased, and it ought to be. There is no other side to this argument. You can’t be for poisoning wells and giving people cancer. This is a classic case of corporate culture caring more about the bottom line than about human beings. Late in the film, Fox interviews John Hanger, Pennsylvania's secretary of environmental protection. His job is to monitor any claims of wrongdoing people might have about the fracking process. Hanger wags his finger at Fox: “It’s easy to be on that side of the camera. You get to wash your hands of this. I have to make real life decisions.” Yes, he does. However, if his decisions are anything other than defending innocent people against an evil corporation, then he is making the wrong ones.

To be sure, Gasland is a low budget film. It is interesting to note that, with all the money and gimmicks that Michael Moore is allowed to pour into his movies, Gasland is significantly more engaging and honest. This is not a sleight against Moore or any documentary filmmaker with a budget. Rather, it is simply interesting to note that with nothing more than a few cameras and a significant amount of compassion, Fox has made the first documentary since Hoop Dreams which should garner legitimate consideration for Best Picture.

Despite all the disturbing facts and figures that Fox throws at his audience, what struck me most about Gasland were the people. These are clearly Red Staters, and frankly they were the last people I expected to be up in arms about the environment. And yet they value not only their property rights, but the sanctity of their land. Unlike the companies which are so willfully destroying the world around them, these people understand the concept of right and wrong. One particularly memorable interview Fox has is with a real life cowboy, who speaks about the people from the gas company with disdain and anger. After noting how they have repeatedly lied directly to his face, he shakes his head: “It your word ain’t no good, then you ain’t no good.”

Four stars.

Toy Story 3

2010-06-26T21:00:00.007-04:00

Here’s how the conversation must have gone.

Executive One: Say, you know it’s been over ten years since the last Toy Story movie?

Executive Two: You’re kidding! With a franchise that successful, you’d think we’d have milked it dry by now.

One: Yeah, but don’t worry, I got an idea for the third movie. Y’see, we start off with Andy going to college, so he’s all grown up and he doesn’t play with the toys anymore. On account of it’s been ten years since Toy Story 2.

Two: Huh. But didn’t five years pass between the first movie and the sequel? We didn’t have Andy grow up during that gap of time.

One: Hey, we gotta have some sense of realism. Now anyway, back to the talking toys. Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz (Tim Allen) and the gang have dwindled in numbers. A lot of the toys from the first two movies have been given away or lost.

Two: Oh man, how sad. But that’s good, Woody and Buzz can go on a mission to find their lost friends.

One: What? No, they’re gone and that’s that. Stay with me. So Andy cleans out his room and the toys accidentally get thrown away. They make it back to the house okay, but now everyone but Woody thinks that Andy doesn’t love them anymore.

Two: We’d better drive that point home. We need to make sure that the kids understand that the toys feel rejected and betrayed.

One: Don’t worry, we’ll spend a good forty minutes talking and talking and talking about it. So then the toys wind up at a daycare center.

Two: That’s wonderful! A great happy ending. They can all stay together and be loved by kids forever and ever.

One: No! The daycare is like a prison camp. There’s an evil teddy bear named Lotso (Ned Beatty), and he rules the place with an iron fist. Meanwhile, Woody gets separated from the gang and winds up in the room of a little girl. The toys in that room will be extremely interesting, and voiced beautifully by people like Kristen Schaal, Jeff Garlin and Timothy Dalton. But we can’t bother spending too much time with these exciting new characters, we have to get back to the sad new life of the old bunch of discarded toys.

Two: Boy, this all sounds pretty dark for a kids movie. Does it have a happy ending?

One: Oh sure, the main villain suffers a fate worse than death. Kids love perpetual, everlasting torture right?

Two: Well this all sounds fine, but I just realized that we haven’t discussed any good jokes to include.

One: Don’t worry, we don’t need jokes. We’ll rely on catchphrases and gags from the previous, far superior movies. Hopefully audiences will have such a sense of nostalgia that they'll think we did more than rehash old material.

Two: This all sounds very depressing. You really think kids will go for it?

One: You haven’t seen Shrek Forever After yet, have you?

Two stars.

Daddy Longlegs

2010-06-26T20:58:00.010-04:00

Daddy Longlegs is the most stressful film I’ve seen in many a year. It creates more tension and suspense than most horror films, and manages to do so by building a film around the very simple premise that some people just shouldn’t be parents.

Lenny is most definitely one of those people. Sure, he loves his kids, but their very existence is evidence of his irresponsibility. Lenny lives in an exceptionally tiny apartment in New York, works a low paying job as a projectionist in a rinky-dink theater, and hangs around plenty of people who aren’t exactly what you would call “kid friendly.” For Lenny, what are seemingly minor character flaws are amplified when he is given custody of his children for two weeks. Alone, he is a somewhat sad story. When placed in charge of children, however, he is a time bomb.

Daddy Longlegs places Lenny under the microscope. What at first begins as a simple story of a busy father trying to spend time with his children quickly becomes an examination of his incompetence. He is, on many levels, a child himself. We learn this early on in Daddy Longlegs, when Lenny decides to take his two boys, Sage and Frey (well played by Sage and Frey Ranaldo), on a trip upstate with people he just met the night before. At first we think this might be a misguided effort to show his children a good time, but it soon becomes apparent that Lenny didn’t really make this decision with his kids in mind.

The performances in Daddy Longlegs are what cause this simple story to become the powerful, unyieldingly honest film that it is. The children are exceptionally gifted child actors, seeming very natural where others might seem stiff. Similarly, Lenny’s girlfriend, the not-so-subtly named Leni (Elenore Hendricks) is convincing as she meanders throughout the film. Sometimes she’s here, sometimes she’s there, but she always seems to be wandering aimlessly, preparing and hoping that something more interesting might be coming along.

But the shining star of Daddy Longlegs is Lenny, portrayed by Ronald Bronstein in a performance for the ages. Bronstein’s Lenny reminded me of another detestable protagonist - Leo Fitzpatrick’s Telly from Kids. In the same manner as Fitzpatrick, Bronstein creates a character in such an effortlessly convincing manner that I found myself repulsed to my core. If I were to see Bronstein on the street, I would likely recoil or seethe with anger. His performance is so naturally frenetic and frustrating that I resented him on a personal level. Few actors could have accomplished this feat.

I walked out of Daddy Longlegs having had a very unpleasant experience. But then, that was the film’s intention. Credit must go to Josh and Benny Safdie, who wrote and directed the movie and filmed it on Super 8 with no budget to speak of. The movie is not perfect. A certain plotline involving sleeping pills goes on for a bit too long, and a dream sequence toward the end of the film is completely out of place and unnecessary. But, all things considered, it isn’t often that I’ve had emotional reactions on the level that I did with Daddy Longlegs. It honestly made me squirm, and that’s not something films cause me to do very often.

Three and a half stars.

MacGruber

2010-06-05T00:32:00.016-04:00

I’m not exactly sure why I expected MacGruber to be funny. After all, it is a film based on an SNL sketch, which should have tipped me off. As a general rule, no five minute sketch has ever been successfully converted into a feature length film (Wayne’s World being the exception). But I am a fan of the film’s star, Will Forte, and have expressed my admiration for his co-star, Kristin Wiig, on multiple occasions. So, for these reasons, I was prepared to cut the film a degree of slack. Alas, the talent of the actors can’t save MacGruber, which has script problems from page one.

The film begins with an old set up. A terrorist group has hijacked a nuclear warhead and the Pentagon needs to bring the only man who can stop them out of retirement. That man is MacGruber (Forte), the most decorated military man in history, and he faked his death ten years ago. Colonel Faith (Powers Boothe) and Lieutenant Piper (Ryan Phillippe) track down MacGruber, who's been living in a secluded monastery in Ecuador. After the obligatory scene in which they must coax him out of retirement, he agrees to save the world one last time.

The reason MacGruber is willing to stop the madman with the bomb is because he is Dieter Von Cunth (Val Kilmer), MacGruber's old nemesis. Cunth is so crazy that he's willing to nuke Washington D.C. simply to settle an old score with MacGruber. I should take a moment to note that, yes, Cunth’s name is extremely close to a very dirty word. It’s even closer to that word when it’s spoken out loud. And, boy oh boy, is it spoken out loud in this film. The character's name is said to such an absurd amount that I have to wonder if the screenplay was written by a ten year old boy who had just learned that particular obscenity.

Cunth has a vendetta against MacGruber because of a stolen woman. I must admit, after hearing MacGruber describe the disgusting sex acts which he and Cunth’s fiancee (Maya Rudolph) participated in, I was mildly amused by the fact that MacGruber still had no idea why Cunth was angry with him. Anyway, MacGruber must assemble the ultimate taskforce of American heroes to stop Cunth’s dastardly plot. He recruits Phillippe’s Piper and his old friend, Vicki St. Elmo (Wiig). Vicki isn’t quite as bumbling and incompetent as MacGruber, but she clearly possesses no discernable skills or talents which make her a valuable asset to the mission.

So there’s your premise. MacGruber thinks that it’s really funny that the film's plot is just a retread of a bad action movie. In reality it isn’t so much funny as it is boring. There are long stretches of this film that were likely funny on paper, just don’t translate well visually. Take, for instance, the fact that Vicki must be disguised (unconvincingly of course) as men of the underworld on three separate occasions. I suppose the idea of dressing Kristin Wiig up with a false beard and mustache is funny, but she certainly needs to have funny things to say and do once she’s in drag. The entire film suffers from a flat, subdued tone that you would never expect from an attempt at screwball comedy. This malaise drags MacGruber down to the point that, even when something funny does happen, it seems like a brief flash of light in an extremely long, dark tunnel. Simply put, MacGruber needs to try harder.

There’s too much talent on screen for the movie to be completely devoid of humor. There are some funny exchanges, mostly between Forte and Phillippe, who’s good as the film’s straight man. Likewise, Wiig’s quirky mannerisms are good for a few chuckles, and Val Kilmer relishes the absurd nature of his role. Imagine what Austin Powers would be like if Dr. Evil was replaced with an actual Bond villain, and you might have an idea about how Kilmer plays Cunth. Forte is also as good as he can be given the circumstances, and his warm presence and good comic timing make a few mediocre lines funnier than they should be. I particularly enjoyed the scene where he scolds Piper for questioning the mission plan. MacGruber’s idea is to send Vicki into a hostile environment and “see what happens.” Piper is aghast: “You mean we’re just going to wing it?” MacGruber scoffs, “Rookie, there’s a big difference between winging it and seeing what happens.”

But clever bits of dialogue are few and far between in MacGruber. The real shame is how the film wastes Kristin Wiig. I still firmly believe that she can carry a movie all by herself, and I hope the day comes that she no longer has to play mediocre supporting roles like this one. For her especially, this film is a disappointment. Were the movie any good, she could have used it as a big break into stardom. I'm sure that star-making vehicle will eventually come, but MacGruber isn’t it.

Two stars.

The Special Relationship

2010-06-04T23:01:00.017-04:00

The Special Relationship is an examination of the friendship between Bill Clinton and Tony Blair during the late nineties. I know, with a plot like that we can officially kick off summer blockbuster season. But in fairness to the film, it is working with some pretty dry material. I would say it’s rather unlikely that even the biggest history buffs were clamoring to find out what Blair and Clinton’s first meeting was like, or whether or not Cheri Blair and Hillary got along. But these are the types of topics on display in The Special Relationship, and while the film doesn’t attempt to delve too deeply into the psyche’s of its subjects, it succeeds at showing us their interactions on a superficial level.

The film is the third installment of writer Peter Morgan’s “Blair Trilogy.” Morgan, who penned The Queen and Frost/Nixon, has a knack for writing well paced screenplays which revolve around two central, larger than life figures. Michael Sheen reprises his role as Tony Blair for the third time, and he has officially begun to scare me in how disturbingly convincing his portrayal is. It isn’t just that he looks like Blair, which he does, but that he has so embodied the character. He seems to know the man inside and out, and it’s gotten to the point that when I hear the name Tony Blair, my mind turns to Sheen before the actual Prime Minister.

The other major player in the film is Dennis Quaid, who tries his best to be half as convincing as Clinton as Sheen is in his role. It would be unfair to criticize Quaid for his inability to perfectly capture the voice or mannerisms of our former President. What the film requires is a good performance, not a convincing impersonation. And, to that extent, Quaid delivers a solid portrayal of our 42nd President. He’s got the swagger, the charm and, on occasion, he manages to get the body language just right. Watching Quaid disappear into yet another role made me appreciate what a truly underrated actor he is. He’s always been the type of performer that exists somewhere between character actor and movie star, and that may cause some to ignore how often he succeeds in rising above weaker material.

You’ll notice that I’m not speaking in great detail about the plot of The Special Relationship. I suppose the film has one, but it isn’t nearly as important as the performances. The Special Relationship is less about what issues Blair and Clinton dealt with than it is about how they dealt with them. It was great fun watching the men size each other up when they first met, balancing their mutual respect with their differences on foreign policy, and acknowledging disparities in their private beliefs and personal lives. These are the elements that the film wisely focuses on. There are awkward but somewhat unavoidable moments in the film, as when Quaid must deliver the infamous line “I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” and a few remarks about Clinton’s successor that make him seem less like a president and more like a prophet.

Shortcomings and shallowness aside, The Special Relationship does succeed in its attempt to show these two men and how they dealt with one another. Apart from the war in Kosovo, the film focuses primarily on scandals and unimportant events in the Clinton presidency, and it is highly likely that there were more interesting interactions between Blair and Clinton which the movie skims over. The film does deserve credit, however, for its portrayal of Cheri Blair (Helen McCrory) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (Hope Davis). The best scenes of the film are those in which we see how the two most powerful men in the world relied upon the insight and honesty of their wives. Particularly, the way in which Bill is shown to have asked for Hillary’s advice on policy issues even while their marriage was suffering through the Lewinski scandal. The film captures the respect these men have for their partners, something a lesser film would not have bothered to show.

Thanks to the superb supporting performances of McCrory and especially Davis, The Special Relationship manages to be more than a mere recap of the tabloid fodder of the late nineties. The film is able to create a nostalgia for the days when defining “is” was the United States’ biggest problem, and it also manages to show Tony Blair in a significantly positive light. Given the events of the past decade and Blair’s involvement in the Iraq War, it’s interesting how quickly we’ve forgotten the important role he played in stopping genocide in Yugoslavia. While the film doesn’t take sides on any political issues, I appreciated the reminder that our leaders are more than just an amalgamation of their policies.

Three stars.

Never Sleep Again

2010-06-02T14:28:00.012-04:00

I can’t believe this movie exists.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand the purpose of Never Sleep Again, which is intended to be a straightforward documentary about the Nightmare on Elm Street series. It’s the execution which had me dumbfounded. Even now, when trying to organize my thoughts and reevaluate my experience with the film, I still can’t believe the movie unfolded the way it did.

Never Sleep Again thinks that it is a documentary about how a popular horror series was made. And, indeed, when I began watching it, that’s exactly what it was for the first forty minutes or so. The film is pretty standard in its format. It mixes footage from the Nightmare films with talking heads of the people involved, most notably director Wes Craven, producer Robert Shaye, and Freddy himself, Robert Englund. As the cast and crew discussed the making of A Nightmare on Elm Street, they warmly reminisced about the casting process, the special effects that didn’t quite work, and the fact that no one on set knew they were making a horror classic.

All in all, it’s pretty standard fare, but entertaining and informative enough. Never Sleep Again takes an interesting turn when the creators of the first movie begin discussing the film’s ending. Wes Craven expresses his dislike for the final scene of the movie, which the studio tacked on in an effort to keep Freddy alive for future films. This isn’t the first time a director and studio have disagreed over an ending, and Craven isn’t exactly bitter about the whole thing. He’s just sayin’. From this point on, the entirety of Never Sleep Again is devoted to childish finger pointing, complaining, and recollections of private conversations designed to make other people look bad. It’s a train wreck of honesty.

The film goes on to take a look at the subsequent sequels in the Nightmare franchise. Much in the same way everyone involved with the original film was interviewed and spoke candidly, so too do the writers, directors and stars of the follow-up films of the franchise. The only difference is that the people involved with the first Nightmare made a good movie and are proud of it. Everyone else involved with the series is bitterly, painfully aware that they have produced mindless shells which serve only to capitalize on the success of the previous film. Their interviews reflect upon the soulless Hollywood industry which desires only profits, and which churns out as many films as possible before the movie going public realize that the films aren’t very good.

It becomes apparent that the franchise was off to a bad start when Jack Sholder, director of A Nightmare on Elms Street 2 starts talking. He makes a statement to the effect that he understood why the first movie was popular, and tried to retain those successful elements, but that he was never actually a fan of the film. We also hear horror stories about the fourth film in the series, which was under production when a writers’ strike left the movie with an unfinished screenplay. Rather than put the film on hold, the studio told director Renny Harlin to go ahead and improvise the entire film. Other crew members recall seeing trailers for the film before it was done shooting, and release dates set before a script had been completed. I particularly enjoyed hearing one producer talk about the last-minute decision to add 3-D to the Freddy franchise. “We actually did some groundbreaking things with 3-D,” she proudly declares, “Of course, none of it worked at all.”

Never Sleep Again is an unintentional indictment of the studio system. By interviewing all of these people who have absolutely no regard for the terrible franchise in which they participated, the film creates a bitter, unhappy tone. Everyone seems to dislike everybody they worked with, and very rarely do the filmmakers say that they’re proud of the finished product. What’s really shocking is the mean spirited way in which one director will directly criticize another’s film. It seems that the filmmakers involved in the Nightmare franchise know their films are bad, but think the others are far worse.

I must admit I initially enjoyed watching all of these people complain and argue about who said what. Mostly I was just stunned that Daniel Farrands and Andrew Kasch, the directors of Never Sleep Again, managed to get such honest responses from their participants. But the film drags on and on, clocking in at a staggering four hours. It might be novel to watch grown men argue like children for thirty minutes, but 240 minutes is pushing it. By the third hour, even the narrator sounds bored.

I’m not sure exactly what to make of Never Sleep Again, which can’t be faulted for lack of information, but doesn’t know when enough is enough. I suppose I should appreciate the attention to detail, but do I really need to know why Freddy's sweater is red and green? Fans of the franchise will likely enjoy every gory detail about the special effects and the backstabbing, but I found myself wondering if four hours of my life should be dedicated to learning about movies that are despised by the very people who made them.

Two and a half stars.

Author’s Note: In the interest of full disclosure, I did not make it through all four hours of Never Sleep Again. When the third tedious hour rolled around, and the angry, disappointed tone of the filmmakers had been thoroughly established, I felt that I had endured all I could.

Overlooked Masterpieces: The Cats of Mirikitani

2010-05-30T22:45:00.020-04:00

We see them on the street and shake our heads, often times telling ourselves “There but for the grace of God go I.” We know that behind every homeless person is a story, quite probably a sad and familiar one. But how often do we truly stop and wonder what that story may be? These people are not merely walking cautionary tales, but real human beings who could never quite recover from hard times. If we ever bothered to ask them, we might find that some of their lives have been damaged and destroyed through no fault of their own.

In January of 2001, a young filmmaker named Linda Hattendorf began making what she thought was a short documentary about a homeless man she passed every day. As the film begins, we meet that man. Over eighty years old, Jimmy Mirikitani lives on the streets of lower Manhattan. He does not care about the cold, the snow, or the fact that he rarely eats. All he cares about are his paintings, which consume his every waking hour. This homeless painter seems like a novelty to most people, and New Yorkers sometimes stop and purchase some of Jimmy’s work. The money he earns does not go toward food or shelter, but more art supplies.

His paintings are not the haphazard brushstrokes of a homeless madman. It's clear that Jimmy is classically trained in the traditional Japanese style of painting. His imagery is haunting, often containing unsettling landscapes filled with death, prisons and suffering. Whenever Linda attempts to reach out to Jimmy, to understand why he paints the things he does, he withdraws into himself. As the months pass and Linda supplies Jimmy with more paint and canvases, he grows to like her, but never quite reveals all of himself. He guards one secret more than any other: Why does he paint so many cats?

The morning of September 11th, Linda finds Jimmy alone in downtown Manhattan. Covered in debris from the fallen towers, he can barely breath. Linda makes a difficult decision in an instant, and Jimmy comes home with her. What follows is the slow but inevitable shedding of Jimmy’s shell. Over time, he confides in Linda how he was placed in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. He discusses the horrors he witnessed there. The American government stole his citizenship, his family, his youth, and his opportunity to be a teacher. Since 1945, his existence has been a dedicated to the only happy element of his life that the government did not rob him of: his art.

The Cats of Mirikitani is a miracle of documentary filmmaking. The revelations which occur throughout Jimmy’s journey are beyond profound, beyond moving. This is a film of transcendent beauty. The entire movie is an argument for the importance of the American documentary industry, and a reenforcement of the old saying that truth is stranger than fiction. Were this a work of fiction, I would likely call the events within it contrived and impossible. The fact that it is a documentary serves only to make the viewer become more enveloped in its story, and care more deeply about its subjects.

Indeed, Jimmy is not the only subject of the film. Naturally, his emotional journey is at the forefront of the movie, and the film dedicates itself in its entirety to telling his story. And yet, director Linda Hattendorf has inadvertently made a film in which she is also a main focus. Throughout the movie, we watch as she reaches out to a broken man. She does this for no other reason than because she genuinely cares about him, even though he is a complete stranger. Her selfless, inspiring actions could warrant a documentary in their own right. Whether it is taking Jimmy in, cooking him dinner, putting up with his curt, stern Japanese mentality, Linda is clearly the type of person we should all strive to be. This is apparent despite the fact that she makes no effort to show herself in a positive light.

We can all learn from Jimmy Mirikitani. His story is astounding, but unfortunately not uncommon. He is an amazing presence on screen, at times reserved and thoughtful, and at others boisterous and emotional. The walls he has spent a lifetime erecting are not easily torn down, but even Jimmy cannot hide his affection for Linda. In one scene, Linda leaves Jimmy to paint while she goes to work. She tells him she might be a little late, but it would seem he couldn’t care less. Later, when she reenters her apartment, she is greeted by a hysterical Jimmy: “Where were you?! What kind of movie goes until after midnight?! A young woman like you shouldn’t be out this late! Do you have any idea how worried you made me?!”

The Cats of Mirikitani not only works as a the story of a haunted man confronting his past, but as an examination of two people from different generations and backgrounds learning to understand and appreciate each other. The fact that the film is set against the backdrop of September 11th and the subsequent War on Terror also makes for some astoundingly powerful scenes. When Jimmy watches the news and sees hate crimes being committed against Arab-Americans, we see his jaw clench tight. When he watches cruise missiles launch from battleships as the U.S. invades Afghanistan, he shakes his head. At a time when every American was angry for revenge, Jimmy speaks with the voice of age and wisdom: “Stupid American government. Always the same mistakes.”

Shrek Forever After

2010-05-29T22:48:00.006-04:00

Who knew that Shrek was such a selfish jerk?

If you recall the previous installment in the Shrek series, everybody’s favorite green ogre was horribly unhappy as ruler of the Kingdom of Far Far Away. After he and his lovely bride, Fiona (Cameron Diaz) found a new king to take over for them, they returned to Shrek’s swamp to raise their new family. Shrek Forever After picks up with Shrek (Mike Myers) and his new family spending their days in their beloved home. And, wouldn’t you know it, he’s still not happy.

Poor Shrek. Sure, he’s got a beautiful wife, three wonderful kids, and more friends than anyone could ever hope for, but it’s all just so stressful. The opening scenes of Shrek Forever After play like a commercial for Trojan condoms, with Shrek suffering through the mindless, repetitive tasks that make up being a father of three young children. We’re supposed to feel bad for Shrek, or at least understand how he could be unhappy with his lot in life, but I couldn’t even bring myself to grant the film its set up. I mean, what is with this guy? In this franchise, he’s gone from being an unhappy loner, to an unhappy king, and now the family life doesn’t suit him either. I'm starting to think it isn't Shrek's surroundings that are the problem.

After one particularly chaotic birthday party at the Far Far Away equivalent of Chuck E. Cheese, Shrek loses his temper and smashes the cake. Fiona chastises him, at one point stating the entire message of the film out loud: “You’ve got everything and you’re the only one who doesn’t see it.” Tell me about it. Shrek and Fiona get in a fight, and he storms off into the woods. There, he stumbles upon the film’s villain, the conniving Rumpelstiltskin (Walt Dorn). Rumpel convinces Shrek to sign a contract which will let things be like they used to be, just for a single day. In return, all Shrek has to give Rumpel is a single day of his life. After signing, Shrek is transported to an alternate universe, and he learns that the one day Rumpelstiltskin has taken from him is the day he was born.

So there you have the set up for the most depressing children’s move of recent memory. Shrek, like Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life, must see the world in which he never existed. What is the world like, you ask? Well, his in-laws have been murdered, his best friend Donkey (Eddie Murphy) is a slave, all ogres are hunted down, and Rumpelstiltskin is a cruel dictator. Maybe it’s just me, but an examination of a harsh dystopia isn’t the kind of movie I would expect from Dreamworks.

Shrek Forever After doesn’t just fall flat because of its set up, which as I said really annoyed me. It also just plain isn’t funny. It rehashes a few jokes from the first few movies, and there are a few sight gags here and there, but the film is surprisingly light on humor. There are a lot of grim discussions about violent revolution and plenty of boring action sequences, but the movie isn’t packed with joke after joke, which is what made the original Shrek so much fun. It also doesn’t help that Shrek is as dumb as he is selfish, and doesn’t think to take his time and properly explain his situation to Fiona. The fine print of Rumpel’s contract says that things can go back the way they were if Shrek and Fiona share true love’s kiss, so why doesn’t he try harder to explain that to her?

The movie is sure to be a disappointment to Shrek fans, who have watched the series slide progressively downhill with each new installment. Maybe it’s just because I’m viewing the series in hindsight now, but part of me wishes there had never been a sequel. The first Shrek had the best story, the best villain (who can forget when Lord Farquaad tortured the Ginger Bread Man?), and the best moral message. It also had a fresh originality with characters we hadn’t seen before. Shrek Forever After has the cynical tone of a film series trying to cash in on one last installment. Let’s just hope that, for once, these characters really will ride into the sunset and live happily ever after.

The End.

Two stars.

Mystery Team

2010-05-29T20:22:00.016-04:00

Everyone knows “The Hardy Boys” and “Encyclopedia Brown.” Most people, regardless of generation, grew up reading some series of books which revolved around a child detective. I’m not exactly sure why these books are so popular. I suppose it’s fun for kids to imagine themselves on the case, uncovering clues that all the adults missed. But none of these books have ever thought to address the greatest mystery of their genre: What happens when the child detectives aren’t children anymore?

Here to answer that question is Mystery Team, a bizarrely enjoyable film by the comedy troupe called Derrick Comedy. In a small town, three boys ban together to form an elite crime solving unit. They crack such cases as “who put their finger in the pie?”, and “the case of the kid who skipped school.” They’re clever, resourceful, and the town thinks they couldn’t be cuter. Only that was ten years ago, and now, even though the Mystery Team is ready to graduate high school, they refuse to break from their childlike pursuit of being the local neighborhood detective agency.

The Mystery Team is comprised of Jason (Donald Glover), the master of disguise, Duncan (D.C. Pierson), the self-proclaimed “boy genius,” and Charlie (Domanic Dierkes), the strongest kid in town. Naturally, these titles were likely apt descriptions of the boys when the group first got together, but now it’s just sort of sad. Jason couldn’t fool anyone hiding behind a series of fake mustaches, Charlie can’t lift a twenty pound weight, and Duncan’s book of “1001 Facts!” is becoming increasingly outdated. But none of this phases the Mystery Team, who approach each day with gusto and glee, and whose parents can only shake their heads and wonder when they’ll grow up. As Jason's father disappointingly notes, “There go three virgins.”

The boys get a new case when little Brianna (Daphne Ciccarelle) approaches their lemonade-stand-like headquarters with a mystery that needs solving. The boys are more than ready for the task. What could it be? A missing doll? A schoolyard bully who takes her lunch money? But Brianna‘s request is somewhat heavier than the cases the Mystery Team usually deals in: “Could you find out who murdered my parents?” Even though this mystery is clearly too big for them, the team takes on the task in hopes of proving themselves to be serious detectives.

Mystery Team works for simple reasons, one of which is the tremendous likeability of its three leads. The members of the Mystery Team, like Johnnie Twennies in Man of the Century, are stuck in their own world. They are completely oblivious to the conventions of their current age group, or how the world wishes they would behave. They have chosen to retain their childlike innocence, and their conflicts with the cynical, ugly world often result in genuine laughs. Another strong element of the film is the decision to derive all of its humor from this deviation between reality and the Mystery Team’s worldview. Characters don’t crack one-liners, and there is no bad sitcom dialogue. People address the boys like any real person would, and often times directly ridicule them for their inability to see things as they truly are.

What follows is a series of unpredictable, often funny situations. The boys take their childlike approach and apply it to a horrific caper that involves strip clubs, drug deals, gunfire and double homicides. Along the way, Jason meets Brianna’s older sister Kelly, played by Aubrey Plaza, who is a welcome presence in any film. She and Jason have a sweet, awkward courtship. Kelly is a jaded, bitter realist who attempts to find a connection with a young man who is as emotionally developed as a twelve-year-old. Another strong supporting performance belongs to Bobby Moynihan as the shop clerk who, just like the Mystery Team, is stuck in the past and pretends not to know how sad his life really is.

The film has a tendency to rely a bit too much on gross out gags, and a certain performance by a foul-mouthed child actor isn’t nearly as funny as the movie thinks it is. Yet, these minor setbacks aside, there is a strange, satisfying charm to Mystery Team. The case makes the boys admit certain truths about themselves, and they grow in a cheesy but almost heartwarming sort of way. Mystery Team showcases good writing from Glover, Pierson and Dierkes, and steady pacing by its director, Dan Eckman. With a first film as original and creative as this one, the boys from Derrick are definitely a group to keep an eye on.

Three stars.

The Human Centipede

2010-05-25T22:49:00.009-04:00

Before I begin my review, I must apologize to the makers of Kick-Ass. When I reviewed that movie a mere month ago, I made the bold declaration that it was likely to be the worst film of the year. And, indeed, were it any other year, that statement would not have been so premature. But, much to my sorrow, 2010 shall forever be remembered as the year of The Human Centipede.

You're going to notice something about this review. Unlike my standard observations of films, this article is going to lack detail. Consider that a personal gift from me to you. So, while trying to avoid explaining too much about this movie, let's discuss the plot. The film opens with a standard, tired horror convention. Two pretty girls, Lindsay (Ashley Williams) and Jenny (Ashlynn Yennie), are driving on a dark and stormy night when their car gets a flat tire. They have no distinguishable characteristics, but we can easily tell them apart because their dialogue consists mostly of exasperatedly saying each others' name. When they find that their phones have no signal, they make the brilliant decision to march blindly into the forest and look for a house. An interesting movie, like The Blair Witch Project or Gerry, would examine what would realistically happen in this scenario. But no, these two bimbos stumble across the home of Doctor Heiter, a mad scientist who's just dying for some patients.

The good doctor is played by Dieter Laser, in the best performance of the film. This is not very high praise, considering that all other performances are around the level of a cheaply produced porno. Come to think of it, at least cheap pornos have a sense of humor. Anyway, Doctor Heiter drugs Lindsay and Jenny and ties them up in his own private operating room. The two girls are joined by Katsuro (Akihiro Kitamura), a trucker who is also about to become a part of the doctor's sick experiment.

So what does the doctor have planned for his victims? Okay, let's do this thing. Simply put, the doctor wants to create a three-person conjoined twin. He seeks to do this by connecting the three via their intestinal tract. Yes, that means what you think it means. With Katsuro up front and the two girls bringing up the rear - so to speak - Doctor Heiter makes what he proudly declares to be the “human centipede.” At first, when the audience hears this sick plan, we assume that it is merely a fate which we will watch the characters avoid. But no, after a brief sequence where one of the girls escapes, the movie sets right back on track to being the gross out film to end all gross out films.

Call me crazy, but I don't want to see a movie about this subject. Is that so wrong of me? Am I doing a disservice as a critic? I have said on multiple occasions that any subject can be done well, and that one should always grant a movie its premise. I honestly think The Human Centipede is the first film which defies that general rule. It is not incompetently made. The acting is bad, but I've seen worse. The film looks good, I suppose, although what's on screen isn't exactly something that can be made to look nice by good cinematography. But all of these qualities aside, at the end of the day, writer/director Thomas Six has made a movie in which a maniac sews three people together face to rectum. That's what this movie is. And it's ninety minutes long.

Does the movie succeed in what it attempts to do? You bet. And, to that extent, The Human Centipede is a success. So what? This is a movie that hopes to entertain us through sheer shock value. It dehumanizes and humiliates people onscreen in an attempt to get a rise out of a jaded movie going public. To the film's credit, I have never seen any other movie like it. But I imagine that there's a reason for that. While watching the film, I felt bad for the actors. I'm willing to bet that the filming of The Human Centipede was not a pleasant shoot. I felt particularly bad for the two young ladies on screen, both of whom are stripped naked and humiliated in a series of disgusting sequences. I'm sure they're just two young actresses trying to break into the movie business, and this film exploits them in countless ways.

But enough of my assumptions about how others might have felt while making the film. I can tell you how I felt while I watched it. A few words come to mind: saddened, disgusted, depressed. But mostly I just felt angry. Life is short, time is precious, so why does a film exist which is fundamentally devoid of anything positive? For lack of a better term, there is no goodness in this movie. Not in its intent, its execution, or its final product. I should not make assumptions about Thomas Six, but I can't help but feel that he probably isn't a very good person. Is that harsh? Absolutely. But then, he has not only robbed me of ninety minutes of my life, but he filled that block of time with an experience of despicable, unforgettable awfulness. This is the type of film that makes me reconsider being a critic. What good can come from seeing it? What type of person will walk away having enjoyed it?

The Human Centipede is not merely a bad movie, it is a reprehensible one. For the rest of my life, every bad movie I see will be compared against it on some level. It is, without a doubt, the worst film of 2010. I can say this with the utmost certainty, considering that I can also feel resolute in declaring it to be the worst film I have ever seen.

Zero stars.

Kick-Ass

2010-04-24T23:27:00.002-04:00

I could see myself going easy on this movie, I really could. After all, it's partially meant to be a parody, a lighthearted romp through the world of superheroes. But it's the very comic nature of Kick-Ass that makes the film so unacceptable. By presenting such serious subjects in such a frivolous way, the movie strikes a cynical, cruel and uncomfortable tone. This is comedy at its worst.

Let's get the formality of the synopsis out of the way. Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) is a typical comic book nerd. One day, after being robbed yet again by some bullies, Dave muses to his friends about how someone ought to try and be a superhero in real life. Soon thereafter, Dave dons a green bodysuit and calls himself “Kick-Ass,” and goes out to fight crime. Some bystanders capture his heroic antics on video, and soon he becomes an internet phenomenon. Kick-Ass inspires other average Joes to take action. Chiefly among them is Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), who works as a double agent for his mob boss father, Kick-Ass' super villain. Another pair of masked crime fighters is a father/daughter team called Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and his eleven-year-old daughter, Hit-Girl (Chloe Moretz). With his new companions in tow, Kick-Ass sets out to defeat organized crime and clean up the streets.

That's good enough. Now let's talk about why you should never see this movie. Kick-Ass plays like a snuff film with a laugh track. Any positive elements the film might have are weighed down by a sick streak of voyeuristic sadism. This is a film that fundamentally does not understand what comedy is. Take the very opening sequence of the film: A masked superhero stands atop a skyscraper while Dave's narration talks about becoming a hero. The masked man spreads a pair of wings and hops off the building. We watch him soar downward, people on the street cheer, and then he slams into a parked cab, killing himself. “But don't worry," Dave reassures us, "that's not me.” Well, so what? It wasn't Dave, but it was somebody.

And then there's Hit-Girl. An eleven-year-old girl who cusses like a sailor. Okay, so the swearing kid gag isn't anything new. It's an old standby for a cheap laugh, right up there with the vulgar grandmother gag. So why was I so put off by Hit-Girl? Why didn't I just shrug it off as routine gimmick? Simply put, when I saw Hit-Girl walk into a room and drop the c-word or the f-word, I didn't see a bad joke. I saw Chloe Moretz, a talented, capable actress. A talented, capable, thirteen-year-old actress. I'm not naive, and I know that thirteen-year-olds aren't completely sheltered and innocent. I was thirteen once, and I knew a swear word or two. But what bothered me was how funny this was supposed to be. Not to get dramatic, but if I were a parent, I wouldn't allow my child to be in this movie. Would you?

Hit-Girl doesn't just have a foul mouth. In this movie, people die, mostly in horrific and gruesome ways. I have said repeatedly that violence has a place in cinema, and that no amount of violence is too graphic so long as it is in support of a story that's worth telling. What violence shouldn't be is a punchline. Take the scene where Kick-Ass is being badly beaten by a gang of thugs. In desperation, he uses a rather feminine stun-gun to shock his largest attacker. This only serves to enrage the man, and as he raises his weapon to kill Kick-Ass, the thug is impaled through the heart. His body falls to the floor to reveal that – ha ha – a little girl had to come to the rescue! You may ask: “What's funny about that sight gag?” It's a great question.

Violence, vulgarity, and bad morals aside, how can we root for heroes that are no better than the villains? Early in the film, when the mob boss Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong) murders a man by putting him in an industrial sized microwave, we assume that this gruesome imagery is meant to vilify him. After all, only a monster could do such a sickening thing. What are we then to make of Big Daddy and Hit-Girl? They chain a man to a steering wheel and place the car in a scrap metal compactor. The man begs for his life, Big Daddy hands the switch to his daughter, and Hit-Girl crushes the man alive. There's no difference between justice and murder in Kick-Ass, and no desire to explore this ethical dilemma.

So who's responsible for this trash? Let's name some names. The film was co-written and directed by Matthew Vaughn, whose directing credits include the entertaining gangster movie Layer Cake, and the very good fantasy-romance Stardust. From a cinematic perspective, he should understand tone and story structure much better. From a human perspective, he has two small children, and ought to be ashamed of himself. The actors are young enough to be forgiven. Christopher Mintz-Plasse does what he can, and Chloe Moretz is an extremely gifted young actress. If she has a successful career as she grows up, I hope she leaves this film off her resume. Aaron Johnson is pretty boring and lifeless as Dave, and he is constantly upstaged by the better actors around him. And then there's Nicolas Cage, who's always been an actor that takes risks, but this is one he really should have thought over more carefully. His character is so thoroughly unlikeable that I don't feel like I'd care to see another Nic Cage movie for a little while.

And so, as you can tell, this film got to me. It's easily the worst film of the year so far, and I have a strong hunch that it will manage to hang on to that title come December. I've read a lot of reviews since seeing this film, and a few pretty bad critics have said that people with my reaction need to take the movie (and themselves) less seriously. Fine, call me a prude, but I can't ever remember being so unhappy and sad when watching a movie that was supposed to be a comedy. Kick-Ass is so bad that it didn't just make me depressed that I was watching it, but that anyone else might. Kids are going to see this movie. Sure, it's rated R, like that means anything. They're going to watch it and cheer. They're going to tell their friends about it in school the next day. Little girls will want to be Hit-Girl for Halloween.

Zero stars.

Date Night

2010-04-24T21:01:00.002-04:00

It must be spring. Just after the winter awards season, just before the summer blockbusters – spring can be a cinematic dead zone. How else can I explain all of the romantic comedies I've had to review lately? Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the genre. A well made rom-com can be as good as anything else. That having been said, it's probably the genre I tire of most quickly. So, in a young year in which I have already been assaulted with Leap Year and When in Rome, imagine my surprise and delight upon seeing Date Night.

The film begins with a close look at the exhausting lives of Phil and Claire Foster (Steve Carell and Tina Fey). The Fosters' day to day life isn't exhausting because it's full of excitement and intrigue – quite the opposite. The earliest scenes of Date Night manage to capture, better than any film of recent memory, the draining and tiresome nature of the monotonous, mundane suburban lifestyle. Phil and Claire have been married for fifteen years, and they love each other – really, they do. But after working all day and dealing with the kids all night, they prefer to find comfort in their routines, which leaves little time for romance.

Phil and Claire are shaken out of their complacency at their weekly book club meeting. Their married friends, Brad and Haley (Mark Ruffalo and Kristin Wiig) both secretly inform their counterparts that their marriage is ending. This news comes as a shock to the Fosters, but what's even more surprising to them is how happy Brad and Haley are with their decision. Phil asks Brad where the marriage went wrong. Brad doesn't know, but says at some point he and Haley just became “really good roommates.” On the drive home, Phil and Claire ride in silence, each secretly contemplating the state of their marriage.

In a drastic reaction to this possible glimpse into the future of their own marriage, the couple decide to have a special date night. They hit the town and, upon discovering that the restaurant of their choice is full, Phil does something completely out of character and takes someone else's reservations. Unfortunately for Phil and Claire, those reservations belong to the Tripplehorns, who just so happen to be at the center of a conspiracy involving the mob, the police, and New York's District Attorney. Naturally, after loudly declaring themselves to be the Tripplehorns, the mistaken identity sticks, and the Fosters spend the rest of the night running from multiple parties who are, as Claire puts it, trying to “whack them off.”

For any movie, but especially one like this, casting is everything. With any other cast I might complain that this film has a sudden and awkward shift in tone – which it does. I would likely mention that the conspiracy at the center of the Foster's situation isn't that interesting and sort of predictable. I would also probably talk about the fact that all of the quiet, understated scenes depicting the boring married life of the Fosters are far more entertaining than any of the car chases or shootouts which follow. But, fortunately for Date Night, the Fosters are played by the two best comic actors working today. So you know how I feel about all those flaws? I couldn't care less.

It's not a perfect movie, but so what? Watching Carell and Fey interact for such an extended period of time made me brim with joy. They are exceptionally good together. Their sense of comic timing is astounding, and their chemistry, which is something that can't be faked on screen, is apparent from their first exchange of dry wit. They manage to make rather run-of-the-mill jokes seem brilliant. For instance, early in the film we see that Phil has an annoying habit of always leaving drawers open. Later, he does the same thing when riffling through confidential filing cabinets, and Claire finally blows up at him for this flaw. Is that a funny premise? Yeah, I guess so. But Fey and Carell sell it so well that it gets a really big laugh.

The film also has some nice supporting performances from some big names. On the surface, it would seem a rather eclectic cast, but everyone knows how to play their role perfectly. Mark Wahlberg is very funny as the ever-shirtless CIA agent with whom Claire shamelessly flirts. Ray Liotta, likewise, has fun as the good old movie standard – the Italian mobster. And James Franco and Mila Kunis have a cameo as the real Tripplehorns, in which they manage to steal a scene from Carell and Fey – no easy task. In a movie that could have been a rather forgettable romp, Date Night manages to have lasting power if for no other reason than the audience is impressed with all the names on screen.

Maybe I'm just a big sap, but there is a certain sweetness to Phil and Claire's relationship. They may be boring, but their routine life shouldn't be mistaken for a lack of genuine affection. While much of the comic banter in Date Night is derived from Phil and Claire arguing, it's never mean-spirited, and any apparent trouble in their relationship is superficial. Phil puts it best when he's asked why he bothers going to Claire's book club. “When you're married, sometimes you do things you don't want to. It matters to her, so it matters to me.” That says it all about Date Night. It's a romantic comedy that remembers good jokes aren't the only thing that matter.

Three and a half stars.

How to Train Your Dragon

2010-04-22T23:08:00.001-04:00

Were animated movies this good when I was a child? Maybe it's just that I'm finally old enough to appreciate how well crafted they are, but it seems like almost every kids movie released in the past five years has been exceptional. Don't get me wrong, certain films stand out in my childhood - Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin – but I think it's safe to say that Hollywood is currently experiencing a new golden age of animation. How to Train Your Dragon just happens to be the latest triumph in this prolonged success story.

The movie takes place on the island of Berk, which is populated by Vikings. The townspeople are typical Viking folk, they're big and burly, they drink and sing and swing axes with the best of them. The only person on Berk who can't reconcile himself with the Viking lifestyle is Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), who's a scrawny pipsqueak if ever there was one. Hiccup is quiet, weak and unsure of himself. He also happens to be the son of Stoick (Gerard Butler), the Vikings' strong and manly chief. Needless to say, Hiccup doesn't feel like he can measure up to his father's expectations.

Despite the simple yet happy lifestyle of the inhabitants of the island, all is not well on Berk. Frequently, and without warning, the village is raided by fearsome fire-breathing dragons. The dragons, which come in all shapes and sizes, fly away with the town's livestock and burn down homes. The defense of Berk becomes the primary aspect of everyday life for the villagers. Every Viking grows up with a hatred of dragons, and is expected to participate in their extermination. Viking children excitedly await their dragon training, and eagerly anticipate the day they slay their first beast. Everyone, that is, except Hiccup.

In an attempt to compensate for his weak body, Hiccup uses his intellect to design a net that will snare the dragons rather than kill them. Hiccup's invention is mocked by the other Vikings and, during a nighttime raid of the town, no one is around to witness the effectiveness of the humane defense mechanism. Hiccup manages to ensnare a Night Fury, the deadliest of all dragons. With the defeated animal at his mercy, Hiccup cannot bring himself to kill the creature. He instead releases the dragon, and it begrudgingly returns the favor by not killing him on the spot. The dragon, whom Hiccup calls “Toothless,” has a badly damaged tail, and can no longer fly. Ever the inventor, Hiccup goes to work and makes a prosthetic fin for Toothless. During his attempts to help the dragon learn how to fly again, Hiccup and Toothless form a sweet, quiet friendship and a mutual respect.

How to Train Your Dragon is spectacular to look at. The use of color, especially in the evening skies, makes for the best looking animated feature since Finding Nemo. Every frame brims with life, and the film has layer upon layer of elements in nearly every shot. Similarly enthralling, the sequences in which Hiccup and Toothless learn how to fly together are exceptionally beautiful. The speed at which they move, the sound of the rushing wind, and the convincing movement of the clouds rushing past – this might honestly have been the first time I've ever forgotten I was in a theater.

But where How to Train Your Dragon thrives is in its story, which is uncommonly compelling. The relationship between Hiccup and his dragon is at times funny, played for laughs, but can also be quite moving. Likewise, Hiccup's desire to impress his father and to live up to what's expected of him is an admirable theme, and one which I suspect many children will be able to relate to. The movie also contains plenty of good life lessons, not the least of which is that knowledge is more important than brawn, and that fearing things we don't understand can be both irrational and cause unnecessary pain. How to Train Your Dragon isn't condescending, and contains conflicts which adults will find just as thought provoking as their children.

Three and a half stars.

Comparison: Citizen Kane and Woyzeck

2010-04-22T22:20:00.002-04:00

Innovation, more than any other element, is at the center of great masterworks. Great works of art, regardless of medium or intent, tend more often than not to be challenging, unique, and above all original. On their surfaces, Georg Buchner's Woyzeck and Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, seem to be works with no similarities or correlation with one another. Indeed, in terms of general plot, the stories have no real resemblance to each other. Woyzeck is about a poor, lower class man driven to madness, and Kane is about the world's most powerful man, the life he had, and the life he wished he could have led. But these works, regardless of plot, share similarities which are undeniable. What's more, the very creators of these works bear a striking resemblance to each other.

Georg Buchner was 23 when he penned Woyzeck. Up to that point in his short life, he had proven to be exceptionally talented and intelligent. The same, truly, can be said of the 24 year old Orson Welles, who had proven his worth in school, theater, and radio before moving on to the most important motion picture in film history. Why would such great works come from such young men? Surely, their intellect cannot be downplayed. Likewise, their educations and social standings allowed for their artistic natures to flourish. However, what can be derived from their similarities in age is quite simple: they were too young to know better. Woyzeck and Kane are important innovations not only because of the craftsmanship behind them, but because they broke structures and rules in their respective media that up until that point had been left unquestioned.

Woyzeck is truly the first modern play. Its characters speak in common language, and more importantly are not Queens or Dukes but average people. It is a testament to the author that he was able to pen a play which, were one to be told it had been written within the last decade, it would not seem unreasonable. Likewise, with Kane, Welles was able to use his astounding creative control granted to him by RKO pictures to break almost every convention of the Hollywood picture. Much of that credit goes to Greg Toland, Welles' director of photography. Taking the ear of the first time director, Toland convinced Welles to light, frame and compose shots in ways which were unheard of at the time.

In terms of structure, the two works have one enormous similarity: the fact that they are told in a non-linear manner. This so stunned audiences in 1941, who were so used to being spoon-fed a story, that they were completely turned off by a film which dared to assume that they wanted to think for two hours. It is even more apparent in the reaction, or lack thereof, to Woyzeck. The play was not published for 42 years, and not performed for another 34 after that. These cool receptions are easy to understand. Kane and Woyzeck are very different from everything other work in their medium. Buchner and Welles recognized that the non-linear method of storytelling can serve as an additional tool of the writing process. In Woyzeck, it is used to be jarring, disjunctive and upsetting to the audience. In Kane it is used to lay out certain details in a certain order. The audience knows, at times, more than the characters and at other times, knows less.

The two works also share a strong, rather unlikable protagonist. Woyzeck, the lower class father and common-law husband, is abrupt and always going too fast in comparison with the rest of the characters. Charles Foster Kane, the multi-millionaire, is overbearing and manipulative. Jed Leland, his long time friend, makes it clear that Kane is no good and insincere. “I don't suppose anybody ever had so many opinions,” he tells Mr. Thomson, the reporter, “But he never believed in anything except Charlie Kane. He never had a conviction except Charlie Kane in his life.” Both Kane and Woyzeck destroy other peoples lives, and simultaneously cripple their own. What's more, they are the way they are because of expectations place upon them by society or outside influences. Kane longs for simpler times, before he had the world of wealth and fortune thrust upon him. Woyzeck tries desperately to maintain what is expected of him by supporting a woman and child, and sacrifices his own mental and physical heath in order to achieve what he perceives as his duty.

Indeed, outside influences play a large role in both stories. Woyzeck has to deal with the Captain and the Doctor, the play's most obvious representation of societal pressure and expectations that one class places upon another. The Captain scolds Woyzeck for not rushing and not taking his time, because he is in a social position which causes him to not understand that, to Woyzeck, time is money. The Doctor treats Woyzeck as sub-human, a lab rat for experimentation and, at times, to be rewarded for what he perceives as “good behavior.” But the character which most leads to Woyzeck's downfall is Marie. Her selfishness in having an affair is understandable, but not forgivable. Her situation of boredom and constant scrutiny of her neighbors causes us to at once sympathize with her, but we cannot overlook that Woyzeck is running himself ragged for her, and she can't even bother to be faithful to him.

The representation of “evil” or outside pressure is not so clear cut in Citizen Kane. In a large cast of characters, two stand out as elements which destroy Kane. The first is Jim W. Gettys, the boss of a political machine whom Kane vows to destroy. Gettys is, in fact, corrupt, and he makes no apologies for it. He despises Kane and uses his machine to destroy Kane's political career. But why does he hate Charles Foster Kane? Not simply because he poses a threat to his system of corruption, though that surely is a major reason. But Gettys does not approve of Kane's tactics. “[I]f I owned a newspaper and I didn't like the way somebody was doing things, some politician say, I'd fight him with everything I had. Only I wouldn't show him in a convict's suit with stripes so his children could see the picture in the paper.” He even goes as far as to offer Kane a way out, to bow out of the gubernatorial race with his image untarnished. When Kane refuses, Gettys responds, almost sorry for him: “You're the greatest fool I've ever known, Kane. If it was anybody else, I'd say what's going to happen to you would be a lesson to you. Only you're going to need more than one lesson. And you're going to get more than one lesson.”

The second, and most powerful outside influence in Kane's life is his legal guardian, Walter P. Thatcher. He emphasizes finances above all else. He places business before family and friendship, and he strongly attempts to influence Kane to do the same. As a rebellious youth, Kane seeks out to destroy everything Thatcher has created for him. He spends his money unwisely, he uses his newspaper to attack companies which he himself holds stock in. Thatcher, later in life, quite defeated, says to Kane that he “never made a single investment. You always used your money to... buy things.” Kane then muses about how, were it not for the money he had inherited, he may have been a great man. Thatcher inquires as to what he would like to have been. “Everything you hate,” Kane responds. The irony, and tragedy, of Charles Kane is, of course, that he would end up exactly like Mr. Thatcher. Rich, powerful, and completely alienated and alone.

Finally, between the two works there is the matter of that most satisfying of things: the unhappy endings. So often, going back even to A Doll's House, we see how endings are changed and contorted until they are representations not of what would logically happen, but what the audience needs to happen. It is a great misfortune that Woyzeck is unfinished, specifically in its ending. But of the three possible outcomes, there is no denying the bleakness, the sadness. If Woyzeck is to die, as he does in the scene where he goes to fish for the knife, it would be a truly pathetic end for him and for the play itself. Should he be tried and, likely, executed for his crimes, the play would be still sad, though in a different way. The conviction and execution of Woyzeck would be the final insult of the society whose ideals caused him to go mad and commit the heinous act to begin with. The final, arguably best ending, is that where Woyzeck does not die, but resembles somewhat the monster he has become, so much so that his child is repulsed by him. And the child is the most important part of all three endings. For, not matter which ending is chosen, the child is the ultimate example of Buchner's message. He, more than any other character, embodies the story which the grandmother tells of the child who “[is] all alone, and there he sits to this day, quite, quite alone.”

In Citizen Kane, the message is sent through the revelation as to what “Rosebud” truly is. When we see Kane's sled, the representation of his childhood, his innocence, and his hopes, consumed by flames, what else are we meant to think but what Mr. Berstein declares to Mr. Thomson? “It's no trick to make a lot of money... if what you want to do is make a lot of money.” The revelation of Rosebud, of course, tells us quite a bit about Charles Foster Kane, and simultaneously nothing at all. He yearns for his youth and innocence. So what? Don't we all? What we learn about Kane throughout the picture is far more insightful than anything Rosebud can tell us. The important thing, of course, about these two works is that they reach logical conclusions, and are unafraid to end on a down note.

“Masterpiece” is a term which is significantly overused today, but to call these two works masterpieces is not only justified, it is required. Their similarities in structure, tone and creation are uncanny. Despite a very different story, the conclusion which both works arrive at are undeniably similar. And that, truly, is why these pieces of art transcend their time periods, because they are dealing with a larger issue than whether or not Woyzeck with die, or what a man's dying words mean. They deal on an emotional level, a universal level, at times a visceral level. Regardless of the barriers of time, culture or language, we can understand these masterpieces because they speak to us as human beings, and challenge our preconceptions about society, ethics, and what it truly means to be happy.

Hot Tub Time Machine

2010-04-10T20:17:00.002-04:00

God help me, I like a movie called Hot Tub Time Machine.

But then, why shouldn't I? Doesn't the title say it all? You've got to admit, as titles go, this is the most direct and honest one since Snakes on a Plane. You know what you're getting with this movie. There will, at some point, be a hot tub, and it will turn out to be a time machine. That's the premise, accept it and see what happens.

Okay, so there's a little more to it than that. The film begins with Adam (John Cusack) coming home to find that his girlfriend has left him and taken just about everything in the house. The only thing she didn't take is Adam's nephew Jacob (Clark Duke), who lives in the basement and is completely content spending his time on an online role playing game in which he has to serve a prison sentence. Adam chastises Jacob, telling him to at least play something where he's a warrior or a troll. “It's called doing hard time,” Jacob insists, “Our actions have consequences, even in Second Life.”

Adam has two childhood friends, both of whom are equally as unhappy as he is. There's Nick (Craig Robinson) who works at a doggy daycare where he must provide rich people's pets with the motivation to exercise. Think Tony Robbins, but for dogs. And then there's Lou, played in a star-making performance by Rob Corddry. Lou is a depressed, unemployed alcoholic. After he has a rather chaotic suicide attempt, Adam and Nick take him out of the hospital and vow to give him a good weekend. Their plan is to bring him back to Kodiak Valley Ski Resort, the site of the fondest memories of their youth.

The four arrive at Kodiak Valley to find that things ain't what they used to be. The resort is run down and practically abandoned. The businesses around the valley have shut down, and there isn't even any decent snow to ski on. Depressed, the gang resolve themselves to have a good time. They get drunk and pile on into the hot tub which, wouldn't you know it, sends them back in time. The next morning Adam and his friends wake up to see that they're back in 1986 and in their former, young bodies. Ever the nerd, Jacob insists that the men must do everything exactly as they did in 1986, or the future might drastically change. However, it doesn't take long for it to occur to all of them – why wouldn't they want to change the future?

Hot Tub Time Machine manages to pay homage to every time travel movie from Back to the Future to The Terminator. It's a film that's knowledgeable about the genre, and therefore knows its limitations. What's refreshing is that the movie does not rely too much on references to other films, although having John Cusack return to an 80's ski comedy is sort of brilliant. The film also doesn't derive too much of its humor from the paraphernalia of the decade either. Yes, there are jokes about leg warmers and cassette players, but most of the comedy in Hot Tub Time Machine happens with good old fashioned funny dialogue. The characters sit down and talk about their circumstances, and while doing so they often say very funny things.

But, believe it or not, there's something more to Hot Tub Time Machine than a few clever one-liners and a reverence for the films it's parodying. The relationship between the three childhood friends feels authentic and their dynamic seems genuine. When the doctors at the hospital ask Adam and Nick if they're Lou's friends, Nick has an honest answer: “He's a jerk. But he's our jerk.” Similarly unexpected is how the character of Jacob doesn't learn some silly lesson about how “the good old days” were better and technology is destroying his generation. He's the responsible one in the group, the driving force to get back home. If anything, Hot Tub Time Machine is partially an indictment of nostalgia.

There are a few gross out gags, and I'm never a fan of those. But mostly what the film provides is a funny group of characters who have good chemistry and comic timing between them. Despite the raunchy elements, there is a genuine sweetness to these guys and how they interact. They care about each other – even Lou. Watching them relive their glory days with their new hindsight was, well, kind of poignant.

But if you're still on the fence about this movie, let me just say this: Crispin Glover plays a one-armed bellhop. That should be reason enough to see any movie.

Three stars.