The Taming of the Shrew

Liz. Dick. A young Michael York. What's not to like?

Quite a lot, actually. While the Zeffirelli TAMING OF THE SHREW looks great with its stunning sets and costumes even Joan Crawford would envy, this movie fails to take flight. I posit two reasons. First, I just couldn't buy Richard Burton's Petruchio. Burton plays Petruchio as a man long on bravado, but I never got the sense that he knew what he was doing or that he possessed the resolution and cruelty that the role requires. Perhaps it was the actor's decision to grin like a monkey throughout the production; it's hard to say. Second, the film takes too much time with its setup and not enough with the actual taming. When the last act shows us the depth of Katherine's retraining, we don't buy it because we didn't get enough of a sense of her sufferings.

I wanted to like THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. I really did. Unfortunately, Zeffirelli's is one of the less satisfying of play's incarnations that I've seen.

Once Upon a Time in the West

If you happened to be riding the Red Line this morning, you may have noticed a guy in a suit gazing into his laptop with a big, goofy grin spread across his face. The guy was me, and the goofy grin was in response to the final showdown in Sergio Leone's fabulously entertaining ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST. This is a western that loves westerns, and that love is no more evident than in this faceoff. The adversaries are perfect: the villain tall, thin, dressed in black, and evil as can be; the hero short, burly, dressed in tattered and sun-bleached clothes, utterly implacable. They're both at the top of their game, and their grudging respect for one another shows in their complete and total focus. Ennio Morricone's music swells, the camera moves, and if you aren't completely carried away in the joy of film, well then, you just plain don't like movies.

The movie starts slowly, letting tension build as a gang of toughs, led by the formidable Jack Elam, takes over a remote rail outpost and awaits a coming train. Who or what is on that train, and what will it mean? When you see, and when you see what happens next, you're going to know whether or not you're in for the rest of ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, because if it doesn't hook you, nothing will.

This may be the most lavish of the spaghetti westerns, as Leone had Paramount's backing for the production. He used some of his money to hire first-class actors such as Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, Gabriele Ferzetti, and Jason Robards. Fonda plays one of the most evil men I've ever seen on screen, and he is uttely delightful. Bronson thoroughly redeems his work in this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV3gA7hNItY&eurl=), and he gives Clint Eastwood a serious run for his money in the Man With No Name sweepstakes. Claudia Cardinale is beautiful, strong, vulnerable, and makes us believe in her journey from "tough but lost" to "budding grande dame." Ferzetti, a familiar face to fans of Italian media, mixes craft, cunning, and weakness into a dangerous combination; and watching him think, struggle, and think some more is a joy. Finally, there's Robards like I've never seen him before: dangerous, charismatic, noble, and fun - and he gets the best theme music.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST's most attractive feature, isn't its stars, however. It's its own swooning, ecstatic love for film in general and westerns in particular. This movie embraces every noble archetype, every heaving bosom, every bleak panorama, every plywood town, and every deadly bullet with a delirious joy that can't help but capture our imaginations. I loved, loved, loved this movie. It may well be the best picture I've seen so far this year.

Land of the Dead

In LAND OF THE DEAD, the zombies have won. A city full of remaining humans have walled themselves in to Pittsburgh, and they've established a brutally Darwinist social system, with Dennis Hopper at the apex.

So, the first thing LAND OF THE DEAD has going for it is Dennis Hopper at the apex of a social system. And really, it just gets better from there. The viewer could start wondering about how that's possible, but this is one movie that asks you to not ask too many questions. Once you start down that road, it isn't long before you're thinking, "How do they generate electricity?" and "What, exactly, is the foundation of their economy?" I think you're better off enjoying the jump-scares, wierding out on Leguizamo's unmistakeably ICE AGE Sloth -like vocal inflections, and admiring the creative and professional effects and makeup work.

LAND OF THE DEAD is big, audacious, splattery fun, with a helping of social commentary on the side. I enjoyed it so much, I give it four nnnnnnnnggggggghhhhhhhhssssssss out of five.

Amores Perros

I watch movies in roughly 30-minute swaths while riding public transportation. This generally works pretty well, as most movies are roughly 90 minutes long and hew to a 3-act structure. It’s like reading chapters of a book. AMORES PERROS is 150 minutes long, with three separate and intersecting stories, and it is simply not conducive to serialized viewing. It needs to be consumed in one large gulp of time, which allows it to cast a cohesive spell.

Of its three tales, the film’s first one had the greatest effect on me. It’s about a young man who’s in love with his abusive brother’s wife and hits upon a scheme to earn some quick dough and run away with her. Things go poorly.

In the second, a man leaves his family for a new love. Things go poorly, no thanks to the young man in tale #1.

The third story follows a homicidal vagrant whom we meet early in story #1. He left his family to become a revolutionary, but (say it with me now) things go poorly.

All three stories give us people swimming against the tides of their love, and wreaking varying degrees of havoc along the way. They’re beautifully done, and I think this movie could have carried me away. If only I had seen it under different circumstances.

Callas Forever

I'm not an opera guy. Yeah, I bought a few CDs in college, when I was trying to convince my (very musical) girlfriend that I was cultured (Hey, it worked: she married me.), but I've never been to a live performance. I knew that Maria Callas existed, but I'd never heard her sing: she was just another (of many) undiscovered countries. In other words, I came in to CALLAS FOREVER with a clean slate.

CALLAS FOREVER begins with Jeremy Irons handling the press at DeGaulle Airport. Now, I've seen creepy Irons, scary Irons, pathetic Irons, even silly Irons ("Throw me the rod," indeed.), but this is the first time I've seen supercool Irons. Stylishly dressed, with a pony tail that actually doesn't look silly, Irons is a music promoter who has it all together. He's worked with Hendrix, the Stones, and Callas herself, and he's in town to promote his current act, a punk bad named Bad Dream. This guy has it all together, from the way he handles a crowd to the way he prepares for a concert to the way he flirts with pretty much every attractive young man in sight. As the movie gathered steam, even adding the always reliable Joan Plowright to the mix, I kicked back and got ready to simply enjoy the man's performance.

Then Fanny Ardent enters the picture. At first, she's not much. She's a lost Callas, a ghost of her former self with a broken voice and a broken will. She's a recluse, confining herself to her (fabulous) Paris apartment and weeping over lost days. It takes Irons and Plowright to rouse her to life once again, involving her in a filmed production of Carmen with a challenging ethical twist that I'll leave for you to discover. Callas comes alive, and when we see her performing she is sizzling sex on a silver platter. It's magical to see her character transform before our eyes, to become fully alive after years of wandering in the wilderness. The sumptuous production numbers, and even Irons' extraordinary performance, almost fade into the background. This movie is all about Ardent, and the woman works magic.

Wow, did I enjoy this movie. I have got to go to the opera.

Fever Pitch

There's a scene early in FEVER PITCH in which Drew Barrymore tells the shaggy-haired guy (SHG) that someone in her office is going to get promoted (Plot Point!!). SHG does a bit in which he cracks wise about backstabbing while making whiny squeaking noises and pantomiming the stabbing motion. It's supposed to be cute, and it's supposed to endear us to his character. DB & I both reacted with, "What a loser."

FEVER PITCH is a reasonably cute romantic comedy that doesn't hold a candle to earlier Farrely Brothers efforts such as SOMETHING ABOUT MARY and STUCK ON YOU. It's drawn from a Nick Hornby novel that doesn't translate as well as ABOUT A BOY or HIGH FIDELITY and, if I had to put my finger on why, I have to say that it's the shaggy-haired guy's fault. Like Bruckner letting a ground ball slip by him, SHG is simply unable to make the plays when they matter. Poor Barrymore's acting her heart out against this guy, but he just can't pull off "endearing man-child." If ever there was a movie that demanded the presence of Adam Sandler, this is it.

Rooster Cogburn

From Wikipedia:

In the early morning of August 21, Quantrill attacked Lawrence (Kansas) with a force of 450 raiders. Though Senator Lane, a prime target of the raid, managed to escape through a cornfield in his nightshirt, Quantrill's Raiders killed between 140 and 190 men, dragging many from their homes to kill them before their families. When Quantrill rode out at 9 a.m., most of Lawrence's buildings had been burned, including all but two businesses; his raiders looted indiscriminately and also robbed the town's bank. The raid would become notorious in the North as one of the most vicious atrocities of the Civil War.

GOODNIGHT: Marshal, is your eye bothering you? I could sooth it with a poultice.

COGBURN: No, thanks, Ma'am. It's past help.

GOODNIGHT: Was it a hunting accident, Marshal?

COGBURN: You might say that. Huntin' Yankees. I lost it in the war, riding with Bill Anderson and Captain Quantrill. Times have sure changed. Now I'm workin' for a damned Yankee.

GOODNIGHT: But you're still hunting, sir.

COGBURN: I guess I like Marshalin' better'n anything I've done since the war. I like buffalo huntin', but them big shaggies is almost gone. Damn shame. I was skinnin' buffalo at Yellow Horse Creek, Texas. Pay was great, but I couldn't stand that open country.
==========

There's plenty to like about ROOSTER COGBURN: John Wayne & Katherine Hepburn are as solid as one would expect those two professionals to be, some of the jokes really snap, and the story is a comfortably predictable quest tale that makes for a pleasant evening of viewing. Unfortunately, however, the movie can't overcome the awfulness of its titular character.

It's been said that the worst kind of evildoer is the man who doesn't know that he's doing evil. Cogburn is still proud of having ridden with Quantrill, one of the most vicious murderers of the Civil War, and his only qualm about partaking in the great buffalo slaughter was that he ran out of buffalos. He's a self-satisfied S.O.B. who wouldn't know introspection if it invaded his village, burned half of it down, and slaughtered its inhabitants in their nightclothes because they opposed slavery. I get that he's supposed to be an endearingly cantankerous old man, but that only goes for audiences who don't know their Civil War or Western history. Before this revelation, the movie had had me rocking along pleasantly enough; after, I had to make a conscious effort to remain engaged.

This particular DVD presentation of ROOSTER COGBURN makes remaining engaged even harder because it looks terrible - it's like an old VHS copy of a bad print, with out-of-focus shots, poor color correction, graininess, and plenty of flecks and scratches. Clearly, Universal didn't care enough about the movie to provide it with a good transfer, and the results detract from the overall experience.

I've been in a John Wayne mood lately, but ROOSTER COGBURN, didn't quite do it for me. I think I'll try my luck with EL DORADO.

Flags of our Fathers

FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS like a cocoon that's trapping a beautiful butterfly. Wrapped around a gripping war drama with memorable characters, compelling situations, and great photography are layers of emotionally overwrought coming home and reminiscence stories. If we could just do away with that chrysalis, we'd have something to behold.

OK, that gambit failed. Here's another go: FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS is brilliant when it's on Iwo Jima. It's tedious the rest of the time.

After reading its lukewarm reviews, I hesitated to watch this movie. Nevertheless, I have a reasonable expectation of going to Iwo Jima later this year, I wanted to get some background, and this seemed like a good path to it. FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS certainly filled that purpose. Though Clint Eastwood filmed the movie on the beaches of Iceland, he manages to convey the landing and subsequent campaign in the kind of visceral way only good filmmakers can. Problem is, the movie seems only tangentially about Iwo Jima - it's about the three survivors of the flag raising and their subsequent war bond tour, and their song of readjustment and survivor guilt was better sung through the stories of THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES.

On Iwo, FLAGS gives us a stellar cast featuring favorites such as Barrie Pepper, Robert Patrick, Paul Walker, and Neal McDonough battling their way off the beach. When the action moves to the home front, however, it saddles us with Adam Beach, Jesse Bradford, and Ryan Phillippe as the three survivors. Theirs is a worthy tale, but it just isn't cinematic. How many times do we have to hear the Indian guy suffer through lousy Indian jokes before we can throw our hands up and say, "We get it"?

I appreciate the fact that Eastwood wasn't interested in making just another war movie. But I wish he would have.

Changing Lanes

Oh, how I hated CHANGING LANES.

CHANGING LANES is a morality tale about how small choices can add up to big choices and about the consequences of breaking the social compact. Consequently, it operated at a profound disadvantage: Morality tales are hard to do. The best morality tales handle their themes obliquely, trusting their audiences to divine their themes and understanding that "a-ha" moments reinforce those themes far better than any speech can, but CHANGING LANES doesn't have that kind of faith in itself or its viewers. The film has all the subtlety of a water skiing squirrel - what you see is precisely what you get.

Here's the setup: Ben Affleck is a successful lawyer. Samuel L. Jackson is a loser trying to get his life back together. They have a fender-bender, and Affleck writes Jackson a blank check and speeds off, leaving an important document behind. This makes Jackson late for a court appointment, and he exacts his revenge by later withholding the document. Affleck reacts, Jackson reacts, Affleck reacts some more, etc., and before we know it we're watching a double helix downward spiral.

Now, if you like watching downward spirals, you might enjoy this movie. If, however, watching one man have everything that matters stripped from him while the other kinda regrets his actions is your idea of a good time, knock yourself out. Personally, I found this movie so depressing, so painful to watch, that it left me wondering why anyone would create such a horrible experience, then actually put it out there for the world to see.

I only finished this movie because I was watching it with a valued friend who loves it. It's easily the most miserable time I've had this month.

Stray Dog

Toshiro Mifune was only two years into his film career when he starred in STRAY DOG.  He was still a rookie, like his character.  Like his character, he brought a total dedication and willingness to risk to his role.  And like his character, he earned the friendship and respect of his elders.
 
In the film, Mifune plays a rookie Homicide detective who's pickpocketed on a crowded train.  The detective, exhausted after an all-night stakeout in sweltering heat, is horrified to discover that someone has stolen his pistol.  Bravely, he does the right thing and immediately troops back into headquarters to report the theft, take his lumps, and get to work on recovering the weapon.  The detective, a recently discharged soldier, feels profoundly dishonored by the loss and personally responsible for the disposition of the sidearm and its bullets, and his guilt and motivation contrast with the world-weariness of both his lieutenant and the dogged veteran assigned to the case.
 
The  brilliant Takashi Shimura plays the veteran / father figure, and his resigned competence both make us hope for the future of the younger man and magnify our identification with him: now he must not only find the weapon to redeem his own honor, he must prove himself worthy in the eyes of men who have given him the benefit of the doubt.  This is a great approach to the material, as it creates a narrative drive that stems not from external forces such as criminals taking hostages or shouting captains, but the young detective's own need for redemption and honor.
 
Technically, the film is absolutely outstanding.  Akira Kurosawa, aided by 1st Assistant Director Ishiro Honda (GOJIRA) and composer Fumio Hayasaka, create a heat-stricken Tokyo that lives and breathes. But it's Mifune's show, and it's easy to see why Kurosawa saw his muse in this man. Far from the commanding lead of SEVEN SAMURAI and THRONE OF BLOOD, this Mifune is both insecure and bold, learning his craft and discovering the building blocks of wisdom. He's young; he's green; but we see his potential and we see what Kurosawa saw in him.

Y'know, I liked STRAY DOG as I viewed it, but I'm growing to love the film as I write this. It's just plain terrific and it's the kind of movie that makes me happy I haven't yet seen all of Kurosawa's ouvre. Thank goodness, there's still more to discover.

Millions

I enjoyed MILLIONS well enough, but the movie just didn't capture my imagination.

Don't get me wrong: its vibrant palette and music are a pleasure to experience, its supporting cast is fine, and the 7-yr-old boy who plays the lead is so adorable I wanted to take him home to serve as a good example for my child. But I just couldn't get involved in his, or his family's, life. I'm having a hard time putting my finger on why, though I suspect that it may because I viewed it while still coming down off EVE'S BAYOU, a movie which really got me.

Not very insightful comments, I know. I offer them as a datapoint for your own decisionmaking.

Eve's Bayou

"Memory is a selection of images, some elusive, others printed indelibly on the brain. The summer I killed my father, I was 10 years old."

Who can resist a hook like that?

EVE'S BAYOU is a movie about that summer, but it's a movie about a lot more than that. It's about a time and a place; it's about being a 10-year-old girl in a loving but troubled Creole family; and it's about the sorrows we bear and the things we can never take back.

Jurnee Smollett plays Eve, a doctor's daughter in a 1950s Louisana swamp town. Her father, Samuel L. Jackson, is her hero and a respected man. He's also a philanderer, a reality that's slowly breaking the heart of her mother, the painfully beautiful Lynn Whitfield. Smollett is incredible as Eve, and she can thank a penetrating and intelligent script for her good fortune. This is not a movie with cute but struggling moppets, nor is it one about adults in children's bodies. It's about a smart and insightful young girl who's trying to make sense of things that she's simply not ready to understand. Jackson, playing the father, reminds us that he is a gifted actor in addition to being a guy audiences can believe is ready to take on a passel of dangerous, planebound snakes. His doctor is smart and foolish, dashing and clumsy. He's a man. And Lynn Whitfield, well, Lynn Whitfield has this scene: she doesn't say a word, and she absolutely broke my heart. You'll know it when you see it.

EVE'S BAYOU is more than its script and its actors, of course. The movie looks and sounds great, with a deep, inviting palette, perfect costumes and sets, and an intriguing mix of light and shadow. Its music only brings attention to itself when it wants to and manages to get under our skin. Additionally, its selection of zydeco tunes for some scenes reflects a deep understanding for and appreciation of Louisiana swamp music, and it succeeds in bringing the milieu home.

In short, all the pieces of EVE'S BAYOU work. The movie takes us places we've never been, into the lives of people we'll never know, and it does so with insight, compassion, and beauty. This movie is a winner.

Hollywoodland

HOLLYWOODLAND redeems Ben Affleck's career.

Here's a guy who started out strong, then went downhill fast. From the unwatchable ARMAGEDDON to the criminally bad DAREDEVIL, Affleck's career had gotten so far away from the promise of GOOD WILL HUNTING that, frankly, his name on a marquee had become a reason to avoid a movie. And so I planned to avoid HOLLYWOODLAND, regardless of the involvement of such luminaries as Diane Lane and Bob Hoskins. At least, I planned to avoid it until I read the critical reaction to the movie.

HOLLYWOODLAND is two movies: one excellent, one mediocre. The mediocre one, a noirish detective picture featuring Adrien Brody investigating the apparent suicide of one George Reeves, serves to inform and access the excellent film, the one about Reeves himself. Affleck portrays Reeve with a combination of bravado, resignation, and desperation that's touching, sad, and altogether sympathetic. I felt for this guy, rooted for this guy, bled for this guy. I never thought an Affleck performance could make me feel that way.

Here's the deal: George Reeves got lucky early with a respectable supporting role in GONE WITH THE WIND. He couldn't build on that role and get his career rolling, and the movie introduces him at a lousy table in a first-class nightclub, trying to get noticed by the directors and studio heads who could give him a break. He does get noticed, but by a one Mrs. Mannix, played by Diane Lane. He and Mrs. Mannix fall for each other, which might even help the earnest George: Mr. Mannix (Bob Hoskins) is a studio head, which means Mrs. Mannix might be able to land George a job.

She does, but it's about the most loathsome job the ambitious young actor could hope for: a career-defining (and killing) role as Superman in a wildly popular children's television show. Reeves gamely tries to play the hero, but he knows that he's a long way from GWTW, and he can't get over the disappointment.

And that's not even the heartbreaking part. Because when that gig ends and he's been thoroughly typecast, where does he have to go? The answer, and the black-and-white reel in which we see him give it his best shot, just plain broke my heart.

So, there it is. I forgive you for DAREDEVIL, Ben. Now get back out there and show us what you can really do.

Superman

You know that tagline for SUPERMAN? The one that goes, "You'll believe a man can fly"? Well, after screening SUPERMAN, my boy drew a letter on his chest and asked me to toss him onto the bed not once, not twice, but until my arms felt like they were going to drop off my shoulders. Those SUPERMAN guys weren't kidding.

I hadn't seen SUPERMAN in decades, and I'm happy to report that the movie holds up quite well. It's out on a fantastic DVD transfer, so mom can appreciate Christopher Reeve in all his glory while dad marks time 'til Miss Tessbacher shows up again. It's fun to see Gene Hackman and Ned Beatty camp it up, and I particularly enjoyed noticing (for the first time) a young John Travolta's blink-and-you'll-miss-it contribution. SUPERMAN is just plain fun, and it's welcome dessert after the gloomfest that must necessarily be a Batman movie. The closing shot, with Chris Reeve grinning to the audience as he flies off to heroism, is such a winner that I'm surprised it doesn't show up in all those "Best shots in Hollywood History" lists.

What a delight.

PS I miss Christopher Reeve. That guy was a class act. Did anyone else read his book? It's almost enough to make you forgive Robin Williams for that "Dr. Clown" movie

300

Every now and then, the chance to see a movie in a theater drops into my lap. When those chances come around, I try to see pictures that I know just won't be the same when viewed on a laptop.

This weekend, I had just such an opportunity, and I used it to see 300. As far as tellings of the tale of the Battle of Thermopylae go, it's worse than Gates of Fire and better than the Frank Miller comic book 300, which it brings to life. I haven't gotten that far in my Herodotus just yet - give me time. As far as movies go, 300 is extraordinary.

300's stylized world, created almost entirely on a TRS-80 (or so I'm told), manages to both immerse and dazzle us. It takes us to a heightened reality, invites us to believe it, and rewards us for so doing with spectacle and audacity. I bought Gerard Butler's Leonidas, Rodrigo Santoro's Xerxes, and all the rest of the grunts and and monsters. I forgave the Spartans their convenient (and action packed!) deviations from their own military doctrine and I was willing to overlook the fact that steroids were not available in ancient Greece. I dug the look, I dug the story, and I dug the imagination.

I'm glad I saw this one on the big screen.

Mindhunters

Here's one from the archives. Happy Easter!
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You'll enjoy MINDHUNTERS if you don't know anything about physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, fluid dynamics, weaponscraft, law enforcement, military operations, or the actual FBI profiling program. If, in other words, you're a below-average student in a Bratislavan middle school, this movie's for you. MINDHUNTERS is one of those movies in which you tell yourself, "Okay, I choose to accept that this movie is set in a universe in which X could possibly happen." Then, you tell it to yourself again, and again, and again. This movie is so relentlessly, aggressively ridiculous that it's simply impossible to suspend one's disbelief.

Here's the setup: it's TEN LITTLE INDIANS with FBI agents on a spooky island. But there's a twist: where TEN LITTLE INDIANS is intriguing, MINDHUNTERS is insulting. Where TEN LITTLE INDIANS is gripping, MINDHUNTERS is loud. And where TEN LITTLE INDIANS has an ending that leaves you fascinated, amused, and not a little surprised, MINDHUNTERS has an ending that makes you want to hurl your DVD player against the wall in disgust.

Here's the worst part: the movie was foisted on me by a guy at work, a guy who loved it so much that he put his copy in my hands and insisted that I give it a spin. This afternoon, while we're waiting for the bus, he's going to ask me what I thought of it. I'm thinking of going with, "Wow! Nothing you said could have prepared me for this movie!" I don't know if I can sell the line.

PS On the plus side, the movie does have one kill that's so unexpected that it almost overcomes its utter implausibility. Additionally, MINDHUNTERS features the best anti-smoking sequence I've ever seen. So at least there's that.

Galaxy Quest

GALAXY QUEST is one of those movies that never get old. There's always something more to see, and this time around I grooved on the performance of one Alan Rickman.

This guy takes what looks like a simple couple of lines, "By Grabthar's Hammer! What savings!" and turns it into a symphony of self-loathing and resignation. While doing so, he manages to maintain a certain reserve that reminds that, yes, this is supposed to be a comedy. Later, when when he means a "By Grabthar's Hammer!" exclamation, he pours enough real passion into the reading that we, as the audience, buy his character's embrace of, well, his character.

It's great stuff, in a movie full of great stuff. By Grabthar's Hammer, I expect to see this movie over and over again.

TMNT

TMNT is too busy to bother with a proper title: an acronym will have to do. Unfortunately, it's also too busy to develop backstory, flesh out characters, or bother to entertain anyone over the age of ten. The result is a horrifically dull action-adventure that will serve the dual temporal purpose of speeding time up for the young 'uns and dragging it out for any parents unlucky enough to wander into this movie.

Here's the setup: the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have broken up. Paradoxically, Leonardo has gone off to Central America to learn leadership by working alone. Raphael has stayed home in New York, where he also fights crime alone, but this is somehow bad because, well, the never really explains. The other two, whose names I forget, have regular jobs, and all this is, somehow, very, very bad. When Leonardo returns, he essentially has to get the band back together so they can do battle with (a) a band of Ninja that are led by a white woman with a Chinese accent, (b) a bunch of monsters, (c) the reanimated statues of ancient warriors, and (d) a guy whom I assume to be Tiglath-Pileser I.

This could be fun, except for three movie-killing errors. First, TMNT never sets up the turtles properly. It assumes that its audience is already vested in their unity and well-being, which I was not. Consequently, I found the first act to be plodding and dull - this was the character stuff, and I didn't care about the characters. Things picked up a bit in the second act and actually got interesting for a few minutes near the end, but the climax suffered from the next error: computer-generated martial arts fight scenes just aren't interesting. It's fun to watch stuntmen fight, in the same way it's fun to watch dancers perform. But who wants to sit around and watch a CGI Swan Lake? Lastly, the film's third error laid in its choice of aesthetic: the women are so wasp-waisted that their girdles must make breathing impossible. The men are so top-heavy that they shouldn't be able to balance on two legs. And the world is just not interesting. Sorry. It just isn't.

If I had to sum up TMNT with an acronym, that acronym would be SUCKS. Sorry, no time - you'll have to figure out what it stands for on your own.

How to Marry a Millionaire

HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE strikes a blow against the commodotization of women by telling a story about the commoditization of men. While some complain that the film is, in reality, arguing for the former, that notion is subverted by the film's infamous fashion show / Thai whorehouse sequence, in which the lone man in the room is so overwhelmed by the raw power of female sexuality that his only possible response is an emasculated retreat.

In the world of popular culture, women were (and are!) nothing more than the sum of their parts. In HOW TO MAM, the men become nothing more than the sum of their monthly paychecks. Gone are considerations of their intrinsic worth, their honor, or their intellect, or any of the uncountable (in)tangibles that make a man a man. In a bold move that would go unanswered until 1997's IN THE COMPANY OF MEN, women boil men down to the one thing about which the (What's the opposite of fairer - uglier? Harumph!) sex is most insecure - the size of their bank accounts. These women dare to express what every creature on the planet knows: it really all comes down to "What can you do for me?"

Some may argue that HOW TO MAM breaks down at the end, when Lauren Bacall winds up marrying a grease monkey, only to discover that he's a proficient exploiter of the workers of the world's petroleum industry. I say those people focus on the text, the sacrifice and reward, when they should be focusing on the subtext, the alpha female's ability to spot that member of the pack most likely to give her what she needs and to home in on that individual, consciously or no. The film's resolution both rewards that instictive ability while slyly acknowledging its women's understanding of the dynamic and the men's fatalistic acceptance of it.

In a world in which the strong eat the weak, HOW TO MAM reminds us just who is which, and what the stakes are. What a brilliantly subversive little picture.

And don't get me started on that overture.

Hellboy Revisited

I've been on a Hellboy kick lately, mostly because I'll reinforce pretty much anything that gets my kid to read. That said, I revisited Guilllermo del Toro's live-action HELLBOY film over the weekend. I enjoyed it much more this time around.

When I saw HELLBOY during its theatrical run, the comics were fresher in my mind. This, of course, led to constant comparisons between what I was seeing and what I'd read and, while I liked what I was seeing, it simply couldn't compare to my imagination. That, and there was no Lobster Johnson.

This time around, the comics have faded in memory and I was able to enjoy the film more on its own terms. The audience surrogate -character doesn't grate, the throwaway references don't feel underdone, and themes of Hellboy really carry through. You see, HELLBOY is all about choice: it's just the thing to appeal to believers in the Leibnizian monadic soul, like me. In the film, as in the comics, Hellboy was created to be the Antichrist and unleash cosmic, Lovecraftian horror upon the world. He was brought into the world by evil forces to do evil deeds, but gets an early exposure to the good guys. Ultimately, he chooses sides, and his self-determining choice defines him more than all the external factors that combine to force his hand.

This is great stuff, and HELLBOY delivers it in a package filled with slimy monsters, catchy one-liners, and a double helping of fun.

Still no Lobster Johnson, though. Perhaps in HELLBOY 2.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY is consistently amusing, occasionally hilarious, and always gorgeous.

Here's the setup: Arthur Dent's home is about to be destroyed, and there's nothing he can do to stop it. Sure, he lie down in front of the tractors positioned to destroy his house, but that won't stop the Vogon demolition fleet positioned to annihilate the Earth. Though it's a bad day for Earth, it's a great day for Arthur, however. His strange buddy, the one who doesn't quite fit in, turns out to be an alien. To make matters better, he's an alien who writes for _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_, and he shows up just in time to help Arthur hitch a ride to, well, the galaxy.

The next 80 minutes or so bring us the horrors of Vogon poetry, a new definition of the technicolor yawn, the best extended riff on our sitting President I've yet to see in a motion picture, and the Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Oh, and we find out who made the fjords. He won a prize.

Though the movie breaks down a bit during the second act, it pulls itself together admirably well and closes on a very strong note. I expected this movie to be reasonably amusing, but it wound up making my day. Have fun.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

PS While watching this movie, I couldn't help but compare it to I HEART HUCKABEES. IHH purported to be an existential comedy, but it was really a comedy about self-importance. THHGTTG is the real thing.

The Comedians of Comedy

Netflix is getting into the business of producing its own material, and one of its first products was THE COMEDIANS OF COMEDY. It's a documentary about the Comedians of Comedy tour, a show that unites a number of (unknown to me) comics and has them play nonstandard venues, such as rock clubs and town social halls.

The documentary's premise and the comedians' self image is one of cutting edge -itude, of people who refuse to sell out while they probe the limitations of their art form. In other words, they haven't hit it big and they say "fuck" a lot. I thought their sets were amusing, and I even chuckled once or twice, but there isn't an Eddie Izzard among them. Ah, well.

Grandma's Boy

Harold Lloyd's GRANDMA'S BOY is laugh-out-loud funny. Not "amusing, but I'm mostly watching it for its historical significance" funny, but no-kidding, laugh-out-loud funny.

Here's the setup: Lloyd's the town coward. He's competing with the town bully for the hand of a local lass, but will he rise above his fears and become the man she needs? Ok, it's not that exciting a setup, but it's all in the execution.

Lloyd executes as well as anybody. His film moves right along from one gag to the next, and his inherent likeability keeps us engaged throughout. The supporting characters are interesting and memorable, and the whole picture sets just the right tone of comic danger and conflict. What a treat!

The 5 Worst Films of 2005

I haven't had time to see a movie lately, so here's one from the archives:

5. CRASH
I don't require that the films I see have people like those I know in real life. I don't require that they have characters who speak like people I know in real life. I do, however, require that, unless the movies feature balrogs or wookies or toupeed actors screaming "Khaaaaaann!", they have people that could, conceivably, walk the earth.

4. STAR WARS III
Y'know, I just can't get into the STAR WARS prequels. Then again, my father couldn't get into STAR WARS. Time marches on.

3. WAR OF THE WORLDS
Imagine spending two hours watching the end of the world. Now imagine spending two hours watching the end of the world through the eyes of a guy you wish would just die, already. WAR OF THE WORLDS gave us spectacle without character. Without character, of course, we may as well be watching paint dry.

2. FANTASTIC FOUR
I didn't care about Ben Grimm. I didn't care about Victor Von Doom. I didn't care about Mr. Fantastic, Inviso-Girl, or the Human Torch. This movie should have spent less time CGI-ing incredible action sequences and more time CGI-ing a decent script.

1. MINDHUNTERS
This movie is so extraordinarily, aggressively bad that I suspect its creators personally hate each and every single one of us. MINDHUNTERS defies the laws of physics, chemistry, psychology, and the State of Nebraska in its attempt to bring us fun, dumb entertainment. I'll say this much: they got the dumb part right. P.S. I love Iceland and its wonderful, warm, and forgiving people.

Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster

GODZILLA VS. THE SEA MONSTER (1966) is a bright, funky, and painless monster movie featuring a danceoff, Duane Eddy - style jangling guitars, and a Godzilla monster with a handy screen in his throat for improved vision. It's high camp in a psychedelic mode, missing only cameos from Gidget and the Big Kahuna.

The titular sea monster is a giant lobster, and it must be one of the least scary monsters in the Godzilla pantheon. I understand why they named the movie after it, however. It's scarier than the giant buzzard Godzilla faces in the runup to the big fight, a fearsome battler that's easily dispatched with just one blast of the Big Guy's breath. Nevertheless, what's the point of going with a giant lobster if you're not going to have Godzilla boil it up for the big beach party / clambake? Ah, well. Another opportunity lost.

Anyway, GODZILLA VS. THE SEA MONSTER is just plain fun. If you like monsters and you like camp, you'll like this one.

Stalag 17

STALAG 17 is one of those pictures that I knew I was supposed to see, that I knew I was eventually going to see, and that, frankly, I was really looking forward to seeing. How did it fare? Not too well. STALAG 17 is a movie that, for me, lands in the "just ok" file.

STALAG 17 can't figure out what kind of movie it wants to be. Is it a psychological thriller? A buddy movie? A comedy? A critique of capitalism? I don't know. Neither, I suspect, did Billy Wilder, the fellow behind this picture.

There's a spy among the POWs in a German camp, and suspicion falls on Sgt. Sefton (William Holden), a selfish, unfeeling dealer who seems to know all the angles. Sounds great, right? As a study of suspicion and fear, I think it could have been. Problem is, as soon as it grabs us, the movie shifts its attention to Animal and Sugar Lips (Robert Strauss and Harvey Lembeck), a comic-relief pair of buddies who appear to be direct cinematic forebears of Timon and Pumbaa. These caricatures are so broadly drawn that they yank me out of the movie every time they're onscreen, and they're onscreen a lot. Just when I'm ready to submit, however, and play along with their little jokes, I'm confronted with the amazing self-centeredness of Sgt. Sefton, a man who cares only about the bigger, better deal. He sobers me right up every time. This constant whipsawing between various tones kept me off balance. Consequently, I couldn't immerse myself in the universe of the film.

Holden's Sgt. Sefton is a selfish, nasty, cruel, totally unlikeable and totally unsympathetic son of a bitch. That we care about him anyway is a testament to the amazing performance on display here. As we see him go from self-imposed isolation to group-imposed isolation, we see just how much of his disdain is a front, hiding his desperate need for respect. When he finally makes his play, we cheer him on, even though we know he has a lot more in common with Ken Lay than with any of us. Holden's performance is 100% gold, I tell ya, and it redeems the whole picture.

Turtles Can Fly

In Bahman Ghobadi's TURTLES CAN FLY, the writer/director introduces us to a world that we generally know only in the abstract: the world of young Kurdish orphans in particular, and the world of refugees in general. We have much to learn in that world and, though it wasn't a pleasant journey, I'm grateful for my time there.

TURTLES CAN FLY centers on Satellite, a thirteen-year-old boy who's going to wind up a millionaire if he doesn't get himself killed first. Satellite is gifted with both technical and business sense, he's a natural and effective leader, and he's personally brave (He also happens to be full of shit half of the time, but that's part of his charm.). This boy basically runs his small Kurdish town on the Iraq/Turkey border, and he seems content in his alpha male status - that is, until a mysterious family enters the picture. This family could be from anywhere where war and brutality are long-term facts of life; there are no adults, just a teenaged boy whose arms appear to have been lost to a mine, a teenaged girl with the maturity of the profoundly traumatized, and the blind toddler who needs them to survive. The boy seems like an alpha male in his own right, the girl holds a profound attraction for Satellite, and the toddler, well, the toddler will touch them all in ways they couldn't possibly predict.

TURTLES CAN FLY is a harsh movie, but it isn't the harshness of cruelty or exploitation. It's the knowledge that life is incredibly hard for most people on the planet, and that the modern concept of childhood is the gentle province of the rich and secure. These kids have lived through things that would make the COME AND SEE's Florya put a gun in his mouth, and they adapt - as real kids do. Their realism and everyday courage makes it all the more touching when one of them cracks under the strain, because we've come to see them not as others separated by geography, ethnicity, or age, but as ourselves if our luck hadn't been so cosmically good.

To say I enjoyed this movie wouldn't be quite right. I'm glad I saw it, however, as it does what the best movies do. It took me to a time and place with which I'd been unfamiliar and made them real. It told me a story that perhaps I didn't want to hear, but that I needed to hear, and it did so with artistry and urgency. TURTLES CAN FLY is an excellent motion picture.

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.

Kill Bill, Vol. 1

I loved every frame of KILL BILL.

This movie has everything: fast swords, fast cars, and so many gallons of Kensington Gore that my audience laughed in awe, dismay, and bemusement at the sheer absurdity of the production.

Here's the story: Uma Thurman is a member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (DiVAS), sort of a Fox Force Five gone horribly wrong. When, on her wedding day, the DiVAS strongly object to the union, Uma winds up single, angry, and out for revenge.

KILL BILL turns on three hinges: charisma, music, and fight choreography. I've never been an Uma Thurman fan before. I didn't really buy her in PULP FICTION, she helped (temporarily) kill the BATMAN franchise, and, frankly, I don't find her particularly attractive. But I'm an Uma Thurman fan now. Thurman owns every minute she's onscreen, and I never dreamed she had the athletic ability or the acting range she displays here. Lucy Liu was another revelation. Though she'd never sparked my interest before, her O-Ren Ishii is easily the coolest bad guy I've seen all year. Her character's unique management style makes DeNiro's Al Capone look like a cheap thug. Finally, there's Sonny Chiba in a role Mifune would've played had this movie been made 20 years back. Chiba, as the master swordsmith who gives Uma her blade, exudes a calm command that makes me want to see this guy in action.

Music has been a big part of all of Tarantino's movies, and this is no exception. KILL BILL's music is infectious, and by the time Tomoyasu Hotei's "Battle Without Honor or Humanity" came blaring out of the theater's speakers, I was literally bopping in my seat. I've only done that once before, and that was for the KILL BILL trailer. I'm buying a copy of this soundtrack.

In a movie like this, the fights are the big enchilada. KILL BILL doesn't let you down. The fights are brutal, visceral experiences that look like they hurt. A lot. Combatants get tired. When they're cut, they bleed. Done differently, these (really quite long) fights could be grueling experiences for the audience, but Tarantino goes so ridiculously over the top that, instead of flinching, we're dazzled. The film's biggest production number, the battle at the House of Blue Leaves, begins with a wink to MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL that's so gratuitous you can't help but shake your head and laugh. In Tarantino's world, a 125-lb woman with the right katana can slice through bone as if it were butter. By the time the battle ends with an homage to Thomas Harris, you know you've gone so far over the top that you're on a different planet.

Some people don't dig the Tarantino vibe. That's cool. If, however, you can accept that there's an airline that'll allow you to bring your katana into the cabin with you, that the police wouldn't think to post a lookout for the world's most identifiable vehicle, or that the yakuza thinks that guns are for sissies, then this is the movie for you.

Batman Begins

BATMAN BEGINS in a nutshell:

End of Act 1: Wow! This is as good as big summer blockbusters get!

End of Act 2: Boy, they sure did hire a lot of great actors for supporting roles. Why did the process fail in the casting of Murphy and Holmes, who can't sell their roles? They're a negative, but I'm still enjoying the movie.

End of Act 3: Ugh; two solid thirds hurt by a final third that's just loud and ridiculous. And this movie could have been great.

Bits I liked, overall: Bale, Hauer, Caine, Freeman, Wilkinson, Oldman.
Bits I disliked, overall: Murphy, Holmes. The editing of the fight scenes (Why hire the Equilibrium guy if you aren't going to show us what he can do?). The downgrading of Sgt. Gordon to a goofball.

Verdict: Eh, it was ok.

Hellboy Animated: Blood and Iron

HELLBOY ANIMATED: BLOOD AND IRON just isn't as much fun as SWORD OF STORMS.

B&I puts the Hellboy gang in a haunted house that's just been purchased by a Richard Branson -esque character. Before you know it, they're in the middle of a vampire and ghost story that's too gory for the kids and too familiar for the adults. Tack on a third act that recreates and truncates the Hellboy-Hecate storyline from the comics, but doesn't feel organic to the vampire/ghost story, and you have a wholly unsatisfying experience.

Color me underwhelmed.

An Inconvenient Truth

If you like watching people preach to the converted, you'll love AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. Al Gore, at his pedantic, self-satisfied best, delivers his well-honed global warming presentation to an audience that hangs on his every word. Gore's presentation combines data, images, and even a Matt Groening video in its efforts to convince -well, by the looks of things, people who need no convincing. He uses straw man arguments to dismiss "critics" (You can practically see the quotation marks he puts around the word.), he milks the current administration for easy laughs (not that that's hard to do), and he generally plays to his base.

This is fine, particularly if you're his base, but then the movie can't help but get us into Gore's personal life, or at least whichever aspects of his personal life he chooses to exploit for the purposes of the film. There are plenty of shots of Apple board member Gore working with determination at his Apple computer, looking pensively into his Apple computer, and just generally promoting the Apple brand. There's Gore sitting down with "cutting edge," as he describes them, (fully vetted) representatives of the PRC, home of some of the world's most polluted cities, talking about their solutions. There's Gore navigating the backstage labyrinth, causing me to hope, for just a moment, that he'd stop and ask someone for directions. Oh, it was horrible.

If I had to boil AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH down to just one word, that word would be "Insufferable." I went into this movie feeling neutral about Gore and generally sympathetic toward his cause. I came out of it actively disliking the man and neutral toward his cause. This film's success is a mystery to me.

Shortbus

SHORTBUS plants its flag in the first ten minutes. This is a movie about sexuality, discovery, and human relationships, and it takes the sexuality part of that equation very seriously. In the first ten minutes, we meet the film's main characters as they participate in various sex acts, and the film is pretty much as graphic as can be. These people aren't simulating their sex acts: SHORTBUS isn't pornography, but the only difference between these parts of the movie and pornography is attitude. If you're ok with that, and you're willing to go along for the ride, you're in for an excellent picture. If not, well, I understand.

Sometimes, I'll write that I respect a film more than I like it. This usually happens with pictures whose reach exceeds their grasp: I appreciate the reach, even if things didn't quite work out. SHORTBUS is a film that I both respect and like: it innovates, it tries new things, it seeks to push the boundaries of its art form, and it succeeds. Additionally, it succeeds in crafting a number of compelling, interweaving storylines that catch us up in the lives of its people and, perhaps, teach us a little about ourselves.

SHORTBUS sold me early on. In that first ten minutes, two of the people we view are in the throes of energetic, creative, loving sex. When compared with the emptiness that infuses the other vignettes, these people are doing all right. As they bask in the afterglow, the woman (Sook-Yin Lee) says, "I feel sorry for people who don't have what we have." The woman, a sex therapist, goes on to confide the problem of one of her clients: the woman has been faking her orgasms. "I told her to keep on doing it," the therapist goes on. "It's a valid method of buying time for the relationship." The man's (Raphael Baker) expression goes from one of contentment to intense insecurity. "Is she talking about herself?" he seems to be thinking. It was a deft touch, and extraordinarily well played, and it's when I knew that SHORTBUS wasn't going to be some exploitative artistic wankery. It was going to be a movie about real emotions and real relationships, and it was going to approach them from a mature viewpoint.

Plenty of movies explore relationships, and some do it well. What sets SHORTBUS apart is its approach to sexuality. This movie takes a real chance in depicting actual sex in the way that it does. It's one thing to cut to an exterior shot of the train entering a tunnel; it's quite another to stay in the railway car; warts, excretions, and all. By taking a chance on the audience's toleration of unusual movie experiences, the film gets to explore actual human sexuality in interesting, layered, and thought-provoking ways. As is the case with any excellent movie, all the elements of SHORTBUS work together to give the audience greater understanding of the characters and advance the narrative. It's a gimmick, I suppose, but no more a gimmick than using stuffed animals and cellophane to explore the subconscious.

This is one of those movies you can't watch on the Metro and you can't watch until the kids are deeply asleep. If you can make the time, and if you're willing to overcome the discomfort the film may make you feel, SHORTBUS is well worth the effort.

The World's Fastest Indian

In THE WORLD'S FASTEST INDIAN, Anthony Hopkins plays an eccentric Kiwi engineering genius. He lives in a shack and tinkers with his motorcycle, and he eventually decides to head to the U.S., where he plans to take his bike the Bonneville Salt Flats for the speed trials. Once in the U.S., he meets a variety of colorful and harmless characters, makes some friends, sets some records, and generally has a delightful time.

And that's the problem with THE WORLD'S FASTEST INDIAN: it's basically a movie about a nice fellow having a delightful time. There's no real conflict (at least nothing that can't be cleared up in no time), no real character development, no real anything. Now, I like Anthony Hopkins, but not enough to justify a whole movie without a compelling dramatic throughline.

What a disappointment.

The Science of Sleep

I respected THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP more than I liked it. Michel Gondry's film takes real chances, both narratively and visually, and it dares to deviate from formulas. Unfortunately, it does so in service to a story that I didn't find compelling.

I thought Gael Garcia Bernal's character was insane and potentially dangerous. Consequently, I did not root for him to get together with Charlotte Gainsbourg's Stephanie. Rather, I rooted for Stephanie to get as far away as she could as quickly as she could. Such is not the path to audience immersion in what is, of a sort, a love story.

Nevertheless, I respected Gondry's willingness to shift in and out of conscious experience almost at whim, and his faith in the audience's ability to follow along. I enjoyed the animation and the sensibilities of the fantasy world. I bought the performances and agree with Dash in his assertion that Bernal is developing into a "performer of admirable range."

Respecting a film isn't the same as liking it, however. You can't always have it all.

Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut

The worst thing about DONNIE DARKO is the plot. Unfortunately, plotting is what the director's cut is all about.

In its original form, DONNIE DARKO is so impenetrable that it inspires its audiences to think of it almost as a tone poem while they try to piece together the clues scattered throughout its narrative. This worked for me, as I drew more from the film's evocation of adolescence than I did its confusing storyline.

The director's cut, on the other hand, adds a few scenes and some intertitles that take this strange meditation on puberty and turns it into a rather humdrum science fiction piece about time travel. The intertitles have an added, unpleasant effect: by demonstrating that Donnie is not psychotic, they eliminate the sole source of the original version's dramatic tension.

Directors commonly moan when studio "suits" come in and demand changes to their vision. In this case, the suits were right.

The Call of Cthulhu

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wagn'nagl fhtagn. --HP Lovecraft

A couple of years ago, the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society scraped together $50,000 and set out to film THE CALL OF CTHULHU, an inherently unfilmable story and a central tale in Lovecraft's Cthulu mythos. The movie, made to look like a poorly preserved print of a 1920s silent picture, is wildly, wonderfully, weirdly successful. I loved, loved, loved THE CALL OF CTHULHU.

Here's the setup: a lunatic hands a bundle of papers to his psychiatrist, pleading with the doctor to burn these files on Cthulu. Why is this patient insane? What is Cthulu? Strap yourselves in for a great forty minutes of finding out, gang, because THE CALL OF CTHULHU is imaginative, audacious, and scary fun.

The movie overcomes its budgetary limitations by embracing them. Can't afford to fly the crew out to an island to shoot a key scene? Build a cardboard island that looks like something out of the THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI. Can't afford a CGI monster? Nothing's scarier than papier mache and stop-motion, if executed with confidence. Need a ship for your climax at sea? Hey, a cheap model and some painted sheets will do just fine - it is black and white, after all, and sometimes graininess can be an asset.

Speaking of graininess, the movie is created in something called mythoscope. It's a just-plain-great idea, and it makes the picture really look like something that's been sitting in a warehouse for 80 years. There are hairs in projection frame, spotting and strobing, and the kind of inconsistencies in print quality that are familiar to any silent film aficionado. The process gives the whole thing a wonderful sense of antiquity and lends immediacy to the proceedings onscreen.

$50,000, a warehouse, and audacity. Apparently, that's all it takes to make a terrific picture these days. Good for the folks at HPLHS!

The Innocents

THE INNOCENTS rises or falls on Deborah Kerr's performance. Her role requires earnestness, thoughtfulness, conviction, courage, and perhaps a touch of madness. If she can pull it off, the movie is a winner. Unfortunately, she can't.

Kerr harrumphs, goggles, and screams her way through the picture. She so distanced me from the action that my greatest fear was that she'd tire of chewing the scenery, chew her way through my screen, and go for my throat. The movie looks great; its children are perfect; it sounds wonderful; and it has a snappy script. If only they'd hired a better actress, they could've had a classic on their hands.

Wilde

WILDE is a well done movie, but it's painful to watch.

Have you ever had a friend who fell in love with the worst possible person in the world? Have you seen that friend's life spiral downward and downward, while all you can do is sit on the sidelines and lament? WILDE is like that. The movie follows Oscar Wilde from a time shortly before he realizes his homosexuality through the apogee of his fame and into his precipitous decline. It's a sad, desperate story, made all the more so because the Oscar Wilde we see here is so damn likeable, in spite of his neglect for his family and his poor choice in lovers.
. . .
A question: I have a co-worker who wrote her thesis on Oscar Wilde. Is this movie accurate enough for me to engage her in semi-informed manner on her area of interest?
. . .
Oscar Wilde note #1: Back when I was substitute teaching in a college English Department, I covered a freshman class whose assignment had been _The Importance of Being Earnest_. When I asked them what they thought of the play, I got all these answers about its commentary on the social and political issues of its day. My response: "Yeah ... but did you think it was funny?" The students were dumbfounded.

Oscar Wilde note #2: I read "The Selfish Giant," which is referenced in the film, to my boy a couple of months ago. When I finished, he asked me why I was crying. "It's just so beautiful," I replied. What a perfect little story.

Hellboy Animated: Sword of Storms

HELLBOY ANIMATED: SWORD OF STORMS is much better than I thought it would be. I only rented the thing out of loyalty to the characters, and I expected a cheap, direct-to-DVD knockoff. What a pleasant surprise to find an involving story, solid animation, excellent voice acting, and an all-around great experience.

If you're already a Hellboy fan, read no further and be assured that you'll enjoy a film that hews to the style of the comics. If you aren't familiar with the character, here's a bit of background. In the waning days of WWII, Hitler's occult advisor tries the last-ditch tactic of summonig a demon from Hell to aid in the fight. When American forces break through at the culmination of the ceremony, they find cutest li'l baby demon you ever did see. They name him Hellboy, raise him to be a good guy, and put him to work in the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, or BPRD (Motto: Things really do go bump in the night. We're the ones who bump back.). Hellboy's a gruff manchild, still living in the equivalent of his parents' basement, and his solution to most problems involves significant amounts of blunt force trauma. He's a great character. He's nearly indestructible, so he can face the most horrific of creatures with little more than a deadpan, "Oh, crap." He carries his massive upper torso and Fist of Clobberin' around on spindly little goat legs and delicate hooves, making him simultaneously imposing and amusing. And he hangs out with a gill man and a firestarter. What's not to like?

In HASS, the BPRD sends Hellboy to Japan to investigate the theft of a legendary sword. Before he knows it, the demon gets sucked into the Japanese equivalent of Faerie, where he must undertake a quest that gives him and us, the audience, a tour through some of the scarier tales of Japanese folklore. As Hellboy uses the amazing power of blunt force trauma to survive in this world, his pals in the BPRD must deal with the real-world repercussions of his actions and figure a way to get him back.

It's a solid setup, and one that goes right for a variety of reasons. First, HASS, as do the comics, boasts a love for folklore and an ability to introduce the audience to new legends with a light and entertaining touch. Second, the animation style resembles Hellboy creator Mike Mignola's comics, creating a continuity with the printed page and inviting us into the greater world of the character. Third, the voice acting (largely by the cast of the not-as-good live action HELLBOY movie) sells the picture. Genre stalwart Ron Perlman voices Hellboy as I always imagined the character; Selma Blair does fine, if necessarily whiny, work as Liz the firestarter; and Doug Jones gives Abe Sapien, the gill man, a different and successful spin than did live-action voice actor David Hyde Pierce.

HASS is fun. It's funny, scary, and thoroughly entertaining, and it provides a wonderful introduction to the world of Japanese folklore. What more could you want?

Stranger Than Fiction

STRANGER THAN FICTION is like a cream puff. It looks like there's some food there, but once you sink your teeth in, you find little to chew on.

The movie begins promisingly. Will Ferrell begins his day to the charming narration of Emma Thompson's voice and with attractive computer graphics surrounding him and illustrating his mind and world. The hook comes early, as Ferrell hears the narrator's voice and, appropriately, freaks out.

The rest of the movie concerns Ferrell's growing realization that he's a character in a story and his reactions to that realization. STRANGER THAN FICTION handles the concept as well as did Neil Gaiman's 1602 and better than Stephen King's last "Gunslinger" novel, helping us believe in a world in which a character can both believe he is in a story and interact with his creator in a meaningful way. It's by turns comic and tragic, and it achieves a compelling sense of sadness and grace. STRANGER THAN FICTION captured my imagination and touched my heart. While watching it, I loved it.

But you know how some movies get better with time? This is not one of them. STRANGER THAN FICTION's resolution is unsatisfying and its lessons trite. Its love story feels unnatural and its people heightened to unreality. It just plain breaks down upon further analysis.

It's too bad, really. That was one delicious-looking cream puff.

Mad Monster Party

MAD MONSTER PARTY (1967) is a stop-motion picture picture with a vaudevillian's philosophy: if you don't like the current joke, don't worry - there's another coming right on its heels.

Here's the setup: Dr. Frankenstein is having all the best monsters (Dracula, the Wolf Man, Phyllis Diller) over to the castle for a bash. Like any good party, this one is a hotbed of machiavellian maneuvering, cynical doublecrossing, and animated-skeleton rock bands ripping off the Beatles.

It's cute, it's inventive, & my kid loves it as much as I did when I was five. What more could you ask for?

Crank

Last fall, I was faced with a dilemma. I had one night at an airbase in Rota, Spain, and CRANK was showing at the base theater. I generally like Jason Statham movies, and I wanted to see this one. I’d been to Rota many times before and felt that the city had little new to offer. Nevertheless, it was Spain and I did know that CRANK would show up on Netflix after a while. Ultimately, I chose to go out. Even if Rota was a familiar city, after all, it was Spain.

I chose well, for, as it turns out, I am not CRANK’s target demographic. In fact, this film was made with such laserlike focus that anyone who is not a male between the ages of fifteen and seventeen is not CRANK’s target demographic. CRANK is pure adolescent male fantasy with a Nietszchian disregard for anything like the bounds of societal restraint. In the world of CRANK, every car goes fast, every gun makes a big loud bang, every normal person is either a target or an obstacle, and every woman is merely a vagina transportation system. This movie scorns everyone and everything, except for men with power, and it gets tiresome quite quickly.

I have no problem with Crank’s premise: a hit man has been injected with a compound that will kill him if his heartbeat gets too low, so he needs to keep the adrenalin flowing just to stay alive – now he’s got to keep his heart racing long enough to exact revenge. It’s a great idea, and Jason Statham is a great choice for such a role in such a movie. It’s the execution that bothers me: the fight choreography is pedestrian and the editing indecipherable; the only noninterchangeable female character is an insufferable idiot whose only redeeming trait is her nonstop sexual availability; and the postproduction work is so intrusive that not only did it keep reminding me that I was watching a movie, it kept reminding me that I was watching a bad movie.

If CRANK had trusted its premise, had trusted its star, had trusted in the moviegoer’s recognition that women are, in fact, human beings, it could have been a fun action picture. But then, what do I know? I’m not a male between fifteen and seventeen. I am so glad I went out in Rota.

The Lives of Others

THE LIVES OF OTHERS is a drab, claustrophobic, paranoiac movie. It's the kind of movie in which hope seems like a luxury and humanity is something to be hidden. In other words, THE LIVES OF OTHERS is East German to the core.

Here's the setup: a coldhearted Stasi officer volunteers to conduct surveillance on an East Berlin playwright whom he loathes at first sight. The playwright seems too smug, too politically connected, too comfortable in the arms of his beautiful paramour - there must be something wrong with the man, and the officer is certain he will find it. In fact, the officer finds much more than he bargained for, and the result is both heartening and devastating.

THE LIVES OF OTHERS is not a beautiful film. It looks cold, as if the whole thing were shot under bad flourescent lights. Its people do not have the benefit of postproduction digital airbrushing - they appear before us, stretchmarks and all, pale and sometimes very scared. Its food looks horrid; its homes, hotels, and bars dreary; and its parties tinged with desperation. In fact, it looks like the East Germany I imagined from childhood stories of relatives who smuggled foodstuffs and coffee through to unfortunate friends who found themselves on the wrong side of a line drawn at Potsdam. Not only does the movie recall the physical expressions of the East German experience, it recalls the psychological ones, as well. No matter how large one's country is, it's too small if one may not leave. And how does one live if even the unthinking remarks of one's own child can result in a knock on the door? In these aspects, THE LIVES OF OTHERS is unrelenting and more than a bit depressing.

But that unrelenting gaze and that depression earns the payoff of the film, when the smallest twitch of a facial muscle means the difference between despair and redemption. Like weeds pushing through pavement, humanity kept finding ways in East Germany, and it finds ways here, too. Those ways sometimes backfire, and they often end in tears: this, too, is East German. But they're there, and they make 137 minutes spent watching the lives of others well worthwhile.

The Illusionist

Movies like THE ILLUSIONIST are why I keep watching movies. This is a beautiful film, lit in shades of gold, that sometimes even recalls the kinetescopes of times past. It tells a fundamentally wonderful (as in, "full of wonder") and romantic story, and it sets that story in an inviting Austria that fires the imagination.

Here's the setup: a lowborn boy in imperial Austria-Hungary meets a young duchess from whom he is separated by class. Since Hollywood Law dictates that childhood attraction = one true love, the boy sets out to seek his fortune and, upon his return to Vienna as a celebrated illusionist, perhaps find a way to see his dear duchess again.

Edward Norton plays the titular illusionist with just the right mix of mystery and cleverness. Even when his character is doing foolish things, we in the audience think, "How can a guy that smart be that dumb?" There's something about his character that interests us, engages us, and makes us care about his journey. More engagingly, there's something about his character that makes us believe in his profound love for Jessica Biel's Duchess Sophie. Prior to seeing THE ILLUSIONIST, I'd never found Biel remotely interesting. Here, however, I saw her as a woman for whom a man could go to the ends of the Earth -if that's not illusion, I don't know what is.

Paul Giamatti gives an excellent performance as Chief Inspector Uhl, the audience surrogate and, as in an illusionist's trick (done for money ... or candy), the hinge on which the story turns. While all the actors do fine work at assaying just the hint of a German accent, I particularly appreciated Giamatti's fine work with the slightly hard "H"es and guttural "R"s of his speech.

Rufus Sewell, as the villainous Crown Prince Leopold, gives another solid performance in villainy. Further, he imbues his role with enough subtlety to invite reconsideration as the credits roll. Having said that, I'm rather tired of seeing Sewell play the villain. He was a terrific hero in DARK CITY - why doesn't someone let him be the good guy again?

THE ILLUSIONIST has more going for it than just its performances. Philip Glass's score reflects and magnifies the actions and emotions on screen, and the practical elements of the production (sets, backgrounds, and costumes) create an immersive and attractive environment. I particularly enjoyed Norton's workshop - how I'd love to spend a weekend in there!

Perhaps the thing I loved most about this film was its sense of wonder and hope. I loved that it showed us how some illusions worked without divulging the secrets of others. I loved its portrayel of Interregnum Vienna. I loved that it made me believe in and respect its people. I just plain loved it. Movies like this are worth plowing through the dross.