Frozen River

"For me, the human face is the most important subject of the cinema.” -- Ingmar Bergman

Observe the face of Ray. No. First, observe the toe of Ray. It sports an old tattoo, a remnant of wilder times. Now, observe the face. It’s lined; worried. The eyes, bordered in basic mascara, don’t blink away the cigarette smoke wafting from the downturned mouth. They do blink away tears formed in flicker of despair. The face, so near to crumbling, pulls itself together and Ray Eddy straightens, goes back into her single wide, and does her best.

Courtney Hunt, the writer and director of FROZEN RIVER, understands that Bergman was right. Hunt knows how to build a story, inspire pathos, pace a scene, and create near-unbearable tension, and she does it by focusing on faces. Whether we’re watching Ray, brought to life in an Oscar nominated performance by Melissa Leo; Lila, played with quiet assurance by Misty Upham; or the people who need them; we care about them because their faces compel us to do so.

Because of this, FROZEN RIVER takes a place among the most compelling films I’ve seen this year. This film hooked me in its first five minutes through the extraordinary power of the human face, and it hasn’t let go of me yet. Its dilemmas, its characters, its milieu feel absolutely real as I dwell on them, and I find that its power grows with greater consideration.

This is Courtney Hunt’s first film, and it’s a masterpiece. IMDb tells me that her next feature will be called Northline and, though I have no idea what it’s about, I plan to see it. This is a woman who knows what she’s about, and who understands that it’s all in the face.

Winning

WINNING is a lousy movie. It’s poorly constructed, features a show-stoppingly bad performance from a major supporting actor, and fails to excite even in its centerpiece racing scenes.

The film, set in the world of stock car racing, begins with Paul Newman winning a race. He has a few drinks at the victory party, wanders around town, and charms a local floozy. Three or four scenes later, they’re married, and the rest of the film depends upon my investment in their relationship. But here’s the thing: for a love story to work, we have to fall in love (even if it’s just a little) with the characters. With WINNING, I don’t even know who these people are, much less have a reason to care whether or not they make it as a family. There’s your weak foundation. The film is poorly shot and edited; with jagged and wobbly camera movements competing for your distraction with montages and transitions of such jarring mediocrity that it’s hard to believe this is a feature film. Finally, Dave Grusin’s dead-jazz score is so limp that it distracts us with its mediocrity.

While Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, and Robert Wagner are all as fine and professional as you’d expect, Richard Thomas (in his debut role, playing Woodward’s son) is remarkably bad. Now, I like Thomas. Some years back, I saw him do a “King John” in which he absolutely nailed the role. But here, just starting out, he so overacts that I felt like it was all the more seasoned professionals could do to refrain from smacking him.

So you’re got your bad construction and your distracting performance, but it’s a racing movie, right? The racing must be pretty good. Nope. It’s just a bunch of shots of cars and closeups of eyes, with an announcer telling me what’s actually happening. I admit that I’m not a race fan, finding the sport to be even more boring than golf. But a good racing movie should have drawn me in nonetheless, made me feel the rush when the good guy passes the bad. Nope. I fell asleep during the climactic race.

As performers, I like Newman, Woodward, and Wagner. I’d have loved to see them together in a better film. Unfortunately, this isn’t it. WINNING is a loser.

It Happened One Night

Actually, it happened over a series of nights. But that's not important right now.

IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (Capra, 1934), is a romantic comedy / road movie starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. Gable's the hard-drinking reporter whose dissolution hasn't yet caught up to his body and mind. Colbert's the spoiled society girl out to spite her father by running off to be with some pansy gyrocopter pilot. Circumstance throws them together in the back of a bus, with Gable telling Colbert, " Excuse me lady, but that upon which you sit is mine." "I beg your pardon?" Well, it will be soon enough.

The two most interesting things about IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT are the dialogue (Colbert to Pansy: "Promise me I'll never get off." Bet on it, sister!) and the power dynamics. Released just months before rules requiring new releases to have the Hayes Code seal of approval came into force, this film seems innocuous, but has some real adult humor going on just beneath the surface. The power dynamics are an interesting combination of gender and class conflicts, with one message sent to women (Submit!) and another to proletarians (Revolt!). Just get a load of this line, spoken by Gable's "man of the people" to the Colbert's millionaire father: "What she needs is a guy that'd take a sock at her once a day, whether it's coming to her or not. If you had half the brains you're supposed to have, you'd done it yourself, long ago." Dominance and insouciance, apparently, made for successful mainstream entertainment back when the Greatest Generation was in junior high.

But hey, don't watch this picture for material to gripe about at your next meeting of the Working Woman's Collective. Watch this picture to see Gable and Colbert, performers at the top of their respective games, bang out dialogue with near-scientific precision. Watch it for Joseph Walker's cinematography and marvel at the way light plays off a white silk dress in glorious black and white. Watch it for Capra, who knows how to get the most out of even his bit players. Most of all, watch it because it's funny. Watch it with a loved on and bring down the walls of Jericho.

Underworld: Evolution

UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION is impressive. It boasts imaginative set, costume, and makeup design. It weaves CGI and practical stuntwork into a rousing whole. Its set pieces are creative and interesting and, while it never manages to rise above being a bunch of actors and stuntmen hamming it up on increasingly complex movie sets, it’s a bunch of good actors and good stuntmen hamming it up in a fantastic (if barely plausible) world that’s an entertaining place to visit.

I first mentioned the set design because it really is remarkable. From the rustic inn where the first film’s Scott Speedman learns he can no longer eat normal food to the functionally baroque headquarters of franchise newcomer Derek Jacobi to the multilayered, rich-with-possibility crumbling ruin of the climax, every inch of the screen is filled with detail and imagination. Well done.

While I still can’t get past the idea of the leather corset as functional combat wear (Where does Kate Beckinsale hide all those weapons, anyway?), the leatherwork has details that relate to the decorative flourishes in the costumes of heroes and villains, suggesting a deeper mythology behind the story of this film. It’s neat, carefully crafted stuff, and indicates an attention to detail far beyond what one might expect in a vampires vs. werewolves movie.

The makeup, particularly that of the villain in full monster mode, is not only scary and convincing, but also bears marks of the costumer’s design sensibility, with patterning in the monster’s back that, you guessed it, shows up in the corset, Jacobi’s coats, and even the film’s Maguffin. It’s crazy; it’s lavish; it’s just the thing.

The action sequences (which comprise most of the film) build from the exaggerated to the just-plain-crazy, but that’s not their best quality. Not only do they blow lots of stuff up real good, but they actually advance the story and keep us in the loop of who’s doing what to whom and why. Sure, they defy the laws of physics and aerodynamics. So what? It’s a v vs. w movie. I went with it.

The whole thing combines to make for a film that’s better than its predecessor. It doesn’t share insight into the human condition, no, and it doesn’t make us laugh or cry. But it looks great, it sounds great, and it’s great fun.

I can’t believe I’m writing this, but bring on UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS.

Just Another Love Story

JUST ANOTHER LOVE STORY is one helluva thriller.

No, it's not one of those movies where cats jump out of closets or knives make a sshhhhkkktt sound when they're pulled from a block. It's a movie with a supertight screenplay, spot on performances, and a score that makes notice its beauty without pulling you out of the film.

I hesitate to write much about the screenplay, other than to say that though it was written in Denmark and produced in 2007, it would have felt right at home in the Hollywood of the '40s and '50s. It's good noir, as good as you're likely to find, with dangerous women, crafty villains, and men who should now better.

Rebecka Hemse plays Julia, a good girl gone bad, with just the right combination of vulnerability and danger. Nikolaj Lie Kaas is Sebastian, nothing but trouble and charm. And Anders W. Berthelsen is the crucial element so many noirs, the sap. It helps that I hadn't seen these actors before, but not for a moment did I not believe them or believe in their challenges.

"Ok," you're thinking. "I've never heard of this movie and you've given me nothing to help me decide whether or not to queue it up." Problem is, I really don't want to tell you anything about it other than to say that if you liked OUT OF THE PAST, if you liked DOUBLE INDEMNITY, if you liked STRANGERS ON A TRAIN; then you're gonna like JUST ANOTHER LOVE STORY. Take a chance, give it a spin, tell me what you think.

I can't wait to hear.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

First, a note about the trailer for 2012: not even Chiwetel Ejiofor's name on the poster will put my butt in a seat for that one. Second, a note about the following comments: I assume that, by now, you know who the established characters are. Consequently, I'll not try to bring you up to speed.
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE begins with Harry Potter, bloody and exhausted, facing a media onslaught in the aftermath of the battle of the Ministry of Magic. Professor Dumbledore puts his arm around the boy, shepherds him away.

And then we're off, swooping through London with the Death Eaters, in a dazzling and frightening sequence that sets our hearts to racing even as it defines the stakes of the coming war between the forces of Voldemort and Dumbledore.

Back to Harry now, on a personal level as he navigates the currents of late adolescence and learns that, yes, he's pretty good at flirting, too. But Dumbledore appears and there's work to do.

The rest of the film is about a number of things, the story not least among them (Um, Spoiler Alert: Voldemort's up to something and it's up to Harry and friends to stop him.). And that's fine - it's a perfectly good story. But what makes the film worth watching, what makes it race right by, is the way it's also about finding oneself both in big and small ways, about the immediate pain of adolescence and the continuing process of growing into onesself.

Of course, there are a number of movies that address similar themes, and many do it well. What makes HPHBP unique is that it's a Harry Potter movie, a movie that lets us wander around fiction's most marvelous real estate and dazzles us with magic that ranges from mundane to whimsical to downright epic. Additionally, it lets us wander around with a group of actors we've come to think of as our own nieces and nephews; cute kids who are growing up all too fast, even as they make us proud. It supports these young actors with brilliant adults, including at least one who Can Do No Wrong. And it revels in its composition, unafraid to make the fantastical fantastic.

For these reasons and many more, HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE is a flat-out great time at the movies. This one is worth catching on the big screen.

W.

W bounced on and off my Netflix queue a number of times. I knew that Oliver Stone is a major director, but I didn't particularly care to sit for a two-hour tomatofest directed at our 43rd president

Yep, I expected a hatchet job, and some blademarks are clearly visible: Dick Cheney's Strangelove moment in the War Room, the mannequin that stood in for Condi Rice. But the movie got at what I perceive to be the fundamental nature of its subject: a good man out of his depth. Josh Brolin was phenomenal, making us believe in his character at every step in his journey, and taking all those Bushisms and weaving them into the natural language of a guy whose brain often outpaces his mouth.

While watching the film, I wondered why it needed to be made in 2008. I think there's a difference between a sitting president and and an alumnus, no matter how recent. As the Obama team has learned with the lack of traction of its "blame Bush" public strategy, unless the last guy in the job was a towering figure, he may as well be Jim Garfield. W was urgent during 43's presidency because then, he formed a member of our perceived "circle," those people in our daily lives who have the greatest impact on us. Now, he's like a member of that circle who has since moved away. He's a person in whom we're still interested, but that interest lacks the immediacy it once had.

Immediacy aside, W is still a film worth watching. It's a take on a man and a time by a master filmmaker with a surprising point of view. It looks great, most of the supporting cast is terrific, and it was over before I knew it.

Beyond Hypothermia

BEYOND HYPOTHERMIA is a bad, bad film.

Wu Chien-lien is an assassin who falls in love, wants to change, but must complete one … last … job. Ching Wan Lau is the love interest. Complications ensue. Which is fine, really, and has served as a rough outline for films ranging from ghastly (NAKED WEAPON) to serviceable (BANGKOK DANGEROUS) to pretty doggone good (SO CLOSE). A movie like this isn’t about the setup. It’s about the delivery.

The delivery here is all wrong. BEYOND HYPOTHERMIA gives us no reason to care about its assassin (Sorry, honey. Being good looking just isn’t enough when you kill people for a living.), its love interest (Buddy, you’ve got to know when to fold ‘em.), or especially its poncy villain (complete with silly hair) who is supposed to provide the suspense and danger. The dialogue is stilted, the photography and editing elementary at best, and the stuntwork uninspired. Though this film was a product of the 1990s glory years of Hong Kong action, it lacks the style and creativity that mark the period.

When a film fails to engage us on any level, when it doesn’t tell an interesting story or give us interesting characters or even look particularly good, there’s only one word to describe it. That word is horrible.

That word applies to BEYOND HYPOTHERMIA. What a waste.

Underworld

I'm not UNDERWORLD's target audience, really. I'm not a gun, leather, or goth fetishist. In my action pictures, I like to know who's shooting whom, and why. And I hate having to constantly adjust the volume on my headphones so I can hear the dialogue one minute without blasting out my eardrums through gunfire and explosion the next. But I liked it anyway.

I mean, c'mon, Bill Nighy and Michael Sheen hamming it up in a vampires vs. werewolves movie? Y'know, the kind of movie in which everyone has machine guns but the big battles are all hand to hand? The kind where the bad guy is named Kraven and everyone's a fashion model who spends a minimum of three hours in the gym every single day? How can that not, at least at some level, speak to you? What, you don't like wirework? You don't like contact lenses? You don't like extremely loud and extremely bad rock music? You must like it when the good guy gets thrown through a wall and falls to a puddle below, and the masonry that hits the water with him floats. No? What's wrong with you?

Well, I thought it was silly fun, just the thing to pass the time while stuck in an airport lounge waiting for the weather to clear. Sometimes, that's all that's required.

The Wrestler

Darren Aronofsky doesn’t make bad movies.

PI, the feature that brought him to my attention, was odd and engaging and unforgettable. REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, his followup, ranks among the best movies I never want to see again. THE FOUNTAIN is one of only two DVDs I purchased that year.

THE WRESTLER, Aronofsky’s latest, does everything that movies are supposed to do. It introduces me to people and places that exist entirely outside of my experience and makes me care about them. Then it builds on that foundation to tell me a story that captures my imagination even as it breaks my heart.

In the film, Mickey Rourke plays “Ram” Robinson, a ‘roided out wrestling superstar who is well past his prime. Ram’s a decent guy, and he loves wrestling. But what do you do when the thing you love falls out of love with you?

This material could be an after school special or a DTV movie, but Aronofsky uses it to meditate on love and mortality and even honor, in a way. He evokes memorable and truthful performances, and his empathy for his people and their lives resonates with us well after the credits roll. In this director, we’re encountering a serious talent, a guy whose movies are worth seeking out. THE WRESTLER is a fine addition to his resume, and I recommend it without reservation.

TheDogs of Up, by Ian Alex Ellermann

My dad didn't mention the dogs in his review o' UP. But weren't the dogs awesome?!!? With mechanical collars that allowed them to speak English words?! C'mon, isn't that cool?

The dogs really helped boost UP to a good movie. Weren't the dogs awesome when some, maybe 3, were in planes?!!?

So I guess I did a short review, but remember: this is by a kid. Wait! Wait! Before I'm finished, wasn't it cool to hear the dog's voices through the collars and hear what they were thinking? My dad liked the dogs, too, but I think he should have mentioned them in his review.

The Hangover

THE HANGOVER is thin, but I laughed all the way through it. It isn't the best comedy I've seen so far this year, but it meets its goals.

Here's the setup: it's the day of the wedding. The best man; rumpled, bleeding, and standing in the middle of the desert; calls the bride and tells her, "We screwed up. We can't find Doug. I don't think the wedding's going to happen." We rewind to the beginning of the road trip, with four guys in a car on their way to Vegas for Doug's bachelor party, and away we go.

It's a fine setup for a movie, but so much depends on how far the filmmakers are willing to go to get the laugh. Fortunately, they're willing to go as far as necessary, piling the ridiculous on to the disgusting on to the witty on to the sweet. Here's a movie with legitimate comic surprises, well-delivered dialogue, and sight gags that work in themselves and as part of the larger narrative.

So I laughed, laughed, and laughed some more. But I already feel the movie slipping away. Unlike ROLE MODELS, the funniest thing I've seen in recent memory, it didn't have anything in it to hook me, to hang on to my imagination as I left the theater. The film is the cinematic equivalent of ice cream: fun while it lasts, but quickly forgotten.

Still, I can live with that. As long as you're in the theater, THE HANGOVER is a good time. That's good enough for me.

JCVD

JCVD is one weird picture. I like it.

In JCVD, Jean-Claude Van Damme plays himself, or a dramatically enhanced version of himself. His career is going nowhere: he just lost a part he didn’t want to Steven Seagal. His personal life is a shambles: he just lost a custody battle. His finances are ruined: he just bounced a check and he can’t get his plastic to work. So he does what anyone might do. He goes home to Brussels and goes to a bank to withdraw some of the money he knows is there. Problem is, he walks into a bank robbery.

There’s a passage in I Am Jackie Chan in which Jackie talks about a time when the studio at which he was filming got shaken down by the local mob. He was walking to work and was just outside the studio’s gate when three thugs approached with menace in their eyes. Jackie ran. Why? Because there’s a difference between stuntmen and thugs. Thugs can actually hurt you.

The guys robbing this bank are (in the context of the film, of course) real thugs with real guns that can actually kill people. Van Damme is quickly subdued and put with the other unfortunate hostages who happened to be around that day. Then the robbers realize they have a quite a bargaining chip, even a potential fall guy, and resolve to exploit him as best they can.

And there’s your movie. Van Damme is stripped of his bravado, his freedom, his remaining dignity. The film is a merciless flagellation of its star’s screen persona, offscreen missteps, and even purpose in life. It’s the most courageous thing Van Damme has ever done, requiring a level of dedication and honesty to which he may never before have subjected himself. And even if it isn’t entirely honest, even if it does wear a veil of fiction, what self-appraisal doesn’t?

JCVD didn’t turn me into a Van Damme fan: the guy makes DTV action pictures that don’t capture my imagination any more. But it did alert me to the possibility that there’s more to this guy than I thought. I look forward to his next serious picture. I hope he gets the chance to make one.

Breathless

Ok, I get it. I'm a terrible, bad person. I have no taste. I'm a vulgarian: the guy who shot off the Sphinx's nose.

BREATHLESS bored the hell out of me.

There were all these things about it that I know I was supposed to appreciate: the innovative use of jump cuts, the romantic amorality of its leads, its impact on cinema history. But the movie lost me the moment Jean-Paul Belmondo shot the cop, and that was only something like five minutes in. From there, I felt trapped as the spectator who watches a man fritter away his remaining moments of freedom. Not only did I want him to get caught because I wanted the son of a bitch to get what was coming to him, I wanted him to get caught because I knew that was the only way the film could (mercifully) end.

But this is an important film. It's the kind of film people study in school. It's one of those movies that taught the Boomers how to be cool. I understand that it's important, but I'm not in school, I'm not a Boomer, and I'm already cool.

Having said that, I'm open to the possibility that there's more there, that this is a film that can improve with study. Perhaps they'll offer a class in it when I wind up at Leisure World a few decades hence. Until then, this film represents only another Classic checked off the list.

Drag Me to Hell

DRAG ME TO HELL is everything I look for in a movie entitled DRAG ME TO HELL. It's scary. It's funny. It even has someone (perhaps more than one) being dragged to Hell.

I started out liking this movie: it had a likeable protagonist, a hammy medium, the borderline ubiquitous Justin Long, a gypsy curse, and even a slimy coworker whom we'd really like to see get dragged to Hell in place of the aforementioned protagonist. There was some great gross out stuff, good music, and general sense of a film that knew how to be scary without taking itself too seriously.

Let me tell you when I crossed over to loving this movie: the séance scene. [Oh, come on. That's not a spoiler. How could a Gypsy Curse movie called DRAG ME TO HELL not have a séance scene?] The medium did her thing. Puffs of air made the draperies in the ridiculously over the top chamber billow. Heavy objects moved around. Even ghosts appeared. And then the possession began. I swear to God, I half expected a spectral kitchen sink to show up! This is when I knew (not that I ever doubted) that Raimi was entirely prepared to go over the top, stick the landing, then come around and go over the top again.

So yeah, this is a genre film called DRAG ME TO HELL. But it's as good as genre films get, made by a guy who knows how to create a good time at the movies. It wouldn't take much to drag me back for another screening.

Frost/Nixon

FROST/NIXON captured my imagination from beginning to end. It took interesting people through definitive moments in their lives and the life of the nation, immersed us in their stories, and executed the impossible task of generating tension in a scenario whose conclusion we already know. And it does it while avoiding the talkfest trap so common to adaptations of successful plays.

Look, Nixon's interesting and we all know Frank Langella can act. So the movie's two strikes up in the count coming right out of the pen. But David Frost, the vapid talk show host who gets lucky with a big fish? And Michael Sheen to play him? Well, Sheen's a revelation. In THE QUEEN, he *was* Tony Blair, with all that entails. In FROST/NIXON, he does a David Frost whose shallowness hides depths of ambition and desperation that may be hidden even to himself. This guy's got range, and he also just got on to my "actors to watch" list. He makes David Frost, cheeseball tv performer, a hero the audience can get behind, and we relish the comparisons and contrasts with Langella's controlled, savvy, but lost Nixon.

Director Ron Howard handles those comparisons and contrasts, the heart of the movie, simply enough for a mainstream audience yet maturely enough for smart people like us. His direction, never flashy, borders on documentarian; and it gives the picture the realism it needs while remaining cinematic.

This is a quality film.

Gran Torino

Nick Schenk, the writer of GRAN TORINO, once told an interviewer how pleased he was that Clint Eastwood didn’t change a word of his script. More’s the shame, as it could have used a polish.

For example, there’s a scene in which Eastwood’s bigoted character is a guest in the home of his neighbors, Hmong immigrants. After some trepidation, he has discovered that he likes these people, feels more at ease with them than he does his own children and grandchildren. Ok, we’re fine so far. But then he goes into a bathroom, looks into a mirror, and says, “I have more in common with these people than I do my own family.” What was that, for the people who went out for popcorn? We’re watching the movie. You’re a good enough actor to portray the paradigm shift. You don’t have to tell us what we just saw.

The whole movie’s like that: solid material undercut by unnecessary dialogue. Just when we’re lost in the drama, something comes along that yanks us right out, something that could’ve been smoothed out with just one more pass through the word processor. As it is, GRAN TORINO is merely a good movie, with Eastwood playing on his persona to tell a story about a man who has carried his burdens so long and so passionately, it seems they’re carrying him. I bought his character’s arc even as I groaned at the script’s shortcomings, and I enjoyed the film even as I noticed its flaws.

GRAN TORINO isn’t going to change your life. It’s a little shaggy. But I’d watch Eastwood fold laundry. I liked this movie despite its flaws.

Timecrimes

TIMECRIMES is like a puzzle, a carefully constructed device that can baffle or amuse and makes perfect sense when you put it all together. It's funny, thrilling, genuinely interesting, and an all-around good time at the movies.

Here's the deal: Héctor's a regular guy. He just got a vacation home, so he's doing pretty well, but he's kinda schlubby and doesn't seem all that bright. His idea of a good time is sitting on the lawn and enjoying the view through his binoculars. Héctor doesn't know that there's a research facility nearby. He doesn't know that they're working on a time travel device. He doesn't know that everything's about to change.
And away we go on a tightly plotted time-travel thriller that accomplishes everything it sets out to do. I believed in the characters, I believed in the situation, and I enjoyed and appreciate the smart, tight writing that made this exercise in paradox an hour and a half well spent.

Up

To say that Pixar is on a roll does not approach the reality of what’s going on over there. I’m on a roll when I hit the Pass Line a few times in row. Pixar is in the midst of a monumental achievement, a Golden Age of Disney achievement, in which it’s creating films that audiences will enjoy for decades to come.

UP is a proud addition to this emerging tradition. Its opening sequence, alone worth the price of admission, would be the finest short film I’ve ever seen if it were exhibited as such. The film goes from there to tell a story that, if you’re an adult, will absolutely break your heart. I don’t mean Iron Eyes Cody single teardrop break your heart. I mean cry like a little girl break your heart. It’ll make you laugh with gags and lines that you’ll quote to your friends and family, that’ll become part of the ties that bind you. And it’ll tell a story that will captivate your kids, enthrall you, and make you thankful that you get to be present when a giant like Pixar is in full flower.

I saw this movie in 3D, making it the first 3D film I’ve seen since ROPE. Unlike ROPE, however, UP doesn’t use 3D as a cheap gimmick. It uses it to provide greater depth of field, but it isn’t important. This was my third grader’s second viewing, and he put it best: “UP wasn’t good because it was in 3D. It was a good movie because it tells a good story.” I love that kid. I’m glad I taught him how to set up a tent.

Topkapi

I’m blocked.

I’ve been sitting on a review of TOPKAPI for a week now, looking for a way into this messy, flawed heist picture cum travelogue. How do you confront a movie whose rakish hero is prettier than its femme fatale, whose forced bonhomie lands with such a thud, whose Oscar – winning supporting performance showcases all the subtlety of a drive thru menu?

TOPKAPI is a ‘60s-cool / Euro-cool double-whammy of a heist picture. This Jules Dassin -directed movie is an OCEAN’S 11 kind of film, the kind that lines up a bunch of super-cool characters, puts them in an exotic location, and wants us to roll along with the good time.

But something about it doesn’t quite work. The movie stars Melina Mercuri as a woman so convinced of her sexiness that we’re almost willing to overcome the certain knowledge that she smells like ashtray, along with Maximilian Schell as a master thief whose greatest talent is smiling winningly while resembling a better looking Ben Affleck. But Mercuri looks like she’s been riding the life train too hard for too long, and she’s got that “smoker’s face” and brittle, gin-soaked thing going on. Schell is supposed to be a brilliant master thief, but he just seems shallow, more Jude Law than Carey Grant. As for the rest of the gang, well, they hit their marks and say their lines, but I just don’t understand Peter Ustinov’s Best Supporting Actor award here. Sure, he’s the Once and Future Poirot, and he’s great fun in THE MOUSE THAT ROARED. But he’s flat here, playing the rube as nothing but a rube, and there’s no joy in him.

But hey, the movie looks fine, even if it could use a remaster. And much of it was filmed on location in Istanbul and in the Topkapi palace itself (At least, it looked authentic to me, and I was there when I added it to my Netflix queue.). So there’s that. And it has an early acid-era opening sequence which is sure to earn your bemused attention. It’s just not as fun as it thinks it is.

Tell No One

TELL NO ONE is a tightly plotted thriller with enough red herrings and sudden turns to keep you guessing nearly to the end. But it lacked that certain something that takes a movie from "pretty good" to "great."

Upon reading other reviews of the movie, I think I've figured it out. It's an adaptation of a Harlan Coben novel. I dislike Harlan Coben novels because I feel that they're too tightly plotted, to crisp in their execution. When reading a Coben novel, I don't feel like I'm embarking on a dangerous and gripping adventure. Rather, I feel like I'm inspecting the work of a watchmaker, a fine craftsman who knows how to make all the gears match up just so. But I don't look for soul in a watch, and I can't find a soul in Coben's work.

Anyway, here's the deal: Alex is a French pediatrician who's a heavy smoker because hey, he's French. Years earlier, his wife was murdered under circumstances that made him a suspect. Now, two things have happened: new evidenced has turned up that has the gendarmes sniffing around again, and he gets an e-mail message with a current image of a woman who looks just like his wife and an admonition -wait for it- to tell no one. As are all the men in movies of this stripe, Alex is also a crack detective when his back is against the wall and, in an interesting twist, can outrun a man roughly one decade his junior even though the younger man, Frenchman or no, doesn't appear to suck the sticks of death.
So the twists twist and the turns turn and the obviously bad guy turns out to be bad and the obviously good guy turns out to be good, and sure, there are plenty of surprises along the way. But never once did I feel caught up in the action. Never once did I wonder how things would turn out. Never once did I scratch my head, because I could see the gears turning, new the oil had been applied, and had no doubt that this movie would bring it all in on time.

C'est la vie.

Bolt

My third grader has discovered my blog and, after struggling through my first paragraph about KUNG FU PANDA, he has asked me to write a review that he could understand. So, here's my first attempt at film discussion for the younger set.

BOLT is a story about a dog who is the hero of a tv show. BOLT doesn't know that he's only in a tv show, though. He thinks everything is real. He thinks his bark is so awesome that it can flip over cars. He thinks he can run through walls. And he thinks he can shoot laser beams out of his eyes. When he escapes from his trailer to save his human, he has to learn how to live in the real world and survive long enough to reunite with the young actress who loves him.

BOLT looks great, and its simple and clear style of animation reflects its simple and clear story. There are no singing animals in this one, no one-liners for mom and dad. It's just a story of a dog who wants to reunite with his human. And it works - it does everything it sets out to do, and does it brightly and loudly enough to hold the attention of kids from ages of two through, at least, nine. It's not the kind of movie that I'll remember for years, but it's not a movie for me - it's a movie for them, and it delivers.

The Secret Life of Bees

THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES is one of those movies that doesn't feel like a movie. It feels like an adaptation of a play or a book or a limerick, not something that stands on its own with its own, vibrant life.

Don't get me wrong: this movie has a lot going for it. Though it stars Dakota Fanning, the only human resident of the Uncanny Valley, it also features fine turns from the wonderful Queen Latifah, the brilliant Sophie Okonedo, the remarkably talented Jennifer Hudson, and "Wire" vet Tristan Wilds. The normally likeable Paul Bettany clearly enjoys himself as the violent, trashy peach farmer who can barely take care of himself, much less raise a daughter, and the whole film drips with the kind of love and compassion that one normally finds only in young adult fiction.

But it creaks. We hear the gears grind and clash. We can't lose ourselves in the moment because we never sense that the moment is cinematically authentic. Rather, it feels like a retelling of a telling, one given with love but without spark. I wanted to care about Girlbot, but I never believed she was real. I wanted to find comfort in a home clearly designed for it, but I couldn't lose myself. I wanted to root for the bright young people who'd have to work hard to overcome a world that could be capricious and cruel, but I never once doubted that they would succeed.
I'm sure there are people who love THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES. It was, after all, made for loving. I'd like to be one them, but I can't fall in love with a xerox.

The Haunted Mansion

So I'm working on my sci fi spec script, the one I can't get anybody interested in, and I think I've figured out why. My script, a searing greed allegory about a transvestite interstellar conqueror who preys upon civilizations that don't have flags, is missing the critical element that says "Green Light!" If only I can figure out how to turn my transvestite interstellar conqueror into a transvestite workaholic dad who needs to learn to spend more time with his family, I'm sure I'll have a winner.

How do I know this will work? Why, it's the only reason I can imagine why horrible, horrible scripts such as the one for THE HAUNTED MANSION get made. See, the workaholic dad is the screenwriter's target audience. In the brutally Darwinian world of film production, there's only one way to get oneself into the position to greenlight a movie: one must be a workaholic. Since we're talking about an industry dominated by men, it follows that many of these workaholics are, in fact, workaholic dads. So when one of these workaholic dads reads THE HAUNTED MANSION or JACK FROST or any of a hundred films of their ilk, he thinks, "Hey, there's something about this script that's real. It speaks to me."

In THE HAUNTED MANSION, Eddie Murphy plays a workaholic dad who happens to be a realtor. Since he knows that realty is a boom or bust business, he's making money while there's money to be made. Meanwhile, the guy's getting zero support at home. His wife's all, "I don't want a nice home in a nice neighborhood. Take some time off and let's go live in a van down by the river." His kids are all, "We don't like having our own rooms and health care. Let's go live in a van down by the river." So, fine. He packs the family into the 700-series BMW so he can drive them to the cabin by the lake that he earned through all his hard work, but he's gotta make a detour, do a little business, because you never know when it's gonna be 2008 and you're gonna be Lehman Brothers.

The work involves meeting a potential client in a huge, creepy Louisiana mansion. Even though the mansion has, supposedly, been in the client's family for centuries, everyone there has an English (vice Cajun, or even upper class Cajun) accent. Creepy. And there's this whole backstory about forbidden love between the poncy master of the house and his Creole paramour, who happens to be the spitting image of the unsupportive wife. Naturally, poncy rich guy is planning to seduce unsupportive wife so he can finally be reunited with his lost love because, hey, everyone knows that reincarnation works by making you look exactly like whomever you were in your most pertinent past life (Hey, come to think of it, maybe it's not so bad that I'm aging into Edward Everett Horton!). I say, count your blessings, poncy English-Cajun ghostly rich guy: this chick has no idea how hard a man's gotta work to keep up a creepy mansion like yours. You're gonna be all, "Sweetheart, I must go over the numbers. Something's not right on the plantation," and she'll be all, "Screw that. Let's go live in a van down by the the river," and you'll be all, "What's a van?"
So before you know it, there are zombies and ghosts and a green gypsy woman in a crystal ball and Eddie's mugging like there's no tomorrow and his cowardly kid overcomes his fears and the poncy ghost sees the error of his ways and the good ghosts go to heaven and the bad ghost goes to hell. And, More Importantly, Eddie Murphy Learns an Important Lesson about the Evils of Workaholism and the Importance of Spending More Time with his Family.

I watched this one with my 9-yr-old after we'd put the younger kids to bed. He loved it. It was just scary enough, just funny enough, to press all his buttons. The zombies looked enough like the zombies from the Thriller video to remove any peril they may have represented, and the bad guy had such silly hair that he was clearly not a serious threat to anyone. There were jokes and sight gags and I think he found the damsel attractive in a "Jimmy Neutron's mom" kind of way. But in my inner monologue, I was hanging in Gracie Mansion's belltower, thinking that if Wallace Shawn and Terence Stamp can't save a movie, noone can save a movie.

But hey, at least I've worked out the problems with my script. Now, it's going to be a movie about an executive transvestite workaholic dad. Beware the competing firm that does not have a flag.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

How do you write up a movie that's so remarkably meh?

ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO isn't funny, but it isn't bad enough to engender outright hatred. It just sits there, like a joke no one laughs at, but without a follow-up joke to sweep it off the stage.

Kevin Smith's jokes don't sing. His tempo is repetitive. He goes for shocking humor, but his shock humor isn't shocking. As a director, he makes Elizabeth Banks overemote so dramatically that I thought she was going to burst out of her skin nearly every time the camera focussed on her.

But the film isn't hateful. It isn't mean spirited. It's downright sweet, so I can't hate it. It's just there, an amusing premise gone wrong. I wanted to like ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO. I really did. But the film is just plain too much a failure to let me.

Star Trek

STAR TREK does all the things a good summer action movie should do. It has pathos. It has jokes. It has sex. It blows lots of stuff up real good. It's also a surprisingly good picture, one made to entertain the general public while throwing plenty of bones to the trekkies in the audience.

Here's the deal: the charismatic and dangerous Eric Bana (Really, you should see CHOPPER) plays an angry guy out for revenge through multi-planetary genocide. BOTTLE SHOCK's terrific Chris Pine is li'l Captain James T. Kirk, the only cat in the Federation bad enough to take him on. Joining li'l Kirk is li'l Spock, li'l McCoy, and the rest of the gang. They crack jokes. They have conflict. They blow stuff up. Li'l Spock gives li'l Kirk one of those manly nods of the head saying, "I guess you're ok, after all." Most importantly, Leonard Nimoy shows up as Big Spock, and there is no such thing as a film that is worse off for the presence of one Leonard Nimoy.

The thing about "Star Trek" that the post - original series showrunners never got was that nobody cares about make believe diplomacy among imaginary alien races. Nobody cares about heavy handed, though well meaning, depictions of of the Marxist utopia of the future. People care about the friendship of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. That's the dynamic that has always made Star Trek worth watching, and J.J. Abrams gets it. STAR TREK may spend lots of time on space battles and angry villains, but it's really about that friendship, about sharing in the feeling that there are people around you who've got your back. It's a good feeling, and it's a good way to spend a couple of hours at the movies.

114 Ghastly Films

I haven't had the chance to see anything for a few days, so I present you with a list of 114 ghastly films. These aren't the worst movies ever. They're just the worst movies I've seen.

Armageddon (1998)
At First Sight (1999)
Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
Austin Powers 2 (1999)
Babel (2006)
Bad Santa (2003)
Basic Instinct (1992)
Batman & Robin (1997)
The Beastmaster (1982)
Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story (2006)
Blood Work (2002)
Brewster's Millions (1985)
The Cable Guy (1996)
Caligula (1979)
Canadian Bacon (1995)
The Cannonball Run (1981)
Comic Book: The Movie (2004)
Con Air (1997)
The Corporation (2004)
Crocodile Dundee 2 (1988)
Cutthroat Island (1995)
Days of Thunder (1990)
Death Becomes Her (1992)
The Debut (2000)
Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)
Dick Tracy (1990)
Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)
Dungeons & Dragons (2000)
Election (1999)
Evita (1996)
Exit to Eden (1994)
Fair Game (1995)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
Fifteen Minutes (2001)
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)
The Foot Fist Way (2006)
Funny Farm (1988)
Get Carter (2000)
Gods and Generals (2003)
Great Expectations (1998)
The Great Outdoors (1988)
Guarding Tess (1994)
Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991)
Hercules in New York (1970)
Hideaway (1995)
Highlander 2: Renegade Version (1990)
Hollow Man (2000)
Hot Rod (2007)
House II: The Second Story (1987)
How to Make an American Quilt (1995)
Impromptu (1991)
An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
Iron Eagle (1986)
Jaws 3 (1983)
L'Eclisse (1962)
Life Stinks (1991)
Little Children (2006)
Loser (2000)
Lost & Found (1999)
Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991)
Mamma Mia! (2008)
Men in Black II (2002)
Mercy (1999)
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)
Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)
My Father the Hero (1994)
Naked Weapon (2002)
Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
Notorious C.H.O. (2002)
The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000)
The Pagemaster (1994)
Pearl Harbor (2001)
Plan 9 from Outer Space (1958)
Pretty Woman (1990)
The Quest (1996)
Rat Race (2001)
The Ref (1994)
The Replacement Killers (1998)
Respiro (2002)
Riding in Cars with Boys (2001)
Rising Sun (1993)
Rush Hour 3 (2007)
Serial Mom (1995)
She Devil (1989)
Showgirls (1995)
Sneakers (1992)
Son of Godzilla (1967)
Species (1995)
Spies Like Us (1985)
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002)
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)
Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
Stargate (1994)
Starship Troopers (1997)
Stealth (2005)
Strange Days (1995)
Sudden Death (1995)
Summer Rental (1985)
Superman III (1983)
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)
Talladega Nights (2006)
Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2000)
Three Times (2005)
The Toy (1982)
Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995)
Wagons East (1994)
Waterworld (1995)
Weekend at Bernie's (1989)
What About Bob? (1991)
Wild Wild West (1999)
Wing Commander (1999)
XXX: Special Edition (2002)
Zoom: Academy for Superheroes (2006)

Man on Wire

I don't get MAN ON WIRE. This film, which has garnered near-universal praise, is about a bunch of people who passionately devote themselves to a deadly project that is a complete waste of time.

I mean, ok, I can get a documentary about people and their obsessions. But I can't get a documentary about a guy whose obsession is tempting death. And for what does he do it? Does anyone benefit in any way? Sure, a very limited number of people get an awesome spectacle of excellence, but at the risk of many more people seeing, right up close, a man fall to his death and, essentially, liquify before their eyes.

The film, the story of Philippe Petit's tightrope dance between the two towers of the World Trade Center, takes it as a given that it's fun to waste enormous amounts of energy, money, and time on his frivolity. Further, it takes as a given that it's fun to outfox $3.75/hr security guards and get through the WTC's security to pull it off. All I could think was, "How many security guards lost their livelihoods over this stunt?"

It must be me. Maybe it's my approach to risk. I understand that there are dangers in the world, and that one must make risk/benefit calculations when coming to prudent decisions. But the risk here is so great and the reward so ephemeral that I couldn't get behind the project, couldn't root for the people, couldn't exult in their triumph.

That's not to say that you won't enjoy MAN ON WIRE. I may be the odd man out on this one. But I'm way out. I'll never see this movie again, and that's ok with me.

Role Models

ROLE MODELS is your standard comedy about man-children who learn an important Life Lesson and find their way to actual adulthood. You’ve seen its every beat before and it has nothing new to offer in the way of conception, scoring, technical wizardry, or artistry.

It’s also funny. Very funny. Laugh – out – loud funny. Paul “why is this guy not a huge star” Rudd and Seann William Scott are a great comic duo, playing off one another with the perfect combination of affection and exasperation. Elizabeth Banks turns a thankless “love interest” part into gold, and Jane Lynch is just one or two more parts this great away from joining Cloris Leachman in the Hall of Great Comic Actresses (I don’t know why Jane Lynch reminds me of Cloris Leachman. She just does. It’s a compliment.). This is a movie that goes from broad, physical bits to Marvin Hamlisch jokes and back again with flawless delivery and perfect timing.

Yes, it should be crap. You know it. I know it. The guys who wrote it know it. But they took a crap outline, fleshed it out with great jokes, put it in the hands of first-rate comic actors, and turned it into a freakin’ masterpiece.

Who’d’a thunk it.

PS I used to run down the ravine behind the University of San Diego. At the bottom of the ravine, there’s a park. On Saturdays, that park would be filled with people dressed like hot dog vendors at the Renaissance Fair, merrily whacking one another with foam rubber swords. Just so you know, there are folks out there who really do see that as a fun way to spend their Saturday.

Jumanji

In my review of SITA SINGS THE BLUES, I noted that most of the films we see are achingly average. For Exhibit A, I present to you JUMANJI, a feature-length adaptation of a picture book by Chris van Allsburg. The picture book, a trifling story that gives van Allsburg an excuse to draw things like monkeys making a mess of a kitchen and rhinos charging down Main Street, gets the full Hollywood treatment. It’s shoehorned into a three act structure about a kid who learns to deal with fear, it gets Robin Williams as a star, and it’s a full-throated combination of CGI and practical effects that veers between fun and terrifying, depending on the viewer’s combination of wildlife and insect – related phobias. (Yeah, yeah. I know. Arachnids aren’t insects. Everyone loves a pedant.)

While some of the effects are quite good (I particularly loved the giant plastic spiders – fishing line and all.), JUMANJI doesn’t plant the combination of danger and adventure. Its world is so dangerous that it’s hard to have much fun in it. That leaves the kids out, and it makes the parents so conscious of the effect it may be having on their kids that it leaves them out, as well.

Still, stars Williams, Kirsten Dunst, Bradley Pierce, and Bonnie Hunt do professional work, and I’m a sucker for father-son relationship stuff, so I’m not willing to call JUMANJI a right-out failure. It’s just achingly average, like so much else we see.

Sita Sings the Blues

SITA SINGS THE BLUES opens with the best credits sequence I’ve ever seen. It begins gently enough, but it soon explodes into a vibrant and exciting combination of music and animation. If the film could have found a way to maintain that level of energy throughout its run time, it could well have become one of the best films I’ve ever seen.

While SITA SINGS THE BLUES unspools to become, over the next hour and a half, a fine, imaginative, wonderful movie, it doesn’t stay on track to earn “best ever” status. But hey, whom are we kidding? Most of the movies we sit through are achingly average, so why pick nits over whether a refreshingly innovative, original, and beautiful film ascends to the pantheon of “best ever”? It’s enough that this film takes material with which most of us are unfamiliar, adapts it in a way both entertaining and illuminating, and even manages to reacquaint our culture with the artistry of a performer long-passed.

SITA SINGS THE BLUES retells The Ramayana, a Hindu myth in which the noble Rama and his beloved Sita deal with exile, war, jealousy, and the vicious power of rumor. It tells it in wonderful 2-D animation, with different styles reflecting different storytellers, stories, or stories-within-stories. And it does it to the music of one Annette Hanshaw, a popular jazz singer of the ‘20s and ‘30s, in an innovative twist on the time honored practice of making that which was old new again.

Unfortunately, filmmaker Nina Paley failed to clear the rights to Ms. Hanshaw’s music prior to putting four years into creating this wonder on her home computer. Consequently, you can’t find SITA SINGS THE BLUES on Netflix or at your local art house movie theater. You can, however, find it for free download or stream at http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/, a site created by Paley to distribute her film via a creative commons license. I’m no lawyer, but I’m going to assume it’s legal. So I encourage you to check this movie out. If you like it, flip Ms. Paley a couple of bucks through the link on her site. I, for one, would love to see what she comes up with next.

Synecdoche, New York

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK made me want to jump off a cliff. A 50-footer, with a sheer face standing against the swell of a royal blue sea. It made me want to stand on the precipice, feeling the sun on my face and the wind on my body. It made me want to leap forward, chest out, arms back, and feet together, and fall a perfect arc through the air before clasping my hands above my head, tucking my chin into my chest, and entering the ocean like a knife into butter. It made me want to relish the sharp contrast of warm air to cold water, revel in the sharp forces of momentum and buoyancy when I arch my back to change my body’s direction and stroke the two short meters back to the surface. It made me want to live, to revel in being alive, to bask in the joy of simple existence. And it did it because SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK doesn’t understand what it means to be alive. Not at all.

This film is so consumed with death, so focused on the existential dilemma, that it forgets what makes life valuable in the first place. Its protagonist ignores his family in favor of obituaries, which he reads not as celebrations of lives but as harbingers of doom. When his family chooses to ignore him, he wallows in self-pity. He feels stunted and frustrated with his career putting on the theatrical Standards for the people of Schenectady. When given the freedom create his own original work, he puts on nothing for nobody, wallowing in his sense of importance but refusing ever to actually put his work out there to succeed or fail. He wants, he wants, he wants, but he gives so very little. He doesn’t get it: he never does. And the film wants us to take this journey with him, wants us to find meaning in his lack of such, wants us to feel the existential dilemma for ourselves.

But there is no dilemma. We live. We die. We like to tell ourselves that there’s more to come but, in our heart of hearts, we doubt it. We do some good, we do some bad. And we have a choice. We can run away from life in contemplation of death, or futility, or the inevitability of physical and mental decline. Or we can embrace life, embrace everything about it, do the good we can and avoid the evil we can. We can laugh and cry and love and hurt and run and fall. We can succeed spectacularly and we can fail miserably and, occasionally, we can touch a higher plane that we think does not exist but, in our heart of hearts, we know really does. And we’re gonna die. You’re gonna die and I’m gonna die. Even the Sun is gonna die, a blink of an eye on the galactic timeline. But while we’re here, while we have minds to think and bodies to feel, we can revel in the joy of existence.

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK doesn’t even know that joy exists, so I’ve got no time for it. I’ve got living to do.

The Band Wagon

Musical! Musical! I’m sick of these artificial barriers between the musical and the drama! In my mind, there is no difference between the magic rhythms of Bill Shakespeare's immortal verse and the magic rhythms of Bill Robinson's immortal feet. I tell you, if it moves you, if it stimulates you, if it entertains you, it’s theater. –Jack Buchanan as Jeffrey Cordova in THE BAND WAGON

He’s right.

He’s particularly right when the actor playing Bill Robinson is Fred Astaire. In discussing this film, my brilliant and insightful wife observed that it’s of a time when “People would go to the movies to be entertained. To see singing and dancing and talent and all that human beings can achieve.” She’s right about the first part, but she’s even more right about the second. For the dancing of Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse is entertaining, sure, but it’s more than entertaining. It’s the very best that we can do as a species. It’s all that human beings can achieve.

Movies like THE BAND WAGON exemplify what’s so wonderful about movies. Thanks to this medium, humanity can revel in the unbridled excellence of Astaire and Charisse for generations to come. It’s there, right there, just a mouseclick or a DVD slipcover away. Whether THE BAND WAGON is an entirely successful film or not, their performances are here to stay.

As it happens, THE BAND WAGON is not an entirely successful film. Yes, Astaire and Charisse are ably supported by Buchanan, as well as Nanette Fabray and (my personal favorite) Oscar Levant. The writing team of Betty Comden and Adolph Greene (on whom Fabray and Levant’s characters are based), who’d done SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN the year prior, deliver a fine story. But the movie suffers because not every number moves the story forward. Some just feel like old songs that MGM owned rights to and wanted to get out there.

So it isn’t the tightest of narratives. But that’s ok, because it’s a showcase for the pyramids, for Hamlet, the Apollo program. It’s a showcase for the best that we can do. And that’s entertainment.

They Were Expendable

Gungy [guhnj] (adj) gung'y Navy Slang: To be particularly, perhaps ridiculously, motivated. Filled with love for the Naval Service and afire with patriotic fervor. "I just banged out five miles. I'm feeling gungy."

When I was a plebe at USNA, Saturday morning was "gunge day." After the morning run, we plebes would be permitted to sit on couches in the upperclass wardroom, hear some brief talk about a military subject, and watch a gunge movie. Something like 12 O'CLOCK HIGH or RUN SILENT, RUN DEEP or THE SANDS OF IWO JIMA. I was the guy who never really bought it, not really. Maybe it's the German in me, but I have this deep distrust for love of institutions; and rampant, "hail to the heroes" style patriotism makes me uncomfortable.

THEY WERE EXPENDABLE pushed gunge buttons I didn't even know I had. The opening credits include the ranks of people who worked on the film, including CAPT John Ford, USNR; CDR Robert Montgomery, USNR; CDR Frank Wead, USN (Ret); LCDR Joseph August, USN; and CAPTJames Havens, USMCR (Reservists represent!). The score weaves in chanties and traditional Navy songs I learned in Annapolis. The movie's first big action sequence, a Japanese airstrike on Subic Bay, made me want to want to be Robert Montgomery, commanding a squadron of PT boats in a desperate fight (Aside: if a movie can make an aviator want to be a surface warfare officer, it's gotta be something special!).

But THEY WERE EXPENDABLE, while certainly a gunge movie (it's wartime propaganda), doesn't tell the story of victory against impossible odds. It tells a story of loss, of underequipped and undermanned forces losing to a Japanese war machine that, at the time, appeared unstoppable. People sabotage their boats. The love interest is lost in Bataan. The heroes are ordered to flee, leaving their men behind to take their chances with the Japanese. And it's mostly handled in true military fashion. Shut up and do your job, and the best epitaph a man can hope for is that he did his.

Some of the film's elements don't fit, but they make sense when taken in historical context. When the men see MacArthur leave the Philippines, the film tries to sell it as an uplifting, patriotic moment. "There goes the great man," the PT sailors seem to think. While the reality is that line soldiers and sailors saw MacArthur's departure from the Philippines as a betrayal that helped earn him the nickname "Dugout Doug," the fact is that America needed heroes in the latter years of WWII, and there's no way a film of that period was going to show the American fighting man looking at the Great General with anything less than awe. The film also goes out of its way to wave the flag for those left behind. The flag waving doesn't fit in with the businesslike tone of the rest of the proceedings, but we should recall that this film was made in a time of total war, a time when America was preparing to fight its way back into the PI and rescue those whom we'd left behind.

Robert Montgomery, John Wayne, and Donna Reed are all fine here, with Wayne great fun as a fireball junior officer and Reed acting her butt off in pretty stock role. The action sequences are rousing and awesome, particularly when we recall that they were done with practical effects. This is a fine picture, a picture worthy of preservation, a gunge picture.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some pushups to do.

Let The Right One In

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is either a horrifying story about two lost and lonely kids who find one another in a harsh and unforgiving world or a horrifying story about a brutal monster who throws over her old, incompetent Renfeld and seduces a new familiar. Either way, it ranks among the best vampire films I’ve ever seen.

The film, a recent import from Sweden, does everything right. It creates believable, relatable characters, some of whom are evil, and puts them in a horrifying situation. It lets events play out tightly, seamlessly, with actions onscreen illuminating facets of the protagonist’s journey without appearing to do so. It makes brilliant use of atmospherics, of sound and music, to create a tone and uses that tone to heighten and contribute to the narrative. And it does so without connecting all the dots for its audience, with a strong dose of ambiguity and empathy, and with that certain special something that sets the memorable film apart from the merely good.

Some movies you see because they’re gonna make you laugh. Others, because they’re gonna make you think, or thrill, or cry, or shudder. Some you see because they’re just plain brilliant. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is one of these. You owe it to yourself to spin it up.

My Dog Skip

MY DOG SKIP opens with a slow pan across the knickknacks that line the shelves of a WW-II era boy’s bedroom. It’s drenched in the golden light of treasured memory, and an orchestral score glides along in the background.

It’s deadly dull. And the movie doesn’t get any better from there.

Here’s a picture about a boy who falls in love with a dog. This should speak to me. I, after all, was a boy. And I had a dog. But everything’s too precious, every memory too golden, and everything too slow. Watching MY DOG SKIP is like being stuck in a plane with some guy who’s just dying to tell you the story of his life but lacks the ability to make that story interesting. You smile, you nod, you try to change the subject (to yourself because, let’s face it, you’re far more interesting), but on he drones. And on and on and on.

Sure, the movie looks fine. Kevin Bacon and Diane Lane, as the parents, are fine. Frankie Muniz, as the boy, is fine. But I just wanted the plane to land so I could get away.

Frequency

FREQUENCY is not a great movie, but it has a great core and two central performances that sell it.

Here’s the setup: through the magic of sunspots and HAM radio, NYPD detective John Sullivan finds himself able to communicate with his father, NYFD firefighter Frank Sullivan. Where John’s sitting, it’s 1999. Where Frank’s sitting, it’s 1969. Frank doesn’t believe that it’s his son on the other end of that radio transmission. But when John tells his father all about the fire he’ll fight the next day, and about how he’ll die in it unless he goes against his instinct and zigs when he’d normally zag, Frank’s intrigued. The next day, of course, the son’s prophecies come true and the father believes.

OK, and this is where the movie gets me. Frank comes home, kisses his wife (who tells him she heard he had a close call), and goes upstairs to look in the now 7-yr-old son who, 30 years in the future, will save his life by warning him yesterday. Dennis Quaid, who plays Frank, looks at the sleeping child with an expression that captures everything I feel when I look in on my boys, then adds appreciation and respect for the man this boy will grow up to become. He goes downstairs, contacts his son on the magic radio, and tells him he loves him. “I love you, too, pop.” Then, in the 1969 timeline, the boy comes downstairs, half asleep. Quaid tells him to get dressed: tonight, together, they’re going to master the challenge of riding that bike once and for all.

Waterworks, I’m tellin’ ya. Waterworks. I get choked up even writing about it. Yeah, there’s this whole plot about a serial killer (and really, what ‘90s movie didn’t work a serial killer in there somewhere) and the unexpected consequences of messing with the timeline and chasing and shooting and all that stuff. There’s also a lot of time travel hokum that’s basically just asking the audience to believe in magic and go with it. But the core of FREQUENCY, the love between a father and his son and a boy and his dad, resonates so powerfully with me that I overlook the weaknesses and spend all my time locked into the performances of Dennis Quaid and Jim Caviezel. What man doesn’t want to be the father Dennis Quaid is in this movie? What man doesn’t want to have the father Dennis Quaid is in this movie? What man doesn’t want his son to grow up to be the kind of guy Jim Caviezel is in this movie?

This picture works, and it speaks to me in a deep and powerful way. Whenever I need to test to make sure the plumbing still works, I need only to spin this one up to make the water flow. FREQUENCY may not be a great movie, but it hits its mark.

Choke

I didn’t know that Sam Rockwell existed before I saw this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1LWg1jFp4E . It’s amazing how one video can catapult a guy into near – CDNW territory. In CHOKE, an adaptation of Chuck Pahlaniuk’s novel about a historical reenactor / sex addict / possible cloned son of Jesus Christ who, um, well, let’s just leave it at that, Rockwell seals the deal. Ok, I’ve only seen a few of his pictures, and I didn’t even particularly like his portrayal of Zaphod Beeblebrox, but to hell with it – Sam Rockwell Can Do No Wrong.

Why? Because he takes this tragic, deeply flawed, possibly irredeemable man and makes him the funniest comic character I’ve seen since Jason Segel in FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL. And he does it not in a comedy that lurches from set piece to set piece, that works the old rhythm of setup – payoff – setup – payoff, but in a quirky and interesting character study of the kinds of people we avoid in real life but are great fun to hang out with on the silver screen. CHOKE is an adult comedy in that, sure, it has sex and profanity and all that kind of stuff; but CHOKE is an adult comedy because it operates with adult and finds its humor in people, places, and actions that it takes a few miles on the odometer to appreciate.

And Rockwell, he knows how to tread the line between villain and rascal. He knows how to be funny while acting dead serious, and here he creates a character so serious that we can’t help but laugh. I rented CHOKE on the strength of his name on the poster, and he doesn’t disappoint. This is my comedy to beat for 2009.

Saturday Night Fever

There’s this scene in SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER in which Tony’s riding in a car with his crew. His friends are complaining about how the game is rigged, about how The Man is keeping them down, about how they’ll never get anywhere because no one will give them a break. Tony’s looking out the window. He’s thinking, “I know thee not, old man.”

OK, he’s probably not thinking those exact words, even if he did take Shakespeare in high school. But he’s thinking something very much like them. You see, Tony Manero is a young man on the cusp of going from Hal to Henry, from potential energy to energy in motion, from boy to man. He’s realizing something that his friends do not know and may never know: what’s worth having is worth working for, and what’s worth working for is too valuable to want someone to give it to you.

Tony’s basically a good boy. Ignored on the street, stuck in a dull job, living at home in a quasi-functional family, he’s nobody. He’s small time. But get him with his crew, and he’s a leader. Get him on the dance floor, and he’s a god. Tony rules Odyssey 2001, the disco where, every Saturday night, he burns through his week’s wages with unfettered joy. But even here, at the beginning of the movie, he’s different. He rehearses. He doesn’t pop or snort. He poses, but he’s essentially celibate (and potentially gay. I think one could make the case for it. I think the film’s “eye” is definitely gay. If you doubt me, notice how the camera caresses Tony’s body just before he awakens in his bed.). He’s in love with dance, with the way he feels when he’s lost in the moment, about the fact that finally, somewhere, he’s the best at something.

But working at a job that gives him just enough money to spend on Saturday night isn’t manhood. Being the big fish in a small pond isn’t manhood. Tony’s got to get out there, he’s got to earn his bones, he’s got to find his way. SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER is the story of how that realization goes from vague feeling to actionable reality. It works because we believe in Tony, flawed and limited though he may be. We understand that when he does that thing he loves, he really is special, amazing. He has something that’s worth working to cultivate, something that can lead to goals worth achieving, something too pure to be sullied by begging for handouts from The Man.

Sure, this movie has issues. There are subplots that go nowhere. Tony does things that are unforgivable. Some of the ADR is downright bad. But at its heart, SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER communicates truths so universal that they speak across decades, taste, and fashion. SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER is about leaving behind childish things, and that’s a theme that speaks to me. Can you dig it? I knew thatcha could.

Soul Men

SOUL MEN asks the cinematic question, "Do you like hanging out with Bernie Mac and Samuel L. Jackson?" If the answer is yes, you'll enjoy this paper thin road movie about two worst enemies and best friends reuniting for one last show. If the answer is no, you'll hate this paper thin road movie filled with crude humor, simplistic characterizations, and so much bad acting you'll bug your eyes out.

Me, I like hanging out with Bernie Mac and Samuel L. Jackson. Mac does his Scammer with a Heart of Gold and Jackson his Angry Man schtick, but those schticks are so well worn because, hey, they work. Sure, the movie's crude and simplistic, but it made me laugh out loud, tap my foot to the music, and generally have a good time.