Watchmen

The print version of WATCHMEN always struck me as Reagan-era sour grapes hippie bullshit. Sure, it was famous for its deconstruction of the superhero comic, but I don’t care about superhero comics, never having collected ‘em as a kid. So I was wary of the filmed version of the story. After G.W. Bush’s parody of conservatism and THE INCREDIBLES’ brilliant study of the superhero genre, what did WATCHMEN, in any form, have to offer?

Not much, really. It’s still hippie bullshit and its “post-heroism heroes” conceit has nearly become a genre staple. But y’know what? It’s really good hippie bullshit, and it’s really good genre criticism. It looks great, hits its marks, and moves right along, and it does something the print version doesn’t: it actually makes me care about Rorschach and the Night Owl and Sally Jupiter and all the rest. The reveals feel less forced. The characters feel more organic. The political and artistic commentary works as part of a unified whole.

Had this film been released ten years ago, it may have been revolutionary. It’s too late for that, politically or artistically, but WATCHMEN is still a good story well told. Peace out, bro.

Waltz With Bashir

WALTZ WITH BASHIR is a visually striking, deeply personal film that did nothing for me.

The film, which makes brilliant use of animation to shift between times and places, follows the journey of a man who doesn’t recollect much about his time in the Israeli Army during the 1983 Lebanon War. As he interviews old friends and colleagues and fleshes out his memories, we see what he sees and experience his revelations.

I think the film didn’t work for me because I happen to have a sound knowledge of this particular conflict, having studied it in graduate school. Its revelations revealed nothing to me; I’d already plumbed its dark secrets. Even its devastating closing montage only revisited material I’d seen before.

But I think this film could be quite effective for the viewer who is unfamiliar with its subject matter. Filmmaker Ari Folman poured his heart into the production, and it shows. I respect WALTZ WITH BASHIR, even if it didn’t speak to me.

He's Just Not That Into You

Look , I get that HE’S JUST NOT INTO YOU was not made with me in mind. I didn’t expect to see any stuff get blown up real good, nor did I expect to see anyone kick anyone else in the face. But I sat down for it anyway: a friend recommended it, and I like to tell myself that I don’t believe in guy movies and chick movies, but only good movies and bad movies.

This movie begins with a “girl talk” voiceover about the nature of relationships that effectively announced that not only was it not made with me in mind, but it was made with a mind to specifically exclude members of my gender and orientation. This movie was just not that into me.

And that’s ok. I’ve been out with my wife and sat drinking my coffee while she talks with her female friends or relatives. I get that things don’t need to cater to my tastes to have value. But while HE’S JUST NOT INTO YOU is professionally written, photographed, and acted, it’s an intellectually dishonest film that spends 7/8 of its running time advocating for a world view that it abandons when it’s time to put smiles on faces before the closing credits.

I can forgive a film many flaws, but that kind of dishonesty is not among them. HE’S JUST NOT INTO YOU is a liar. Don’t get into it.

Valkyrie

VALKYRIE is the saddest film I’ve seen in ages.

Had the conspirators depicted in VALKYRIE succeeded, Germany could have thrown off the shackles of Nazi oppression and redeemed itself. It could have saved countless lives in the camps and on the battlefields. It could have prevented millions from living and dying under the boot of the Communists.

But, of course, the conspirators failed. Modern Germans still wrestle with the legacy of Nazism. Memorial walls carry the names of the countless victims of Nazis and Communists alike. Eastern Europe still struggles to catch up with the West.

Amazingly, VALKYRIE infuses this elegy with sympathy and tension, keeping us engaged and hoping, though we know how things end. It does so through the canny use of all-star casting, leveraging the recognizability of players such as Carice Van Houton, Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh, and Tom Wilkinson to build instant rapport with and sympathy for a cast so large it might be easy to lose track of who’s who. It does so through the efforts of Tom Cruise, a man who has been criticized for his offscreen behavior but who remains among the most gifted and charismatic stars of his generation. It does so by leveraging our knowledge of the broad outlines of history against our ignorance of the details: we all know things went wrong, but wmost of us don't know how.

This film largely succeeds in portraying its time, its place, its people, though it missteps in failing to recreate the paranoia that the all-seeing Gestapo engendered at the time. Its period details feel right, as does its grasp of German culture. While VALKYRIE, with its serious subject matter and foregone conclusion, may not appeal to everyone, it meets it goals.

If only its subjects had met theirs.

Happy-Go-Lucky

Here’s a review of a film that happened while I was writing it. I opened a blank page thinking that I knew what I was going to set down, but once the writing process forced me to give HAPPY-GO-LUCKY serious consideration, the film grew and turned into something quite remarkable. I liked HAPPY-GO-LUCKY when the credits rolled. Now that I’ve thought it over a bit, I see it as a laudable achievement.

Poppy (Sally Hawkins) is one of those people who chooses happiness. She’s quick with a smile and a laugh and a silly quip, and she borders on irrepressible. She’s so relentless that, for a while there, I thought there was something wrong with her. If there weren’t more to Poppy than meets the eye, HAPPY-GO-LUCKY wouldn’t be much of a movie. In revealing her, however, the film doesn’t go where I thought it would: into an inner world of pain or sorrow. Rather, the film does something marvelous: it explores the depths of her goodness and the reach of her will to happiness.

Think about that for a minute. Think about the difficulty of the art of joy. How many films focus on desperation, or revenge, or depression, or greed, or fear, or any one of the myriad traps we may encounter on our lives’ paths? How many filmmakers (and audiences, for that matter) confuse darkness with maturity, desolation with wisdom?

Depression is easy. Anyone can write the blues.

But happinesss, real happiness, is hard. It’s hard to live and it’s especially hard to create in film. In HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, Mike Leigh doesn’t give us an idiot or a stunted human being (though we can see how some may regard her as such). Rather, he gives us a woman who sees the world as it is and responds to it with an almost Christlike compassion and love. He does this through a barely perceptible dramatic arc, inviting us simply to spend time with Poppy and her friends, to observe her and those whom she touches. He puts Poppy in a world of bright, inviting colors, surrounds her with cheerful music, gives her real conversations with real people, and watches her try to find what joy there is to be found. Poppy doesn’t always succeed, and she may occasionally have to walk away. But that’s life. The point is, Poppy gets it. How often do we see that?

Mike Leigh has created a wonderful film here. If you haven’t yet seen it, give it a spin. You’ll be happy that you did.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

What would you rather see: yet another movie in which an indestructible superman unflinchingly walks away from a rear-projected fireball, or a film in which a girl stands atop a file cabinet, unbalances it, then somersaults down the slope while it falls to the ground? Would you rather see yet another CGI-heavy revenge picture, or a movie with real stuntmen about an autistic kid who's trying to get money to pay for her mom's medicine?

If you chose the former two out of two, then X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE is the movie for you. I'm sure real stuntmen and real explosives guys and real pilots and such were used in the making of this movie, but the fact is that there's less drama and less entertainment value in animated supermen destroying stuff than there is in real people doing things like sliding under tables and doing backflips.

Unfortunately, limp action setpieces are all this movie has to offer. The gifted Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber are given little more to do than snarl and be thankful that the Actor's Guild doesn't require urinalysis, and the film even manages to take the voice away from the consistently funny Ryan Reynolds.

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE simply has nothing going for it. What a waste of time.

Chocolate

Oh my God.

Oh. My. God.

Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod.

Who is this woman, JeeJa Yanin? She has the physical presence of Johnny Depp. She nearly has the onscreen grace of a young Jackie Chan. She works her butt off: two years in training preproduction, two more years during production, and it shows. Muy Thai, Kung Fu, Jeet Kun Do, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Kendo, gymnastics, rail fu, chair fu, knife fu, glass table fu (c’mon – there’s always glass table fu), sign fu, ledge fu, ice fu, even neuromuscular disability fu: this woman can do it all.

CHOCOLATE, directed by Prachya Pinkaew of ONG BAK: MUY THAI WARRIOR and TOM YUNG GONG fame, continues the Thai eclipse of the hoary Hong Kong martial arts thriller. Featuring eye-popping stuntwork that’ll make you go “Wow!” showcased by direction and editing that give us space to marvel at the skill and craftsmanship of its performers, and complemented with a score that underlines the action beats just so, CHOCOLATE is a worthy successor to Pinkaew’s earlier work and a must-see for fans of martial arts pictures, dance pictures, and plain old action thrillers.

CHOCOLATE: it’s the second-best film, after FROZEN RIVER, that I’ve seen this summer. It has movie has absolutely everything you could want in an action picture: it looks great, sounds great, features phenomenal stunt work, and just plain rocks. Bring on the JeeJa Yanin / Tony Jaa teamup picture. I’ll be there.

My Best Friend's Girl

MY BEST FRIEND'S GIRL is an affront to God and man. It's a romantic comedy that is neither romantic nor funny.*

It's _Cyrano de Bergerac_ with Dane Cook as Christian, Jason Biggs as Cyrano, and Kate Hudson as Roxane. At least, that appears to be the structure that the film rips off. It deviates from the straight Cyrano story, which is fine, but it fails to give us any reason to care whether any of its annoying, shallow characters live or die, much less find love.

This film's cinematography is boring, its dialogue is boring, its story is boring, and its actors are boring.* I saw this movie for free (It was playing in the background in the place where I'm using the computer), and I still want my money back.

MY BEST FRIEND'S GIRL can take a hike.

*Except when Alex Baldwin is onscreen. When did this guy turn into a comic genius?

Knowing

There are two kinds of people in this world: DARK CITY people and THE MATRIX people. DARK CITY has atmosphere; THE MATRIX has gunfire. DARK CITY has style; THE MATRIX has fetish wear. DARK CITY reveals; THE MATRIX tells.

Yeah, I’m a DARK CITY guy.

You know what else I am? A Nicolas Cage guy. Ok, not enough of one to sit through NATIONAL TREASURE 2, but enough to forgive him for BANGKOK DANGEROUS. VALLEY GIRL can earn a man a lifetime of cred, as far as I’m concerned.

Thus, when Alex Proyas (the director of DARK CITY) puts Nicolas Cage in front of a camera, I’m there. In KNOWING, Proyas directs Cage as an MIT astrophysicist who unlocks a terrible secret and races to discover its ramifications. Cage is fine in the Nicolas Cage Dressed Up as a Professor role, but what makes this film so enjoyable is its Proyas style. KNOWING just plain looks great, even if it does go full Emmerich at times. Proyas knows how to get solid performances from even his child actors, and he knows how to build a world whose every detail serves to advance his story.

Is this as fine a film as FROZEN RIVER? Few are. Is this a solid thriller with strong supernatural and science fiction elements? Sure is. Is it also better than THE MATRIX? Oh, oh yes. If Proyas and Cage are your cup of tea, you’re sure to enjoy KNOWING.