Tropic Thunder

I didn't so much as smile at any point in TROPIC THUNDER's run time. The whole enterprise felt like a labored, inside baseball comedy for the kind of people who laugh really hard at blooper reels. At no time did I feel like any of the characters were, on any level, actual people, and the child actor who played the villain was such a one-note performer that I found him to be quite distracting.

This film, a film that appeared to want to deflate vanities, felt like a vanity project. I don't ever need to see it again.

The Pineapple Express

THE PINEAPPLE EXPRESS left me cold. The characters seemed to come from another planet, the action beats felt ridiculously odd, and the comedy set pieces left me flat. While James Franco does, indeed, act his ass off, I never saw the comedy in his interactions with Rogen.

There's just nothing funny here. Two stoners bumbling through a deadly adventure could be funny, I suppose, but the stakes are too high and the comedy not high enough. I spent the film wondering if it would have worked better as a Cheech 'N Chong movie. Do you think they could have saved it?

Get Smart

GET SMART is a formulaic comedy based on a television series I can barely remember. It also happens to be laugh-out-loud funny.

It's not even that GET SMART is particularly well written. It's just particularly well delivered. Steve Carell is perfect as Smart, the bumbling yet oddly capable analyst who finally gets to be a field agent. He plays the character as a man in tight control of his emotions, but who's always just one cone of silence away from gut-bursting joy. Anne Hathaway is, well, Anne Hathaway, upon whom I now formally bestow the title of Can Do No Wrong. She's tough and vulnerable and funny and dazzling and just a pleasure to watch. Dwayne Johnson is one of those guys who's good in whatever he's in, and his sense of comic timing gets better with each outing. Terry "President Camacho" Crews dials it down (for him) and finds just the right volume, and his partner David Koechner has the "laughable jerk" thing down to a science. And then there's Alan Arkin, the Chief, whose deadpan delivery anchors the production and allows it to soar.

The villains are duly villainous without ever being truly threatening, the third act shift into action territory works quite well, and the whole thing kept DB and me amused throughout. GET SMART is slick Hollywood comedy done right. Color me pleasantly surprised.

Mongol

MONGOL does almost everything I want a movie to do: it takes us to a different time, a different place, and a different culture. It educates and entertains, and it does so by giving us interesting people living in interesting time. I invested in the film's hero, Temudjin, and his family. I wanted them to overcome the odds against them and emerge victorious, and I was happy when they did so. (Hey, it's a biopic. They don't make biopics about people who get killed in their teens. Surely, that can't count as a spoiler.)

However, MONGOL does one thing I never want a movie to do: it makes me scratch my head and wonder, "What were they thinking?" Why does the film show us a young Tamudjin falling through the ice on a frozen lake, yet never shows us his escape? Why does the film go to such lengths to underline the brutality and unrelenting nature of his (one-time) captors, only to give us an (apparently) magical deliverance and expect us to believe the captors simply lost interest in him? Why does a movie that expects us to accept that Tamudjin can survive upwards of four years in a tiny cage also expect us to believe that he can emerge from that cage ready to fight, climb, run, and love? Why do the filmmakers go out of their way to explain that Tamudjin wins his climactic battle through strategy, then show us only the first phase of the strategy before turning to what can only be considered divine intervention?

Now, I'm not normally one for head scratchers. I'm willing to go along with what a movie has to give me. But these omissions and errors blew my suspension of disbelief. While MONGOL is a fine costume drama / National Geographic special, I think it could have benefited from one more pass at the writing table and the editing room. Perhaps the filmmakers will do better with the second film of this proposed trilogy of the life of Genghis Khan. I hope so, because I'll be there to see it.

Baby Mama

All right, here it is: BABY MAMA is laugh-out-loud funny.

Here's the setup: ridiculously hot Tina Fey is a career woman whose biological clock is ticking ... like ... this. Problem is, her doctor "doesn't like her uterus," and it looks like she'll never be able to carry a baby. Enter ridiculously hot (and surprisingly funny) Sigourney Weaver as Chafee Bicknell, proprietress of a first class surrogacy service. She matches rhTF with consistently funny Amy Poehler, whose white trash bonafides are cemented by her common-law marriage to ever entertaining Dax Shepard.

And away we go, in a class and culture and gender comedy that's consistently funny and perceptive. rhTF proves that not only can she sway an election, she can carry a movie. How much so? BABY MAMA features Steve Martin's best comedy work in years, and rhTF measures up to him in every frame. cfAP does great work with what could have been an elementary role, and eeDS and the rest of the supporting cast (including Maura Tierney, Romany Malco, Will Forte, Fred Armison, John Hodgeman, and the always likable Greg Kinnear as the love interest) are just plain first rate. The script casts a knowing comedic eye on pregnancy and love, and it manages to be simultaneously sharp, biting, and hilarious.

BABY MAMA is way funnier than I'd expected. It made me lose track of time and kept me chuckling right through the end credits. To those who were put off by the crass and dull trailer, be not deceived by the poor decisions of the marketing department. This picture is a winner.

The Strong Man

TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP is included on the DVD, "Harry Langdon: The Forgotten Clown," available from Netflix. The disc also features two Frank Capra -directed films, THE STRONG MAN and THE LONG PANTS. Yesterday, I saw THE STRONG MAN.

I generally like to take a movie head on. I try to view it, and write about it, on its own terms. But I'm having trouble thinking of Harry Langdon without thinking of the Big Three of silent comedy: Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd. As mentioned in my thoughts on TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP, Chaplin and Keaton both relied on physical virtuosity and precise planning in the execution of their films, while Lloyd seemed to put more stock in his charisma. Their efforts resulted in timeless films that haven't lost their ability to entertain generations later. Langdon, on the other hand, does not appear to have been particularly physically gifted. His set-pieces relied on editing and simple stagecraft to see them through. And the poor guy just wasn't as charismatic as he evidently thought he was. Seeing him mug his way through one situation after another isn't particularly amusing nor entertaining. Frankly, it's tiresome.

But hey, THE STRONG MAN gives you a chance to catch some early Capra.

The film opens with Langdon as a Belgian soldier on the Western Front. It's the strongest part of the piece, combining stock footage with character bits that establish the hapless Langdon as the little soldier who couldn't, really, but somehow managed to survive despite himself. Soon enough, the war is over, Langdon has emigrated to America, and Mary Astor is out to take advantage of him. But Langdon only has a heart for one girl, the American who sent him all those nice letters while he was at the front.

This Langdon is childlike, perhaps addled. As he blunders his way from one situation to the next on his path to his One True Love, we're invited to root for him, cry for him, laugh with him. Instead, we look at our watch. His character is so juvenile that we can't engage with him as a man, but he's too old for us to engage him as a boy. The set pieces don't amuse but do go on too long, and the whole thing just grinds.

Recommended for those interested in seeing Capra develop his craft; not many others.

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp

TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP stars Harry Langdon as the Harry Langdon character, a sad sack conveniently named Harry. In this incarnation, Harry's the son of a small town shoemaker who's losing out to shoe magnate John Burton. Burton's secret? A nationwide billboard campaign featuring his lovely daughter, Betty. When Burton dreams up a coast-to-coast walking race sponsored by his cobblery, Harry gets his big chance to enter the race. If he wins, not only does he get enough money to save Dad's business, he just might meet the Burton Shoes poster girl.

Never mind that Betty Burton is played by the terrifying Joan Crawford. The cross country race serves as a way too get our hero from one set piece to the next, though the pieces themselves work with varying degrees of success. Where Chaplin and Keaton could count on physical virtuosity (and meticulous planning) to execute their set pieces, Langdon relies on editing and charisma. When it comes to charisma, however, the guy's no Harold Lloyd. I never invested in Langdon's predicaments because I never invested in Langdon. Besides, how do you root for your hero to get the girl when the girl is dragon lady
Crawford?

For those looking to view this movie for some Crawfordish deliciousness, TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP is sadly lacking. She's your
generic love interest, falling for the star for no reason other than that he's the star.

TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP is a lesser silent comedy, one I'd recommend to Crawford completists and those interested in this era of film. To the general viewing audience, however, I say to give it a pass. There are better silents out there.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS is the pilot episode for the new, animated, Clone Wars series showing on basic cable. How did it rate a theatrical release? Branding, baby. Branding.

Taken as a standalone product, SWCW is a run of the mill sci-fi themed adventure movie. It stars actors we like voicing characters we have no reason to like, embarked on an adventure in which we have no investment, facing peril we never doubt they'll overcome. But hey, it's Star Wars. People will pay money to see it.

Among those people include my 8-yr-old. I think he's on his fourth viewing. The Clone Wars period of the Star Wars story captures his imagination, and the "small person's" POV used when focusing on a new trainee's character appeals to him. Furthermore, the movie pops in HD, and its "cartoon marionette" aesthetic is surprisingly effective.

All in all, for a movie, STCW is a good tv show for kids. Don't expect much more than that.

Hairspray

I sat down in front of HAIRSPRAY with my arms crossed. I was not in the mood for a musical. Two hours later, HAIRSPRAY had me tapping my foot and put a big smile on my face.

HAIRSPRAY is an energetic, colorful, lively, and fun musical that overcomes its jarring elements and delivers a first-rate entertainment experience.

So, let's talk about the jarring elements. First, there's John Travolta. Yeah, the guy's a hell of a dancer (if you can dance in a fat suit and sell it, then buddy, you can dance). But his Baltimore accent was horrible and I never once believed he was anyone other than John Travolta dragged up in a fat suit. Second, there's Christopher Walken. Frankly, I'm tired of Walken's playing against type in comic roles. Creep me out again, Chris! Third, there's the aggressive cheerfulness of the production itself. It's like one of those kids shows that knocks itself out trying to convince its audience how much gosh-darn fun its having.

But enough of that. James Marsden cements his position as one of the most fun to watch young actors working today. Michelle Pfieffer, in her second "wicked witch" role in recent memory has always been one of the most fun to watch actresses in the business. Nikki Blonsky is delightful as the lead, and the whole thing rocks along with a wink and a smile and has so much gosh-darn fun that you can't help but wink and smile along.

What a pleasant surprise.

Mamma Mia!

I took three runs at MAMMA MIA! I was stuck in coach on a transpacific flight in one of those old 747s, the kind with one screen up near the front of the cabin of which you can only see about half. I actually wanted to see this movie because I like Greece, I like the cast, and I liked MURIEL'S WEDDING, which also pushed the Abba.

I made it about thirty seconds in the first musical number before I pulled my headphone jack out of the armrest. But everyone looked they were having such a good time, and the island looked so pretty, that I plugged back in for one of Meryl Streep's numbers, just so I could hear her sing. I think I lasted 45 seconds through "Dancing Queen." Yank.

Then Pierce Brosnan opened his mouth in what appeared to be agony. I plugged back in for his number. I lasted perhaps a full minute that time, but I was done.

MAMMA MIA! is like being dragged to your mom's kaffee klatch during spring break. It's like going along with your wife on a "lunch with the girls" so she can share a part of her life with you. It's like being forced to listen to your sister cry over her latest breakup as you, she, and a friend of hers drive down an interminable highway. If you're a guy, you don't belong. You know you don't belong. Everyone's trying to make you feel like you do belong, but everyone knows you just plain don't. Especially you.

So don't go along. If you're a man, this movie is worse than PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE. It's worse than STEALTH. It's worse than DEATH RACE 2000. Tell your mom to have fun at the kaffee klatch. Tell your wife you'll be having beer and wings with the guys. Tell your sister to drop you off anywhere and tell someone to send water.

Just don't subject yourself to this.

Quantum of Solace

QUANTUM OF SOLACE is an action movie whose action sequences are so incomprehensible as to be outright boring. Seriously. Whoever directed and edited these sequences are terrible at their jobs, utterly unable to string together something so simple as a fistfight without a hundred jump cuts and reaction shots that, at times, had me
wondering who was hitting whom.

The story's fine, I suppose - it's a mystery wrapped in a revenge thriller, with plenty of granola-eating throwaways for the Guilty Hollywood crowd (The next time I hear someone complain about "the corporations," I'm gonna throw my Nerf brick at the screen.). But I didn't care because not only did I not know what was going on, it
became apparent that this iteration of Bond has no fear of death. How can we thrill to the courageous exploits of a man who doesn't need courage because his wiring's screwed up?

Yeah, QUANTUM OF SOLACE is loud and lots of stuff blows up and Bond outflies a fighter in a DC-3, but it just doesn't work. Maybe if I knew what was going on.

Bangkok Dangerous

Since every beat of BANGKOK DANGEROUS is predictable and everything happens on schedule, your enjoyment of the film will hinge upon how much you like Nick Cage and how much you like Thailand.

I like Nic Cage. I like Thailand. I like 'em so much that I overlooked the fact that BANGKOK DANGEROUS is not a very good movie and had a good time, anyway. Yeah, this is the kind of movie in which the hardened criminal kicks things off by telling you his rules of the game. That's just so you'll know exactly which rules he'll break on his way to redemption. And oh, yeah, it's the kind of movie in which the hardened criminal repeats the rules as he's about to break them, in case you walked in late or have poor short-term memory. And yep, it's the kind of movie in which the love interests don't say anything, making them empty vessels for the romantic fantasies of the (young male) target audience.

But it has lots o' great location shooting in the Land of Smiles, lots of stuff blows up real good, and Cage does that thing where he's holding a pistol in each hand and blasting away, a firing technique guaranteed to ensure that the shooter couldn't hit the sky if he were aiming at it. Of course, this is extra fun because Nic Cage is just not a dangerous guy. I don't care how silly his wig is or many weights he lifts - there's something about the guy that communicates that the worst thing he could possibly do to you is shark your wave or bogart your joint. I don't mind - Thailand looks great, the local talent is very talented, and the movie even surprised me when it came to the damsel.

You Don't Mess with the Zohan

YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN is a shocking movie. It's actually funny.

I know, I know. It shouldn't be. The ads made it look like a vanity piece for a suddenly insecure Adam Sandler. It prominently features Rob Schneider. It's vulgar.

But, hey, the first act has several laugh-out-loud moments. The second act is strangely sweet. And when the third act realizes its jokes are getting old, it blows up a lot of stuff real good. Oh, and did I mention John Turturro?

Here's the hook: Zohan is an Israeli superdupersoldier. He tires of fighting, fakes his own death, and moves to America to follow his dream of becoming a hairdresser. From there, the movie is kind of a gentle rehash of COMING TO AMERICA, with equal helpings cultural and sexual humor. Here's the surprise: Sandler actually sells it, making this his funniest picture since THE WATERBOY. His Zohan is confident and insecure, sweet and vulgar, a whole lotta fun.

And Turturro, as his Palestinian nemesis The Phantom, is utterly unhinged. Here's the thing about Turturro: he can be a fine, nuanced actor in stuff like THE LUZHIN DEFENSE; he can also roll into high caricature and chew scenery with the best of them. Here, he's in full caricature mode, creating an antagonist so silly that every moment on screen feels like a great time.

I was not expecting to enjoy YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN, but I'm glad I fired it up. What a pleasant surprise.

Red Eye

RED EYE is a clockwork thriller, carefully plotted and shorn of fat. While some of the elements it uses to generate tension were utterly lost on me (Oooh, turbulence!), Cillian Murphy and Rachel McAdams are sufficiently interesting people to carry a fim on their faces alone. And just when it goes over the top in the third act and you're ready
to throw your Nerf brick at the screen, here comes Robert Pine (Sgt. Getraer from CHiPs, but hey, you knew that) to lend a little goodwill.

Sure, it's forgettable. Sure, it's a throwaway. But it's a well-made throwaway. I liked it.

Body of Lies

The most arresting sequence in BODY OF LIES, Ridley Scott's latest film, focuses on Russell Crowe's Ed Hoffman, a rumpled CIA division director. Crowe is at home, writing a paper by speaking into a dictaphone, carefully crafting an argument about the nature of Islamic terrorism, the gravity of the threat, and the means necessary to combat it. The scene shifts to Crowe speaking the words to two sharply-dressed political types - he wasn't writing a paper, he was rehearsing a talk. He's wearing a "visitor" badge. The politicos look bored and annoyed that he's taking up their time. He's laying it all out, clearly and concisely. He sees another politico enter the room and he makes a quick exit while the people he'd waylaid sit up, smile, and focus on the newcomer.

Crowe is America's leading expert on Islamic terrorism, and the only way he can get a meeting with high-level decisionmakers is to barge in on their schedules, piss them off, and disappear.

The sequence is brilliant because it puts everything else about the film into perspective. All the punishment Leonardo DiCaprio's CIA operative takes, all the low-level politicking between American and Jordanian intelligence, all the death - it's back page stuff; the big dogs have other bones to gnaw.

But what is happening on that back page, anyway? BODY OF LIES is the first GWOT espionage thriller, and it's a fine piece of storytelling in the best traditions of the genre. It features intricate plots and counterplots, players of various levels of trustworthiness, dangerous love, courage, and cowardice. Its local touches feel authentic, and it has the courage to understand that it may not be the most important thing happening in the world.

I liked this movie; I liked it alot. It had everything I could ask for in an espionage thriller, and its creators are top-flight talent. Even if it is about back-page stuff.

Death Race

There are some actors out there who are in it for the paycheck. There are some who are in it solely to explore their art. There are some who explore their art when they can and take the paycheck when they must.

I guess Joan Allen had bills to pay.

I'm tempted to write that DEATH RACE is a bad, bad movie. Its races are incomprehensible agglomerations of gunfire, explosions, and quick-cuts that left me utterly mystified. When a movie's ostensibly about racing, even death racing, shouldn't one be able to tell who's in the lead, or even what's going on, without a ranking board popping up every now and then? Ms. Allen has a climactic outburst of villainy that was so ridiculous I nearly laughed. And don't get me started on the crime to Robin Shou's hair that this film represents.

But 40-year-olds with colds who can't muster the energy to do more than see a bad movie are not the target demographic of this particular film. The target demographic of this particular film is males aged 15-25. I saw this movie at an on-base movie theater at a naval airfield in Japan. The crowd was 100% male, and I'm pretty sure I was twice the age of the next-oldest guy there.

They loved it.

They cheered the explosions. They laughed at the comical kills. They howled at the pretty women. They hooted at the dialogue. Man, they ate DEATH RACE up. It was like their favorite video game come to life. On the way out, they chatted and laughed and high-fived and generally went home happy.

So, hey, if you're a 15-25 year old guy, you'll probably love DEATH RACE. If not, well, you'd better have one hell of a cold.

Xanadu

Sometimes, a guy's just gotta groove to some ELO-influenced roller disco entertainment.

XANADU is that, of course, but it's also more: it's the pinnacle of the roller disco genre. It's tacky, it's loud, it's far too bright, and it raises more questions than it answers. It also features Gene Kelly's last dance performance in a feature film, clever switches between animation and live action, and more raucous, self-delighted performance than you can shake a skate at. This is the kind of movie that features tightrope walkers because - why the hell not? It's the kind of movie that gives you nine muses, none of whom look remotely Greek. It's the kind of movie that thinks going over the top isn't going far enough.

Yeah, there's a plot about an artist who is in danger of losing his inspiration and an old-timer in danger of forgetting his. They're saved through the twin powers of Olivia Newton-John and roller disco, a potent combination if ever there was one. But that's not the reason to see the movie. The reason to see the movie, or at least to fast forward through the dialogue so you can get to the production numbers, is to watch an aging Gene Kelly demonstrate that he has more rhythm in his little finger than Olivia Newton-John has in her entire body. It's such a pleasure to watch this guy do his thing, even if he isn't as acrobatic as he once was, that you can't possibly regret sitting down with this picture for at least twenty minutes. What's more, there are zoot-suit dancers, carhop dancers, and even early breakdancers.

All that, plus ELO. Plus roller disco. What's not to love?

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

I enjoyed the hell out of SWEENEY TODD.

This film was my first exposure to the story, and I admit that I went into the picture not expecting to like it. My tastes run to the bright and cheery, frankly, and this stuff is pretty dire. But it works. It works because Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, even under all their makeup, infuse the proceedings with a compelling, dark humanity. It works because of top notch supporting performances. And it works because Tim Burton creates a world, and a worldview, so complete that we can enter into it and live there for a while, even if we don’t care to live there much longer than a couple of hours.

Johnny Depp, a strong contender for Can Do No Wrong status, is Todd, a man with vengeance in his heart. I knew Depp could do vengeance (Hell, I knew he could accomplish most any acting task set before him.), but I didn’t know he could sing. His numbers, and his performance of those numbers, enhance his character and entertain – he’s just great here. Helena Bonham Carter, an actress to whom I’ve always found it difficult to warm, is just right, as well. She’s creepy and off and fascinating and, what do you know, she can sing, too.

As for the supporting work, well, look at this cast: Alan Rickman (CDNW), Timothy Spall, and Sacha Baron Cohen (a performer whose stock keeps rising, in my book), among others. Rickman, of course, Can Do No Wrong. Spall is taking too many “slimy guy” roles, but he’s mighty good at them, and who knew Cohen could sing? Even as I recognized their faces, I bought their roles.

And Burton, well, he’s Burton. He creates films that come fully alive in their self-contained worlds, and his choice of palette and scene here is spot on for the material.

This is a successful film, and a damn fine entertaining one. Color me pleased.

The Foot Fist Way

THE FOOT FIST WAY is the kind of film that invites us to spend an hour and a half laughing at, not with, its characters as they endure one uncomfortable and embarrassing situation after another.

I found it to be mean-spirited, hateful, and accusatory. I shut it off after forty-five minutes of stone-faced, arms folded indignation. I can’t imagine why anyone would write, direct, produce, or star in this picture, and I can’t imagine why anyone would recommend it to anyone else, unless they didn’t like their target.

Avoid this film. The world is a worse place for its existence.

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek

THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN’S CREEK, a Preston Sturges picture from 1943, is laugh-out-loud funny. It offers a combination of verbal and physical comedy that’s irresistible, and it’s served up with verve.

THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN’S CREEK is pretty sophisticated stuff for a post-Code, war-era comedy. A girl in an Army town goes out for a big night at the farewell bash for a bunch of new recruits headed off to war. Weeks later, she has vague memories of possibly having married some guy named, um, Ratzkywatzky, ?, and definite proof that she’s pregnant. What is a pregnant minor to do? Well, if her mother’s the governor, mom finds the son of a bitch and gets ‘em hitched after forcing ‘em to smile for the national television cameras. But what if her father is just a lowly constable? She finds a patsy.

And away we go, with sputtering fathers, stuttering patsies, and enough slapstick to make it all go down smoothly. Betty Hutton is winning as Trudy Kockenlocker, the girl in question, and Diana Lynn is utterly delightful as the sister who’s younger in years but older in the heart and head. William Demarest, as the father who is no match for his daughters, is a master of bluff paternalism and the expert pratfall, and Eddie Bracken, as the hapless patsy, is simply delightful.

The more I think about this movie, the more I like it. THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN’S CREEK is a wonderful time at the movies.

The Mist

THE MIST wrung me out. This is a scary, exciting, depressing, and fulfilling movie that did not get the love it deserved.

The film, based on a Stephen King novella from _Skeleton Crew_, is a variation on one of King’s favorite themes: a group of people are trapped in an extraordinary, possibly supernatural, situation. The rules of civilization bend and snap, and we’re witnesses to our own best and worst selves.

Sure, there are monsters and gore effects and all that sort of thing, but THE MIST is really Lord of the Flies in a supermarket. While some folks may be put off by the film’s religious and political positions, it isn’t the positions themselves that matter so much as where the picture goes with them. THE MIST has a bleak view of humanity, it seems, but it also believes in the potential for nobility. I enjoyed its exploration of those ideas as much as I did the visceral fear, adventure, and desolation it had on offer; for I knew that those emotions were emotions in a box, feelings I could sample for a while, then put away. But what I can’t put away are some of the ideas of THE MIST, particularly the one about the fragility of civilization and the human compact. I don’t agree with its position, because I consistently see people at their best when things are at their worst, but the film does offer rich food for thought, nonetheless.

The Naked Spur

Somewhere along the way, I picked up the notion that there was a twist ending to THE NAKED SPUR. There is, but not the in the way I thought. It’s a twist so much more engaging than anything I’d have imagined that it elevates the picture from merely good to damn good. Unfortunately, it also makes the film nearly impossible to write about.

I will write that the cinematography is not particularly fascinating and the music is grating, relentlessly telling us what to think and how to feel. Mid-career Jimmy Stewart is fine, as always, and the supporting cast does its job well enough that no one struck me as a “favor cast.”

But the real credit here goes writers Sam Rolfe and Harold Bloom, who fashion a story that appears straightforward, but gets more and more complex as things develop. By the end, even though I knew this was a Western of a certain era, I had no idea how things were going to turn out. And that twist, wow. This movie took me by surprise.

The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle

THE ADVENTURES OF ROCKY & BULLWINKLE represents either a career low for Robert DeNiro and Rene Russo or a fun, silly jaunt for kids that should be taken as it was intended. I’m inclined to go with the former, but my kids would select the latter.

Here’s the deal: an ambitious young studio executive wants to helm her first movie, but every script she sees is too intelligent. Then, someone pitches her a live-action film based on the old “Rocky & Bullwinkle” cartoons, and she’s ready to sign. But there’s a catch: the pitchers are cartoon villains, and the hook is that they’re ready to come into the real world and wreak havoc. And so it is that DeNiro, as Fearless Leader, Rene Russo as Natasha, and Jason Alexander as Boris find corporeal form. And it isn’t long after that Rocky & Bullwinkle, rendered in a level of CGI somewhere below that of the SCOOBY-DOO films, enter the picture to save the day.

But why am I wasting time setting up the plot? It only exists as a vehicle for sight gags, self-consciously bad puns, and general purpose silliness that had me checking my watch and both my boys delighted. This movie wasn’t made with me in mind, but I respect its dedication to kid-friendly humor and its willingness to throw jokes at the wall and see what sticks.

Do I want to see the once-great Robert DeNiro waste his time with stuff like this? Not really, but I still respect the guy’s willingness to go with the cheesy joke even while I grimace at perversions of some of his signature moments. But hey, he didn’t make this movie with me in mind. And he did entertain the hell out of my kids, which made it possible for me to get some chores done around the house. Rather than criticize the man for his involvement in ROCKY & BULLWINKLE, perhaps I should be thanking him.

The Forbidden Kingdom

So, here's the setup: a young man believes that there must be more to life than he's seeing. In fact, he lives in something of a fantasy world. While trying to impress a girl, he's shown up and knocked around by the local bully. Through a mechanism of the plot, he's transported to a magical realm where he has many adventures, fins love, and becomes a man. He returns to his own world, knocks around the bully, and claims his manhood.

Man, wasn't STARDUST a great picture?

But we aren't here to talk about STARDUST. We're here to talk about THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM. In THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM, the mundane bully is so vicious and such a bad actor that he sucks all the fun out of the movie before it can even properly get underweigh (That's how it should be spelled, dammit. The phrase comes from "weighing anchor," not "waying anchor."). Granted, there's a dream sequence of Jet Li doing a fun Monkey King, but I'm tellin' ya, that framing story erased the goodwill the bit earned. Even if it was set in hardscrabble South Boston.

OK, so the framing story sucks. But what about the adventures in the magical realm? I started that part with my arms crossed, wondering why a Jackie Chan / Jet Li teamup even needed a white guy. But then Jackie showed and busted out the "drunken boxing" moves he hadn't used since his last movie with fight choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping, DRUNKEN MASTER II (a film which, by the way, I discovered through the Balcony back in the '90s). So forget about the framing story. Forget about the white guy, even though he was the protagonist. Here was Jackie getting his DRUNKEN MASTER on! That's worth the price of admission, right there! Then Li showed up again, and we got what we came for: a Chan / Li battle, choreographed by Yuen.

Y'know what? I don't care if these guys are getting older and require more quick-cuts to mask their diminished athletic ability. They're still two of the very best, cinematographer Peter Pau (CTHD) is among the very best, and Yuen is the very best. That's worth your rental fee, right there.

Unfortunately, however, THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM isn't an hour and a half of Chan and Li being awesome. It keeps having to make room for this extraneous white guy. Michael Angarano, whom I loved in SKY HIGH, is fine, but I just couldn't see a reason for his character other than marketing. Nor could I see a reason for Yifei Liu, the love interest, other than to have someone to stand around and look pretty. And someone tell Krrish that BingBing Li, as the Bride with White Hair, stole his fan.

This movie could have been great. It could have been awesome. It could have been, well, STARDUST with kung fu. But it's worth renting only if you're a fan of the genre, and even then it's worth renting only for the genre elements. Let's hope that the next time Chan and Li team up, it's for a better project.

Bee Movie

BEE MOVIE is an abject failure.

Well, at least as far as I'm concerned. My 8-yr-old watched it twice. Just when I start to think I'm giving that kid a proper education.

Here's a movie with offputting animation, a dull story, and precisely zero funny lines. OK, there's one, but it was a lawyer joke that I couldn't even laugh at for fear my wife would slap an injunction on my butt. It's about a bee who gets a tryout with his hive's elite pollen gatherers, then goes on to become something of an insectoid César Chávez. Oh, and he also falls in love with a human woman, played by Renée Zellweger. Now, if there's one actress on Earth who can sell a woman falling in love with a bee, it's Zellweger. But I still couldn't buy it.

BEE MOVIE does have one thing going for it, and that's Ray Liotta. But not even he can smear enough honey on this picture to make it sweet. Pass this one by.

Talk to Me

Don Cheadle is one of the great actors of our time.

In DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS, he did the impossible: he stole a movie from Denzel Washington. His character, Mouse Alexander, was so smart, so evil, so good, that I couldn't see the man's face for years without wondering whether he had murder on his mind. That film, made in 1995, brought Cheadle to my attention. But this has been his decade. From the cockney safecracker Bashar Tarr in the OCEAN'S movies to the one of the few things about CRASH to the understated, brave, and noble Paul Rusesabagina in HOTEL RWANDA, here's a guy who showed he can do almost anything. But nothing prepared me for Petey Greene.

If I hadn't known that was Don Cheadle under that costume, I never would have guessed it. Cheadle disappears into the role, thinking and talking faster than anyone else in the film or the audience, a man using his raw intelligence and amazing audacity to overcome nearly every obstacle put in his way. Cheadle as Greene is a force of nature, his performance nothing short of brilliant.

I came to this film through an interview with Chiwetel Ejiofor that I read on CHUD. Ejiofor was promoting RED BELT at the time, but he mentioned this as one film of which he was particularly proud. I can see why. Ejiofor plays the audience surrogate, real-life WOR program director Dewey Hughes, the man who gave the real-life Petey his job. I've already said that Ejiofor is an absolutely outstanding performer himself, and here he has the judgement and confidence to get out of Cheadle's way. Director Kasi Lemmons (who made the wonderful EVE'S BAYOU) knows what she's doing here, and she builds a film around this performance that puts us in its time and in its people's hearts in a way that few pictures manage to do.

I don't care if you don't like soul music. I don't care if you don't care about the black experience in the '60s. I don't even care if you aren't a fan of Cheadle, Ejiofor, or Lemmons. You're here because you like movies. And if you like movies, you have got to see Cheadle on fire in TALK TO ME. Queue this one up today.

Seven Men from Now

My understanding of narrative goes something like this: a protagonist changes and grows over the course of a story. By riding along with this protagonist, we change and grow, as well.

The protagonist doesn't change and grow over the course of SEVEN MEN FROM NOW. In fact, one could argue that nobody changes and grows over the course of Bud Boetticher's SEVEN MEN FROM NOW, although a total of twelve men do stop growing altogether. But it's still one hell of a story.

Seven men walked in to the Wells Fargo office in Silver Spring. They walked out with one box of gold in their hands and one dead woman on the floor. Randolph Scott was married to that woman, and Randolph Scott saddled up and went hunting. The movie begins with the hunter finding his first prey, and it's full-bore revenge fantasy from there on out. It's got a stoic and unstoppable hero, villains both noble and ignoble, Indians, cavalry, settlers in a stagecoach, and some of the finest practical stuntwork you're likely to see in a film of its or any other generation.

This is a tight, lean narrative that knows exactly what it's about and exactly how it's going to get there. Scott and Lee Marvin (as the noble villain) are near-perfect adversaries, and the settler family caught between them like pieces on a chessboard provide a humanizing "in" to their conflict. This film is 78 minutes of flat-out adventure, and I don't care if Scott winds up the same man he was when he set out. I was just happy to ride with him for a while.

PS One of my childhood influences was a retired stuntman. Watching this film's professionally exact horse falls, horse charges, cliff falls, fights, and gunfights made me nostalgic for the days he'd tell stories of working on these kinds of pictures. I love my job, but if I had to pick another, I'd have loved to be a stuntman during the golden age of westerns. In fact, one of my fondest memories is of the time I directed an entry in Calico Ghost Town's stunt show competition. We won that year. So maybe SEVEN MEN FROM NOW really stinks, and I just loved it because it granted me 78 minutes of golden reverie. It doesn't matter. As far as I'm concerned, this is a great movie.

Ride the High Country

RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY is one of the best movies I've seen all year. I'm having trouble figuring out where to begin writing about it.

Let's start with the location. California's Inyo National Forest is one of the most beautiful places in the world, particularly in the fall, when the aspen groves turn luminous yellow. This is the high country for which the film is named, and director Sam Peckinpah and DP Lucien Ballard shoot it so vividly, so marvelously, that I could
practically smell the sagebrush and feel the bite in the air.

Next, we'll roll into the story. The brief summary, "Old friends ride into the mountains to bring back a shipment of gold, but greed threatens to tear them apart," sounds so TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE that it led me to pass this film by. But there's so much more to this film than that summary, so much more unexpected grace and brutality, so much more humor and truth, that a summary does it scant justice. This is a film about who we are and who we want to be; it's the stuff of great drama, and it's realized greatly.

That realization can't happen without performances to give it life, and Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea anchor this movie by giving us men who've been heroes and scoundrels and who may have one or more switches still inside them. Their lives play out in a world that's moving on, and these men need to learn to move on with it, if they can. Mariette Hartley and Ron Starr represent the new generation, people with lots of mistakes still to make, and it's a pleasure to watch their characters get their feet under them.

This is a beautiful, exciting film. I didn't know what was going to happen next, but I came to care about these people and invest in their choices. I made time to see RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY, and it was time well spent.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH. I can't decide whether I even liked it.

HEDWIG is, in the words of co-writer, producer, director, and star John Cameron Mitchell, a "post-punk, neo-glam opera." It's about the eponymous Hedwig, who tours the country with her band, The Angry Inch. They play in the most depressing venues imaginable, behind salad bars and near checkout machines in a nationwide seafood chain that seems about two rungs down from Red Lobster. And they appear to be stalking one Tommy Gnosis, whom Hedwig accuses of stealing her best stuff. Over the course of the film, Hedwig tells her life story and, between this and the performances, there are plenty of opportunities for musical numbers.

But here's the problem: Hedwig's life story is boring, while the numbers are fabulous. Whenever someone in this movie was talking, I was bored out of my mind. Whenever someone was singing, however, I was utterly in the moment. Now that I think about it, in fact, I think that the film HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH is superfluous. The soundtrack tells us everything we might want to know about these characters, and it does it more succinctly and compellingly than the picture.

After viewing HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH, I don't think I'd recommend it to my friends. But I would drag them to see the band in concert.

The Phantom of the Opera

Snitz Edwards had a great couple of years there in '24 and '25. First, his name was Snitz, which is just plain awesome no matter what year it is. Second, '24 was the year he played Fagin to Fairbanks' Twist in THE THIEF OF BAGDAD and '25 was the year he got the comic relief duties in THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. This guy had one hell of a great agent.

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA needed Snitz's touch; otherwise, it'd be too dire, too bleak to make for a very good time at the movies. Its damsel, Christine Daae, welcomes the murdering phantom when he's propelling her career, but spurns him for some fop as soon as soon as she gets a look at poor Phant's ugly mug. The Phantom is a psychotic stalker for whom we're supposed to feel some pity, but it's hard to feel pity for a psychotic stalker. About the only guy other than Snitz for whom we can even root is a French secret policeman, but how does one work up much gusto for the secret police?

What THE PHANTOM does have going for it is some great costume, set, and (especially) makeup work, and a deliciously slow tease and reveal of the Phantom himself. But I couldn't hook into it because I didn't care about the fate of either Daae or her foppish boyfriend. They should've given Snitz a bigger part.

In Bruges

IN BRUGES works because it's so remarkably well written. It has the arresting dialogue of a play, the quality of performance one expects from people who need to entrance their audience on the strength of their words alone. The fact that it also features beautiful photography of a beautiful location adds value and dimension to the proceedings, making this an altogether satisfying movie.

Further, IN BRUGES leads me to reevaluate Colin Farrell. This is the first time he's ever interested me, and I was both surprised and delighted to find him assaying such an interesting, perplexing character, at once childlike and possessed of great depth.

I liked this film's story; I liked its performances; I loved its dialogue. I'd gladly spend more time IN BRUGES.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL was a great surprise. I was busy with other things when it came out, so I missed Ebert's very favorable review and the positive word of mouth it generated. It took a coworker's raves to get me to sit down for the movie, and I must remember to thank that guy.

FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL has an uninspiring setup, one that could work for any number of comedies with varying success. A guy's girlfriend dumps him. He goes to Hawaii to forget her with a change of scenery. She turns up at the same resort with her new boyfriend. But other comedies don't have the guy writing a rock opera of Dracula with a soul-baring tune that makes you want to both laugh and cry (and laugh). Other comedies don't have supposed villains who turn out to be among the funniest and most noble characters in the picture. Other comedies don't have that perfect combination of raunchy humor and gentle understanding that are the hallmark's of producer Judd Apatow's ouvre.

FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL does make the common mistake of forgetting the "comedy" part of "romantic comedy" in most of the third act, but it makes up for it with a stitch of an ending. This is a charming, funny, marvelous film, one well worth seeing.

I've been raving about it to my coworkers.

The Thief of Bagdad (1924)

I blame J.R.R. Tolkien for the wasteland that is the fantasy genre.

Tolkien was a jealous guy. He looked at the mythologies of the world and thought, "Why don't the English have a compelling, fun mythology like the Norse and the Romans?" Then he thought he'd create one and, thus, _The Lord of the Rings_ was born. But _The Lord of the Rings_ was so good, so influential, that it bent the Western approach to fantasy and locked it into a thralldom to Late Medieval milieus.

So it is that the modern viewer may come to THE THIEF OF BAGDAD unfamiliar with the rich and delightful world of Arabic mythology. This is a world of crystal balls, flying carpets, invisibility cloaks, and winged horses. It's a world of scoundrels and shamans, thieves and kings, djinn and devils. It's a world of Indian princes, Mongol raiders, and Chinese slave girls. It's rich, exciting, entertaining stuff, and it's brought to life wonderfully by Raoul Walsh in 1924's THE THIEF OF BAGDAD, starring Douglas Fairbanks. As the thief, Fairbanks is all muscle tone, mischievous grins, and cheesy '20s moustache. He's also a great deal of fun as the lying, scheming, wholly redeemable man who learns that happiness must be earned. But how does he learn this lesson? By journeying through some of the most exciting and visually impressive set pieces I've seen in any film of any era.

How can silent era, low-tech sets compete with the wonders dreamed up by the Lucases of today? Because when we see them, we know that they're real. People actually made that magnificent papier mache Buddha, that wonderful Caliphate-era palace, those dazzling underground and underwater environments. We don't care that the ship on the storm-tossed sea is actually a cardboard boat among fan-blown sheets, because THE THIEF OF BAGDAD sells that ship, it sells that sea, it sells everything it shows us because such obvious care and craft went into its design and execution.

I love THE THIEF OF BAGDAD, and I love that it reintroduced me to the world of Arabic mythology, a world I'd largely forgotten. This movie is thrilling, it's exciting, it's a flat-out great time at the pictures. Queue it up.

I betcha Tolkien loved it, too.

PS Yes, I know that caliphate-era Baghdad isn't Arabia, but the stories in the film do come from _The Arabian Nights_, so I'm lumping 'em into Arabian mythology anyway.
--

Water

Deepa Mehta's WATER is beautiful, touching, and topical . It pulled me into its world and made me want to stay.

WATER centers on Chuyia, and eight-year-old in '30s India. Chuyia's parents married her to some guy at an age so young she doesn't even remember the ceremony, which (I suppose) was standard practice. But then the guy dies, and Chuyia's an eight-year-old widow in a country in which a widow's options are (a) throw herself on her husband's funeral pyre, (b) marry her husband's younger brother, or (c) join an ashram and spend the rest of her life in servitude, foregoing her wants and needs and being seen as a cursed woman. Chuyia's parents go with (c), dumping the poor girl at an ashram from which, she's sure, her mother will come to get her any day now.

That's about the first ten minutes. As we follow Chuyia's life and the lives of those she meets, we get a glimpse into another world, one from which we're separated by distance and time, and Mehta and her collaborators make that world come alive with rich colors, lush cinematography, and fine performances. The film, made in Sri Lanka after its Indian sets burned down, boasts images which deserve framing and hanging, the kind of stuff you rewind just to bask in, all while hewing to the requirements of Hindi film: WATER works in two musical numbers, but they're so subtle and so carefully done that they don't serve as holidays from the movie; rather, they enhance it. Further, WATER makes its holy city of Varansi look inviting and intimidating and exotic, like a dream of India. It creates a full world beyond the frame, one in which Ghandi's coming and people feel compelled to reevaluate their politics, their faiths, their very lives in anticipation of great changes on the horizon.

But for all that, the movie wouldn't work if we didn't believe in the people we found there. And I believed in the people in WATER. From Chuyia, played by the extraordinary child actress Sarala with an earthly reality that's rare in the film of any nation, to Seema Biswas as Shakuntala, an older widow beginning to question her faith and her lifelong devotion to millenia-old proscriptions. The film takes a slight misstep with the two characters involved in its love story, Kalyani (Lisa Ray) and Narayan (John Abraham), who appear to be in love merely because they're the two best looking people in India, but I accepted their relationship anyway because, hey, they're the two best looking people in India. As these people, and the people near them, live on the screen, I grew to care about them, to invest in them, and to continue to wish them well after the end credits rolled.

And though the film is set in the '30s, it's still topical. As an end title informs us, thousands of Indian widows are forced to live in ashrams today, unaware that they're legally able to lead any lives they choose, even to remarry. WATER challenges this injustice not through haranguing, but through humanizing. As such, it gives life to the issue and motivates us to consider those aspects of our own lives that are dead fossils of the past. This is a film that works on every level. I'm glad my wife put it in my hands.

American Gangster

AMERICAN GANGSTER is smart, carefully made, and vastly entertaining. With Denzel Washington and Russel Crowe toplining, and Ridley Scott directing, I wouldn't expect anything else.

In the film, Denzel Washington plays Frank Lucas, the guy whose idea it was to ship heroin to the U.S. in the coffins of KIAs returning from Vietnam. Crowe plays Richie Roberts, the detective who finally figures it all out. Interesting enough, but, as is so often the case, it's all in the execution.

And the execution is first rate. Washington and Crowe are two of the best actors working today, and it's always a pleasure to watch them do their thing. Scott took the time to put together a marvelous simulacrum of Vietnam - era New York, populate it with believable people, and make it come alive. I bought into the world of this film, I bought into the people living in this world, and I lost track of time as I grew engrossed in their world.

This is good stuff, team.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

The very worst thing about INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL is John Hurt. Hurt plays an old friend and colleague of the Joneser, one who has lost his wits after peering too deeply into the eponymous Crystal Skull. The problem with this is that Hurt's performance recalls his Fool in the 1982 BBC production of KING LEAR. Attention filmmakers: if you want to drive a stake through the heart of your movie, cast a great character actor in a pale shadow of one of his career-high performances. It's a sure-fire way to get your audience thinking about how much better that other picture was than the one it's currently watching.

That may be the worst thing about Indy IV, but it has competition. The opening sequence, a car chase between people we don't care about and whom we'll never see again (punctuated with supposedly amusing animal reaction shots), starts the film on an offputting, wtf note. When the picture finally gets around to giving us Ford and Ray Winstone (clearly wishing he was in Ibiza), we've already nearly lost interest. Then Cate Blanchett shows up as the villain, she gets a boner joke, and the whole thing just runs off the rails.

Ok, I admit it. I wrote that whole paragraph just to find an excuse to work in a SEXY BEAST joke.

INDY IV is just plain boring. Dull. Flaccid. A yawner. And I like Spielberg. I like Ford. I like Allen, Winstone, LaBeouf, Blanchett, and Hurt. But my pulse never quickened. I never believed in what was happening. And at the climax, when I was supposed to be going, "Wow," I was only thinking, "Huh. Spielberg and Lucas didn't trust me enough to have the Blanchett speak Russian."

I may have seen this one for free, but I still want $10 back. For my time.

21

Recently, I flew a long trip with a copilot who knew one of the people involved in the MIT card counting scheme upon which the film _21_ is based. He hated the movie because it so distorted and sexed up the facts of the case that it barely deserved the label, "Based on a true story." I countered that _21_ had no obligation to be a faithful retelling of the actual events. Its only obligation, I asserted, was to be a good movie. He didn't buy it, but I stand by it. Narrative film's first duty is to entertain. If your picture can't do that, don't bother.

So, does _21_ entertain? Yes, it does, though not particularly well. The film tells a (sexed up) version of the MIT card counting story, in which a team of MIT math wizards mastered the only way to beat the house at blackjack. It throws in some sex, some violence, some cool, and generally keeps things rocking along for an hour and a half. It doesn't blow you away; it doesn't stay with you; but it eats the time on a transatlantic flight well enough.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, is it? Perhaps if it were more true to life.

Speed Racer

SPEED RACER is the most audaciously brilliant film I've seen this year. It takes the adjectives "bright, loud, and colorful" and turns them into peaks to be scaled, climbing ever higher to some brighter, louder, more colorful future. The story itself can fit on the back of a cocktail napkin: "S.R. saves family. Drives real fast." But the Wachowskis' execution of that story is so joyfully over the top that it won me over. The images flash by so quickly that the brain barely has time to process them beyond "Bang! Zoom! Pretty Colors!" However, when your movie's racing by at these speeds, flashing images and a cocktail napkin plot is all you need.

Is this a film for the ADD crowd? Perhaps so - the cuts are so quick, the action so frenetic, that I'm not sure I want to show it to my kids. But it's beautiful, in its way, and it's daring. In crafting SPEED RACER, the Wachowskis made something unlike any film that has gone before it. Even if you're not easily distracted by bright, shiny objects, you've got to respect the filmmakers' vision and daring.

SPEED RACER is easily my biggest surprise of the year.

Charlie Wilson's War

Cinescene's Les Phillips hit the nail on the head with his review of CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR. Well, except for his impression of Julia Roberts's performance. I thought she was fine. With his permission, here's Les's review:

CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR (2007, directed by Mike Nichols). This is slight, but expert, and very entertaining. A playboy Texas congressman suddenly gets serious about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and works to channel a billion dollars into military aid to the mujaheedin. Nichols and the screenwriter Aaron Sorkin scrupulously avoid political content here; CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR is a fluffy slice of American political life in the eighties. Wilson's staff is all-female -- one of them is nicknamed "Jailbait" -- he parties with lobbyists in Vegas. He tells a newspaper that he's never been to rehab because "they don't serve liquor there." Nichols makes high comedy out of Wilson's lovable roguishness. There's one French-farce sequence set in Wilson's office, with entrances and exits and fast dialogue, that approaches comic genius.

CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR is rich in excellent small performances, and it also has Philip Seymour Hoffman as the crude, irascible, hardass CIA man who tutors Wilson in the works and ways of covert geopolitics. He's excellent, but the part isn't a challenge; Jack Black could have done it nearly as well. Tom Hanks captures Wilson's easy charm and humanity, but he doesn't signify Texas. Julia Roberts plays a savvy, steel magnolia millionairess and political operator. It's a terrific role, and Roberts isn't up to it. She doesn't have the self-possessed energy that the character needs, and she doesn't sound like she's ever been anywhere near Houston.

A bit of a one-off, but Nichols hasn't lost his touch.

Lars and the Real Girl

I recently spent several paragraphs elaborating on the word "charming" as it related to ONCE. While there's nothing effortless about filmmaking, ONCE feels effortlessly charming, like it just happened. LARS AND THE REAL GIRL, however, works so hard at being charming that we can practically hear the servos hiss, gears turn, and ropes creak in the background.

Lars (Ryan Gosling) is socially handicapped. He is so painfully shy that human touches feel like burns, and he can barely speak even with his own brother. Margo works with Lars, and something about him seems to capture her imagination. But Lars can't see it, can't see anything, for he's too busy hiding behind his walls. Lars is drowning; he needs something to latch on to. He latches on to a doll. Not an action figure or a teddy bear, like his marginally better adjusted officemates, but a life sized Real Doll, a sex toy he names Bianca and invests with a past, a personality, even an attitude.

The charming part comes in when we see how his family, his friends, his town respond to Bianca. For Lars, you see, lives in the kindest, most forgiving, most loving town in the world. In fact, I'd say it's downright charming. In Lars's town, the citizens see Bianca for what she is: training wheels for Lars as he relearns socialization. In Lars's town, an ambulance will respond to a 911 call for a doll, and doctors and nurses are happy to get involved (Lars also benefits from a charming insurance company, I presume.). In Lars's town, the guys from the hardware store even bowl with Lars, Bianca, and (you saw it coming) Margo. Charming.

But there can be a fine line between charming and precious, and LARS AND THE REAL GIRL crosses right over it. The music is too precious. Lars himself is somewhat precious. And the conceit that an entire town, and not just a few core supporters, would be willing to play along with Lars is just too precious.

And yet, I'm a sucker for charming. So I liked this movie, even if I can't wholeheartedly recommend it. See it with something inanimate.

The Jazz Singer

I enjoyed THE JAZZ SINGER.

The film, which ushered in the era of talkies for a broad audience (Yes, I know there were earlier talkies, but this is the one that really hit.), has one foot in the silent era and one in the sound. How so? Well, while much of THE JAZZ SINGER plays just like any silent film, with broad acting and intertitles, the musical numbers and some of the accompanying dialogue is in sound as we understand it today.

This raises an interesting question: why not sound all the way? Was it a technical issue, a financial issue, or something else? Anyone? Bueller?

Anyway, all I really knew about THE JAZZ SINGER boiled down to two words: talkie and blackface. Turns out, the film is about more than that, with a compelling story about competing duties and the realities of growing up and growing old. While Jolson´s style of musical performance doesn´t work for me (I´m more of a Crosby guy), I enjoyed the production numbers and found myself appreciating THE JAZZ SINGER as a film, and not just as a homework assignment.

So, THE JAZZ SINGER. Who knew it´d actually turn out to be a fine motion picture?

Redbelt

David Mamet´s REDBELT does all the things it sets out to do. Thanks, in part, to outstanding performances from Chiwetel Ejiofor and Emily Mortimer, it also manages to be one fine, entertaining film.

REDBELT is about the owner of a struggling judo studio (Ejiofor), long on honor and short on cash. Mortimer´s a profoundly wounded attorney who enters the studio by happenstance, but who sets in motion a potentially disastrous chain of events. Further on, when Ejiofor rescues a movie star (Tim Allen) from a bar fight, another chain of events, potentially wonderful, starts to roll.

We´ll see what happens.

What´s really interesting here is Ejiofor´s character, a guy whose profound commitment to doing the right thing makes for an unexpected (potentially) tragic flaw. Here´s a guy who plays by the rules when nobody else does, and we expect things to work out for him. But when they don´t, how much will he bend, how much of his honor is he willing to expend, to try and set things right?

Add Mortimer, whose supporting character desperately needs Ejiofor to do the right things, and we´re in for a character study of a good man whose circumstances both require him to be impossibly good and make that goodness impossible.

Combine this interesting story with Mamet´s dialogue (for which I´m a sucker), and you have an interesting, engaging, satisfying film. REDBELT crashed at the box office, but here´s hoping that it finds new life on DVD.

(Fun fact: I´m writing this in Sao Paolo, the hometown of Alice Braga, who plays Ejiofor´s wife in the film. Don´t ask me why I know these things.)

Once

Do you like charming movies? Sure you do. Well, friend, you're in
luck, 'cause I've got what you need right here: loads of charm, a bit
of Euro-indie hipness, and a first-class soundtrack thrown in with no
extra charge. How much? Never mind: let's go for a spin and talk
about the details later.

So, what did you find most charming? The blending of folk and
classical music, and the ways the film used both to simultaneously
advance the plot and let us enjoy the performances? Or was it the
semi-sweet, semi-love story between two people who know well enough to
know that all the best stories are only semi-sweet and semi-love?
Personally, I was charmed by the film's shoestring feel, one which
seemed absolutely appropriate for the conditions, personal and
financial, in which its characters live. I also delighted in how, in
the context of the film, characters charmed one another.

So, yes, you may supposed that I found "Once" charming. And you'd be
right. As I wrote earlier, this is a story about people who are in
love with music, and who may fall in love with another. I fell in
love right along with them, and I plan to buy the soundtrack.

Charming.

Leatherheads

It took me a while to warm up to LEATHERHEADS. I thought George
Clooney was trying too hard to be Cary Grant. I thought Renée
Zellweger was trying too hard to be Jennifer Jason Leigh trying to be
Katharine Hepburn. And I don't care about the early days of football.

But about twenty minutes in, someone said something that made me
smile. Then someone else said something that made me chuckle. Then I
laughed into my fist at 2:00 am in the middle of coach on a Gulf Air
flight from someplace nice to someplace lousy. And I just kept
laughing. Yep, that's how good this movie is. It's the kind of movie
that'll make you laugh even if you're watching it on a postage stamp
LCD in coach on a redeye. Clooney, Zellweger, and the supporting cast
grow on you, and before you know it you're bopping along with the
cadences of their wonderfully written and delivered dialogue.

Aw, hell, even the sight gags work.

I understand why LEATHERHEADS didn't open big, as I doubt the "witty
wordplay and football" demographic is large enough to guarantee large
crowds. But this is a film that should do well on video, as people
like me tell their friends it's worth queuing up. And I'm telling
you, it is. LEATHERHEADS is smart and sharp and funny. Just give it
a little time to grow on you.

The Orphanage

Walking out of THE ORPHANAGE, I thought, "That's the best
horror movie I've seen since THE OTHERS!"

Like THE OTHERS, THE ORPHANAGE is an example of the fact that axe
murderers and fake intestines aren't scary. Atmosphere, acting, and
music are scary (Yes, I did just spend five minutes trying to find a
synonym for "music" that starts with the letter A. I'm a nerd.).

Here's a movie that knows that the reveal isn't the scary part. It's
the involvement in the characters, the foreboding, the slow burn
that's the scary part (There's an essay in there about great horror
movies as great lovemaking and slasher films as a wham-bam in a
bathroom stall, but I'm not in the mood to write that tonight.). But
when you can make those three elements happen, then deliver on the
horrific climax and note-perfect denoument, why, you've got yourself a
winner. The ORPHANAGE does that, trusting itself and audience enough
to take its time, work the burn, and come through when it matters.
What a picture.

Japanese Story

Toni Collette ranks among the great actresses of her generation.

From MURIEL'S WEDDING to THE SIXTH SENSE to ABOUT A BOY to IN HER SHOES, she's proven to be that rarest of gems, the character actress who also gets to be a movie star. She so thoroughly sells her characters that most people probably don't even know who she is, or that the same person played her roles. With JAPANESE STORY, Collette delivers a remarkable star turn, the kind of performance that will make a true believer out of you.

Collette plays a geologist and businesswoman who's saddled with the unpleasant task of showing a potential client, a young Japanese businessman, around his company's mining operations in the Australian Outback. She wants to sell him an analytic software package; we're not sure what he wants, but we are sure that he treats her like the gum under his shoe. But the Outback is a big place. Strange things can happen. People can turn human.

And that's about it for the plot teaser. What really matters here is the force of Collette's performance. JAPANESE STORY is almost entirely about her character's inner journey, and it's a journey she takes without soliloquys. This film hinges upon its star's ability to depict a rich inner life with the slightest of hints, and Collette delivers. Hers is not a classically beautiful face, but it is a classically fascinating one, and she uses it to focus our attention and carry the picture. We grind our teeth with her, we smile with her, we nearly become her in a performance so inviting, so true, that we walk out of the picture putting it right up alongside her very best work.

Simply put, this is an astonishing performance in a very fine picture. Seek out JAPANESE STORY.