Men in War

Korea. 1950. North Korean armor and heavy infantry roll down the Peninsula as if the South Korean Army weren't even there. Task Force Smith, pulled from occupation troops fat from the good life in Tokyo, goes to the Peninsula and attacks at Osan. Under-armed, under-trained, and under-supported, they'll soon be pushed back to the Pusan perimeter; there to hang on and await the reinforcements steaming across the Pacific.

This is the world of Men in War, a deceptively simply picture about a lost platoon, a headstrong sergeant, a shell-shocked colonel, and a jeep. The platoon wants to rendezvous with Big Army. The sergeant wants to take care of his colonel. Everyone wants the jeep. And away we go.

Men in War boils down to the conflict between the platoon's lieutenant, an improbably old and grizzled Robert Ryan, and the sergeant whose only goal is to get his near-vegetative colonel to the rear. The lieutenant is the audience's proxy, leading by example, advocating human decency, and reeling in horror at the realities of warfare. The sergeant serves as a foil for the idealistic officer, but his brand of cynical survivalism comes at a price.

The film sells this premise through the performances of Ryan (in real-life, a former USMC drill instructor*) as the lieutenant and Aldo Ray as the sergeant. These guys look dirty and smelly and scared, and I believed every syllable of every line of dialogue they uttered. The rest of the supporting cast all kind of blend into the background, but that's ok. This is a morality play, and too many points of view muddy the waters.

That said, Men in War never loses sight of the fact that this conflict takes place in the context of a larger conflict, and it never stops being a gripping war movie. It orients the audience to the platoon's fatigue level, morale, supply situation, and position relative to Big Army.  It conveys North Korean positions, troop strength, and doctrine without resorting to bland exposition. Most importantly, it keeps the audience dialed in on everything from the overall operational situation to the placement of individual land mines. This enhances the film's verisimilitude, lending urgency to its patrols, skirmishes, and battles.

In other words, here's a film about, well, men in war that appears to have been created by people who actually understand warfare. It makes for an engrossing and challenging viewing experience, one well worth the time of both the military history aficionado and the general-interest film buff. I loved it.




*Thanks for that, Jim!

Emperor

Emperor is a homework assignment.

By 'homework assignment,' I mean that the film faithfully recreates a place and time (Japan in the immediate aftermath of its surrender in WWII), dramatizes the experiences of actual people who lived through events there, and offers its audience an hour and a half of living history.

It even taught me a few things. While I've read many books on the War in the Pacific, I'm not sharp on what happened in its aftermath. Emperor, for example, taught me that MacArthur first landed in Japan at the Atsugi airfield, where I've served in many detachments as a Navy C-130 pilot. “A-ha,” I thought as I saw the film, “That's why there's a statue of MacArthur near the front gate!” It taught me about Brigadier General Bonnner Fellers (Matthew Fox), whom MacArthur ordered to investigate Emperor Hirohito's complicity in the war's commencement. It taught me about many of the members of Japan's ruling class, their relationships, and the power dynamics among them.

More importantly, it depicted the devastation of postwar Tokyo, a devastation that old, still, B&W photos can only suggest.

So, yes, Emperor is a homework assignment, but it's a good homework assignment. Tommy Lee Jones (whom you really should see in TheThree Burials of Melquiades Estrada) makes a fine MacArthur, the production values are top notch, and you're bound to learn something. I'd show it to my class.

The Girl Cut in Two

The Girl Cut in Two asks us to empathize with Ludivine Sagnier, an attractive and capable young woman torn between the adulterous lecher who whores her out to his buddies and the murdering child molester who wants her for his very own.

How very French.

Thing is, I’m not French.  The lecher creeped me out.  The murderer scared me.  The woman, well, I didn’t understand her.  These two men aren’t the only two men in the world.  I couldn’t understand why she didn’t tell both of them to hoof it and go find herself a nice young man who was neither an emotional nor physical threat to herself or others.

So there I sat, watching characters I didn’t care about behave in ways I didn’t understand.  Oh, and looking at my watch.  The Girl Cut in Two gave me no “in,” no one to root for, and nothing to care about.  It looked professional, Ludivine Sagnier is a great beauty, and I enjoyed see The Transporter’s François Berléand play the lecher.  In the end, however, these people behaved in ways that made no sense to me and that I couldn’t imagine.

Then again, I’m not French.

Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench

As longtime readers of this blog (Hi, Mom!) will know, I’m not particularly bright.  This is why I spent a healthy portion of Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench asking, “What’s going on now?”

See, here’s the deal:  the movie begins with Guy and Madeline on a park bench.  They appear to be breaking up.  An intertitle comes up, saying “Some time earlier,” or something to that effect.  Guy and Madeline, a pale brunette, are together.  Then Guy’s with some other pale brunette.  Is this different actress portraying a different aspect of Madeline’s personality?  Is this Guy’s next girlfriend?  The girlfriend before?  What’s going on?

I literally had no idea.  All I knew is that I was watching a 16mm, B&W film with a great jazz soundtrack and some good song ‘n dance numbers that suffered from being overenunciated (Madeline, tell your voice coach to get bent and sing like a human being.  At least, I think that was Madeline.  It could have been the other pale brunette.).  Was it original?  Yeah.  Was it particularly interesting?  Well, I liked the music, and I imagine that a Bostonian would dig the local setting and the Bostonianisms.  But I had a hard time telling the pale brunettes apart and I spent a healthy portion of the film in a state of mystification.

I feel badly about it, because I often complain about the dullness of the factory-built 3-act film.  Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, filmed in a vérité style and having the guts to try something different, deserves great credit on that account.  I just wish I were brighter.  Perhaps then, I could have kept up.

One Hundred Nights at the Movies

Recently, a friend challenged me to list my 100 "Essential" movies. Of course, there are no such thing as essential movies. The essential things are shelter, water, food, and physical security. However, here's a suggestion for one hundred movie nights. These films; a combination of classic, genre, foreign, and just plain good; will leave you with a reasonably good feel for the medium. Have fun!



The 7th Voyage of Sinbad
2001: A Space Odyssey
All About My Mother
An American in Paris // Shall We Dance (1937)
The Apartment
Apocalypse Now
Army of Darkness
Babette’s Feast
Beauty and the Beast (1946)
The Best Years of Our Lives
Big Trouble in Little China
The Bride of Frankenstein
Bullitt
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Casablanca
Children of Paradise
Chinatown
Citizen Kane
City Lights
A Clockwork Orange
Cool Hand Luke
The Crimson Pirate
Die Hard
Dr. No
Dr. Strangelove
Dracula (1931)
Drunken Master
Excalibur // The Fisher King
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Fitzcarraldo
Full Metal Jacket
Galaxy Quest
The Godfather
Gojira
Gone With the Wind
The Grand Illusion
The Great Escape
Groundhog Day
Hard Boiled
Ikiru
Intolerance
It’s a Wonderful Life
Jaws
King Kong (1933)
Lawrence of Arabia
Letters from Iwo Jima
Lone Star
M
Manhunter
Mary Poppins
Metropolis
Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Night of the Living Dead
Nosferatu
Oldboy
On the Waterfront
Once Upon a Time in the West
Pan’s Labyrinth
Papillon
Persona
Plan 9 from Outer Space
Point Blank
The Princess Bride
The Professional
Psycho
The Public Enemy
Pulp Fiction
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Rear Window
Ride the High Country
Rififi
Rocky
Roman Holiday
Scarface
Shaft (1971)
The Sheik
Somewhere in Time
The Son’s Room
Spider-Man 2
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Steamboat Bill, Jr.
Strangers on a Train // Out of the Past
Sunset Boulevard
Super Size Me // The Thin Man
The Terminator
The Thief of Bagdad
This is Spinal Tap
Throne of Blood
Tokyo Story
Triumph of the Will // Downfall
Truly Madly Deeply
Unforgiven
United 93
Waiting for Guffman
Wild Strawberries
Wings of Desire
The Wizard of Oz
Yankee Doodle Dandy
Yojimbo // A Fistful of Dollars

RocknRolla

ROCK N ROLLA is a great time at the movies.

Like LOCK, STOCK, AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS, ROCKNROLLA is a British thug drama, though drama may be the wrong word. This isn’t a film about the human condition, and it isn’t a film about real people with real problems. It’s a game, a Rube Goldberg device, a chance to set up a bunch of characters in impossible situations and see how everything works itself out. And while that kind of movie can be a grinding bore of plot machination, ROCK N ROLLA hums like a finely tuned engine.

Why? I’ll chalk it up to two things: witty and well-written dialogue, and propulsive direction and editing. The dialogue seems like the kind of stuff that I’d enjoy reading as much as seeing performed, though the performances (by “The Wire”’s Idris Elba, Gerard Butler, Thandie Newton, and Tom Wilkinson, among others, do it credit. The direction and editing, which combine for the look of the film, are alive with energy and excitement, like the kind of storyteller
who’s so caught in the moment that the words tumble out of him at nearly the speed of thought.

So here I am, four paragraphs in (if you count the lede), and I have yet to say what the movie is actually about. You know what? It doesn’t matter what the movie’s about, any more than it matters what a good storyteller’s tale is actually about. What matters is that it’s a tale from a good storyteller.

That’s enough for me.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Away From Her

"On your right is a man. He's heartbroken. Broken into a million pieces."

That line, muttered by an Alzheimer's patient, comes about halfway through "Away From Her," Sarah Polley's confident and effective first film. It refers to the film's protagonist, and it wants to refer to us, for "Away From Her" is a movie that's out to break our hearts.

I don't see how it can't, really. The subject matter - the loss of a spouse to Alzheimer's Disease - is inherently heartbreaking, so much so that I began to apply the "endangered child" rule to the film. The "endangered child" rule goes like this: since we're genetically programmed to respond to endangered children, we check for cheap manipulation by asking, "Would the situation affect us this much if no children were involved?" In this case, the question becomes, "Is the situation handled effectively and honestly? Am I watching art or exploitation?" I wrestled with this, and almost came down on the side of exploitation at the quoted line. Then, however, I observed Gordon Pinsent as the heartbroken man. His was a reserved, inward performance; not one easily read. And yes, his heart was breaking, breaking into a million pieces. And he broke mine, too.

Planet of the Apes

The 1968 "Planet of the Apes" is first-class science fiction. It does all the things science fiction is supposed to do: it creates a believable world, populates it with interesting characters, and uses those characters in that world to comment on the issues of the day.

During its development phase, it's clear that "Planet"'s creative team took the time to think their ape society through. The team created a coherent and believable timeline, architecture, and culture, which led to an immersive experience for me and my spawn. Then they cast the apes with quality actors such as Roddy McDowell, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, and James Whitmore, all actors able to generate authenticity even when acting behind masks. And of course, Charlton Heston can carry a movie in his sleep. "Get your hands off me, you damn dirty apes!" has moved into the lexicon, but it's dramatically effective because we believe in Heston's desperation and fury, even as we see the perspective of the apes.

These elements can lead to a good movie, but "Planet of the Apes" is good science fiction because it also works as a fable of science versus superstition. Further, I was impressed with the way it turns in upon itself, questions its own premise. Sure, there are some hamfisted "Never trust anyone over 30" moments, but "Planet" is smarter than I'd given it credit for.

And then, of course, there's the ending. Perhaps the best thing about watching this movie, for me, was watching my son describe it to his mom later that evening. "And then he went around the corner and he saw the (spoiler deleted) and said (spoiler deleted). Because it was (spoiler deleted). Isn't that cool?!? Isn't it?!? Isn't it?!?"

How awesome can you get?

Sullivan's Travels

"Sullivan's Travels" didn't work for me. I blame Veronica Lake.

Sure, she had great hair. But it seems that's all she had. Her delivery was uninspiring, her character dull, and she dragged down every scene she was in.

It's too bad, really. "Sullivan's Travels" has some cracking dialogue, some unexpected twists, and some interesting things to say about the intersection of art and commerce. Preston Sturges, obviously, knows how to direct a picture, and Joel McCrae is fine as the idealistic wunderkind out to learn about life's hard knocks. But Lake, ugh. How did she get to be a star?

I Am Legend

"I Am Legend" is a big movie, with expensive special effects and big-budget location work. Some stuff even blows up real good. But it wouldn't work if Will Smith couldn't hold it together.

And he does. When we meet his character, the last man in New York (and, possibly, the world), we find a guy who is keeping it together through a combination of resourcefulness, regimentation, and sense of humor. Smith can sell that without breaking a sweat. As the film, goes on, however, we begin to see the cracks in his armor; we begin to see that he's going insane. There's a moment in the film when he reaches his emotional nadir. It's a horrifying moment that breaks one of the rules of storytelling, and the movie breaks our hearts with nothing more complex than a long closeup on the actor's face. This is Best Actor stuff and, though Smith won an MTV Movie Award and a Saturn Award for his work, neither of those mean "respect" like the little bald guy.

As for the movie itself, it's good stuff right up to the very end. I was right there with Smith on every step of his character's emotional journey, right up to the very end. At the very end, I wanted to throw a rock through my television screen. But then I saw the original ending, and I only wanted to throw a Nerf rock at it. Still not great, but not as bad as the terrible denoument those who saw this in theaters got.

And Smith, well, Smith's just awesome. "I Am Legend" is worth it for his work alone.

Space Chimps

On Friday, we found out that my wife is pregnant. As we sat down for a pre-movie lunch on Saturday, she opened two bottles of a charming Sicilian brew called Birra Morretti Rosso, one for me and one for her. Then we both remembered – no alcohol for the duration.

Thus it was that I rolled into “Space Chimps” with two drinks under my belt. I strongly recommend that you do the same.

You know your movie is in big trouble when Patrick Warburton can’t save it. Warburton plays the foil, a champ chimp who treats the new guy like a chump (By the way, if you think that was funny, see this movie today. You’ll love it.). Warburton chomps (!) into the role with his usual gusto, but not even he can breathe any real life into a character whose primary role is to (a) serve as a comic foil and (b) make jokes that consist of inserting the word “chimp” into other words. It’s chimpdiculous. Andy Samberg, batting 0 for 2 in comic films, voices the Chimp Out of Water, Hal III, who’s forced to leave his circus gig to join NASA. His delivery is limp. Perhaps he’d make a good gimp. Even better if he dressed like a pimp.

Aw, to hell with it. “Space Chimps” is poorly written, poorly animated, poorly executed rubbish. Every lame joke I’ve made in this post is better than the entirety of the film. Chimp this one out.