The Cinema King

Monday at the Movies - February 27, 2012

2012-02-27T09:00:00.001-06:00

Welcome to Week Nine of “Monday at the Movies.” Last night was Oscar night, and I realized I only saw one out of the nine nominated Best Picture films, but there seemed to be a few other films that cropped up in the acting categories. I’ve already reviewed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Rango, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, so here are two more Oscar-nominated films from the past year.

Bridesmaids (2011) – Touted as “The Hangover for ladies,” Bridesmaids is something more than that because, rather than repeat a line of gags (as funny as those are in The Hangover), the film goes for an actual story anchored by a series of absurdly escalating vignettes around wedding planning. Because it was billed as “for ladies,” I was surprised by how much bathroom humor was present (saying something, I think, about gender politics in 2011) – not that I don’t find that kind of humor extremely funny, as when bad Brazilian food induces Maya Rudolph to defecate in the middle of the street (beneath the folds of a wedding dress, for those who have delicate constitutions). Melissa McCarthy snagged a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her outgoing and outrageous performance as raunchy bridesmaid Megan, although I’m not sure that anyone expected the nomination; it’s certainly strong acting, but nothing about it screamed “Oscar!” for me. In part, that’s because the ensemble cast in the movie is also strong – Jon Hamm as a sleazy beau, Rose Byrne as the one-upping aspirant to the “maid of honor” title, and the sweet and clean-cut Ellie Kemper who doesn’t quite get enough screen time. It’s ultimately not as rewatchable as The Hangover, but it’s not two hours that I regret spending in the first place.

Hugo (2011) – I’ve made no bones about the fact that I’m a huge Martin Scorsese fan, and the promise of his first 3-D movie was enough for me to give the entire visual gimmick a second try. Here’s another case of a film being billed as something it isn’t – I was told this was Scorsese’s “children’s film” made for all-ages as distinct from his other, more violent work. But the film is actually Scorsese’s love song to the work of early cinema pioneers like Georges Méliès, whose Voyage to the Moon plays a pivotal role in the film. Young orphan Hugo (Asa Butterfield) lives in a train station with his late father’s few belongings, including a mysterious key-operated automaton. The key comes into his life around the neck of Isabelle (Chloe “Hit Girl” Moretz), leading Hugo into a brave new world populated by cinematic dreams and hope for a magical future. I don’t want to spoil many of the little delightful surprises tucked into this deceptively complex film, but beyond the remarkable ensemble cast (including Sacha Baron Cohen as the sneaky station security, Michael Stuhlbarg as film historian René Tabard, and Sir Ben Kingsley as a train station toymaker) there’s a particularly strong soundtrack offered by Howard Shore, catchy and whimsical without losing sight (or sound?) of the powerful emotions the film elicits. As a meta-reflection on the magic of the movies, Hugo doesn’t disappoint and will leave audiences wistfully and blissfully satisfied.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!

Monday at the Movies - February 20, 2012

2012-02-20T09:00:00.000-06:00

Welcome to Week Eight of “Monday at the Movies.” Between rewatching the first season of Alias (say what you want about subsequent years, but that was a hell of a freshman season) and reading Samuel Richardson’s 1,500 epistolary novel Clarissa (which, according to Ian Watt, birthed the English-language novel), I haven’t had a chance to watch a single movie this week. Instead, I’ll start something I’ve always been meaning to do – a few reviews to get you ready for the second-most anticipated movie of Summer 2012... The Avengers. Since I’ve already reviewed Iron Man and Iron Man 2 on this site, we’ll look at the two most recent additions to the series.

Thor (2011) – Kenneth Branagh isn’t the first choice for a comic book movie director, but there’s a reason the Internet was disheartened when he announced he wasn’t returning for the sequel. Branagh brings his background in Shakespeare to bear in Thor, which blends perfectly the high theology and overwhelming pride of Asgard and the Norse deities with the restrained and comic scenes on planet Earth. When Thor falls from the heavens, we feel his pain, but angst is not the order of the day; instead, we’re treated to a never-too-ludic “fish out of water” narrative in which Thor finds himself unable to blend into human society. What’s unique here is that almost everyone is a scene-stealer: Tom Hiddleston as the trickster Loki, Anthony Hopkins as paterfamilias Odin, Kat Dennings as Natalie Portman’s sassy assistant Darcy, and Stellan Skarsgård as Swedish (and occasionally intoxicated) scientist Erik Selvig. Even Natalie Portman, who’s sometimes insufferable off-camera, is charming sweet, and intelligent as Jane Foster, Thor’s love interest. It’s a fantastic cast with a powerful story behind it, and it’s all grounded by Chris Hemsworth, whose turn as Thor is undeniably the centerpiece of a story which hangs together on his not-unimpressive shoulders. I’ve never read a Thor comic book, and what’s nice is that the film doesn’t assume you have; instead, there’s plenty of exposition and Norse mythology dabbled in without ever feeling too cumbersome. Even better, the film cues itself for a sequel without feeling unfinished, and the nods toward The Avengers likewise don’t necessitate another film to complete the narrative arc of this delightful movie.

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) – The second Avengers film of 2011 takes us all the way back to World War II and Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), a scrawny shrimp turned super soldier by way of Stanley Tucci’s magic elixir. Rebranded as Captain America, Steve ventures overseas to fight the Nazis and their secret weapon, The Red Skull (Hugo Weaving, who chews a bit of scenery but never fails to remind us why he’s perfectly cast as a villain). This is another Marvel flick with a wonderful cast, including Tommy Lee Jones, Toby Jones, the aforementioned Tucci, and the obligatory but still delightful cameo by Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. I was always a fan of Joe Johnston’s other superhero flick, The Rocketeer, and Johnston channels his WWII nostalgia here, creating a perfectly retro atmosphere without feeling less than modern. Marvel fans may balk at the presence of Chris Evans after his lackluster Johnny Storm in Fantastic Four (the subject, perhaps, for another Monday at the Movies), but his Captain America is respectful and dignified, and I can’t wait to see how he handles the time disjunction that happens when Cap joins The Avengers sixty years after the events of this film. (Don’t worry, the logistics of how that works is covered in this film, although it’s governed by what’s known colloquially as “comic book logic.”) There’s more action in this than in Thor, making it a perfect popcorn pick with an emotional punch at the end.

Between now and May, we’ll also take a look at the two Hulk movies that lead into each other and into The Avengers, and come May you’ll see a full review of The Avengers when it’s released, as well as that “most anticipated” movie of 2012 from the Distinguished Competition.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!

Monday at the Movies - February 13, 2012

2012-02-13T09:00:00.000-06:00

Welcome to Week Seven of “Monday at the Movies.” Only one movie this week, and right in time for Valentine’s Day, to boot!

Wedding Crashers (2005) – I’d forgotten how funny this movie is, partly because I can see retrospectively how much influence this had on the buddy comedy genre in the past seven years. The premise is simple: Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn play divorce mediators who crash weddings in order to score notches on their bedposts, but their plans go askew after they’re invited to the weekend home of Treasury Secretary Christopher Walken, who very nearly steals the movie altogether. But it’s Vaughn who holds court over the entire film; although Wilson is ostensibly the romantic lead in a love triangle with Rachel McAdams and a cusp-of-fame Bradley Cooper, Vaughn nails every line, eliciting guffaw after belly laugh with memorable lines like “You lock it up!” and “You and I both know I’m a phenomenal dancer.” And unlike most comedies, there are very few parts that drag, with each bit character having a specific trait that lends itself to laughs, like the nutty old grandmother or the uncredited surprise cameo of Chaz Reinhold (which I won’t spoil for the three people in the world who haven’t seen the movie yet). Seven years out, though, it’s impossible not to notice the legacy the film has left – the rapid-fire overlapping dialogue (our generation’s His Girl Friday?), the appearance of a star who’s funny just to look at (Walken), the supporting role chaired by a future leading man (Cooper), the cameo from a comedy superstar (Chaz)... the list goes on. Wedding Crashers is one party you’ll want to be invited to – and then crash – again and again.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!

Monday at the Movies - February 6, 2012

2012-02-06T09:00:00.000-06:00

Welcome to Week Six of “Monday at the Movies,” in which I’m continuing our theme from last week. Since the only movie I watched this past week was Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York (a full review is already available on this site), let’s take a look at three more Batman animated films and see how they stack up.

The Batman/Superman Movie (“World’s Finest,” 1996) – Bridging the gap between two Batman cartoon series and connecting Batman to the Superman animated mythos, this three-episode arc of Superman: The Animated Series works extremely well edited together as a short movie, in large part because of the strong voice cast (which I praised at length last week). Here, The Joker finds himself strapped of cash but in possession of a large quantity of Kryptonite; he offers his services to Lex Luthor, leading Batman and Superman to collaborate in order to stop this lethal alliance. Batman is placed out of his element, a dark knight in sunny Metropolis, but the film finds a good place for him, and the team-up with Superman feels neither forced nor guaranteed. That is, the film strikes a comfortable balance between Superman’s cheery disposition and Batman’s grim and brooding ethos, between Lex’s disdain and Joker’s anarchy. Caught in the middle is Lois Lane, whose emotional vacillations are nuanced perfectly by Dana Delaney. And the rest of the voice cast is spot-on, as with any DC animation from the era – Tim Daly as the omnipotent but vulnerable Superman, Kevin Conroy as distinctly both Batman and Bruce Wayne, Clancy Brown as a tight-lipped and gravelly Lex Luthor, and of course Mark Hamill back as the clown prince of crime, The Joker. While some resented the visual update to the Batman style, it’s only the redesign of The Joker that feels somewhat less than perfect (I miss the red lips). It’s somewhat lighter fare than Mask of the Phantasm, but it’s as close to a perfect Batman/Superman team-up that we’ve seen on film or television.

Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010) – Critical consensus suggests that this film is better than Mask of the Phantasm (100% on Rotten Tomatoes, as opposed to Phantasm’s 87%), and while I’m not willing to go that far, I will say that Under the Red Hood is the best animated Batman venture since. Grieving the murder of Jason Todd (Robin II) at the hands of The Joker, Batman is forced to reconcile with his past when a new player in town is murdering the Gotham mob, working his way up to the top boss, Black Mask. While I’m a big fan of Judd Winick’s original comic series on which this film was made, I was skeptical of the new voice cast being used. Fortunately, newcomers Bruce Greenwood (Batman) and John DiMaggio (The Joker) serve as worthy successors to Conroy and Hamill; even Neil Patrick Harris is undistracting as Nightwing, but Wade Williams steals the show with his over-the-top Black Mask, at once a self-parody and a fearsome tyrant. But beyond the voice cast, the film itself captures the emotional essence of Winick’s original, even if some plot points are changed along the way; we understand very readily what Jason Todd meant to Batman, and we can tell very early on why the Red Hood and Batman philosophically collide as they do. And if it didn’t make sense already, the movie’s haunting last scene – a flashback to Jason’s days as Robin – will leave you clamoring to experience the film once more.

Batman: Year One (2011) – Here’s another case of a classic comic adapted by a new voice cast, but this time the results are a bit more disappointing – though not unworthy of viewing. Frank Miller’s iconic soft reboot of Batman’s origins gets adapted with Benjamin McKenzie as Batman and Bryan Cranston as soon-to-be Commissioner Gordon in this retelling of the first year in which Batman and Gordon fight crime, first separately then collaboratively. Again my skepticism of the voice cast arose and for the most part was not unfounded; while McKenzie’s emotionless voiceover captures Bruce Wayne’s internal deadness, it’s less engaging than I feel Conroy would have made it. The real star, though, is Cranston’s Gordon, who’s given the most screen time and surpasses the voice work done by Bob Hastings in the 1990s cartoon, approaching the definitiveness of Gary Oldman in the Nolan films. The film’s biggest detriment, though, is its overzealous devotion to the source material, leading to a few dead ends that don’t quite work on film. The plotline with Catwoman, for example, doesn’t quite go anywhere (even the DVD back-up short doesn’t help), nor does the diminished presence of Batman do justice to his appearance on the cover. I can’t help feeling that if the film had been titled Jim Gordon: Year One, I wouldn’t have this same complaint. The movie does, however, do a good job translating Gordon’s rise and struggles, and Cranston ably proves himself a superb Gordon. (And who can resist Alex “Moe Greene” Rocco voicing Gotham’s top Mafioso Carmine Falcone?)

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you next week!

Monday at the Movies - January 30, 2012

2012-01-30T09:00:00.001-06:00

Welcome to Week Five of “Monday at the Movies.” In honor of the fact that I’ve been reading Grant Morrison’s six-year run on Batman (beginning with Batman & Son and running through Batman Incorporated), I wanted to thematize this edition and look at three animated Batman features starring the great Kevin Conroy as the Dark Knight.

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) – Considered by some to be the greatest Batman movie ever made, it’s certainly a fantastic Batman film, but nowadays it’s impossible to put it beside The Dark Knight and assess which is better. But this film is outstanding, arguably the apex of the Golden Age of DC Animation, initiated by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm’s Batman: The Animated Series (from which this film is “spun off”) This film sets a retelling of Batman’s first year as a crimefighter against his ongoing battle against vigilante The Phantasm, who’s violently eliminating Gotham’s mobsters. Like every great Batman story, The Joker gets involved, and it’s here that one of the film’s greatest strengths comes into play: Mark Hamill, whose brilliant portrayal of The Joker is as iconic as it gets. As much as I loved Heath Ledger’s performance, Hamill’s is still the voice I hear when I read the comics. In fact, that’s true of the whole voice cast, including Kevin Conroy, who’s been turning in the best and most consistent Batman in any media (yes, even including comics) for the last twenty years. The visuals match the audio very well, giving us a pitch-perfect gothic Gotham in which the principals play out their action. But the film isn’t entirely perfect. While the Phantasm story is compelling, the resolution doesn’t quite hold up after repeat viewings. But the juggling of moods and eras – from young Bruce Wayne to today, from mob assassinations to Joker’s tricked-out hide-out – works extremely well, guided by a Shirley Walker soundtrack which encapsulates the quintessential Batman mood. In fact, while the film isn’t perfect (The Dark Knight, I contend, is), it’s certainly quintessential – the film most accurate to the comic book source material.

Batman and Mr. Freeze: SubZero (1998) – The second animated film in the Timm/Dini-verse doesn’t quite live up to the promise of Phantasm, nor is it the best Mr. Freeze story done by this particular creative team. It’s not that SubZero is a bad film, by any means; it’s a perfectly serviceable story, with Kevin Conroy and Michael Ansara reprising their spot-on voiceover roles as the eponymous hero and villain. But SubZero doesn’t quite work on a number of levels, suffering predominantly by following such a divinely authentic Batman film. The plot is a bit contrived, placing Barbara Gordon in peril where a) she’s not allowed to be Batgirl, her heroic alter ego, and b) we know Batman and his allies won’t allow her to be hurt, making the whole exercise a bit futile. The way Batman finds Mr. Freeze is clever, but much of the movie is decidedly less than stellar. What’s especially disappointing is that the makers of SubZero were also responsible for “Heart of Ice,” the luminous animated series episode which redefined Mr. Freeze’s origins and recast him as a tragic figure, all with wonderful visuals. The visuals here aren’t as appealing, with some very distracting CGI work detracting from the darkly gothic look the series had previously delivered. As the last entry in this iteration of Batman’s adventures before a redesign for The New Batman Adventures, it’s sad the show couldn’t go out with a Phantasm-sized bang, but at least my favorite episode – “Mad Love,” in which we learn that The Joker’s sidekick/lover Harley Quinn was once his psychiatrist – was yet to be. And at least this was better than the severed-head Freeze we got later.

Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (2000) – While I was never as big a fan of Batman Beyond as I was of Batman proper, seeing the “PG-13” version of this film made more interested – though not a convert – in this rendition of the character. Wisely, Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill are still on hand providing the voices of the (now-retired) Caped Crusader and his Clown Prince of Crime, but the lead is Will Friedle as Terry McGinnis, the latest to wear the cowl (and Bruce Wayne’s secret son, according to one Justice League Unlimited episode). As Batman, Terry finds himself facing his predecessor’s greatest foe, The Joker – a man who’s supposed to be dead. This is probably a great Batman Beyond movie, but it’s not to my liking, mostly because I can’t attach myself to the futuristic atmosphere of the franchise. With one notable exception: the fifteen-minute sequence in the middle of the film in which we find out what happened during Batman’s last confrontation with The Joker and Harley Quinn, which taps into the essential differences between the two forces of good and evil. This scene returns to the original series vibe of a dark Gotham with blood-red skies and a sense that danger is lurking in every shadowy corridor. I still get chills during this scene, to which I’ve returned several times as the perfect coda to the DC Animated Universe that brought me to comics in the first place. While the Batman Beyond series went on for more episodes beyond this film, I’ll always look at this as the end of “my” Batman and Joker.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!

Monday at the Movies - January 23, 2012

2012-01-23T09:00:00.001-06:00

Welcome to the fourth weekly installment of “Monday at the Movies,” in which we find ourselves once more pigeonholed into reviewing movies that begin with the same letter. This edition of “Monday at the Movies” is brought to you by the letter “A.”

Adam’s Rib (1949) – I’ll not waste much time here and begin by saying that Adam’s Rib is one of my all-time favorite movies, and it’s easily the greatest of the nine films Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn made together. It’s also an extremely progressive picture, anticipating much of the women’s lib movement as well as advancing the cause of equality of the sexes long before the country at large embraced those ideas. Hepburn and Tracy play married attorneys Amanda and Adam Bonner, who find themselves on opposite sides of a case in which a woman attempted to shoot her philandering husband. The chemistry between the two is unindictable, as usual, but the Ruth Gordon/Garson Kanin screenplay is solid, witty in all the right places but genuine and earnest in the moments when the relationship of the Bonners is tested by the case. On this latest rewatch (I’ve seen this film dozens of times since discovering it back in high school), I realized just how frequently the scene gets stolen, and surprisingly it’s not Judy Holliday who does the stealing. It’s David Wayne as Kip, the flamboyant musician who lives across the hall and harbors a strange infatuation with Amanda; the highlight scene of the whole film is easily when Kip performs his new song “Farewell, Amanda” for the Bonners, only one of whom is receptive. But it’s the relationship between Hepburn and Tracy that keeps me coming back to this film, because the way they play off each other is so pitch-perfect that it’ll make even the most embittered cynic feel romantic.

Ayn Rand and the Prophecy of Atlas Shrugged (2011) – I believe this is the first nonfiction film I’ve reviewed for this site, and it almost didn’t happen until the DVD release. While there was never any doubt that I’d be seeing this movie at some point (Atlas Shrugged being my favorite book of all time – and there go the readers), it took two free tickets to one of the very limited screenings to get there. Chris Mortensen’s documentary is music to the ears of Rand’s disciples, poison to those who despise her work, and downright antithetical to those who’ve never read her stuff yet loathe her anyway. The documentary begins with a biographical sketch, delves full-force into the composition and publication of Atlas Shrugged and the attempts to film it, and concludes with an overview of the Rand resurgence in our culture today. The title, however, is a bit misleading; I went in expecting a profile on the ways in which Atlas Shrugged anticipated today’s economic/political scene, but what I got was more of an overview. It’s a good introduction to new initiates in the Objectivist school of thought or even for those curious what all the hoopla is about, but for those who have done a fair amount of reading on the subject (as, in all honesty, I have) there isn’t much new here. Of particular interest: Scene-stealer Al Ruddy reveals just how close he came to producing an Atlas Shrugged movie after The Godfather, right down to locking in Clint Eastwood and Faye Dunaway (perfect casting). While worth a look, this documentary doesn’t introduce much to the conversation surrounding the Objectivist revival; the really good stuff is in the last fifteen minutes, leading me to hope for a “sequel” of sorts exploring those matters in greater depth.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!

Monday at the Movies - January 16, 2012

2012-01-16T09:00:00.000-06:00

Welcome to Week Three of “Monday at the Movies.” As Sean Connery once said, “I’ll take swords for $200.” And so, in tribute to that quotation, it’s movies that begin with the letter S for this week!

Sherlock Holmes (2009) – After loving A Game of Shadows, I felt compelled to go back and rewatch the first Guy Ritchie film about the sleuth of Baker Street (although my sister claims it’s a consequence of my “man-crush on Robert Downey Jr.”). And having just read A Study in Scarlet – the first Sherlock Holmes book by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – I was surprised by how detail-oriented this film is, despite its overall unconventional treatment of Holmes. It’s a fresh take on Holmes, but it’s one that doesn’t do injustice to the source material; small details like Holmes’s violin, Watson’s injured leg, and snippets of dialogue all seem like clever inventions of the screenplay, but they’re all drawn from the source. Downey is superb as the eccentric master sleuth, and Jude Law (of whom I’m not usually a fan) is suitably irritable and a perfect straight man for Downey’s antics. What I especially love about this movie is how well the script holds together, with a delightful reveal scene at the end in which Sherlock pieces together all the elements of villain Mark Strong’s plot in classic Holmes fashion. But the clues sprinkled throughout the film reward repeat viewings, as does Downey’s quirky performance. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I hold him as one of our finest actors, and in this regard he does not disappoint. And that music by Hans Zimmer? First-class – you’ll be surprised that Holmes never had a major theme tune before a few years ago.

Stalag 17 (1953) – I’ve consistently ranked this as one of my favorite movies of all time, and with the holidays just passing it’s a perfect time to revisit this World War II prison camp flick set during Christmas. Director Billy Wilder hands in this fantastic film in which William Holden is Sefton, an American POW suspected of being an informant for the Germans. But as Sefton remarks, “There are two people in this barracks who know I didn't do it. Me and the guy that did do it.” But don’t mistake this for a mere suspense/thriller; Stalag 17 is not your typical WW2 film. The movie is laugh-out-loud funny in moments, dramatically wrought in others, and unfailingly entertaining. And coming from a guy who hates narration, the voiceover work by Gil Stratton as Cookie is top-notch, advancing the plot but nuanced enough to make us wonder how much we can trust a narrator who stutters. The dialogue is snappy, the mystery compelling, and the last twenty minutes addictively watchable. And don’t be too distracted by stars Holden, Otto Preminger, Peter Graves, and Sig Ruman – there’s an ensemble cast behind enemy lines, and each of them gets a moment to shine, from the “At Ease!” newsman to the Grable-obsessed Animal. One final word by way of recommendation – no one who has seen this movie at my recommendation has come back with anything less than complete love for the film. It might not be the most accurate POW film you’ll see, but it’s by far the most entertaining.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!

Monday at the Movies - January 9, 2012

2012-01-09T09:00:00.003-06:00

Welcome to Week Two of "Monday at the Movies." On the docket for this week, four films adapted from popular novels (an unintentional link), including one where The Cinema King reverses a decade-long antipathy toward a particular fantasy film!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 (2011) – I’ve never been overly captivated by the Harry Potter franchise. That is, I’ve never fallen head over heels in love with the movies, but I’ve taken them for what they are – well-done and imaginative but otherwise unremarkable fantasy adaptation films. And this film (affectionately dubbed 7B by myself and others) had to do a lot to win me over, mostly because I couldn’t approve of paying to see it after my now-legendary attempt at a midnight show of 7A. Now that I’ve rented it (for free), I’m ready to say that 7B was a well-done close to the franchise, but I think a lot of reviewers fell over this movie in a dead faint by overstating the film’s good attributes – chief among them a strong cast of England’s Finest (including a great turn from Ralph Fiennes as Lord Voldemort) and exciting action sequences. This is an effective second half of a film, but as a film in its own right 7B doesn’t quite work. There were plenty of moments where the film faltered by standing on its own, including moments where a quick expositional memory jog would have filled in gaps or even moments where the film didn’t clearly articulate what was happening (i.e., the moment when one character dies – but it’s not clear which of two characters). I liked it, and I wouldn’t unsee it, but it didn’t quite live up to the hype. Fans and devotees, though, will gobble this up.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) – Mark it, loyal readers. The Cinema King has to reverse policy. The first time I saw Peter Jackson’s adaptation of the Tolkien series, I fell asleep. After a rousing introduction narrated by Cate Blanchett, the film faltered for me. But after ten years of decrying the film as “The Wizard of Oz without ever actually getting to Oz,” the browbeating of literally everyone else who saw it induced me to give it a second shot. And honestly, I’m kind of glad I did. Fellowship is much more exciting then I remember, with plenty of great cast members and a plethora of well-directed rousing battle scenes. I’ve also tried reading the Tolkien novels, but those I find completely impenetrable because the story takes a backseat to the mythology and the linguistics; fortunately, Jackson makes knowledge of each creature’s name nonessential and wisely prizes the narrative and character interactions. The best of these is Sean Astin’s level-red dedication to and compassion for his friend Frodo (Elijah Wood, who’s nowhere near as amiable as his traveling companion). I was glad that I opted to rewatch this film and moved toward the second one with eager anticipation.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) – After a good experience with the first film, I was incredibly disappointed with The Two Towers. Here is the glacial pace I remember, the problems of divergent focus, the not-much-happening mood pervading most of the whole film. After a promising first installment, the Lord of the Rings franchise starts to fall apart for me. Where the first film had strong character interaction, here Peter Jackson loses track of many of his key players every so often without a thematic link to bind them together. The film’s only significant action sequence comes at the end, much like in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End; here, though, the two hours of buildup are nowhere near intriguing enough to merit a three-hour runtime. While new characters Gollum and the Ents are entertaining and well-performed, they’re not given much to do other than tease things to come in the third installment. And my problems with Frodo continue here; he’s generally unlikeable, frequently misled, and more than a bit condescending. And a closing monologue about the nature of endings alludes to the problems of this film as a story – there isn’t one. But the promise of an ending is enough, I believe me, to do something I never thought I'd do - watch the third film.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) – Knowledge of the cast alone (Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Toby Jones, Ciaran Hinds, Mark Strong, and John Hurt) was enough for me to pick up the John le Carré novel before even seeing a trailer, and I’m pleased to report that the film lives up to the book’s reputation and does a classy, thorough job of adapting the source material. Gary Oldman plays the uber-collected mole-hunter George Smiley, pursuing a double agent at the top of British intelligence during the height of the Cold War. The performances here are solid, as expected, although the atypical nature of this spy story (nothing blows up, and more relies on what is not said than what is actually done) might alienate some. Additionally, the plot is obtuse, although like Inception the right amount of mental calisthenics will prevent audiences from getting too lost in the details. But director Tomas Alfredson does an extremely solid job creating a very 1970s vibe throughout the whole movie, juggling flashbacks and multiple settings with great visual cues (such as the color of Smiley’s trademark specs). If Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy doesn’t net Oldman the Oscar he’s deserved for so many years, it might be time to hang it up as far as the little gold man is concerned.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!

Monday at the Movies - January 2, 2012

2012-01-02T09:00:00.012-06:00

Welcome to the first installment of "Monday at the Movies," the first of what should be a more frequent way of updating the blog without the time-consuming aspect of full reviews. Full reviews aren't gone by any means, but they'll be more infrequent and saved for special occasions (good or bad). Check back each Monday for a look at what The Cinema King's been up to and what he's thought during his travels.

(This post will be a bit longer than usual, since I'm playing "catch-up" on the movies I've seen in the last month or so. Christmas is a great time for the movies.)

Fail-Safe (1964) – I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m in love with Sidney Lumet’s work, and this was a bit of an unusual choice for a New Year’s Eve movie choice. But as always with Lumet I wasn’t disappointed. The film’s treatment of measures to prevent an accidental attack on Moscow in the height of the Cold War still carries all the tension it must have fifty years ago, due in large part to Lumet’s capacity to induce anxiety via his careful manipulation of the camera. High marks also to Henry Fonda, who brings his trademark integrity and earnestness to the role of the troubled President of the United States, who has to convince the Russians that the bombers are not sanctioned while wrestling with a number of impossible moral conflicts – which are then asked of the audience at the film’s startling and alarming conclusion. While the film becomes a bit heavy-handed when the President deplores the policy of mutually assured destruction, Fonda’s intense delivery sells it in a way akin to Michael Rennie in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). If this film doesn’t grip you and hold on until the very end, the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) – Stieg Larsson’s runaway bestseller gets a stellar treatment here in the hands of director David Fincher. The book was addicting like very few I’ve ever read, and the film doesn’t disappoint. Fincher keeps the plot moving (despite a few tweaks from the novel) in a quick and cerebrally engaging way, but the real star here is a career-making performance from Rooney Mara as the troubled hacker Lisbeth Salander, who embodies the character and all her subtle quirks opposite a typically stoic Daniel Craig. The suspects in the disappearance under investigation – Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgard, Joely Richardson – all do good work, especially Skarsgard who never disappoints (see Pirates of the Caribbean, Thor, and Mamma Mia for a sense of his range). I’m willing to forgive Trent Reznor for stealing last year’s soundtrack Oscar from Hans Zimmer, because the music here is suitably unsettling, creating a mood perfectly complementary to the visuals Fincher crafts. The film might leave some cold because it’s not standard Hollywood/awards season fare, but it’s a movie which requires thoughtful engagement and a critical understanding of the “man’s inhumanity” theme that pervades the work.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) – I can’t remember the last time I saw a straight action film, one that didn’t play games with the audience or deliberately try to subvert the genre with a series of improbable twists. Pixar veteran Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Ratatouille) does a fine job with this fourth Mission: Impossible film, which fortunately doesn’t require the first three installments to make sense. The acting doesn’t accomplish much beyond providing bodies to live out the film’s action sequences; it’s impossible, for example, to forget that Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise and not Ethan Hunt. But those action sequences are something else indeed, thrilling and exciting in the best escapist tradition. Kudos to Bird for yanking the breath out of my lungs even in moments when I knew that they wouldn’t kill the star, and if the franchise continues like this (even with Jeremy Renner, who seems to be groomed for taking the reins) I may have to accept this mission.

Panic in the Streets (1950) – This, my first experience with the legendary director Elia Kazan, wasn’t a knockout. The premise is promising: investigators have 48 hours to find the murderers of a plague victim before they infect New Orleans with the disease. Richard Widmark is more than capable as a public health official, and a young Jack Palance is appropriately ominous as the murderer, but the film suffers from a split focus, never finding a balance between pursuer and pursued. There are long stretches of film where we don’t see Widmark, for example, a problem which drops a lot of the tension in the film. Compounding this problem is a dated and distracting misunderstanding of germ theory, which makes some of the film’s twists a bit, shall we say, inaccurate. Perhaps in the 50s it held up better, but as the second installment in a TCM double feature with Fail-Safe, Panic in the Streets didn’t raise much commotion for me.

Rango (2011) – I had extremely high expectations for director Gore Verbinski’s first animated film. And being a big fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, the inclusion of Johnny Depp as the star was icing on the cake. Unfortunately, I think my high expectations were insurmountable for the film, which ultimately disappointed me. The story of a thespian chameleon who becomes the sheriff of the town of Dirt, Rango flirts with the western genre without ever doing anything productive with that sporadic flirtation. Depp’s voice acting is first-rate, giving life and nuance to Rango, and the other voices (Isla Fisher, Ned Beatty, Bill Nighy, and Timothy Olyphant channeling Clint Eastwood) do good work, too. But the story is a bit weak, overladen with scatological humor and other jokes that try too hard. I’d love to have seen what the film would have looked like in the hands of a more capable screenwriter (i.e., someone from the Pixar stable).

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011) – Not everyone was in love with Robert Downey Jr.’s second outing as the master detective, but I was – although not initially. Downey and Jude Law still have excellent chemistry as the eccentric Holmes and his straight-man partner Watson, but the scene stealer here is not Stephen Fry as Sherlock’s brother Mycroft (who’s quirky but doesn’t quite gel) but Jared Harris as archenemy Professor Moriarty. Harris is a calm yet psychotic counterpart to Holmes’s intellect, evenly matching our detective at every turn. While the first half of the film struggles to find its footing, the second half rebounds from the uncertainty with a compelling Holmes-v-Moriarty cerebral match that spans several nations. It might be spoiling something to say that the film adapts “The Final Problem” among others, but it’s not spoiling anything to say that director Guy Ritchie does a good job adapting the source material to his own unique style and sensibilities. The standout feature, though, is once again the vast amount of infectious fun that Robert Downey Jr. seems to be having, and I can’t wait for the next film.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!

2012 -- A New Direction

2012-01-01T20:36:00.004-06:00

No, not a review of Roland Emmerich's 2009 disaster-porn feature. Rather, a new direction for The Cinema King.

I realize I've been entirely remiss in my duties as monarch of this fair kingdom (Blogger tells me I haven't posted in nigh on a year). But rather than exchange some platitudes and excuses about my extended absence, I want to say that I'm revamping the format of this establishment and tweaking the way we do business, the better to edify you, cinematically speaking.

New look in hand, it's time to continue to evolve. Beginning tomorrow, in honor of the new year (and perhaps last, if the Mayans are to be believed), I'll be changing the way I review movies, providing a more timely and more sweeping scope of what's good, bad, and ugly in the world of celluloid. I hope this'll be a weekly or biweekly feature, but I hope it'll make the waits between reviews more bearable.

What is it, you ask? Ah, stay tuned. The ride begins tomorrow...

Unstoppable (2010)

2010-11-11T10:25:00.003-06:00

It's no secret that a) I love Denzel Washington, and b) I always feel a little bit guilty about not having time between September and May to update this site regularly. So when I got a chance to catch a preview screening of Tony Scott's new Denzel vehicle (pun intended) Unstoppable, I jumped at the chance.

That's right, kids; we're reviewing this one a day before it hits wide release. You're welcome.

In Unstoppable, Denzel's fifth collaboration with director Tony Scott, Washington plays engineer Frank Barnes, a company man who's feeling the economy's generational burden - a fact further emphasized when he's paired with young conductor Will Colson, who's fighting family issues and the perception that he got the job more on the strength of his family name than his qualifications. When dispatcher Connie Hooper (Rosario Dawson, in a part that could have been played by anyone) reports that there's a fast-paced runaway train carying hazardous materials on their track, Frank and Will have to decide whether to follow orders and detour their train or take on the 70 mph beast behind them.

The trailer for this one had a few people groaning; the dialogue ("a missle the size of the Chrysler building") and the compounded escalation of the peril (toxic chemicals, a train full of children, a horse) led a few skeptics to raise a wary eyebrow. And I'll concede that there were moments in the lead-up to the film's debut where I wasn't sure whether this would be a formulaic race-against-the-clock. But it was silly of me to doubt Denzel Washington and Tony Scott. Denzel brings his characteristic charisma to the screen, and Scott deploys his moving-train cinematography to great effect here.

All this is not to say that Unstoppable is one of the greatest films of 2010 (I'm sure that, come the end of the year, Inception and Toy Story 3 are going to top my list). But it works. And it's a whole heck of a lot of fun. I've said many times before that Denzel, like Johnny Depp, is one of the best living actors; unlike Depp, though, who's often as bizarre as he is compelling, Denzel is always a great deal of fun to watch, exuding vibrant charm and exuberant personality in everything he does - without sacrificing an iota of craftsmanship (see Malcolm X if all you know about Denzel is the Jay Pharoah impression from SNL a few weeks back). It probably says something about the contagious nature of his personality that I'm referring to him by his first name. In fact, I'd hazard a guess that only Denzel could take the word "Me" and turn it into a line that gets the biggest laugh in a packed cinema. So when the screen isn't filled with a train careening on the tracks, Denzel's either getting the audience to crack a smile or tugging at their heartstrings with his earnest recounting of his backstory.

But the moments when the focus of the film isn't on the action are few and far between. It's interesting that Tony Scott, whose recent movies (Domino, Deja Vu) always looked like they were filmed from a moving train, has shifted to making movies about trains (here and in The Taking of Pelham 123). Now, in movies like this, there are only two ways this can end - either they stop the train, or they don't. I won't spoil which ending Scott chooses for Unstoppable, but I will say that the film lures the audience into a sensibility that all this will turn out all right; the catastrophe is precipitated when a portly railyard employee (Kevin Smith standby [and stand-in, as in the underrated Art School Confidential] Ethan Suplee) goofs, a scene played for laughs until we realize that the air brakes aren't connected and the train can't be stopped remotely.

From there, Scott introduces a number of complicating factors that make the threat more credible - and more palpable - than I was ready to give the film credit, based on the trailers. Sure, we know that the schoolkids on a field trip aren't going to collide head-on with the renegade train, but we're not so sure about the automotive stalled on the tracks. In some ways, the latter is far more effective, upping the stakes by suggesting what the train could do (a variation on Hitchcock's bang-v.-anticipation theory). My apologies to the people seated next to me on either side in the theater, because I'm sure I was hooting and hollering throughout the movie; even though I kept telling myself that the movie had to turn out all right - the cavalier comedy of the first reel suggested as much - I found myself holding my breath, gritting my teeth, and then inhaling sharply at each turn.

When the film ends - after two heartstopping climaxes - Scott wisely lets the audience breathe and, rather than end with a last-second one-last-scare moment, decompresses by revisiting the lighter moments of the film: scene-stealing engineer Ned (Lew Temple) takes center stage at a press conference, Denzel gets one last wisecrack (which honestly tipped the scales in favor of my enjoyment of the movie), and we're treated to another shot of Ethan Suplee falling on his ass. At the end of the day, then, Unstoppable isn't just an action movie; it's an action movie that's willing to have fun, both with itself and with its audience.

If you're on the fence about this one, I'd encourage you to climb aboard; you might be pleasantly surprised. Denzel alone is worth the price of admission.

Unstoppable is rated PG-13 "for sequences of action and peril, and some language." Obviously, the train barrelling down the tracks might unsettle some, as will the repeated complicating factors thrown in the path (often literally) of the train. A few F-bombs get tossed around casually, but they're negligible in the big scheme.

The Social Network (2010)

2010-10-03T16:11:00.007-05:00

I think we can all agree on two things: David Fincher is a solid filmmaker (even though I'm probably the only person on the planet who isn't keen on Fight Club [long story], I'm considering giving it a second watch), and The Social Network is kind of a step out of bounds for Fincher, whose filmography - including Se7en, Zodiac, and The Game - reads more like a list of "creepiest movies of our generation" than an application to direct a biopic-of-sorts about the founders of Facebook. But Fincher's nothing if not dextrously versatile, and The Social Network adds another notch to Fincher's "here's what I'm capable of" belt.

The Social Network is a highly unflattering portrait of the people who claim to have "invented" Facebook, arguably the most high-profile Web site since Google - the antisocial and nominal founder Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), his financier and best friend Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), Napster founder and Facebook's demi-PR guy Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), and rowing team twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (both played by Armie Hammer), who claim intellectual property rights - and the lawsuits that divided all of them. The film cuts between legal depositions of the main characters and the events they describe, methodically and deliberately leaving the audience to interpret what went wrong and who (if anyone) stole from whom.

Fincher does a solid turn directing here, deftly keeping the pace moving as characters register slights as betrayals and as alliances crumble under the weight of paranoia and profit. Though the film's first cuts between testimonials and actual events are a little jarring for those who didn't follow the Facebook news feed (pun intended), Fincher quickly sorts out who's after what but wisely refuses to spoonfeed us a good guy/bad guy dichotomy. True, the film and its Aaron Sorkin screenplay cast Saverin in a more sympathetic light than Zuckerberg receives, and the Winklevosses are portrayed as jock heavies more than intellectual heavyweights, but it's not clear by the end of the film how we're supposed to feel about the whole thing.

In particular, the film functions a great deal like Cobb's top at the end of Inception (the significance I won't reveal, so as not to spoil it for the DVD-waiters); it means whatever we project onto it, particularly the ambiguous final shot, scored at least somewhat ironically to The Beatles' "Baby You're A Rich Man." It seems, in the opinion of this reviewer, that The Social Network is a kind of light jeremiad against the ugly irony of using the Internet as a way to increase, not detract from, social interaction, and it appears more than slightly condemning of the sort of person who creates something only for public acceptance and the label of "cool." To these people, money is secondary to status, which also subordinates (again ironically) human companionship. One could, of course, read the film's ending as hopeful; title cards let us know that everyone got a little bit of what they wanted all along, but the uncertainty etched into the film's closing cut-to-black is more wobble than topple. It's a testament to Fincher's skill, then, that the ambiguity that pervades the film is more conducive to interpretation than to accusations of waffling.

Fincher also does a fine job pulling together a few "rising stars" (I use the term somewhat skeptically), giving me faith in at least some of the careers-to-be. Jesse Eisenberg, of course, is the undisputed star here, and for good reason; I've decried him as "the B-List Michael Cera" for his turns in Adventureland and Zombieland, but here he's starting to come into his own. The simultaneous wave of revulsion and sympathy you'll feel toward Zuckerberg by the end is equal parts Fincher and Eisenberg, with the latter now wielding a more promising future than his character. Andrew Garfield is more sympathetic as Saverin, pulling out all the stops on the road to pathos by plausibly depicting all the ambivalent feelings of his best friend's so-called betrayal; reminiscent of a young James Franco (wow, how old does that make me, then?), Garfield's making me less nervous about his front role in the Spider-Man reboots (that and the rumored casting of Emma Stone as Mary-Jane). Justin Timberlake's performance is a little more complicated, however, as I'm not sure if it's Timberlake or the character that's a touch hammy; while Sean Parker is flashy and flighty, my perception of Timberlake is much the same. So it's unclear to me whether what I'm seeing is either very poor or very convincing acting.

Maybe this is just me reading a little too much Gail Simone and other feminist theory, but I'm a bit disappointed with the treatment of the female characters in The Social Network. This is a boys'-club movie, with the facts forcing an aspect on the men of the story, but all the female characters are fairly one-dimensional and ultimately little more than impetuses for men to act. Case in point: Sean Parker's introductory scene finds him in bed with a Stanford girl, a fact we learn from a lingering shot of her panty-clad derriere; we learn her name (Amy), her major (French), and little else. Though Amy is an inconsequential character in the big scheme, she's indicative of the role of women at large in the story, which is a shame when you have such a talented female cast on board. I'm dying to see Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander in Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but it's a shame that all she does as Erica Allbright in this film is break up with Zuckerberg and incite him to start an online revolution after his heart breaks (well, maybe). Brenda Song finally gets a chance to break out of the Disney playhouse (after the unfortunate departure of Ashley Tisdale, I gave up on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody and Song's ditzy heiress London Tipton), but she's essentially window dressing as Saverin's girlfriend Christy Lee; while she's certainly very pretty, Christy isn't asked to do anything else but hang on Eduardo's arm. We're told that she's psychotic and controlling, but there's only one scene where she's allowed to be that - her last one, which is unfortunate considering how well she does in it. And Rashida Jones, of The Office and I Love You, Man (whose misogynistic title, curiously, gave her more material than here) fame, is credible as a second-year legal associate who delivers the film's closing monologue - and eulogy of sorts - with sangfroid and aplomb; sadly, that's the first time she does anything more than offer meaningful glances and eat a salad. Ultimately, the film hinges on what Erica Allbright will do next, but it's too little/too late for a film that's so masculine-dominated.

This is not to say that The Social Network is anti-feminist or flawed beyond salvation. It's merely a disappointing (and for this reviewer, distracting) sin of omission that doesn't really hurt the finished product. Fincher does such a good job with the rest of the movie that he almost atones for the negligible treatment of the fairer sex. What Fincher has made here is a work that examines both a particular true story and the nature of "true stories" themselves; wisely, the movie is credited as "based on" a book about the true facts rather than on the "true story" itself, which invites a whole host of questions about what's true and what isn't. Like Rashomon, The Social Network suggests that truth is subjective, and (like Lost) argues that who the characters are and how they interact with each other is ultimately more important than what they're doing.

If nothing else, the film might lead a few viewers to go home and deactivate their Facebook profile, so unflattering is the creation myth behind the social networking site. As for the movie itself, though, I can do little else than invoke the already-labored Facebook pun and state simply, "Like."
With content friendly for the Facebook generation, The Social Network is rated PG-13 "for sexual content, drug and alcohol use and language." The film implies more than one sexual rendezvous with nothing shown beyond hasty disrobing to the undergarment level; characters abuse marijuana, alcohol, and cocaine frequently, and approximately three F-bombs are dropped.

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

2010-09-06T11:36:00.011-05:00

It's not spoiling anything to reveal that Quentin Tarantino's most recent film, Inglourious Basterds [sic], closes with one character remarking to another, "I think this just might be my masterpiece." The film is punctuated with moments like this, when one character says to another (as Hitler to Goebbels, for another example), that the other has just achieved his crowning glory. While I'm not convinced that Inglourious Basterds is Tarantino's magnum opus (it's tough to top Pulp Fiction, for my money), it does represent a return to form after indulgent experiments like Kill Bill and Death Proof.

Inglourious Basterds is, per Tarantino's description, a spaghetti western with World War II imagery, with the story divided into five semi-standalone chapters, each revolving around one set of character interactions. The film follows, separately, a ragtag team of Jewish-American soldiers scalping Nazis on the orders of their quirky Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt, channelling Foghorn Leghorn); Jewish fugitive Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent), who plans to use her movie theater to kill Nazis during the premiere of war hero Fredrick Zoller's (Daniel Brühl) biopic; British Lieutenant Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender), commissioned by Winston Churchill to aid German actress-turned-secret-agent Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) in an attempt to blow up the Nazi premiere, ignorant of Shosanna's plot; and SS Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz, in a performance well-deserving of its Supporting Actor Oscar), the ranking Nazi official standing between Hitler himself and all these plots, which converge in a stellar finale that's as fun as it is fantastic.

I've voiced my discomfort with labeling Inglourious Basterds Tarantino's masterpiece, but if it's not Number One it's certainly Number Two (although I may change my tune once I rewatch Reservoir Dogs). The screenplay is one of Tarantino's best, in the "interconnected disconnect" tradition of Pulp Fiction and, to a lesser extent, Kill Bill, in which vignettes are tied together as part of a narrative thread but are easily (re)watchable outside the context of the film as a whole. The script is a taut exercise in dramatic tension, deceptively composed of long scenes of dialogue (often subtitled from German or French) but which bring to a simmer intense anxiety about if and when each character's deception will be revealed and cause events to boil over into a brutally gory yet classically Tarantino shoot-'em-up sequence (which, don't worry, happens more often than not).

Perhaps, then, we can ascribe a masterpiece to Tarantino, but with the caveat that it isn't his only one. If we're hellbent on labeling Inglourious Basterds the masterpiece, we can always excuse Pulp Fiction for being partially co-authored by Roger Avery. But Basterds is all Tarantino, showing a maturity level that heretofore has been absent (but, in retrospect, showed signs of nascency in Death Proof); rather than clutter his work with blatant homages and showy stylization, Tarantino wisely pulls back on both, creating a work that's more subtle than I think most of us knew Tarantino could produce. It's not for nothing the film nabbed a Best Picture nomination, you see. It stands as the perfect intersection of a first-rate screenplay and a more-than-capable cast.

The true star of the film is Tarantino's dialogue, which manages to transcend the drudgery of subtitles by leaping off the screen without calling attention to its own built-in flair (from what I've been told, the translation work isn't bad, either). But the members of the cast are all so good that it's difficult to find a star made of flesh and blood. Is it Pitt, who takes first billing bcause of his name recognition but whose star power is dwarfed by the comparatively small role he plays? Is it Laurent, a protagonist in the tradition of The Bride who does a solid job portraying all her character's fears and determination? Is it Waltz, who obviously dominated the public imagination about the film with a delightfully nuanced and delectably wicked performance as the Nazi with as many cards up his sleeve as held close to his chest? Or should we merely throw our hands up in uncertainty by saying it's an ensemble cast? Well, it is. But they're all so good that you won't notice, for example, that Pitt is absent for the first, third, and most of the fourth acts; actors like Fassbender and especially Waltz take control of their screen time such that you'll forget that it isn't entirely their movie.

It's a movie that isn't really about anything. It's about World War II, sure, but it's more the story of a group of very radical figures fighting it on different terms, on different fronts, and for different reasons. One of the most significant features for me is the way in which the film brilliantly cheats itself; it contains the single most creative way I've ever seen for dealing with a film in which the objective is to assassinate Hitler - even though we know Hitler was never assassinated (Bryan Singer did an equally solid but different job with Valkyrie, though it's nothing on the scale of audaciousness that Basterds brings to the table). Hint: the first major clue comes before the first scene of the film; pay attention.

Oh, what the heck. High tension, tight scripting, fantastic performances - maybe it is his masterpiece, after all.
Inglourious Basterds is, like every Quentin Tarantino movie, rated "R for strong graphic violence, language and brief sexuality." Obviously, the language and the violence are pretty extreme, with F-bombs and scalpings all over the place, as well as the sporadic bloody shoot-out. There's an implied sexual liasion between Goebbels and his translator, and Fredrick flirts heavily with Shosanna, but it's pretty tame compared to other Tarantino films in this regard.

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

2010-09-05T17:48:00.002-05:00

This review has probably been a long time coming. Edgar Wright's first filmic collaboration with Simon Pegg, Shaun of the Dead has been referred to more times on this blog, I would estimate, than any other non-reviewed film herein. Well, no more. Here below, for your reading pleasure, is a treatise on why I love Shaun of the Dead.

In a film that calls itself "the first rom-zom-com" (romantic zombie comedy), Pegg stars as the titular Shaun, who's grappling with a lackluster job as an electronics salesman and a precarious relationship with girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield), who wants more out of life than nights out at local pub The Winchester with Shaun's coarse roommate Ed (Nick Frost). Then zombies attack, and Shaun is forced to deal with his possibly-infected stepfather Phil (Bill Nighy) while attempting to win Liz back amid a mob scene of bite-happy undead.

It's no secret to loyal readers of this blog that I'm absolutely mad about Shaun of the Dead - in an all-encompassing delirious love sense of the word (appropriately, the British definition). The film remains Edgar Wright's finest hour (or hour-forty, to be precise), rambunctiously entertaining and unflinchingly satirical without ever becoming distractingly parodical (I'm looking at you, "Reference Movie" crowd). Blame the airtight screenplay by Wright and Pegg, which teases zombie film conventions while foreshadowing its own plot growth. The script's greatest virtue, though, is its repetition of memorable dialogue and eye-popping (sometimes literally) visual gags that get funnier each time they're executed.

The performances are also credible, with the players doing their parts without relying on comedy crutches like mugging or pandering. Because the cast takes itself seriously while simultaneously recognizing the absurdity of their situation (the epitome of this being Shaun's heated exclamation, "Oh, give us a f---ing break!" as a second wave of zombies encroaches on his position), the comedy is played for more than just a knowing chuckle. Instead, we're treated to great rolling-in-the-aisles fits of laughter which comes not in small doses but in almost every scene. Pegg leads the cast, but it's Frost who will elicit the most laughs from filmgoers, with his gruff yet endearing portrayal of the unpolished Ed; if nothing else, his impression of "Clyde" (it'd be spoiling to tell who Clyde is) will get a few giddy giggles. Even Bill Nighy takes his droll self and drags it out into a plausible caricature of the unlikeable survivor with a heart of gold.

Where the film really succeeds, though, is in its childlike enthusiasm for its subject matter and the gleefully chaotic way in which it plays out, non sequitur humor amplifying the already farcically absurd nature of the film. Who else would think that Queen fits perfectly with a zombie invasion? (Spoiler: it does.) Where else would ice cream and smoking be priorities while surviving a zombie attack? (Spoiler: only in Ed's mind.) And where else would you find a zombie invasion film where the invasion itself happens off-screen and is only a MacGuffin around which the characters can chase each other?

I'm inclined to say that Shaun of the Dead is my favorite zombie movie ever (sorry, Zombieland, but it takes more than a Twinkie to win my heart), and I'm even more ready to claim that it's one of the better films overall made in the last ten years. It's certainly one of the most entertaining.
Shaun of the Dead is rated "R for zombie violence/gore and language." The zombies themselves are grotesque enough, but there are bludgeonings and arterial sprays all over the film, prompting the unforgettable one-liner, "You've got red on you." F-bombs and C-words abound, all played for laughs but nonetheless fantastically inappropriate.

The Expendables (2010)

2010-09-05T14:34:00.010-05:00

"Getting the band back together" ought to be a genre in and of itself, with Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables standing as a good (but not quite great) example what a metafictional throwback film - and a late summer blockbuster - should do.

Writer and director Stallone also leads the cast of "Expendables" as Barney Ross, co-headlining with Jason Statham as Lee Christmas and Jet Li as Yin Yang. The Expendables, a team of mercenaries for hire, are contracted by the shadowy Mr. Church (a fun cameo by Bruce Willis, accompanied by an equally entertaining cameo by Arnold Schwarzenegger, late of the governor's office) on an apparent suicide mission: take out the dictator (David Zayas, of Dexter fame) of jungle island Vilena and his American backer (Eric Roberts, slathered in smarm). What follows is a fairly typical action adventure, but its nostalgic nature is kind of the point, so it's a good thing The Expendables has its action sensibilities screwed on straight.

I realize that this review is a little long in the tooth, so the target audience for this film has probably already been to the theater and back by this point. Which is to say that The Expendables has a very clear immediate target audience who will lap this right up - this being an action movie with a eye waxing on the past, a bygone era of action stars whose movies were essentially interchangeable. But there's a second sense about the film, one of old vs. new in which the old generation can fight side-by-side with the new in tacit approval of the second coming of the action hero. Seeing Stallone and Statham bumping fists and riding into combat feels cool, and it's exactly that sensibility that will draw filmgoers. Fortunately, The Expendables delivers.

The biggest surprise isn't the who's-who roster of action stars, nor is it the explosive action sequence lineup (which is precisely explosive, thanks to a few warhead-equipped bullet rounds). What I found genuinely surprising precisely because it seemed so incongruous with a movie promising guys with guns. Mickey Rourke appears as Tool, a liasion of sorts who helps accrue gigs for The Expendables, and he has a long-take monologue about why he's not an active part of "the life" anymore. It's a strange moment, unsettling because of its seeming displacement in a shoot-'em-up smackdown. Here, the movie takes a little breather, offers up a moral compass, and gives Mickey Rourke a chance to put a little extra polish on his Best Actor Oscar in a way that Iron Man 2 never could. For this moment alone, the film is worth the cost of admission.

But there's plenty else to enjoy. The performances (Rourke aside) aren't restrained - Stallone hasn't lost any of his bulked-up hero factor, and Roberts is one of the more entertaining one-note action villains in recent memory - but neither is the action scaled back. There are plenty of viscerally appealing battle sequences, with exaggerated gunshots and high-speed knife fights aplenty. There's a plot in here somewhere and a few competing agendas at play, but the film is more like Once Upon a Time in Mexico in that the movie is a vessel for a healthy dose of action (notice that word recurring throughout this review?).

If there's a complaint about The Expendables, it's that the film seems to be holding back a little bit. Sure, there are fun nods to where the stars are now (Stallone remarks of Schwarzenegger, "He wants to be president") and metafictional references to the action flicks of the past (that Stallone/Lundgren rematch you've been waiting for plays out here), but it seems a little less quantitatively than one might expect. There are no memorable one-liners, as there ought to be in a "next installment" throwback picture, and the action is fun but not particularly groundbreaking. What's more, Willis and Schwarzenegger are bit players in only one scene - the scene depicted in the film's marketing - but there's untapped potential there. With rumblings of a sequel already following the movie like aftershocks, here's a tip for Stallone & Company: Next time, don't be afraid to turn it up to 11.
The Expendables is rated "R for strong action and bloody violence throughout, and for some language." The blood flies fast in the film but doesn't dominate it; F-bombs are sporadic but negigible. As far as inappropriate content goes, it's like a tamer version of Sin City but in color.

Machete (2010)

2010-09-04T18:14:00.010-05:00

Attention Alexandre Aja and the rest of the crew who owe penance (or at least a partial refund) for Piranha 3D: Robert Rodriguez's Machete is how you do a B-movie.

Straight from the Grindhouse trailer, Danny Trejo leads one of the most eclectic casts in Hollywood history as federale-turned-day-laborer Machete Cortez, who immigrates illegally to the United States after his family is murdered by Mexican drug lord Torrez (Steven Seagal). Once stateside, Machete is hired by Michael Booth (Jeff Fahey) to kill border reformer Senator John McLaughlin (Robert DeNiro). Double-crossed, Machete allies himself with immigration officer Sartana (Jessica Alba), taco vendor Luz (Michelle Rodriguez), and his brother/priest Padre (Cheech Marin) to avenge himself on the men who betrayed him. The ensemble cast also includes wild child April (Lindsay Lohan), bounty hunter Osiris (Tom Savini), and minuteman vigilante Von Jackson (Don Johnson).

Like all of Rodriguez's best work, Machete is brutally violent and equally brutally fun, ignoring the laws of physics in favor of scenes that are so breathtakingly cool that you'll find it tough to swallow your popcorn for all the raucous guffawing you'll be issuing. Rodriguez finally turns the leading man reins over to Danny Trejo, who proves himself adroit at being more than meancing window dressing on the sidelines of films like Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Having cut his teeth in Rodriguez films, Trejo is a perfect fit for the off-the-wall sensibility that governs the film, delivering lines like "Machete don't text" with a deadpan humor that belies a recognition of the film's own campy nature. It's here that (and I'll try not to do this too frequently in the course of this review) Machete succeeds where Piranha 3D failed - by carrying itself off without mugging vigorously for camp appeal, Machete is a true homage to B-movies precisely because it keeps its tongue - and not its entire mouth - in cheek.

With Trejo as the star of the film, second billing really ought to go to the trademark Rodriguez style of relentlessly accelerated action, which comes out here in full force. There are moments when a plot about illegal immigration and a heavyhanded political statement (heavyhanded only because it's never given time to develop beyond a rapid boil), but these are mere placeholders to allow for a little downtime between high octane action pieces like Machete's escape from a hospital using only a bonesaw and an enemy's intestines. With characteristically improbable violence - such as one character, stabbed through the gut, delivering a nihilist monologue - surrounding delightfully hammy dialogue ("God has mercy; I don't"), Machete is a winner for knowing that delicate balance between entertainment value and legitimate dramatic style.

Machete is also remarkable in that it manages to assemble the strangest cast of actors and actresses - and make them all fit together like jigsaw pieces in a movie that shouldn't work but does. There's no question that some of these people can act - Robert DeNiro and Don Johnson have more than proven themselves, and Jeff Fahey is always a hoot (between this, Planet Terror, and his turn on Lost) - but Rodriguez finds a place for Jessica Alba and Lindsay Lohan, who are, shall we say, significantly less talented. The strangest thing is that Steven Seagal even manages to fit into the movie, despite being entirely one-note and bogged down with personal baggage and a history of parody as long as my grocery list. This is less a credit to the cast than it is to Rodriguez, although I must give a hearty handshake to the cast for not appearing too cool for the room; we know DeNiro is practically slumming to do a movie directed by the mind that brought us The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl, but at least he's a good sport about it and steps into the spirit of things (which is to say, larger than life in very broad strokes) fairly quickly.

Notice that I've not made claims to the film being a "great" film. That's because it's not. Nor does it pretend to be. What Machete professes to be is exactly what you'll find underneath the wrapper - another of Rodriguez's "Mexploitation" films, made on the cheap but with an earnestness that excuses the meager budget and dazzles the eye with a cast who's interested in having as much fun on this playground of a picture. If you're willing to leave your disbelief at home (merely suspending it probably won't do), Machete will be as much fun as you're looking for. If nothing else, it's far and away the B-movie of the year. (Nice try, Piranha 3D.)
Machete is rated a hard "R for strong bloody violence throughout, language, some sexual content and nudity." Blood flies everywhere and everywhen, with knife fights and a few spats of gunfire dominating the action of the movie. F-bombs pepper the dialogue like a tangy mole sauce, and Machete (spoiler warning?) lands in bed with pretty much every woman in the film, resulting in some toplessness and rear nudity in three scenes.

Piranha 3D (2010)

2010-08-21T18:43:00.009-05:00

When all is said and done, one of the big entertainment headlines at the end of the year will undoubtedly be, "Piranha 3D scores 80% - and above - on Rotten Tomatoes." If you don't believe me, go ahead and look it up. I don't blame you, because the movie is as unmitigatedly terrible as it sounds.

It must come as some surprise that The Cinema King voluntarily sat through what must undoubtedly be one of the worst movies of this year; I'm still a little bit surprised myself that it happened. But, on the advice of a friend who had heretofore never been wrong about pop culture (a fan of Lost and one of the parties responsible for introducing me to Dexter), I plopped into a seat as the lights began to darken and readied myself for a movie that would prove all my suspicions unfounded.

As the lights came back up, I was still waiting for that movie. Because what I got was exactly what I expected - a B-movie (not to impugn the B-movies that originally initiated that descriptor) with a pitiable premise, predominantly poorly acted and largely without the tongue in cheek nature that would have been needed to pull off the picture. Sorry, buddy, you're now on my grain-of-salt list.

Piranha 3D almost defies the convention of a premise, because all you need to know is in the title - there are piranhas, and this movie is in 3D. The film takes place during spring break on geographically ambiguous Lake Victoria, where scores of party-prepared college students let loose their inhibitions and dive in for the time of their lives. But, as Horatio Caine famously noted of spring break, "It should have been the time of her life... *dons sunglasses* ...instead of the end of it." After devouring Richard Dreyfuss (present, it seems, as an oblique homage to the aquatic horror genre's granddaddy Jaws), the aforementioned piranhas set their fangs on the aforementioned college students, Sheriff Julie Forester (Elisabeth Shue) and her deputy (Ving Rhames), adult film producer Derrick Jones (Jerry O'Connell, who chews scenery like a human piranha), and Derrick's new albeit reluctant stars Jake (Steven R. McQueen) and Kelly (Jessica Szohr, who seems to be standing in for Vanessa Hudgens). Oh yeah, and Christopher Lloyd is in it as the resident piranha expert/exposition wholesaler.

The biggest problem with Piranha 3D is that there's just no life in it. On the surface, it all seems like a good idea, as though there's going to be some rip-roaring good satire at work, with riotously overdrawn characters in preposterous situations spouting off one-liners that will become part of the cultural lexicon. But instead what we get is something that claims to be that but carries itself off fairly straightforwardly, adhering religiously to all of the horror film tropes that it should be lampooning - first attack, innocuous setting, sexy teens vs. authority, last scare (in fact, this is played for laughs, but it's so overwrought that it's tantamount to when Joel McHale photoshops people getting hit by a bus on The Soup), &c. Though it's supposedly a comic horror film, there's little to laugh at in the first hour or so of the movie; O'Connell is so hammy you'll start to smell pork chops after a while, but it's so overblown that all I could muster was a dismissive eye-roll at how hard he was trying.

It's not until the last twenty minutes or so (I know, because I checked my watch periodically - something I never do during movies I even close to enjoy... something I didn't even do during Nic Cage's The Wicker Man, my favorite bad movie) that Piranha 3D starts to have fun with itself, introducing wildly fantastic Robert Rodriguez-style sequences that are so over-the-top that the film should have been littered with them. For example, Ving Rhames at one delightfully giddy moment, tears the motor off a boat and uses the propeller as a chainsaw to fend off encroaching piranhas (piranhi? piranhae?); had the movie been comprised of more scenes like that - and had Adam Scott been given more lines as the geologist with a sardonic wit - the movie might have been more of a success. But no, instead we get two minutes of naked water ballet, a moment whose only function in the film seems to be to inspire word of mouth: "Hey, let's go see Piranha 3D." "I don't know; I heard it was bad." "Who cares, dude? Naked water ballet!" "I am so there!"

That's another chief complaint about Piranha 3D - the nudity. I should have known going into it that this was a movie that wasn't going to hold back, but I was expecting the go-for-broke attitude to come from a degree of satire. Not so; the film is apparently governed by the mentality that, if your film is starting to sink, just throw some skin up on the screen. Now, it's a spring break movie, and I get that it would have probably earned the filmmakers some critical ire if they did a spring break movie that didn't include at least a bit of gratuitous nudity (the old standby of the horror genre, after all), but it's just so exorbitant here. I don't want to come off as some sort of puritanical nut, because that's not it at all; it's just that the film uses nudity as a crutch, and it comes off as excessive, exorbitant, distracting, and desperate. Where nudity has been used as a deceptive counterpoint to violence/horror to come or as a way to elicit a cheap laugh, Piranha 3D seems to have taken its storyboards, thrown darts at them, and inserted a naked person wherever said darts landed.

There are other offenses at stake here, too - Christopher Lloyd is criminally mis- and under-used here; I haven't seen him in a very long time, but it's a shame that he's here instead of somewhere where his talents would be well-served. Moments of peril are very predictable, such that it's very easy to identify which of the four characters on screen will be eaten, and in which order. And the gore is used so heavily and with so little moral compass that some of the aftermath scenes play out more like Schindler's List than Shaun of the Dead. But the greatest sin that Piranha 3D commits is that it's not fun enough to justify the upcharge for 3D glasses. Indeed, the 3D effects aren't all that great, either. There's one moment where a character throws up directly into the camera that at least gets that visceral reaction, but most of the 3D effects rely on recycled gags from old Dr. Tongue bits from SCTV (the difference being that Dr. Tongue's 3-D House of Beef had punchlines and class). Piranha 3D marks the first time that I've really noticed a murky and unpolished look to movies that have been converted to 3D - a problem I've never encountered with, say, Disney's 3D effects. Perhaps it's just that, like everything else about this movie, the effects aren't very good at all. In fact, they downright bite (sorry).

For the first time since I don't remember when (possibly ever), I was inspired to ask for my money back as the credits rolled on Piranha 3D. But it soon occurred to me that all I would get would be a blank stare, a blink or two, and the response, "Look, you volunteered to see a movie entitled Piranha 3D. What'd you expect, Shakespeare?" I also chickened out because I realized I would have to admit to another living soul that I shelled out money to see this movie. Oh, wait.
Piranha 3D is rated R "for sequences of strong bloody horror violence and gore, graphic nudity, sexual content, language and some drug use." This is probably the least appropriate theatrical release this year, with many graphic feeding scenes in which the piranhas chomp away pieces of people until all that is left are bloody skeletons. There's toplessness and rear nudity galore, F-bombs a-plenty, and enough alcohol and cocaine to make Ozzy Osbourne look up. Even though there are kids in the movie (added, doubtless, as an attempt to build suspense even though we know kids are invincible in horror movies), leave yours at home.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)

2010-08-19T09:17:00.010-05:00

I can say this for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World - it is unlike any other movie director Edgar Wright has brought forward.

Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a 20-something Canadian vagabond whose life is filled with his garage band Sex Bob-omb and his 17-year-old girlfriend Knives Chao (Ellen Wong). One day, though, Scott meets the literal girl of his dreams - Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who rollerblades through his dreams because there's a superhighway shortcut in his subconscious. But as Scott and Ramona grow closer, she clues him in to the fact that, to continue to date her, he'll have to defeat her "seven evil exes," a league of former flames that includes a Bollywood-esque sorcerer, a model-turned-action-hero (Chris Evans), a vegan bassist (Brandon Routh), an angry ninja (Mae Whitman, formerly Cera's girlfriend Ann on Arrested Development), Japanese musican twins, and the big one - record mogul Gideon Graves (Jason Schwartzman).

What Scott Pilgrim does very well is create many memorable characters that have, at the very least, spin-off potential if not a direct sequel. I can't speak for the movie's relationship with the graphic novel series by Bryan Lee O'Malley, but the characters in the movie have got real personality. The supporting characters, that is; the main characters aren't very lively. Scott is, unfortunately, still more of the same Cera character - a gangly, awkward, "if that's okay with you" type who mumbles and falls in love with a girl far out of his league - but at least Cera is still doing a good job; I'm very curious, though, what the right director could do with him. And Winstead, as a thematic sequel to Kate Winslet's character in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, falls flat without very much enthusiasm; she's pretty and therefore easy to fall for, but I think supporting player Anna Kendrick (who's charming and involving as Scott's sister Stacey) might have done a better job - but that's probably, as I've said before, because I'm a little bit in love with that girl. At the very least, Cera and Winstead are no Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, Wright's previous collaborators.

Fortunately the supporting cast is very entertaining - not the best ensemble, but the supporting talent is more talented, I'd say, than what Cera and Winstead demonstrate here. The standout supporting cast member here is Alison Pill as world-weary drummer Kim Pine, a variant on the Juno brand of snarky; Pill is a scene-stealer, with deadpan delivery of memorable lines like, "Scott, if your life had a face, I would punch it" as well as signature moves like her clacking drumsticks and her feigning suicide by pistol with only her fingers and a dramatic flourish. Chris Evans, too, as Ex #2, is probably my favorite Ex, a gleeful caricature of the action star who can't actually act; he growls his dialogue - all of it puns - with a tongue firmly in cheek. And Jason Schwartzman, as the seventh and final Ex, is suitably smarmy and deftly loathsome.

But unlike Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim takes itself seriously - perhaps too seriously. Where Wright's previous films had a satirical bent and often acknowledged incredible plot turns with characters exclaiming, as Simon Pegg did in Shaun, "Oh, for f--k's sake!" Scott Pilgrim has none of this self-conscious edge. Characters don't bat an eye when "extra lives" or swords of love and self-respect appear out of thin air, and only Scott's roommate Wallace (a wonderfully droll Kieran Culkin) expresses incredulity at the increasingly improbable fight scenes with dry murmurs of "Scott, fight, go." There's a shameless showiness in the film that's doubtless an homage to the story's comic book nature, but it's all bang and very little substance. The very premise is built on thinness - Scott must fight these characters because he must - and it never attempts to be anything more than shallow eye candy. Where the scenes with Scott and his friends are clever and well-written, the battle scenes which dominate the film play out like watching someone else play a video game. It's a bit like watching a Quentin Tarantino film in German (no, not Inglourious Basterds); there's a sense that there's a lot of flair going on that other people can appreciate, but for the immediate audience in the moment, something's lost.

There's also a problem with pacing. The first Ex battles don't begin until about an hour into the film - when little more than half of the film remains. Consequently the film feels bisected - a comfortable and cutesy comedy with quirky characters, followed by the video game montages to which I just couldn't connect. By treating the audience to so much of the avant garde "quirky" plotline - directed with innovative quick-cut flair and punctuated by thought bubbles and floating onomatopoeia - Wright practically spoils his audience to the point where the second half just doesn't live up to the first. Indeed, the second half feels bloated and over-long, as though so much action is being thrown at the viewer because the filmmaker realized halfway through that there was still the matter of the seven evil exes to cover in about an hour's time.

But I think the other half of the movie - the one that doesn't have you grabbing for a joystick that isn't there - is worth seeing. It's got Wright's comedic sensibilities with an American edge, and it's got some of the cleverest dialogue and editing gags (like Lisa Miller, who swears but has the ability to somehow censor herself with a black box and a record scratch). Maybe you'll want to go for popcorn during the combat scenes, because it's not as though Scott isn't going to win. Spoiler warning?
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is rated PG-13 "for stylized violence, sexual content, language and drug references." There's some canoodling in underwear, as well as mild talk about sex and the problems of and with dating a minor. The combat scenes are visually dynamic, with no blood but with plenty of people hitting each other, some of whom explode into coins. Drugs and alcohol are mentioned, but only abused once; the F-bombs in the film are all comedically censored.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)

2010-08-18T12:30:00.003-05:00

Welcome to Wednesday 2, the final day of Depp Week. It's been an amazing journey, a real tour de force through the recent work of one of the greatest living actors, and I'm happy to have shared the journey with you.

But, in the words of many a pirate, you may not survive to pass this way again, and these be the last friendly words you hear. Meaning: The following review unavoidably contains spoilers for Dead Man's Chest, as At World's End picks up right after the cliffhanger ending that preceded it. (Oh, hell; the picture kind of gives away one surprise.) So, for those uninitiated who haven't seen Dead Man's Chest but want to know more qualitatively about At World's End, let me say this for it: At World's End is my favorite of the Pirates trilogy, a restoration of the thematic balance that made The Curse of the Black Pearl so appealing which also maintains the "go bigger" attitude of Dead Man's Chest. It's also just plain fun, escapism which the increasingly heavy Hollywood offerings so desperately need to bust up the monotony.

With Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) trapped in Davy Jones's locker after his encounter with the kraken, his former nemesis Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) - himself back from the dead - mounts a rescue effort with Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley). As if rescuing Jack from the land of the dead weren't hard enough, the pirate world must contend with the ever-tightening grip of Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander) and the East India Trading Company, which now controls the heart of Davy Jones (Bill Nighy).

Now this is my favorite of the Pirates films, but it's also unique because it's tonally very different from the first two films; perhaps, then, that's my main gravitation to it. Johnny Depp doesn't appear for more than half an hour into the film, allowing the movie to build up steam and firmly establish the necessity of his character to return. In some ways, this feels like a response to the critical backlash against Dead Man's Chest, as many characters run around in this film invoking the necessity of getting things back to the way they were. This film is darker - it opens with a small boy ascending the steps to the scaffold, and several very important characters are killed, brutally, on-screen - and consequently it feels more like the first than the second film, which you'll recall I critiqued for being too funny. Here the tone is one of urgent action punctuated by moments of levity (as when the crew sails over a waterfall and transports the audience, albeit briefly, to the Disneyland attraction that spawned the franchise), a return to form and a more fulfilling moviegoing experience. There are no scenes of audacious slapstick, but there are plenty of moments of entertaining comedy to keep you smiling throughout.

And where Dead Man's Chest did more of the same as far as performances go, At World's End dials it up for almost every main character. Now Jack Sparrow has a form of split-personality disorder, with "multiple Jacks" on his shoulders and in his hair, and Depp does a marvelous job at imbuing life into all the different Jacks we see on screen (at least twenty). Will has a renewed sense of purpose, and Bloom shoulders the responsibility with a grim but resigned countenance the whole way through. With a rousing speech on the nature of freedom, Elizabeth finally makes her decision between citizen and pirate, and it's a turn that feels completely natural in Knightley's hands. And it's a delight to see Rush again, who nuances his character's malicious nature by adding in a note of reformation and making it more palatable to root for the character who had previously been the villain. And Nighy continues to impress, even underneath all that CGI, by conveying through his words the anguish Davy Jones feels as a consequence of his betrayals at the hands of his lover and Cutler Beckett. Chow Yun-Fat joins the cast as Sao Feng, pirate lord of Singapore; though his character is done in broad strokes that might offend the PC crowd, Yun-Fat does an immersive job with the character, and there's a sense that all pirates are in effect stereotypes, somewhat legitimizing the Fu Manchu-esque nature of the character. And it'd be remiss of me if I didn't note that Keith Richards puts in an appearance as code-keeper Captain Teague, who shares a vitally important scene with Jack Sparrow.

The standout feature in At World's End, though, is an extended battle sequence which runs approximately forty minutes long and features the Black Pearl fighting the Flying Dutchman in the midst of a maelstrom. For most of the film, we're told that the pirates will have to face a last stand against Beckett's armada, and the subsequent battle that ensues more than lives up to the expectations raised by the rest of the film. Director Gore Verbinski (who, sadly, won't be returning for On Stranger Tides) does a masterful job of coordinating the action and keeping the action moving - even tossing an impromptu wedding into the mix. Hans Zimmer, too, is at his finest here, crafting an instrumental suite that runs for pretty much the whole length of the battle and integrates all the important themes (Jack's, Davy Jones's, Barbossa's, the love theme) from the trilogy in an expertly and elaborately written piece that you'll be humming for days. It's the kind of action sequence you can appreciate even out of context; a forty-minute combat sequence never hurt anyone, especially when it's as well-executed as this one is.

And the film brings to a satisfying conclusion the plotlines begun in the first film while still leaving open the possibility for a fourth film. The ending is remarkable in that it's sort of cliffhanger-ish, but at the same time it's the only way for these characters to end up; Will and Elizabeth are still together, despite a few obstacles, and Jack and Barbossa are still deadlocked in combat over the ownership of the Black Pearl and future treasure on the horizon. It's an immensely satisfying ending, one that validates the almost nine hours it takes to watch this epic sprawling trilogy unfold. Even taken on its own, though, At World's End is positively divine, an abundantly enjoyable flourish of a film.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is, like its predecessors, rated PG-13 "for intense sequences of action/adventure violence and some frightening images." In terms of content, there's not much different from the previous two installments, although the tone is much darker, and there's a pervading sense of danger that the more whimsical first two films lacked.

Well, folks, that's the end of Depp Week. It's been a marvelous journey, and I'm very curious to hear your thoughts on the whole affair. Would you be interested in seeing another themed week on The Cinema King (perhaps one that isn't gloriously gushing of its star)?

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)

2010-08-17T09:17:00.009-05:00

Welcome back to the only week with two Tuesdays in it - Depp Week. Right now we're going to set sail into the penultimate entry on the docket, the second installment of director Gore Verbinski's Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy.

Dead Man's Chest picks up a little bit after The Curse of the Black Pearl, with the wedding of Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) disrupted by the arrival of the East India Trading Company's villainous representative Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander). Beckett detains Will and Elizabeth for assisting pirate Captain Jack Sparrow in the last film but later separately dispatches them to retrieve Jack's compass. But Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) has bigger problems; the tentacled Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) holds a claim to Captain Jack's soul, owed to Davy Jones for 13 years as captain of the Black Pearl. With the land controlled by the EITC and the seas manned by Davy Jones, Jack Sparrow faces mounting challenges and learns, like Neil Gaiman's Sandman, that he must change (meaning confront his problems) or die.

I think that Dead Man's Chest is the most polarizing of the Pirates films; moviegoers are divided almost exclusively between those who love it and those who hate it. But there's room for a more honest appraisal, one (which I'll offer here) that gives credit to the film's strengths but acknowledges the fact that Dead Man's Chest is not perfect - at least, not in the sense that The Curse of the Black Pearl was.

Let's start with the bad news first. The bad news is that, as far as middle entries in trilogies go, Dead Man's Chest is no Empire Strikes Back. (Which is, I concede, a bit like criticizing water for not being cranberry juice.) Perhaps the worst thing that I can say about Dead Man's Chest is that it doesn't stand on its own very well. As a sequel, one can hardly criticize it for not restating a lot of the plot elements that were developed in the first movie - the relationship between Will and Elizabeth, the character of Jack Sparrow, the role of Weatherby Swann (Jonathan Pryce) in all this - but as a second of three, it ought to end without moviegoers feeling obligated to attend the third film in the franchise. In that respect, then, Dead Man's Chest is more Matrix Reloaded than Empire Strikes Back in the sense that the two former movies end on a cliffhanger which leaves nothing resolved. (To be fair, Empire ends on a cliffhanger, too, but it's one that goes for emotional tethers rather than plot twists.) Here, Dead Man's Chest ends with a major character deceased, another character back from the dead, major emotional connections seemingly irreparably severed, and a bevy of new characters thrown at us with no ultimate resolution on their storylines - such that one feels a bit like an empty keg of rum at the end of the picture, adrift in a sea of plotlines that, we're promised, the third movie will resolve. (It does, fortunately.)

My other major grievance with Dead Man's Chest is that it is, at its most basic, simply a turned-up-to-11 version of The Curse of the Black Pearl. With the exception of Elizabeth (and perhaps wooden-eyed Ragetti, who evinces concern for his newly-mortal soul), no returning character (or new one, for that matter) gets much depth added; Jack is still his same capricious self, Will is still that charming novice swashbuckler, and that dog still has the keys in his mouth. Even the new villains aren't very nuanced, with a mirthless one-dimensional evil separating them from Geoffrey Rush's evil-but-still-fun Barbossa. (Note that this critique of the unsubtle villains is distinct from the praise, which I'll be offering below, of Hollander and Nighy. Stay tuned.) Of course, evil villains are all well and good - in fact, they're essential - but they're contrasted with the turned-up-to-11 tone of whimsy that the picture sets up; nothing truly bad, it suggests, can happen to the characters as long as they keep us laughing. Consequently, when something truly bad does happen, it feels almost like a betrayal, a violation of some code somewhere. Then again, the first film did teach us that codes are "more like guidelines, anyway."

In sum, Dead Man's Chest doesn't engage in any emotional advancement of any character, but returning screenplayists Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio do a solid job of advancing the trilogy on a plot level, expanding the franchise's mythology and introducing a whole host of new characters - and doing so in a clear manner. As with the former film, there are complaints from the moviegoing public about a confusing aura around the film. But how the film could confound anyone is beyond me. Lunkheaded comic relief Pintel and Ragetti fill in for Navymen Murtogg and Mullroy as far as summarizing important action to each other and to the audience, and Naomie Harris joins the cast as Tia Dalma, a voodoo practitioner whose only purpose in this film, it seems, is to provide exposition on Davy Jones and the plight of Jack Sparrow. (Fortunately, she's given more to do in the final installment of the trilogy.) Again, there are many competing agendas here, but if you don't go out for a popcorn refill you should be fine. The script also does an outstanding job at building on what the first film introduces; throwaway elements like Jack's compass and his brief line "And then they made me their chief" from the first film get new meaning, making for a more comprehensive filmgoing experience. Most notably, though, Bootstrap Bill makes an appearance, portrayed by Stellan Skarsgard; if you noticed the plot hole of how the first film claimed that Bootstrap, cursed by the Aztec gold, could have drowned, the film addresses that.

And director Gore Verbinski does a firstrate job of topping a lot of the action sequences in the first film by kicking it up to 11 with swordfights on top of a spinning water wheel, a monstrous kraken attack, and a delightful re-introduction to Captain Jack Sparrow. Verbinski again keeps that sense of moving forward with sweeping shots of sailing ships and (doubtless) a little help from Hans Zimmer, who pens what might be his best film score to date in terms of listenability outside of the context of the film.

Continuing the train of good news about Dead Man's Chest, all the performers are still doing very good work. Even if they're not called on to do much more, they're still doing a good job at what they'd previously done: Depp is audaciously immersive as ever, replete with a slightly improved accent (something closer to a drunken Brit than previously), Bloom is still his charming roguish self, and Knightley is still doing a deft job at straddling that line between pirate and proper citizen (and she's probably the prettiest here of the three). Of the new cast members, all of them step into their roles like a good pair of slacks. Harris is almost unrecognizable as the grungy obeah priestess, with her blackened teeth and Jamaican dialect creating a vividly believable new character. On the side of evil, Bill Nighy is utterly engrossing as Davy Jones, lending a Scottish accent and a series of facial and verbal tics that are so human that you'll probably forget that the character is almost entirely created with CGI effects (honestly, the effects are that good). And Tom Hollander is perhaps the best villain of the series, because he's so joylessly evil that he's instantly detestable; his overconfident and avaricious qualities are brilliantly portrayed by the diminutive Hollander, who evokes Napoleon and all the worst qualities of British imperialism.

I've given what might be a mixed review of Dead Man's Chest, but I want to close with the note that this film contains my absolutely favorite shot of the entire trilogy. It's a small scene, maybe one that won't even be noticed by many audience members, but it's a pivotal one - one that is perfectly directed by Gore Verbinski and one that Jack Davenport (playing ex-Commodore Norrington) pulls off with aplomb. It's a silent scene, with only Hans Zimmer's rousing score to fill our ears, but it uses visual language like a fluent speaker uses French; with shots of only a rowboat, a swordfight, and a few finely detailed expressions from Davenport. It's a scene that says nothing and yet says everything we need to know about what's going through Norrington's head at that particular moment. It's so aesthetically effective that it, too, gives me chills.

If you've made it all the way through this review, first of all congratulations. Second, I hope the disenchantment of the earlier paragraphs has worn off. Really, this is an enjoyable movie for those of us who enjoyed the first. But my disappointment registers only because from a sequel I often expect so much more. I enjoyed this because I enjoyed the first movie, but I wish that I could have enjoyed it regardless of the first; I suppose in the end I was looking for more than more of the same. But perhaps that's just a case of my expectations being too high, in which case this is an issue I'll have to self-examine. But if you liked the first film, certainly the second is just as good (but not better).
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is - like its predecessor - rated PG-13, this time for "intense sequences of adventure violence, including frightening images." As with the first, standard pirate swashbuckling occurs. Here, though, some creatures may be more frightening than previously; Davy Jones's crew are all monstrous amalgamations of men and sea creatures, and his kraken is genuinely fearsome with tentacles and sharp fangs. Watch out for an early sequence at an island prison, which is surprisingly gruesome as ravenous birds attack caged prisoners.

Keep a weathered eye on the horizon, mates, because Wednesday we'll close out Depp Week with a look at my favorite of the Pirates films - At World's End.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

2010-08-16T09:00:00.003-05:00

Thanks for staying with us, loyal readers. And a good, good morning to you in the wee small ones of this bright and sunshiney Monday morning. Depp Week (or rather, Depp Half-Week II) begins right now, with a look at Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, the film that jetted Johnny Depp to super-stardom and netted him an Oscar nomination, while simultaneously getting an entire generation of moviegoers to start asking, "Why is the rum gone?"

Depp stars as Captain Jack Sparrow, an off-kilter pirate with no ship, no crew, and no treasure. What he has are a keen wit, a poor sense of balance, a compass that doesn't point north, and improvisational skills that ought to earn him a lifetime spot on Whose Line Is It Anyway?. Captain Jack finds his way to Port Royal in search of a ship, where he's promptly locked up for piracy. Meanwhile, Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) and his undead crew of cursed pirates-turned-zombies come to Port Royal in search of blacksmith Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) - but end up abducting the governor's daughter, Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), instead. Will, smitten with Elizabeth, strikes a deal to free Captain Jack in exchange for his help, but what Will doesn't know is that Captain Jack Sparrow only ever has his own best interests at heart

Developing a movie based on a low-velocity flume ride should have been an impossible feat; after all, The Country Bears and The Haunted Mansion all sank like stones when Disney unleashed them in theaters around the same time as Pirates. But what Pirates has that those movies didn't is a trifecta of what I believe are the three key components to any truly great motion picture: a charismatic and fantastically gifted cast, a solid and well-crafted screenplay, and a governing mood that combines the utmost sincerity with delightful notes of whimsy that prevent the movie from getting bogged down in its own gravitas (sorry, Quantum of Solace).

The obvious headliner here - the reason for Pirates being reviewed at this specific moment in time - is Johnny Depp, who gives a performance of a lifetime. And not just his lifetime, though Jack Sparrow certainly makes that grade; Depp's turn here is one of the greatest performances I've seen committed to film in my lifetime, right up there with Ledger's Joker and RDJ's Iron Man (perhaps it bears investigation that I've selected two comic book roles). It's immersive like diving into a swimming pool, yet so spot-on that it fits like a glove. Of Depp's role here I can only speak in superlatives, each of them deserved; there's an earnestness that goes with Jack Sparrow that goes a long way toward allowing the audience to forget "it's only a movie." Jack feels real because, in the hands of Johnny Depp, he is real. Every gesture (and there are many, from wild gesticulation to nuanced missteps), every inflection, every unfocused glance contribute to a portrait of a character larger than life and yet so unmistakably human.

Depp is backed by a wonderfully able supporting cast, the greatest of whom is Geoffrey Rush. Where Jack Sparrow is so finely crafted, Barbossa is all broad strokes, harkening back to the Errol Flynn pirate pictures where there was no question about who the bad guys were. But Rush manages to pull off the portrayal without ever feeling like he's resorting to cheap pirate stereotypes; even when he does employ those old standbys - as when he snarls the trademark pirate "Arrgh!" for no apparent reason - it feels less like a shortcut and moer like a facet of his character, who clearly enjoys theatricality. Our two romantic leads - Bloom and Knightley - do a fine job of drawing a line down the middle of the film between pirate and civilian, and their chemistry is palpable; that is, romantically, we get it between these two. (It doesn't hurt that Knightley is probably at her most attractive here, and it's no wonder that I had a major crush on her when the film first debuted in theaters.)

Of course, any talented actor will run around aimlessly without a taut script to guide him or her, and fortunately Pirates is one of the best written action films in recent memory. Credit Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio for penning a screenplay that triumphantly inverts a lot of the old pirate movie tropes - the mutiny occurs off-screen, and these pirates are returning treasure rather than taking it - while still seeming to adhere to the ideal platonic form of a pirate movie. In much the same way as the film is divided between pirate and citizen, the script is divided between action and comedy, such that I've invoked the Pirates name when talking about films that similarly split their time between comedy and action. The script is funny when it needs to be and exudes a sense of breathless urgency, such that we genuinely believe that there is a threat to the safety of the film world. In addition to being endlessly quotable, the film is also very clever with its dialogue, such that I actually got chills when a character in the film justified the audience's attachment to the pirate Jack Sparrow by saying, "Perhaps on the rare occasion pursuing the right course demands an act of piracy, piracy itself becomes can be the right course?" In addition, Elliott and Rossio do a first-rate job of keeping the disparate plot elements from becoming muddled in a tangle of plot soup. We have at least four competing agendas (five, if you count Commodore Norrington) at any given time in the film, but it's apparent who's fighting for what and - even more tricky - who's double-crossing whom. There are those who bemoan the film's confusing nature, but I feel those concerns are misguided and stem from something short of a full attention span. (For more on how clever the script is, take a look at LiveReal's take on the film.)

But the best script in the world can be tragically mismanaged, and so a hearty helping of kudos ought to go to director Gore Verbinski for making a film that's endlessly (re)watchable, which remains entertaining and nearly immortal as the film approaches the 10-year mark. If the script is a juggling act, Verbinski is the juggler who deftly keeps all the requisite plates spinning, to the perpetual amusement and amazement of the moviegoing public. What's even more remarkable is that Verbinski knows the perfect balance between action and comedy, even within the same scene - as when Jack and Barbossa duel with swords and with wordplay simultaneously. Though scenes like these are side-splitting, they're also intensely and precisely coordinated to attain that perfect edge-of-seat ratio. Doubtless this position of the audience on the precipice of their chairs (recliners, folding chairs, it doesn't matter) requires at least some small credit be given to the rousing score composed by Klaus Badelt, known disciple of Hans Zimmer (whose influence is very acutely felt); here's another Depp flick whose tune you'll be humming long after the credits roll. (Speaking of which, be sure to stick around for an after-credits treat, which actually has some bearing on the second film of the trilogy.)

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I love this movie. It's got an audaciously charismatic performance by Depp, but it's also a solid movie in and of itself. If nothing else, if you ahven't seen this movie, consider it part of a "Great Books" curriculum in which the objective is to become fluent in popular culture. If this country should ever be subject to a full-scale pirate attack, you'll at least know what to tell them so they don't kill you. (Hint: It's not parsley. Not palu-li-la-la-lulu, either.)

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is, rare for a Disney flick, rated PG-13, here "for action/adventure violence." There's some typical swashbuckling swordfighting afoot, a few zombie pirates that may prove unsettling for younger viewers, and an unusual fascination with eunuchs that arises periodically throughout the trilogy.

Depp Week Delayed

2010-08-12T22:29:00.003-05:00

Ahoy, folks. Bad news on the docks. Due to unforseeable consequences - namely, being hijacked by pirates in search of bewitched treasure - Depp Week is being postponed until at least the weekend, if not Monday/Tuesday.

Keep a weathered eye on the horizon, mateys. Here there be Pirates of the Caribbean reviews soon as we be returnin' from Davy Jones's locker.

Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003)

2010-08-11T21:54:00.006-05:00

2003 was a big year for Johnny Depp, if only because that's the year that Captain Jack Sparrow sailed into our hearts, propelling Depp to the top of the A-list. But Pirates of the Caribbean isn't until tomorrow, folks, so let's take a look at Depp's other 2003 film, Robert Rodriguez's Once Upon a Time in Mexico - which I predict will become a cult film (if it isn't one already) on the strength of Depp's performance alone.

Nominally, Once Upon a Time in Mexico is Antonio Banderas's film, the third entry in his and Rodriguez's "El Mariachi trilogy" (which began with El Mariachi and Desperado). In practice, though, it's Depp's: Depp plays CIA agent Sheldon Jeffrey Sands, who hires gunslinger El Mariachi (Banderas) to prevent General Marquez from successfully staging a coup against the Mexican president. But there are many other factors at work here: El wants revenge against Marquez for the murder of his wife Catalina (Salma Hayek), while Marquez is being paid by cartel lord Barillo (Willem Dafoe) and his henchman Billy Chambers (Mickey Rourke), and Sands is working the case from every angle - including police officer Ajedrez (Eva Mendes), one-eyed informant Bellini (Cheech Marin), and retired FBI Agent Jorge Ramirez (Ruben Blades).

If it sounds a little confusing, don't be alarmed. On first viewing, there are parts that don't immediately make sense; it's not that the film is intentionally puzzling, but the fast pace and the "crank it up to 11" sensibility toss the plot twists at the viewer faster than might be comfortable. What's more, the plot is the kind that lends itself to plot twists, with betrayals, double-crosses, and downright duplicity governing each principal character's actions; in fact, you'll have trouble enough just trying to figure out where Sands's loyalties lie (hint: like all great Depp characters, Sands is principally looking out for Number One).

But, in the opinion of this reviewer, none of the action-on-speed mentality hurts the film. Indeed, the film challenges itself to top itself, topping a rousing gun battle in the streets with an epic one in the presidential palace. Moreover, by beginning the story in media res, the film creates the suggestion that the plot is actually secondary to the exciting explosions and innovative visuals, that what these characters do is less important than how they do it.

Thank goodness Rodriguez has assembled a cast who can pull off a film that's all about flair. And rather than remain as mere straight action fare, Once Upon a Time in Mexico is often genuinely funny, adding a challenge to the actors, albeit a challenge they can all meet. Banderas is dynamite as the strong but silent type, but his character is crafted in such a way that it never feels out of place when he breaks his silence for a wry witticism. Hayek, who appears often in flashbacks and whose presence is acutely felt even though her character has technically died, is the perfect "straight man" to the occasionally ludicrous action sequences, and her screams of terror at the precarious situations Catalina finds herself in are genuine and hilarious at the same time. Of course, though, Depp steals the show (partially because it feels like he has the most screen time of any other character), because Sands is one of those ultra-compelling supporting characters that comes along once in a blue moon. As his loyalties flip and flop, there's something endearing at the heart of his character; it's quite possible that he's a bad guy (he does, after all, kill a cook simply for making a piece of slow-roasted pork that's too good), but the way Depp behaves makes us want to root for Sands, if only so we'll see him on screen more often.

This is an ensemble piece, and while the three leads are all doing fine work, they're backed up by a supporting cast that carries the rest of the film one piece at a time. Willem Dafoe is admittedly a strange choice for a Mexican drug lord, but once you see him as Barillo you'll either think, "Why didn't someone cast him as a Mexican before?" or "Well, Willem sure can act." Mickey Rourke isn't really acting so much as performing his trademark confident swagger on-camera, but his broad personality fits right in with the rest of the outlandish tone of the film. Eva Mendes finally gets to play a cop rather than a cop's love interest, and there's something compelling in that pout of hers where she's surprisingly believable as a hard-as-nails rookie. Cheech Marin floats in as embodied exposition (and recap for those who missed the other entries in the trilogy), and it's always a delight to see Danny Trejo chewing scenery as a tough guy.

One final character in the film bears mentioning - the gaudy and vibrant action sequences. There's a shootout in a marketplace, replete with exploding fruit and sudden auto collisions, that is impossible to watch without getting a little keyed up. Blame the soundtrack, too, which is filled with catchy Latino tracks that you'll be humming until you run out and grab the CD (which stands on its own very well, indeed). But even when the characters are simply sitting around and chatting - as Sands does for most of his screentime, until he picks up his guns and joins the fight against the coup (with a bonus twist, extra-cool, that it'd be criminal to spoil) - there's still a sense that firecrackers are going off. The dialogue, equal parts Rodriguez and ad-lib, positively crackles, with quirky mannerisms and stylistic turns of phrase that might make Diablo Cody sit up and take a few notes; perhaps the best of these come about due to Sands's apparent refusal to swear, substituting "screw the pooch," "sugarbutt," and "oh, gosh" at markedly incongruous moments.

But the intentional flashiness and the quest for spectacle make the film a dazzling vision that doesn't even require a viewer's cognitive powers to be switched on. Indeed, the film practically asks the viewer to switch off, kick back, and enjoy the ride. Typical rules of science no longer apply, and the film doesn't need to be understood so much as it needs to be absorbed. And that is the film's greatest strength - it's engaging, with performances and action pieces that are just plain fun.
Once Upon a Time in Mexico is, naturally, rated R "for strong violence, and for language." Most every character uses F-bombs quite liberally, in English and Spanish; you can't swing a bat without hitting some bloody violence in this film, so leave the less mature kiddies at home.

Depp Week continues into Thursday with The Cinema King's take on the role you've been looking for - Captain Jack Sparrow in 2003's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (sequels to follow). Stay tuned!

Charlie St. Cloud (2010)

2010-08-11T11:30:00.011-05:00

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Depp Week programming to bring you Charlie St. Cloud, Zac Efron's latest - and lightest - box office outing.

Efron plays the eponymous Charlie, taking off his dancing shoes and donning a winter coat of angst as the troubled teen who blames himself for the car crash that killed his younger brother Sam (Charlie Tahan). Charlie would have died too, were it not for the prayerful intercession of paramedic Florio Ferrente (Ray Liotta), but now that he's alive, Charlie has the unique ability to communicate with ghosts - particularly with Sam, with whom he had promised to practice baseball every day before college. But as Charlie wallows in his grief, working as a caretaker in a graveyard and throwing away his potential, he meets Tess Carroll (Amanda Crew), a spirited sailor who teaches Charlie the meaning of life - and letting go.

Allow me to first begin by saying that there is a very specific type of audience for whom this movie will hold almost unanimous appeal - and I'm not referring to the two old ladies I met this weekend who raved up and down about how "fantastic" and "spectacular" this picture was. For fans of the emotional catharsis, for Lifetime subscribers who can't get enough "life is for the living" morals, for people who just want to see Zac Efron take his shirt off - this movie offers all that in spades. But for more discerning viewers, I think Charlie St. Cloud comes up wanting.

Let me also add by way of preface that this isn't necessarily a bad movie. It's not terrible, but it's just not very good; on a scale of 1 to 10, it's probably a four or a five. The film itself is not very well-made, consisting mostly of fluffy emotions and hints of a story with more potential (potential perhaps lived up to in the Ben Sherwood novel on which the movie is based) than is acted upon. The biggest distraction in the film is Efron himself; I've admitted that I'm a fan of his career, and I think he's on his way to at least B-list stardom. But Charlie St. Cloud as a movie seems determined not to let him advance; for all the emoting and performing that Efron seems willing to do, the film spends far more time on shots that director Burr Steers (of 17 Again fame) must have consciously orchestrated in order to elicit maximum attractiveness out of Efron. There are a myriad of shots such as Charlie walking toward a window as soft light streams from the drapes and brings out the baby blue in his eyes; college students may one day craft a drinking game in which participants imbibe each time Efron takes his shirt off - two shots if the disrobing is not essential to the plot (which is, to say, always).

There are other people in the film, too; chief among them is Amanda Crew, who isn't asked to do very much in the film but who seems like she might be the next Jessica Biel if given the opportunity and a better haircut. Tahan is similarly unchallenging as ghostly Sam, but there's a sense of sibling chemistry between him and Efron which lends their scenes a genuine sense of authenticity and are some of the less improbable scenes in the film. As is often the case, Ray Liotta is criminally underused; though he makes the most of his two scenes in the film, the fact remains that he is only given two scenes in the film - hardly the stuff of a comeback, though he's an able caretaker of the film's "second chances" message, which is hammered repeatedly throughout the movie. Oh, yeah - and Kim Basinger's in here too, though I think the crew forgot about her during production as her character simply disappears with little more than an oblique "She moved" reference.

For a discerning viewer, a lot of the film will come off as very unsubtle. Dialogue consists mostly of characters shouting morals at each other - "Life is for the living!" and "You have to let go!" and "You were given a second chance for a reason!" among them. More notably, there's a plot twist borrowed wholesale from The Sixth Sense (no, Zac Efron's not actually dead, so I didn't spoil it... or maybe I did), but it's so blatantly obvious that the textbook foreshadowing barrels through the film like the freight train from Inception. But the most important lesson the film can teach us, it seems, is that Zac Efron has dreamy good looks that will plop ticketholders into seats faster than Dennis Miller can craft a metaphor.

If you've got a craving for eye candy, please see Charlie St. Cloud, if only to send a message that we're done with this whole Twilight business. Discerning moviegoers? You can still catch that Inception matinee.
Charlie St. Cloud is rated PG-13 "for language including some sexual references, an intense accident scene and some sensuality." I actually thought the innuendo was pretty tame, though parents might not like the "romantic interlude in a graveyard" scene, in which nothing but shadowplay is seen. The accident scene is startling but in a way that's been done to death; some mild blood accompanies this and another accident scene.

Stay tuned, folks, because your regularly scheduled programming for Depp Week continues next on The Cinema King as we go south of the border for Once Upon a Time in Mexico.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

2010-08-10T17:42:00.009-05:00

If it's Day Two of Depp Week here on The Cinema King, that means it must be Tuesday. And if you're smelling cocoa beans, don't adjust your set, because that indicates only that we're coming under the chocolate waterfall to the next Depp/Burton collaboration under scrutiny (and a surefire chance for yet another food metaphor) - 2005's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Here Depp plays eccentric recluse and chocolate bar wunderkind Willy Wonka, who for the first time is opening his factory's doors to the five lucky winners of a candy bar contest. Those bearers of the golden tickets - gluttonous Augustus Gloop, uber-competitive Violet Beauregarde, covetous Veruca Salt, media addict Mike Teavee, and good-natured Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore) - are treated to an all-access tour of the factory and all its magical secrets. But as this is a Roald Dahl story, the children's own vices - and the sins of their parents - will prove to be their chocolatey downfall, and the most virtuous of them will be rewarded.

I'll say in honesty that this is not Johnny Depp's finest performance. It's a good turn by him. It's typical Depp - wholly engrossed in the part and just this side of normal. But it's not his best. Comparatively, it's about as good as his turn in Alice in Wonderland. Willy Wonka is good, and there's nothing wrong with him, but it's just that we know Depp is capable of so much more. Of course, there's no other performance in the film that comes close to what Depp's up to (save perhaps Deep Roy, who portrays all the Oompa-Loompas, even the female ones), but Willy Wonka is just good but not great. But then again, even when Johnny Depp "phones it in," it's only the difference between an express train and a bullet train.

But I think the strongest comment I can make in praise of Charlie - and really, I did enjoy it, even after about one or two viewings a year until this most recent one - is that it's leaps and bounds better than its predecessor, 1971's ill-advised Newley/Bricusse musical version, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, led by Gene Wilder. A large part of this is due to the fact that this interpretation - as recognizable as it is as a product of director Burton's unique vision - adheres much closer to Roald Dahl's sensibilities than did the music-and-whimsy Wilder version. As much fun as Wilder was as Wonka (indeed, his version remains definitive in a way that Depp's isn't yet), the fact is that the original movie is a stinker; the acting is lame, the songs lamer, and a corporate espionage plotline shoehorned into the already meandering screenplay. Here the only songs are from Dahl's own book, sung gleefully by the Oompa-Loompas (all voiced by the unequivocal genius and frequent Burton partner Danny Elfman) after each child's inevitable and quasi-grisly exit from the factory; that the songs are all different (one a Brit-pop ballad, another an apparent homage to Queen) and closer to the source material belies a more earnest feel, something I never got from "Pure Imagination" or "I've Got a Golden Ticket" (which I detested so much that I can't be bothered to verify that was the actual title of the song Jack Albertson sang in the 1971 version).

So it sounds good, but the film looks even better, filled with Burton trademark flourishes and near-cameos by Burton regulars Helena Bonham Carter (as Charlie's mother) and Christopher Lee. It's Lee's turn as Wonka's father - dentist Dr. Wilbur Wonka - that's one of the more inspired additions to the film; while Wilbur appears nowhere in the original novels, his addition feels natural and lends a degree of plausibility to the otherwise indulgently kooky Wonka character. It humanizes the character in a way that it's almost impossible to remember that the candy mogul didn't originally have a chocophobic dentist for a father. But this is a movie that would work just as well on "Mute" as it would with the audio on; it's more colorful than a 96-count Crayola box, and it's fluid in a way that recalls the chocolate waterfall at the film's centerpiece.

But I do need to answer the criticism that I've often leveled while invoking this movie's name. I've said before that this film and others suffer from a creative mindset of "These are the story beats we need to hit, so let's keep moving because there's a lot we have to cover." Perhaps it's a casualty of the actual plot of the movie - a tour through certain rooms in which dramatic set pieces occur. But there's never a feel that anything in this movie is not preordained; certainly there are overt implications that Willy Wonka has planned each child's demi-demise, but there's a similar lack of creativity in the screenplay adaptation. Wilbur Wonka aside, it's almost too faithful, slavishly loyal to the source material; there's never a sense, for example, that there are other rooms in the factory beyond the few the kiddies get to see (although we do get shots of other rooms much later in the film). Consequently, it feels almost too generic, as though there are no other alternatives for how this whole thing will shake itself out.

In short, it's better than that other one. It feels pretty close, but it looks vastly different. That's the most critical deviation - the Burton look. And tossing Johnny Depp into the mix never hurt, either.

Hey, look at that. Nary a culinary metaphor in sight. Well done, indeed.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is rated a mere PG "for quirky situations, action and mild language." I'm not even going to pretend I know what that means. It's cartoonish, so the kids can probably handle it.

Depp Week continues into Wednesday with Once Upon a Time in Mexico, but keep your eyes peeled for a special bonus post between now and then, featuring a certain doe-eyed Disney star who's no stranger to this site. Stay tuned!

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

2010-08-09T09:50:00.011-05:00

Happy Monday, folks, and welcome to Depp Week at The Cinema King. In celebration of the work of one of the most talented actors of our generation, we'll begin our look at some of Johnny Depp's recent work and evaluate how he's done over the last ten years. We'll begin with the performance that netted Depp his third Oscar nod and his first (and, to this date, only) Golden Globe win: that of the singing, slicing barber Sweeney Todd.

One of my earliest musical reviews (of Hairspray, also from 2007) conducted itself in a song-by-song analysis, which was a format I found a) conducive to musical reviews and b) a stylistic shake-up amid the tedium of formula. I'll begin by way of a few prefatory notes. First, I am enamored with this movie; I've said before that it is the movie Tim Burton's been trying to make all his life. Second, I concede that it is not for everyone: Johnny Depp's performance is among his best, but it may not be for everyone; the brutal violence is stunning in a way that may repulse; and a few alterations to the source material may cause Sondheim diehards to spurn this adaptation. Finally, it is a musical, a fact not made apparent by the marketing team, and so some moviegoers may feel tricked. But, if you're like me - an open-minded Depp-head with a Burton fetish (for that is how best Burton's imagery may be described) - Sweeney Todd might be more delicious than a meatpie - with or without human filling.

The film opens on a ship (no, not a pirate ship; that's later on in Depp Week) with the mysterious Sweeney Todd (Depp) and the wide-eyed sailor Anthony (Jamie Campbell Bower) each arguing that "There's No Place Like London." Anthony comes from a place of naivete, suggesting that London is the most beautiful city in the world, while Sweeney Todd - fresh off an unjust stint in prison - remarks on the ugliness of the city by way of an anecdote about a barber (Sweeney, pre-prison) and his wife who were targeted by the dastardly Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman). The story ends unfinished, and the two part ways. Depp instantly inhabits the skin of the dark and disturbed stranger, evoking pathos before we even know why his eyes are so sunken; Bower is sort of beige, more of a sounding board than an actual character, but at least his singing voice is professional-sounding.
Sweeney finds his way to Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) and her meat pie emporium, wherein are sold "The Worst Pies in London." It's a perfect introduction to Mrs. Lovett and a perfect opportunity for HBC to show off just how delectably nutty she can be as she bemoans the bad luck her business has suffered. HBC continues to shine with "Poor Thing," as she reveals to Sweeney that his wife has killed herself, which leads Sweeney into the revenge ballad "My Friends," essentially a love song to the razors he plans to use as murder weapons. As Mrs. Lovett cloys and attempts to ingratiate herself with Sweeney, HBC gets one more chance to kook it up, but all eyes on this number ought to be on Depp, who pushes his voice as far as it can go - and succeeds.

The plot takes a step back for a moment as Anthony meets the love of his life - Joanna (Jayne Wisener), Sweeney's daughter and ward to Judge Turpin. The catch is that she's locked up ("Green Finch and Linnet Bird"), and her legal guardian isn't too keen on letting her go. The obvious solution here is to sing about it - Anthony gets the solo "Joanna" and promises to free his love before the end of the movie. This set of tracks might turn a few viewers away, but do stick with the film: Anthony and Joanna are slower parts of the picture, but intentionally so, as they're to provide a sort of counterpoint to the Sweeney/Lovett madness. Indeed, Joanna is more a MacGuffin than an actual character, since she's the thing Sweeney, Anthony, and Turpin are all chasing.

The plot takes a second, albeit more intriguing detour with "Pirelli's Miracle Elixir," a street-performance-turned-sales-pitch. The host, the Italian Adolfo Pirelli (Sacha Baron Cohen), serenades about his potion, which he and his young apprentice Toby (Ed Sanders) promise will regrow hair. But Sweeney calls them out and initiates "The Contest," a shaving competition to see who is the better barber. I won't spoil who the victor of the challenge is, but I will say that this is a great branching-out role for Cohen. Though he's known for his prankumentaries like Borat and Bruno, Cohen is at home as Pirelli, whose theatricality demands an actor who can play comedy with a straight face; Cohen is that actor, balancing the disingenuous front Pirelli wears with the actual menace beneath the blue frills.

Disheartened that his scheme is running slowly, Sweeney sulks as Mrs. Lovett encourages him to "Wait." It's a fairly low-key moment, but compared to the high intensity to come, it's a much needed breather, and it gives Burton a chance to play with some interesting angles and shots of mirrors in what is otherwise a scene of just one person singing to another. The calm, of course, precedes a storm, and with "Pretty Women" Sweeney gets his opportunity for revenge on Judge Turpin. It's a fantastically tense moment, as Sweeney readies his razors. It's also a unique scene because how often do you get to hear Alan Rickman sing? As quickly as this scene begins, it ends abruptly; Anthony interrupts, sending the Judge out of the barber shop and Sweeney into a rage. Suddenly, Sweeney has his "Epiphany" - the world is filled with monsters like Judge Turpin, which means the revenge scheme is thinking too small. As Sweeney vows to slit as many throats as possible, you'll get chills; finally, after about an hour of playing his cards close to the chest, Depp cuts loose and unleashes the full scope of his character's madness. It's this scene, as well as the next hour to follow, that I'm convinced earned Depp his nomination, since it's what fans of his trademark audacious insanity have come to expect and cherish.

And how do we top a number about genocide? Add cannibalism to the mix, suggests Mrs. Lovett in "A Little Priest." With all the bodies piling up, she teases, why not use them to boost my business, too? The song is infectiously loony, catchy in a way that giggles after laughing gas are; we know this is wrong, but the sheer normality and the subdued mirth evident in the performances of Depp and HBC are precursors to the kind of dark humor that governs the movie. But the movie pulls back a little from high satire and returns to its tragic roots with a reprise of "Joanna," in which Anthony's continuing love for Joanna is counterbalanced with Sweeney's sad realization that his original mission has slipped away from him - and that he no longer cares. Visually this is the most spectacular number, loosing Burton's bloody vision for the character by depicting throat after throat slit in spectacularly gushing fashion like something out of Tarantino's wildest imaginings; by pulling back on the intensity of the singing, it provides a built-in apology for the somewhat odd choice of casting Johnny Depp in a musical, since the feelings behind the music are vastly more important - and Depp does a dynamite job of revealing those emotions.

Mrs. Lovett dominates the next few tracks: "God, That's Good!" in which she introduces a hungry London to her latest culinary concoction; "By the Sea," a perfectly deluded number in which she details her lovestruck vision for a blissful future with an otherwise disinterested Sweeney; and "Not While I'm Around," in which she's forced to make a difficult promise to Toby, who's beginning to grow wise to Sweeney's machinations upstairs. The real highlight, though, is the Shakespearean tragedy that governs the film's ten-minute "Final Scene." Here, all the disparate plot threads - Sweeney's quest for revenge on the Judge, Mrs. Lovett's conflict over her love for Sweeney and for Toby, Anthony's pursuit of Joanna, and even that nutty old beggar woman who's been meandering in and out of the plot - tangle together with lightning speed, and before you know it, it's over - culminating in the most heartbreaking homage to the Pieta. Burton omits (wisely, in the opinion of this reviewer) the stage production's songs in the final scene, making it more about the things that characters aren't saying to each other; it's visually stunning and composed in a way that instills a building sense of dread that closes with a cathartic collapse of the house of cards these characters have built for themselves.

It's a film that'll leave you breathless. Once you've caught your breath, though, you might find yourself humming along to a few bars. It'll take a lot more than ale to wash that taste out.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is rated R "for graphic bloody violence." The movie is littered with angry arterial sprays, though all the blood appears in a highly stylized form, much thicker and color-desaturated than its real-life counterpart.

Tune in tomorrow, folks, because we're looking at another Depp/Burton collaboration - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - as Depp Week continues here at The Cinema King.

The Other Guys (2010)

2010-08-08T18:32:00.006-05:00

Let's have a few more laughs and one more cop film before Depp Week kicks off. Here's the movie that dethroned Inception from its perch at the top of the box office. And while I'm certainly not going to suggest The Other Guys is the stronger film, it's got a lot of laughs, and it's a solid choice for a trip to the theater if you've already seen Inception (sorry, Cats and Dogs 2).

Writer/director Adam McKay continues his series of collaborations with Will Ferrell (a series which began with Anchorman and continued into fellow funny flicks Talladega Nights and Step Brothers, the latter two introducing John C. Reilly to the mix) here, with Ferrell as desk cop Allen Gamble. After the spots for "top cop" are made vacant at the precinct (thanks to clever surprising cameos by Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson), Gamble and his partner Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) find themselves in the running to fill the open celebrity shoes - much to the consternation of their stressed captain (Michael Keaton). Gamble and Hoitz find their big case when a scaffolding permit violation leads them to Gordon Gekko-esque David Ershon (Steve Coogan) and an investment scheme that's skimming money from... well, somebody.

It's been MUFMW [(Mostly) Unintentional Food Metaphor Weekend] here at The Cinema King, and so I'll keep it going by saying that The Other Guys is, like many of Adam McKay's other films, a root beer float: two things at once, both tasty and cohabiting without overpowering each other. We have the root beer of a comedy film here but the ice cream heart of a cop film. And if I can stretch the metaphor a little further, the comedy part (the root beer) runs out first; about halfway through, The Other Guys becomes more of a straightforward police movie (ice cream) without losing sight of the comedy roots that make the first half of the film a gutbuster. That's not to say that the second half is less funny; it's just more cop conscious. Perhaps the best example of this divide is Sam Jackson's presence in the early scenes of the film, providing some of the deepest laughs ("Did someone call 9-1-Holy s**t?") but exiting quickly, leaving the film to be something a little more earnestly police-centric.

Fortunately, all the performers are well-equipped to handle the switch. Though Ferrell is obviously more comfortable with the funny stuff, moments when Gamble grows serious are reminiscent of his stellar turn in Stranger Than Fiction, proving that he's a little better than Michael Cera at switching off the "goofy" setting. Wahlberg, conversely, is more at home as the cop, but he wisely draws on his role as Sgt. Dignam in Scorsese's The Departed (which, if you haven't seen it, is pretty much the greatest movie ever made) to create a compelling police character with a prominent funny bone. Though Coogan is finely restrained (a far cry from Tropic Thunder and Tristram Shandy), the master of comedic timing in the film is Michael Keaton, who's already earned high marks from me for his role as Ken in Toy Story 3; Keaton is fantastic as the exasperated Captain Gene, juggling punchlines about a bisexual DJ son at NYU and a side job as a manager at Bed Bath & Beyond without ever feeling forced. I'm not saying this is an entirely compelling character, but Keaton's delivery certainly prevents the character from feeling like a mere receptacle for outrageous subplot after outlandish character trait. (One final note - is it a rule that Eva Mendes can only appear in cop movies? She's plenty funny as Gamble's "plain" wife, but it's a little jarring that I've only tagged her name in posts about cop movies.)

I want to go back briefly and reexamine the root beer float claim. No, I'm not going to strain the metaphor any more (though you'll probably see the phrase come up several times more on this blog), but I do want to talk a little bit about how movies can be two things at once - and do that well; failure to do so is, after all, one of the most frequently recurring complaints on this blog. I claimed that Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and Step Brothers all do this; Anchorman begins as a slapstick frat pack flick but becomes a commentary on the battle of the sexes, Talladega Nights changes gears between egotistical satire and satire on the cult of celebrity, and Step Brothers lampoons conventional sibling rivalries before metamorphosing (or, as the phrase goes, taking the shape of a unicorn) into a thoughtful meditation on growing up. For some, this can be jarring, but I think McKay's screenplays do a decent job of handling the left-hand turns that I've come to expect - and appreciate - from his work. Kudos, then, Mr. McKay, for doing what I've often said might be impossible. Now if you can get Megan Fox to actually act, then we're in business.

Until then, just keep making funny movies; I'll be in the front row until my sides split.
The Other Guys is rated PG-13 "for crude and sexual content, language, violence and some drug material." I thought it was all pretty tame; there are a few lines between Ferrell and Mendes that push the envelope, and a few sexual jokes crop up, but the most omnipresent objectionable content is the coat of cocaine that envelops Ferrell's red Prius.

Training Day (2001)

2010-08-08T11:07:00.004-05:00

Before we begin Depp Week 2010 here at The Cinema King, we're going to flashback to 2001 for a look at the performance that netted Denzel Washington a much-deserved Academy Award: dishonest cop Alonzo Harris in Training Day.

The film is pretty much a Denzel Washington performance with a plot and a few other actors around it, but there's a formula to a Cinema King review, so let's remain consistent: It's Jake Hoyt's (Ethan Hawke) first day on the job as a narcotics officer, and he's assigned to veteran Alonzo Harris (Washington), who's got a mean streak and a penchant for dispensing brutal "street justice." Over the course of 24 hours, Jake has to decide what side of the law Alonzo is on - and what side he himself wants to be on.

I really liked this movie - in fact, I fully expected to - so I'm not going to kid around about it. I've never met a Denzel Washington movie I didn't like, and Training Day is no exception. To keep the food metaphors going, it's a little like a steak - I'd been interested for a long time but was waiting for just the right moment; it didn't disappoint but rather is now something I'll be ready to revisit later (just not every day). It's just delicious. If I have a complaint about this movie, it's that there are scenes where Denzel isn't on camera, and when it's a performance this fine we feel cheated when he's not the permanent center of attention. (Of interesting note: an early choice for the role was Samuel L. Jackson; not sure how that would have compared to what we have here, but it makes me long for a prequel crossover between this and Lakeview Terrace.)

I've said before that the hallmark of any Denzel Washington performance is the way he conveys the fun that he's having into the audience. Maybe it's his infectious grin, or maybe it's his discreet naturalism - whatever it is, it's working. Alonzo Harris is fascinating in a way that a lot of crooked cop characters aren't; where most are fairly one-dimensional, Alonzo is unique in that he's deceptively sympathetic. Like Milton's Satan in Paradise Lost, Alonzo is compelling to the extent that the audience might actually begin sympathizing with him - coming from Alonzo, taking drugs and setting up a dealer for a fall all sound like good ideas until we remember that this is the bad guy talking. It's not difficult to see, then, why Jake begins to be seduced by Alonzo's ideas; Hawke's performance doesn't hurt, either, since here he's as good as he was in Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.

It's part of the trivia surrounding Training Day that its screenplay was written by one man and one man only, with no team of rewriters - David Ayer, who does a taut job introducing plot aspects and tying together loose ends which seem at first to be disconnected. The dialogue is sterling, too, realistic while still presenting itself as quotable: Denzel's closing monologue is already a staple for Denzel impressionists, and you'll be riffing a few of your favorite lines in the days to come, I'll bet. Fuqua's direction is on top, too, particularly in a grueling scene in which Jake finds himself at gunpoint in a room full of angry gang members.

But the film's greatest strength is turning Denzel loose and letting him work his magic. That alone - the opportunity to see one of the greatest living actors work his magic in a role that isn't exactly the type he's known for. Training Day is a far cry from John Q (the film that introduced me to Denzel), but it's as compelling a performance as any other one he's given... and maybe it's even his best (I'm still enamored with Malcolm X as the topper).
Training Day is rated R "for brutal violence, pervasive language, drug content and brief nudity." Definitely one of the more in-your-face violent movies, without shyness when it comes to gore or intensity; of course there are F-bombs galore and some heavy drug use in a few scenes, as well as an attempted rape and a fleeting scene of out-of-focus nudity.

Youth in Revolt (2009)

2010-08-07T22:19:00.008-05:00

It's been said that Michael Cera only plays the same character - the gangly, awkward teenager with his unrequited emotions on his sleeve and a mouth full of verbose non sequiturs. In a sense, Youth in Revolt is a response to that theory; here Cera plays a character desperate to reinvent himself as a "dangerous" casanova. This reinvention is fascinating, but much else about Youth in Revolt is otherwise fairly forgettable, marking potential but leaving the audience with little more than in-the-moment laughs.

Cera stars as the unfortunately named Nick Twisp, the standard Cera character, forced to relocate to a trailer park after his mother (Jean Smart) and her lover Jerry (Zach Galifianakis) are involved in selling a dud car to a few sailors. There Nick meets Manic Pixie Dream Girl Sheeni (Portia Doubleday), a girl he recognizes instantly as the love of his life despite the fact that she's already seeing someone. Sheeni's less convinced, encouraging him to "be bad" so that the two can move closer together once Nick is forced to move in with his father (Steve Buscemi). In order to be Sheeni's dream man, Nick crafts a "supplementary persona," Francois Dillinger (also Cera) - a chain-smoking, mustachioed arsonist. Oh yeah, and Fred Willard shows up a few times as Nick's uber-liberal neighbor Mr. Ferguson, who's more often than not eating those kinds of mushrooms.

First, the bad news. Zach Galifianakis isn't even in this movie. Sure, he has screen time, but his trademark stage presence is nowhere to be found; he plays a much more subdued, muted version of himself for the twenty minutes he's in the movie. That's right; it's sort of a spoiler, but the-man-who-would-be-Alan disappears from the film before we've had a chance to get to know his character. It's sort of a letdown, but it's a problem that plagues the rest of the film, too; Buscemi is almost a non-presence in the film, Justin Long peeks his head in for a bit of overplayed stoner humor, and the only thing genuinely funny about Willard's near-cameo is that Fred Willard is on the screen - otherwise, it's a part that could have been played by anyone capable of lying face-down on shag carpet. I haven't even mentioned Ray Liotta, who's also here. Liotta plays another cop, this one a potential paramour for Jean Smart's character, yet my problem here is the same one I had in Observe and Report - namely, that Liotta seems to be slumming. He's obviously talented and does a good job with what he has, but between this and a bit part on Hannah Montana, I'm close to putting Liotta on the "could have been" pile.

The film belongs almost entirely to the two Ceras, who are more than capable of supporting a movie on their own weight (it's just that I hate to see people like Buscemi, Liotta, and Willard reduced to being extras, when they're capable of so much more). Though Cera's definitive role for me will always be Superbad (George Michael on Arrested Development garners a close second), he does a very good job here, mumbling his way through the more awkward parts but doing it all with a sincerity that almost makes you forget this is but a variation on the same character he's been playing his whole career. His turn as Francois Dillinger is the more inspired of the two roles, since Dillinger is cool and confident (inspired, the film implies, by the iconic Jean-Paul Belmondo in Godard's Breathless), and it demonstrates there's a little room for growth in Cera's resume. Indeed, Dillinger provides the most laughs in the film, both because it's slightly incongruous for Cera to be speaking lines like "Thanks for breakfast" before overturning his cereal bowl and spitting on the carpet and because Dillinger is so cool about it that he himself seems almost a non sequitur in the movie.

So Dillinger is the star, and his role alone is worth the price of admission, but there are serious problems with the film's own identity. I referred to Sheeni as a "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" with my tongue firmly in cheek and a note of disdain because I'm growing tired of this stock character that's overstayed her welcome. Perhaps, then, that is the best thing Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind did for me - put nails in the coffin of the MPDG by exposing her as a fallacy. Early in Youth in Revolt, Nick tells us that the difference between real life and movies is that "In the movies the good guy gets the girl. In real life it's usually the prick." Fair enough; one might expect the movie to go the route of (500) Days of Summer, deconstructing the conventional plot threads while grounding the film in a sense of realism. And it seems to do that for a while; Nick remains obliviously in love with Sheeni while she seems to be willing to dismiss him as a "summer fling," but somewhere near the halfway mark the film becomes the same old story we've seen a million times before - boy overcomes obstacles to be with girl happily ever after. It's frustratingly inconsistent, both because of what the movie has already told us (these endings don't happen) and because of what the movie has already showed us (Sheeni is unwilling to leave her boyfriend Trent for Nick). I'm not averse to changing gears mid-stream, but here it seems purposeless, forced, and implausible. (See Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist for a way to do this shift correctly).

Youth in Revolt, then, is a little like a chocolate chip cookie. When you look at it on the shelf, it looks like exactly what you've been craving. As you're indulging in it, it's delicious. As you're almost done with it, you start to become disappointed. Once it's gone, it doesn't wash so well because you realize it's insubstantial - almost exactly like all the other cookies you've had. But it tasted good doing down, so perhaps that's all that matters.
Not for the kiddies, Youth in Revolt snagged an R rating "for sexual content, language and drug use." Frank sexual dialogue and implications and F-bombs fly freely, and a few scenes revolve around psychotropic mushrooms and marijuana.

Memento (2000)

2010-08-07T15:17:00.011-05:00

Memento was Christopher Nolan's first big picture (a smaller film called Following preceded it), but it's indicative of the caliber of filmmaker Nolan is that Memento displays none of the unpolished nascence that many "early films" possess. Instead, it's a smart film, engaging in many of the same ways that Nolan's other films are.

The protagonist of Memento is Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce), a former insurance salesman who, following the murder of his wife, is no longer able to form new memories; since he has only a weak short-term memory, Leonard must write down or photograph anything he needs to remember. Leonard is aided by Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss, in her pre-Matrix days), who has also lost someone, and Teddy (Joe Pantoliano), a cop who apparently was one of Leonard's wife's attackers. Take note - that's not a spoiler. The entire film is told backwards, with Leonard killing Teddy at the beginning of the film. Consequently, the film unwinds in reverse, putting the audience in Leonard's shoes as we try to connect scenes and uncover motivations.

The hallmark of any Christopher Nolan movie is its intellect, and Memento is as sharp as anything else Nolan's done thus far - perhaps even smarter than its successors (though Inception is pretty darned brainy). What's particularly brilliant about Memento is the way that it creates and sustains audience interest by forcing us to feel the psychological plight of Leonard; just as he cannot remember where he has been, so too are we left in the dark, fumbling for answers about backstory. When Leonard asks himself (as he does repeatedly), "Where am I?" the audience is asking right along. But the added level of ingenuity comes from the fact that the film doesn't simply feel like it was written forward and then put backward; the screenplay instead makes perfect sense in its own nonlinear format, spiraling backward to answer one mystery while asking yet another. It's like Lost at its most addictive, with a plot twist every five minutes - only here, the mysteries matter, and most of them are answered at the ending.

No, Memento doesn't tie everything in a neat little bow; like a crazy straw, it forces the viewer to work hard and only then follow the path that the film has taken. If you're coming to a Christopher Nolan movie without moral noir in your bloodstream, you're in the wrong theater. Memento, like everything else Nolan has done, is marked by brutally murky shades of moral ambiguity, especially once the film reveals who's lying to whom (hint: the lies we tell ourselves, the film suggests, may be the deadliest of all). Consequently, the film hits what might be a slip-up for some; Memento appears on first glance (and even on second) to fail to explain the significance of the story of Sammy Jankis, here heartbreakingly played by the criminally underrated Cinema King-favorite Stephen Tobolowsky. Sammy Jankis suffers from the same disorder Leonard does, and Leonard tells the story of Sammy Jankis throughout the film; he even has "Remember Sammy Jankis" tattooed on his hand. But remember him why? The lies told by characters throughout the film call into question the integrity of the Sammy Jankis narrative, to the point where you'll ask the question that almost every Nolan film inevitably invites - is any of this even real? If the ambiguity weren't intentional, I'd be complaining, but I think I've got it cracked, anyway. (Hint: it's all about lying.)

But there are other things going on in the film other than cerebral interrogations of morality and the art of knowing things. There are some very good performances, chief among them Pearce's; though Pearce has been a favorite of mine since his turn as the villainous Mondego in 2002's The Count of Monte Cristo, Memento is probably his strongest role, equal parts mysterious and mystified and perfectly plausible as a man with all the answers but who has forgotten where he has put them. Moss is solid and a little shady as Natalie, making me mourn the fact that The Matrix series seems to have put an otherwise promising career on hold, and as Teddy "Joey Pants" reminds me how delightfully seedy he always is (particularly in his top role, as the scummy Ralphie on The Sopranos). And I've already praised Tobolowsky, with whom readers should know I'm cinematically in love.

Memento is certainly not for everyone. It's intelligent unlike a lot of what Hollywood's churning out, but its downer note on the human condition's tragic attraction to self-destructive moral uncertainty. But for anyone acquainting themselves with Nolan's oeuvre, Memento is a fine place to continue your sojourn. Just try to keep up.

Memento is rated R "for violence, language and some drug content." The violence gets a little on the bloody side in a few fight scenes, and the film isn't shy about F-bombs (about 75). There's some brief discussion about rape, an implied romantic interlude, and fleeting rear nudity during a fight scene that seems like a precursor to Eastern Promises.

Back from Vacation

2010-08-07T12:13:00.002-05:00

Hey, loyal readers - Cinema King here. A few eagle-eyed Web surfers have noticed an alarming dearth of new content over here. An explanation, it seems, is in order.

See, I've been in Florida for the past two weeks. I realize that last year I set up a few posts to upload while I was away, but things got a little more hectic this summer; between prepping for a move to an entirely different state and catching a Don Rickles show the night before my flight to Florida, I've been a little distracted.

Never fear, though. I'm making up for it this weekend with a few reviews that have been percolating for some time now. We're going to start things off by seguing from the Inception review with a peek at Christopher Nolan's mind-bending (as opposed to his other films, which fantastically mind-blowing) Memento from 2000; we'll also visit Denzel Washington and his Oscar-winning performance in Antoine Fuqua's 2001 flick Training Day. Then it's a celebration of one of the greatest living actors - Johnny Depp; we'll be touring his performances (listed in my viewing order) in 2007's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, as directed by Tim Burton; 2003's Once Upon a Time in Mexico, directed by Robert Rodriguez; and 2005's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, also directed by Burton. The Depp-fest concludes with a look at what is perhaps Depp's most high-profile role - that of Captain Jack Sparrow in the 2003-2007 Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, directed by Gore Verbinski. Finally, we'll wind down this weekend with a few laughs; I'm not sure whether I'll be seeing Dinner for Schmucks or The Other Guys - or both - so stay tuned.

Keep your home pages set to The Cinema King, because we're about to have some fun. Stay tuned, loyal readers.

Inception (2010)

2010-07-19T11:57:00.006-05:00

Before I launch into my review of Inception, let me just say that this is a fantastic film, downright dynamite and an absolute must-see. I'm just giddy about it. And now, the review proper:

Christopher Nolan's Inception is one of the most anticipated movies to hit Hollywood in a long time - probably the first of that anticipatory magnitude since Nolan's last and perhaps greatest venture, 2008's The Dark Knight - for a few very good reasons. First, it's Christopher Nolan's next film, and everyone's dying to see if he can continue his winning streak after making a comic book movie that's in the runnings for "instant classic." Secondly, Inception's marketing campaign is tantalizingly vague, unrevealing in an expertly intriguing way. Finally and most significantly, it's one of the only movies this year to be wholly and unequivocally original; it's not a sequel, a prequel, a remake, a reboot, an adaptation, a rip-off, or a retread. Inception is wildly imaginative, delectably innovative, and enthusiastically entertaining - unquestionably one of the best films of the year and a strong contender for the year's top honor.

Those in the know (namely, those who have seen it) are extremely reticent to talk about Inception on a plot level, desperately afraid that the uninitiated will have the movie spoiled for them. But what's delightful about Inception is that it's practically unspoilable; the major joys of the film come not from what happens, but how and why it happens. Still, if the following plot summary is in any way lacking, it's because I'm holding back; after all, being there is half the fun.

Inception introduces us to a radical new world, one in which dreams can be invaded, manipulated, and harvested. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Cobb, a self-styled "extractor" who specializes in entering dreams and stealing important information from his marks - extraction. Already on the run from the law after mysteriously parting ways with his wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) who regularly appears in his dreams, Cobb is offered a chance to return home by pulling off a heretofore unheard of and presumably impossible task - inception, planting an idea rather than stealing one. And so, assuming inception can be done, Cobb assembles a team (which includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page as researcher and dream architect, respectively) and sets to work.

Essentially, Inception is a heist film turned on its head; it's a heist film in which the object is to plant, not to steal, but thatn's not where the similarities end. Here we have the protagonist with a dark past, the characteristically complex team of misfits, the young novice (Page, who respectfully restrains her trademark snarkiness in deference to the film's concentration on verisimilitude), the mark (Cillian Murphy as a coolly cold corporate heir apparent), the shady yet wealthy backer (Nolan standard Ken "Fake Ra's" Watanabe, who adeptly handles the shift from suspicious to endearing), and the twist-upon-twist format that Nolan employed to widespread approval in his fabulous magician's duel The Prestige. Inception warrants comparison to The Prestige because both films relied upon warning the audience they were about to be tricked, but Inception takes it one step further by letting the audience in on the game; we're not on the sidelines but rather in the field with the team, figuring it out as we go along rather than letting our protagonists do it for us.

If I had to review Inception in only two words, I'd choose the phrase "mental calisthenics" because I can't remember the last time a movie made me keep my mind so concentrated to the point where I actually felt tired at the end of it all. Never mind those who say that the movie is "confusing" because what it actually is is engaging; Inception spells itself out for you, but it's up to you to follow along. The concept of "inception" is explained once and only once, so pay attention; this is a thoughtful movie but it's also a high-octane adventure picture with no time to backtrack or recap. Like the train that features into the film's climax, the course of Inception runs fast and unrelentingly forward.

There really aren't enough positive things I could say about Inception. It's a downright brilliant film, anchored by sharp and solid performances from all around. TheWrap.com recently argued that the coming generation doesn't have an A-list in the bunch, but DiCaprio and JGL are obvious contenders for the next breed of A-listers. Riffing on his role in Shutter Island, in which he also had difficulties separating reality from imagined delusion, DiCaprio takes center stage here and holds the audience's attention, proving that he's at his best when he's playing a character with a few cards hidden - both from his fellow characters and from the audience. JGL is much more straightforward, doing a great job as a serious actor after proving he's got solid comedic chops in (500) Days of Summer. And working with very little character description, Cotillard is a vision (often literally) as Mal, maintaining a perfect balance between the mystery surrounding her character and the sense of importance underlying her many appearances. I've already spoken well of Page, Murphy, and Watanabe, but let's not overlook a small but vital role from Michael Caine as Cobb's mentor and tether to the world Cobb has had to leave behind.

The script is smart, the performances sterling, but the visuals are downright eye-popping. Nolan boasted of filming in six different countries (up from three in The Dark Knight), and it shows - scenery is strikingly gorgeous, ranging from Tokyo bullet-trains to the nighttime cityscape of Paris to the snowy mountains of... well, someone's dream. The standout visual piece, though, is a hotel in which conventional rules of gravity no longer apply (to explain why would be to betray one of the film's better surprises); while the scene has Kubrickian undertones with a rotating corridor straight out of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Nolan ups the ante by staging a fight scene in zero gravity - and it's one of the most breathtaking fights in recent cinematic history, outdoing the "bullet time" of The Matrix and the quick-cut style of the Bourne trilogy. Nolan's style is one that continually leaves his audience breathless because Inception insists on outdoing itself - visually and creatively.

If you haven't already figured it out, I'm nothing short of gaga about Inception. Before this review turns into abject gushing, let me close by noting once more that Inception is undebatably a top movie of 2010, a must-see for a myriad of reasons, and a sheer delight to behold. As if I weren't already stoked about Nolan's third Batman movie.

Inception is rated PG-13 "for sequences of violence and action throughout." Overall, it's pretty tame, with more emphasis on thrills than gore, although blood appears sporadically but never explicitly.

Groundhog Day (1993)

2010-07-18T21:09:00.005-05:00

And now for something completely different - a light-hearted comedy (with strong philosophical overtones) that restored my faith in Harold Ramis and reminded me how much I love Bill Murray.

Groundhog Day, if it's not already, ought to be widely regarded as a modern American classic both for its aesthetic merits and its scholarly potential. Murray stars as weatherman Phil Connors, assigned to cover the appearance of groundhog Punxsutawney Phil on February 2. After completing his report, Phil finds himself trapped in a time loop; no matter what he does, he wakes up each morning on February 2, forced to relive the day over and over and over again, trapped in his least favorite town in America. From drunken disorderly conduct to petty larceny to pure gluttony, Phil soon discovers that his cloud has a silver lining - a Christmas Carol-esque opportunity to turn his life around and win the affection of pretty producer Rita (Andie MacDowell).

There's little question that Bill Murray is funny, and there's even less interrogation of the claim that Groundhog Day is among his best work. In a way, Phil Connors is the iconic Bill Murray role - obnoxiously self-assured, dripping with dry humor, and mildly misanthropic (Dr. Venkman of Ghostbusters is cut from the same cloth). So it's a pitch-perfect performance that Murray turns in here, bringing his trademark ennui and disinterested delivery to a character that so succinctly states what "the Bill Murray character" is. But there's a touch more at stake than just comedic timing and wry smirks; Phil's descent into depression when he realizes the futility of progress in his own personal hell is among some of the finer cinematic portrayals of despondency, and it's a credit to Murray that he can do drama as well as comedy - within the same picture, to boot.

The other performers are fine in their parts, though it's unquestionably Murray's movie. MacDowell is a strong foil for Murray, compassionate and optimistic in the face of Phil's sardonic nature. As cameraman/sidekick, Chris Elliott isn't distracting, which makes me forget why I'm not a big fan of his (though not entirely; he still owes the world for Cabin Boy). But perhaps the strongest supporting performance - groundhog aside - comes from top-caliber character actor Stephen Tobolowsky; fans of Glee will recognize him as ousted show choir director Sandy Ryerson, but it's here as "Needlenose" Ned Ryerson that most fans came to love him (I'd always liked him, but it took his "Tobolowsky Files" podcast for that affection to be solidified). Ned Ryerson is a scene-stealer in all the best ways, such that his (re)appearance(s) are among the highlights of Phil's day; just "watch out for that first step - it's a dooooozy!"

But the script is smart beyond just being clever. It's somewhat easy to write a punchline, to give a talented actor like Murray a one-liner he can use to zing another character, but to come up with a script as intelligent as Groundhog Day is a doozy, and so major kudos go to Ramis and Danny Rubin for an intellectually stimulating screenplay that transcends the obvious material and delves into psychologically and academically compelling material. What would such an experience do to a person - an egocentrist, in particular? Perhaps the best exploration of this concept comes in a key diner scene, in which Phil offers that he might be a god - not the God, of course, but one of them, one who's "just been around so long that he knows everything." Bordering on blasphemy, the film deftly navigates the issue by making it about Phil, not Phil's claim. And without distracting us with the cause of Phil's eternity on Feb. 2 (it's never revealed, nor even alluded to), we can focus wholly on matters of character and, to an interesting extent, destiny. But the film never gets bogged down in its own philosophical foundations, remaining abundantly entertaining and laugh-out-loud.

All this Groundhog Day accomplishes with imperturbability, unflinchingly cool and eminently amusing without becoming stale on repeat viewings (honestly, I've got to be past 20 on "times I've seen this movie").

Groundhog Day is fairly tame, rated PG "for some thematic elements," a description that does its best to obfuscate what's objectionable about this movie - basically, recklessness and a few suicides that are heavily implied but which occur off-screen (the most fantastical transpires on-screen, with a eyes-widening explosion).

Raging Bull (1980)

2010-07-06T13:59:00.008-05:00

Move Raging Bull off of the "I can't believe I've never seen this" list and onto the "great American classics" list.

Martin Scorsese's "rebirth" picture, made at a tumultuous time in the film icon's life, is a biopic about boxer Jake La Motta (Robert DeNiro) on his way to a title challenge. Raging Bull follows Jake from his first fights to his later years of ignominy as a nightclub performer, but the film spends less time in the ring and more time examining the ways in which Jake's paranoia ends up dismantling his relationships with his brother Joey (Joe Pesci) and his gorgeous second wife Vickie (Cathy Moriarty).

Raging Bull is many things at once - a feat that many films reviewed on this blog have tried and failed - but the most significant thing that it is not what a first-time audience expects. I had assumed I was in for standard biopic fare, a rise and fall story on a par with pretty much everything else Scorsese has done (and done well); imagine my surprise when boxing scenes take up very little of the film's runtime and lets the focus linger on Jake's private life - a move that makes an interesting statement about what makes a life significant. It is our relationships, Scorsese suggests, that define us, and consequently it is our own nature that determines how our relationships are to progress.

Raging Bull is dominated by absolutely gorgeous and breathtaking cinematography on Scorsese's part. While every Scorsese picture reviewed herein on this blog has earned high marks for aesthetics, the decision to film Raging Bull in black-and-white almost makes (as distinct from "breaks") the movie. The subconscious associations with nostalgia, the past, and moral absolutism - as well as the accompanying paranoia that befalls La Motta - create an ironically vibrant atmosphere amid the grayscale visuals on the screen.

This is due also in large part to DeNiro's stellar central performance. I think DeNiro - like Al Pacino, who's often connoted with him - has a tendency to phone in performances; there's nothing particularly stellar about his work in Meet the Parents or Jackie Brown, but he's earned a certain "DeNiro credit" for past services rendered. So if you're wondering why DeNiro is considered a top actor, look no further than Raging Bull, in which DeNiro plays a range of emotions and personality traits within one very complex yet fully plausible figure. All this is to say nothing of the sheer physical tranformation exhibited on the screen; no fat suits here - the extra pounds DeNiro carries as an older, doughier Jake La Motta are the genuine article. Featured co-lead Pesci (here in one of his earliest roles) does a solid job as the film's second banana, evoking lifelike chemistry with DeNiro and demonstrating his ability to be restrained rather than consistently over-the-top (as in Goodfellas and Casino). Moriarty kind of floats through this one, never misstepping but merely existing for the purpose of coming between Jake and Joey; she's pretty, which is all the script asks of her, but she doesn't have enough of a presence to ever take the spotlight away from DeNiro and Pesci - which is, of course, a good thing.

Like Casino, Raging Bull isn't exactly the kind of movie about which I can immediately gush after seeing it. In fact, the movie is unsettling in a lot of places: La Motta's fall from fame is heartbreaking, and his brief stint in prison is so violently uncomfortable that it's difficult not to look away (the latter being a perfect example of Scorsese's gift at knowing when not to cut a scene). It's also not straightforward (also a good thing), deftly avoiding cliches that in 1980 hadn't even been invented yet and thereby remaining freshly original. Though it's not a comfortable film, it's a viciously well-made one, representing the apex of the creative partnership betwixt Scorsese and DeNiro - two American filmmakers doing some of their finest work.

Raging Bull wouldn't be a Scorsese movie if it weren't rated R, this time ffor some very strong brutal violence - most of it set in the boxing ring - as well as about 100 F-bombs and occasional moderate sexual dialogue. One of Scorsese's tamer movies, but it's got its moments.

Iron Man (2008)

2010-07-04T21:46:00.008-05:00

There are two kinds of comic books movies - the good and the bad. Within the division of "good" exist two subdivisions - the light-hearted and the heavy. Where The Dark Knight represents the pinnacle of what the heavy can accomplish in terms of cinematic excellence, Iron Man (released in the same year) is the finest example of a comic book movie high on thrills and - perhaps more importantly - unabashed fun.

Robert Downey, Jr. stars as weapons innovator Tony Stark, who's just debuted his new missile-within-a-missile project, the Jericho. After demo'ing the Jericho for armed forces contact James Rhodes (Terrence Howard), Stark is kidnapped by terrorists who demand that he build them a Jericho. Stark manages to turn the tables on his captors, creating a suit of forged iron in which he effects his escape. After returning to the States and much to the chagrin of business partner Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), Tony Stark begins to rebuild his legacy by stripping his company of its weapons manufacturing arm and by suiting up to fight the bad guys as Iron Man.

Iron Man is an important entry in the comic book movie genre because it reminds us that comic book movies can be fun without being campy. Bye-bye, market pandering of Batman and Robin; au revoir, angst of Ang Lee's Hulk. Here's a movie whose director - and consequently its protagonist - is chiefly interested in high-flying fun and in turning out a high-quality superhero flick grounded in good spirits and verisimilitude. It's difficult not to feel a swell of breathtaking ecstasy while watching Iron Man swoop through the skies, and it's downright impossible to remain coolheaded while watching the scene in which Iron Man destroys a tank while simultaneously validating the "cool guys don't look at explosions" trope; it's a scene whose very purpose seems to be to elicit a "Wow, that's awesome" reaction - which it does.

And if anyone can watch this movie and remain stoic and humorless while watching RDJ's performance as Tony Stark - a role he was, essentially, born to play - is a soulless, lifeless zombie. RDJ wears the character like a second skin, completely comfortable as the character and yet entirely believable as a real person. We're introduced to the character first as a fun-loving wisecracker whose life turns topsy-turvy before the AC/DC guitar solo can end, but quickly we get a sense of the facets beneath the witty exterior - the son in his father's shadow, the inventor with the guilty conscience, the objectivist profiteer with a heart of gold. All of these suits RDJ wears with coolly composed sangfroid, a convincing performance that's among the most compelling in any comic book movie - or, indeed, in any film of 2008, right up there with Heath Ledger's Joker and Brad Pitt's Chad Feldheimer. The other performers are good, too; Bridges is pitch-perfect as Stane, the ostensible villain of the piece, and Howard is such a fantastic foil to RDJ that one very nearly regrets the sequel's decision to replace him with Don Cheadle. But this is unquestionably RDJ's show, and he more than rises to the occasion.

A few disconnected thoughts: The special effects are dazzling, fun in a way that might be surprising for viewers expecting run-of-the-mill men-in-metal-suits-whaling-on-each-other action scenes. The glossy sheen on Stark's Iron Man suit is dazzling, lending a preternatural twinkle to his action scenes, and the combat is punctuated with bits of physical humor that prevents a disconnect from forming between man and mask. Also present are the Randian echoes that critics have noted; a particularly salient moment comes when Stark is told, "You really think that just because you have an idea, it belongs to you?" And while I haven't heretofore read any Iron Man comics (I know, shame; I have an unread Masterworks on my bedroom floor, though), I can't imagine the film being any bit inaccurate as far as the hero's spirit is concerned.

If I could give Iron Man a more glowing review, I would. Suffice it to say that this is a phenomenal picture, at once an acccomplishment on celluloid and an exhilarating breeze of a picture - in total, the perfect summer blockbuster.
Iron Man is rated PG-13 "for some intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and brief suggestive content." A few quick shots of bloody violence occur, but most of the violence is directed at a metal battlesuit, which scuffs and chips but never totally breaks. Mild flirting occurs between RDJ and pretty much every female character in the film, a few of whom wake up in his bed the next morning without showing more than bare shoulders.

Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut (1980/2006)

2010-06-29T20:27:00.006-05:00

The vote is in: I like Richard Donner's version better.

In several important ways, this will be less review and more analysis, comparative in a way that most every review on this blog is not. The film under inspection is Superman II, originally released in 1980 as directed by Richard Lester but re-released in 2006 as directed by Richard Donner. Having been fired from Superman II, Donner had already filmed most of his rendition of Superman II, initially intending both the first and the second films be shot simultaneously; after the studios vetoed this idea, Donner - with 75% or so of the sequel in the can already - halted his Superman II until 2006, when he finally edited his cut together.

Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut is, in broad strokes, very similar to Lester's Superman II. The overall plot is the same: Superman (Christopher Reeve) fends off a Kryptonian criminal invasion led by General Zod (Terence Stamp) in alliance with Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) while dodging the suspicions of Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) that Clark Kent and Superman are one and the same. It's in the details that the two versions differ, and as the saying goes, the devil is in the details. I'm most pleased to say that all the things to which I objected in the Lester version are excised from Donner's cut, although Donner's version isn't entirely polished, leading to some distracting problems with the ending (which, inevitably, I'll have to spoil).

My aim here isn't to simply compare and contrast, to pick apart what's new and different between versions. Better reviewers than myself have had four years to do just that; for one, see DVD Verdict, who did a pretty good comparison job. Instead, my aim here is to look at the (in my eyes) most significant changes and whether or not they enrich the film. For starters, my favorite line - "Superman, thank God" - is untouched (and indeed plays out funnier, for reasons to be discussed below), so score one for Donner.

The Donner cut opens with Jor-El (Marlon Brando) sentencing Zod, Ursa, and Non to the Phantom Zone. This scene was added into the DVD version of Superman: The Movie, so it's nothing new in this reviewer's eyes; indeed, it's even a little distracting to see the same scene replayed again. But I fully understand and appreciate the Donner cut's aims in reinstating this scene: it clearly and finely restores Jor-El to the plot of Superman II, making more apparent the "son becomes the father" parallel I noted in the Lester cut. It also underscores a larger role for Jor-El to play, a role fulfilled by Superman's mother Lara (Susannah York) in the Lester cut in order to avoid paying Brando the exorbitant fees he commanded; bringing Jor-El back into the story creates a deeper connection with the first film and introduces a more compelling dynamic than the one with Lara. Donner leading Lester, 2-0.

I praised Lester's treatment of the growing dynamic between Clark and Lois, but Donner takes the advantage here for doing a better job with it. Donner's cut more subtly highlights Lois's growing suspicions, replacing the Parisian terrorist scene with a more successful scene at the Daily Planet, which introduces both Lois's cause for suspicion and the honeymoon racket expose; instead of throwing herself into Niagara Falls, Lois instead leaps from the Daily Planet offices. And instead of Clark clumsily tripping into the fireplace, Lois takes a more proactive approach, which would be criminal to spoil since it's undoubtedly the best "new" scene in the Donner cut. 3-0 now.

Donner's cut explains a lot of problematic plot holes in Lester's rendition, chief among them the connection between Lex Luthor and the Kryptonians, as well as the restoration of Superman's powers (which I thought was more a problem of audience members not interpreting correctly, but oh well). Here, when Lex breaks into the Fortress of Solitude with Miss Teschmacher, he's treated to a crystal projection of Jor-El explaining his role in Zod's imprisonment. By explaining the plot to Lex and by Hackman's perfect portrayal, it's apparent why Luthor feels he can reason with Zod & Co.; more importantly, this new scene explains how Lex knows that Superman is Kal-El, a fact that's not apparent in the Lester cut. Later, the restoration of Superman's powers is accomplished through a great scene between Brando and Reeve, who play off each other very well. It's a scene that cements Jor-El's compassion for his son, and the sad resignation on Brando's face is evidence enough for why Brando was considered one of the best actors of his generation. Donner's 4-love, for those playing the home game.

The greatest thing Richard Donner did for Superman II, however, is his judicious exorcism of all things slapstick from Lester's version of the story. Gone are the silly wind jokes during the battle for Metropolis; left by the wayside is the silly characterization of Non as an inept dullard with no grasp of his powers. Consequently the villains are entirely - finally - threatening, surrounded by only menace and dread, not the lurking suspicion that a gag is just around the corner. In Lester's cut, I got the idea that Zod was exasperated with the fact that he was the only particularly daunting figure in the trio, but in Donner's version I now feel - as Superman must - that all three Kryptonians present a viable threat. That isn't to say that Donner's cut is entirely humorless; rather, the laughs come from all the right places: Luthor's sly attitude, the Clark/Lois relationship, and Reeve's easygoing personality. 5-0 now.

But in the last quarter, Lester scores a point for a better ending. "Hang on," you say, "this is the guy who used cellophane super-shields and multiple Supermen to end his movie?" Well, yeah, and thank God those are gone. Donner's Fortress scenes are overall cleaner and truer to the spirit of Superman, but the actual ending of Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut is unpolished in very distracting ways. This newer version leaves entirely unanswered the fate of Lex Luthor, stranding him in the Fortress of Solitude - which, seconds later, is destroyed by Superman. Huh? And while Donner earns high marks for better handling Lois's conflicted feelings about knowing Clark's secret identity, he loses points for unoriginality. As much as I hated the amnesia kiss, I was even more let down by the way in which the Donner cut handles the problem of Lois knowing: reversing the rotation of the earth and going back in time. This ending worked in the first movie, but here it just feels like Donner ran out of ideas. For a film that feels so much fresher in the new cut, the ending doesn't do the rest of the film justice; as an added detriment, this time-traveling ending problematizes the last scene of the Donner cut, in which Clark returns to a diner to even the score with a burly trucker - which, if time had been undone, shouldn't need to be done if it didn't happen. So in that regard, Lester has the advantage, especially for his patriotic ending in which Superman restores the American flag to the White House. For a man who allegedly didn't understand the character, he sure hit the nail on the head with that one. Final score? 5-1.

So while the Donner cut isn't perfect, it's still leaps and bounds (over a tall building, most likely) better than the more pronounced-ly flawed Lester version. Some are complaining about the rough cut nature of the film; some effects shots are unfinished, and other scenes are drawn from screen tests plagued with continuity issues. But this is an iconic character whose very nature is based on the power of imagination. In the words of DC Comics marketing, "Just imagine." This is the version in which a man truly flies, the version I'll be watching again and again.
Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut is rated PG "for sequences of action violence, some language and brief mild sensuality." In terms of objectionable content, it's exactly identical to the original film, although the removal of comic relief may make the violence seem a little more unrelenting - which isn't a bad thing in my opinion. I doubt that Kryptonian criminals hot out of exile would stop to arm-wrestle a few yokels.

Superman II (1980)

2010-06-29T14:03:00.006-05:00

I've always had the impression that Superman II is, with Spider-Man 2 and The Dark Knight, widely (perhaps almost universally) regarded as a comic book sequel that's better than its predecessor. I'm not entirely convinced by that statement, but only because I'm not certain that Superman II exceeds its predecessor. It certainly soars equally as high, but there are a few missteps which seem to be newcomer director Richard Lester's fault (I'll know more after I screen the Richard Donner cut). Don't get me wrong, though; Superman II is nevertheless fantastically compelling.

With Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) safely behind bars, Superman (Christopher Reeve) is flying high, thwarting Parisian terrorists and saving children at Niagara Falls. His mild-mannered alter ego, reporter Clark Kent, is teamed on a honeymoon racket expose with tough-as-nails Lois Lane (Margot Kidder), who's growing suspicious of Clark's absence every time Superman appears. Meanwhile, a freak accident unleashes three Kryptonian criminals (Terence Stamp, Sarah Douglas, and Jack O'Halloran) from the prison dimension The Phantom Zone; these new foes seek to conquer Earth and take revenge on Superman, the son of their jailer Jor-El. Meanwhile, Superman wrestles with the decision between his superpowers and a mortal life with Lois.

Superman II picks up right where its predecessor left off and so feels more like a natural extension of the first than an actual sequel (where, for contrast's sake, The Empire Strikes Back felt more like a sequel to Star Wars, three years removed both in real time and narrative time). Consequently, much of what I praised about the first film still applies here; the action scenes are still rousing, the performances are still above-board, and the movie is just as fun as the one that kicked off the franchise. As all the best sequels do, Superman II builds upon and deepens material from Superman: The Movie without resting on its laurels and merely repeating more of the same (though I loved it, Iron Man 2 was guilty of this "more of the same" business, although that worked tonally for the movie, which needed only to be more than the first to be successful, which it was). Standout features here are the complex relationship between Clark Kent and Superman; this identity crisis, merely alluded to in the first film, takes one of three rings in this circus, fleshed out by riveting performances by Reeve and Kidder, between whom the chemistry is palpable.

Also developed is a throwaway line by Marlon Brando (who is noticeably missing here) in the first film: "The son becomes the father." Here, Superman is held culpable for his father's role as jailer of Stamp's General Zod and his compatriots Ursa and Non. Superman's acceptance of this responsibility is well-played by Reeve, who lets us see the conflicted nature of this choice. While we're on the subject, major points to Terence Stamp, who's absolutely dynamite as General Zod; Stamp never lets us remember that this is a comic book movie, because Zod is so three-dimensional and real that it's easy to forget his intricate sci-fi backstory. Underneath all his black leather and superpowered trappings, Zod still possesses very human sensibilities - the desire to conquer, the inevitable boredom in an arena without challenge, and a general contempt for lower creatures (which, in Zod's case, is anyone else). Stamp so fully inhabits the character that it's no surprise people are still to this day quoting his trademark "Kneel before Zod!" to the point where his current comics counterpart invokes the slogan every so often. Douglas and O'Halloran are serviceable but ultimately little more than window dressing to accentuate the degree to which Superman is outmatched.

As for the human villain, Hackman returns as Lex Luthor and does an even better job than he did before; in Superman: The Movie, Lex was fairly one-note - brilliant but disdainful of others - where here he gets a new dimension. With only his great criminal mind at his disposal after a quick jailbreak, Lex allies himself with the Kryptonian supercriminals in a bid for conquest and the destruction of mutual enemy Superman; this plan is a fairly poor one, though, and it's fascinatingly fun to watch Hackman struggle to play both sides against each other while ensuring that he's friends with the winner when the dust settles. Hackman gets bonus points for delivering my favorite line of the film - a simple "Superman, thank God," which he imbues with a mix of relieved desperation and pitch-perfect comedic timing. Other humans include Kidder, who takes her game to the next level, making Lois's burgeoning suspicions about Clark feel natural and not forced; comics readers wondered for decades why Lois couldn't figure it out, and Kidder reminds us why - the character is so razor-sharp that her discovery was inevitable, and if anyone could bring that intellect to life, it's Margot Kidder.

All this has been in praise of Superman II, but the film isn't entirely golden. Like its hero when exposed to Kryptonite, the film stumbles in a few places, and I'm inclined to blame director Richard Lester for these boo-boos. First and most apparent is the introduction of several unconventional and/or entirely unprecedented new superpowers exhibited by Superman, Zod, and the latter's compatriots. I'm inclined to pardon the film's depiction of Zod, Ursa, and Non as telepathically capable; although as Kryptonians they shouldn't have any powers Superman doesn't, tweaking the source material here isn't a dealbreaking travesty. More problematic, though, is the bevy of abilities Superman exhibits here: teleportation (which, if a Google search is any indication, is intended to be super-speed, though poorly rendered), self-duplication, cellophane S-shields, and amnesia kisses. It's been alleged that Lester knew nothing about the Superman mythos before joining the production team, and it's not unfathomable based on the outlandish disregard for the commonly accepted Superman mythology (the amnesia kiss was deployed once or twice in throwaway issues of the Silver Age). Other problems include an overreliance on distracting slapstick comedy; while Superman is intended to be a fun character, unburdened with the gravitas that dominates characters like Batman and The Hulk, the humor here borders on distracting, as when Zod deploys super-breath against Metropolis - and a dozen or so visual gags ensue. One or two would have sufficed, but it seems Lester didn't want to waste a single wind joke. Moments like this pepper - or rather, pollute - the film, taking away dramatic importance by shifting focus away from the growing threat of the Kryptonian conquerers and placing the spotlight instead on nitwit sheriffs in Houston or on bumbling bystanders.

None of this, fortunately, is severe enough to damage the movie irreparably. Indeed, their greatest offense in my book is to prevent Superman II from being altogether better than Superman: The Movie. Viewed back to back, these two films are a little like The Godfather and its sequel, The Godfather, Part II in that they're really one experience broken in half, with complementary but not competing qualities. It's difficult to identify a superior picture (between Superman flicks, not Godfather movies), so let's simply concede that both are well constructed depictions of America's greatest icon.
Like its forebearer, Superman II is rated PG, although without an explanatory note. It's on the whole very similar to the first film in terms of violence (that is, bloodlessly cartoonish), although this one introduces a snippet of bare-shouldered cuddling, the implications of which parents may not approve for their children.

Superman: The Movie (1978)

2010-06-28T22:47:00.005-05:00

After hearing word that Christopher Nolan is godfathering a reboot of the Superman franchise, it occurred to me that I'd never actually seen the original Superman beginning to end in one sitting. I'd seen Superman II and knew most of the major twists in the first film, but watching it all in one go was a wild experience for me, an avowed comic book fan. Though Batman is still #1 for me, Superman: The Movie (redundant title aside; it's as though I titled this review "Superman: The Movie: The Review," which maybe I should have) is a movie that reminds us all what's iconic about the character - and faithfully and lovingly represents that on the screen.

Summary seems ridiculous here, since everyone knows the origin of Superman, and the origin story is the focal point of Superman: The Movie. The best retelling of Superman's origin came in Grant Morrison's All-Star Superman #1 (Jan. 2006), which I'll reprint here by way of summarizing the first half of Richard Donner's Superman film: "Doomed planet. Desperate scientists. Last hope. Kindly couple." Here, Marlon Brando and Susannah York open the film as Jor-El and Lara, the aforementioned scientists who place their young son Kal-El in a rocketship to escape the dying planet Krypton; Kal-El lands on earth and is adopted by Ma & Pa Kent of Smallville, who name the boy Clark Kent. After Pa dies, Clark (Christopher Reeve) moves to Metropolis, where he becomes a journalist at The Daily Planet under editor Perry White's (Jackie Cooper) wing before falling in love with Lois Lane (Margot Kidder). After making his debut as costumed superhero Superman - replete with flying, invulnerability, and super-strength - he finds himself tousling with his soon-to-be nemesis Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman).

Superman: The Movie is essentially the gold standard for any superhero movie to follow; it establishes solidly the "formula" of the genre, and it does so with fresh-faced aplomb. The film follows Clark Kent through the important phases of his growth as a hero without feeling that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory feeling of "These are the story beats we need to hit, so let's keep moving. Though there's no underlying motivation for heroics - i.e., guilt (Iron Man), vengeance (Batman), thrills (Kick-Ass) - the movie aptly demonstrates that Superman is a hero simply because it's in his nature; he never lies, he believes in the innate goodness of humanity, and he has an unprecedented capacity for compassion. On this count, it's not difficult to see why Reeve is so closely associated with this role, and why artists like Gary Frank still draw the character in Reeve's likeness more than 30 years later (seriously, it's uncanny); Reeve does a first-rate job of embodying the unequivocal good nature of the character, but he also succeeds by leaps and bounds as the klutzy but similarly kind-hearted alter ego Clark Kent, who is in many ways the harder of the two to play. Anyone can don the spandex and be a hero, but any actor who tackles Superman has to also pull off an intentionally putzy performance as Clark Kent; Reeve does both, admirably.

The other performers are in good form, and they deserve mention because several of them (as bigger stars in the day, and perhaps still now) got billing over Reeve (crazy, right?). Surprisingly, Brando doesn't phone it in here, though I was expecting him to since his lines were written on baby Kal-El's diaper as he refused to memorize them; he's surprisingly convincing as Jor-El, with genuine affection for his son and lethargic disdain for the stubborn councilmen of Krypton. Kidder is fantastically funny as Lois Lane, capturing all of the character's comedic sensibilities from her pronounced problems with spelling to her flirtatious interview style. And Hackman is unique here because his Lex Luthor is entirely unlike the source material; he's not quite the bald super-scientist, nor is he the portly capitalist (who, admittedly, appeared in the comics nearly a decade after this film), nor the Superman's-buddy-gone-bad (which, if you ask me, is the only worthwhile contribution Smallville has made to the canon in nine years of television airtime, though even that appeared in comics as early as the 50s). Instead, sporting a bevy of outlandish wigs, he's something else altogether, a cocky would-be super-criminal surrounded by nincompoops (Ned Beatty and Valerie Perrine); he knows that what he's doing is wrong, but he enjoys it too much to develop a conscience - the measure of all good villains. It's not necessarily how evil they are that matters; the ultimate mark is whether or not they care about being evil.

Director Richard Donner is regarded as something of a god in the world of comic book films, probably because of the mistreatment he suffered surrounding Superman II (a review of his cut of that film, as well as the original, will forthcoming). But with Superman: The Movie, Donner cemented himself as a top-notch filmmaker at least of the genre (his version of The Omen was also first-rate). What's downright divine about Superman: The Movie is the way that Donner handles scenes of slapstick comedy, romantic tension, and heartrending drama - all with the same level of dexterity. One of my favorite sequences is Superman's first night on the job, in which he tackles several different crimes of unequal stature with the same dignified composure - an apt metaphor, I think, for Donner's abilities. I was also intrigued by Christological parallels: a father casts out an evildoer to a hellish dimension, then sends his son to earth to save us. Throw in Miss Teschmacher as Mary Magdalene, and we're looking at a pretty compelling allegory.

Overall I was impressed by this film. It's well-rounded, balancing low comedy and high action with some fantastically loyal performances grounding the whole affair in verisimilitude and dynamite fidelity to the source material. I'm looking forward to reviewing the others to see if they'll shake my faith that yes, a man really can fly. Statistically speaking, of course, it's still the safest way.
Superman: The Movie is rated PG "for peril, some mild sensuality and language." There's nothing the kiddies haven't seen on a Saturday morning cartoon here, although some of Miss Teschmacher's clothing is a titch revealing - but then again, it is a comic book movie.

Gangs of New York (2002)

2010-06-28T10:14:00.006-05:00

Martin Scorsese ushered in the '00s with the start of a beautiful friendship - with Leonardo DiCaprio, who's been called Marty's new DeNiro - and this epic look at the birth of modern New York City set, like Casino (albeit in positive terms) against personal rise-and-fall stories.

Sixteen years after the murder of his father (Liam Neeson), young Amsterdam Vallon (DiCaprio) returns to New York and his old neighborhood, the Five Points. After meeting up with old friends and new acquaintances - chief among them the pickpocket prostitute Jenny Everdeane (Cameron Diaz) - Amsterdam finds himself falling in with a gang led by his father's murderer, the man he's vowed to kill: the merciless Bill "The Butcher" Cutting (the ever-riveting Daniel Day-Lewis). Meanwhile, Boss Tweed (Jim Broadbent) is coming to power, the Civil War rages, and an impending draft notice might just ignite the powderkeg that is New York City.

As with every Martin Scorsese movie reviewed here thus far (with the possible exception of Shutter Island), Gangs of New York is a mesmerizing epic, with characters and events representing larger forces and ideals of national consequence. On one side, Amsterdam and his immigrants; on the other, Bill the Butcher and his nativists. Already, then, the conflict becomes something more than just two men in battle. There are other issues at stake - what it means to be an American, what the nature of honor is, and even an examination of the political process. All of these plates Scorsese keeps spinning without ever losing sight of the immediate Amsterdam/Bill conflict, and in that respect the film succeeds.

Scorsese is like Sidney Lumet in that he reliably casts actors who turn in star performances, even if it wasn't quite expected of them (prime example for Lumet: Vin Diesel in Find Me Guilty). Gangs of New York begins a series of (to date) four films Scorsese has made with DiCaprio, and it's here that we get glimmers of the actor that DiCaprio has since become. While his performance isn't completely polished - his Irish accent slips in places - it's a giant leap forward from Titanic and a good start on the road to The Departed. Diaz, of whom I've never been a big fan, is decent here, her accent slightly more consistent and a hair/makeup job that almost lets you forget that this is the same actress responsible for Charlie's Angels. Bit players get chances to shine; Broadbent is mirthfully corrupt as Boss Tweed, Liam Neeson is a show-stealer in the film's brutal opening reel, and as an Irish cop John C. Reilly proves that he is, like all good comedians, a fine dramatic actor too. The greatest performance, unsurprisingly, is Daniel Day-Lewis's villainous turn as Bill the Butcher, a baddie of the highest order and the kind of man who could keep company with Deadwood's Al Swearengen and No Country for Old Men's Anton Chigurh; that Day-Lewis lost the Oscar that year is a travesty, though the early inklings one gets of his Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood suggest that this is an actor who builds on what he does until the majority sit up and take notice.

At nearly three hours, this sprawling epic might not be for everyone. Unlike the Kill Bill series, which was a non-stop wham/bam "roaring rampage of revenge," Gangs of New York is more deliberate in its pacing. After a showstopping opening (successfully ignoring Rip Torn's advice from The Larry Sanders Show, "Never open with a showstopper"), Amsterdam encounters Bill almost immediately upon returning to New York, simmering and gathering information before he makes his play for vengeance - which promptly pans out completely unpredictably, leaving Amsterdam to slink back, lick his wounds, and restrategize. And so the film contains three action pieces - beginning, first climax, and second climax - with little "action" in between; instead, the focus is on character (story vs. plot, as Scorsese would put it) and scenery - downright gorgeous scenery, with Scorsese's trademark meticulous attention to detail and a high degree of historical accuracy as far as capturing a bygone era on film.

While it's not Scorsese's absolute finest work (that honor, in my humble opinion, belongs to The Departed), Gangs of New York is arguably among his more polished pieces. If nothing else, Daniel Day-Lewis proves himself a first-rate actor as the terrifying villain of the piece.

Gangs of New York, like nearly everything else Scorsese makes, is rated R, this time "for intense strong violence, sexuality/nudity and language." There aren't really words to describe how unflinchingly brutal the violence is in this movie, as it's probably the most intensely violent of Scorsese's movies. Prostitutes are topless in three separate scenes, and the characters make brief but vulgar sexual remarks. As for language, there are more racial slurs than F-bombs, though the main justification for the R rating, I'm sure, is the downright savage violence.

Year One (2009)

2010-06-26T11:12:00.005-05:00

How the mighty have fallen. I watched Year One out of fidelity to Michael Cera and writer/director Harold Ramis, and I'm really sorry that I did.

In a riff of sorts on Mel Brooks's History of the World, Part I, Year One follows two tribal villagers - Zed (Jack Black) and Oh (Cera) - on a walking tour of the Old Testament after they eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, an action that results in their exile from the village. After meeting Cain and Abel (David Cross and Paul Rudd) and a brush with circumcision-happy Abraham and his son Isaac (Hank Azaria and Christopher "McLovin" Mintz-Plasse), the two wind up in Sodom & Gomorrah, trying to save the two caveladies they're sweet on.

Among the more distracting and ultimately distasteful aspects of the film is that it plays fast and loose with historical and textual accuracy. The film has us believe that cavemen, Israelites, Egyptians, and Romans existed at the same time, though any student in a 100-level history survey knows better. More problematic is the film's overreliance on established Old Testament narratives, which it disregards in favor of a vignette-style approach in which our cavepeople happen upon notable scenes. Yet Year One suggests that the murder of Abel (Genesis 4), the sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22), and the impending destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah (Genesis 19) all occurred within a few weeks of each other - an implication that diverts one's attention from the action on screen. The worst offense on this count is that Sodom & Gomorrah are saved at the end of the film, which is disappointing considering a special effects piece involving Michael Bay-style explosions might have redeemed at least a fraction of the movie for me.

Not that there's much action to watch. Black and Cera move from scene to scene without doing much; they make a few crude sexual jokes before some heavyhanded expositional dialogue signals a coming change of scenery. Black is perfectly cast as a caveman - just not this caveman; as a supposed "chosen one," Zed is responsible for enlightening civilization and ushering in a new era for mankind. This from a guy who in the next breath drops the ball on a fart joke? I've never understood Hollywood's love affair with Black (save for what I thought was a deent supporting role in Tropic Thunder), and Year One solidifies that. Similarly, Cera's underused here, though I doubt he would have done much more with Oh if he weren't; Cera plays the same socially awkward mumbler he always does, and while he's decent at this character type, his delivery trumps the poor dialogue he receives.

That's the biggest problem with Year One - it's a Harold Ramis film. The man who brought us Animal House, Ghostbusters, and Groundhog Day is responsible for this stinker. Knowing that Ramis is capable of so much more than this - cognizant of the potential that's being squandered in this movie - is almost as painful as sitting through the whole movie. As comedy scripts go, this is one of the unfunniest I've ever seen; the acting is weak, the jokes are humorless (even and especially when the film descends to the level of excrement jokes), and the ending fizzles out. Indeed, the only joy one can derive from this experience is celebrity spotting; for reasons I've yet to comprehend, Year One is populated with A-list stars slumming for a paycheck (either that or they simply want to say they were in a Harold Ramis movie). I felt most sorry for Oliver Platt, who's trapped in gaudy robes and one-note jokes about homosexuality; similar pathos goes out to Olivia Wilde, whose nascent career now has a dark smear on it.

Year One is also the name of one of my favorite Batman storylines. DC Comics followed up the popular storyline with Year Two and Year Three, though Harold Ramis would do better to move on and pretend that Year One never happened.
Year One is rated PG-13 "for crude and sexual content throughout, brief strong language and comic violence." The characters talk about sex and "laying with" in almost every scene, sometimes quite crudely; F-bombs crop up on occcasion, and there are a few goofy sword/fistfights that are as enjoyable as they are gory, which is to say not at all.

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

2010-06-24T23:46:00.007-05:00

We interrupt the impromptu tour through the movies of Martin Scorsese to bring you this golden oldie from 1938 - Errol Flynn in the vivaciously colorful The Adventures of Robin Hood. And now for something completely different...

Having previously enjoyed the 2010 Ridley Scott/Russell Crowe rendition of the Robin Hood legend, I retreated to the vaults for a helping of one of the earliest film versions and indeed perhaps the definitive one (aside from that Disney one with the foxes). In this one, swashbuckler Errol Flynn is the titular robber hero, battling the evil Prince John (Claude Rains, with the world's worst haircut) and his lackey Sir Guy of Gisborne (Basil Rathbone) for the freedom of England and the hand of the beautiful Maid Marion (Olivia de Havilland).

I'm aware that I have readers out there who enjoy reading reviews of movies definitively established as classics, and so I will try to overcome the challenge of saying something new regarding a movie about which so much has been said already. The Adventures of Robin Hood is regarded as the definitive Robin Hood story, the standard against which all others are to be measured (yes, even the Disney version, which seems to have borrowed liberally from this one). Modern first-time viewers may feel a strong sense of deja vu, then, because there's much in this film that's been deployed by subsequent entries in pop culture. The motif of the film smacks of V for Vendetta, such that I'm surprised the latter film's director chose to use The Count of Monte Cristo instead of this one for the protagonist's favorite movie. Robin Hood's escape from the gallows is reminiscent of a similar getaway employed by one Jack Sparrow in the first Pirates of the Caribbean film. The green costume has become synonymous with Robin Hood, and the splitting-an-arrow trick has been used ad infinitum to indicate an archer's prowess.

Yet, remarkably, much about this movie feels fresh. Errol Flynn's vibrantly joyful performance is a welcome change-up from modern films, whose protagonists are often conflicted and bogged down by cultural ennui (I'm looking at you, Spotless Mind); thankfully, this Robin Hood is charming and confident in the rightness of his mission, unflinching in his devotion to his cause. More surprising are the rousing action scenes directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley; I've been bored before by action scenes that rely too heavily on quick cuts and special effects to grab an audience's attention, so imagine my surprise when the most entertaining action moments since The A-Team come retroactively, from a film more than 70 years old. These and other scenes in the film are entertaining beyond anticipation, with daring rescues and improvised ambushes takign up most of the movie's runtime.

And of course, the colors, Duke, the colors. (Anyone remember that ad?) The film is just gosh darn pretty. Though the colors are probably brutally anachronistic (I have a hard time believing Robin Hood had a pristine suit at all times while living in, of all places, a forest), they look astounding - particularly on the DVD, which is surprisingly cleaned up for such an old piece of work. Maid Marion's dresses quite literally sparkle, and there's not a band of the visual spectrum that goes unused here - the result being a visual spectacle that, if nothing else, gives your home entertainment system a workout.

But the standout feature of The Adventures of Robin Hood is the fact that it asks no heavy lifting from its audience: just sit back, relax, and enjoy the next hour and forty minutes. Good conquers over evil and has a good time doing it. The Adventures of Robin Hood, then, is pure, unadulterated, guilt- and angst-free fun, rousing escapism for all.
Finally rated in 2003 after being merely "Approved," The Adventures of Robin Hood now bears a PG rating "for adventure violence." I was actually surprised by the film's action; though there's very little blood, there is a surprising amount of arrow wounds and clubbings (most of which come off as comedic, even if that wasn't the initial intent). It's definitely more than appropriate, though.

Casino (1995)

2010-06-24T22:08:00.004-05:00

The Martin Scorsese showcase continues here at The Cinema King with 1995's Casino, Marty's second and final collaboration with writer Nicholas Pileggi, his third and final with Joe Pesci, and his eighth and (to date) final with Robert DeNiro.

In many ways, the idea of this film being a "final" film is brutally apparent, as the film is another rise-and-fall story - albeit heavy on the "fall." When the film begins, Sam "Ace" Rothstein (DeNiro) has it all: a foolproof way to beat the odds whenever he bets, a kingdom in the form of the Tangiers Hotel and Casino, and a beautiful wife Ginger (Sharon Stone). His childhood friend Nicky Santoro (Pesci) doesn't have quite as much, but he comes to Las Vegas in order to take what he doesn't have. Ginger, meanwhile, has her jewelry, her former pimp (James Woods), and her problems with substance abuse. These three, against which is set the ultimate fall of Las Vegas from the Mafia's hands into the hands of corporate American tourism, have everything to lose, and their own personal ambitions make sure of it.

I've always thought of this film as the unofficial sequel to Goodfellas, both because of the DeNiro/Pesci/Scorsese reunion and because of blatant thematic similarities that make these two almost impossible to watch or review separately. Viewed almost back-to-back, I'm prepared to say that Goodfellas is the better of the two, but only in the same way that The Beatles are better than The Rolling Stones; that is, though both have undeniably epic qualities to them, there's something a little more polished about the former that makes the coarser qualities of the latter more difficult to appreciate. While Goodfellas is a 10 in my book, Casino hits closer to a 7 or an 8, for reasons to be discussed below. [Be warned that I'm going to begin discussing the film's main themes, which in turn involves some reveal of the film's ending. Though it pains me to do this for any who haven't seen the film, a) you already know my take on Casino, and b) Scorsese movies are always best discussed like Shakespearean tragedies instead of conventional Hollywood films - with full view of the ending, which is less about surprise and more about revelation.]

The atmosphere of finality pervades the entire film, so much so that its ending is entirely gloomy and perhaps unsettling for many viewers. Where Goodfellas ended on a sadly poignant note, marking one man's fall and the very personal toll it took upon him, Casino represents the end of an era - and not just in a metafictional kind of way, though this being Scorsese's final Italian Mafia picture counts, too. Casino is all about the ways that personal vice destroy lives, which are in turn interconnected with other lives. Sam, Nicky, and Ginger represent a precarious pyramid perched atop an even larger pyramid, and the actions of one could topple the whole thing like a house of cards. Nowhere is this more apparent than in a key scene in which one mob underling's grumbles in his family's deli end up on an FBI wiretap, which subsequently leads to increased federal scrutiny, which then leads to the fall of the mob's control of Las Vegas. Yet within this issue is the microcosm of Sam Rothstein and his own personal trials - very few of which he passes in the long run.

Not to mention that almost everyone ends up dead at the film's conclusion. Where prison and ignominy awaited the Goodfellas, almost all the characters in Casino who don't go to prison wind up buried in a hole in the desert - a denouement composed in montages of operatic brutality which reflect none of the lighthearted sensibilities that governed Goodfellas. Perhaps, then, my comparative favoring of Goodfellas over Casino stems from the degree to which the respective endings leave me feeling fuzzy; there is very little joy in Casino, which plays out much more like an epic tragedy than a personal narrative about individual consequences.

The performances aren't quite as good as in Goodfellas, due in part to the conspicuous absence of the uber-talented but perenially underused Ray Liotta. DeNiro isn't as strong here as previously, though he's a few steps above phoning it in; his portrayal of Rothstein is believable but not layered enough to be abundantly interesting. His character is one-note and a little predictable, making the film overall less enjoyable. Pesci, though, steps his game up a notch; where Tommy DeVito was unpredictable in terms of his violence in Goodfellas to the point of being surprising each time he lashed out, Nicky Santoro is a con man of the first order, never telling anyone but the audience what he thinks and what his angle is. Scenes where he tries to play Sam and Ginger against each other mark high points in his deception, and his cognizance of his own culpability in their collective fall is sterling - not to mention the fact that he's angrier here than ever. Don Rickles and James Woods turn in small parts, with Rickles revealing he's actually a talented dramatic actor while Woods is perfectly sleazy and entirely loathsome. And major props to Ms. Stone for making Ginger out to be a wholly repulsive character; she's a few levels above merely irritating because her acting allows us to understand her character (though we certainly shouldn't agree with her).

The camerawork by Scorsese is as stylized and stunning as before, with quirky camera angles, inventive use of freeze-frame (although one moment freezes almost too long, to the point where I actually got up and walked over to my DVD player to check for scratches), and helpful employment of multiple narrators to enrich moments on screen; though DeNiro and Pesci provide the bulk of narration, the most useful voiceover comes from Frank Vincent as Frankie Marino, who complements his own performance by letting us know why he's lying to his boss and informing us about the kinds of emotions that are being concealed by a suspiciously stony exterior. If I had a complaint about the direction of the film, it's that Casino is three hours long. The story sprawls (but never stalls), making itself into an epic (there's that word again) that feels complete. Consequently, though I'm griping about length, I'm not sure what I'd cut; Scorsese has kept everything essential in the film, and so all I'm left to grumble about is an abbreviated attention span. Good work, Scorsese, but I as a viewer will take the heat for the film's runtime.

This is starting to sound like a bad review, but it's really not. Casino has less to immediately enjoy and more to savor in the long run. With the end in sight, multiple viewings help the perspective and the focus become clearer. What's more, I think this movie lends itself more to thoughtfulness than to appreciation. Where it's easier for me to gush about the things in Goodfellas that I love, Casino makes me pause and reflect a bit more. In the moment, there aren't as many gut-busters - though there's no shortage of moments where you'll say, "Rock on, Scorsese" - and so I encourage you to go thoughtfully to Casino, ready to think before you can fully enjoy the filmic bouquet.

Though not quite as magical as Goodfellas and perhaps a bit too long for some viewers, Casino is nevertheless a fine outing for Scorsese and a more than adequate swan song for many of his collaborators.
No surprise, Casino is rated R "for strong brutal violence, pervasive strong language, drug use and some sexuality." This one is even more violent than Goodfellas, with incredibly violent and gruesome moments littered with more than 400 F-bombs (and a few C-bombs tossed in for good measure), as well as substantive abuse of drugs, alcohol, and chain-smoking. and several characters are depicted having sex though brief rear nudity is shown once out of focus.

Goodfellas (1990)

2010-06-22T22:38:00.006-05:00

Every once in a while, I like to cleanse my palate by watching a really good movie, a tried-and-true classic, a flick that deserves to be on a "greatest movies of all time" list (a category so rare I don't have a tag for it, but I probably should). This time around, the entry is Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas.

The true story of the rise and fall of American mobster Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), Goodfellas is a biopic that borders on the epic. It begins with the simple declaration, "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster." Soon Hill's dream comes true: he finds himself a mobster in league with the legendary Jimmy Conway (Robert DeNiro) and the unbalanced heavy Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci, in the role that rightfully earned him an Oscar). Life is glamorous, and times are good for Henry Hill - his suitable-for-a-romantic-comedy courtship with Karen (Lorraine Bracco) even results in an initially happy marriage. But soon the walls start closing in - financial and domestic pressure make him take bigger and bigger risks, Tommy's encounter with an old rival (Frank Vincent) culminates in disaster, and members of a significant heist start getting sloppy - and Henry begins to crack under the pressure of the crumbling Mafia institution.

The plot may seem formulaic by now, twenty years on, but that's because Goodfellas set the standard for what a gangster biopic needed to be in much the same way that The Godfather (another Greatest Movie) had defined what a Mafia epic looked like. As such, the only word I can think of to describe Goodfellas is "definitive." (Well, that's actually not true. I can think of many more superlative adjectives, so stay tuned.) Everything about this movie - the performances, the script, the direction, the soundtrack - just clicks, and the two-plus hours simply fly by. As with all of Scorsese's great movies, there's not a scene here that's wasted, not one moment where you think, "I could go to the bathroom here and not miss a thing." Though not every scene is of critical importance to the film's plot, there's something to enjoy in each moment; if the plot isn't at the forefront, it's a knockout performance or dynamite direction to hold your attention.

In praise of the performances, I can only say good things. Each actor/actress, big role or small walk-on (keep your eyes peeled for an early Sam Jackson), is incredible in his/her part. The three leads - DeNiro, Liotta, and Pesci - are all at the top of their respective games here. While I loved him in The Godfather, Part II, here DeNiro is at his best: mildly subdued but with a simmering don't-cross-me attitude that conveys menace with each insincere smile. Liotta, of course, is the undisputed star (despite what movie marketing might suggest), and he's explosively exciting; even his narration (a cinematic technique I often find heavyhanded and lazy) is entertaining in a way that propels the movie forward while often providing an ironic counterpoint to the events on-screen (as when he narrates about the respect and happiness his new career brings, while showing us his unique way of destroying a parking lot filled with cars). And if DeNiro and Liotta are "simmering" and "explosive," Pesci is downright nuclear, a full-on H-bomb on two legs; though small on stature, Pesci is big on energy and absolutely lethal if provoked. Each of his scenes is unforgettable, the very definition of a supporting character who almost steals the show. That much of the film's dialogue was improvised is an even greater testament to the skill of the actors at play.

But I've long contended that Scorsese is the real star of his movies, because all his films have an undeniable stamp of Scorsese-ness that's compelling in a way that isn't showy (I'm looking at you, Tony Scott). With Goodfellas in particular, I found myself sitting up straighter - even though I've seen this movie dozens of times - and saying to myself and to the fellow viewers who straggled in after being seduced by the film's siren-like magnetic allure, "Man, Scorsese is directing the daylights out of this picture." Goodfellas features one of my all-time favorite scenes of any movie ever: a three-minute take (with no cuts or tricks) in which Liotta and Bracco stroll through a nightclub's side entrance, mingling with gangsters and the kitchen staff before getting a front table at a Henny Youngman show. It's a mesmerizing scene, made all the more breathtaking once you realize midway through that all you see has been coordinated in one Steadicam shot. And the movie is littered with moments like this that prove what a stellar director Scorsese truly is and how brutally mistreated he was by an Academy that honored the snoozefest Dances with Wolves and its "director" Kevin Costner.

But if you're not up for all that aesthetic mumbo-jumbo -- if you're just looking to have a good time with a movie -- Goodfellas is a perfect choice, because it's a lot of fun. Even many viewings and several years down the road, the film is nuanced enough that there's still something to excavate, digest, and enjoy. The film has a strong sense of humor, balancing dramatic gravitas with comedic levity, the perfect hybrid of which comes in Pesci's iconic "How am I funny?" scene; here Pesci grills Liotta about a glib remark of "You're funny" and quickly takes a bawdy laugh fest from zero to "ruh-roh" with speed that'll give you whiplash. The scene rebounds and oscillates several more times before its end, which solidifies it as one of the most audacious examples of cinematic synecdoche, perfectly summing up the movie's attitude about its characters and about itself. But what separates this from any other mob movie is the moral compass which governs Goodfellas and its director Martin Scorsese; violence has consequences (guilt being the worst of all), and no one lives "happily ever after" in a world of all take and no give. So while we can laugh at absurdly violent moments like Henry Hill walking brusquely across a street to bludgeon a would-be rapist, the repeated violence and the recognition that this is part of a cycle makes the laughter uncomfortable, opening our eyes to the idea that this isn't all fun and games.

But it is still exuberantly fun. There's something funny in almost every scene - a discreet look, a clever delivery, an editing cut that punctuates with (often dark) irony - and if you're not enjoying yourself on a visceral (much less intellectual) level, the fault lies not in the film but in yourself.

Often readers disagree with my take on the movies I review here (most recently, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind sparked a bit of online and offline debate), but on this subject there can be no debate. Goodfellas is a fantastic film, one of the greatest ever made.
Goodfellas is rated R, undoubtedly for its nearly 300 uses of the F-word, grisly graphic violence, implied sexual (mis)conduct, and general not-appropriate-for-the-kiddies quality.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

2010-06-21T23:02:00.005-05:00

I finally sat down to watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for three reasons: I'd run out of "must-see" movies, I personally know people who love this movie, and it's landing at the top of many "Best of 2000-2009" lists. And after seeing the movie, I can't fathom why people are saying this is the best film of the last decade.

I'm not being sarcastic. I'm not being glib. I'm not deliberately trying to be antagonistic by penning a negative review of one of the most critically-acclaimed movies of my lifetime. I wanted to like Eternal Sunshine. I really did, and I tried my darndest to do so. But in the final analysis, I switched off my television, took the DVD out of the player, and shrugged, "Meh."

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind represents the latest in an unintentional series of "boy-meets-girl" movies here at The Cinema King. Here, the boy is Joel (Jim Carrey), and the girl is Clementine (Kate Winslet with a "you won't believe she's British" voice). Following a nasty break-up, the two separately elect to undergo a memory erasure procedure pioneered by Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (an underused Tom Wilkinson). Though Clementine accepts the ignorance-is-bliss philosophy offered by Mierzwiak and his team (which includes Mark Ruffalo, Kirsten Dunst, and Elijah Wood), Joel begins to regret his decision midway through the procedure as he struggles to remember his time, however bitter, with Clementine.

Aside from the imaginative premise of memory erasure and the inventive ways that director Michel Gondry devises to depict the practice, the film is disappointingly formulaic but without any effort put into making the formula believable. I didn't detect very much chemistry between Joel and Clementine; indeed, it seems as though all they do is goof around before making each other miserable. Consequently, the film's basic throughline - Joel's quest not to forget Clementine - is shallow and uninspiring. Simply put, the only reason to root for these characters is because we're told to. Clementine is mildly endearing - thank the always-divine Winslet for that - though she barely develops beyond the "manic pixie dream girl" trope. Carrey develops even less; he mopes lethargically through the movie without the convincing ennui that JGL employed in (500) Days of Summer. The supporting cast is decent, though they float through the movie with little to do beyond advance the plot; Wood's character shows creepy promise, but it's as though Kaufman & Co. didn't quite know what to do with him. Disappointment ensues.

The other major grievance I have against Eternal Sunshine is that it's brutally slow-paced, and when all your characters are extremely depressed without providing any reason for us to sympathize with them this can be a painful experience. Combine this with the predictability quotient exhibited by this movie, and the only reason I finished the movie was because I'm just that kind of a guy.

But I guess I can see why so many people love this movie. It's innocuous, and it's uncomplicated; it's got neat visual effects, a narrative spine (albeit a misued one), and a hopeful ending that affirms an optimism in the human condition. But for a #1 movie of the last ten years, I need a little more than marshmallow fluff. I need something incisive and at least slightly subversive, a movie that either tells me something I didn't know or tells me something that feels like the truth - not a Hollywood version of the truth. (An uncompromised ending apparently suggested that patients of the memory-loss program were bound to repeat their mistakes and need the procedure several times; this might have been more intriguing and would have at least made the film feel inventive and not just lethargically and slavishly optimistic.) So for some this may be a divine movie, but for me it's just plain disappointing. But that's the point of reviews; I'm leaning toward The Departed being the best movie of the last ten years, but maybe Eternal Sunshine fans find it deplorable. Fine.

Let me conclude by clarifying that I don't think that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a terrible movie. It's not; it's certainly no Next. It may not be great, but moreover it's just not "to my liking," nor can I explain why so many people are saying it was the best film of the last ten years. Now I almost have to write my own list.
The MPAA rated Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind R "for language, some drug and sexual content." F-bombs get dropped, there's some mild nuzzling/cuddling, all the girls end up in their underwear at some point in the movie, and a few characters smoke mariijuana. Language aside, this probably could have been a hard PG-13 if the filmmakers had aimed for it.

The Box (2009)

2010-06-21T00:20:00.008-05:00

In spite of a B-list acting cast and an overwhelming slate of negative reviews, I had such high hopes for The Box. As it stands, I'm never watching another Richard Kelly movie so long as I live. The film isn't entirely bad, but the filmmaker is.

The conceit, based upon a short story by Richard Matheson of The Twilight Zone fame, is deceptively simple: disfigured stranger Arlington Steward (Frank Langella) arrives on the doorstep of suburban government workers Norma and Arthur Lewis (Cameron Diaz and James Marsden, respectively), bearing a mysterious box. Push the button, he invites, promising $1,000,000 and the death of a stranger in return.

Here the trailers conclude. Unfortunately, all that drama unfolds within half an hour of the film's two-hour runtime. What follows is essentially an abduction of an unsuspecting audience, a tour by force and not de force through a tangled plot involving aliens (surprise! Did you miss the heavyhanded foreshadowing?), advanced technology, and human nature (with a major dose of Sartre thrown in apparently to show us how smart the filmmakers are to have read Sartre). I take no pleasure in the evisceration to follow, just as I can tell that the filmmakers found this a joyless experience.

Everything about The Box is slipshod and muddy, unattractive and unappealing. The acting is incredibly lackluster, with Diaz slipping in and out of what might be an attempt at a Southern accent (and the occasional limp) and with Marsden counting paychecks while dreaming of more substantial roles (he was delightful, don't forget, in Hairspray). Though Langella is suitably menacing as the shady Mr. Steward, it's quite obvious he's slumming; his disfigurement causes no apparent speech impediment, and his gravelly monotone bears none of the emotion behind his solid performance as Nixon in Frost/Nixon. Oh, and James Rebhorn is in it. Yeah, that guy.

The larger part of the blame, though, belongs on Richard Kelly's shoulders. I've made no bones about the fact that I absolutely downright hated the (in my eyes) irredeemable Donnie Darko, and had I known that The Box was Kelly's work as well I probably would have left it on the rental shelf. For starters, Kelly's at fault for not pushing his actors harder, particularly when it comes to Ms. Diaz's utterly inconsistent portrayal of Norma Lewis. More problematic is Kelly's inability to rein in the movie itself. The Box is like the television show Lost at its worst - wildly imaginative with overtures toward mythological significance but without any sense of direction, cohesion, or purpose. Oscillating wildly between plot points that only coincide in a "meh" of a climax, the film is big on anticipation and small on bang.

The Box retreads themes from Donnie Darko, so if you liked that clunker (which, if you'll recall, is responsible for introducing Jake Gyllenhaal to Hollywood, so that's strike two for the flick) you'll probably lap this one right up. Kelly's obsession with tortured protagonists at the mercy of forces beyond human understanding - here, "the ones that control the lightning" - bleeds through, as does the irrational and ultimately empty presence of transdimensional portals; though these elements seem to be building to something, they ultimately amount to little more than homages to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Worse, the film is brutally disjointed. Aside from the misleading marketing which drew me in with a plotline the film quickly discarded, The Box snaps back and forth between scenes and vignettes that don't quite make sense; the parts simply don't add up. Characters appear and disappear seemingly at random - a gaffe the movie tries to bandage up with the aforementioned portals - while plot points are introduced via severe suspensions of disbelief, only to be quickly abandoned. The film further invalidates itself by wrapping its mysteries into a giant Gordian knot at the climax; if, for example, the "beings" can override free will, what's the point of testing free will with the red button? Finally, the film suggests a cyclical nature to man's dog-eat-dog attitude toward itself, though the presence of a cycle again makes moot the issue of testing humanity; the button is always going to be pushed, and yet Mr. Steward keeps offering it. The effect is one of uselessness, a frustrating hybrid of "So why did you put me through this?" and "So what did I watch, anyway?"

The film's greatest insult is to Matheson, who was a more than serviceable writer in his day. His original story, and the Twilight Zone episode based upon it, both get shout-outs here, but Kelly seems eager to discard Matheson's original "Monkey's Paw"-esque intent - to question how well we know each other - in favor of slogging through his same old motifs. This is tantamount to a betrayal of the source material, and I would have advocated taking Matheson's name off the picture entirely. Next time, Mr. Kelly, just write your own story. Or better yet, just don't.

Tragically for Matheson and the strong premise, The Box is an unfocused mess, overwhelmingly disjointed and ultimately unfulfilling. Better leave this one unopened.
The Box is rated PG-13 "PG-13 for thematic elements, some violence and disturbing images." Um... there's some shooting, and Frank Langella is missing half of his face.

(500) Days of Summer (2009)

2010-06-20T23:18:00.005-05:00

Life is random and without cosmic significance, argues Marc Webb's (500) Days of Summer, and the goal (so it seems) is pure hedonism without the complications of those messy things called feelings. If that is indeed the case, then (500) Days of Summer is delightful escapist fun, albeit with the larger significance that such a project might otherwise avoid.

(500) Days of Summer is a boy-meets-girl story - so says the narrator (Richard McGonagle), with the stipulation that it's not a love story: Greeting card author Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) wants it to be a love story, though pretty receptionist Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel) is just looking for a little fun. Though the relationship between the two initially seems star-crossed, it becomes apparent that what's at stake is a clash of worldviews - a boy in love and a girl who's not.

Gordon-Levitt - or, having earned the right to be referred to only by three initials, joining the company of prestigious persons like RDJ, JGL - is the undisputed star of the picture, and he's more than capable of carrying the film almost single-handedly. I feel old saying that I remember this guy from his turn on 3rd Rock from the Sun, but it's good to see that JGL has apparently beaten the curse of the child star. His comedic timing is spot-on, striking a perfect balance between nuance and broad stroke. He's entirely empathetic (perhaps I'm just saying that because he's playing me) His performance is riveting and engaging, with such a commanding presence that Miss Deschanel is almost negligible. It's not that she's not doing anything in the movie; it's just that she doesn't have to, nor is she really asked to. The story is clearly Tom's, and the movie is certainly JGL's.

Therein lies a slight flaw in the movie. The picture is quite obviously very personal - pre-credits title cards let us know that one of the filmmakers carries a vendetta against one Jenny Beckman, a "b-tch" who apparently broke the poor bloke's heart. This information, though, unfairly colors the audience against Summer's character almost from the start. Consequently, Summer Finn never really takes off as a character; we don't know what makes her tick, nor do we know why she continues to date Tom despite the obvious dearth of feelings there. Deschanel does a fantastic job of looking pretty and a perfectly adequate job of doing what she can with what she has about the character - indeed, she has one of the funniest lines of the film when she reveals her childhood nickname - but it's like digging a fairly shallow hole. There's more to be unearthed, but no one seems interested in going there; though I would probably be against the idea, a remake/spin-off called (500) Days of Tom as told from Summer's perspective might help fill in the gaps I'm noticing. (One other thing I would have liked to have more of is McGonagle's narration; it's sparse and barely there, but whenever he intones over the action it's dry and sarcastic and eloquently oversimplified, as when he takes great pains to explain the gender difference between Tom and Summer.)

But to knock the movie for being one-sided is like insulting a tree for growing upwards and not sideways (bonsais excluded). One underlying theme of (500) Days of Summer is that pop culture has sold its audience a bill of goods - Tom's worldview has been led astray by the Mike Nichols film The Graduate - and American audiences are the worse for it. In fact, the world presented by pre-500 culture simply does not exist, and anyone who believes that true love looks anything like the world of the movies is in for a rude awakening; the line between expectation and reality (as beautifully illustrated by a crucial and clever split-screen) has never been starker.

That said, I was expecting a formulaic romantic-comedy and fleetingly felt betrayed when I didn't get the cliched ending I was anticipating. Fortunately I came to my senses and realized that was the whole point of the movie. In a heartbeat, I was relieved and satisfied, glad to see that many of my deep-seated suspicions about the "meaning" of life were validated by this movie. I believe that filmgoers might be divided on this one (based on the friends who've recommended this movie to me, I know it to be true) - some viewers will look at Tom and say, "Yes! That's me! Exactly!" while other viewers will look at Summer and say, "Oh... that's me. Eek." Either way, there's a ring of honesty here that one just doesn't find in your average reel of film.

On a completely unrelated note but which I'd feel remiss if I didn't at least mention, Chloe Moretz of "Hit-Girl" fame appears as Tom's sister Rachel. It's a small part, almost insignificant in the grand scheme of things (as a matter of fact, add her to the trifecta of "things I would have wanted more of"), but Moretz is just so much fun, entirely believable as the snarky sibling. In a way, Moretz is the new Abigail Breslin circa-Little Miss Sunshine and the anti-Dakota Fanning, and God love her for it because she does it so well.

In spite of its minor flaws, though, and for both its affirmation of much of what I believe about the human condition and the film's stubborn refusal to be what the viewer wants it to be - and to be its own "person," so to speak, successfully - (500) Days of Summer earns high marks from this reviewer. I'm looking forward to autumn.(500) Days of Summer is rated PG-13 "PG-13 for sexual material and language." One F-bomb, a few S-bombs, and a few references to naughty bits occur, though for the most part this is a pretty tame rom-com.

Side-note - after seeing (500) Days of Summer, I'm completely on board with the "JGL for Riddler" rumors.

Toy Story 3 (2010)

2010-06-19T10:49:00.010-05:00

I'm starting to feel a little bit old, particularly because I can remember vividly standing in line for Toy Story 2 with bated breath, dying to see my favorite toys (well, except for my Batman action figures) back in town.

That was eleven years ago. Here I am, all grown up - like Andy - in a transitional state of my life, with a third installment of the Toy Story franchise in theaters. I admit to some trepidation preceding my experience with the theatrical run, in part due to the historically low track record for threequels - which I feared might put a damper on what might otherwise have been a successful series of films from the folks over at Pixar.

Oh, ye of little faith. Toy Story 3 is everything a moviegoer - and a franchise fan - could want: a delightful and fulfilling follow-up, a fresh and fun film, and escapism at its effervescent peak.

The toys are indeed back in town, but not for long; owner Andy's off to college, and the fate of the toys is in flux. Sheriff Woody (voice of Tom Hanks) is the odds-on favorite to accompany Andy as he moves out, leaving Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) and the others - including cowgirl Jessie (Joan Cusack) and trusty steed Bullseye, Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head (Don Rickles and Estelle Harris, respectively), piggy bank Hamm (John Ratzenberger), and dinosaur Rex (Wallace Shawn) - bound for the attic. A twist of fate, however, brings the toys first to the curb on garbage day and inevitably to be donated to Sunnyside Daycare. Though Sunnyside - and its feudal lord Lotso Huggin Bear (Ned Beatty) - welcome the toys with open arms, it seems all that glitters is indeed not gold, and perhaps there is no worse fate than being played with.

I've extensively praised the voice cast for both the first and second films, so suffice it to say that no one sleeps through their performance. Hanks is pitch-perfect overconfident as always, and Allen is exuberantly boisterous as ever. Rickles, of course, can do no wrong in my book, and I particularly loved the "Get a haircut" shoutout to his standup comedy routine. What's especially worthy of note in this one is the crop of new additions to the voice cast. Beatty is a knockout as Lotso, capturing the multifaceted nature of the character and even making us believe that he smells like strawberries. A new group of toys - belonging to a little girl named Bonnie, a near clone of Boo from Monsters, Inc. - is introduced here, and they're among the cuter ones of the bunch; lederhosen-garbed Mr. Pricklepants (Timothy Dalton), triceratops Trixie (Kristen Schaal, late of Flight of the Conchords), and unicorn Buttercup (Jeff Garlin) are all fun and interesting characters worthy of their own spinquel (a word I think I coined, meaning a spin-off/sequel), though I could do without the one-dimensional (pun intended) Dolly (Bonnie Hunt). But my favorite new character here is Michael Keaton as Ken, Barbie's on/off boyfriend who embodies the "It is better to look good than to feel [or even be] good." Keaton, with his signature comedic timing, brings Ken entirely to life here, capturing all the narcissism and simplicity of what is essentially an accessory to a girl's toy (though he objects to all of the above).

Director Lee Unkrich takes the helm from John Lasseter for the third outing, though the transition is seamless. The screenplay is first-rate, opening new ground on a series I had assumed was closed. Where the first and the second films shared plot points, the third one stands on its own fairly well, opening itself to a new generation while keeping the diehard fans (the "Andyites," as Pixar refers to the audience who grew up with Andy) satisfied and smiling. I was particularly pleased with how generic the film felt, in the most positive sense of the word; nothing seemed forced, but rather the daycare plotline felt like the next logical step in the narrative trajectory of the franchise (in a way that the rejected "Buzz gets recalled" plotline did not). The film has plenty of surprises, even for a seasoned filmgoer; I had a similar experience with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, where characters in peril still put me on the edge of my seat even though I know the impending doom is an artificial threat. So kudos to Unkrich's team for making the certain destruction facing our characters actually seem threatening and not formulaic.

Kudos also for a great visual look to the film. With an attention to detail on minute features like Jessie's yarn hair and the mesh tutu worn by Bonnie, the effects are polished (representing Pixar at the top of their technical game), and the stylized look of the film has a sharp glow to it that is comforting on an unconscious level and attractive on a conscious one. The characters all have intricate designs that speak to their personalities, particularly with the new faces; I'm struck by the implicit irony in a lot of these characterizations, as with the dour-faced clown Chuckles and the lumbering Vader-esque Big Baby (who is perennially reliable for those uncomfortable "creeeeeeepy" laughs).

On one level, I feel silly writing about the technical merits and narrative accomplishments of the film; part of me wants to shout, "It's a kids' movie! Stop looking for opportunites to brandish some literary analysis!" But on another level, I'm conscious of the fact that this is a Pixar movie, made by people who absolutely love their job and put as much of their passion into the finished product as possible so that an audience can derive the greatest quantity of enjoyment from it. To overlook the minutiae bubbling beneath the surface, to decline the chance to open the veritable toy chest that is this film would be to do a disservice to the creators of the film. But it's also easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. I can get caught up, for example, in the myriad Star Wars references (there's a particularly pointed reference to the climax of Return of the Jedi, though not as direct as Toy Story 2's shout-out to The Empire Strikes Back) or in the quiet message delivered by Sid's cameo as a garbageman. But by doing that, though, I might forget that this is a movie that is first and foremost meant to be enjoyed.

To borrow a page from Ken's book, then, Toy Story 3 is simply "cool and groovy."
Aww, look - Toy Story 3 is rated G, but without any qualifying statements like "mild peril."

The A-Team (2010)

2010-06-14T17:30:00.005-05:00

Even though I have never watched a single episode of the television show on which it's based, I knew I wanted to see The A-Team once I saw the trailer, in which Bradley Cooper fires the machine gun turret on a tank as it plummets in midair. And the good news is that the movie is filled with moments like that, unapologetically and gleefully screaming "Summer popcorn movie!"

Liam Neeson stars as Hannibal Smith, leader of an alpha unit - or A-team - that's regarded as the best covert ops team in the armed forces. Cooper plays Face, the beauty to Hannibal's brains, every bit the ladies' man; Quinton Jackson plays B.A., the warrior/pacifist role made popular by (or which popularized, if you want to go chicken-v.-egg) Mr. T; and Sharlto Copley, late of District 9, plays the borderline-cuckoo pilot Murdock. After a mission in Iraq goes awry and with the aid of the CIA's secretive Mr. Lynch (Patrick Wilson), the A-team turns fugitive in an attempt to recover a stolen MacGuffin while creatively evading recapture at the hands of Face's former flame Charisa Sosa (Jessica Biel).

In terms of action, director Joe Carnahan gets points for imagination with his management of some of the most inventive action sequences on screen in recent years. In truth, the action is the real star of the movie: character development is negligible (though it exists, in small doses) and plot twists are present (though you'll probably see most of them coming), but it's the visuals that will make your eyes pop. If you've ever wanted to see a flying tank or a man parachute into a moving helicopter, this is the summer picture for you.

As for the acting, it fits well into the "action film" stock tropes, but the fact that the cast is made up of very talented people brings this film in above the level of "cliche." Though he's not quite as good as in Taken (review coming soon) or Love Actually, Neeson is endearing as always, showing off his sense of humor and ennabling us to have as much fun as he is; Cooper too is just as fun, having made a satisfying transformation from the slightly irritating Will Tippin on Alias to the genial star of gutbusters like The Hangover. Jackson and Copley are supporting characters in the classic tradition, not overbearing but still entertaining; my one gripe (aside from the broad strokes with which B.A. is painted, which I imagine is faithful to the spirit of the show) is that Copley's thick South African dialect slips through in a few moments, distracting from his otherwise jolly turn. And Wilson and Biel are just fine in their roles; Wilson is the stronger of the two, stepping solidly out of the schleppy shoes he normally fills for this slick and cagey part, while Biel's acting chops are overshadowed by how pretty she is (which is really the only requirement given to female co-leads in an action movie - attractiveness).

So if there's a word that encapsulates my take on The A-Team, it's "fun." It may not be credible or particularly layered, but The A-Team is a lot of fun. And that, first and foremost, is all I ask of a movie - that it be entertaining, that I feel satisfied on a gut level if not on a creative level. Fortunately, what this movie lacks in narrative imagination, it makes up for in how far it pushes the envelope of originality. There are numerous moments in the film that caused me to think to myself, "I've never seen that before," and that alone is worth the price of admission. If the action sequences were more conventional, in the vein of Michael Bay explosion-centric CGI-fests, perhaps this would only be a so-so movie. But what might have been an average action vehicle has a backbone which makes it stand up straight and be better than it ought to have been. This, in a way, is what The Losers should have been.

The A-Team isn't one of the greatest films of all time - nor does it pretend to be. What it is- and what it is successfully - is a bona fide popcorn flick that doesn't shortchange the audience on pure
visceral entertainment.

Like all good summer popcorn blockbusters, The A-Team is rated PG-13, this time "for intense sequences of action and violence throughout, language and smoking." Basically, stuff blows up, people get shot, mild profanity (no F-bombs) gets issued, and Liam Neeson smokes a cigar.

Quicklist Added

2010-06-09T23:50:00.002-05:00

Hey folks -

Cinema King here. Just a quick update to let you all know about an exciting new feature I've added. I'm calling it a Quicklist.

Many people have asked me, "Hey, have you ever reviewed Movie X or Film Y?" When memory serves, I can answer fairly quickly, but when not I invoke the "labels" function on Blogger that allows me to tag reviews by title. Unfortunately, though, this involves sifting through more than two hundred labels to find a title.

That's all changing. By visiting http://cinemaking465.blogspot.com/2001/01/review-quicklist.html or by clicking the "Quicklist" link at the right of your screen under "Quick Links," you'll be taken to an alphabetical list of all the reviews I've penned. From there, you'll be linked to each and every review posted on this blog. What's more, in the spirit of connectivity, I've also tried to go through posts and link to other relevant posts elsewhere on the blog.

All this in the interest of making this site as user-friendly as possible. It also helps keep me sane. Let me know if these features are helpful, distracting, or otherwise possessive of some element worth noting.

Happy viewing.

Dog Soldiers (2002)

2010-06-09T19:22:00.005-05:00

After The Descent, director Neil Marshall earned a gold star from me for deft horror filmmaking. Unfortunately, his directorial debut is a tragic flop, the exact opposite of the sophomore slump - the filmic equivalent, I suppose, of the dreaded "freshman fifteen."

Kevin McKidd (of Rome and Grey's Anatomy fame) leads a cast of unknowns in this limp horror flick. Not much happens in the movie: an army platoon meets werewolves. Violence ensues.

I've been singing Marshall's praises ever since having the pants scared off of me by The Descent, but I'm going to have to reevaluate my perception of Marshall's canon. Dog Soldiers is, plain and simple, a mess that goes on too long without much ever happening. While I can appreciate a film that takes its time and is methodical about suspense, Dog Soldiers is painfully slow; the werewolves don't show up - indeed, aren't even mentioned - for about half an hour (excepting a brief and unsurprising precredits scene), leaving us with a cast of armymen who are neither very distinctive nor very interesting. Their crudeness is a poor substitute for character development, and the only reason we have to root for them is the fact that the lead soldier refused to kill a dog earlier. While The Descent had a similarly paced opening, those characters were more appearling and had personalities.

As for the werewolves, they're laughable. While I was expecting a bit of ingenuity in their presentation, it turns out that their bark was much worse than their bite. I liked the black-and-white POV shots that let us know where the werewolves are headed, but when the werewolves actually show up on screen, they're something much less than terrifying. In fact, they're absurd, quite obviously men in costumes with little mobility beyond slowly turning heads. They look more like claymation dogs than anything else, and it's difficult to be afraid of them when they shuffle like Betty White with overgrown fingernails.

And it's entirely predictable, breaking absolutely no new ground in a genre that so desperately needs creativity to do more than merely subsist. Horror films need to be innovative these days, particularly because I know I'm not alone in having outgrown the mindless slasher subgenre. Horror films can either refuse to take themselves seriously - Sam Raimi does a dynamite job doing that - or become extremely serious pieces with high production value, as The Descent did. Dog Soldiers does neither. It's entirely generic, predictable, and grounded by character types that we've all seen before. In a way, the ending is stolen wholesale from Tarantino's From Dusk Till Dawn, which is disappointing considering how well the earlier movie pulled off its climax.

I went into Dog Soldiers expecting chills and thrills, but what I got was gore and little more.

Dog Soldiers is rated R "for strong violence/gore and language." There's considerable bloody violence at play here, replete with werewolf ravaging and disemboweling, as well as a few instance of the F-bomb.

Sleuth (1972)

2010-06-08T23:08:00.004-05:00

I've noticed that my reviews boil down to evaluations of a film on two key spectra: the ranking of good/flawed/bad as applied to the people in front of the camera and the people behind it. With a film like the original Sleuth - in which only three characters ever appear on camera (Jolly Jack, pictured at left with Michael Caine, doesn't count) - makes both qualities infinitely more integral to a film's success.

It is almost impossible to discuss Sleuth without spoiling at least something about the film, and so I frontload this review with the overarching opinion before going into greater details. (Consequently, then, this review may be more brief than my readers are accustomed.) When all is told, Sleuth is worth the watch, even if it comes at the expense of a puzzling and slow-moving first third. If you're interested in watching two fantastic actors - Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine - go head to head, Sleuth is as good a choice as any.

With that out of the way, let's begin. Olivier plays Andrew Wyke, a wealthy member of the aristocracy who prides himself on his razor-sharp intellect, which he hones by writing mystery novels and solving puzzles in which the pieces are colorless. Caine plays Milo Tindle, a hairdresser who's having an affair with Wyke's wife Marguerite. Wyke invites Milo to his home, revealing he's conscious of the affair but suggesting that he's amenable to a resolution in which he is relieved of the burden of marriage to Marguerite. What follows, though, is a cat-and-mouse game with layers beyond the surface and hidden agendas just out of sight.

The most remarkable trait of this film is Anthony Shaffer's script, which he adapted from his own stage play, and what's remarkable about it is the fact that there are only two characters in the whole thing. And what's remarkable about that is the fact that the film only drags a little at the beginning; the exposition takes a little while to get off the ground, but once it does Shaffer's script becomes an intense confrontation within which a myriad of conflicts play themselves out - class tensions, generational gaps, immigrant-vs.-native, cuckold vs. lover.

The two performances are also quite strong. Olivier is entirely plausible as the arrogant and overconfident genius, while Caine is solid and abundantly entertaining as the novice here, who has to learn the rules of the game as he plays. Watching the two of them spar is as intense as a fencing match; the animosity is palpable, like Gable and Laughton in Mutiny on the Bounty, and the interplay is sufficiently jarring so that it's never quite clear who is on top in this duel of wits.

The only shortcoming of the film is that it's not quite surprising. At least, that was my experience, as a lifetime devotee of The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, and other suspense/twist ending flicks. There's a fairly surprising twist about an hour into the movie, but the rest of it plays out in fairly unsurprising terms. That's not to say that Sleuth is predictable to a fault; it's just that I was able to piece it together fairly quickly and see where it was going (and I'm not bragging). This detracted a bit from my enjoyment of the movie, though other moviegoers may not have the same problem. It's fun, though, to watch it play out since these two actors are doing fine work. For example, when Wyke discovers he's under the scrutiny of Police Inspector Doppler, the twist here is fairly obvious, but the performances are in top form.Sleuth is rated PG, as it contains a few droppings (no pun intended) of the S-bomb, as well as mild violence and psychologically intense confrontations.

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)

2010-06-08T21:41:00.008-05:00

I believe Anchorman has reached a place for (at the very least) my generation at which it can be regarded as a comedy classic, and so - at the risk of redundancy - I submit for your approval my glowing review of the film that really made Will Ferrell a movie star.

Ferrell plays Ron Burgundy, top newsman in San Diego and leader of the Channel 4 News Team; loyal sidekicks include boisterous Champ Kind (David Koechner) on sports, ladies' man Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd) on features, and 48-point IQ Brick Tamland (Steve Carell) on weather. The "man's world" of the 1970s is rocked when Channel 4 adds Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) as the industry's first female anchor; soon, Ron and Veronica find themselves alternating between bouts of lovemaking and (somewhat un)professional rivalry.

In a way, I believe that Anchorman came at a time that redefined the American comedy; coupled with movies like Wedding Crashers and Dodgeball - note the shared cast members in all these - Anchorman introduced to audiences the new face of comedy, both personally (with new cast who hadn't really done comedy on film before) and metaphorically (in terms of the kinds of laughs to be elicited). Anchorman represents a slip in the "mugging for laughs" movement I associate with people like David Spade and Norm MacDonald, who pause or crack grins after saying or doing something funny so that the audience has time to laugh before the movie continues on; here, though, the laughs continue on more like a rolling barrel down a hill than down a staircase - like a snowball as distinct from a jumping bean.

This success is due in large part to first-time director Adam McKay, who knows how to time a lot of the jokes and doesn't prolong any scene beyond its lifespan. Exactly the opposite - McKay has a keen sense for timing, knowing exactly how long a scene needs to be while remaining funny. Best example? The news team rumble that occurs halfway through the film. It begins with a few modest giggles, particularly because of the perfectly overdrawn rival anchor Wes Mantooth (Vince Vaughn). Soon, though, it escalates into the territory of the absolutely ludicrous, with Mexican newsmen joining the fight as a flaming man and a brandished trident amp up the comedy until the shot quick-cuts away from the fight to a post-game pep talk in Ron Burgundy's office, all paced perfectly. One wonders if the Coen Brothers were inspired by this cut when crafting the J.K. Simmons scenes in Burn After Reading (also a modern comedy classic).

But more credit belongs to all the performers, who display a deft capacity to create fully fleshed-out characters with a funny bone the size of Nebraska. Ferrell is in front and deservedly so, but his supporting cast shines brighter if only because there are just so many of them. Rudd, Koechner, and Applegate are fine supporting characters, subtly revealing more about their characters as the film progresses. But it's Carell who steals the show in a way that all the best comedic supporting actors can; Brick Tamland's the one who gets quoted the most by fans, if only for his brilliantly subdued "I love lamp" and his portrayal of a borderline-retarded weatherman whose perpetual disorientation only gets funnier and never feels like a broken record. Anchorman is littered with bit players like Vaughn, Fred Willard, Jack Black, Danny Trejo, and Seth Rogen who do fine work here even though they're not given very much screen time at all. Small doses, especially when it comes to perfect comedic timing, aren't always a bad thing.

What I like best about Anchorman, though, is the brand of humor the film employs, emphasizing personality over action, situation over punchline. Sure, it's funny to see Ron and Veronica throw typewriters at each other, but what's funnier about this scene is the clash of personalities at stake and the fact that each character believes themselves superior to the other. I've lambasted films for being all anticipation and no bang, but Anchorman handles anticipation in a bold new way; by introducing characters who are already funny, we can't help but laugh when we see these characters, even if they're not doing anything funny. Brick Tamland is funny even when he's not putting marshmallow fluff into a toaster, precisely because he's the kind of character who puts marshmallow fluff into a toaster. Ron Burgundy is funny not because of what he says or does, but he's funny purely on the virtue of being Ron Burgundy. Simply put, the movie earns all of its laughs.

In short, I cannot fathom any serious moviegoer, especially one who loves comedies, who has not seen this movie. Anchorman - along with its protagonist, Ron Burgundy - truly is legendary.
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy comes in two varieties - one of which is rated PG-13 "for sexual humor, language and comic violence." The dialogue is raunchy but not distractingly so, although it is incredibly sexist. One key F-bomb and a few lesser profanities (most of them excremental in nature) appear, as does a ludicrous fight scene played for laughs. An unrated version is only marginally different, with slightly more F-bombs and a bit more sexual dialogue, as well as more excremental material.

How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008)

2010-06-05T21:55:00.007-05:00

I'd hate to think that Simon Pegg is a one-hit (with a few near-hits) wonder, but How to Lose Friends & Alienate People just didn't score a home run for me.

Based on Toby Young's memoir about his time on staff at Vanity Fair, How to Lose Friends & Alienate People is a cynical look at "making it" with Pegg starring as Sidney Young, an up-and-coming journalist climbing the periodical ladder after being hired by top editor Clayton Harding (Jeff Bridges). Coarse and unrefined, Sidney meets the ire of his immediate editors Alison Olsen (Kirsten Dunst) and Lawrence Maddox (Danny Huston) while trying to court the gorgeous but empty-headed starlet Sophie Maes (Megan Fox).

I haven't yet seen a Simon Pegg vehicle as laugh-out-loud funny as Shaun of the Dead (though Hot Fuzz came close), and after this one I'm still looking. How to Lose Friends & Alienate People is funny, but not consistently so and not usually for more than a snicker every five minutes. (Only one scene, in which Sidney's left leg suffers pretty serious injury repeatedly, elicited three consecutive gut-busters.) The script, consequently, is a little weak - especially for a comedy. It's formulaic in its worst places and only mildly charming in its best. Comedic shortcomings aside, the film suffers from what I call "Observe and Report syndrome" - that is, none of its characters are truly compelling, nor do we have good reason to root for any of them. Sidney's lovable, true, but it's a thin sheen covering a crass and predominantly unappealing core. Alison and Clayton are drawn in very broad strokes, with little characterization beyond "girl" and "boss," respectively; only Maddox has any real personality to him, thanks to a solid performance by the always reliable Huston.

Then there's Megan Fox, to whom I devote an entire paragraph because I've seen pretty much every one of her major features. Yet I don't seem to have learned my lesson with it all - Transformers, Jennifer's Body (that's about it, folks) - because she's as talented here as she has been in the other films in her canon. Translation: she looks pretty, but her acting ability is as glassy-eyed as her own striking face. She floats through the movie (well, except for that gratuitous scene where she walks through a swimming pool) without committing to an emotion, an inflection, or a facial expression beyond "vapid." Her delivery is unenthusiastic, her body language is entirely silent, and her emotional range goes from zero to one over the duration of the movie. She's gorgeous, but she's got about as much substance as that transparent dress she wears in her early scenes.

What's disappointing is that all of those involved (Fox excluded) can and have done much better work. Pegg was priceless in his collaborations with Edgar Wright, and I liked Dunst in the Spider-Man franchise. While Huston's good here, he's much better elsewhere (like in 30 Days of Night), and Bridges is criminally underused here; despite numerous allusions to The Big Lebowski (including White Russians, Port Huron, and a reference to Clayton being "the dude"), the film employs none of Bridges's trademark talewnt, though he manages to pull off a good deal of deadpan humor. Even director Robert B. Weide isn't doing his best, having cut his teeth on the uber-funny Curb Your Enthusiasm series.

Despite being mildly fun at moments, How to Lose Friends & Alienate People does not represent the best work of anyone here. Even Megan Fox has looked better.

How to Lose Friends & Alienate People carries an R rating "for language, some graphic nudity and brief drug material." Translation: F-bombs galore, a transsexual fully naked from the front (prosthetics doubtless involved), and cocaine presented twice.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)

2010-06-02T11:58:00.005-05:00

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is everything I love about Nicolas Cage movies - exuberantly over-the-top, bafflingly heavy on unsubtle characterization, and riddled with loud bursts of unnecessary shouting.

Werner Herzog insists that this Bad Lieutenant has nothing to do with Abel Ferrara's 1992 Bad Lieutenant, starring Harvey Keitel - it's not a remake, a prequel, a sequel, a midquel, an update, et cetera. Perhaps it's simply a variation on a theme: the bad cop. In any event, Cage is that bad cop, Terrence McDonagh, navigating his way through post-Katrina New Orleans. He's got a prostitute (Eva Mendes) for a lover, a nasty cocaine/Vicodin habit, gambling debts up the wazoo, and persistent hallucinations of iguanas. In the middle of a five-homicide case, McDonagh's life starts spiraling out of control as he crosses the line more times than one can count.

The main attraction at this carnival of movie magic is, of course, Nic Cage. Readers of this blog know that there's a very strange love-hate relationship between Cage and myself; that is, I've been burned on a lot of his movies (The Wicker Man, Next, and Ghost Rider chief among them), but his movies are irresistible. Most of the time they're terrible to the point of being infinitely rewatchable - The Wicker Man, with its shouted epithet of "HOW'D IT GET BURNED?!" and the delightfully campy "Nic Cage in a bear suit punching women" scene, for example - but every once in a while he turns in a star performance. And I'm just not sure which of these Bad Lieutenant is. On the one hand, Cage is McDonagh, unbreakably intense and (according to my father) nearly pitch-perfect in portraying a man suffering from back pain, at least as far as posture is concerned. On the other hand, he does some very strange things in this movie that I couldn't reconcile with really anything I'd seen before; sometimes his drug-addled stupor simply resembles confused myopia, and for twenty minutes his character slips for no apparent reason into a bizarre voice resembling Jimmy Stewart with lockjaw. The other performances are entirely negligible, then, in the wake of this wholly odd character Cage creates.

But win or lose, for better or for worse Cage is entertaining, perpetually on the brink of insanity. Where I've seen Cage phone in performances before (Next, the last third of Lord of War), here he's completely entrenched in the character's shoes, from his slumping shoulders to his unrelenting fearlessness when it comes to cutting loose. I can't count the number of times McDonagh snaps in the film, either hurling profanities at characters who are "in his way" or cackling hysterically after taking hit after hit from a crack pipe. This is Cage at his most unrestrained, but it's certainly not a fantastic film by any stretch of the imagination. It is, simply, fascinatingly bizarre.

Most of that strange quality is Herzog's fault, and I use the word "fault" with all its negative connotations because Herzog's interventions are deliberate, distracting, and detrimental. For starters, the narrative is tangled and fragmented, jumping in episodic format from vignette to vignette with only a loose thread tying it all together. For a fair amount of the second half, McDonagh is pursued by a group of hoodlums, though it's unclear until the last few minutes (at which point it's already too late) who these cats are working for. The most distracting and problematic shots in the film are ones in which Herzog's camera lingers fetishistically on lizards, with iguanas and alligators in particular getting their close-up. These scenes are almost impossible to fit into the narrative of the film - it's implied that the iguanas are hallucinations and therefore represent moments of unreality - and seem overly indulgent, calling attention themselves while grinding the narrative flow to a halt. (Herzog's greatest sin, though, might be his failure to pull Cage aside and ask, "Hey man, what the heck is up with this voice you're doing all of a sudden?"

For one of those "What the heck did I just watch?" movies, this Bad Lieutenant is all good. For high cinema (Ebert put it on his Top Ten of '09 list), I can't say it's a great film. You may, however, find it highly entertaining.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is rated a hard R "for drug use and language throughout, some violence and sexuality." McDonagh abuses pretty much every drug in the book, swears like a sailor (as do other characters), is lovers with a prostitute, and accepts sexual favors as bribes (rear nudity is seen once). Leave the kiddies at home; this ain't National Treasure.

The Third Man (1949)

2010-05-31T11:47:00.004-05:00

I've praised old movies for having larger-than-life casts, and perhaps the largest of them all was Orson Welles - a genius underappreciated in his day and eventually immortalized as "The Brain" on Animaniacs.

I'm being glib. Welles was big - still is, as a matter of fact. Perhaps, then, Harry Lime is one of his best-known roles (after, naturally, Charles Foster Kane) because the character is like the man - seldom seen, always in the shadows, always in control, and of course larger than life. But I had a less than rapturous experience with The Third Man, which is not to say that the film was fantastically disappointing but rather that the experience of watching the film was.

Director Carol Reed handles a Graham Greene screenplay about American western writer Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) in bombed-out Vienna. Martins has come to find his friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles), who's offered him a job, but when Martins arrives he learns that Lime has been killed in a car accident. After meeting Lime's lover Anna Schmidt (Alida Valli) as well as a few of Lime's deeply suspicious friends, Martins learns that there was an unidentified "third man" present when Lime was killed. Martins follows the trail of evidence to a startling discovery and a knockout chase through the sewers of Vienna.

It's almost impossible to talk about the movie without spoiling the big reveal that initiates the final act of the film, though it's a spoiler that's as common knowledge as the identity of the killer in Psycho - Harry Lime's not dead. The two leads - Cotten and Welles (an inversion of the billing on Citizen Kane) - are dynamite here, with Cotten proving that he's fine as a leading man. Welles does a good job of stepping out of the limelight (no pun intended) and relegating himself to a small but highly memorable supporting role. Of the two, it's easier to favor Welles, who lives up to the film's hyping of his impending appearance; the crucial scene in a ferris wheel is riveting, in which Welles gets to deliver the most famous line of the film - the cuckoo clock speech.

I can also appreciate what Reed did in the making of the film - shoot on location in what was left of Vienna and shoot a compelling chase scene through the sewers. But for every point I can give Reed for his accomplishments, I have to dock him one for the film's shortcomings. The film is riddled with confusing close-ups angled sharply in a disorienting effect; if this had a practical purpose, it'd be one thing, but it seems Reed is tilting the camera just for giggles. More problematic is the film's pacing; while it's enjoyable to see how nearly everyone in the supporting cast looks guiltier than sin, the film drags for a bit while Martins investigates his friend's death. Between the discovery of the existence of a "third man" and the revelation of who that third man is, almost nothing happens; there's some wriggling about Anna's forged passport, but nothing of substance. The film, the audience, and Martins all meander through Vienna trying to figure out where the narrative thread has gone.

But I think my principal problem with the film is the fact that Welles is reduced to a near cameo. The cover of the DVD jacket, and the predominant image in cultural memory, is that of Welles half-turned in a shadowy doorway, poised to enter the film. But the real tragedy is that Welles is criminally underused here, appearing in only two scenes of significance (three if you count his wordless introductory shot). I suppose it'd be like watching an episode of 24 because you heard there was a president on the show; naturally, this character appears, but the star of the visual drama is someone else entirely. For that reason, I feel a little guilty saying I wasn't a big fan of The Third Man, because I watched it with a very heavy anticipation of what the film would be. Consequently, my disappointment is more with my expectations than with the film itself. I'm certain this merits a second viewing, but just give me a little time first.

More my problem than the film's, The Third Man was finely made but just not "to my liking" - at least, not in the moment that I watched it.
The MPAA only "Approved" The Third Man, but today it'd probably land a PG "for thematic elements and smoking."

I'd really like to see this movie remade, certainly without the zither score; put Hans Zimmer or somebody on it to really bring out the suspense of the shadowed Viennese streets. As for cast: Robert Downey, Jr. as Holly Martins, Casino Royale's Eva Green as Anna, and George Clooney as Harry Lime - with the caveat that we not advertise Clooney's presence in the film, to heighten the intrigue in the film as Martins pursues him through Vienna (a la Kevin Spacey's uncredited appearance in Se7en). Christopher Nolan could do a fine job directing.

World's Greatest Dad (2009)

2010-05-30T00:01:00.005-05:00

Ben Mankiewicz liked it, which should be your first clue that World's Greatest Dad isn't exactly cinematic gold. In fact, it's inordinately creepy from many angles.

Bobcat Goldthwait (yes, him) wrote and directed this little number about aspiring writer Lance Clayton (Robin Williams), who's both a high school teacher and a father. His son Kyle (Daryl "Spy Kids" Sabara) is a moody little snot with a chip on his shoulder and a predilection for auto-erotic aspyhxiation. When Kyle accidentally kills himself, Lance sanitizes the scene and stages it as a suicide, forging a suicide note. The note gets made public, though, and Lance creates more writing under Kyle's name. Ironically, his life -and his relationship with art teacher Claire (Alexie Gilmore) turns around.

I like Robin Williams, I really do; his stand-up is always outrageous and sends me into great big rolling fits of laughter. And for some reason that just never translates into his movie career. I thought Mrs. Doubtfire was loathsome, I couldn't bring myself to finish that robot movie he was in (indeed, I can't even remember the name of it), and the only movies of his I can rewatch are Aladdin and Insomnia (though that's more due to the Al Pacino/Christopher Nolan factors). World's Greatest Dad represents another entry in the "Robin Williams Canon of Unlikeable Protagonists." Lance Clayton is completely irredeemable (though the film tries desperately to do it, with baptismal imagery and a new family formed at the end), and Williams's performance is fairly flat. Where Matt Damon was putzy and at least amicable in The Informant!, World's Greatest Dad has none of the personality or moral compass that other "good people gone bad" movies have; consequently, Williams's performance comes off as very one-note.

Sabara, however, deserves a little more credit. On a visceral reaction, Kyle is a very unappealing and even repulsive character. He's foul-mouthed, governed by his hormones, and entirely unpleasant to be around. My instant reaction to the character was that I disliked him. He irritated me. That's when I realized how good of a performer Sabara is. To step inside a character that repugnant and to make him real in a way that the audience feels exactly the way about him that even his father feels - that's good acting. It's both a pity and a relief that he bows out of the picture so early.

The DVD cover lauds the film as hysterical and exuberantly funny, and I genuinely wanted that to be the case. I haven't seen a decent funny movie in a long time, and I'm beginning to wonder if real comedies still exist. (I'm still holding out hope, considering the city on the hill known as The Hangover.) World's Greatest Dad just isn't funny. It's tragic, it's pathetic, it's darkly ironic, and it's uncomfortably exploitative - but funny? Nope. There are more yuks in the internal monologue of an insomniac than in this movie. A few grins elicited here, a chuckle or two drawn out there - this is the sum total of the entertainment value of World's Greatest Dad. The film is more interested in the character of Lance Clayton, but it's an ambiguous characterization. On one count, his actions are entirely offensive, but "wrong" is a verdict the film is unwilling to render. Perhaps that's a matter of the writer being too attached to a character to label him immoral, or perhaps the movie wants the viewer to decide. Either way, World's Greatest Dad amounts to a tacit approval of behavior not far from despicable. Its worst crime, though, is pretending to be a comedy.

World's Greatest Dad isn't all that great. It's off-putting and uncomfortable in a way that might have been the creator's intention, but as it stands it's a primarily disturbing film punctuated with moments of pitch-black comedy.

World's Greatest Dad is rated R "for language, crude and sexual content, some drug use and disturbing images." This film has some of the crassest sexual dialogue I've seen in a movie, and I say that having seen Superbad several times. If there's a sex act out there, this movie talks about it in pretty graphic detail. Marijuana is abused a few times, too. And if you ever wanted to see Robin Williams completely naked, this is the movie for you.

(By the way, the aforementioned robot movie was Bicentennial Man. It would have bugged me if I didn't look it up.)