The Box (2009)

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)

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)

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)

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

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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.