Recently Seen

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days continues in the successful vein of the very good Diary of a Wimpy Kid.  Greg Heffley continues to try to make a go of adolescent life, though he struggles with concepts like honesty and selflessness that seem, to him, to come naturally to everyone else.  His is the struggle of ego and id translated for the pre-teen set.  Oh, and this is very important: made laugh-out-loud funny.

Microcosmos delivers a mesmerizing documentary about icky bugs.  Showing life on their scale with no narration and a wonderful score, the film just us the majesty of an animal kingdom right beneath our feet.  At least, it tries to.  While I admired the effort, I just couldn't get past the fact that bugs are icky.

The Crimson Rivers gives us Jean Reno and Vincent Cassel in a buddy cop murder mystery.  Reno's the famous detective brought in from Paris to solve a particularly gruesome murder, which Cassel's the impetuous young chief from a nearby ville.  Can this mismatched pair catch the killer and, perhaps, become friends?  Well, naturally, but it's the execution that matters.  Reno and Cassel are both fun to watch, there are some well-done fistfights, and I didn't see the twist coming.

Eastern Promises

What a pleasure to watch a great artist at the top of his game.

David Cronenberg is one of the filmmakers who showed me that the medium could be used for more than assembly-line product. From VIDEODROME to THE FLY to DEAD RINGERS to NAKED LUNCH, here was a guy who was willing to tackle uncomfortable and difficult subjects through characters who felt like real people. Cronenberg made honest, artful but not artsy, films of which anyone could be proud.

He didn’t always connect with popular audiences, however, and it seems that he tried to appeal to mainstream adults with his last two films, the brilliant A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE and his most recent, EASTERN PROMISES. Thing is, for a guy as skilled as Cronenberg, appealing to a mainstream adult audience and selling out are not the same thing. Rather, he has figured out how to make challenging, adult fare with broad appeal. These last two movies are as serious, as legitimate, as anything he’s done. They also pop, keeping the viewer engaged and enrapt from beginning to end.

With EASTERN PROMISES, he kept this viewer engaged and enrapt even after the end. Though this film tells a complete story, that story is one of a chapter in the lives of its characters. But these characters, played by a stellar cast including Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl, and Vincent Cassel, are so compelling that I’ve been spending much of the last 18 hours thinking about how they came to the beginning of the film, and where they went after the ending.

Here’s the hook: Watts is a midwife in a London hospital. When a young Russian prostitute dies on the birthing table, Watts finds the diary in the prostitute’s handbag. Hoping to find the girl’s relatives and place the newborn infant, she has the diary translated. But young Russian prostitutes are not independent, and soon Watts has the attention of the Russian mob. Enter Mortensen, a low-level driver in the organization, and we’re off.

Watts gave a masterful performance. I completely bought her as a lower-middle class Londoner, just as I completely bought Mortensen (also brilliant in HISTORY) as the Russian driver. Speaking of performances, both Armin Mueller-Stahl and Vincent Cassel, both cast against type, absolutely shine in this film. If you’re going to perform on this stage, you’d better bring your A game. They do, and the doubt and unpredictability created by going against the viewer’s expectations of these actors pays off wonderfully well.

I started these comments with my closer, so I can only reiterate it. I would, however, like to add a small explanation of my choice of words. Mr. Cronenberg has worked with the same people for years. The same crew, the same costume designer, the same composer. As far as I’m concerned, they’re all great. There are so many talented people involved in creating a film, however, that it’s easier to anthropomorphize the entire process in the form of one individual, the director, than to detail the individual contributions of all those involved.

Perhaps I should have written that it’s a pleasure to watch great artists at the top of their game. It’s just as true. EASTERN PROMISES is well worth seeing.

Brotherhood of the Wolf

Although I was all set to love BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF, the picture had me checking my watch well before the end of its excruciatingly long 144-minute running time.

BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF is a monster/martial arts/drawing room movie in which a chevalier from the court of Louis XV (Complete with Mohawk sidekick! In stores soon!) comes to the provinces to hunt a mysterious creature that's killing off the peasants. It starts off well enough, with a fun Jaws tribute that's quickly followed by a good martial arts set piece with the solid, if somewhat vacant, Mark Dacascos.

Things go south, however, once the chevalier meets the noble gentry and gets down to the business of solving the mystery. Unfortunately, this happens pretty early in the first act. The primary love interest can't hold a candle to the secondary love interest, leaving the viewer seriously doubting the chevalier's judgment. The Big Villain is telegraphed so early that there's no surprise later on. The Creature, which works fine as long as it stays in the shadows, is so clearly a CGI creation that it yanked me right out of the movie; and The Evil Posse is completely ridiculous -- I pitied these people for being born 210 years too early for Thunderdome. They get a couple of big battles against the heroes and, though they give it their all, I couldn't help but think, "They're no Crazy 88s."

This movie needed a more ruthless editor. Slo-mo-ing a victim in mid-turn as she faces the Beast? Cut it. Some guy picking up a pitcher, pouring a beverage, quick-closeup on the beverage, then back to the guy? Cut it. Just tell me what he has to say. Long scene of the chevalier practicing his quick-draw, only to have him never call upon that skill later in the picture? Cut it. Long scenes designed to show off the mystic nature of the Indian dude? Cut it: let's get this picture moving!

As I said, I wanted to like BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF. Too bad - it could've been so much better.