A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

Shifting between the rough streets of 1986 Astoria, Queens, and present day, we follow the real-life story of Dito Montiel reconciling with the friends and family he left behind when he followed his dreams to California. The 1986 section is exciting. The cast is fantastic. Shia LaBeouf's ease is kind of amazing. And Channing Tatum, who I'd only known from the previews for Step Up, was surprisingly good. And Martin Compston as Mike O'Shea deserves a nod too. Hell, they're all good, except for Chazz Palminteri, whose dramatic line readings lead me to believe he thinks he's in a play instead of a movie. And "Chazz," who allows themself to be called "Chazz?" Maybe a toe-walker, ranked second on the high school tennis team, prone to double faults and tantrums, while Dad screams at the line judge. But a grown man? Sorry, I digress. It's an old grudge.

The present day section, though, is a letdown. It's poorly cast (except for Eric Roberts, in a brief, unnerving appearance). Robert Downey just doesn't feel like the man Shia's Dito would have become. And like this paragraph, it's just not as well developed as the first half. And then there's Chazz again.

"Chazz." Pfft.

Basquiat

My girlfriend and I decided to greenlight this to the front of the queue because Jeffrey Wright lives around the corner from us and we feel like we know him.

"Where'd you park the car," she'll ask.
"Oh, in front of Jeffrey's," I'll answer.

You know, I'm sure he parks in front of our building too. Or in his climate-controlled Bruce Wayne garagecave. And when she walked past his front door while he was hanging Halloween decorations, and he made a ghostly "oo-oo-oo" noise and a funny face at her, she took it as acknowledgement that they are now very close friends. We should probably get out of the house more.

So you can imagine the personal disappointment we felt and the awkward spot that puts us in, after watching this. It's not that it's a bad movie, but like Gertrude Stein's Oakland, once you're there, there isn't any there there. The performances are hit and miss. Jeffrey Wright's Basquiat is exciting; his physicality is different from any work of his I've seen since. But the shrug and grunt style of acting Benicio Del Toro sometimes resorts to is distracting. Then David Bowie's Warhol is hilarious, "do you have any money, Bruno?" And it's great to see Michael Wincott in something other than B-movie heavy mode. But, at the same time, Claire Forlani just never fits with the rest of the movie, which you could argue is a genius bit of casting, illustrating Basquiat's personal and professional worlds could never click together, or you could simply write off as she must have known somebody on the production. Who knows?

The visuals are interesting throughout, though I suppose they should be when the director's the big deal painter he's supposed to be. The painting progression scene in the basement is cool, and the sound design when he walks into his first big show with his headphones on, and Big Pink reclaiming her scarf, and the "all stop but Basquiat" as he walks out. They're all promises of what's to come, if the advance praise for The Diving Bell and The Butterfly can be trusted.

But the script is empty. If you don't already know the Basquiat story, chapter and verse, you're lost. The Netflix envelope claims the film captures "...his anguish over his family and his hatred of a society that both courted and exploited him." Well, if you say so. In the end, the movie feels more like a very "in" love letter from Julian Schnabel to the painting scene, than a story for the rest of us about someone we don't already know. You know, like Jeffrey Wright.

Coming Soon

Here's a short list of movies I've seen recently, about which I'll try and peck out a few lines over the holiday weekend.

No Country for Old Men No spoiler here: it's fantastic. In related news, William Monahan, Oscar-winning screenwriter of the The Departed, is adapting Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Ridley Scott is directing. Get excited.

The Hoax
The Host
Girl 27
Seven Up/7 Plus Seven
Reign Over Me
Severance
Curly Sue Just checking. Still awake?
Zodiac
Fracture
Knocked Up
Year of the Dog
Disturbia
Blades of Glory
Days of Glory
Glory of Glory
Of of Of

...er, that is all.

Happy Thanksgiving.
Of Glory.

Away From Her

Adapted from the short story "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" by Alice Munro, "Away from Her" tells the story of Grant and Fiona, married 40 years, as they deal with Fiona's worsening Alzheimer's. Here's a great example of how much more powerful well-adapted literature can be than something created solely for the screen. Put it on the shelf alongside "Brokeback Mountain," "25th Hour" or the most recent "Pride and Prejudice." Like improvised TV ("Curb Your Enthusiasm") vs. scripted, I'm not saying it's the only way to go, just making a point. It only makes sense that an adapted screenplay enjoys the benefit of all the background the source provides, and is richer by default than material that was developed after jotting down a few character outlines, a list of 25 plot points and a sexy log line: "In a world...!"

I also appreciated what I personally refer to, right or wrong, as a more European view of love. That is, we're not property, and sometimes to love is to let go.

A sad, snowy movie directed by Sarah Polley, who starred in one of my favorite sad, snowy movies, The Sweet Hereafter.

I Like Killing Flies

The title of this documentary is lifted from the punchline of one of the cracked monologues philosopher-king and Greenwich Village hash slinger Kenny Shopsin delivers to camera. Loosely organized around the drama of moving his diner out of it's decades-old home, the movie introduces us to the eccentric Shopsin family and restaurant regulars, the odd, firmly specific rules of the restaurant, like no seating for parties of five, and, briefly, to the more than 900 menu items Shopsin pushes out of his phone booth-sized kitchen. My favorite is "Postmodern Pancakes:" Shopsin makes an order of pancakes, chops them up and throws them back in the batter, and then makes a new stack of pancakes, pieces and all.

This movie will be a comforting trifle for New Yorkers, whether native or transplanted, who've moved away and want to spend some time with a walking talking "New Yorker" profile.

Black Book

Wow! I loved this movie. And not just for the nekkid-udity. In the same way David Cronenberg's recent less-is-more approach has made his movies stronger, ("A History of Violence," "Eastern Promises"), Paul Verhoeven manages to make a sprawling story intimate, and the whole thing seems so effortless. Bad guys turn out good, and good guys turn out, well, they turn out too. You don't see the twists and turns coming, you're so engrossed you forget that the thing's called "Black Book" and you're treated to a new WWII angle: high adventures of the mighty Dutch Resistance! Go on and make it a double feature with Verhoeven's 1977 "Soldier of Orange," starring Rutger Hauer.

14...oh, wait.

If I had a readership, I would apologize for my absence. As it is, I'll just resume whispering into the abyss. Now where was I? Yes. Following ho-hum reviews when it ran in theaters, "1408" enjoyed a wave of critical reconsideration when it arrived on DVD that persuaded me against my better judgement to give it a chance. But let's just acknowledge the 800 lb. gorilla. You can't make a movie, let alone a Stephen King movie, about a haunted hotel without coming up short against "The Shining." There's no unifying logic here that explains what force is at work other than, as Sam Jackson's hotelier exclaims, "...it's an evil fucking room." But more like an evil fucking prop comic, the room throws gag after tired gag at Cusack, hoping something will resonate and send him bounding out the window. But the frights aren't scary, with the single exception of a "gotcha!" at the end, which inexplicably takes place after the action has moved beyond the hotel. And there's a confusing detour late in the movie that climaxes with a wide-eyed, mugging Cusack shot in 360 degree rotation that reminded me of the goofy old Wayne's World segue, "noonil, noonil, noonil, noonil." But I can only blame myself. If I'd done my homework, I would have noticed that "1408" was directed by the same guy who brought us this disappointment.

Wes Anderson Discusses Suicidal Characters

Movie director Wes Anderson has denied reports Owen Wilson's troubled private life contributed to his latest film character - a man with suicidal tendencies. A depressed Wilson allegedly slashed his wrists in an apparent suicide attempt at his home in Santa Monica, California last month. And, in a bizarre coincidence, his latest movie character is involved in a deliberate motorcycle accident in The Darjeeling Limited. But filmmaker Anderson insists Wilson had no hand in writing the role. He says, "It (suicide theme) comes more from me than Owen. He is just playing a role. There's not much else there. People can't avoid making connections, but they are making them after the fact." And Anderson also plays down speculation Wilson was responsible for the scene in 2001 movie The Royal Tenenbaums, which the pair co-wrote, where his brother Luke Wilson's character tries to kill himself by cutting his wrists. He adds, "I wrote that character myself. Owen was not in on that one."

www.imdb.com

Thoughts on Owen Wilson

It occurs to me that Owen Wilson co-wrote "The Royal Tenenbaums," and maybe Richie Tenenbaum's attempted suicide was more significant to Owen Wilson than a simple plot device. I guess now is a good time to go back and watch it again. The only conclusion I can draw at the moment is that it seems sadness can stalk you whatever your station in life.

Hellboy: Sword of Storms

Have you ever dated an old girlfriend’s sister? Yeah, me neither. But I imagine it’s something like watching this cartoon after loving the live-action movie. She shares the same back story and a familiar wit, she even sounds similar, but while you find her comfortably attractive, she’s just different enough to remind you that she’s not the girl you loved.

Which is just another way of saying this thing isn’t drawn by Mike Mignola. He wrote the script and served as a consulting producer, but farmed out the penwork to a nice enough fellow named Sean “Cheeks” Galloway. (Trivia: “Cheeks” is my Dad's nickname too; so-dubbed because in our family, as with the Clemens', we, how to put it politely? Let's just say we derive our power from our legs.) But I digress. Instead of the wonderfully dirty and detailed look of the Hellboy comics and Screw-On Head...


...we get something more like a Saturday morning episode of Lilo & Stitch.

I know filmmaking's an industry, and I suppose you’ve got to promote the product you’ve got, but there’s a disappointing lowest common denominator moment in one of the mini-docs when an animator concedes that “you don’t want to add too much detail, because a character picks things up and carries them around,” which, presumably, would make animating them that much more tedious and difficult. Okay, so the object is to crank it out and damn the artistry? Got it. But half of Hellboy’s appeal is the look. If I can mix my metaphors, this is is like wrapping a VW Bug around a Panzer chassis. “Beep, beep, kid stuff coming through.”

But there are vestiges of the good old days. All of the lead actors from the movie return to voice their characters. So despite the fact that Ron Perlman conspired with Dan Hedaya to ruin what could have been one of the most beautiful and exciting movies of the 90s, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Alien: Resurrection, he is the one and only Hellboy. He personifies an unflappable, world weary, garbage man, taking out the paranormal trash. And Selma Blair protests too much in the mini-doc when she claims her voice is her weakest instrument. She nails Liz Sherman’s wounded vulnerability. And Doug Jones, well, he’s just from another planet. Morpheus, er, Lawrence Fishburne is capital-t, capital-m, The Man, but they didn't need him to voice the Silver Surfer. Jones could have brought the whole package there too.

So in the end I guess I’d make out with that old flame's sister, but I’d really be hoping we could give it another shot and go see Hellboy 2: The Golden Army together.

Apocalypto

Whether Mel Gibson’s a boozy, narcissistic jerk whose entitle-itis got him in over his head during a traffic stop or (and?) an anti-Semite who’ll only say so when he’s drunk is irrelevant to me. Truth be told, the tone of Gibson's commentary left me thinking he's probably a bit of both. But considered strictly on its’ own merit, Apocalypto is beautiful and exciting and masterfully made, and the scale of the production is just jaw-dropping. Just take a look at the size of the Makeup Department. For Christ's sake, more than 60 drivers alone are credited.

The casting and acting are terrific. Rudy Youngblood as Jaguar Paw is winning and runs his sandals off. Raoul Trujillo as the lead heavy, Zero Wolf, is seriously menacing. But Gerardo Taracena as Middle Eye, the fellow from the poster, sprouting the Coolio braid from his forehead, steals the show. The way he juts out his lower jaw and deadens his eyes makes you sick; you just know he’s frozen over inside. From his IMDb page, I gather he hasn’t hit Hollywood yet, but hopefully we’ll be seeing him again soon.

A fun game I found myself playing throughout was “Spot the Movie Reference.” We have the spiked mantrap of Southern Comfort, the throat-slashed loved one of Braveheart, an anachronistic nod to Ratso Rizzo’s “I’m walkin’ here,” Beyond Thuderdome’s orphan cohort and even a brief glimpse of a pre-Columbian Master/Blaster.

But Gibson’s got some new tricks, too. According to the commentary, the coarse, funny, seemingly anachronistic banter of Jaguar Paw and his hunting party is actually borne out by research of the idiom of the late-classic Maya. And while Gibson and cowriter Farhad Safinia's refusal to paint their heroes as noble savages is not what you're used to, you come to appreciate it. It makes the world seem more authentic.

The human sacrifice and eclipse scene atop the pyramid is a skillful demonstration of political manipulation as the king and high priest work the crowd with little more than a nod and a wink. And, while Gibson admits a bit of dramatic license, the perfectly choreographed gauntlet scene seems realistic and maintains the high-tension sadism of the raiding party.

For 139 minutes I was alternately excited, saddened, thrilled, filled with dread and just plain knocked out. Whatever you think of the man, the movie is amazing.

Hooray!

Ratatouille opens today! The word is good: A.O. Scott of The New York Times writes a glowing review this morning, and the aggregate review sites Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic score it 93 and 94 out of 100, respectively.

I haven’t seen it yet, and I’m not going to waste your time summarizing the summaries I’ve read this summer. Just trust me, and go see it. Now. Before you learn too much about it and spoil the experience. I don’t think you can set your expectations too high, but maybe go in with a tiny bit of skepticism. “Will’s sending me to see a cartoon?”

Then when you’re done you can go back and Netflick Brad Bird’s other near-perfect movies, The Incredibles and The Iron Giant. Get excited!

Much Ado About...Nothing?

Posted today on imdb.com:

Netflix Hit by a Blockbuster Punch
"Blockbuster has stepped up what some analysts have described as cutthroat price competition against NetFlix, reducing to $16.99 the monthly subscription price for its unlimited three-DVDs-out-at-a-time plan. The figure is $1.00 less than Netflix's most popular plan. Citigroup analyst Tony Wible told Reuters, "We expect that Netflix will eventually have to match the price cuts or lose significant share to Blockbuster." Shares of each company declined on the news, with Netflix falling 8.8 percent to $20.00, a three-month low."

Oh, I don't think so. For a dollar (okay $12/yr.) I'm going to recreate my 274-movie queue by hand, 12.5% of which Blockbuster doesn't carry? Netflix currently offers 80,000+ titles. Blockbuster: 70,000+. To be honest, I was thinking the difference would be more on the order of 25%. And it was when I trial-subscribed to Blockbuster a year ago. But nevermind that's still 34 movies I'd lose. (No fair pointing out that #15-#260 live in the fallout zone of passed over hopefuls as I leapfrog new releases to the head of the line. No doubt all of which Blockbuster now carries. Aargh! Who's writing this thing here, me or you?)

But maybe you're on to something. Blockbuster does offer their "Total Access" plan with an in-store return option and immediate swapout for even new releases AND an additional in-store rental coupon per month in addition to your 3-at-a-time all-you-can-eat plan.

But Netflix still wins with their nifty "Watch Now" feature. Right? I tried it. Once. It works great. If you like sitting hunchbacked and tyranosaurhanded in front of your computer for two hours. Alone. Kind of like I am now. My back.

You know, blue is my favorite color.

Now Playing: Hot Fuzz

Now here’s what I was trying to get at in my Grindhouse piece. Rather than bog down precisely replicating the feel of the movies it’s honoring, Hot Fuzz stripmines B grade action movies and converts the tailings into gold. It trades up. For instance, the movie calls out a cheesier moment in Point Break, when Keanu’s man-crush gets the better of him and he can’t bring himself to shoot Swayze, instead unloading his clip into the sky. Then it flips the moment so nicely that when Danny (Nick Frost) can’t bring himself to shoot his father and empties his pistol with an “Aaargh!” it’s heartfelt and hilarious at once.

As in Shaun of The Dead, there are some fun supporting performances turned in here: an over-the-top Timothy Dalton, a deadpan Martin Freeman (of the BBC’s “The Office”), Steve Coogan, perfectly oily as usual, and Bill Nighy defines Crypt Keeper cool.

I’m really looking forward to watching this one on DVD with subtitles. It’s not that the accents are too thick, just that the pacing and colloquialisms are rewardingly unrelenting. Close attention pays off as the jokes come over the wall like rage-infected Mongols.

My one beef with the movie is that the whip-pan smash-cuts that were so fun in Shaun of The Dead become a wee bit tedious here. And the sound effect track is way too loud. This movie doesn’t require a big screen to maximize its’ entertainment potential (more on this later), so I recommend you wait until it comes out on DVD and you can control the volume yourself.

And, oh hey, check out this fun article tracing the references of a few of the Hot Fuzz posters out there. Good stuff, love the Dirty Harry.

Now Playing: 28 Weeks Later

This is the best sequel I’ve seen in a long time. Or, maybe purest is a better way to say it. This movie cleanly picks up where the first movie left off, delivers a streamlined, terrifying chain of events that really make sense and leads us effortlessly to the undoubted three-quel.

By the same token, I guess, you could make the case that the movie is kind of slight, it doesn’t amplify the world of the first movie in the way, say, Aliens trumped Alien. It’s merely another episode in the continuing rage epidemic. But God in his heaven was never happier he isn’t crawling around in the mud with us than when the frenzied horde comes a-calling in the opening sequence.

In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.

Strangers With Candy

Unwatchable. Twice.

Catch & Release

The alphabet is less predictable.

The Road to Guantanamo

Let’s see here. You and your pals traveled to Pakistan to attend your friend’s wedding. Lacking money for a hotel and electing not to stay with family, you crashed at the local youth hostel, er, mosque, where the faithful held regular anti-American rallies. With a couple of weeks to kill before the wedding (No job to get back to in England? Ah yes, convicted petty criminals with limited education and dim prospects, your time was your own.), you decided to travel to Afghanistan “to help.” Now, by “help” do you mean “provide aid and comfort?” And to whom exactly? Never mind.

So, when you found yourself doing a lot of sitting around and not much “helping,” you asked to be driven back to Pakistan. Did you offer any resistance when your driver took you deeper into Afghanistan to the city of Kunduz? And is this the same Kunduz that was the last major city held by the Taliban before its fall to US-backed Afghan Northern Alliance forces on November 26, 2001? The same Kunduz from which witnesses reported a Pakistani airlift of as many as five thousand Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters? But you were only there to help. And, like an errant Harold or Kumar, to find “really big naan.”

The simple fact is I’d be stunned if you’d been renditioned off to Cuba after, say, taking a leak on a Louisiana State Trooper’s leg during Mardi Gras. But captured retreating with foreign fighters deep in Taliban country? In late 2001? With no passport? Sorry. I’d be outraged if they’d let you go.

In related news, the visa-less travel of Britons of Pakistani descent continues to pose a special security challenge here in the United States.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Classic movies rarely hold up as ecstatic entertainments. By the time you mentally correct for the black and white film, the echo on the crummy soundstage sets and the hammy theatrical acting, you’re not left with much in the way of verisimilitude. What you are left with, though, is the pure pleasure of watching a cultural anthropology lesson unspool in front of you. See Bogie ask a young John Huston if he’ll “stake a fellow American to lunch.” Watch him uncork his trademark teeth-baring shoulder shrug. Observe the original “steenking badges” line in its’ natural habitat.

The story is rock solid; all the raw material is here. I’d run to see a remake by John Singleton with this lineup:

Dobbs: Sam Rockwell
Howard: Avery Brooks (Remember him?!)
Curtin: Don Cheadle
Cody: Freddy Rodriguez

Hell, I’d settle for a Treasure-themed Scrubs episode.

Now Playing: Grindhouse

I suppose if you buy a ticket to a B movie homage made by B movie fanatics you shouldn’t be surprised when you get B grade entertainment. Not to say that I didn’t enjoy myself. I just hoped the whole affair would rise above its’ lineage a bit more. Rodriguez and Tarantino, with movies like Sin City, Reservoir Dogs and (literally) Pulp Fiction, have always managed to make more of whatever genre they’re reworking. Pulp gems like The Faculty and Kill Bill succeed because they take the material completely seriously. And the B movie design elements they feature, e.g., sound, voiceover, titles have been polished to a high shine. Grindhouse is just dirty.


In order for the joke of Planet Terror and Death Proof to work (“Hey, it’s 1979, you’re on the Deuce and you’re in a real live grindhouse!”), Rodriguez and Tarantino are forced stick too closely to the crappy B movie ethos. In order to really feel the sleaze, by definition the characters have to be thinly drawn, survive ridiculous mishaps ridiculously and connect with no one, least of all the audience. Grindhouse is run through with a feeling of “Isn’t it cool how realistically we’ve captured how gloriously crummy this whole experience used to feel?”


And there is a moment in Death Proof when Kurt Russell turns to the camera, flashes a big cat grin and winks. It’s a great moment. I laughed out loud. But the spell is broken and the movie stops working as an engagement. It does, however, continue to work as a vulgar display of formal power. These two guys know what the hell they’re doing and they’re obviously having a ball, but a lot of it’s academic.


Okay, enough of the smarty pants anal-ysis. Let’s just get to the fun stuff. I liked:

The posters. Obviously.

You heard it from me last; this kid Freddy Rodriguez is going to be huge. He’s got a quality that really connects. If only he were a little taller (5’6”).

Rose McGowan proves she’s more than just a pretty face by turning in an impressively different character in each movie. You say Rose McGowan, I think Cherry Darling. I didn’t know she's got Pam in her too.

Michael Biehn’s back! I can’t believe he was 28 when The Terminator came out and he’s 51 this year.

Sydney Tamiia Poitier turns in a great performance as a completely self-absorbed, too-cool-for-school, obscurist disc jockey. As soon as you see her foot hanging out the window you know what’s coming, and I cheered (and threw up in my mouth a little) when she got hers.

The fake trailers, especially Don’t! by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz).

Tarantino can still get me on the edge of my seat, rocking nervously. He did it first the moment the Gimp spidered out of the box. This time it’s the POV shot behind Zoe Bell, over the front of the hood. You realize just how fast that car is moving. Christ.

R.J. MacReady’s back! I can’t believe I was 12 when The Thing came out and I’m 37 this year.

Bonus Commentary: 1. Tarantino writes great dialogue but, yawn, wake me when the car chase starts. Twenty minutes of yakking before we get to the meatgrinder. 2. Why didn't the girls just, uh, slow the car to a stop so Zoe could get off the hood? I guess you don't have a movie in that case, but that's a logic problem you've got to solve buddy. 3. Grindhouse movies were chock full of sexy time. Here, whenever tube tops go flying or lap dances are set to pop off, poof! "missing reel?!" Hope they find them before they master the DVD.

I could go on and on about the things I loved and the things I didn’t, but the bottom line is I had a great time and my complaints probably flow from that bottomless well of expectations. I’m grateful to Tarantino and Rodriguez for hoodwinking the Weinsteins. I doubt they’ll be able to do it again, Grindhouse’s box office take being what it is. On the other hand, Machete appears to be in preproduction.

The Heart of the Game

God bless documentary filmmakers who have an eye for an interesting story, the tenacity to hold on for years as it develops and the good fortune to stumble into even better stories along the way. The Heart of the Game begins as a profile of a new and unconventional head coach, Bill Resler, as he takes over a Seattle high school girls’ basketball program. In the ensuing SEVEN YEARS, while Resler finds his feet and the players come of age and the drama builds to a perfect climax, the story widens to include, literally, the trials of one his players as she fights to retain her eligibility to play ball.

You'll be inspired by the wide-eyed, mile-a-minute enthusiasm of these girls as they talk about how savagely they want to destroy their opponents and how much basketball means to them. You'll be warmed by the whole-life approach Resler takes to the game. And make sure to watch the deleted scene entitled “Jade.” You'll be moved when you learn how narrowly Resler reconsidered the hard line he thought he needed to take with her, and the difference it made in her life.

This movie is dynamite. And it blows Jesus Camp out of the gym. Why it wasn’t nominated for an academy award I don’t understand.

300: The Legend of Ron Burgundy

Anchorman/300 together as one - Click Here for more great videos and pictures!

Fast Food Nation

Strong cast. Wilmer Valderrama proves he’s a lot more than Fez. Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace) tears your heart out again. Greg Kinnear continues to eat Tom Hanks’ Happy Meal as the American Everyman. And Bruce Willis and Luis Guzman (a personal favorite) turn in slyly vicious supporting performances.

Cool director, Richard Linklater, who’s mostly hit, but sometimes miss for me. Hit: Slacker, SubUrbia, Before Sunrise/Sunset, School of Rock. Miss: Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly.

And a great book by our Upton Sinclair, Eric Schlosser. If you read it and want more, check out Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market. And the author note inside explains he’s currently working on a book about the American prison system. I can’t wait.

So I was disappointed to find that this is not so much a movie as a public service announcement first and a dramatic narrative second. The connections between the storylines are forced. No one story is given enough time to breathe. There’s just too much material to get through. You could easily spin two or three movies out of what’s here: the illegals, Greg Kinnear’s world, maybe the student radicals.

And if you’re going to make a fast food movie, why not go with Super Size Me? You could stick goofy-charming Morgan Spurlock in a cape; give him a frickin’ laser. Or at least a laser pointer. It would be tight. You could make the case that I’m a victim of my great expectations here, and my girlfriend would agree with you. But I suggest you read the book and leave it at that.

Marie Antoinette

Kirsten Dunst usually feels cast a little out of her depth, but here her lightness matches the material. And god bless Sofia Coppola and what, after Lost in Translation’s opening shot and now this, we can call her emblematic behind (say it with me, “BEE-hind”) shots. Jason Schwartzman, nepotistically blessed or not, is just right as a repressed Louis XVI. And there are lots of solid, supporting performances from Steve Coogan, Rip Torn, Danny Huston; even little Molly Shannon.

But what you’ve come for here are the production values. Coppola was allowed to shoot in the real deal Holyfield Palace of Versailles, and it’s beautiful. And you could just never duplicate the long shots of the grounds. The costume and pastry designers seem to have gotten together to make the first half of the movie look like a delicious pink cupcake. During the second half, which finds Marie spending time at her retreat on the palace grounds, Petit Trianon, the shots and lighting and costumes take on a naturalistic feel. It’s as if Marie, freed from the repression of courtly expectations, wanders into a Terence Malick movie. You get two, two, two movies in one.

The plot is almost unimportant. Marie’s adrift in her new home, with an inept, inattentive husband, she’s burdened by the expectation that she’ll bear an heir to head off war between France and her Austrian homeland, which is difficult to do when your husband takes 6 years to put his first, awkward move on you, blah blah blah. This is a throwaway grrrl power movie that will be scored by Avril Lavigne when it’s remade in 2027. But, oh, you pretty things.

By the way, I've used the CD soundtrack cover art above for obvious reasons. I mean, how fugly is the US poster?!

The Evolution of The Netflix Mailer

In my wanderings through some other folks' blogs, I found this article and spiffy little slideshow documenting the evolution of the Netflix mailer.

Suicide Girls

First blush: “Woo-hoo! Softcore on Netflix.” Sad realization: “Yawn. Softcore on Netflix.” Work things out with a Girls Gone Wild infomercial and save yourself the three day turnaround.

I know this whole Suicide Girls movement is supposed to be about empowerment and demonstrating that alternatively decorated modern primitives are objectifiable too. Well guess what? It worked. Consider yourself objects that just aren't doing it for me. And you need a bath. Raaawk!

The Devil's Rejects

The terror is good and creepy. The characters are thin. Why do they do what they do? Who knows.

Sid Haig and Bill Moseley are well cast. You're drawn to them, which serves the anti-heroism. But why do we care about any of this? I feel dirty.

Late March Round-Up

The Ringer
I was excited enough about The Ringer I made half-assed plans to see it in the theatre. It got away from me and I forgot about it. Here, more than a year later I stumbled across it on HBO and found it was a little like reading an old journal and wondering “who was I when I thought Joey Lauren Adams was hot?”

The Baxter
Written and directed by Michael Showalter, featuring The State’s alumni and friends, and Elizabeth Banks (damn you Journal, she’ll always be hot), I was pulling for another Wet Hot American Summer. A “Baxter” here is the faceless Joe who’s left at the altar when, say, Julia Roberts runs off with Richard Gere instead. The idea is great, the execution is sweet and occasionally funny, but it just doesn’t sustain. There’s a funny bit at the end with Showalter running off a few last minute interlopers, but it’s too little too late. There's only enough here for a good SNL sketch.

Nacho Libre
Another comedy I was really looking forward to, but it’s just no good. (Great alternate poster, though, right?) The winning quirkiness of Napoleon Dynamite is formulaic here and Jack Black’s over the top buffoon needs to take a couple pictures off. Maybe a Holiday or two.

Babel
Beautiful and heartbreaking, but it doesn’t live up to the promise of the title. I follow the bouncing ball and understand how Japanese big game hunter’s gift leads to Mexican nanny’s deportation, but how does God’s punishment of Man inform this chain of events? And while the story of hunter’s emotionally stunted daughter is moving and sad, it’s a narrative cul-de-sac. And confusing, is it just me or is there incest in the air at the end?

The Queen
An Oscar-winning impersonation in a dull movie about a fusty woman at an inconsequential moment in history. See Mrs. Brown instead.

Jesus Camp
The culture wars continue. I was surprised to find the filmmakers didn’t explore the obvious connection between 9/11 and (what they depict as) the ensuing surge in Evangelical fundamentalism.

Everything Is Illuminated
I was going to title a post about this movie “Little Miss Sunflower,” but got hung up on my own cleverness and couldn’t write my way off the hook. Similarities: 1) road trip 2) with crazy Grandpa 3) who dies. Differences: the other 99 minutes. I enjoyed it, particularly Eugene Hutz’ Alex. (Just bear in mind that Hutz is actually Ukrainian and Borat’s up to something completely different.) I’m looking forward to more movies from Liev Schreiber, who makes his directorial debut here. But I wasn’t as moved as I would be if I hadn’t been desensitized recently by Richard Rhodes’ brutal book Masters of Death.

The Holiday
I liked it. A lot. Snicker to yourselves. Jack Black: phew, thanks for taking your boot off my neck buddy. Kate Winslet: like Emma Thompson, I’ve missed you. Jude Law: winning, and very cute with his very cute daughters. Cameron Diaz: as in In Her Shoes (which I also loved, shut it), she can’t quite keep up with the big kids, but she’s a gamer. Eli Wallach: to paraphrase my friend Chris, why wasn’t I told he had such a big role Mr. Trailer-maker, which by the way, is what Cameron Diaz's character does for a living? The Ugly’s in my Saturday evening rom-com? Bring it.

Stranger Than Fiction
Shamefully underrated when it was released. Probably ignored because it's not a bowling movie entitled "Lanes of Thunder, The Jimmyjohnjoe Story," and possibly because there's a whiff of Woody Allen here. I guess we're all still getting over Melinda and Melinda.

Catch it on DVD, though. My favorite movie of the month. Hooray for the return of Tom Hulce. And make sure to watch the featurette about developing the GUI that follows Will Ferrell’s character around.

Finally, an open question for Will, (not Ferrell, or Meekin), or anyone interested: what do you make of my interpretation that the Harold Crick (Ferrell) and Ana Pascal (Gyllenhaal) world of the movie isn’t real, but is the dramatization of a literary correspondence between the blocked Karen Eiffel (Thompson) and the Eiffel-scholar, Professor Hilbert (Hoffman)?

doug benson's i love movies!

Doug Benson, known associate of Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, posts these spit take-worthy anti-reviews on bobanddavid.com. He only writes a few times a year, but he's filling in the gaps these days with weekly podcasts too. If you haven't joined the podcast generation, like me, no problem. His bobanddavid archive dates back to 2001, so you've got a couple text-based hours of loafing ahead of you.

Irony

Confession: I can't get through a Kurosawa movie. Samurai movies just don't move me, unless they're updated in priapic, toe-worshipping, 70's chroma-chromic Tarantino-vision. Or, lose the kimonos, drop the Hanzo sword, slap on some chaps and six shooters, (keep the questionable facial hair) and "YEE-HA! we got ourselves a picture boys!"

Give those seven samurai Colt Model 1861 Navy revolvers and pit them against The Ugly in some nameless border town, or slot a post-coldwar double-talking ronin in a Frankenheimer-helmed (Mamet-doctored) joint and you can count me in. I know this disinterest weakens my movie-lover cred. But while my favorite story device is a Rashomon, actually watching Rashomon is more effective than Tylenol PM.

So it's with shame and downcast eyes that I find myself ready to return The (unwatched, 3.5 hour-long) Seven Samurai today, but I don't have an envelope. Netflix's advice: "...you may send your DVDs to P.O. Box 49021 SAN JOSE, California 95161."

oink...?

Great Expectations

This idea has been rattling around in my head for a couple of weeks without my finding an elegant way to put it, but I'm not getting any younger, so here goes: how much you enjoy a movie is heavily influenced by your expectations going in. You can ruin your experience of a great movie by expecting too much, and you can find yourself cherishing a middling movie, if you didn't expect anything. Here are some examples from my own experience. Judge for yourself.

I went in way too high:
A Scanner Darkly: I don't know, I guess I figured Philip K. Dick, scramble suits, count me in. But the whammer surprise was more like a whimper. And now that I think about it Big Brother pharmaceutical mind control is a plot device on par with Scorpio and his weather machine. "Mwoo-ha-ha!" Eh.
Brick: Enough with your Bogie impression, see!
Pan's Labyrinth: I still don't get it. Much ado about nothing as far as I'm concerned. But I'll give it another try.
The Constant Gardener: This one might just be weak, high expectations or not. Again with the pharmaceutical conspiracy theories. Sheesh.
The Departed: You may be puzzled to find this movie here, given my comments in Pulp Fact. But I walked out disappointed. Here's a perfect example of expecting more than a movie has to offer. But now that I'm on the other side I can see it's a great movie. I'll see it again, reconcile my expectations, and all will be right with the world.

I went in low, or not knowing too much, and wow!:
Bubba Ho-Tep: This movie defies rational consideration. Set in a retirement home, an aging Elvis impersonator, or is he really Elvis?, and his black sidekick, who claims to be JFK, battle an ancient Egyptian mummy. This has no business being as funny as it is.
Life: I'm a sucker for buddy movies, see Bottle Rocket, Swingers, Big Night. But consider, this is an Eddie Murphy joint released between Holy Man and Nutty Professor II. I was ready for garbage.
Nine Queens: Ended up in my queue because a review of the American remake, Criminal, claimed this was the better of the two. Score one for the Argentines.
Shaun of the Dead: A great example of the virtues of ignorance. I'd heard just enough about it (a rom-zom-com?, please), to expect to hate it.

Sometimes, though, a movie is just too good to be diminished by your preconceptions. I went into these movies expecting a lot, and they delivered:
Children of Men: Gripping. Read my comments in Late February Round-Up.
Inside Man: The answer to "how'd he do it?" doesn't insult your intelligence.
Little Miss Sunshine: What struck me when I watched it the second time is how economical the script is. There isn't one wasted moment.
Shopgirl: Steve Martin's best movie since (wait for it) Parenthood. (Go ahead, unleash your scorn.)
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada: I like cowboy pictures.

So how to make use of this late-life wisdom, that you can influence your movie-going experience? Going forward I will try (largely without success, I'm sure) to manage my expectations with muttered self-administered brainwashing.

First, there's "I expect little."
300
28 Weeks Later: I know I'm going to be disappointed, but the hair on the back of my neck stands up every time the guitars come in during this clip: http://www.foxatomic.com/#movie:TitleId=7
Black Snake Moan
Flags of Our Fathers & Letters From Iwo Jima
Harsh Times: I want Training Day 2, but I don't think I'm going to get it.
Hot Fuzz: From the same crew that brought you Shaun of the Dead!
The Assassination of Jesse James by The Coward Robert Ford: Great Casey Affleck buzz.
The Host: This promises an American Werewolf-like mix of the funny and the scary.
The Lives of Others: Because this story is a low-key surveillance deal, it's a prime candidate for expecting the fireworks but being let down by the slow burn.
Zodiac: Reviewers are calling this Fincher's masterpiece, better than Fight Club?! "I expect little, I expect little."

And then there's "I expect nothing," in the hope of squeezing some enjoyment out of the genre junk food at the center of my movie diet:
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Pathfinder
Shooter
Smokin' Aces
The Number 23

What movies are you waiting for?

The Illusionist vs. The Prestige

Liked one, loved the other. I'll try to tell you why without giving too much away.

I've already written about The Illusionist in a couple of comments. I'll paraphrase here. I enjoyed the movie, but it has three big problems. First, there's a casting problem. Second, the trick is never explained. Third, the twist is too easily guessed. What's interesting to me, is that The Prestige is guilty on the same three counts, but it's a far superior movie.


1. The problem of casting. To put it bluntly Paul Giamatti, as Inspector Uhl, and Hugh Jackman, as Robert Angier, are just too damn likable. Both characters are supposed to undergo transformations, one of redemption and one of corruption. Giamatti, who I like a lot in his crusty misfit mode in American Splendor and Sideways, never projects the menace or moral ambiguity that I thought the role required. You really needed to fear that the inspector wouldn't do the right thing, that he might act merely out of self interest. You didn't feel like he was the kind of man who'd made the selfish, questionable choices throughout his career, the kind that would have pushed him up through the ranks. He is just too nice. And matinee-idol Jackman, who we know is capable of straddling the line from his work as Wolverine, never convinces as the obsessed, jealous Angier. You see him lose the things that are precious to him, but you don't see the change in his eyes, the hatred awakening, the vengeance growing. Edge: Even (but Christopher Nolan's insistence on David Bowie as Nikola Tesla tilts it in The Prestige's favor).


2. The Illusionist's big trick, the one that has the whole town talking, is never satisfactorily explained. We're just supposed to accept that somewhere in his travels, Eisenheim (Norton) picked up some netherworld flim-flammery, poof, voila! Sorry, not buying it. The Prestige's big trick, on the other hand, while never completely disassembled and explained is at least shown to have originated somewhere, in this case, in Tesla's lab. Now this isn't an argument in favor of science over mysticism, just a request that at a minimum a filmmaker show me where Jack got his magic beans. And besides, the grisly price of The Transported Man sufficiently compensates our voluntary misdirection. Edge: The Prestige.

3. Now, I'm not the guy who sat down to watch The Sixth Sense and said "he's dead," before the title credits were over. I'm usually fashionably late to the big reveal. So the fact that I guessed the surprise twists of both of these movies says something about how straightforward they are. In the case of The Prestige, the twist is just been there-done that. We've all seen Sleeping Beauty, right? In the Illusionist it's given away by lots of false beards and double-edged dialogue that doesn't quite cut cleanly on the first stroke. But you've got to work for it. Edge: The Prestige.

The Amazing Screw-On Head

I added this title to my queue on a recommendation from Harry Knowles' "DVD Picks and Peeks" column on Ain't It Cool News.

It's a 20 minute-long animated TV pilot created by Mike Mignola, the guy who came up with the Hellboy comics. It features the same wacky history-meets-the-occult mashups of Hellboy, introducing the characters of Screw-On Head, secret agent in service of Abraham Lincoln, his love interest Patience the Vampire, his manservant Mr. Groin, (get it, Head, Groin?), and their nemesis Mr. Zombie.

Voiced respectively by Paul Giamatti, Molly Shannon, Patton Oswalt and David Hyde Pierce, the characters are as wack-a-doodle as their names sound. The writing is clever and light. And the artwork, settings and bizarro world spyware are all really creative.

The pilot introduces a dozen characters, all of whom you want to know more about, but don't hold your breath. Mignola explains in the making-of featurette that he came up with the screw-on head idea as a lark to sell toys, and by the time he finished the pilot he'd told most of the jokes as well as he figured he could and had kind of gotten the whole thing out of his system. Too bad. 4 stars.

Monster House & The Crimson Rivers

Monster House: I'm torn here. Again, I think my disappointment with Monster House is a result of my high expectations. I'd read such good things about it that I was expecting something on par with The Incredibles. What I got was a lot better than Polar Express (the first animated movie to use "performance capture"), a little better than the middle of the pack (i.e., Over the Hedge, Robots, Shark Tale, Madagascar), but nowhere near as good as The Iron Giant. I guess I should just stick with Brad Bird movies. (Which reminds me Ratatouille is coming out in June.)

Where Monster House succeeds is in capturing the poignancy of early adolescence, when you're leaving childhood behind but not quite a young adult. My big knock against it, though, is that a) the house itself is not scary and b) the explanation behind the house's animation, so to speak, is kind of lame. Also, Bones, voiced by Jason Lee, is supposed to be dating D.J.'s teenage babysitter, but he's drawn like a 40 year old hippie burnout. Weird and distracting.

(But how much scarier is the French poster (above) than the dull American version?)

If Netflix had half stars, I'd tack on a fraction. As it is: 3 stars.



The Crimson Rivers: A serial killer thriller directed by Mathieu Kassovitz; he played Amelie's boyfriend and the toymaker in Munich. Pros: Visually imaginative and a good excuse to watch Jean Reno for an hour and forty six minutes. Lots of helicopter shots of sweeping French alpine scenery. Cons: The first hour is awkwardly structured, you follow two separate investigators around wondering when, if ever, their storylines will intersect. Jean Reno has an unresolved, or at least unimportant, fear of dogs. And in the end, the twist is a cop out.

Also, and this is probably more important than I'm giving it credit for, but the subtitles (it's in French) weren't synced correctly with the dialogue on the copy I watched, and I really struggled to stay in the moment.

In this case I'd take my half a star back if I could. 3 stars.

Late February Round-Up

From worst to best:

Blade Trinity: I like a vampire movie as much as the next guy. Probably even more, given this is the first of two I've seen in the past couple weeks. But this one stinks. The effects look like they were made on a TV budget. Ryan Reynolds makes the most of the incessant Van Helsing-meets-Van Wilder cracks written for him, but he just wears you down. Alright already, you're the wise guy. Shut up. And I think Wesley Snipes believes he really is Blade. Too silly plus too serious equals one too many Blade movies. 2 stars.



Nanny McPhee: This one's not bad, just slight. And predictable. It would be fun to watch with a kid, but doesn't really stand on it's own. I liked the art direction, though. Each character's color palette is fun, but nothing you haven't seen before. It's nice to see Emma Thompson again, and when the warts and all disappear you remember, wow, she's beautiful. But overall a forgettable diversion. 3 stars.


Near Dark: Vampire picture #2. Now we're getting somewhere. This brood of vampires is imagined as a gritty little band of bloodsucking, daylight-fearing, wise-cracking hobos. There's the craggy, grizzled leader who calls the shots. You've got a little boy vampire, whose age and urges are out of sync with his appearance. And a smart-assed Hudson-like character who... Hey!, wait a minute, that IS Hudson. In fact, this movie's crawling with Aliens alumni. Which makes the dopey love story and the cheesy Tangerine Dream score forgivable. I especially like that the vampires don't "poof," explode when the sun hits them. They roast. 3 stars.

Edmond: Come for the stilted Mamet-isms that chafe and challenge and sound like nothing anyone's ever actually said. Stay for the parade of panty-clad young actresses. For Mamet fans only. 4 stars.


Half Nelson: Ryan Gosling gives a performance so natural that combined with the shakey-cam you sometimes think you're watching a documentary. It's not easy to do what he's doing here. It's not even easy to describe what he's doing here. It just feels real. And, wow, Shareeka Epps is right there with him. Amazing. 4 stars.


Children of Men: I went into this movie with HIGH EXPECTATIONS (stay tuned, I will come back to this) and this movie met them. Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, the rest. All very real performances. The future is fully imagined. And it's grim. The scary parts are truly scary. The refugee camp makes you glad you didn't live in 40's Poland. Or today's Palestine. I haven't rocked in my seat trying to jump start the car in the movie in a while: "go, go, go."

Go. 5 stars.

Also, if you enjoy post-apocalyptic horror, read Cormac McCarthy's new novel, The Road. I didn't sleep right for a week. It haunts me.