Movie Reviews and News from Vince Patton

The Kite Runner-- Tale of Lifelong Bond and Redemption

2007-12-26T21:37:00.000-08:00

The Kite Runner is an emotionally-charged tale of love, friendship, and redemption that spans nearly two decades. Based on Khaleid Hosseini’s best-selling and award-winning novel, the story involves two boys who grow up together in Afghanistan in the early 1980s, just before the country is occupied by the former Soviet Union. Amir, the older boy, is the meek son of an aristocratic member of the Pashtun community. Hassan, Amir’s best friend, is a younger, more assured son of a servant of Hazaran ethnicity, which relegates him and his family to lower-class status in Afghan society. Amir, who feels his father’s disappointment in him, spends his time writing and reading stories to a wide-eyed Hassan, who looks up to him.

The early scenes between the boys are in subtitles, and they are among the most warm-hearted scenes that viewers will see in theaters this year. The authenticity in these scenes must be attributed to the earnest performances of Zekeria Ebrahimi and Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada, the young actors who portray Amir and Hassan as children. As a young Hassan Mahmidzada is particularly memorable for his stunning ability to convey emotions ranging from exuberance and exhilaration to pain and sadness.

Kite-flying is one of the boys’ favorite activities. The activity is so popular in Afghanistan that thousands watch from balconies and fill the streets to watch as children and their families hoist kites into the sky and watch them glide into the air. Amir and Hassan team up in a local kite-flying contest that challenges individuals to fly kites and to cut the strings of the opposing kites in mid-air before their strings are cut. The team with the last kite flying wins the contest and is instantly the recipient of near city-wide adulation.

The kite-flying scenes in the film are exquisitely shot and are well-staged. The images of the flying kites effectively symbolize freedom and the hope-filled possibilities for people who live in a culture that is seemingly oppressive and fraught with danger and conflict.

The dynamics of the relationship between Amir and Hassan dramatically change after the kite-flying contest when Hassan is raped by an upper class Pashtun boy. Amir is horrified as he watches the assault in silence. He cannot bring himself to intervene to save his friend from the assault and humiliation, confirming his father’s belief that he lacked the courage that his younger friend possesses. Amir’s inability to help his friend during such a traumatic event haunts him forever.

Political unrest and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan prompt Amir and his father to flee their home and to emigrate to the United States. Amir and his father settle in California, where he eventually falls in love and marries a young woman. The middle section of the film, involving Amir and his father’s settlement in the United States, is the least compelling in the film. The film misses an opportunity to show the father and son struggling to adapt to life in the States, which surely would have strengthened this section of the story. Although there is some light humor in the scenes involving Amir's early encounters with his future wife, their relationship is truncated in the film.

The dramatic tension in the film returns when Amir receives a telephone call from his father’s longtime confidante in Afghanistan, whom he hasn't seen since he and his father fled the country. The man urges Amir to return to his homeland, and his decision is difficult. He is a published author with a wife and life in the United States. But his father’s friend makes a startling admission that sets Amir on a dangerous mission that pits him face to face with his past and presents him with one last opportunity to restore honor to his family and to the friend he shamefully neglected almost twenty years ago.

The rape scene in the film has been the subject of much controversy. Paramount Vantage received some criticism for casting Afghan actors in the roles of the boys, in addition to their decision to include the rape in the film adaptation of the story, thus potentially endangering the young actors. Reportedly, the studio delayed the debut of the movie for six weeks out of concern that the young actors involved in the rape scene would not be allowed to return to their homes in Afghanistan. Hosseini and the film’s director, Marc Forster, have both gone on record to defend their decision to include the rape scene in the final cut of the film. In their defense, the scene is as tastefully executed as it possibly could be, and the studio, writer, and director made the correct decisions in leaving the pivotal scene in tact.

Accomplished screenwriter David Benioff and two-time Oscar nominee Marc Forster have teamed together to craft The Kite Runner as a poignant, understated, and bravely told story that maintains the integrity of its original source material. The two thirty-something-year-old creators have teamed together as a writer and director previously in Stay, and their collaboration here is an improvement over that smaller film. Although Forster and Benioff haven’t elevated the material in their film adaptation of Hosseini’s novel, they have created a film that translates the story’s themes of redemption, freedom, hope, love, and demonstrates the powerful bonds that are formed by lifelong relationships. The Afghanistan portions of The Kite Runner were filmed in Xinjang, Kashgar, Tashkuga, and the Pamir Mountains, and the images are striking. The characters in The Kite Runner are bound and limited by geography, culture, tradition, the past, and the political future, yet their journeys of self-discovery remind us of the age-old truth that “love has no boundaries.”

Grade: B+

Acting, Writing, and Directing Propel No Country into Oscar Contention

2007-12-01T22:17:00.000-08:00

In the opening moments of No Country for Old Men, Ed Tom Bell, a jaded sheriff played by Tommy Lee Jones, describes his encounter with a young man sentenced to death. He speaks off-camera, so that his words can linger in the minds of viewers. Jones ends the well-delivered and richly-imagined monologue saying, "This ain't no country for old men." No Country for Old Men is a rousing return to form for enigmatic directors Joel and Ethan Cohen, who have been lauded for their ability to instill humor into the darkest of tales. Faithfully adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s western novel, the film tells the tale of Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), a hunter who discovers a trail of dead bodies and a briefcase filled with $2 million of drug money. Anton Chigurh, a quiet hitman sporting a Prince Valiant haircut, uses a tracking device attached to the inside of the briefcase to pursue Moss and the money he has been hired to retrieve. Ed Tom Bell is mystified by the violent events that ensue after Moss finds the money and flees his hometown. Things become more complicated when the powerful businessman who hires Chigurh enlists the services of a cocky bounty hunter (Woody Harrelson) to find the money in case Chigurh can't be trusted to return it.

No Country for Old Men is far and away the best film the Cohen brothers have written and directed since Fargo, their Oscar-nominated work from 1996. While No Country for Old Men is not quite as brilliant as that earlier film, their work here is remarkable in its own right. Like Fargo and their earlier masterpiece, Blood Simple, the film is centered around a crime that is followed by events that are dark, sad, and at times strangely comic.

The film showcases three great performances by Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, and Tommy Lee Jones, who portray characters whose morals and outlook on life could not be any more different. Moss, a tough strapped-for-cash Vietnam veteran, lives a simple life with a simple wife in a trailer in the middle of the desert. Bell is a man bewildered by the violence that disrupts the simplicity that has defined his town for years. And Anton is a memorable villain who lugs an oxygen tank around town and presses it against the foreheads of several innocent townspeople to dispense blows into his victims' heads that are no less deadly than gunshots to their heads. Chiguhr is adept at shooting a cattle gun, treating his own gunshot wounds, and making nearly every person he meets flip a coin to determine their fate. Anton, wonderfully played by a cast-against-type Jarvier Bardem, is an individual of otherworldly evil and menace.

Perhaps one of the most admirable things about No Country for Old Men is the way in which it presents characters who say and do things that intelligent audiences believe they would say and do. And much of the film’s humor rests in this truth. Set in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the story takes place during a time when most Americans had already begun to lose trust in many of the institutions on which the country was founded: the government, business, the law, and the military. Yet the residents of the small Texas towns featured in the film carry themselves without guile in a world where the human condition is deteriorating and where there are fewer and fewer good men. The Cohen brothers have some fun incorporating some of the quirks of the Texas townspeople, admiring their goodness, and subtly offering some commentary on the loss of such goodness and innocence in humanity.

No Country for Old Men will likely emerge as an Oscar contender in a not-so-great year for movies. The film benefits from the talents of cinematographer Roger Deakins, who paints a desolate Texas landscape as a backdrop for this tale of murder, betrayal, and evil; excellent supporting performances; and smart writing throughout. Defying convention, the film has an ambiguous ending, and there are two questions about plot points that may leave most viewers either buying the book or placing early orders for the DVD. Although there is a strong thriller component to the film, it effectively uses its characters and the dire circumstances they face to offer a compelling commentary on the power of evil, its disruption to the simplicity of life, and its ultimate devastation to the human condition.

Grade: A-

Violence, Profanity

Lions for Lambs -- Great Cast, Name Director, Good Movie?

2007-11-13T18:09:00.000-08:00

Lions for Lambs is Robert Redford’s most overtly political film, and there is no pretense about the film’s intention to stake its terrain firmly on the left side of the political and ideological landscape. It not so subtlely critiques the Bush Administration’s policies on the Iraq War to raise questions about future American policy, challenges us to think about the decisions we make when we’re too young to know the right choice; and for a moment pretends to offer commentary on the age-old adage from Alexander Hamilton, “those who stand for nothing, fall for anything.”

The film centers on three scenes involving a liberal journalist’s interview with an ambitious Republican senator, an aging political science professor’s conversation with an underachieving and jaded student, and two idealistic young soldiers trapped on a mountain outside of Afghanistan.

Meryl Streep delivers the best performance in the film, portraying a journalist on the downside of her career. Her eyes, gestures, and posture reflect a woman who is beyond disbelief and whose disillusionment and mistrust of the U.S. government eventually compel her to carry such heavy sadness and frustration on every part of her being. Tom Cruise, looking a bit older and accomplished in a dark suit and power tie, is adequate but not quite Streep’s equal in their scenes. Cruise’s bloated persona and his wars with the media in recent years make us cringe and nod at his senator’s ambition and arrogance. Robert Redford is bland and benign as the all-knowing college professor determined to steer a student towards attending classes, studying, getting good grades, and clean living—all one needs to find happiness and success in this world. And as the American soldiers in the Iraq War, Derek Luke and Michael Pena are given such lightweight sketches for characters to play that regardless of their characters’ plight, we are virtually numb to any emotion their scenes are designed to elicit.

Although it is only 90 minutes long, the film feels at least one hour longer. Matthew Joe Carnahan’s dialogue is stilted and appears to be written to state the film’s core messages over and over again. The six main characters are so thinly conceived that the audience is robbed of the experience of learning characters’ motivations, watching them evolve, and then becoming emotionally involved with them and their actions—all the things that make going to the movies worth, well--- going to the movies. The actors, and by-default the characters they portray, become mere props for political protestations and proclamations about the Bush Administration, government, institutions, and of all things the American media. Each of the characters state their piece over and over again and never veer from their respective points of view.

One would have thought Redford would have treaded more carefully than to accuse the American media of backing the war in Iraq, yet he does so repeatedly, nearly suggesting that the failings of the U.S. policy in Iraq is as much a fault of the American media as the Bush Administration. This is the ultimate failing of the film. To my recollection, no journalist from any of the major American networks or newspapers with the possible exception of Fox News (and that might even be a stretch) ever sold the war to the American public as Redford so stridently contends. Lions for Lambs not only delivers the same notes at the wrong chords; it flat out delivers the wrong notes!

Lions for Lambs is clearly experimental filmmaking and should be recognized as such. But it lacks the necessary narrative thread to expound upon its themes to add credence to its challenging positions. The constraints of the script never allow the ideas articulated by its characters to become external. The film is bold in its conception yet flawed in its execution and its inability to transfer the power of its ideas to impactful images. At this point in Redford’s distinguished career, he’s earned the right to make such an experimental film, though. He’s the Sundance Kid who essentially founded the Sundance Film Festival, which in many ways redefined American cinema. In Lions for Lambs he’s violated his own principles, though, and created a film that deprives its audience and defies convention, all for the sake of creating its own truth.

Grade: C-

In Defense of Hollywood: A Bulletin to O'Reilly

2007-10-06T22:28:00.000-07:00

The past several weeks Fox News commentator and talk radio host Bill O'Reilly has blasted producers and directors in Hollywood who were involved in the production and the theatrical release of several motion pictures that he believes are critical of the Iraq war. O'Reilly, whose show regularly finishes in the top spot in its time slot, has been most vehement in his opposition to In the Valley of Elah, Rendition, and Redacted. The recently maligned host (probably unfairly over misdirected charges of racism and insensitivity) argues that those associated with these films are unpatriotic and that they have committed a grave disservice to the country and American audiences, especially since the U.S. is still in the middle of a war. O'Reilly has marched one pundit and media scribe after another regardless of their political ideologies on to his show to debate this particular issue, and he has concluded all of the conversations by postulating that the production and release of these films is yet another example of Hollywood's wayward thinking and leftist proclivities.

But what O'Reilly and others who share his opinion on this matter fail to understand is that the American sentiment about the Iraq war isn't directly in line with the commentator or the President. Nearly every poll taken reveals that a sizeable percentage of Americans question our decision to enter into the war with Iraq. U.S. citizens' doubts about our reasons for entering the war persist even despite recent reports that they might be willing to exercise a bit more patience before calling for an immediate withdrawal of troops.

Perhaps more importantly, though, is that cinema is at its most potent when it as a reflection and interpretation of our culture, provokes audiences to think about motivations and actions that led to significant events in history and those that define who we are in contemporary life. The films that are currently being debated do exactly this. In the Valley of Elah and Redacted are based on actual incidents, and they were directed by accomplished directors. Paul Haggis who won two Oscars for writing and directing Crash, wrote and directed In the Valley of Elah, and veteran filmmaker Brian DePalma wrote and directed Redacted. At first glance the third film, Rendition, directed by Gavin Hood, appears to compel audiences to think carefully about the potential implications of government's misuse of power and the Patriot Act, which has been undeniably controversial since its introduction in 2002. Haggis brilliantly explored the country's multilayered struggles with racism in Crash, and DePalma challenged our ideas and convictions about the treatment of prisoners of war in his well-received war drama, Casualties of War. In other words, controversial topics are not uncommon ground for these two directors, so it shouldn't have come to anyone's surprise that they would venture to write and direct films on the Iraq war, which is undoubtedly the conundrum of the decade.

Despite what O'Reilly and conservative talk show hosts believe, the significance of this debate extends well beyond liberal and conservative ideology. In 1991 Oliver Stone dodged strident assaults from liberal and conservative journalists and politicians after the release of his film, JFK. Although the film was a stunning technical achievement in editing, the film's detractors objected to the idea that a filmmaker would propose his own conclusions to one of the most botched investigations in U.S. history.

Some have argued that there were not films criticizing the Vietnam War and other wars made while American troops were fighting them. This may well be true, but it doesn't mean that our country would not have allowed someone the freedom to write and direct a film that challenged audiences to reflect upon the implications and consequences of controversial wars while they were being fought. Hollywood is simply reacting to the public's overall disillusionment with the war in Iraq. In the Valley of Elah, despite its well-known cast, is an independent film. Its deliberate pace and somber and understated tone aren't likely to attract droves to theaters to see it, and Redacted has been debated so frequently in the last several weeks that a wide release for it in the near future remains seriously in doubt. Nevertheless, those who love good cinema and the creative individuals responsible for it, have the right to see these films, regardless of how small and erudite their audiences may be. There is no reason why there shouldn't be room enough to allow free market principles to be applied here.

O'Reilly has publicly stated his support of the war in Iraq from the outset, and it is completely unjust to criticize him for his steadfast support. Many books criticizing the Iraq war and the Bush Administration's strategies have been published since the start of the war, yet O'Reilly hasn't bombard his viewers with repeated attacks against the publishing industry at-large, which may be the single most compelling reason why his current argument can be dismissed so readily. His criticism of these three films, much of which are based on actual events and created to challenge American audiences to think about the consequences of war and the decisions behind it, is misguided, misappropriately applied to only one quarter, and teeters on a dangerously slippery slope toward censorship.

Foster and Howard Rise Above Ideologically-Flawed Script in The Brave One

2007-09-19T20:13:00.000-07:00

In The Brave One Jodie Foster portrays New York City radio personality Erica Bain, who walks the streets of the city carrying a microphone and a recorder while commenting on the sights and sounds of what she refers to "as one of the safest big cities of America." One night she and her fiancee' are brutally attacked by a gang of thugs in a dark tunnel in one of the Big Apple's major parks. He fiancee' dies from the attack and she very nearly does.

The traumatic event changes her life forever and sets her on a course of vengeance. Mourning the loss of her fiancee,' Erica struggles to obtain the courage to leave her apartment and go out into the streets of New York. The film captures her apprehension effectively through some imaginative camera work and yet another compelling performance by Jodie Foster.

Upon her return to the streets she purchases a gun from a man in what is tantamount to a black market transaction, after she learns it will take her almost thirty days to legally register to own a gun. She then uses the gun to rid the streets of New York from the reckless criminals who are making her beloved city a distant memory for her and other innocent residents. On one of Erica's first nights returning to the streets, she witnesses a man shooting and killing his wife in a liquor store and then she is forced to kill the man in self-defense after he discovers she's there. From then on Erica walks the streets and sees other victims being terrorized and abused by thugs of all sorts and decides to "take matters into her own hands."

At the scene of one of her crimes Erica meets and befriends Detective Mercer, nicely played by Terrance Howard (Crash, Hustle and Flow). Mercer and his partner are hot on her trail, and Erica and Mercer become drawn to another. They are two lonely and wounded souls--her from the traumatic death of her fiancee' and he from a divorce from an attorney.

Eventually Bain returns to her radio show a changed woman. In one of the film's more memorable scenes she pauses for several minutes before commenting on how she thinks the city has changed. Tempted by the possibility of higher ratings, her producer allows viewers to begin calling in their opinions about the vigilante killings, which sends Bain into an emotional tailspin. These moments in the film reflect the often-times absurd reactions from listeners of talk radio, a questionable forum for addressing the underlying causes of any major societal problem, much less inner-city crime.

Foster, a two-time Oscar winner and Howard, an Oscar nominee, rise above the script by the father and son writing team of Roderick and Bruce Taylor and Cynthia Mort, the great scribe now doing terrific work on HBO's impressive drama, Tell Me You Love Me. There is legitimate chemistry between these two engaging stars, but the script lacks the dramatic punch that the stars deserve, and the pacing of the film's action is not quite as brisk as it should be. The film asks whether or not Erica, in her acts of vigilante justice, is becoming what she wants to destroy with each person she kills. Although she is distraught after several of the killings, the filmmakers can't seem to decide if they want to condemn Erica for her actions or those who ultimately compel her to do what she does.

The Brave One was directed by Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, Interview with the Vampire, and The End of the Affair), who has always managed to create the appropriate look to match the somber and solemn tone to his films, and his work here is no exception. Legendary cinematographer Philippe Rousselot's aerial shots of the dark, narrow and wide alleys of New York City remind us of the dangers that might exist. And the film makes great use of recording artist Sarah McLachlan's Answer during one of Erica's darkest moments.

The Brave One is competently produced, acted, and directed, but it as a whole and in particular its final scenes, presents vigilante justice as a solution to ease Erica's pain rather than a punishable crime. The filmmakers have titled the film, The Brave One. I only wish they would have been brave enough to challenge the prevailing ideological view and the winds of conservatism that are likely to hoist vigilante justice as a symbol of valor and courage.

Grade: B-

Rated R for intense violence, profanity, some sexuality

Funny, Irreverent Superbad Lets Boys be Boys

2007-08-26T21:14:00.000-07:00

Superbad is the latest film from the team responsible for recent summer hits such as The Forty-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up. And believe it or not, it is raunchier and more raucous than either of those films, featuring a trio of sex-starved teenagers as its main characters.

Superbad takes place within the span of two days, with a loud high school party (no surprise here) as its centerpiece. It revolves around the desires, anxieties, and misadventures of Seth, Evan, and their freakishly nerdy friend Fogell portrayed by newcomer Christopher Mintz-Plasse. The boys are in their senior year of high school, and Evan and Fogell have decided to room together at Dartmouth. Their lower-achieving and more mischievous ring leader Seth is far less certain about his college plans and wastes no time dismissing anything that is not related to girls and hanging out.

Although it’s their senior year, these three have neither seen nor had much action with the female populace at their high school, and they boldly declare that they are changing this bulletin-board fact before the end of the school year. Lucky for them, they are invited to a party by two pretty girls, who lo and behold actually like them. In the one-tracked minds of the boys the party is the site of lots of booze and an opportunity to “get with some of the girls.” There’s a bit of a catch, though. The boys, newcomers to the “in-crowd,” have to bring the liquor of the girls’ choice, and of course, they are only too happy to oblige even though they are not old enough to buy it. In one of the film’s funniest bits, Fogell shows off his fake photo ID, which identifies him with the single name “McLovin” and naturally, several jokes about his name and the clothes he dons for the big party ensue.

Of course, not all of the jokes work. There is a brief gag about blood from a woman who is in the middle of her period dripping on to the pants of one of the boys that is more gross than funny. In another scene two police officers question an African American woman about a robbery, and in an awkward moment they hesitantly ask her the race of the perpetrator.

There are several memorable supporting characters, some of whom are funnier than others. Seth Rogen and Bill Hader portray two police officers who befriend Fogell and treat him to a fun-filled night in the squad car. The officers are dim-witted and destructive and get their kicks out of turning on their police car sirens before speeding through the city’s red lights. In addition, the film includes a band of pot-inhaling and red-eyed men in a smoke-filled room hell-bent on seeing and hearing Evan sing, and Jules and Becca, the girls whom Seth and Evan have their sights set on.

For the first two-thirds of its more than two-hour running time, Superbad is a trek down memory lane of past high school comedies that got major mileage out of fast-talking characters spewing sexually-explicit jokes that every teenage boy says or dreams of saying. Yet, there is an underlying truth in the script and the performances that prevents the film from deteriorating into just another sexually-driven and derivative comedy that has become such a common product of the Hollywood studio system. Michael Cera, slim, shy, and embodying wide-eyed innocence as Evan, is the perfect counterpart to Jonah Hill, who is loud and almost never at a loss for words. Hill’s Seth is rotund and a loquacious, sex-thinking machine on a mission to lose his virginity and to do what he can to see that his friends lose theirs as well. But in truth, Seth is Superbad’s most vulnerable character, the one who has the most to lose, and ultimately the heart and soul of the film. And he more than Evan or Fogel, two more likable characters, actually suffers from separation anxiety, one of the film’s themes. In one of the most poignant moments in this summer’s movies, Seth admits his true feelings for his friend Evan, who utters the same words of affection for his fellow mate. It’s a moment in stark contrast to the raunchy, uproarious scenes that dominate the first two-thirds of the film and one that sets it apart from most mainstream comedies about American teenagers.

In three films now Greg Mottola, Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen, and the rest of this new “it” team in Hollywood have celebrated and dissected American malehood. Surpassing the Farrelly brothers (There’s Something about Mary and Dumb and Dumber) and to somewhat lesser-extent Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused), the team has produced comedies that combine knee-slapping hilarity with some insightful commentary on human behavior and the psyche of the American male. It took me two complete viewings to fully appreciate all that Superbad has to offer. Now I’m eagerly anticipating this talented production team’s next effort with the hope that it might be even more revelatory than this crowd-pleasing, sure-fire hit and that it challenge easily-amused American audiences to do more than let “boys be boys.”

Grade: B

(Rated R for strong sexual content, mature themes, strong profanity)

Hairspray-- Rip, Roaring Fun

2007-07-25T20:05:00.000-07:00

Hairspray is a breezy, broad rendition of the 1988 classic by John Waters and the Tony-nominated Broadway production. Set in 1962 Baltimore, the musical production is the story of a pleasantly plump high schooler, Tracey Turnblad, who longs for a spot on the cheesily-named Corny Collins Show. Turnblad's insecurities about her weight and her subsequent place in her high school class are front and center along with the struggle of a group of gifted African American singers and dancers relegated to performing on Negro Day one day a week. The spirited musical production pits an overweight teenager and her overweight mother against a matriarch and her pampered daughter and an African American musical group against the racist society of the 1960s. Most of the fun in watching director Adam Shankman's adaptation is seeing how Tracey Turnblad and the African American group of musicians sing and dance their way to form an alliance that helps them overcome low self-esteem, prejudice, and racism to reach their potential as performers.

Tracey is smitten by one of the Corny Collins Show's leading young men, Link Larkin, who is the object of Amber von Tussle's affections. Amber (Brittany Snow) is the beautiful daughter of Velma von Tussle, an overheated baracuda of a mother, played to campy-effectiveness by Michelle Pfeiffer. Amber is everything that Tracey is not. She is blond and thin--the picture of 1960s, and for that matter, 2007-perfection. Newcomer Nikki Blonsky gives Tracey an oversized perkiness and ever-widening smile that make us cheer her every move and groove. At the last moment of her audition, Tracey is selected to join the chorus of dancers on the Corny Collins Show. Tracey's addition to the chorus prompts Velma to scheme to prevent Link and Tracey from dancing together and becoming an item. And in a better-than-average subplot, Tracey's friend, Penny Pingleton (Amanda Binds) falls for Seaweed, a member of the African American musical group, much to the chagrin of her mother.

Queen Latifah portrays Motormouth Maybelle, the leader of the African American singers restricted to performing one day of the week. Despite her natural energy, it is somewhat disappointing that the charismatic actress wasn't given a little more to do in the film. Her performance is competent, but the script by Leslie Dixon fails to provide her with a single defining moment in the film.

Pfeiffer is masterful. She dresses in a variety of fancy apparel and get-ups and takes command of her scenes, looking sullen and sultry all at once. Embodying venom and villainy, Pfeiffer should have had at least one musical number that would have allowed her to put all that pent-up angst into memorable words and music.

But John Travolta's cross-dressing turn as Edna Turnblad will be what audiences are most likely to remember. Casting Travolta in the famous role previously played by the late Divine was something of a risk for Shankman and for the actor himself. Undergoing five hours of make-up each day paid off for Travolta, for he is a comedic delight here. In what may be deemed a career-saving performance, Travolta's Turnblad portrays an overly protective mother who is a sight with loads of emotion. She is the picture of matronly devotion, and yet we know there is untapped potential and something that will surely be unleashed by the film's end. In full-throttle Travolta's Turnblad leaps past her husband, played by the always-interesting Christopher Walken, dances, jumps, and gyrates in sheer delight of her freedom to look the way she wants in front of whoever she wants.

Aided by several carefully choreographed dance routines, Hairspray evolves into a celebration of transformation and liberation for Tracey and the African Americans she befriends. Hairspray may be a story about an overweight white teenager's pursuit of justice and love for herself and her African American soulmates, but the film's music, heart, and energy are enough sources of liberation and transformation for an America that may have lost the meaning of both.

Grade: B+

Yippee--Ky--Yehh! Live Free or Die Hard

2007-07-08T12:16:00.000-07:00

Bruce Willis returns as detective John McClain in this briskly-paced and action-packed fourth installment in the popular Die Hard series. In Live Free or Die Hard McClain must protect the life of a young computer hacker Matthew Farrell, enthusiastically portrayed by Justin Long. (The clever bit of casting is undoubtedly related to Long's appearances on current computer commercials.) Farrell is the last member of a group of hackers on the hit list of a former homeland security systems expert, who was jilted by the U.S. administration and now wants to show the U.S. government and the world how possible it is to hack into government computer systems and dismantle the country's financial, utility, and transportation systems.

Some twenty years since the previous film in the series, McClain is physically older, worn, and bald--traits that Willis wears well. One could make the case that these are not exactly inappropriate characteristics given the toughness McClain must demonstrate while risking life and limb to save Farrell from hit men hired by the former homeland security guru.

The disgruntled guru turns out to be one of the series' most menancing villains, and he is portrayed by a surprisingly effective Timothy Olyphant. Dressed in black shirts and using piercing stares to look ice-cold, Olyphant's performance is second only to Alan Rickman's memorable villainous turn in the first film. Cast against type, Olyphant exudes the smooth calculation and intellect that one imagines would be needed to outhack the greatest hackers in the world in a not-altogether-impossible plot to derail financial, utility, and transportation systems in the U.S. (Remember the U.S. only received D and Cs, respectively, in homeland security grades, and we have got to believe these disappointing marks were in the minds of the filmmakers.)

Several of the film's action sequences are jaw-droppingly spectacular. In one impressive bit, a hard hitting and kicking yet sexy Maggie G and Willis fight one another in and out of an automobile that literally hangs by damaged wires in a long elevator shaft. In another well-directed scene, Olyphant arranges for one of his own computer hackers to tap into a system to misdirect traffic in a D.C. tunnel in an effort to kill McClain and Farrell, who are driving in the opposite direction of all other traffic. The result sends several cars flying, twisting, and crashing toward McClain and Farrell, who are at the same time fleeing from hit men flying in a helicopter just above the tunnel. The choreography and timing of this and other action sequences are simply splendid.

The film comes just in the nick of time. Knee-deep into the summer's movie schedule, much of the fare has been disappointing and drab. But here Les Wisemnan, the film's director, has served up a nicely conceived action yarn with unexpected intelligence and relevance in the post 9-11 world in which we find ourselves. Live Free or Die Hard is more than a movie for die-hard Republicans and hawks undeterred in their commitment to homeland security and an unpopular war; it is first-rate pop entertainment that Americans of all stripes could simply die for. Yippe--ky--yehh!!

Grade: B+

Knocked Up -- Young, Funny, and Smart

2007-06-25T18:01:00.000-07:00

Knocked Up, the raunchy and knee-slappingly funny comedy from the director of The Forty-Year-OldVirgin, may not only catapult the careers of its stars Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl, but it may be one of the few times that a summer film so blatantly targeted to 18 to 30-year-olds has more to say than three-quarters of the year's adult-oriented films. The film premiered to cheers at major film festivals earlier in the spring before it opened in wide release three weeks ago amid speculation that the film would be the one of the biggest hits of the summer.

Rogen stars as Ben Stone, a woeful, unemployed slacker who spends time working with his blow-pipe-smoking, sex-starved, and very funny friends developing a web site with the dubious distinction of promoting scenes in films in which leading actresses appear naked. One night at a hip club a nervous Ben meets Allison, an upwardly mobile production assistant who has just been promoted to an on-air spot on an E-like cable channel. The two dance and go back to Allison's apartment and have sex. The morning after, though, Allison, wakes up and sees a naked Ben lying on her living room couch and nearly cringes. Allison's eyes reveal her disgust and her own disappointment in her split-second decision to have sex with the man she met only one night earlier. Allison reluctantly invites Ben to have her breakfast with her sister and her husband. Several weeks go by without the two contacting each other, and then Allison has a bout of morning sickness on the set of her television show before she learns she is pregnant.

Allison thinks about her options, decides she wants to have the baby, and then calls an emotionally-loaded Ben, who ultimately agrees to help her in whatever way he can. In addition to exploring how Ben and Allison's relationship evolves, the film takes its time developing the characters of Debbie and Pete, Allison's older sister and her husband. The thirty-something husband and wife are nicely played by Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann. Although Debbie and Pete give advice to Ben and Allison throughout the film, they too have their problems, and the film displays a wonderful balance between humor and wisdom in the way in which it presents their marriage and the all-too-real issues the couple faces. And in a smart bit of casting, Joanna Kerns and Harold Ramis portray Allison's mother and Ben's father, respectively.

Knocked Up arrived in U.S. theaters just in time. Despite decent box office receipts, the quality of this summer's films is mediocre at best, and few films with the exception of Disturbia have guaranteed future stardom for their leading actors. The film's success is due in large part to word-of-mouth and the winning performances by Rogen and Heigl. Rogen is a younger, less exposed cross between Will Ferrell and Chevy Chase. He brings the right blend of innocence, physical humor, and charm to Ben, who must balance his day-long head trips with his uninspired friends with his desire to develop the maturity that Allison's pregnancy demands. Heigl, looking a bit fresher than she does in ABC's hit television show, Grey's Anatomy, is perfect. Her eyes and face give Allison the confidence she needs to make the decisions she does and the patience she knows her often-pathetic mate requires.

Although it has almost all of the trappings of a conventional profanity-riddled and sex-laden comedy for older teenagers and young adults, Knocked Up is uncommonly intelligent. Lesser movies in this genre would have contained fewer laughs and far less insights and would not have asked many of the questions posed by this film. The film prompts us to think carefully about how well we know the people we sleep with, the consequences of our decisions involving sex and relationships, ourselves as individuals in the context of relationships and marriage, the different rates at which some of us respond to the opportunities that love presents, and the importance of compromise and sacrifice in our most meaningful relationships.

Writer and director Judd Apatow is a real find. With The Forty-Year-Old Virgin and now Knocked Up, he has displayed an uncanny knack for making us laugh at the most personal and most human of life situations while shedding enough light to keep audiences talking, chuckling, and learning that with the love of family and friends, none of this previously taboo material is worth getting tied up in a knot over.

Grade: B+

Spider-Man 3 -- An Overstuffed, Tangled Web

2007-05-26T09:10:00.000-07:00

Nearly three weeks ago, Spider-Man 3 raked in more than $148 million in its opening weekend. Despite such enormous early box-office success and heavy merchandising and promotion, the film is at least an artistic failure if it is not deemed a commercial disappointment by the end of its summer run. Incidentally, the film's box office receipts have declined precipitously as word of mouth on the film has cooled anticipation and interest.

Spider-Man 3 begins where the second film left off, with Peter Parker's one-time best friend Harry, still vowing to avenge the death of his father, The Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe). The young heir believes Spider-Man killed his father and has spent the years following his father's death plotting his revenge. In one of the film's best scenes, Harry, utilizing electronic gadgetsand contraptions that his father designed, chases Spider-Man across the skies of New York City. In an unsuccessful attempt to kill Spider-Man, Harry falls and loses his memory. He awakens from his accident remembering Peter Parker and his girlfriend Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) as two of his closest friends.

Meanwhile Flint Marko, a two-bit hood, escapes from prison and immediately runs to see his daughter, who is in need of an operation. The police inform Peter and his aunt that Marko was the person who really shot Uncle Ben. This of course sets Parker out on a mission to bring Marko to justice. One of the most entertaining aspects about movies involving comic strip characters are the events leading up to the transformation of characters into larger-than-life villains with extraordinary powers, and Marko's transformation is no exception. Fleeing from police, the convict falls into a large vat that is filled with thousands of pounds of sand and he emerges as the Sandman. The amorphous creature has the ability to assume the shape and size of the largest of objects. Sadly, Thomas Haden Church, who received rave reviews for his comedic performance in Sideways, is given little to do or to say and delivers a one-note performance.

Fans of the earlier films witness a different Spider-Man when a mysterious black substance latches on to the superhero's blue and red suit. Spider-Man is a dark, vengeful figure in the black suit. He is drawn to the attention he receives from rescuing a pretty model portrayed by Bryce Dallas Howard. The power Spider-Man experiences when he wears the black suit allures him to commit more uncharacteristically egotistical actions while his expanding ego is more and more annoying to Mary Jane, a struggling actress panned and fired for a bad performance in a play. Exploring the potentially dark sides of the character is worthwhile, but it is the sort of idea that reads well on paper but is difficult to execute if the performances and the script aren't right on target, and therein lie the problems with Spider-Man 3. Tobey Maguire, a competent dramatic actor, looks awkward in several scenes when his character must transform from the boy-next-door Parker to a dark-spirited young man with nothing but vengeance on his mind or the overly confident man trying to impress anyone who will watch him.

At the newspaper Eddie Brock, a sly freelance photographer, vies for Parker's job. Topher Grace (In Good Company) brings a combination of youthful charm, mischief, and cockiness to his role, but his performance is uneven. He's pitch-perfect in one scene, seemingly perfunctory in the next. Parker and Brock engage in an ongoing feud over the course of the film about the authenticity of photos of Spider-Man, and in the film's climax Brock discovers Parker's identity (although I didn't buy his discovery). In a wonderful bit the mysterious black substance that turned Spider-Man into a black-hearted narcissist, finds a suitable home when it falls on Brock, appropriately transforming the ambitious young man into Venom.

Spider-Man 3 was written by director Sam Raimi, who did splendid work in directing the engaging first installment and then served up the superior Spider-Man 2. Here he is joined by brother Ivan and Alvin Sergeant and together they have packed so many characters and ideas into the script that what has emerged is a tangled web of a film heavy on stuffing and light on meaty action sequences and special effects, which are what summer moviegoers have come to expect. None of the film's characters has anything remotely interesting to say, and the film fails to expand on the themes of call and responsibility addressed in the earlier films in the series. The special effects promoted during the fantastic trailer that ran during the Super Bowl are conspicuously absent from the prints currently showing in theaters.

Spider-Man 3 is a victim of its own success. The franchise reaped huge rewards from its previous films and on cue the studios poured millions and millions more into this film by promising greater effects and boosting its cast--all to negative effect. James Cromwell, an Oscar-nominated actor, portrays the police chief and Gwen Stacy's father. His most memorable moment in the film comes when he gazes up into the sky and sees his daughter clinging desperately to the edge of a skyscraper. In the film he may have been hoping Spider-Man would rush to her rescue, but this notable and acclaimed actor may well have been wondering if he was ever going to have an opportunity to do anything interesting in this film. He deserved more and so did we.

Grade: C

Reign Over Me -- Powerful Post 9/11 Drama

2007-04-10T17:54:00.000-07:00

Reign Over Me, a powerful new post-9/11 drama, features two of the year's most gripping performances by Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle. Sandler, as almost no one has ever seen him, stars as Charlie Fineman, a former dentist who lost his wife and three daughters in one of the plane crashes on 9/11. Don Cheadle portrays Alan Johnson, Charlie's college roommate and a successful dentist who spots Charlie one day on a street in New York City. Having read about the tragedy involving Charlie's family, Alan uses the chance encounter to rekindle his friendship with the reclusive former dentist. Charlie, who spends the majority of his time alone playing electronic games in his apartment, welcomes the opportunity to get to know Alan again. The two men spend a substantial amount of time together, and yet Alan notices that Charlie never mentions the family he lost on 9/11.

Cheadle's Johnson is in stark contrast to Sandler's Fineman. Alan is happily married with two daughters and is comfortable with the responsibilities that come with running a booming dental practice. But the more time Alan spends with Charlie, the more Alan's wife (Jada Pinkett) senses that his growing relationship with Charlie provides him with something that he is seemingly unable to receive from their marriage. On the other hand, Charlie becomes more and more dependent on Alan and demonstrates on more than one occasion just how emotionally repressed and stunted the tragic deaths of his family have left him.

Alan's renewed friendship with the emotionally wounded Charlie is a challenge for him and his wife. He struggles with the obligation he feels he owes Charlie, and is somewhat tempted by the freedom he briefly experiences during their nights out on the town. Gradually, Alan understands that Charlie's way of coping with his losses is to shut out the rest of the world and to rearrange the kitchen the way he thinks his wife would have liked. In response to his observation, Alan seeks help from a counselor friend, a beautiful and serene Liv Tyler, who shares the same office building. Charlie proves to be a demanding client for her indeed.

Reign Over Me is especially insightful in the way it explores love and friendship and the equilibrium that they bring to our states of being. The film shows us a wandering Charlie, who lost all that he loved. It effectively depicts his struggle to come to grips with his losses and to regain his equilibrium through his renewed friendship with Alan. For his part, Alan gains strength and balance from his friendship to address some brewing issues in his own life. The film reminds us just how vulnerable we all are, not only to potentially devastating tragedies, but to losing the equilibrium needed for us to maintain who we are and who we are destined to become.

Written and directed by Mike Binder, the film displays a confidence in the way it depicts its characters and their travails. Reign Over Me is the second impressive film from Binder, who directed The Upside of Anger, an equally-effective drama about an alcoholic mother of four daughters grappling with the disappearance of her husband. With this effort here, Binder has given us the first post-9/11 movie of its type, a searing drama that explores not only the loss of life but the loss of love and the states of being suffered by those who must pick up the pieces from that fateful day. Although there are some comedic moments throughout Binder's script, it is the deep yearning for love to reign over the lives of the film's emotionally-wounded characters (echoed in the film's fitting original song by Pete Townshend) that is most likely to linger in the hearts and minds of viewers long after the film concludes.

Grade: B+

Wahlberg and Cast Save Shooter

2007-04-01T20:14:00.000-07:00

Shooter, the new action thriller starring Mark Wahlberg, is one of the few films of its genre in wide release early this spring. Like many action films, it is predictable and preposterous in its plotting and unabashedly so. And yet Wahlberg and his supporting cast are engaging enough to make the film a fun romp in high adventure escapism. Cast members of lesser talent may have dialed in their performances and collected their paychecks with minimal effort, which would have reduced the film to yet another forgettable action yarn. Thankfully, the actors and a somewhat talented crew nearly rise above the material, making Shooter a mildly memorable action drama.

The film owes pieces of its story to a number of highly successful movies from recent years. Its plot is reminiscent of those in Tears of the Sun, Training Day, The Fugitive, U.S. Marshalls, and it even includes a small dose of Rambo: First Blood. Familiar plot elements shouldn’t come as a total surprise. Shooter was directed by Antoine Fuqua, the talented filmmaker who directed Tears of the Sun and Training Day. While Shooter may not be the best film in this lot, it is marginally better than at least a few of them.

Wahlberg portrays Bob Lee Swagger, an ex-US military marksman who drifts into seclusion after losing a very close friend while trying to escape from enemy territory. He’s lured back into duty to try and prevent an assassination attempt on the President of the United States. An African government official is killed instead, and Swagger is subsequently framed for the murder and the assassination attempt. Swagger enlists help from Sarah Fenn, the fiancée of Swagger’s deceased friend, and teams up with a young FBI agent to find out who was ultimately responsible for the set up and why.

Shooter, which is based on Stephen Hunter’s novel, Point of Impact, features several fun, inventive performances. Danny Glover portrays a conniving colonel, and Ned Beatty hits just the right note as a corrupt senator. Wahlberg, fresh from his Oscar-nominated turn as a Boston detective in The Departed, continues to shine as a leading actor in mid-tier Hollywood action movies, and his performance here is no exception. Wahlberg is competent and comfortable as the rugged and ruthless Swagger. The thirty-five-year-old actor, who has seemingly carved a nice niche for himself, is slowly emerging as Hollywood’s “go to leading man” for mass-audience action films while other actors in this genre seem to be at curious crossroads in their careers.

Despite predictable plotting, Shooter attains a certain level of craftsmanship. From its pitch perfect performances by Ned Beatty to its overall conspiratorial tone, the film ultimately reflects some sense of purpose. Never mind that the film’s purpose is revealed in a devilishly-delivered platitude about the hypocrisies of the American political system by Beatty’s rogue senator. Shooter’s release comes at a time when American citizens question the legitimacy and truthfulness of various parts of the U.S. government. As we watch Swagger trying to outwit his highly-placed nemeses, we begin to wonder if there isn’t at least a hint of verity in the film’s underlying cynicism about honor, service, and justice in the U.S.

Grade: B-

Freedom Writers Just Passes

2007-02-09T21:21:00.000-08:00

With her high cheekbones and slender physique, Hilary Swank is a woman of boundless strength and confidence who assumes command in almost every scene in which she appears. In the predictably earnest Freedom Writers, she portrays Erin Gruell, a naive high school English teacher relegated to teaching a racially mixed but homogenously raucous group of freshmen and sophomores in Long Beach, California. She has the class no one wants. (She has one fearful white student in her class, and he's the subject of obvious jokes.) Freedom Writers is another big studio project from the Stand and Deliver and Dangerous Minds school of films based on real-life accounts of noble men and women who engage in nontraditional teaching methods to turn around the lives of hopelessly depressed students in two hours.

Swank, a two-time Oscar-winning actress, turns in yet another fine performance. Her work here nearly saves this often overwrought and overlong film from the trappings of Hollywood conventions. In the film's two-hour-plus running time, she's given a wide range of emotions to portray, and Ms. Swank proves she's up to the task. Her Erin grapples with her father's disappointment over her decision to pursue teaching instead of law, her husband's growing discontent, a less than supportive vice principal, and students who let her know from the outset that they have no reason to listen to lectures from a young white teacher from Newport Beach--the other side of the tracks. Still Swanks exudes enough passion in her performance to convince us that her Erin has the persistence to inspire her previously poor-performing students to want to learn about the Holocaust and to use what they learn to write and successfully publish their own diaries.

Written and directed by Richard LaGravenese, Freedom Writers is at times awkward and derivative. The opening scenes of the film feature footage from the LA riots after the Rodney King trial in the 1990s interspersed with scenes involving several characters in the film. A few of the characters are given voice-overs with humorous insights, a technique that seems odd for the overall tone of the film. And there are at least two extended scenes showing the high school students dancing that had no business making out of the cutting room.

Ms. Swanks and a cast of largely unknown yet engaging and impressive actors make the film watchable. LaGravenese has largely been missing in action since his Oscar-nominated work penning The Bridges of Madison County and directing Danny DeVito and Holly Hunter in the little-seen Living Out Loud. Despite LaGravenese's unsure direction and caricatured performances such as the one delivered by snarling Imelda Staunton as the vice principal, Freedom Writers emerges as a middle-brow antidote to the "teaching to the test" modes that are so pervasive in our nation's schools.

Grade: B-

The Queen Rises to the Top

2006-12-04T19:01:00.000-08:00

The Queen, the stately film from director Stephen Frears, chronicles the events following the tragic death of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed. Helen Mirren, delivering yet another Oscar-worthy performance, stars as Queen Elizabeth, who must grapple with her own mixed emotions following the death of her former daughter-in-law. The film explores the dilemma Queen Elizabeth faced, whether to respect her own wishes and those of her immediate family’s for a private funeral for Princess Diana or to succumb to pressures from the British public and the rest of the world for the royal family to hold a public funeral.

The week following Diana’s death, Queen Elizabeth is surrounded by family members who share her wishes for a more private affair. Her husband, King Philip, portrayed to elitist perfection by James Cromwell, offers her his steadfast support, as does her mother, Queen Mother. At several turns the film reminds us that Queen Elizabeth received early criticism about her response to the tragedy from the newly appointed Prime Minister Tony Blair. The film implies that, at least on the issue related to Diana’s death, Blair correctly gauges the mood of the country and struggles in vein to convey this to the Queen, whom he hopes will acknowledge her own grief and join the rest of Britain and the world in a public mourning of Diana.

As Tony Blair, Michael Sheen exudes the idealism, passion, and exuberance that make him look more like the outgoing Prime Minister Blair more than he actually does. Blair must balance his respect for the royal family with his understanding of the public’s deep sense of loss and delicately persuade Queen Elizabeth to act against her and most of her family’s instincts. Like Mirren, Sheen is likely to receive an Oscar nomination for his work here.

The film intersperses footage of Diana from the days leading up to the accident and images of thousands paying tributes and saying tearful good-byes to Diana with scenes that recreate the moments of tension and discomfort the royal family experienced. In a chilling scene, the film replays footage of Earl Spencer, Princess Diana's brother, reading a statement blasting photographers for pursuing Diana so vigorously. His words and anguish evoke thoughts about Western culture's obsession with celebrity gossip and the excessive pursuit of the media to feed our warped desires for information about the private lives of the rich and famous. The film, perhaps more honestly than British royalty and government officials would like, depicts the Queen as a towering, protective mother in-law certain of her love and support of her son, Prince Charles but not completely enamored with Princess Diana, who earlier divorced him. Such a depiction should make word of mouth about this film from British royalty and government officials all the more interesting.

Stephen Frears, who works effectively from Peter Morgan’s script, has assembled a competent collection of British actors to bring this surprisingly film-worthy occasion to the screen. The classy production, enhanced by Alexandre Desplat’s musical score and Affonso Beato’s unexpectedly eye-catching cinematography, is irrefutably among Frears’s most substantive work since his well-regarded film, Dangerous Liaisons.

The Queen not only reminds us of the pain the entire world endured in the wake of Diana’s death, but the film presents in full view the awesome reach of the media and its potentially devastating impact on all things in life---from the most public to the most private. The Queen compels us to salute the queen for her strength, integrity, and valor—all in the face of a worldwide media charged and conditioned to reveal all to the world by any means necessary.

Grade: A

Remembering Robert Altman

2006-11-22T19:43:00.000-08:00

Hollywood mourns the loss of movie director Robert Altman. The legendary film director died at the age of 81 on Monday night from complications stemming from a battle with cancer. Altman is most notably remembered for directing M*A*S*H and Nashville among a host of other Oscar-nominated films. The two celebrated films from 1970 and 1975 featured ensemble casts and intersecting stories and a style of filmmaking that has since spawned a legion of films and directors who have tried to duplicate the director’s success. The beloved director received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2006 Academy Awards. He directed more than thirty-five feature films.

Altman’s last film was this year’s A Prairie Home Companion, another critically acclaimed ensemble piece based on a screenplay by popular storyteller Garrison Keillor. The film’s all-star cast includes Garrison Keillor, Woody Harrelson, Tommy Lee Jones, Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Virginia Madsen, Lindsay Lohan, and John C. Reilly. Like many of Altman’s films, the film only loosely relies on the script and contains several instances of the cast ad libbing lines. Altman’s proclivity for allowing actors the freedom to improvise earned him the reputation for being an “actor’s director.”

The widely-respected director never won an Oscar, despite being nominated five times. Altman received Oscar nominations for his work on M*A*S*H, Nashville, The Player, Short Cuts, and Gosford Park. Ten years after completing his work on Nashville, Altman continued to direct feature films with mixed success. Then in 1992 he directed a satire about the inner workings of the movie industry entitled, The Player. The film starred Tim Robbins and Whoopi Goldberg and included cameos from such major stars such as Julia Roberts and Bruce Willis. The film rejuvenated his directorial career and reestablished him as a favorite with critics. He followed this brilliant work with even more ambitious efforts in Short Cuts, a film based on a collection of Raymond Carver stories, and 2001’s popular drama, Gosford Park.

Entertainment Weekly recently named Altman the 17th greatest director. Altman’s other memorable films include Cookie’s Fortune, California Splits, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, The Long Good-bye, and Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. Film historians and industry experts generally regard McCabe and Mrs. Miller, the revisionist Western starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie, as Altman’s best film.

Some of Altman’s films were great; others were good, and some were even bad, but none of them were dull or without imagination or risk. The director was highly regarded by stars and industry insiders and observers, and it is likely that his significant contributions to the industry will be recognized yet again at the 2007 Academy Awards. His A Prairie Home Companion was well-received by critics and the industry, and there is already wide speculation that the director just might receive his sixth Oscar nomination for Best Director for his last film.

Altman’s departure will be deeply felt, and his death leaves a significant void in the craft of film direction today. The director is part of the last breed of filmmakers who were so extraordinarily talented that even casual observers of film could readily identify the trademarks of his films. With more than forty years of industry experience, five Oscar nominations, and several lifetime achievement awards, Altman was the antithesis of today’s director, whose work too often fails to be marked by any distinguishing traits and who moves from one middling film to another. Altman will be undoubtedly be described and rightly so as groundbreaking, trend setting, revolutionary, passionate, and maverick. Even into his eighties, Altman steadfastly adhered to a successful formula that combined ensemble casting, overlapping stories, clever writing, and ingenious spontaneity with a deep desire to make audiences laugh and cry while offering commentary on various aspects of society and culture. We couldn’t have asked the one-of-a-kind director for anything more.

Oscar Contenders and Pretenders

2006-11-05T21:01:00.000-08:00

Guest columnist Tony Greer reviews Flags of Our Fathers, Marie Antoinette, and Fearless. In honor of the election season regular columnist Vince Patton takes a look back at the disappointing film, All the King's Men.

A JOURNEY INTO BRAVERY AND TRUTH

Once you see the young faces of soldiers glowing with fear and surprise, it is evident that the ride through this wartime moment in history depicts a tale of emotional bravery and truth. Director Clint Eastwood, with help from screenwriters Paul Haggis (Crash) and William Broyles Jr. (Jarhead), successfully formulates an outstanding movie experience of sacrifice, honor, and deception that will transport you to one of the most significant periods in wartime history. A masterpiece and a must-see for all for it teaches, Flags of Our Fathers explores the value of human life, freedom, and the meaning of heroism.

The movie tells three stories, all relating to the famous photo depicting several American soldiers raising the American flag on top of Mount Suribachi on the Island of Iwo Jima. The first story recreates the battle on the island where 6,000 Americans died securing the location for a base in order to launch bombers against Japan and to assist troubled U.S. aircraft. The Japanese were determined to fight to the last soldier to keep Americans from occupying the island, and they lost 21,000 Japanese in the process. The second story takes us on a journey with three surviving soldiers who appear in that famous photograph. Selective government and military officials use the soldiers and the photo to help build financial and moral support for the war. This story reveals a hidden truth that ultimately leads to ethical questions and human tragedy. The final story is a touching narrative of a father telling his son of the events that took place during the battle capped by the flag-raising moment and the difficult adjustments after the war.

There is no question that Clint Eastwood has once again created an emotional masterpiece revealing the human condition during a time in history in which time stood still and moved too quickly. The movie is superb as it reveals details that will educate even the best historian. Eastwood deftly balances the three stories. For two hours-plus he shows the horrors of war and its effects, the prejudices concerning African American and Indian cultures, the façade emitted by politics and the media for dollars and glamour, and explores what being a “hero” really means to a soldier. The movie features excellent imagery even after the movie ends with the use of actual still shots from the island battle that may bring tears to the eyes of many viewers. The camera work is just as brilliant and effective as it was in Eastwood’s last Oscar winner, Million Dollar Baby. The musical score composed by Eastwood and longtime partner Lennie Niehaus is perfect for the film’s somber tone. Just as impressive are the performances by Adam Beach, Ryan Phillipe, and Jesse Bradford, who portray three of the soldiers believed to be in the photo. Flags of Our Fathers is surely an Oscar contender. But more importantly, it is an elegantly written and directed film of awesome power that will move you regardless of how many times you see it.

ARTISTIC AND BEAUTIFUL TO THE EYES, EMPTY TO THE HEART AND MIND

Sofia Coppola’s new film, Marie Antoinette is an artistic and beautifully visual experience that lacks the historical substance to be taken seriously. The young director is gifted with a style all her own, but her latest film will leave most audiences less than satisfied. Despite its shortcomings, Coppola’s new film is a delight to watch as long as you just have fun with it.

The story follows Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst) as a young 14 year-old Austrian girl who must move to France for an arranged wedding with the young Louis XVI (Jason Schwartzman). Her lifestyle changes to a life of confusion and boredom as she is constantly pampered, expected to have children, and must live her life with a husband who is both uninterested and immature. She parties like most teenagers do, spending a great deal of money without reason. Once Louis XVI father, King Louis XV (Rip Torn) dies, the situation takes a turn causing financial disaster for France and the end of Marie Antoinette’s reign as the queen.

Most viewers will expect a movie of this type to have some historical significance, but this film has very little. Coppola’s choice to create an artistic and abstract movie using 80’s style-music such as “I Want Candy,” by Bow Wow Wow works to some degree. Coppola places us in the mind of the teenage queen who’s on a quest for fun despite the enormous political and economic pressures facing her country. The art direction and cinematography are perfect in just about every scene, and Kirsten Dunst is stunning as Marie Antoinette. Her work here will most likely earn her an Oscar nomination. The supporting cast is also competent, but any momentum the film generates in the middle third of its running time is lost in the film's final scenes. The historical events are merely props, and the film comes to an abrupt ending leaving you puzzled, empty, and asking yourself, “what?” It really does not matter that the film eventually becomes disappointing, you just have to have fun with what works and ignore the rest.

EXCITING ACTION AND BEAUTIFUL SCENERY BUT NOT MUCH ELSE

Jet Li’s return to the traditional Chinese martial-arts style film is a breath-taking experience of precise choreography and very little else. Fearless, although beautifully filmed, lacks direction, emotion, and sufficient character and plot development.

Jet Li plays Huo Yuanjia, China’s last hope to save a broken culture from western and European domination. Base on the life of Huo Yuanijia who rallied the Chinese people together, it is a journey through inner demons, politics, and honor. After seeing his master defeated in battle, a young Huo Yuanijia is determined to avenge that loss, only to discover he must battle his own failures. This leads him to a destructive life of selfishness and drunkenness. A tragedy leads Yuanijia to a life of exile in a small village, where he rejuvenates his inner strengths with the help of a blind woman. This Chinese warrior returns as the ultimate hero, battling the world for honor.

As in Jet Li’s previous film Hero, the battle scenes are well staged. The film works best when the fight sequences take center stage, revealing multiple fighting styles that include strength, speed, and swordplay.

Unfortunately, Li fails to portray this reckless warrior turned hero with emotional impact and energy. Instead he is almost lifeless until he enters the ring for battle. Then there is the second half of the film, which is dull until Yuanijia returns to his place of stardom. This transition almost seems like you are watching another movie and weakens the main plot. “Fearless” can be considered a modest success if you enjoy martial-arts action and beautiful scenery. Historically and thematically, the film is incomplete and less than satisfying

REMEMBERING ALL THE KING'S MEN THIS ELECTION SEASON

All the King’s Men, which may have limped out of second-run theaters by now, is the most recent example of a project fueled by a star-studded cast, an A-list director, and a provocative production team to fall flat into Hollywood mediocrity. Despite early reports from the Toronto Film Festival, All the King’s Men is not the greatest cinematic disaster since last year’s Alexander, a ponderous and poorly conceived work by Oliver Stone. It’s simply not the rousing success audiences should expect from a film loaded with this considerable talent. Filmed in New Orleans in 2005, All the King’s Men was scheduled to be released later the same year but was beset by delays due to Hurricane Katrina and numerous problems in post production. This ultimately determined the film’s release more than ten months later.

Based on a Pulitzer-prize-winning novel by Robert Penn Warren, All the King’s Men is a remake of the Oscar-winning 1949 film starring Broderick Crawford. The remake is directed by Steven Zaillian, who first rose to prominence for writing the Oscar-winning screenplay for Schindler’s List. Sean Penn stars as Willie Stark, a mid-level government staffer who runs and wins the governorship of Louisiana in the 1940s. Stark, a loud politician, who champions causes for the poor and the downtrodden on his way to victory, is slowly corrupted by power. Although the film features some intermittent scenes showing Stark delivering some passionate lines to the poor kinfolk who ultimately elect him to office, the film never paints a portrait that is as complete as Penn’s performance deserves.

The film features a legion of today’s leading stars in supporting roles including Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Patricia Clarkson, Mark Ruffalo, James Gandolfini, and an in-form Anthony Hopkins. Structural problems prevent the first-rate cast from delivering the Oscar-caliber performances to which we have grown accustomed. Hopkins, the eldest big-name actor in the cast, delivers the film’s best performance. His eyes and speech belie a man, who has traveled the perilous roads of politics but who is settled and solemnly committed to a strict code of morals and ethics in his retirement.

All the Kings’ Men is an incomplete film. Its two hour and ten-minute running time could have easily been two hours and thirty minutes, which might have provided the audience with crucial scenes to connect plot points that are introduced or implied in one scene and then not revealed until many scenes later or not at all. There was simply more story to tell than Zaillian knew how to tell, indicating the film was derailed by editing as well as structural problems. For instance, the film opens with Willie Stark sitting in a passenger seat with a wide-eyed Jack Burden (Jude Law) sitting in the back, heading to confront a judge, portrayed by Anthony Hopkins, and then to virtually no effect, flashes back to Stark’s early days in politics. Stark befriends a mid-level hood known as Tiny Duffy, played by James Gandolfini. Later Stark publicly humiliates Tiny and then illogically places him on his staff. In addition, he hires Sadie Burke, a sly and experienced political operative, played by Patricia Clarkson, who is miscast here. The film gives the audience scant opportunities to observe anything that would compel Stark to run for the governorship and even fewer examples of Stark’s corruption, which led to calls for his removal from office.

Hopkins and Penn are such gifted actors that they’re able to rise above the flawed screenplay to give us hints of the themes of power, corruption, greed, betrayal, and lifelong love that still resonate with all who read the novel by Robert Penn Warren and saw the original film adaptation more than two and half decades ago. Much was made out of Democratic Party consultant James Carville’s involvement in producing the film and the supposed similarities between Stark and Huey Long, on whom many believe the original film was based. The film should have had even more relevance at the time of its September release given the accusations and news of scandal in George W. Bush's administration. But ironically, it is Carville’s former charge, Bill Clinton---no stranger to the s-word himself, who is actually a closer comparison to the big-bellied and womanizing governor that Penn portrays. Carville’s association with the film should have given the film political authenticity and heft, but instead this remake is a muted and muddled misstep of a film whose all-star cast of characters are all bark and no bite.

Grade: C

An Inconvenient Truth - A Call to Action

2006-08-21T20:15:00.000-07:00

by Vince Patton

(This reflection is also posted at www.theThoughtfulChristian.blogspot.com, the blog site for the new online ecumenical resource center, The Thoughtful Christian, www.theThoughtfulChristian.com. The Thoughtful Christian is an innovative education program that contains downloadable studies in five major categories: Bible and theology, spirituality, Christian living, contemporary issues, and religion and popular culture. For more information about this program, go to www.theThoughtfulChristian.com.)

In the early moments of An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore walks onto a stage at a college campus and introduces himself as the “ex-next President of the United States.” His clever introduction elicited laughter from the audience and revealed a surprisingly engaging side to the ex-Vice President. The Al Gore that is presented in this extraordinary documentary about global warming is a far cry from the stiff and sometimes surly Democratic candidate who huffed and puffed after almost every word uttered by George W. Bush during two Presidential debates in 2000. Here Gore exudes confidence and knowledge about global warming without being arrogant and concern for the well-being of the planet and its inhabitants without being gleeful that many of his predictions are coming true. The facts he presents and the charts he uses to support them are as convincing as anything the politician has asserted since his emergence as a major political figure more than two decades ago.

During its one hour and forty-seven minute running time, the film features highlights of Gore’s lectures on global warming interspersed with the former politician’s reflections on his personal life. Global warming is clearly a passion for the former politician. An Inconvenient Truth traces Gore’s fascination with global warming back to his days in college and even includes footage of his appearance before Congress as a young politician advocating for things championed by several leading scientists and environmentalists.

In one of the more memorable parts of Gore’s presentations, he charts the gradual rise in temperatures each year. All of us remember the heat from last summer and are struggling to survive this summer’s stifling temperatures, and few of us would argue with Gore that 2005 was in fact the warmest year on the planet. In addition, he effectively demonstrates how some of the world’s largest ice caps have begun to melt and how it appears likely that this trend will continue.

A lesser film might have concentrated more solely on a scientific investigation and explication of global warming. But the film delicately explores Gore’s thoughts on some of the most personal aspects of his life and draws parallels between the life lessons he learned during these times and what we can learn about caring for the land with which God has blessed us. Gore recalls almost losing his six-year-old son and how that experience reminded him not to take for granted those things he thought he would always have or else he might ultimately lose the things that he holds most dear. He explains that we are, in fact, risking losing the land that we hold so dear when we continue to drive the cars we do, rely on oil the way we do, refuse to take steps to dramatically reduce carbon emissions, and fail to seek alternative sources of energy. In addition, he reflects upon the death of his sister to lung cancer and his support of the concerted effort of grass-root coalitions and eventually the U.S. government to dramatically reduce the number of smokers and thus the number of deaths that can be attributed to it. Then the former politician concludes that a similar effort must be undertaken to address the moral issue of global warming and demonstrates his unwavering determination to remain a major figure in the discussions on global warming and the environment.

Gore contends that the film is not political. But its reception and its coverage in the media might be. Approximately five years ago, well-respected political commentator George Will sat across from Washington This Week host George Stephanopholous and declared that global warming was one of the biggest scientific hoaxes in many, many years. Just a few weeks ago the former Vice President appeared on the same show shortly after the limited release of his film and fended off questions from Stephanopholous, who challenged him on several of the figures he quoted in the film. In addition, a number of scientists have spoken out in opposition to the theories espoused by the former politician in An Inconvenient Truth. Many of the scientists who doubt the data that Gore cites have accused him of relying on “junk science” and failing to consult “true climate experts,” who they believe have the knowledge necessary to explain the causes of global climate change.

The criticisms may be scientifically valid, but are any criticisms of the film’s messages of care for the earth and good use of natural resources biblically and theologically valid? As people of faith, we are called to let our voices be heard in service to God and all that God has created. The Book of Genesis informs us of God’s call for us to be caretakers of the earth and lays out for us God’s covenant with Noah and presumably all future generations. And Psalms 24:1 reminds us, “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.” Al Gore is essentially asking us as a people to respond to this charge. Al Gore and his family left the Southern Baptist Convention, but his proclamations for love and care for God’s land couldn’t be delivered with any more zeal. Gore’s and the filmmakers’ motives for making the film appear to be above reproach. Reportedly, Al Gore will donate all of the money he earns from the movie to the Alliance for Climate Protection. In addition, the producers and directors of the film agreed to lower salaries, and Melissa Ethridge wrote the film’s original song for free. Paramount Vantage, the movie studio, is even pledging 5 percent of the film’s gross domestic sales to the Alliance for Climate Protection.

Although the film has been discussed on The O’Reilly Factor and The Michael Medved Show, it hasn’t been blasted by the conservative media, many of whom flocked to early screenings in search of ammunition in case the politician decides to run for the Presidency in 2008 (As of this writing, Al Gore has still not ruled out the possibility of running). The relative silence of the conservative media may speak volumes about the film’s impact on the non-scientific community and its ability to register with viewers from all across the political spectrum and to rally concerned Christians who have long been searching for ways to turn the country’s attention to environmental issues.

An Inconvenient Truth has emerged from this summer’s largely lackluster fare as the most talked-about film of the season. The film has already moved past the critically-acclaimed Hoop Dreams and Super Size Me to become the fourth-highest grossing non-concert documentary of all time and is close to overtaking Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine, the third-highest grossing documentary. Reaching across political party lines, it’s also among the smartest advocacy films in recent years. During its closing credits, the film creatively promotes the web site, www.climatecrisis.net and lists ten action steps that any concerned individual and certainly any “thoughtful Christian” should be compelled to follow. The film also concludes with an African proverb that reads, “When you pray, move your feet,” which is another nudge for viewers to not only think about what they have witnessed but to make a commitment to act. As the film’s title suggests, the film lays out what it believes to be scientific truths that are just as inconvenient to accept as they are to address. At its core An Inconvenient Call is a prophetic call for us all to assume the roles as stewards and caregivers that God has given us and to work together as the diverse body of God’s people to use our natural resources wisely to ensure the safety and the future of the land God has bestowed upon us.

Remembering Munich

2006-07-27T18:35:00.000-07:00

This reflection also appears at www.theThoughtfulChristian.blogspot.com, the blog site for the new ecumenical online resource center, The Thoughtful Christian (www.theThoughtfulChristian.com). The Thoughtful Christian offers an innovative adult Christian education program that contains downloadable studies in Bible and theology, Christian living, spirituality, popular culture, and contemporary issues. The Thoughtful Christian also contains a study session on Munich. For more information, visit www.theThoughtfulChristian.com.

Munich, the Oscar-nominated film from director Steven Spielberg, created a wave of controversy upon its release at the end of 2005. Although the film received a few negative reviews, it still finished the year with a higher overall rating from the nation’s top critics than Crash, which ultimately took home the Oscar for Best Picture (from a survey of thirty of the nation’s top critics in Premiere magazine’s January 2006 issue).

Munich is Spielberg’s account of the aftermath of the 1972 shootings of eleven Israeli athletes during the Olympic games in Munich. (Two athletes were initially killed and nine were taken hostage. When German authorities seized the airport, where the Palestinian terrorists were holding the Israeli hostages, shots broke out and the hostages were all killed.) The acclaimed director and award-winning writers Tony Kushner and Eric Roth based their screenplay largely from the book, Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team by George Jonas and received Oscar nominations for their work. The film chronicles the Israeli government’s decision to hire an unofficial team of assassins to kill the Palestinians responsible for the deaths of the Olympic athletes and follows the exploits of the assassins as they travel the globe seeking vengeance. The opening sequences in the film include actual black and white footage from the original American newscast reported by Jim McKay, giving the film added authenticity.

The film is brilliant in the way that it succeeds as both a political thriller and an intelligent commentary on the uncompromising positions that serve as the catalysts for the endless cycle of violence that has persisted in the Middle East for many decades. Although there are several nicely constructed action sequences, the film is one of Spielberg’s most solemn pieces of work along with Schlinder’s List and Saving Private.

Munich suggests that the problems vexing the region are not as one-sided as either Israel or Palestine would have us believe. There are Israeli murderers, and there are Palestinian murderers. The history involving the Jewish and Palestinian occupation and entitlement to land and territories in the Middle East is long and complicated and includes numerous accounts of death and destruction. The United States government and many others believe that Israeli occupation of those territories is absolutely essential to that country’s protection from Palestinian terrorist groups. Others, however, believe that Palestinian resistance within the West Bank and Gaza Strip is justified as a result of a United Nations charter and stipulations in the Geneva conventions. The complexity of the conflict, which is the backdrop of Munich, is implied in conversations between Israeli government officials early in the film and again during a key conversation between an Israeli and Palestinian near the end of the film.

Spielberg, an American Jew, is now a paragon of commercial and critical success in Hollywood. The director is immensely respected throughout the industry, and his success has afforded him the opportunity to take the political and the commercial risks to produce and direct a project such as Munich. This film was particularly risky given the heavily Jewish Hollywood community, the changing political climate within the movie industry, and the influence and wrath of conservative commentators Michael Medved, Bill O’Reilly, and others, who were all-too eager to criticize the director. Medved and O’Reilly, in particular, devoted extensive time on their radio and television talk shows to discuss the liberalism in Hollywood immediately upon the release of the film. In one of the single-most ridiculous statements in film criticism in 2005, Michael Medved referred to Munich as one of the worst films of the year. The sociopolitical commentator and film critic was so proud of his claim that his quote indicating his disapproval of the film played repeatedly during his show’s commercials as recently as April 2006.

Munich prompts American Christians to consider the evolution of terrorism and its enormous consequences and challenges us to ponder appropriate responses to it. In addition, it is that rare film today that explores serious issues by presenting us with the black and white and the gray while moving us to experience a wide range of emotions. This is an achievement in itself, for we live in an age in which the discourse on the most important issues of the day is conducted on the simplest of levels. One of the more impressive aspects of the film is the way it depicts the transformation of Avner, the leader of the team of assassins. He contemplates the merits of his mission and questions his own Jewish faith tradition. Spielberg uses the plot point to ask the audience to consider the sins that people commit, the actions they commit in the name of religion, or how faith can move us to a new understanding. The dialogue in a memorable scene involving a Palestinian and an Israeli talking about the continuing conflict in their land is insightful. When both men finish speaking, viewers are compelled to at least seriously reflect upon Spielberg’s contention that “killing and counterkillings as a response to a response doesn’t really solve anything. It just creates a perpetual motion machine. There’s been a quagmire of blood for blood for many decades in that region. Where will it end?”

The director’s assertion became the launching point for neo-conservative commentator David Brooks’s widely-read op-ed piece in the December 11, 2005 edition of The New York Times. Brooks took Spielberg to task for creating a false world in his film, a world in which there is no evil. In true neo-conservative fashion, Brooks writes, “But in the real Middle East the only way to achieve peace is through military victory over the fanatics, accompanied by compromise between the reasonable elements on each side.” In the world of David Brooks, evil exists within all those who rise in opposition to entrenched imperialistic forces and the U.S. and the only way to rid the world of evil is to resort to violence. In a sense he tells us that he knows the Palestinians who plant bombs are evil and fanatical, pure and simple. Underlying his argument is a deep bias against the Palestinian cause and unflinching allegiance to U.S. policy, which includes supplying Israel with weapons and military. To watch the cautiously balanced Munich and to conclude that Spielberg doesn’t recognize the existence of evil is to place the term squarely on the shoulders of the Palestinians and to fail to recognize the different types of evil and the theological distinctions between them. Where are the Christian principles in this notion? As Christians we must categorically reject the notion by Mr. Brooks, for we are called to love God and our neighbors and to understand the differences between natural and intrinsic evil and physical and moral evil. Unfortunately, thousands of people may have read the column by Mr. Brooks and consciously or unconsciously accepted his view as the truth without ever exploring the theological distinctions between the types of evil. Readers of the column may have missed what I think may be one of Spielberg’s message to us, that the term “evil” can be used to describe the actions of both Palestinians and Israelis.

In the film’s final scene, Avner, the lead assassin, meets face to face with Ephraim, an Israeli government official, in a park in New York City. Avner tells Ephraim that he cannot return to work for the Israeli government after his experience but then asks Ephraim to have dinner with him and his family. “Won’t you break bread with me?” he asks. Ephraim declines his invitation. Spielberg then brilliantly draws our eyes to the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center that appear in the background, conjuring up images of 9/11 and the heinous attack on American soil. Munich is as much a retelling of the vengeance and counter-terrorism tactics sought by Golda Meier and the Israeli government as it is an anti-war and terrorism statement that presents in full view the powerful parallel that exists between the events that transpired after the Munich games and the U.S. government’s response to the terrorist attacks on 9/11. In the final moments of the film, the two men walk their separate ways, choosing not to “break bread with one another,” reminding us of the pain and isolation associated with conflict and our own refusal to break down the walls that divide us so that we can “break bread” with all whom the one God has created.

More Balanced Storytelling Needed for Promising Superman Returns

2006-07-06T20:27:00.000-07:00

Superman Returns arrives in theaters nearly twenty years after Superman IV, the flat fourth installment of the Christopher Reeve capers. Superman, the first movie in the series, featured the relative newcomer Reeves and an all-star cast that included screen legends such as Marlon Brando, Jackie Cooper, and Glenn Ford and one in the making in Hackman. Superman Returns is more similar in its tone to the first film than the three subsequent films, which were progressively worse. At nearly two hours and forty-five minutes, Superman Returns is long and somewhat ambitious for a film of this genre, but it is not quite the rousing success this viewer anticipated.

Superman Returns was directed by Bryan Singer, a seasoned and talented albeit young filmmaker. The thirty-seven-year-old, who directed Usual Suspects and the first two X-Men movies, jettisoned his directorial duties on the third mutant film in order to preside over this project. His passion for the story is evident, but there is a lack of clarity and exactness in the storytelling and editing that prevent this film from being the summer spectacle it should have been. In the opening moments of the film viewers have the opportunity to hear words from Marlon Brando’s Jor-El character, but his words are garbled here. Only the most ardent Superman fans will understand his character’s words and their significance. Shortly thereafter, Superman literally returns to his grandmother’s backyard, but the explanation given for his return is murky at best. In addition, there’s a general lack of attention to the details surrounding Lex Luther’s escape from his predicament in the earlier films and his maniacal plots to use kryptonite to kill Superman and to destroy most of the world’s population.

The production of Superman Returns has a storied history that dates back at least one decade and involves multiple tales of cast changes and a revolving door of directors, screenwriters, and producers. (Alias creator and Mission Impossible director J.J. Abrams and Nicolas Cage were once attached to the project.) When the carousel of top directors in the running finally stopped, Singer, fresh off rave reviews from his X-Men pictures, was the last one standing.

Singer’s film is both a revision of the 1978 and 1980 movies and a continuation of the story that unfolded during the course of the earlier movies. And this might be the problem. A major plot point in Superman Returns is the relationship between Lois Lane, an investigative reporter, and Superman, which has supposedly cooled since the events of the earlier films. When we see Lois Lane here, she is engaged to an associate editor at the newspaper and she has a young son, whose paternity is in question. He may or may not be the product of an encounter between Superman and Lois Lane. This sudsy component to the Superman Returns story takes center stage, and while the performances are entertaining and engaging, the length of time devoted to that portion of the story prevents the audience from understanding other crucial elements of the saga.

Superman Returns boasts a solid cast that includes newcomers and veterans. Brandon Routh and Kate Bosworth, both emerging from near anonymity, deliver satisfying and engaging performances. They are as fresh and likable as Reeves and Margot Kidder were in their star-turning roles and arguably have as much on-camera chemistry as the two previous actors. Kevin Spacey is reliable and competent as the loud and diabolical Lex Luther. The slick and over-the-top villain is accompanied by a comedic and slightly dim-witted sidekick, nicely played by Parker Posey. Spacey and Posey are two tremendously talented performers who unfortunately need much more to do than this screenplay allows. Frank Langella, James Marsden, and Eva Marie Saint round out the cast.

Superman Returns is far less clear in the way it addresses themes of justice for the marginalized, call, and vocation than a movie like X-Men. Like the original X-Men movie by Singer, Superman Returns is most concerned with establishing its characters and their motivations for future films that promise more substantive storytelling. Singer benefited from a tightly written screenplay in the original X-Men movie and could have used that same precision and narrative clarity and focus in the screenplay for Superman Returns, which he has written with Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris. These weaknesses prevent Superman Returns from joining X-Men 2, Spider-man 2, and Batman Begins as the superior films in this rapidly expanding genre. Nevertheless, Superman Returns is above-average entertainment that impresses and enthralls us more often than not. Its director’s vision and passion may well be enough for this broad movie for the masses to best most of the competition in what has so far been a lackluster and disappointing summer at the movies.

Grade: B-

NEWS AND NOTES

Weekly Box Office Report

Below are gross ticket sales of the five highest grossing movies as of Friday, June 30. Year-to-date grosses have also been included.

Superman Returns $52.5 million $108.1million
The Devil Wears Prada $27.5 million $40.1 million
Click $19.9 million $87.6 million
Cars $14.6 million $190 million
Nacho Libre $6.6 million $68.5 million

Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman have agreed to star in The Bucket List. They will play two terminally ill men who set out to complete a wish list of activities before they die.

The much anticipated sequel, Pirates of the Carribean will open on Friday, July 7. The film will star Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, and Keira Knightley. It was directed by Gore Verbinski.

Katie Cassidy, daughter of former teen idol David Cassidy, has reportedly won the part of Lucy Ewing in the motion picture adaptation of Dallas. Rumors are circulating that Cassidy won the part over Jessica Simpson and several other actresses. John Travolta has already signed on to star in the film.

Leonardo DiCaprio is pursuing the possibility of playing Tim Leary in a film that Craig Lucas (The Dying Gaul) is slated to direct.

Chow Yun-Fat and Gong Li are set to star in Curse of the Golden Flower. Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon and The House of Flying Daggers were huge worldwide hits, and studio insiders predict the same sort of success for this upcoming film.

United 93 -- A Gripping Account

2006-05-30T19:50:00.000-07:00

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originally uploaded by mastergitterbug.

United 93 arrived in theaters this April amidst protests and fears that the country wasn’t ready to relive the pain and the horror of what we have come to refer to as “9/11.” Several theaters yanked prints containing trailers of the film and much to the distress of this reviewer, others flat-out refused to show the completed film. After a stronger-than-expected opening, ticket sales for United 93 have steadily tapered off. Sadly but not completely surprising, fickle American moviegoers have shoved aside British director Paul Greengrass’s film in favor of the likes of such mid-brow yet anticipated blockbusters as The DaVinci Code and Poseidon. Quite simply, United 93 is both superior filmmaking and a celebration of the lives of the individuals who lost their lives that fateful day.

Featuring many of the actual air traffic controllers and military personnel who charted the course of the aircraft from their control towers, United 93 is a solemn and studied account of the heroic effort of thirty-seven passengers and four airline crew to derail the plot and the path of its Iraqi hijackers. The film’s use of low light, an almost anonymous yet astonishing cast, and its perfectly modest score convey the severity and the seriousness of the circumstances confronting the passengers and the world. The passangers’ collective act of valor prevented the hijackers from crashing the commercial plane into the capitol building, thus saving the lives of hundreds of U.S. citizens.

Told in real time, the 111-minute drama captures the mass frenzy that occupied the air traffic control rooms in New York City. The air traffic controllers, some of whom portray themselves in this film, watched in horror as two commercial airplanes flew into the World Trade Center. Those who watch this film will undoubtedly think back to what they were doing when they first learned of the disaster. Many Americans can still recall what they were doing when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and their ability to recount their activities at the moment they first learned of the attack on the World Trade Center is no different.

Ironically, the film’s clearest message might be that all of the individuals on United 93—the Iraqi hijackers and the passengers who feared them and their plot against America-- were people of God. Alternating scenes of Iraqi hijackers holding their hands together and saying Islamic prayers and American men, women, and children in very nearly the same posture and gestures saying Christian prayers as the plane and its passengers are heading towards a horrific end is perhaps the single most compelling image in American cinema this year. Such an image in the film begs not one but thousands of questions. One of which is what is it about America that prompted people of God to assume a terrorist position and to pray so fervently for its destruction? One hopes that American Christians who see the film will reject the common and more visceral reaction to seek revenge without first recognizing that the terrorists who they have been conditioned to believe are their enemies are first and foremost, people of God.

The brilliance of United 93 is that rises above the politics that have been used to support and discount the film. United 93 is insightful and balanced, painful and riveting, all in one. In all of its veracity, it pays homage to the passengers who bravely stopped their flight from its intended destination and to the country they fought so valiantly to protect. The film is a true depiction of the triumph of the human spirit that at its basic level is buoyed by religion—in all of its goodness and in all of its horrors. After watching United 93, we are in awe of the courage exhibited by the U.S. passengers and are left pondering the hard, heavy questions that religion and life pose for the citizens of the world, whose lives may have been changed forever by the events of September 11.

Grade: A

Movie News and Notes

The five highest grossing movies at the end of the Memorial Day weekend are as follows: X-Men 3, The DaVinci Code, Over the Hedge, Mission Impossible 3, and Poseidon.

Although opening to mixed reviews, X-Men 3: The Last Stand set box office records for the Memorial Day weekend, earning approximately $120.1 million over four days. The previous record for the weekend was set by Steven Spielberg’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park in 1997.

Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth earned an impressive $365,787, despite opening in just four New York City and Los Angeles theaters.

Spike Lee is directing When the Levees Broke, a documentary examining the U.S. government’s response to Hurricane Katrina. The television production will air sometime in 2006.

Milos Forman is directing Goya’s Ghost. The film depicts an account in which painter Francisco Goya finds himself in a scandal involving a woman who is labeled a heretic by a monk. Stellan Skarsgaard stars as Francisco Goya, and Javier Bardem is the monk.

David Fincher is set to direct Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Pitt plays a fifty-year-old man who ages backward when he falls in love with a thirty-year-old portrayed by Blanchett. The film is set to be released in 2007.

Poseidon Sails..... and Sinks

2006-05-10T20:55:00.000-07:00

After several years of delayed production, Poseidon finally sails into theaters some thirty-four years after the original Poseidon Adventure hit movie screens. Based on the novel by Paul Gallico, Poseidon tells the story of a large cruise ship that literally turns upside down when it collides with a "rogue" (tidal) wave on New Year’s Eve, leaving a small group of passengers to fight for their survival. The earlier film featured an all-star cast that included Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Stella Stevens, Jack Albertson, Red Buttons, Roddy McDowall, Carol Lynley, and Shelly Winters in an Oscar-winning performance. By contrast, this production stars a hyper Josh Lucas; a weary-looking Kurt Russell; a shockingly silent Richard Dreyfuss; and a fresh-faced Emmy Rossum.

The remake is directed by Wolfgang Petersen, who in recent years has established himself as a first-rate filmmaker. His impressive list of films includes Das Boot, In the Line of Fire, The Perfect Storm, and Troy. These critically solid and financially successful efforts have catapulted Petersen to near A-list status among directors. Here, though, he suffers a bit of a setback due to some questionable casting, deficient plotting, and a script that lacks a theme and force. The script by Mark Protosevich fails to give any of the film’s characters anything compelling to say in the film’s 99-minute running time. And there is only scant mention of characters’ occupations at opportune moments in the script. These glaring faults prevent this highly-anticipated project from being the summer movie event we have grown accustomed to seeing from the German director.

This production will undoubtedly draw comparisons to the original. The earlier film’s cast was an intriguing mix of rising stars of the 1970s and established stars from the 1950s and 1960s. The original was by no means a great movie. It probably wasn’t even a very good one. But it was memorable. The characters had quirks and individual moments that remain ensconced in the minds of ardent movie fans. Unfortunately, the remake leaves us with no such memories. Its characters are merely props for the next carefully staged stunt and escape sequence. Poseidon delivers some pulsating scenes due largely to special effects services provided by Giant Killer Robots, Hydraulx, Industrial Light and Magic, Lola Visual Effects, MPC, The Moving Picture Company, and Irwin Allen Productions. And there are three moments of genuine tension: an early scene involving a burning elevator shaft and two characters clinging to the hands of two others, a dark and claustrophobic crawl through a flooding air vent, and an underwater swimming sequence that rivals that of the original.

This failed production has made me realize that James Cameron’s Titanic has redefined the big budget disaster movie. Despite its record-setting Oscar night, it, too, was flawed. The Titanic script, which Cameron also wrote, was posted on the Internet within days of the film’s release, downloaded, and picked apart ad nauseum by the art-house crowd. But his three-hour and nineteen-minute epic delivered both jaw-dropping special effects and characters who had experienced moments of truth and emotion. By the time those glorious special effects arrived, we had seen that film’s two primary characters find each other, lose each other, and find each other yet again. Titanic was a disaster film that not only captured the physical destruction of one of the greatest tragedies of all time but the huge personal stakes that made that disaster and many others the subject of our nightmares and the very things that prompt renewed dreams and visions. Poseidon, on the other hand, bustles forward with such attention to its computer-generated special effects and such disregard for the science of its disaster and the larger themes of life, love, and loss that one wonders how the direction of this once-promising project drifted so aimlessly out to sea.

Grade: C

Movie News and Notes

Despite Mission Impossible 3’s $40 million opening weekend, the film didn’t meet the expectations of some studio insiders. Some insiders are worried if the lower-than-expected gross is a sign of a slower summer.

Akeelah and the Bee has opened to surprisingly strong reviews across the country. The film stars Angela Bassett, Laurence Fishburne, and newcomer Keke Palmer.

United 93 opened reasonably well and to predominantly favorable reviews by the nation’s critics. It was directed by Paul Greengrass, the acclaimed directed of Bloody Sunday and The Bourne Supremacy.

Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center, an account of the last two firefighters to be rescued alive from the World Trade Center, is set to be released in August.

Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Anniston are set to star in The Break-Up. The film will be released June 2.

American Dreamz, the clever political and televison satire directed by Paul Weitz, opened to largely positive reviews but netted only lukewarm box office receipts.

The DaVinci Code, directed by Ron Howard, will open nationwide on Friday, March 19. Some sneak previews will be held on March 16-18.

Julianne Moore and David Duchovny will star in Trust the Man, directed by Bart Freundlich. Freundlich is Moore’s husband.

Edward Norton plays a magician in Neil Burger’s The Illusionist. The tale about a magician also stars Paul Giamatti, Jessica Biehl, and Rufus Sewell.

Ron Howard's daughter, Bryce Dallas Howard, will star with Paul Giamatti in M. Night Shymalan's Lady in the Water. The film is set to open on July 21.

Friends with Money -- A Smart Spring Flick

2006-04-26T19:40:00.000-07:00

Friends with Money is a surprisingly observant dramedy about the trials and tribulations of one single woman and her three married friends in the Los Angeles area. The indie film stars Jennifer Aniston as a down-on-her-luck thirtysomething who cleans houses for a living. Her three friends are financially successful and married but not all of them happily so as we find out. Her slightly older friends are played by Joan Cusack, Frances McDormand, and Catherine Keener. Directed by Nicole Holofcener, the film leisurely yet competently explores gender and class issues, the idiosyncracies of relationships between single and married adults, and the pain and pleasures of marriage.

The performances by all four actresses are right on target, with Aniston leading the way and treading close to the territory of her revelatory performance in The Good Girl. She is the centerpiece of the film. Her character Olivia is so poor that she drives from one department store to another collecting sample-sized moisturizers because she can’t afford to pay for the regular size. Everything about Aniston here is reticent. The lines in her face are a bit more noticeable, for she’s minus the perk and the smile that made her famous. Her eyes reflect the sadness of a woman who must stare across at her wealthier Boomer friends wondering if she will ever live the American Dream that has been so fully realized by her friends.

Her three friends are not without their share of problems, though. Frances McDormand’s Jane is married to a man who is effeminate and whom nearly everyone suspects is gay. She and her sock designer husband are a bit of an odd couple, and the film generates genuine bits of humor regarding their relationship and conversations others have about his sexual orientation. Catherine Keener’s Christine is a screenwriter whose husband happens to be her writing partner. Despite their constant disagreements from everything from the lines of their characters to how they should treat one another, she and her husband agree to add another floor to their house. Joan Cusack’s Franny and her husband are the happiest and most settled of the three couples. Franny’s much more mature than Olivia and wonders aloud how she and her seemingly aimless housekeeper friend could possibly be friends. Franny tries the hardest to set Aniston up on a date, and her matchmaking leads to some unusual encounters with an opportunistic physical trainer.

At 88 minutes, Friends with Money is always interesting, with each scene revealing a little more about the changes confronting these characters. The performances and the film’s direction are nicely complimentary, providing a breezy expose of thirty-to-fortysomething life from one end of the economic scale to another. The situations involving the characters in the film aren’t always resolved in the way one might predict from the outset. The film’s relatively brief running time is somewhat of a detriment, though. It could have, for instance, given us more information about the man for whom Jennifer Aniston still has feelings or explored in more detail the challenges facing Franny and her husband. He answers almost all of her questions with one-sentence answers, a symptom of a potentially problematic relationship that might have been the subject of a 90-minute story all on its own. Their characters seem a bit underwritten in comparison to others in the film.

In the final frame of Friends with Money, Jennifer Aniston’s once-lonely and desperate house maid nods in agreement after a new person in her life looks into her blue eyes and says with some hesitation, “You know. I have problems with…people.” More than anything else, this occasionally humorous study of women and men on the brink of midlife crises, reminds us of the plain truth about life---that it is filled with problems whether we are with or without money.

Grade: B

NEWS AND NOTES

J.J. Abrams, the wiz behind Lost and the director of the upcoming Mission Impossible 3, has been hired to resurrect the Star Trek series.

Julia Roberts and Paul Rudd are starring in Three Days of Rain, the new Broadway play that opened to above average reviews the weekend of April 21.

Hilary Swank, two-time Oscar winner for Million Dollar Baby and Boys Don’t Cry, will star in The Reaping, a horror story about a former Christian missionary. The film will debut in August.

Robin Williams and Toni Collette will star in The Night Listener, which is based on the Armistead Maupin story about a radio talk show who develops a friendship with an AIDS patient.

The legendary Robert Altman will direct an all-star cast that includes Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, Lily Tomlin, John C. Reilly, Lindsay Lohan, and Kevin Kline in A Prairie Home Companion. The film about the sale of a Minnesota radio station was written by Garrison Keillor.

Bret Ratner has been tapped to direct X-Men 3. He is replacing Bryan Singer, who directed the first two films in the series. Singer and his writers from the first two X-Men films are directing and writing Superman Returns, which will open June 30.

V for Vendetta and The Inside Man -- The First Two Noteworthy Films of 2006

2006-04-14T21:06:00.000-07:00

V for Vendetta, the film adaptation of the graphic novel, is bold, audacious entertainment that some might suggest is for such a time as this. Although the film contains many of the qualities of other movies about superheroes, it is undeniably distinctive for the liberative force with which it conveys its themes. Set in a futuristic London, the film tells the story of a masked man who seeks vengeance on corrupt British government officials whom he holds responsible for his suffering and for what he believes are some of the greatest evils of society. The Wachowski Brothers, who wrote and directed the ultra-popular Matrix franchise, wrote the screenplay to the film. Their Matrix films were based on left-leaning scholar Cornel West’s celebrated work Prophesy Deliverance! so the intelligence and sociopolitical philosophy that undergird this film should come as no surprise.

V is a lonely hero who enters the life of a young woman named Evey, portrayed by Natalie Portman. He rescues her from a group of thugs one night and humorously introduces himself by speaking a series of sentences that give new meaning to the art of alliteration. As the two grow closer, she wonders who the mysterious masked man is, and he remains intent on making the highest-ranking government officials pay for the pain they’ve caused him and others.

V for Vendetta is reminiscent of a number of memorable films, but the film is uniquely relevant because its central character is a terrorist. V commits crimes against the elite members of British government and a series of destructive actions against the symbolic and physical structures of what appears to be an imperialist regime at the helm. Despite the film’s futuristic setting, it is sure to provoke discussion about how close the behavior of the fictitious British government depicted in the film parallels those involving the current U.S. government.

A deliberate detective, competently portrayed by Stephen Rea, is hot on V’s trail. The audience can see Rea’s character questioning the extremism of the government in charge while feeling compelled to carry out the law. He’s in search of a criminal whose heinous acts may or may not be worse than the government he serves with apprehension.

The film is aided greatly by equally solid performances from Victor Hugo, Natalie Portman, Stephen Fry, and John Hurt. Hugo Weaving as V allows the audience to feel V’s pain and anger while never giving us the sense that his character has lost control of his emotions or his calculations. Portman displays Evey’s vulnerability and strength to good effect throughout the film. Evey is befriended by a David Letterman-type late night talk show host, effectively portrayed by the underrated and underused Stephen Fry. Fry exhibits the loneliness and quiet fear of a closeted homosexual who knows that he could lose his celebrity status and possibly his life if the totalitarian regime discovers the truth about him. John Hurt portrays Chancellor Sutler, the top government official who exudes evil as he espouses alarmingly Orwellian ideals.

The politically-charged thriller is not without its problems. Although the scene containing the first encounter between Evey and V is Superman-meets-Lois Lane-type fun, the film has a surprisingly dark tone throughout. Moments of humor are few and far between. While nearly always engrossing, the script suffers from a major bit of contrivance that changes the relationship between Evey and V for the final third of the film, and the plot point is not altogether convincing. And like most films of this type, the politics are a bit heavy-handed at times.

Conservative radio and television talk show hosts across the country rushed to blast the film as being one more example of how liberal Hollywood types are out of touch with mainstream America. Yet I would contend that the film is well acted, generally well-conceived, and one of the better films to be released early this year. The controversy surrounding the film is one of the best benefits of American cinema. The film is a work of art that some might say is a reflection of the very culture in which we live. V for Vendetta undoubtedly challenges the audience to consider the conditions and institutional and sociopolitical forces that might provoke such heinous terrorist acts. It is a film only a progressive could have made, but its relevance can hardly be denied by anyone from either side of the political aisles.

Grade: B

The Inside Man is a cleverly plotted and well-acted thriller that represents a return to form for director Spike Lee. The bank robbery saga features a first-rate cast that includes Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, and Jodie Foster. The film is a departure for Lee, a last-minute substitution for the studio’s original director. Despite his late arrival to the project, Lee uses the camera exceptionally well and elicits compelling performances from the best cast-film in 2006 (including Lucky Number Slevin). Rebounding from critical and commercial disasters that have plagued him in recent years, The Inside Man is Lee’s most focused work along with Do theRight Thing, Malcolm X, Get on the Bus, and 25th Hour.

The top-notch cast portrays characters with secret agendas. Clive Owen portrays Dalton Russell, a leader of a coed group of bank robbers. Denzel Washington is Detective Keith Frazier, who is assigned to the case. Jodie Foster is Madeline White, a political insider who works for the mayor and Arthur Case, the owner of the bank that is being robbed. Others include the instantly believable Christopher Plummer as Case, Chiwetel Ejiofor as Frazier’s partner, and Willem Dafoe as the SWAT team leader biding his time to assert his influence when he can.

The screenplay by first-time writer Russell Gerwitz gives attention to each of the main characters. They are all flawed individuals or shall we say “ethically challenged” from Frazier’s suspected misappropriation of money to Madeline’s devious dealings with city officials to Case’s accumulation of obscene wealth at the expense of persecuted Jews during WWII.

There are a number of twists to the story. Some are easy to predict, while other plot developments are a bit harder to foresee, although none of them are completely implausible. Gerwitz’s characters are smart and calculating, weighing a variety of options before settling on a plan.

Washington and Owen, two of today’s most charismatic actors, have a number of entertaining verbal exchanges as their characters match wits via the telephone. Washington’s Frazier is bent on convincing Owen’s Russell to release the bank hostages safely while Russell strives to outfox the police. These earlier exchanges interspersed with flashbacks of interviews with the hostages give the audience the impression that the film is headed for a by-the-numbers finale. But the first face-to-face encounter between Owen and Washington alters the course of the film and the clever plot developments ensue.

Jodie Foster’s Madeline White is a woman of mystery with powerful political connections that lead her to engaging encounters with Russell, Frasier, and Arthur Case. Cast against type, Foster conveys the intelligence and confidence that one imagines a woman in her position must have. Her Madeline White is a nifty blend of Annette Bening in The Grifters and Candace Bergen in ABC’s Boston Legal. Her character holds her own and then some against three commanding albeit very different men.

Although the film will entertain a broad demographic, the film feels a tad long at its 129-minute running time. The middle of the film sags just a bit. There may be one too many flashbacks of interviews. The film’s conclusion certainly could have been tightened, and not every thread of every storyline must be resolved to its utmost completion.

Still The Inside Man is a memorable heist caper with star power that delivers. Let it be said here that this mid to-high-brow break-from-convention film is the coming out party for new writer Russell Gerwitz and reestablishes Spike Lee as a major artistic force in American cinema.

Grade: B+

News and Notes

Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., and Chloe Sevigny are set to star in David Fincher’s Zodiac, a thriller about the San Francisco serial killer from the 1970s. The film is set to be released later this year.

Crash: The Director’s Cut has just been released in stores. The special edition of the Oscar winner’s DVD features eight deleted scenes and special commentary from writer and director Paul Haggis, co-writer Bobby Moresco, and star and producer Don Cheadle.

Oscar winner Sofia Coppola is writing and directing Marie Antoinette, the biopic starring Kirsten Dunst and Jason Schwartzman. The film is set to be released this fall.

Superman Returns will include scenes from the original Superman movie featuring Marlon Brando. The summer blockbuster hopeful is directed by Bryan Singer, who vacated his X-Men directorial duties in favor of the anticipated remake.

Friends with Money, the new dramedy starring Jennifer Aniston, Joan Cusack, Frances McDormand, and Catherine Keener, opened to positive reviews. The Sundance Film Festival favorite is now playing in New York City and Los Angeles.

Woody Allen Returns to Form with Engrossing Match Point

2006-02-13T19:07:00.000-08:00

Match Point conspicuously opens with an image of a yellow tennis ball catching the top of the net. The ball can cross the net and land on the opposite side just as easily as it can fall on the same side of the court from which it has traveled. Those familiar with the game of tennis know “it is a game of inches,” and Match Point proposes that this truth applies to life as well. Woody Allen, the film’s writer and director, has crafted a tale of a young tennis pro and constructs the story so effectively that the film works as both a romantic thriller and a commentary on life, love, and class and the luck involved in obtaining the best or worst of all three. The weighty tone of this film is closest to Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors, the 1989 drama that received several Oscar nominations.

Allen, who does not appear in this film, has set this tale in London. (Reportedly, the film is the first of three that he will film there.) Jonathan Rhys Meyers, portrays the central character Chris Wilton, who lands a job teaching tennis at a country club. His background is modest, but he’s intellectually curious and ambitious enough to enjoy the company of the elite clientele he serves. Chris befriends Tom Hewett, a student close to his age and the son of a wealthy businessman. Tom happens to have a sister Chloe, who is sweet and single and who almost immediately falls for Chris. Within weeks the two are dating, and Chris is attending family functions. One afternoon Chris meets Tom’s beautiful girlfriend Nola Rice (Scarlett Johansson), an aspiring yet frustrated actress. Although we can see Chris’s instant attraction to Nola, we understand his character’s motives for marrying Chloe.

Chloe, as portrayed by Emily Mortimer, is sensitive and docile and maintains an interesting place within the Hewett family. It’s obvious that it’s been awhile since she has garnered the affections of anyone and she innocently falls for Chris, who’s not sure that he’s as sexually attracted to her as she is to him. Although this becomes more apparent as the film progresses, we know she is the key to Chris’s deepest desires to leave the daily grind of teaching tennis and to live and work among the elite. Brian Cox, who plays the family’s patriarch, places Chris in his firm and welcomes him into the Hewitt family.

After several months Chris is still attracted to Nola and she to him and gradually the two begin an affair. In some sense, they’re two of a kind. Neither is from the same side of the tracks as the people with whom they are in relationship. Their affair is both a comforting and complicating factor for Chris and Nola, and what transpires is a study of the weight of the dilemma facing those who marry one individual while lusting after another.

Match Point achieves as a thriller and a commentary, in part because of the careful performances by Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Scarlett Johansson and Allen’s insightful writing and direction. There is undeniable chemistry between Meyers and Johannson. The actors’ scenes together are sensual without being explicit. Johansson’s Nola is self-centered, but she does feel for Chris. She is seductive and ultimately vulnerable, and Johansson’s physical performance is perfect. Meyers’ Chris is not without vulnerability. He’s attracted to Nola, but things unravel so disastrously for him that his desire to remain a part of the world that he covets eventually takes over his instincts, which leads to several shocking events. A lesser film may have simply framed the two characters as two self-centered people plotting their way out of relationships that neither wants to be in, but Allen steers the film away from convention and into commentary in its final act.

There is one minor disappointment in Match Point, though. The film concludes with music from an opera, yet Allen fails to make the direct connection between the opera the characters in the movie watch and the one from which he has selected for the closing credits. Match Point is Allen’s broadest and most engrossing work in years, yet he may have missed an opportunity to make a thematic connection for a portion of moviegoers who may typically bypass his films.

Match Point contends that life’s grandest triumphs are just inches away from being life’s greatest tragedies. The degree to which Chris plots his future is Allen’s way of conceding that there may be some strategy or method to how the elite rise or how any of us can attain what we want. But more than that Match Point examines how all of what we want in life can depend on the simple bounce of the ball or the mysterious powers of fortune, of which we have so little control.

Grade: B+

Movie News and Notes

Entertainment Weekly has reported that Brokeback Mountain has earned $32 million, far exceeding Hollywood’s box office expectations.

The magazine also reported that The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is pulling ahead of King Kong, the Peter Jackson remake.

According to Entertainment Weekly, the five highest-grossing films in 2005 are as follows:

Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith $848.5 million
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire $867.3 million
The Chronicles of Narnia $585.5 million
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory $474.5 million
Wedding Crashers $285.3 million

Oliver Stone has directed World Trade Center starring Nicholas Cage and Michael Pena, who portray Port Authority officers trapped beneath Ground Zero rubble. The film is set to be released in August.

Paul Greengrass, who directed The Bourne Supremacy, has directed Flight 93, a drama about the United Airlines jet that crashed into a field in Pennsylvania.

Wolfgang Peterson (Troy, Air Force One, The Perfect Storm, and In the Line of Fire) has directed Poseidon, which stars Kurt Russell, Josh Lucas, and Richard Dreyfuss.

What to Make of the Golden Globes and the Upcoming Academy Awards?

2006-01-26T19:21:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, January 17, Academy Award watchers gathered around television sets to watch the Golden Globe Awards. The increasingly popular awards show is viewed as an early indicator of who will win what at the Academy Awards. Nominations for the latter will be announced on Tuesday, January 31, but for now Academy Award watchers are either nodding in agreement or scratching their heads at what transpired on the January 17 telecast.

Individuals who vote for the Golden Globe Awards are members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. These are typically individuals who write for newspapers and other major publications throughout the world. Those who have the privilege of voting for the Academy Awards are people who are members of the movie industry. In other words, actors vote for actors and writers vote for writers, etc.

The latter distinction is one of two major differences between the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards. Other differences are that the Golden Globes include awards for television and that that they categorize musical and comedies separately from dramas. In 1990 Ghost, a top-grossing film starring Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze, received an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, surprising many people, but in actuality the film had received several nominations for Best Comedy and Best Supporting Actress. In other words, viewers shouldn’t be shocked to see a film like Walk the Line emerge as an Oscar contender in the Best Picture race.

This year’s Golden Globe winners in the film categories are likely to be contenders for the Oscars. Some will win just as they did several weeks ago, and some who did not win will find themselves making the magical walk up the steps to accept the coveted Oscar in March. Below are some early Oscar predictions (and some rationale behind them) in some of the major categories.

Best Actor

Russell Crowe (Cinderella Man)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote)
Joaquin Phoenix (Walk the Line)
Heath Ledger (Brokeback Mountain)
David Strathairn (Good Night, and Good Luck)

Dissecting the Fields

Russell Crowe (Cinderella Man)

Although he’s well-respected, Russell Crowe is the least likely to win in this category. Cinderella Man, a well-reviewed movie, had disappointing box office results and was released in the summer—a deadly combination in this category.

In his favor: He’s an A-list actor and previous winner who starred in yet another acclaimed Ron Howard film.

Against him: Remember the telephone and the bell hop?

Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote)

Philip Seymour Hoffman knabbed the Golden Globe and is a leading contender in the tight Oscar race in the same category. He portrayed Truman Capote in Bennett Miller terrific film. In years past, the Academy has selected actors who delivered less “showy” performances.

In his favor: He has an impressive resume. He’s a previous nominee who has never won.

Against him: Even with the re-release of Capote, Brokeback Mountain still has more momentum and more money behind its campaign.

Joaquin Phoenix (Walk the Line)

Joaquin Phoenix embodied Johnny Cash, and he’s a proven commodity in A-list dramas.

In his favor: Jamie Fox won for Ray, and Phoenix pulled double duty with his singing and guitar-playing. He has never won.

Against him: His Walk the Line was good but not great. Momentum for the film has slowed just a bit.

Heath Ledger (Brokeback Mountain)

In four and a half hours, moviegoers could see Heath Ledger portray an unsettled gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain and the legendary Casanova in Lasse Hallstrom’s breezy romantic comedy.

In his favor: The sentiment and momentum associated with this film is similar to what Million Dollar Baby experienced last year. It was released at approximately the same time last year. Its lead performer won the Oscar.

Against him: Awarding him may ignite the ire of Michael Medved and Bill O’Reilly, something Hollywood doesn’t need

David Strathairn (Good Night, and Good Luck)

In his favor: He’s a veteran actor in a well-conceived and well-reviewed film. George Clooney is in his corner.

Against him: To a large degree, Good Night, and Good Luck has come and gone. It received stellar reviews back in October and November, but who’s talking about it now?

Outside Chance:

Jeff Daniels (The Squid and the Whale)

In his favor: He's been around for years, and it's been years since his work has generated this kind of buzz.

Against him: The limited release of his film may hurt his chances in year in which the field is exceptionally crowded.

And the Oscar goes to…

Heath Ledger (Brokeback Mountain) - by a hair

Best Actress

Charlize Theron (North Country)
Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line)
Felicity Huffman (Transamerica)
Keira Knightley (Pride and Prejudice)
Lara Linney (The Squid and the Whale)

Charlize Theron (North Country)

Proving her virtuoso performance in Monster was no fluke, the Hollywood beauty dirtied herself up for a convincing portrayal as a sexually harassed miner in director Niki Caro’s American film debut.

In her favor: This performance solidified her reputation as an A-list actress.

Against her: Her North Country has come and gone. Norma Rae is still the benchmark for this type of film. She has already won and will likely get other opportunities.

Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line)

Reese Witherspoon proved that there is more to her than the-less-than-traditional law student and lawyer in the Legally Blonde movies.

In her favor: She’s instantly likeable. Largely known as a comedic actress, Reese Witherspoon may never have a better chance to win in this category. This may mean a speech similar to Julia Roberts’ memorable one several years ago. She’s a comedic actress who delivers a good performance in a good drama.

Against her: Reese Witherspoon is not yet seen as a dramatic actress. Three of the other actresses in the category are much more established in this genre.

Felicity Huffman (Transamerica)

In her favor: She’s Felicity Huffman, the new “It” girl in Hollywood. She’s a “desperate housewife.”

Against her: She won an Emmy for her television work. She may be overexposed.

Keira Knightley (Pride and Prejudice)

Keira Knightley was radiant in Pride and Prejudice, a terrific adaptation of the Jane Austen novel.

In her favor: She’s a beautiful, relatively new star with a bright future.

Against her: She’s a little too new to win Best Picture, and voters may feel she’ll have plenty of opportunities to win in future years.

Lara Linney (The Squid and the Whale)

In her favor: She's a proven dramatic actress with plenty of range. She picks her projects very carefully. She received critical acclaim for her performance in You Can Count on Me, which did wonders for both her and Mark Ruffalo.

Against her: The film's late and rather limited release may not enable it to be seen by enough voters. She's been overlooked in years when the competition has been less stiff. Who's to say she won't be overlooked yet again?

Outside chance:

Judi Dench (Mrs. Henderson Presents)

In her favor: Critics and Academy voters take every opportunity to recognize her. She won for just ten minutes of screen time in Shakespeare in Love.

Against her: Her Mrs. Henderson Presents received mixed reviews. It has still not played in many major cities, indicating that its release is not as advantageous as it could have been for an Oscar contender.

Joan Allen (The Upside of Anger)

In her favor: Critics admire her and her performance in The Upside of Anger. She’s been nominated several times and has never won.

Against her: The Upside of Anger, opened to positive reviews, but scored poorly at the box office. She’s something of a long shot in this category. Her film was released in early spring of last year.

And the Oscar goes to...

This is awfully tough to call, but Felicity Huffman will be standing at the podium when the dust settles.

Best Picture

Five films will receive Oscar nominations for Best Picture. There are, however, approximately eight films that a chance of being nominated.

Capote

Bennett Miller’s revelatory film on the story behind Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood won critics and moviegoers over.

In its favor: Its star Philip Seymour Hoffman was brilliant and walked away with the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a very crowded field.

Against it: Despite being re-released and Seymour Hoffman’s win, no one would say that they aren’t looking over their shoulders at Brokeback Mountain and its revered cast and crew.

Brokeback Mountain

Ang Lee’s well-conceived and moving story about two male sheepherders who fall for each other on Brokeback Mountain has momentum and then some. Even cultural conservative commentator and movie critic Michael Medved couldn’t completely deny the film’s power.

In its favor: Ang Lee, its director, is established and well-liked in Hollywood circles and deservedly so. The film singlehandedly revitalized the career of Heath Ledger, a once-fallen star. It has two likeable male leads, who should have the potential to nab great parts for years to come.

Against it: Its controversial subject matter has ignited some response from conservatives across the country. Word of mouth from Middle America is that the film is still a bit “artsy.” How is this film playing to all those folks in the red states?

Walk the Line

In its favor: The film was a hit with audiences and was reasonably well-reviewed by critics. Its two lead stars Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon are likeable and bankable.

Against it: Its director James Mangold is surely competent, but the film’s competition in every category is spectacular.

Good Night, and Good Luck

George Clooney has emerged as a power player in Hollywood. His Good Night, and Good Luck was bold and audacious and features the best videotape editing since Oliver Stone’s JFK.

In its favor: Megastar George Clooney produced, wrote, directed, and appeared in the film. Hollywood loves the film and loves Clooney’s courage and vision for making it.

Against it: Hollywood may fear a backlash against the politically-charged film.

Munich

Steven Spielberg’s controversial film raised the ire of everyone from The New York Times conservative columnist David Brooks to Israeli government officials.

In its favor: It is one of the most solemn pieces of work from America’s most popular and commercially-successful director.

Against it: The politically-shaky ground on which the film stands may be enough to scare the Academy. Recently, there have been charges that the film may have lifted information from a video that it did not properly credit.

Match Point

Woody Allen’s supposed return to form has not opened nationwide yet.

In its favor: Hollywood likes comeback stories, and if this film is half as good as it is touted to be, this could be the critical comeback of all comebacks.

Against it: It’s ultra-slow release may limit the number of individuals who actually see the film.

Crash

Crash was the directorial debut of Paul Haggis, who wrote the screenplay for last year’s Million Dollar Baby.

In its favor: Crash was a small film that ultimately performed very well at the box office. It’s an ensemble drama that featured some of the best performances in 2006. Its themes of racism and multiculturalism may appeal to the liberal-minded Academy voters.

Against It: Reviews were mixed. A.O. Scott of The New York Times was vocal in his disapproval of the film. It was released as a late spring and early summer film.

Constant Gardener

Constant Gardener was a well-written and well-directed film with passionate performances by Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz.

In its favor: Its director did great work on City of God and his work here is an impressive followup.

Against it: It’s anti-pharmaceutical industry-message may be too risky for the Academy.

The New World

The New World is Terence Malick’s majestic and meditative account of the establishment of Jamestown, Virginia, and John Smith’s relationship with Pocohontas.

In its favor: It was directed by Terence Malick, a Harvard-educated director whose films are so good they are studied in film schools throughout the country. He's revered and exceedingly well-regarded.

Against It: The film is one of the least commercial films made. It may be suffering from too-late a release date. Academy voters may not have an opportunity to see the movie before they vote.

And the Oscar goes to...

Brokeback Mountain (The film is on a fast train to winning several major awards in major categories, despite its controversial subject matter.)

Slam Dunk Oscar Picks

Ang Lee, who won a Golden Globe for Best Director, will win an Academy Award in the same category.

George Clooney, whose film Good Night, and Good Luck won't win the Academy Award for Best Picture, will win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

If Jake Gyllenhaal doesn't win in this category, then Philip Seymour Hoffman will win for Capote and not Heath Ledger for Brokeback Mountain.

The Family Stone...A Light Fake

2005-12-22T17:36:00.000-08:00

The Family Stone is this holiday season’s dysfunctional family dramedy, straight from the Hollywood studio system’s assembly line of films targeted to middle America. Hollywood, ever-ready to make a profit, has delivered this middle-brow production as a way to help cure its summer and fall box-office crisis, and they will most likely succeed. However, this is not to suggest that The Family Stone is a good film. This overwrought, sweet-as-saccharine, and ultimately disingenuous fare is complete with Diane Keaton, imitating every grin and smile from her performances in The Father of the Bride films and Sara Jessica Parker, who looks as though she just completed a course in method acting from Columbia University. The latter is “against-type” casting that…well never quite works until Parker adopts her Sex and the City proclivities in a predictable plot development.

The rest of the cast and characters range in notoriety, and most of them portray members of the Stone family. The Stones consist of people embodying traits from characters from every other dysfunctional family drama to hit theaters including Craig T. Nelson as the sane and sensible patriarch, Rachel McAdams as the angry, liberal intellectual, and Luke Wilson as a Southern Californian bohemian. The one exception is Thad (Ty Giordano), the son who is deaf and gay and who also has a partner who is African American. The middle class Stone family gathers every Christmas, and this year the oldest son Everett, played by Dermot Mulroney, is intent on introducing the woman in his life (Parker) and proposing to her by offering her the family “stone.”

The film even includes an obligatory dinner scene in which the matriarch dresses down the guest who doesn’t wear the same political correctness stripes as everyone else in the room. The film takes approximately five minutes to address the issue of homosexuality during the dinner and even less time to address the issue of race. The filmmakers either don’t care about these issues at all, or they don’t believe a general American audience can tolerate a more substantive discussion of these issues. If the latter is more true than the former, then why raise them in the film at all?

At the beginning of the film, Parker’s Meredith wears her hair in a bun. She’s an uptight corporate type and the filmmakers want us to see that the more conservative hairstyle conveys this. She and Everett are equity analysts for Wall Street firms, and the Stone family doesn’t understand Everett’s disdain for their mundane, suburban existence. The family, on the other hand, doesn’t understand what there isn’t to like about them and what he sees in Meredith. The uptight Meredith is so beside herself that she calls her sister (Claire Danes) to join her as she tries to survive a holiday weekend with “the family.” The younger sister arrives and falls off of the bus upon seeing Everett in one of the scene’s many cheap laughs. Any viewer can guess why this happens by watching the previews of the film, the amount of laughter this pratfall generates from American audiences, and what transpires.

Everything about The Family Stone is contrived and controlled to reach a desired end. There are almost no genuine moments in the film. Writer/director Thomas Bezucha, a creator of Craig T. Nelson’s Coach, never lets the camera linger long enough on any performer to elicit authentic emotions from its actors or the audience. From the opening moments, the film tips its hand as to the direction it is heading with one of its central relationships, leaving the unfortunate impression that it and all other parts of The Family Stone are complete and utter fakes.

Grade: C

Serious Syriana Thought-Provoking Cinema

2005-12-16T16:55:00.000-08:00

Syriana, the bold new drama about oil and the geopolitical conditions that determine its distribution and use, is as purposeful as any film this year. It’s a film of great importance and one whose relevance grows with each scene. Its opening half hour presents seemingly disparate characters such as a Washington DC attorney (Jeffrey Wright) who has been hired to clear the legal hurdle for a merger between two oil conglomerates; an American energy industry analyst (Matt Damon) who works for a Middle Eastern family’s oil empire; a pair of poor, wide-eyed Muslim workers; two Iraqi brothers vying to become the rightful heir to their father’s throne; and a veteran CIA operative (George Clooney) who must outfox U.S. government officials and blackhearted businessmen for his own survival.

Stephen Gaghan, who won an Oscar for writing the screenplay for Traffic, has written and directed Syriana with impressive insights. To some degree, it is a studied and well-researched film. It is not so much concerned with the characters as it is with the ideas that they espouse. Although Syriana lacks the narrative clarity and force of Traffic, its plot is even more intricate, its subject matter every bit as unsettling, and its impact even more immediate. Gaghan intentionally presents each situation as if they have no relationship to any other in the film and then takes his time unveiling how they are connected. Each of the scenes carefully builds upon one another, culminating to a conclusion that makes the film both an indictment of U.S. foreign policy and capitalism and a panoramic view of the moral and political ambiguities that inevitably surface in the global war over oil, money, and power.

The film includes a host of terrific supporting performances. Christopher Plummer is calm and calculating as a business mogul who will stop at nothing to protect his interests. Chris Cooper is the sly, opportunistic Texas millionaire who stands to gain or lose a lot depending on whether or not the merger between two oil companies is approved. Amanda Peet is near perfect as Matt Damon’s wife, who pays a dear price as she grapples with his involvement with a Middle Eastern Prince and his empire. George Clooney, packing an additional thirty pounds and a full beard, delivers a potentially Award-winning turn as the desperate CIA operative who may not be the asset to the U.S. government he once was.

As powerful and as provocative as Syriana is, it stops just short of challenging U.S. viewers to ponder their own individual responsibilities for using oil responsibly. To be sure, the film serves as a potent, pointed liberal-message movie that is sure to lead viewers to criticize U.S. policies and motives for occupation in the Middle East. Yet the film’s distant, journalistic tone prevents it from igniting the fervor needed for the systemic and revolutionary change that the film so earnestly demands.

Grade: A-

Movie News and Notes

The National Board of Review recently announced its list of top films. The list included Matchpoint, Brokeback Mountain, Walk the Line, Munich, Good Night and Good Luck.

Lara Linney and Jeff Daniels who star in The Squid and the Whale are strong Oscar contenders, according to several major publications.

Felicity Huffman (Desperate Housewives) is receiving accolades for her performance in Transamerica. She portrays a man, who while in the midst of having a sex change, meets his long, lost son.

Early Oscar favorite Memoirs of a Geisha has received surprisingly mixed reviews in Entertainment Weekly and The New York Times. It was directed by Rob Marshall, who won an Oscar for Chicago a couple of years ago.

Scarlett Johanson is co-starring in Matchpoint, the first of Woody Allen's three films in London is reportedly creating quite a name for herself there.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Grizzly Man, the well-received documentary about a bear enthusiast who was ultimately killed by a bear, was not among the films eligible to receive an Oscar nomination in that category.

Wolfgang Peterson has been tapped to direct a remake of the 1972 disaster classic The Poseidon Adventure. Studio executives may take a look at the ratings of the recent television remake, which captured the attention of a mere 9 million viewers.

Longtime film critic Rex Reed, still entertaining, called King Kong "a bloated mess" in a review. The film has received almost uniformly positive reviews.

A Passionless Rent and an Overstuffed Bee Season

2005-11-28T19:29:00.000-08:00

Rent, the film adaptation of the popular 1996 Broadway musical, has finally arrived in theaters, courtesy of Columbia Pictures and Chris Columbus.The film features at least six of the original eight performers from the stage production. Somewhat surprisingly, most of the performers make the transition to film admirably. Rosario Dawson and Tracie Thomas are the two newcomers to the cast, and they deliver the most impressive performances. Dawson portrays Mimi, a dancer addicted to drugs; and Thomas portrays Joanne, a lesbian attorney.

The story centers around the lives of eight young adults struggling to make their way in New York City. The other racial ethnically diverse cast of characters includes Mark (Anthony Rapp), a documentary filmmaker whose girlfriend leaves him for a woman; Roger (Adam Pascal), a struggling songwriter who is grappling with his girlfriend’s suicide; Tom (Jesse Martin), a philosophy professor who is mugged at the beginning of the film; Angel, a drag queen who finds Tom after he’s mugged and then falls in love with him; and Benny (Taye Diggs), a former friend of the group who has recently married the landlord’s daughter and who now must collect rent money from tenants. The intersecting trials and tribulations of these characters are set against the backdrop of the crowded streets of New York and the presence of HIV/AIDS, which touches each of their lives either directly or indirectly.

The film adaptation features several entertaining musical renditions, and the performances are thoroughly engaging. Yet the film adaptation by director Chris Columbus is a by-the-numbers production that fails to muster the power that the film’s characters and their circumstances demand. Columbus’s previous directorial work includes Home Alone, Only the Lonely, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and The Bicentennial Man. These films are comparably much lighter, though, and Columbus’s gift for infusing those films with broad comedic strokes is not what is needed here. The film and its audience would have benefited from a director with the deft skill of combining passionate musical performances with the somber tone befitting young adults struggling with their sexual identities and the very prospect of living in an age of HIV/AIDS. Despite a full two hours-plus running time, the film never develops these characters beyond their initial conditions. The character of Angel, in particular, isn't given the screen time to become the emotional catalyst that the film demands. This is a shortcoming not only in Rent but in Chris Columbus's work in general. As in his adaptation of the first two Harry Potter novels, Columbus is faithful to a fault. But this is a detriment, for his effort here lacks artistic expression and interpretation. To astute observers, Columbus is anything but a logical choice for this material. Julie Taymoor, who brilliantly directed The Lion King on Broadway and then showed her versatility with her direction of Frida, could have effectively adapted this material for the screen. Unfortunately, the American studio system has produced and delivered a film that is packaged as proudly progressive, yet its direction is marred by restraint and limitation. The shortcoming renders the film void of vision and power and useless in impacting the callous conservativism it seeks to challenge.

Grade: C+

Bee Season

Bee Season is one of the more ambitious films audiences will see this year. Based on the novel by Myla Goldberg, it tells the story of Eliza, an eleven-year-old girl whose sudden success in spelling bees has an unforeseen effect on her family. Relative newcomer Flora Cross delivers a rich performance as the sixth grader. She's given a wide variety of emotions to portray and she does so amazingly well. Richard Gere, one of America’s most underrated actors, is convincing as the girl’s father, a quietly stern Jewish theologian with a special interest in mysticism and the Kabbalah. Julianne Binoche and Max Minghella (son of the renowned director Anthony Minghella) portray the girls’ mother and teenage brother, respectively.

Even in a great year for American films, Bee Season is memorable for its intelligence. As the film progresses, Saul (Richard Gere) teaches Eliza the secrets of the Kabbalah and explains how she can use her understanding of it to become an even better speller. The plot point is as thought-provoking and as philosophical and theological as any in American film this year, and it is water that is rarely tread intelligently. The film’s courage in challenging the audience to consider the role of faith in our lives and the relationship of faith to the gifts and talents God has bestowed upon us is to be admired.

But the film suffers somewhat from two subplots that seem as if they could have used a bit more time. One involves Saul’s neglect of his son Aaron and the other involves his wife Miriam’s inability to cope with the pressures of her daily life, caused by troubling memories of her parents’ death. The film asks us to believe that Aaron drifts away from the roots of his faith as retaliation for his father’s neglect, but how he retaliates is likely to be the subject of some debate. During the course of their own struggles, Miriam and Aaron each move apart from Saul while maintaining some closeness to Eliza. The subplots are not quite distractions from the main story of Eliza’s growth, for her growth is linked to how the situations involving her father, mother, and brother are resolved. They simply aren’t as finely executed, and for that the film is not as accomplished as it could be.

Bee Season was directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel, the team who co-directed The Deep End, an acclaimed thriller from several years ago. As in The Deep End, the directors elicit passionate performances, and here they generate genuine suspense from the drama that unfolds. Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal, who wrote the screenplay to a family drama Running on Empty, adapted the screenplay for Bee Season. Her collaboration with McGehee and Siegel falls short of being the rousing critical successes of either of the aforementioned films. But for all of its ideas, Bee Season has a running time of only one hour and forty-four minutes. Its story construction and overall ambitions deserve more time, which would make viewing the film a more complete experience for audiences who may find themselves yearning for more.

Grade: B-

News and Notes

Syriana, a geopolitical drama about the oil industry, will open nationwide on Friday, December 9. It's one of several politically controversial films to be released this holiday season. The others include the soon-to-be-released Munich, directed by Steven Spielberg; Good Night and Good Luck from director George Clooney; and Jarhead from director Sam Mendes.

According to Entertainment Weekly, the five highest grossing movies for November 21-26 are as follows:

Harry Potter $102.3 million
Walk the Line $22.3 million
Chicken Little $99.1 million
Derailed $21.8 million
Zathura $20.3 million

The big movies to be released in the month of December include the following: The Chronicles of Narnia, Brokeback Mountain, King Kong, and Match Point.

You Heard it Here First: Vince's 2005 Oscar Predictions

Best Picture:

Memoirs of a Geisha
Brokeback Mountain
Munich
Match Point
Pride and Prejudice

Best Actor

Joaquin Phoenix Walk the Line
Daniel Strathairn Good Night and Good Luck
Philip Seymour Hoffman Capote
Heath Ledger Brokeback Mountain
Russell Crowe Cinderella Man

Best Actress:

Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice
Charlize Theron North Country
Gi Jhong Memoirs of a Geisha
Judi Dench Mrs. Henderson Presents'
Reese Witherspoon Walk the Line

Theron and Danes Endure Harassment and Love Wounds in North Country and Shopgirl

2005-11-11T04:30:00.000-08:00

Charlize Theron, who mesmerized audiences in Monster, stars in North Country, a stark drama based on the first sexual harassment class action suit in the U.S. Set in Minnesota in 1989 (five years after the actual lawsuit), the story revolves around a young mother who flees her abusive husband with her teenage son and young daughter in tow and takes a job at a mining company. Directed by Niki Caro (Whale Rider), the film chronicles the struggles of Josie Aimes and the harrowing acts of harassment she and other women at the company faced. The characters in the film watch bits of the 1989 Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill trial, which gives the film a hint of historicity.

From the outset there is little support for Josie from her family. Her father (Richard Jenkins) asks Josie if her husband hit her because he caught her with another man, and he is even more chagrined when he learns she has taken a job at the mining company. He is a man of the mine and he makes the decidedly dated case that a woman’s place is in the home raising children. Sissy Spacek, in an effectively understated performance, portrays his wife, Josie’s mother, and the quiet matriarch of the family. She, a woman married to a man of the mine, watches with trepidation, for her daughter has done what she has been unable to do----defy her husband and be her own woman. Josie’s teenage son resents his mother for being the negative talk of the town.

Most of Josie’s support comes from her lifelong friend, Gloria, played by Frances McDormand. In addition to bearing an accent that resembles the one McDormand made famous in Fargo, Gloria is the token woman supervisor at the company. She’s one of the guys. She drinks with them, plays cards with them, and watches as the other women at the mine endure the pain inflicted by the rabble-rousing, mischievous, and eventually dangerous workers. The other women in the company, including Josie, grin and bear whatever the men in the mine feel like doing to them on the day until one of the men does something so heinous to Josie that she files a suit against him and the company. Woody Harrelson plays Bill White, a down-on-his-luck attorney, who represents Josie in court. He is pitted against a calculating female corporate attorney, nicely played by Linda Emond.

Legendary film critic Gene Siskel once prefaced a review of a film by saying, “Film critics must always be careful when reviewing films about social issues. They must ask themselves whether or not they are reviewing the films on their merits or their intentions.“ Well, North Country is a well-intentioned film about important social and employment issues that are too often overlooked. The film doesn’t spend a lot of time hinting at the subtleties of sexual harassment. It’s a film about the very real pain that men boldly inflicted on women. Subtlety, the filmmakers would have us believe, came along later in bigger cities and in larger companies or in some combination of these categories. Scattered with stock characters, familiar exploits, and dramatic revelations, North Country is a proud, liberal message movie sporting powerful performances that may serve to remind America of the harassment that hundreds of women face each day in the workplace.

Grade: B

Shopgirl, based on the novella by Steve Martin, is a bittersweet romantic tale about self-discovery and love gained and lost in the big city of L.A. Martin, who once again infuses his great love of the metropolis into his story, demonstrates an obvious sympathy for his three main characters, Mirabelle (Claire Danes), Jeremy (Jason Schwartzmann), and Ray Porter, whom Martin himself portrays. These central characters are three lonely people in L.A. Mirabelle is a sales clerk at Saks Fifth Avenue from Vermont who spends her evenings alone taking long, hot baths and working on pieces of art that she’s uncertain she will ever sell. Jeremy is a poor young man not even close to becoming a successful producer, while Ray is a wealthy divorcee who has made a chunk of his money in the computer industry. Like most single young adults Mirabelle and Jeremy spend lots of evenings at laundry mats, and the two happen to be at the same location one evening. They exchange pleasantries, and Mirabelle eventually succumbs to Jeremy’s request for a date.

Jeremy and Ray fall for Mirabelle. In Jeremy Mirabelle sees an uncomfortable, bumbling, and unintentionally humorous man with seemingly not much to offer. In Ray she sees a wealthy man who seems to have the world by his hands and who can seemingly offer her anything. What a contrast and what a choice for a young twenty-something to make.

Claire Danes, who is radiant in several scenes in the film, displays an uncertainty and suggests a hint of confidence that her role requires. She’s understandably uncertain about her place in the big city and about Ray’s attraction to her, yet she’s considerably more confident and assured than her less formal suitor, Jeremy. She’s almost uncomfortable about her confidence level when she’s around Jeremy, and Danes plays this perfectly. Although some prospective viewers of the film may think they know where the film is headed, they should be assured that the film’s path to its destination is filled with genuinely poignant moments, some wonderful bits of quirky humor, and an almost hilarious comeuppance for a supporting character who constantly has her eye on Miribelle.

Shopgirl is written with uncommon wisdom and insight. It’s the kind of story that might have attracted a director such as Cameron Crowe (Jerry Maguire and Elizabethtown), but Martin’s script here is more mature than either of those films. It’s more focused in its narrative, and although its story construction is far simpler than what is found in either of those aforementioned films, it manages to be far more introspective about the idiosyncracies of young adults and middle-aged men without making gross generalizations about either generation.

As Ray, Steve Martin is as sublime as he’s been in any of his other dramatic roles (The Spanish Prisoner). His Ray is winsome and captivating on dates with Mirabelle and candid and forthright in answering deeply personal questions in his counseling sessions. Normally, Martin has the face of a thousand emotions. Yet here he masks his facial expressions until unveiling them at just the right moments and in just the right manner.

Let it be stated here that both men love Mirabelle. They simply love her differently and not always the way we would like. Those who see the film and watch the story unfold will understand just how true its revelations are about life, love, and time and the consequences of our choices about them.

Grade: B+

News and Notes

Ron Howard’s Cinderella Man, which limped out of movie theaters in August, is still a bonafide Oscar contender according to industry insiders. Other contenders appear to be King Kong, Memoirs of a Geisha, Munich, Walk the Line, and Brokeback Mountain.

The release of All the King’s Men, the remake of the Broderick Crawford classic about politics in New Orleans, has been delayed until 2006. The movie stars Sean Penn, Mark Ruffalo, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, and Patricia Clarkson. Steven Zaillain, the film’s writer and director, apparently needs more time to edit. Sony, the company behind the film, has opted to concentrate its Oscar efforts on the upcoming Rob Marshall film, Memoirs of a Geisha.

Peter Webber, who directed Girl with a Pearl Earring, has been tapped to direct Young Hannibal: Behind the Mask. Thomas Harris, author of The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal, is writing the screenplay. The movie will star Gaspard Ulliel (A Very Long Engagement).

The Chronicles of Narnia is scheduled to be released on December 9. Advance screenings will be held in the following cities: Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Portland, San Francisco, and Washington D.C.

A Tale of Two Duds in the Fall

2005-10-18T20:58:00.000-07:00

Waiting...

Waiting…, the latest from the worst creative corners of Hollywood, is dumb on arrival. With an utterly vacuous 93 minute-running time, this pathetic retread of nearly every young adult comedy made in the last decade and a half opens with a scene of twentysomethings guzzling beer from a plethora of tubes, tubs, and pitchers and predictably ends the same way. The connect-the-dots story centers around Dean, a twenty-one year-old who was once at the top of his high school class and who now laments that he opted for a job waiting tables at Shenanigans instead of going to college.

Dean is joined to the hip of Monty, the coolest and hippest of the waiters. Ryan Reynolds, the thirty-year-old from Van Wilder and a host of other low-brow young adult and teen comedies, has the swagger and bravura of a self-assured leader. He smiles and winks and relies on the single note the shockingly and mind-numbingly trite script allows him to play. At one point, Monty admits to having slept with or planning to sleep with every available woman on the restaurant’s staff and in the town for that matter. As is the case with most of these films, there are several moments of truth regarding the sexual exploits of characters and Monty is no different.

Dean’s decision to decide whether or not he wants to accept his boss’s offer to be promoted to an assistant manager is as deep and involving a narrative thread as Waiting offers. Dean and his fellow waiters’ boss is a loud, slimy, dimwitted lug, who flirts with the restaurant’s underaged hostess. In between the light as a featherweight scenes of Dean deciding whether he wants to become an assistant manager, there are several scenes of gross-out gags involving genitals and sexual prowess scattered about, few of which will generate more than an occasional chuckle from anyone over the age of fourteen.

Reynolds is familiar fare in this tired yet unfortunately, lucrative genre. A staple of such films is its supporting cast with a mixture of newcomers and name players eager to join in on the fun of being crude and cruder. The film is not much of a breakout for fast-rising comedian Dane Cook, though. He portrays a cook, who tosses steaks on the dirty kitchen floor on cue. Young rapper Andy Milonakis, who now has his own television show, gets more screen time and appears to relish every opportunity to smoke marijuana and eat large quantities of whip cream with his much taller sidekick. Little Andy even raps a little as well. His song, which plays during the closing credits and is filled with expletives, will seem light to most people who make it through this exercise of gross-out humor and sexual innuendo.

Not only is the film certifiably awful, but it will likely receive its loudest laughs from a scene that’s a direct ripoff from the equally gross yet far funnier film, Roadtrip. The scene involves an angry customer, who sends her meal back to the kitchen. Need I say more?

Waiting... is written and directed by relative newcomer Rob McKittrick, and needless to say, he doesn’t distinguish himself with this effort. On at least two occasions McKittrick’s characters deliver the line, “The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is this little bit of extra.” The actors who speak these words without bursting into laughter hold their two fingers close together. This leads me to my question: What did the studio executives who greenlighted this project think when they heard the infantile line not once but twice and how long into their screening did it take them to realize that Waiting... was a waste of unappetizing proportions?

Grade: D-

Domino

Busy actress Keira Knightley stars in Tony Scott’s loud, profanity-riddled, and messy action picture that loosely depicts part of the life of Domino Harvey, a bounty hunter in the LA area. The female bounty hunter died literally weeks ago, and her death more than reviews and word of mouth on this misguided effort will undoubtedly heighten people’s curiosity about the film. Much of the story is told in flashback as Domino recounts much of her life for an interrogator, played by a stern Lucy Lui.

The flashbacks take us to see Domino’s mother, a still beautiful Jacqueline Bissett, moving her then young daughter to Beverly Hills after the untimely death of her father. Domino’s mother hobnobs with the rich and famous there, but Domino doesn’t have any interest in anything traditional and eventually teams up with fellow bounty hunters Ed Mosbey (Mickey Rourke) and Chocu (Edgar Ramirez), who was her on-again, off-again lover.

The three bounty hunters become embroiled in a plot that is as convoluted as any you’ll see in a movie this year. The plot thickens and thickens and then muddies and muddies again. Domino is overstuffed with black-hearted mob kings, casino owners, slick lawyers, rich-kid druggies, overzealous television producers, out-of-work actors, grandmothers, bondmen, and bounty hunters. There’s even an Afghani member of Domino’s crew thrown in for good measure. In a sharper film, the incorporation of such wildly disparate characters and such layered plotting might be considered ingenious, but here it is all dizzying.

Domino, Chocu, and Ed spend much of the film on the trail of ten million dollars, mob money that was stolen by a health services worker who is a grandmother near the ripe old age of 40. The desperate grandmother is portrayed by Mo’Nique, who uses her comedic talents while appearing as a guest on the Jerry Springer Show. How her character becomes a guest on the Jerry Springer Show is a bit ludicrous, but the plot point does allow Mo’Nique to strut her comedic routine, a wonderfully funny bit about bi-racial ethnicity.

Although Tony Scott is an experienced director (he‘s also the younger brother of acclaimed director Ridley Scott), the scenes are shot so quickly that is hard to understand who is saying what to whom and who is doing what to whom. Scott has assembled experienced actors who have made some fine films through the years. The competent cast includes Christopher Walken, Mena Suvari, Dabney Coleman, Delroy Lindo, and Mickey Rourke. The actors shout their lines in one overwrought scene packed with explosions and flying bullets after another. The inherently film-worthy story is told without finesse and control and ultimately fails to reveal any of the qualities that made Dominic Harvey such a memorable figure. The film is boisterous at every turn, never taking the time to explore who Dominic was behind the scattershot images of violence and incoherence it presents.

Grade: D+

News and Notes

Top 10 Rentals for the week of October 10 are as follows:

The Longest Yard $20.5 million
Robots $6.9 million
Crash $24.0 million
Monster-in-Law $33.6 million
Fever Pitch $14.8 million
Sahara $31.7 million
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy $13.2 million
Mindhunters $4.7million
Lords of Dogtown $2.1 million
The Adventures of Sharkboy $3.9 million

Daniel Craig, the villain in The Road to Perdition and the star of the critically acclaimed Layer Cake, will likely become the next new James Bond.

The best reviewed films so far this fall are as follows: Capote, A History of Violence, and Good Night, and Good Luck.

FOSTER SHINES BRIGHTLY IN FLAWED FLIGHTPLAN

2005-09-29T18:29:00.000-07:00

MVC_039F
Originally uploaded by mastergitterbug.

Acclaimed actress Jodie Foster returns from her brief foray into foreign films (some people might remember her in 2004's A Very Long Engagement), landing front and center in Flightplan, a new thriller directed by Robert Schwentke. As the film opens, Jodie Foster's Kyle is emotionally distraught over the death of a loved one. From the film's opening frame, the story's plot is fraught with possibilities. Is Kyle losing her mind? Does she even have a daughter? What, if any, part of her experience is she dreaming? These and other questions are sure to enter any viewer's mind. As the opening minutes of the film unfold, it is revealed that Kyle is grieving the death of her husband. His death has left her alone to comfort and care for the couple's six-year-old daughter Julia. The two set out to fly to New York City to bury her husband and to spend time with her family. The mother and daughter board a jet that Kyle, an engineer, helped design and therefore knows inside and out. Kyle and Julia have a mother-and daughter-chat before they both fall asleep on the plane. Three hours later Kyle awakens and discovers that Julia is no longer in the seat next to her, and the mystery ensues.

On the plane with her are four hundred passengers and a crew, none of whom are not as helpful or sympathetic as viewers might initially suspect. Sitting closest to her, though, is an air marshall portrayed by Peter Saarsgard. When Kyle asks him if she's seen her daughter, he answers that he hasn't seen her. He's one in a long line of passengers who claim that they have never seen Julia. Saarsgard, memorable in a variety of roles in indie films, delivers these early lines so skillfully that viewers will be hardpressed to know whether his character's intensions are brazenly evil or perceptively sincere.

Foster's performance is particularly effective, and it must be for Flightplan to succeed as a competent thriller with dramatic tension and any measure of emotion. Foster is in nearly every scene in the film. She shifts her eyes, tilts her head, and purses her lips at just the right moments in the film. Our eyes are focused on her. We wonder what her next move will be, what her next thought will be, or what her next revelation will be. Foster allows us to feel Kyle's loneliness, desperation, and exasperation and most importantly, her love for her daughter.

Comparing Flightplan to The Panic Room, another recent Jodie Foster film about a single mother trying to protect her daughter, is inevitable. The cinematography in the earlier film directed by David Fincher (also Seven, The Fight Club, and The Game) is something to behold. Here the work of the camera is curiously restrained. The film's first images of the large, dark plane suggest the possibility of imaginative camerawork but the filmmakers' elect to show off the various parts of the elaborate plane during the film's closing credits, missing an opportunity to enhance the already considerable suspense the story generates. Flightplan, like The Panic Room, is flawed in its story construction. The plot in Flightplan is not so much thinly veiled as it is hastily concluded. Without revealing any of the major plot points, there are at least three sentences that should have been stated in the final fifteen minutes of the film that would have adequately provided an explanation for the actions of at least two key characters. The film defies logic from its premise all the way through to its final act, but this is true of most Hollywood thrillers. If it's not one problem with a thriller, then it's another one. David Koepp's script in The Panic Room lacked ambition and that film was ultimately better than it deserved to be, and the script in Flightplan is filled with some level of imagination and even some insights into solitude and human behavior yet the film falls short of the greatness that it should have achieved. These problems only add credence to my belief that thrillers are among the most difficult films to create to satisfaction. Thrillers either fail to generate sufficient suspense or they generate too much of it to the detriment of the story. Flightplan and its sister film The Panic Room suffer a bit from the latter.

But like most successful thrillers, Flightplan succeeds in spite of itself. It's a well-acted, perfectly-paced film for an audience that may not mind trading questions, answers, and possible theories about plot points several minutes after the film ends. Ultimately, people will remember Foster's performance, her energy, her passion, and her level of excellence and look forward to her next film---albeit one worthy of another great performance.

Grade: B-

Curiously, Disney opted not to screen Flightplan for critics.

Movie News and Notes

Charlize Theron and Frances McDormand will star in North Country, a true story about a woman who takes on a mining company in a sexual harrassment suit. The film, which is drawing comparisons to Silkwood and Norma Rae is set to open in October.

Negative word of mouth at the Toronto Film Festival prompted director Cameron Crowe to rush back to the editing room and to put the finishing touches on Elizabethtown, a dramedy starring Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst. Crowe unveiled a 135-minute version of his film at the festival. The much-publicized film is scheduled to be in wide release by the middle of October.

People are beginning to talk Oscars and a few names surfaced at the Toronto Film Festival. Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance in Capote, the biopic about the great American writer as did Joaquin Phoenix's portrayal as Johnny Cash in Walk the Line were two subjects of note during the festival. No film generated as much buzz, though, as Ang Lee's adaptation of Anne Proux's short story Brokeback Mountain. The film will star Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal.

Aaron Eckart, who portrayed womanizing scoundrels in Neil LaButte's In the Company of Men and Nurse Betty, is turning heads for his performance in the political satire entitled, Thank You for Smoking. The film was among those shown at the Toronto Film Festival.

Liev Schreiber, the actor who portrayed Meryl Streep's son in The Manchurian Candidate, has made his directorial debut with Everything is Illuminated. Elijah Wood is set to star.

Evidently, there is a reason why An Unfinished Life, the new film starring Jennifer Lopez, Robert Redford, and Morgan Freeman, sat on studio shelves since 2003. The film has opened to surprisingly lukewarm reviews. Redford and Freeman are Oscar winners and Lasse Hallstrom, the film's director, is a two-time Oscar nominee.

The five highest grossing films the week ending September 23 are as follows:

The Exorcism of Emily Rose $30.1 million (life-to-date gross $30.1 million)
The 40 Year-Old Virgin $7.7 million (life-to-date gross $82.1 million)
Transporter 2 $7.4 million (life-to-date gross $30 million)
The Constant Gardener $4.7 million (life-to-date gross $19.0 million)
Red Eye $4.5 million (life-to-date gross $51.2 million)

A History of Violence, perhaps David Cronenberg's most accessible film since The Fly, will open nationwide on Friday, September 30. The film stars Vigo Morggensen, Mario Bello, and Ed Harris.

Rod Lurie, who wrote and directed The Contender, has created Commander in Chief, the new primetime television show chronicling the exploits of the First Lady. An estimated 2.2 million viewers tuned in to the first episode on Tuesday, September 27.

Thomas Harris, the author of Silence of the Lambs, is putting the finishing touches on a screenplay that will serve as the prequel to the films featuring Hecter Lecter, the cannibalizing psychiatrist. Peter Webber, who directed Girl with a Peal Earring, has been tapped for the project.

Movie Reviews and News from Vince Patton

2005-08-07T16:10:00.000-07:00

Happy Endings Fails Material and Great Performances

Happy Endings, the latest ensemble dramedy from director Don Roos (The Opposite of Sex and Bounce), showcases some of the finest acting one will see from the world of independent film this year. The film features actors on the rise, those who may never have a better moment, and those who have fallen from grace and have taken full advantage of the opportunity Roos and the studios have given them. Roos wisely gives his actors a wide range of emotions to portray and nearly all of the actors rise to the occasion. In fact, some such as Steve Coogan and Jesse Bradford deliver the best performances of their careers. Its three semi-connected stories include a rejuvenated Tom Arnold falling for a gold-digging Maggie Gyllenhaal after she's successfully seduced his gay son; Lisa Kudrow as Mamie, a counselor who is being blackmailed with the truth that she's given up a child for adoption; and Steve Coogan as Mamie's gay stepbrother whose partner Gil is the sperm donor of their lesbian friends' child.

The film is not without its startling revelations and plot twists. A major crisis occurs in all of the stories; some situations even rise to the level of the bizarre; all while the level of acting remains exceedingly high. Tom Arnold, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Lisa Kudrow are particularly effective. Arnold, a recovering alcoholic in real life, is nearly forty pounds lighter here. He portrays a middle-fortyish millionaire with such cockiness and bravura that his distant relationship with his son, Jason Ritter, feels as real as the latter's own resemblance to his real-life father, the late John Ritter. Maggie Gyllenhaal is wonderfully seductive and sly. She doesn't so much possess menace as a potent mixture of frivolity and calculation. Lisa Kudrow, light years from her mannered and restrained work on HBO's moribund series The Comeback, has a particularly poignant moment when she counsels another character who is contemplating having an abortion. Her eyes tell the story of a woman tortured by her own truth yet locked in a world that won't allow her to reveal her pain.

Although Roos deserves high marks for assembling such a diverse group of capable actors, he diminishes any dramatic momentum the film gains with captions that complete major blocks of narrative for the audience. The captions tell parts of the story that could have been easily been told with the rest of the film and annoyingly communicate who knows whos thoughts about characters and the convoluted situations they find themselves in. One can almost imagine Roos and the writers in a room watching tapes of the film brainstorming what clever commentary they should add about each of the characters. The captions, which extend the running time at least an additional fifteen minutes, are laced with sardonic wit and humor that will likely generate laughs, but the situations the characters find themselves in demand anything but such. Roos has gathered the best ingredients for a fine ensemble piece about choice, love, life, sex in the post-millennium culture, and the lack of clarity of it all, but ultimately undercuts the true power of his own creations.

Grade: C+

Happy Endings is playing at the Baxter Avenue Theatres.

News and Notes about Oscar Contenders

Ang Lee has been tapped to direct Brokeback Mountain, which is based on a novel by Annie Proulx. Proulx won the Pulitzer Prize for The Shipping News. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal will star in the film.

Bill Murray will likely be nominated for an Oscar for his performance in Broken Flowers, which is set to be released in September. The film about a man who discovers he has a son and then sets on a trek to find him by reuniting with each of the five women in his life. Jessica Lange, Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, and Jeffrey Wright also star.

Woody Allen has apparently directed his best film in years in Match Point. It's reminding industry insiders of Crimes and Misdemeanors. The film is set to be released in the fall.

Steven Zaillian, who won an Oscar for Best Screenplay Adaptation, is directing All the King's Men, a remake of the 1949 classic starring Broderick Crawford.

Steven Gaghan, a Louisville native who won an Oscar for his screenplay of Traffic, will direct Syriana. Steven Soderbergh, who directed Traffic, Erin Brockovich, The Limey, and The Underneath, is serving as a producer.

Terrence Malick, who directed The Thin Red Line and Badlands, will direct The New World. The historical epic about John Smith is set to be released in November.

Jamie Foxx is slated to star in Jarhead, a Desert Storm tale. American Beauty and The Road to Perdition director Sam Mendes will direct.

Look for Universal Studios to re-release Cinderella Man, which was released in June. Studio executives were disappointed in the film's box office sales and believe they have an Oscar contender.

Paul Haggis, who was nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay for Million Dollar Baby, could receive a nomination for his Crash screenplay.

Batman Franchise Resurrected with Batman Begins

2005-06-26T19:57:00.000-07:00

Batman Begins, one of the most anticipated movies this summer, soars into theaters with every bit of the gusto that one should expect from a surefire blockbuster. The intelligently crafted caper, along with that other behemoth Star Wars, will likely emerge as one of the winners in this summer’s box office battle. While Star Wars, Episode Three provided a worthy conclusion
to a beloved series, Batman Begins reinvigorates a series left for dead after the 1997 star-studded debacle, Batman and Robin. That Batman Begins excels when it explores the psychological scars of Batman's alter ego Bruce Wayne should come as no surprise given the talents of its director, Christopher Nolan, who rose to prominence with the 2000 mind-bending indie thriller Memento. That film featured another tortured soul who suffered from short-term memory loss and wrote down clues to his wife's murder on his body. Nolan avoided a sophomore slump and followed up his Memento effort with Imsomnia, an effective, atmospheric thriller with imsomniac police detective Al Pacino on the trail of a serial killer, played by a surprisingly creepy Robin Williams. The thirty-five-year-old director expands on his already-impressive resume with this film that explores how and why Bruce Wayne became Batman, giving us confidence that this franchise can live if not thrive in the coming years.

Dark and broody yet never completely void of the fun that should characterize a summer release about a comic book hero, Batman Begins takes flight well past the previous Batman films with the possible exception of the first Batman feature. That film, like this film, was aided by A-list actors including Jack Nicholson, who ad-libbed and laughed his way to near delirium as the Joker. (Readers who want to quibble over the merits of the first film and Nicholson's performance should watch it again and tell me that his antics, gyrations, and one-liners don't elicit at least a dozen chuckles.) The top-shelf cast of this film includes Michael Caine as Bruce Wayne's trusted butler Alfred; a spirited Morgan Freeman, perfectly portraying inventor Lucius Wolf; Gary Oldman, unusually straight and serious here as Lt. Gordon; Rutger Hauer as the CEO of his father's corporation Wayne Enterprises; and Tom Wilkinson as a Falcone, a high-priced criminal caught between a crime boss with much more muscle and the police. The movie's younger stars rise to the challenge of being on screen with these Oscar-nominated heavyweights. Katie Holmes is more than adequate as Bruce Wayne's DA friend and Cillian Murphy, looking nothing like the panicked survivor in 28 Days Later, is devilishly devious as psychiatrist Dr. Jonathan Crane.

At the film's core, though, is Christian Bale's performance as Bruce Wayne and Batman. From his performance as a psychotic Wall Street trader in American Psycho to his performance as a major love interest of one of the women in Little Women to his highly-regarded work in The Machinist, Bale has shown the dramatic range needed to portray Wayne as a wealthy playboy and a psychologically-scarred loner and his alter ego, the justice-seeking Batman. As Bruce Wayne and Batman, Bale possesses rich-dude looks and harbors at least a hint of mystery.

There are, however, two minor disappointments in the film. One is the casting of Liam Neeson, generally a fine actor. Here is Henri Picard, a Ninja-like warrior who is hell-bent on training Bruce Wayne in martial arts technique that he will put to use as Batman. Neeson's performance is simply a retread of his turn as Gunga Din in The Phantom Menace. In a lesser film, his work is the kind that might lower an overall rating of a film. The other disappointment is the lack of screen time for Ken Watanabe, the Oscar-nominated warrior from The Last Samurai. Watanabe's role could and should have been more pivotal for an actor of his talents.

Unlike the other Batman films, the stunts and action sequences take a back seat to the drama unfolding around Bruce Wayne and his evolution to Batman and the perfectly-gauged plot lines that involve Bruce Wayne's return to Gotham and all that ensues. Upon his return, Wayne learns that parts of Gotham are near depression while large corporations such as his family's own Wayne Enterprises are regular parties to rampant corporate greed, corruption has infiltrated the city's police department, and criminals virtually run amuck. At the center of this danger is, of course, his childhood friend Rachel, who is an assistant in the district attorney's office.

Batman Begins has a look and tone unlike any of the other Batman films. The cinematography by Wally Pfister, while not as impressive as the famously dark and darker Batman and Batman Returns, is still skillful. The Gotham City in Batman Begins is at one end a place capable of unspeakable horrors and street-filled poverty and at another end a city of supreme wealth and corporate greed and mischief. Some of the city’s streets are filled with vagrants and hoods doing what they absolutely must to survive and towering skyscrapers that house the large city’s wealthiest corporations. Danny Elfman’s original score in Batman was something of an artistic triumph, and while the music in Batman Begins is not quite on that level, the music is competently produced and coordinated by a mixture of accomplished composers: Ramin Djawadi, James Newton Howard, Mel Wesson, and Hans Zimmer. They’ve provided a score that is evocatively gothic.

Batman Begins concludes with a reference to a popular villain from the comic strip, providing us with a glimpse of what is to come. This confidently crafted work zestfully resurrects the Batman franchise, setting the stage for a series of engaging summer films for years to come. It comfortably joins X-Men 2 and Spider-man 2 in an elite class of marvelously-produced movie adaptations of comic book super heroes in recent years.

NEWS AND NOTES

Hollywood heavyweights Steven Spielberg and Clint Eastwood will collaborate on Flags of our Fathers, a World War II drama about the six men who raised the flag at the Battle of Iwo Jima. Spielberg will produce and Eastwood will direct from a script by Paul Haggis, who was nominated for Best Screenplay Adaptation for Million Dollar Baby. Haggis recently co-wrote and directed Crash, a drama about racism and the clash of cultures in LA.

After completing his work on Flags of Our Fathers, Haggis will direct Death and Dishonor, a drama about a G.I. who is murdered after returning from Iraq.

Cinderella Man opened in fourth place after Madagascar, The Longest Yard, and Star Wars: Episode Three. It earned just $18.3 million in its opening weekend. The surprisingly low gross is particularly peculiar, considering the film's director Ron Howard teamed with production partner Brian Grazer, Russell Crowe, and writer Akiva Goldsman, the same team who earned Oscars for Best Picture and Best Screenplay for A Beautiful Mind.

Hollywood insiders are indicating that Reese Witherspoon will be an Oscar contender for Best Actress for her performance as June Carter Cash in Walk the Line.

Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx have signed on to portray detectives in Michael Mann's film adaptation of his own popular 1980s television show Miami Vice. The film will open next summer.

Tom Hanks is set to star in The Da Vinci Code. Ron Howard is set to direct. The film will open in theaters in May 2006.

Bryan Singer, who emerged as a major directing talent with Usual Suspects, X-Men, and X-Men 2, will direct Superman Returns. The film will star newcomer Brandon Routh and Kate Bosworth. Kevin Spacey will play super villain Lex Luther.

Spike Lee is directing a hostage thriller starring Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, Willem Dafoe, and Eli Wallach. The film is tentatively titled Inside Man.

Despite predominantly positive reviews, Christopher Nolan has still not agreed to direct the next movie in the Batman franchise.

Louisville native and Oscar winner Stephen Gaghan will direct Syriana, a political expose about U.S. policy in the Middle East during the Cold War. George Clooney, Matt Damon, Amanda Peet, and William Hurt will star.

Michael Cunningham, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Hours, is adapting a screenplay based on Good Grief, a popular novel from 1984. Julia Roberts is reportedly interested in the project.

Episode Three Worthy Conclusion to Star Wars Saga

2005-05-30T15:34:00.000-07:00

Twenty-eight years ago, 32-year-old George Lucas electrified audiences with the release of Star Wars, a summer blockbuster and space saga of good versus evil that has since been regarded as a film for the ages. The magnificent sci-fi fantasy and its stirring 1980 sequel The Empire Strikes Back are both listed among the American Film Institute’s top 100 films of all time. Lucas, now in his 60s and bit more grizzled, returns near to the form he showed in the first three films in the series with Star Wars, Episode Three: The Revenge of the Sith and thankfully so, for the director has publicly stated that it is the last film in the series. Fans of the series can breathe a little easier now that the last film is closer in craftsmanship to the first and the best three films in the series. Two weeks since its opening, The Revenge of the Sith continues to set box office records and satisfy the legions of fans who became disenchanted with the moribund plotting and alarmingly stilted dialogue that plagued The Phantom Menace and The Attack of the Clones.

Although a vast improvement over the latter two films, The Revenge of the Sith is not without its problems. Plainly and simply, it suffers from some of the same flaws of the last two Lucas efforts, murky plotting and poor dialogue that is further marred by uneven performances from the actors. Some such as Ian McDiarmid (Darth Sidius) and Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan Kenobi) appear to be the most comfortable in their roles, while others such as Samuel L. Jackson and Natalie Portman still seem out of sorts. As Anakin Hayden Christensen is given a wide range of emotions to portray, and by the end of the film one can say that his performance is reasonably competent. He is awkward at times and yet wholly in command at others. And like its two predecessors, the first third of this film is devoted to more talk about politics and ideas about freedom, few of which are convincingly developed.

Rumors abound that Lucas pulled out all the stops to make improvements over his two previous efforts. Much maligned for his cultural insensitivity in creating Jar Jar Binks in The Phantom Menace and for the convoluted political plot points of The Attack of the Clones, Lucas supposedly turned to Steven Spielberg and to legendary playwright Tom Stoppard to avoid further damage to the series. Once again there are reports that Lawrence Kasdan and the screenwriting team of Gloria Katz and William Huyck were called in to rewrite portions of the dialogue. Despite the possibility of consultations with these acclaimed artists, The Revenge of the Sith is still George Lucas’s film. His work here is tighter and more focused, paying careful attention to Anakin, Yoda, Darth Sidius, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Padme, and the things of great import they have to say and do. The political machinations in the faraway galaxy are merely a backdrop for a much more involving story of love, the loss of it, and the fine line that often exists between the two.

What separates Episode Three from the first two episodes are the stakes, revelations, and the director’s own passion for telling a story involving the evolution of perhaps the most famous villain in the history of cinema, Darth Vader. Episode Three begins with Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker joining forces to rescue the Chancellor (Darth Sidius), who has been kidnapped. In the early stages of the film, Anakin is wide-eyed, obedient, and deeply in love with Padme, who he secretly married at the end of Episode Two. But life for the young Anakin is complicated when the Council instructs him to watch over the Chancellor without giving him the title of Master. In addition to his political worries, Anakin has visions of Padme being in danger, and his new wife informs him that she is pregnant. It is from this point on that life begins to change forever for Anakin, Padme, and the other major protagonists.

Episode Three will be remembered for what it revealed about its characters and their motivations; the brilliantly choreographed fight sequences between its wise and majestically powerful creatures; and the long-and anxiously-awaited depiction of Anakin’s turn to the Dark Side. These plot developments occur in such Byzantine fashion in the last one hour and fifteen minutes of the film that the movie’s sagging second half hour will be an afterthought by the end of the final frame.

The shot of the infamous black mask being placed on Darth Vader in the last third of the film will undoubtedly be remembered as one of the single most significant scenes in all of cinema in 2005. It is a moment of both truth and loss: the truth that Anakin has at last evolved to become the evil Darth Vader, the legendary villain we remember from the glorious epics of 1977, 1980, and 1983 and the loss that ultimately sets him on a path to even greater destruction. Although it never rises above what Lucas himself identifies as a “popcorn film,” The Revenge of the Sith distinguishes itself as a coherent conclusion to a cinematically-historic saga that revolutionalized the art of making movies and recaptured for us all the joy of watching them.

Grade: B Content: Some violence

Crash Explodes into Theaters

In its tense and taut 107 minutes, Crash, a new drama about racism in Los Angeles, delivers one stirring scene after another. That Crash possesses uncommon power and intelligence should come as no surprise. It is the directorial debut of Paul Haggis, the Canadian-born writer who penned the screenplay to last year's Oscar-winning picture, Million Dollar Baby. As in that film, Haggis's words elicit first-rate performances. Here he receives them from everyone from A-list actors such as Don Cheadle to newcomers such as rapper Chris "Ludacris" Bridges.

Crash is that rare ensemble piece. It is magnificently efficient. It is a collage of brief scenes and verbal exchanges that are at times shockingly brutal. Crash is composed of moments--moments of little detail but much importance, for the power of what is clearly spoken and even what is not lingers well into the next scene. Crash is as much a study of how racism affects the lives of people in LA as a riveting display of the way inner angst triggers race-based acts that are shocks to humanity itself.

The film opens with insightful words from an African American detective played by Don Cheadle. He speaks about the various cultures and the disparate nature of life in his city just after his partner and girlfriend (Jennifer Esposito) is involved in a traffic accident with another racial ethnic woman. Later the same evening Cheadle and Esposito are called to a crime scene, from which the film then flashes back in time to the events of the previous evening.

On that particular evening an angry, loquacious Ludacris and his more mild-mannered friend Larenz Tate steal a sport utility vehicle from LA's district attorney (Brendan Fraser) and his snobbish, malcontent wife played by Sandra Bullock in a role far from anything she's ever done. After the robbery and mugging, Sandra Bullock tells Brendan Fraser that she saw it coming when she spotted the two men walking towards them and urges Fraser to replace the "gang-banging Hispanic" changing the locks on the doors of the couple's home.

The hardworking locksmith has his own story involving an immigrant store owner who believes he has cheated him out of money by overcharging him and not completing work to the store owner's satisfaction. The locksmith, his wife and child, and the utterly distraught store owner have a scene that is as intense and exhilarating as any scene in any film this year.

Terrance Howard and Thandie Newton are cast as an upper middle class African American couple who are at the other end of the socioeconomic ladder from Ludacris and Larenz Tate. The couple is stopped while driving home by a racist police officer, brilliantly played by Matt Dillon. The officer is accompanied by a seemingly more sensitive partner, Ryan Phillipe, who watches in disgust as his more senior partner frisks Newton unnecessarily in front of her husband. Newton, in a tour de force performance, chastises her husband's meek and polite behavior during the incident. The couple's emotionally wrenching confrontation concerns her humiliation and leaves him in anguish, questioning both his blackness and his manhood. His reaction to the evening's events lead him into unfamiliar and dangerous territory.

None of the film's characters remain unchanged by the events of the day and a half, particularly those portrayed by Howard, Newton, Dillon, and Phillipe. What's so impressive about Crash is that some of the characters have not two but three sides, and it's not easy to predict which facet of a character will be shown in any given situation.

Like many of the best works in theater, Crash is chocked full of coincidences. Characters reunite under some unlikely circumstances, and people appear at just the right moment on several occasions. But in this particular case, the coincidences don't detract from the power of the film; they fuel it. Perhaps the coincidental appearances are symbolic--symbolic of the various times and ways people are confronted by racism and symbolic of the many opportunities all of us have to come to grips with the diversity and equality with which humanity has been blessed. The strength of Crash lies not in the mechanics of its storytelling, but in its sheer ability to move and compel us to consider the harrowing effects of the anger that lurks within humanity and the various forces that cause us disparate creatures to crash with power and efficiency.

Grade: A- Content: Violence, Profanity

Movie News

Alias and Lost creator JJ Abrams will be making his directorial debut with Mission Impossible 3. The film is set to shoot in China in the next several months. Michelle Monaghan of the recent Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang has been cast.

Star Wars: Episode Three grossed $304.2 million in four days. Despite the impressive opening, industry insiders are still worried about the overall box office slump. (For thirteen straight weeks industry insiders have witnessed box office ticket sales decline from last year’s totals.)

Topher Grace (That 70s Show and In Good Company) and Thomas Haden Church (Wings and Sideways) have signed on to play villains in Spider-man 3.

Warner Bros. will remake the 1972 disaster classic The Poseidon Adventure. Wolfgang Petersen (Das Boot, In the Line of Fire, Troy, and The Perfect Storm) is set to direct. Shooting for the film will begin this month.

As of May 27, the top five movies in terms of box office receipts are as follows: Star Wars: Episode Three, The Revenge of the Sith; Monster-in-Law; Kicking and Screaming; Crash; and
Unleashed.

Cinderella Man, the new film from Oscar-winning director Ron Howard, starring Oscar-winners Russell Crowe and Renee Zelwegger will open nationwide on Friday, June 3. The film will likely garner a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Paul Giamatti, son of the late Bart Giamatti, former Major League Baseball Commissioner. Ron Howard produced the film with his partner Brian Grazer and director Penny Marshall.

David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence and Woody Allen’s Match Point were two of the most well-received films at the Cannes film festival. Other acclaimed entries include Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers, a tale involving a womanizing Bill Murray who suddenly learns he has a child.

Vince Patton

2005-05-30T14:51:00.000-07:00

Vince Patton,
originally uploaded by mastergitterbug.

Crash Explodes Into Theatres

2005-05-16T21:36:00.000-07:00

In its tense and taut 107 minutes, Crash, a new drama about racism in Los Angeles, delivers one stirring scene after another. That Crash possesses uncommon power and intelligence should come as no surprise. It is the directorial debut of Paul Haggis, the Canadian-born writer who penned the screenplay to last year’s Oscar-winning picture Million Dollar Baby. As in that film, Haggis’s screenplay (co-written with Bobby Moresco) elicits first-rate performances. Here he receives them from everyone from A-list actors such as Don Cheadle to newcomers such as rapper Chris “Ludacris” Bridges.

Crash is a rare ensemble piece. It is magnificently efficient. It is a collage of brief scenes and verbal exchanges that are at times shockingly brutal. Crash is comprised of moments---moments of little detail but relevatory importance, for the power of what is clearly spoken and even what is not lingers well into the next scene. Crash is as much a study of how racism affects the lives of people in LA as a riveting display of the way inner angst triggers race-based acts that are shocks to humanity itself.

The film opens with insightful words from a detective played by Don Cheadle. He speaks about the various cultures and the disparate nature of life in his city just after his partner and girlfriend (Jennifer Esposito) is involved in a traffic accident with another racial ethnic woman. Later Cheadle and Esposito are called to a crime scene, from which the film then flashes back in time to the events of the previous evening.

On tha

Movie Reviews and News from Vince Patton

2005-04-29T02:47:00.000-07:00

Vince Patton
Originally uploaded by mastergitterbug.

Brilliant Directors Showcase Talent in Frank Miller's Sin City

In Frank Miller’s Sin City, the dark trio of vignettes based on the adult comic strip, characters dash from one perilous moment to another. The characters and their exploits are as real and as outlandish as those in the 1990s classic Pulp Fiction. The similarities with that cultural phenomenon don’t end there. Sin City’s directors Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez have enlisted the services of Quentin Tarantino, a frequent collaborator with Rodriguez and the man who popularized non-linear storytelling, to direct one of the film’s most bizarre segments. In the most creative and extended use of exposition since Uma Thurman’s three minutes of hell in Kill Bill, Volume 2, the odd characters in these stories ponder their next act of revenge, their desperate attempts to escape impending doom, and their desire to save the lives of those they love most.

As the trilogy begins, Bruce Willis’s Hartigan, a worn detective nearing retirement, is hot on the trail of Rourk Jr. (Nick Stahl), a rich, young hoodlum who is the son of a corrupt senator. A sudden series of events drastically alters the course of Hartigan’s life as well as the lives of the hoodlum and the young woman he has abducted.

Frank Miller’s Sin City is one more in a long line of recent films to employ an elliptical time frame to tell its stories. In a lesser film this might be dismissed as an extraneous device, but here the method is used to good effect to introduce characters important to the backstory. The film moves us from Hartigan’s adventures to those of Marv (Mickey Rourke), a brute of a man who is smitten with a young prostitute. Marv wakes up to find the prostitute dead and soon discovers he’s been framed for her murder. In the longest and most compelling of the three vignettes, Marv sets out to avenge the woman’s death and battles black-hearted villains such as a silent, flesh-eating hit man portrayed by Elijah Wood.

Mickey Rourke delivers the film’s most convincing performance. His face filled with scars and cuts, Marv is strong yet vulnerable. His sadness consumes him. Although quite large, he walks the city streets with semi-hunched shoulders, looking for clues to his great love’s murder. Rourke’s larger here than in any film in recent history. Last seen as a slimy, weezily lawyer in last year’s lurid thriller, Man on Fire, Rourke towers over everyone else literally and figuratively. Although Marv’s story is ultimately a tale of revenge, there are small doses of humor as Marv encounters a variety of characters while tracking down one of his one true love’s killers. As in Pulp Fiction and some of Tarantino’s later films, humor is often incorporated at the least likely times---in the midst of executions and during critical battles.

As the second vignette begins, viewers see Clive Owen and Brittany Murphy, two of Hollywood’s brightest stars, embracing in a kitchen. Owen has portrayed a hero for most of his film career. From his early work in Croupier and Gosford Park to his performances in last year’s I'll Sleep When I'm Dead and King Arthur, Owen has possessed a level of confidence, charisma, and bravura that instantly engenders trust in those close to his characters and fear in those who oppose them. In this story Owen’s Dwight is doing what many heroes in comic strips do: rescue women in distress. This time the woman in distress is Shellie, who is rebuffing advances from Jackie Boy, a drunken, womanizing, and rogue cop portrayed by Benicio del Toro. Jackie Boy and a couple of pestering and snickering sidekicks pay a visit to Shellie. After rescuing Shellie by scaring off Jackie Boy and his cohorts, Dwight stumbles upon the men just as they begin to stir up trouble for Gail (Rosario Dawson) and her gang of prostitutes.

This middle vignette features one of the oddest scenes in movies this year, and it should come as no surprise that it was directed by Quentin Tarantino, who has built an impressive resume directing odd scenes in brilliant and conspicuous films. The scene reflects Tarantino’s fascination with the macabre and his unique talent for making audiences laugh and cringe at the same time. Tarantino’s work is only slightly memorable here, largely due to the caliber of acting and directing involved with the first and third acts. Although Tarantino doesn’t display vintage form here, he should take solace that this film owes much of its style and tone to his highly vaulted Pulp Fiction.

Michael Clarke Duncan (The Green Mile) appears in the latter half of the second vignette as Manute, a one-eyed super villain who kidnaps Gail and threatens to close down her prostitution ring and allow corrupt policemen and politicians to assume control of her territory. Duncan, whose large size and deep voice normally make him an oddity in films, fits right in with the rest of Miller’s characters. Duncan’s earlier work in the little-regarded Daredevil should have prepared him well for his stint in Frank Miller's Sin City because he blends in nicely here with the rest of the villains.

The third vignette develops around a character shown in an earlier story and uses that character’s trials and tribulations to draw the connection between nearly all of the characters in the film with surprising clarity. The material in this vignette relies on the comic strip’s richly drawn backstory. As more is revealed about the tortured souls of Sin City, viewers will understand why serialized storytelling is a sublime art form when left in the hands of ingenious plotters. While it never quite rises to the level of art, the inventively crafted Sin City sits near the top of an otherwise moribund year for films in 2005, and despite its adult subject matter, near the top rung in the ever-evolving world of films based on comic strips.

Grade: B+
Content: Intense violence, nudity, profanity

Soon on Video

Confused and Muddled Constantine Faulters

Fresh from completing The Matrix trilogy, Keanu Reeves returns to similar territory as a special detective in the supernatural thriller Constantine. Reeves displays his Matrix character’s traits and tics in his role as John Constantine, save for a constant cough from smoking that he’s told will bring him imminent death. Reeves, merely competent at best, is surrounded by talented actors such as Academy Award nominee Tilda Swinton (Orlando and The Deep End) as the Angel of Gabriel—an example of truly inspired casting; Rachel Weisz ( Chain Reaction and Runaway Jury), as a detective who enlists Constantine’s help in proving that her twin sister’s mysterious plunge from a hospital rooftop wasn’t a suicide; and Academy Award nominee Djimon Honsou (Amistad and In America) as an owner of a nightclub with special powers of his own. As in the latter Matrix films, Constantine relies more on its premise and intermittently impressive visual effects than almost anything else. Problems abound in this derivative and ultimately disappointing thriller that fails to capitalize on the talents of its fine supporting cast, drops entire plot points crucial to the development of a coherent story, and wanders aimlessly through a protracted ending. By the end of its nearly two hours of running time, Constantine does nothing to distinguish itself from the legions of science fiction and supernatural thrillers with theological and philosophical weighty premises whose creators own inability to articulate key concepts leave viewers with far more questions than answers.

Grade: C-
Content: Violence

Movie News

Robert DeNiro launched the TriBeCa Film Festival in New York City on April 19. The festival will end on May 1.

Terrence Howard (Dead Presidents and Ray) was the talk of the town at the Sundance Film Festival for his performance in Hustle & Flow. The African-American actor will next be seen in Crash, the new film from director Paul Haggis (Million Dollar Baby).

Sydney Pollack (Three Days of the Condor, Tootsie, Out of Africa) became the first director allowed to film a motion picture in the United Nations building. His latest thriller The Interpreter, which stars Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn, will feature scenes filmed in the UN building. The film opened to predominantly positive reviews on April 22. The UN denied use of the building to Alfred Hitchkock.

George Lucas reportedly consulted with Steven Spielberg during production of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. The PG-13-rated conclusion to the trilogy opens on May 19.

Lasse Halstrom (The Cider House Rules, Once Around, and Something to Talk About, is set to direct Hoax, which tells the story of Clifford Irving, who wrote a fake biography on Howard Hughes. Industry insiders report that Richard Gere is interested in the project.

Christian Bale (American Psycho and Empire of the Sun) inked a deal with Warner Bros. to star in three Batman films. Batman Begins, the first of the three, will open on June 17. Christopher Nolan (Memento and Insomnia) directed the $150-million-film.

About Vince Patton

Vince Patton is a freelance writer and editor. He regularly reviews films. He previously served as editor of Let's Go to the Movies for Older Youth and Let's Go to the Movies for Young Adults.

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2005-04-28T22:39:00.000-07:00

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Movie Reviews and News from Vince Patton

2005-04-23T13:09:00.000-07:00

Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005

Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous ... Flat and Unfunny

Sandra Bullock returns as Gracie Hart; a snorting tomboyish FBI agent, in this largely uninspired sequel to Miss Congeniality. The original, itself merely passable, was cornball fun that nearly satirized beauty pageants and their legions of fans while turning Gracie from a sad, lonely agent with a severly limited wardrobe to the beauty we all remember walking pefectly in sync to the Los Lobos and Tom Jones tunes "Mustang Sally" and "She's a Lady." With no pageant, no love interest for Sandra Bullock, and no Michael Caine to remind her of the finer points of personal styling this time around, the filmmakers unwisely focus our attention on a lame-brain plot involving a kidnapping and Hart's relationship with her over-aggressive bodyguard, listlessly portrayed by Regina King.

Preposterous plot points begin right from the opening scene. After being recognized by several people during a ho-hum bank robbery scene, Hart's superiors decide to reassign her to public relations, where she is relegated to representing the FBI at events throughout the country. When Cheryl Frazier, the winner of the Miss United States Pageant, and the emcee Stan Fields (William Shatner) are kidnapped, Hart's superiors think so highly of her new public relations skills that they send her, a crew of make-up artists and a personal stylist, and her bodyguard Sam Fuller to Las Vegas. The FBI brass instruct Hart to be the face of the bureau, while the local supervisor Collins (Treat Williams) manages the investigation.

Hart and her crew get closer and closer to solving the case while Collins and his team make one mistake after another. While in Las Vegas, Hart and her crew thwart several of Collins's attempts to send them back to New York, don disguises at a nursing home, engage in several punching matches at the airport, and take center stage at a drag show.

Miss Congeniality 2 has virtually nothing going for it. Lazily plotted, the film is never as funny or as clever as it should be. Marc Lawrence's script, which is chocked full of political correctness and strangely mean-spirited, is void of energy and direction. The actors lack chemistry; some even appear as though they're in another movie altogether. For all of its shortcomings, and there were plenty, the original had a certain charm and a saleable-enough concept that this lackluster sequel simply doesn't possess. Watching Michael Caine transform the stubborn Gracie Hart was one of the original's better plot points, but this sequel robs us by beginning its tale with a virtually transformed Gracie, who spends most of her time protecting herself from her own bodyguard. One remembers that there was a lot more to Gracie than fending off attacks from bodgyguards, but this script gives the character no additional dimensions and places her in one senseless situation after another.

The studio executives gambled on the genuinely likeable Sandra Bullock, the legendary Michael Caine, and Candace Bergen and William Shatner in wildly campy performances and won two summers ago. When they learned Michael Caine was a no-go on this production, they should have followed the age-old adage of "quitting while they were ahead."

Grade: D+

Content: Mild violence, a few sexual innuendos (PG 13)

Movie News and Notes

It's official. The rerelease of The Passion of the Christ tanked at the box office, earning only $223,789 on 957 screens or $234 per screen.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese (The Aviator) will team up again for The Departed. The crime story involves a mobster who goes undercover as a cop and a detective who infiltrates the mafia, with both men trying to flush out the other. The film also stars Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Anthony Anderson, and Ray Winstone.

David Fincher, the director of the imaginatively-shot thrillers Seven and The Panic Room, has been tapped for Benjamin Button, the story of a thirty-year-old woman who falls for a fity-year-old man who begins aging backwards. Eric Roth is set to write the screenplay.

Fresh off their effort in Collateral, Michael Mann and Tom Cruise will work together in The Few, in which Cruise is set to star as Billy Fiske, an American WWII pilot.

Critics are praising Millions, the new film from Danny Boyle (28 Days Later) about two brothers who find one million dollars.

Alexander Payne, writer and director of Election, About Schmidt, and Sideways, is set to direct Nebraska, a dramedy about a father who thinks he has won the lottery and asks his son to drive him from Montana to Nebraska to claim his earnings. Bob Nelson will write the script.

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Posted on March 13, 2005

The Aviator, the new film based on the book of the same title about the life of Howard Hughes, offers an insightful portrait of the billionaire who literally gave new meaning to the word eccentric. The latest film presents the former TWA CEO as a dashing, daring young business tycoon who frustrated everyone from his most loyal associates to Hollywood moguls and the women who starred in their movies to powerful U.S. senators -- all while living out some of life's biggest dreams with unbridled passion.

The surprisingly film-worthy depiction of twenty-five years of Hughes's life is expertly crafted by legendary director Martin Scorsese. Hughes's early adulthood is ripe material for an actor talented and charismatic enough to recreate the presence, charm, and wit of the young business tycoon, and Scorsese clearly has his man in Leonardo DiCaprio. Several years ago the director and actor teamed together for somewhat mixed results in Gangs of New York, but their collaboration here is far more effective. At a brisk two hours and forty-five minutes, The Aviator is masterfully edited and nearly perfectly performed by everyone from DiCaprio to the host of supporting actors and larger-than-life stars on hand for cameos. DiCaprio bings the same effervescent engergy to his performance here as he did in the breezy, broad Catch Me If You Can. Like Frank Abangdale, DiCaprio's Howard Hughes is a young, smart, fast-talking lad equipped with a roving eye for beautiful women and an appropriately different line for each of them. But the similarities between DiCaprio's roles end there. Hughes's obsessive compulsive disorder, which the film intimates he developed from his childhood, provides DiCaprio with an additional range of emotions to portray, and he does so with great skill and attention to detail. His disorder is manifested in his distaste for rare meats, occasional spells of paranoia, and his habit of washing his hands again and again. Scenes showing these behaviors range from the most comic to the most tragic.

The Aviator opens with a scene of Hughes's mother whispering words to him and flashes back to the scene, reminding us first that Howard never forgot his mother's words and second of the obsessive compulsive disorder that would render him a recluse for a few periods early in his life and for significantly greater parts of his later life. Many of us remember seeng pictures of the lonely, eccentric Hughes near the end of his life with long fingernails and long hair. The image is a far cry from the young man presented here. The Aviator enlightens and entertains us with a presentation of a man who bucked the Hollywood studio system with a maddening perfectionism and a peculiar fascination with female breasts that left leading members of the Motion Picture Association at a loss for words on more than one occasion.

Much of the film chronicles Hughes's early forays into the movie industry with Hell's Angels; his competition with Juan Trippe, the former CEO of Pan American Airlines; his storied romance with Katherine Hepburn; his wild-eyed pursuit of the elusive Ava Gardner; his televised showdown with a U.S. senator intent on helping Trippe gain even more control over the skies; and the joyous triumph he experienced after flying an airplane at record speed.

In addition to the film's lavish set and costume designs, the cinematography by Dante Spinotti is sublime. The film's 1930s and 1940s Hollywood parties and mansions are as grand as anyone could possibly imagine. The grass has simply never greener in the movies, the houses never bigger, the new airplanes never shinier, and the women never more beautiful.

Two of today's leading ladies portray vitally important women in the life of Howard Hughes. Kate Beckinsale, who portrays Ava Gardner, is luminous here. Cate Blanchett is Katherine Hepburn, the first love of Hughes's life. Although Beckinsale is less well known than Blanchett, her performance is a bit stronger. Blanchett is showy, occasionally sounding like Hepburn and incorporating the late screen legend's gestures, but ultimately only giving us a mild imitation of the Hepburn we remember. On the other hand, Beckinsale is sexy and sure of herself. She embodies Gardner and carries herself with just enough confidence and swagger to make us believe Gardner had the strength to keep the desperately pursuant Hughes at bay.

Other memorable performances include two by veteran versatile actors Alec Baldwin and Alan Alda. Baldwin is cool, menacing, and fat with greed and mischief as Juan Trippe, CEO of Pan American Airlines and Hughes's chief rival. Alda is mannered yet sly and calculating as the U.S. senator Trippe bribes to railroad Hughes into surrendering TWA's portion of the commercial airline business.

Throughout his acclaimed career, Martin Scorsese has produced and directed films with unmatched precision, perfection, and passion. As a director, Scorsese is never afraid to take risks, and here he and Leonardo DiCaprio have created a compelling portrait of a man whose precision, perfection, and passion allowed him to soar like an aviator. Hughes's flight to the top and his battle to remain somewhat close to it was as likely as it was unlikely. Although The Aviator provides us with a glimpse of the obsessive compulsive disorder that fills many of our memories about Howard Hughes, the film ultimately pays homage to Hughes by presenting us with exactly what we need to remember the billionaire's passion for being and creating the "wave of the future."

Grade: A-

Content: Slight profanity, brief nudity, sexual innuedos - PG 13

News and Notes

Christopher Nolan, who directed Memento and Insomnia, is at the helm of Batman Begins. The adaptation tells the story of how Bruce Wayne became Batman after his parents are murdered. The film stars Christian Bale (American Psycho, Empire of the Sun, The Machinist, Shaft, and Little Women), Michael Caine, Liam Nesson, and Morgan Freeman.

Million Dollar Baby screenwriter Paul Haggis will make his directorial debut with Crash. The drama about racism and politics in LA will feature an all-star cast that includes Sandra Bullock, Brendan Fraser, Don Cheadle, and Matt Dillon. The film is set to be released in June.

Terrance Malick, the enigmatic Harvard graduate whose Badlands, Days of Heaven, and The Thin Red Line are so highly regarded that they're shown in film school classes, will return with The New World. Colin Farrell, Christopher Plummer, and Wes Studi will star. The film is set to be released in October because Native American Day falls during the month and because Malick's track record guarantees that his film will be among the early 2005 Oscar favorites.

The Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson is set to direct the remake of King Kong, which will star Naomi Watts, Jack Black, and Adrian Brody.

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