The Kingdom

THE KINGDOM, a mystery / cultural thriller set in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, follows an FBI team that receives permission from the Saudi royal family to assist in investigating a terrorist attack on Westerners living in a company compound. Complications ensue, and we’re on our way to great investigation of the clash of Muslim and Western culture. That is, until director Peter Berg decides that we in the audience are idiots who won’t sit still for a good story unless a kickass gun battle breaks out.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time in the United Arab Emirates, but I’ll admit to a bit of cultural prejudice. While I’ve never been treated with anything other than friendliness and respect, I never walk down the street without maintaining a complete scan of my environment and I never walk down back alleys. And that’s the UAE, where Saudis come to party. THE KINGDOM takes the sense of unease a Westerner can feel in a Gulf State and dials it up to eleven, perfectly capturing that sense of alertness, that sense of feeling like a somewhat unwelcome guest who’ll be tolerated nonetheless.

And then it throws the achievement away with a professional but pedestrian climactic battle that, seemingly, comes out of nowhere. Here we are plumbing the subtleties of the Arab mind and having a fine time doing it, then it’s all RPGs and bubblegum philosophy about turning the other cheek. Ah, well.

Two observations that I couldn’t manage to work into the body of the review: #1, Danny Elfman’s score is phenomenal. #2, Danny Huston’s “slimy guy” schtick is getting old. C’mon, Danny, you were great in THE PROPOSITION! Choose more roles that show off your range!

1408

1408 is my kind of horror movie. It isn’t about slashers or monsters or natural disasters. It’s about a good, old-fashioned haunting and the fear and foreboding that haunting is all about.

John Cusack delivers a first-rate performance as a jaded writer who pumps out quickie books / travel guides on haunted hotels. When he receives a mysterious postcard from the Dolphin Hotel warning him to not enter Room 1408, he takes it as a personal challenge. Soon he’s meeting hotel manager Samuel L. Jackson, who does his best to warn the writer off his project of spending a night in 1408. General note for living: when Samuel L. Jackson is afraid of something, your punk ass better be afraid of it, too.

But Cusack is undeterred, and into 1408 he goes. And then the haunting begins. From apparitions of the room’s many suicides to jump-scare shots of Clint Howard appearing out of nowhere (And hey, what isn’t more terrifying than having to share a hotel room with Clint Howard?) to a final showdown that makes us fear poor John might wind up like poor Jack from another Stephen King haunted hotel movie, 1408 does a marvelous job of keeping the viewer on edge, off balance, and delightfully scared.

I didn’t expect much from 1408, but I got the best mainstream haunting movie since THE OTHERS. What a pleasant surprise.

Death Sentence

I saw DEATH SENTENCE a couple of days ago, and already I can only barely remember it.

DEATH SENTENCE is a variation of the "I love my family. But, if I could be unencumbered, imagine all the kickass stuff I could do!" story. For kids, this story often begins with a separation or orphaning. For adults, it's death or sudden divorce. In this case, it's death: Kevin Bacon is a professional, family guy. His older son is killed in a robbery, and he seeks revenge. When the bad guys come after his family, he's freed to unleash his inner Rambo.

That's fine, and Bacon is as good as usual. But the movie itself has serious flaws. Director James Wan's failures to establish geography leave audiences confused during chase and stalking sequences: who is where, and who is winning? Its bombastic use of color and set design (There's a sequence in a church that lacked only John Woo's flying doves.) distracts us from the film and calls too much attention to the filmmakers. Its use of shaky-cam during fight sequences takes us out of the action and annoys rather than entertains.

Further, as far as revenge fantasies go, DEATH SENTENCE tries to have it both ways. On the one hand, it expects us to believe that Bacon can go from insurance adjustor to killing machine just because he's really mad. On the other, it turns him into a Karloffian monster, as if to wag its finger at us for rooting for him. Pick a side, movie, and stick with it!

Finally, I've just devoted more thought to this film in the last half hour than I did for the two days prior. If you're a Kevin Bacon completist, knock yourself out. Otherwise, you can easily dismiss this film. It's minor at best, bad at worst. You can do better.

Knocked Up

While not as riotously funny as SUPERBAD, KNOCKED UP is still quite funny. And touching. And insightful. And sweet. It's a perfect date movie, but you don't have to be a date to enjoy it. Here's another winner for Judd Apatow; a guy who, at the moment, can do no wrong.

Here's the setup: Seth Rogen's a schlubby slacker who somehow manages to fall into bed with the delightful Katherine Heigl. Two months later, and to her horror, Heigle realizes that she's pregnant. Will this mismatched couple figure out how to navigate both pregnancy and the early stages of an actual relationship? Oh, come on: it's a romantic comedy. Of course they will. The real question is, will this mismatched couple do so in a sufficiently amusing way? You betcha.

As with SUPERBAD and THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN, the comedy here is all in the dialogue. At the moment, no one's consistently writing funny dialogue as well as Apatow (and buddy Rogen), and KNOCKED UP is no exception. These characters are a delight to see and hear, and I suspect that I'll find more to enjoy about their conversations when I see this film again with my delightful bride. Further, you know how most romantic comedies have at least one of the characters learning some schmaltzy life lesson and then beat us with it? KNOCKED UP sells its character development through clever and perceptive insights into relationships both starting and established.

Take all this, mix in a love for its characters, and any question as to why this film was such a monster hit goes away. This is a smart, funny film. I look forward to seeing it again.

Superbad

SUPERBAD is the funniest movie I've seen in months. Its jokes range from broad to subtle, its characters feel and behave in comically realistic ways, and its humour feels natural, rather than forced. There's never a sense, as in BALLS OF FURY, that this film is jumping around and shouting, "Look at me! I'm funny!" It just is.

SUPERBAD follows three geeks on the cusp of high school graduation. There's the skinny one, the fat one, and the one who lives at the very bottom of the social ladder. Unlike NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, which invites us to laugh at its geeks, SUPERBAD invites us to laugh with them as they embark on a quest which, for a high schooler, is all-important: they need to score some alcohol for a party (Side note: when we were in high school and wanted alcohol, we drove around town with our prettiest friend. When we spotted a liquor store that was staffed by a man either very young or very old, we sent her in with cash and a smile. Worked every time.). Along the way, they try their hands at forgery, petty theft, setting police cars on fire, and scaring the hell out of small children. It sounds horrendous, I know, but trust me when I say that it's all in good fun. These kids mean well, they really do, and we can't help but like them and root for them.

That's fine, and it could make for a reasonably pleasant time at the movies, but that isn't what makes SUPERBAD so funny. It's the dialogue, baby, and SUPERBAD is a dialogue-rich film that creates some of the most hilarious exchanges I've enjoyed since KISS, KISS, BANG, BANG. I saw this with some friends the other night, and we've been quoting lines back and forth ever since.

Additionally, this movie has a sweetness to it that gives it a warm glow. There's no villain, per se - just situations. It' s nice, and it avoids the uncomfortable changes in tone that hurts movies like THE WEDDING CRASHERS.

Overall, I rate SUPERBAD as a huge, huge hit. It's the kind of movie one can see over and over again, and I fully intend to. What a great comedy.

Balls of Fury

Remember Maggie Q, the single best thing about MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE: 3? She was so striking in that red dress that, when she turned up in BALLS OF FURY, I decided to write my review as if BOF were a Maggie Q vehicle, as if hers was the only story being told. But you know what? BALLS OF FURY taught me that a little Maggie Q goes a long way. 15 seconds of her in a red dress may capture the imagination, but twenty minutes of her in bikini-style workout gear only makes us realize that she has the body of a malnourished teenager. Combine that with an on-screen personality that, while pleasant enough, isn't particularly interesting, and it wasn't long before I was wishing that she'd get off the screen so Christopher Walken could have more time to camp it up.

BALLS OF FURY is broad comedy, not a deep one. It's a collection of gags slapped on to an ENTER THE DRAGON chassis, and that's fine, if you're ok with 86 minutes of "Ping Pong is a Silly Game" gags. I was sufficiently ok with it to chuckle now and then, occasionally smile, and otherwise lose track of time. Christopher Walken appears to be having a great time delivering a bad Christopher Walken impression, it's always fun to spend some time with James Hong and Terry Crews, and some guy named Thomas Lennon steals the show as a pompous German antagonist.

I could see stopping on BALLS OF FURY if I'm clicking through the channels on a hotel tv some night, but I couldn't see going out of my way for it again. Your mileage may vary.

Rocky II

I saw ROCKY II again.

You know what stood out for me this time? The absolute brilliance of Conti's score. It starts out '70s-funky, then goes all high-Rocky classical during the montage, then seamlessly blends into the tune on his baby's new mobile, then brings in the Wagnerian sensibility during the climactic bout. It is absolutely brilliant, and it makes me want to buy the soundtrack. As long as they leave out Frank Stallone.

As for the rest of the film, it's a bummer for the first two acts, but the third is so uplifting that it makes up for it. Here's the deal: Rocky blows through his fight money in no time, and, before he knows it, he's just another unemployed mook with a baby on the way. Meanwhile, Apollo needs to redeem his performance in his previous fight, and he tries to lure Rocky back into the ring. Rocky demurs and opens a dairy farm in the Swiss Alps.

Just kidding. You know what happens. But it's good stuff, everyone loves those iconic steps, and Stallone knows how to put together a fight scene. And if that doesn't work for you, you can always close your eyes and just listen to the soundtrack. A person can do worse for a couple of hours.

Nine Lives

NINE LIVES is an ambitious picture. It's a series of twelve sometimes-connected vignettes, each of which centers on a turning point in a character's life. It tries something new, and for that I give it credit. Sadly, it fails.

The characters in NINE LIVES all speak like the same writer is creating their dialogue. The movie's various cast members act their hearts out, but their performances feel more like acting class exercises then real people. After reading Ebert's glowing review of the picture, I was all ready to settle down for a great experience. Unfortunately, NINE LIVES didn't deliver that for me.

Godzilla: Final Wars

The Japanese People hate me.

I don't know why. I drive a Honda. I eat sushi. I even do Japanese language tapes in my car. Why, oh why, would the members of this great and noble culture choose to inflict GODZILLA: FINAL WARS upon me? By throwing nearly every monster in the history of Godzilla movies into the thing (yes, including the horrid Minilla), they guaranteed repeated viewings at Chez Ellermann, much to the delight of my little boy. And they guaranteed hours of torment for Yours Truly.

GFW teams up a Japanese guy who looks like Keanu Reeves with a white guy who looks like Stalin. Together, they do battle with an evil alien overlord who looks like David Bowie's villain from THE LABYRINTH. I mean, c'mon, this movie thinks executive transvestites make for credible villains! Well, this particular executive transvestite does seem to have the power to control monsters from Godzilla's past, but any awesomness he could derive from this ability is more than offset by his poor taste in mascara.

This movie is poorly edited, atrociously acted, and can't decide whether it's trying to pay homage to THE MATRIX and INDEPENDENCE DAY or merely rip them off outright. The whole production has only one redeeming virtue: it gives us the spectacle of Classic Godzilla kicking American Godzilla's butt, followed by a quick photo-and-roar-op with Mt. Fuji as a backdrop. If that's your thing, you may enjoy at least five minutes of GFW. Otherwise, stay far, far away.

Strings

STRINGS is a marionette movie with a, erm, twist. Instead of having
its puppets serve as humans and asking us to ignore the strings, its
puppets serve as puppets and embrace their strings. They have a
string-based theology, marionette-centered architecture, and a vision
of birth that's unlike anything you've ever seen before.

The story itself is standard faery tale stuff: a kingdom at war, an
evil usurper, a rightful king, and all the standard "hero's journey"
elements. If this were a CGI film, or even a live-action picture, I'd
probably recommend giving it a pass. But it isn't, and the absolutely
outstanding set design, art direction, and puppeteering make this one
worth the rental.

STRINGS takes you a world familiar enough to understand, yet alien
enough to delight and astonish you. Enjoy.

The Aristocrats

Here's something you probably don't know about me: I have an incredibly vulgar sense of humor. When I'm hanging out in a ready room, I'll go lower faster than anyone there. The "Oh-my-god-I-can't-believe-he-just-said-that" laugh is a cheap laugh, but I'll take it any time.

In other words, THE ARISTOCRATS was right up my alley. For its first hour or so, the movie had me going from chuckling to guffawing to weeping to back again with hardly a letup. Then the movie made a fatal mistake: it gave us Kevin Pollack telling the joke as Christopher Walken, a performance so brilliant that no one - no one - could possibly follow it. By climaxing too early, the movie left me rather disinterested for the remainder.

But I was ready to watch it again five minutes after that.

PS One major disappointment: THE ARISTOCRATS gives us Shelley Berman (my favorite comedian) talking about the joke, but never actually telling the joke. I would've loved to have seen his take!

PPS My wife left the room after twenty minutes, so YMMV. I don't tell her ready room jokes, either.

PPPS Sarah Silverman: I don't get it. Who's Joe Franklin?

The Manitou

Some movies are simply bad, some are horribly bad, and some are delightfully bad. 1978's THE MANITOU, starring Tony Curtis as a sham psychic and Susan Strasberg as a topless, psychic, evil-immortal-medicine-man battler, is wonderfully, delightfully bad in nearly every way. It embraces its profound badness, has great fun with it, and invites us to join in. Depending on your mood at the time of viewing, you're bound either to enjoy the heck out of it or hit the "Stop" button about 15 minutes in. It's up to you.

Here's the setup: Curtis is a sham psychic, ripping off old ladies in San Francisco. He's living the good living, grooving to funk and drinking canned beer, when an old girlfriend (Strasberg) calls. She has a problem: there's a fetus growing in her back, and that can't be good.

Before he knows it, Curtis is interviewing Burgess Meredith (playing a guy who clearly study the script and is just ad-libbing his way through things) learning that said fetus is the reincarnation of the aforementioned evil, immortal medicine man. He's off to the reservation to find another medicine man to help him out, then it's back to the hospital, where Strasberg is giving back-birth to a midget in a rubber suit. From there, well, all I can say is that there are some movies that make me wish I did drugs. I have difficulty imagine how much better Topless Strasberg mentally battling Rubber Suit Midget in space (space!) could be, but I can't watch that scene and not think that it wasn't made for mushrooms.

So: THE MANITOU. Nowhere near good, but actually quite fun. You could do worse.

PS If you watch this, be sure to watch the trailers first. They'll really put you in the mood.

Shoot 'Em Up

I should have loved SHOOT 'EM UP. I really should have. I've made relatives sit down for HARD BOILED. I think the BOURNE movies are top notch. Hell, I consider the two TRANSPORTER movies borderline classic cinema.

But I merely liked it. I suppose that's ok.

SHOOT 'EM UP stars Clive Owen as Bugs Bunny and Paul Giamatti as Elmer Fudd. Or is it Clive Owen as Roadrunner and Paul Giamatti as Wile E. Coyote? Owen as Tom and Giamatti as Jerry? Whichever, these two cartoon characters chase and get chased across a breathless 86 minutes filled with more gunfire, 'splosions, and chases than you can drop an anvil on. It's fun, or at least it starts fun, but it grows tiresome as the body count rises and it nihilistic tone comes to grate on the nerves. By the time this bulletfest turns into an anti-gun screed (talk about trying to have your cake and eat it, too), I'd had enough.

Paul Giamatti, the reason why I saw this movie, is delightfully, insanely evil. I can imagine the actor cackling and rubbing his hands together while reading this script for the first time. He's balanced against Clive Owen, an actor I've liked only in those BMW short films. People keep telling me that Owen is the Next Big Thing, but I don't get it. He just seems dour and angry, and if I want dour and angry I'll just look up an old girlfriend. Further, SHOOT 'EM UP wastes the magnificent Monica Belluci in a role that makes me wonder why she accepted it.

Yes, some of the stunts are spectacular. There's a skydiving setpiece that's simply breathtaking. There's some of the most creative gunplay I've seen since EL MARIACHI. But there's very little to leaven it. In addition to its action, SHOOT 'EM UP makes us sit through an hour and a half of human despair and degradation.

And that, I can live without.

3:10 to Yuma

3:10 TO YUMA is both a fine western and a sad commentary on the current state of the western.

James Mangold has crafted a fine western with an extraordinary cast, featuring two of the finest leading men in pictures today: Christian Bale and Russell Crowe. The men sell antagonism, respect, and something approaching friendship, and I enjoyed watching the development of their relationship over the course of the film. The film itself has nearly everything one can expect from a western, including evil water barons, post- Civil War hostility, Apaches on the raid, and the impending changes brought on by rail travel. It also features some decent western stuntwork, but it's this very stuntwork that makes 3:10 TO YUMA a sad commentary on the current state of its genre. Where are the horses trained to fall and tumble? Where are the stuntmen trained to ride them? For that matter, where are the stuntmen trained to hop from horse to horse, or carry out any of the other feats we've come to expect as followers of the genre? I think that 3:10 TO YUMA tried to provide us with some of those thrills; but its genre has seemed unprofitable for so long that modern stuntmen simply aren't building the skills necessary to pull off first-class western stunts.

And that's too bad, because the western genre still has so much to offer. 3:10 TO YUMA, while a remake, stays fresh, compelling, and exciting up to the very end. Though it stumbles with a leaden confession late in the game, it delivers fine western action and he-man pathos throughout. It's more TOMBSTONE than OPEN RANGE, and that's ok. Here's a movie that just wants to entertain us, and it succeeds.

{hesitates ... hesitates ... aw, to heck with it}

Catch this movie.

Persona

This week, I'm alone on a business trip. Celebrating my fleeting freedom of action, last night I permitted myself a rare indulgence: a tumbler of Maker's Mark bourbon, a Cuesta Rey cigar, and Ingmar Bergman's PERSONA. It was a tough decision. The local Cineplex is showing 3:10 TO YUMA and SHOOT ‘EM UP, both of which I’d like to see on the big screen. But I don’t often get the chance to watch a whole Bergman movie uninterrupted, and I couldn’t pass it by.

I chose well. While I’m confident that I’ll enjoy 3:10 TO YUMA and SHOOT ‘EM UP when I get around to seeing them, I’ll be shocked if either movie turns out to be as flat-out entertaining as PERSONA. Yep, an hour and a half of two women alone in a summer house, with one of the women uttering exactly one line of dialogue, makes for riveting, consuming cinema – the kind of cinema that makes you forget what time it is, where you’re sitting, even who you are. Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullman are just that interesting.

PERSONA begins with a series of WTF images that may explore the history of cinema, the deepest churnings of the unconscious, or even the flotsam and jetsam from which we pull together an identity. From another director, I’d dismiss it as so much self-important wankery, but I’ve seen enough of Bergman’s films to trust the guy’s mastery of dramatic narrative. Thus, I was willing to go where it took me, into a mind-state of disequilibrium and expectation. From there, we meet Ullman, a famous actress who, mid-performance, has chosen to give up interaction with the world and, instead withdraw into herself. Ullman has a fascinating face that, while not exactly beautiful, invites contemplation. What’s happening behind those eyes? How deep is her despair? What does she see that the rest of us don’t? These questions come to consume Andersson, a young nurse assigned to Ullman who agrees with a doctor’s suggestion that she take her patient to the doctor’s beach house for a long recovery (Note: if this is what universal health care looks like, sign me up!).

Once at the beach house, we enjoy a pair of remarkable performances: Andersson all talk and existential longing, and Ullman, all contemplation and, perhaps, wisdom. When a violation of trust collapses the roles and walls between them, PERSONA gives us a brilliant exploration of the nature of identity and the quest for, well, something.

PERSONA is beautiful to watch, another successful collaboration between Bergman and his cinematographer, Sven Nykvist. The combination of light and shadow, image upon image, and simple physical composition makes PERSONA a film that surprises and delights from beginning to end.

It’s a whole different kind of entertainment from the offerings down at the multiplex, but it’s flat-out magnificent. I loved every frame.

Scooby-Doo

Some movies have "disaster" written all over them. Take an old cartoon, mix in some minor-league actors, and modernize the
proceedings with a generous sprinkling of "hip" contemporary references, and you have a movie that can't possibly go right.
SCOOBY-DOO is such a movie.

Perhaps the greatest mystery is how this certain trainwreck turned out to be a fun, enjoyable picture. The picture begins with a sequence straight out of the vintage cartoons, then adds a few twists to generate dramatic tension. From there, it's on to the next mystery and the inevitable, "And it would've worked, too, if it hadn't been for you meddling kids!"

SCOOBY-DOO's cast members sell their roles, it's a pleasure to look at the movie's sets, and the whole thing is much more fun than I'd expected.

What a pleasant surprise!

Babylon 5: The Lost Tales - Voices in the Dark

BABYLON 5: THE LOST TALES - VOICES IN THE DARK is a direct-to-video movie, but I'd apply the term "movie" rather loosely. It's more like a couple of episodes stitched together. Your tolerance for this will depend, in large part, on your tolerance for B5 in general.

If you like B5, you'll find plenty to enjoy in VOICES IN THE DARK. Some of our familiar friends got back in shape and it's always nice to see them again. The dialogue they're forced to recite still has that charming combination of earnestness and pulpiness. The CGI got an upgrade, and who doesn't love those wacky alien hairstyles?

If you're not a fan, there isn't much for you here. This movie assumes familiarity with the series and, though the stories are straitforward enough to understand, you'll spend at least some of your time thinking, "They're alluding to something, but I have no idea what."

I like the B5 universe. I like its optimism, and I like its makeshift qualities. Although VOICES IN THE DARK seems unlikely to win over many new fans, I do hope it sells well enough to merit further DTV outins for these fine folks. I'd like to keep tabs on what they're up to.

Vacancy

So this is how the career path goes: break out with an international success, accept an invitation to Hollywood, and make your bones as a commercial director in genre fare such as VACANCY.

At least, this is how it's going for Nimród Antal, the Hungarian director of 2003's remarkable KONTROLL. Where KONTROLL was haunting, dreamlike, and rather puzzling, VACANCY is a straightforward horror thriller whose every beat will seem familiar to anyone who has ever seen a picture that begins with someone saying, "Why didn't you stay on the interstate?" That said, VACANCY is a very professional "Don't Get Off The Interstate" horror thriller: a step up from MOTEL HELL, though not in the same league as PSYCHO (which it recalls through clever use of 60's-style opening and closing credits).

Here's the setup: Kate Beckinsale wakes up in the passenger seat of a car driving through the toolies in the middle of the night. She turns to her husband (Luke Wilson, who's been going heavy on the electrolytes) and says, "Why'd you get off the interstate?" Things go downhill from there.

And that's it, really. The rest is in the execution, and it's here that Antal proves himself an able craftsman. He finds novel ways to build and maintain suspense, though we all know what's coming next and who'll still be on two feet when the credits roll. He manages to create suitably creepy villains, alternates well between jump-scares and slow burns, and even manages to work in a bit of subtle comedy. In other words, the guy takes a familiar subgenre out of the garage, puts some gas in the tank, and takes it for a fun spin.

But this is Nimród Antal, the guy behind KONTROLL, we're talking about. Next time, I hope they let him get off the interstate.

Safety Last!

While GRANDMA'S BOY may be funnier that SAFETY LAST!, there's no topping the latter's dazzling combination of comedy and acrophobia.

Harold Lloyd is off the Big City to make his mark and earn enough to marry his best girl (Mildred Davis), but things aren't working out so well. He's just getting by and, when Mildred shows up, he needs to find a way to make good on his empty boasts of success. If you care about movies, you know that, somehow, this will end up with Harold dangling from a clockface, high above the city. How he gets in that predicament, and how he gets out of it, is great fun.

And there's plenty of fun to be had throughout SAFETY LAST!. Lloyd's character is so gosh-darn charming that you can't help but root for him, and you love to see him come out on top. From a well-executed boarding-house sequence to a near-riot in a department store to Lloyd's vertiginous climb to that clock face and beyond, the comedy, both situational and gag-oriented snaps.

Most impressive, perhaps, is that famous climb to the clock and beyond. It manages to walk a line between scary and funny, and it had me both chuckling and wincing with acrophobia from start to finish. What a treat.

SAFETY LAST! is out on DVD, and the print looks fantastic. Put this movie at the top of your queue.

Babel

THE TRANSPORTER 2 is a better moviegoing experience than BABEL.

BABEL teaches us that guns are bad: look for a young Moroccan boy destroying a gun in a climactic fit of fury, sadness, and despair. THE TRANSPORTER 2 teaches us that guns are for losers: real men use car-fu, firehose fu, bead curtain fu, sword fu, lead pipe fu, axe fu, coconut fu, boat fu, and Gulfstream IV fu, just to name a, er, few. BABEL features heartbreaking turns from a brilliant cast featuring Cate Blanchett, Gael Garcia Bernal, and some cat from SNATCH. THE TRANSPORTER 2 features evil foreigners, anorexic models, and some cat from SNATCH kicking people in the face. BABEL features a girl in a schoolgirl outfit flashing her Britney at random Japanese schoolboys. THE TRANSPORTER 2 featurs a girl in a schoolgirl outfit who jacks cars with a gang of cartoonish thugs. And speaking of girls, all BABEL can give us is a clothing-challenged girl weeping on her father's shoulder, while THE TRANSPORTER 2 delivers a clothing-challenged girl in heavy mascara wielding dual automatic weapons and laying down the aforementioned bead curtain fu.

All kidding aside, BABEL is two hours of the anticipation of horror, horror, and despair. Its painfulness is outweighed only by its heavyhandedness, with self-absorbed first-worlders weighed against salt-of-the-earth second-worlders. Not only did I feel that this film was trying to manipulate me into a decidedly unpleasant emotional place, but I thought that it was doing so dishonestly. And really, enough of these "hyperlink films." I liked SHORT CUTS as much as the next guy, but there's no joy in discovering the connections the film lays out before us. Just tell me a story, goshdarnit. Entertain me. Teach and enlighten me if you can, but don't preach at me. And if you can manage it, try and mix in a little cocounut fu. Coconut fu does wonders for any film.

Serenity

I watch very little TV. "Baseball Tonight," "The Daily Show," and "The Colbert Report" are pretty much it. When it comes to narrative entertainment, I prefer films - they're a fully self-contained experience.

So I never saw "Firefly" when it aired. I never saw it on cable. I saw it only when a friend was certain I'd like it that he drove to my home, dropped off the series DVDs, and told me to call him once I'd seen them all. And you know what? I liked it. I really liked it.

I liked the creatively imagined solar system of "Firefly." I liked the blending of American and Chinese argots. I liked that fact that, finally, here was a show about transport guys!

So I was happy to fire up SERENITY when it arrived at my door. I'm sorry to report, however, that it found it to be, well, just pretty good. While the movie tickled my imagination, it didn't quite capture it. There are too many "big moments." The resolution of the mystery surrounding the kung-fu psycho chick wasn't particularly satisfying, and I thought that these people had gone to all this trouble merely to uncover the scandal of the week.

Hey, "just pretty good" isn't all that bad. Catch SERENITY when it shows up on cable. But don't go out of your way for it.

The Transporter 2

The Transporter 2 takes direct aim at your inner child and gives it everything it could possibly want. If, that is, your inner child is a 15-year-old boy.

Fortunately, mine is: I had a great time with TT2. It's basically action porn, with a paper-thin plot just moving us from one set piece to the next. It pays minimal attention to character development or motivation, but it does spend a lot of time lovingly filming cars in various states of speeding, sliding, flying, rolling, and getting shot at. This is a movie that goes easy on the dialogue and heavy on the kicking of people in the face, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Bring on The Transporter 3!

The Flower of My Secret

Ok, here's the deal: Marisa Paredes is a popular romance writer who can't get her serious novel, written under a different name, published. As she describes the manuscript, we learn that the story is that of VOLVER. Some of the characters and settings, we see, mirror those in the later film, suggesting that, when viewing VOLVER, we're viewing something created by the protagonist of THE FLOWER OF MY SECRET. I kind of like a world in which VOLVER (2006) and THE FLOWER OF MY SECRET (1995) are part of the same reality, and that makes THE FLOWER OF MY SECRET worth watching for its coolness factor alone.

THE FLOWER OF MY SECRET showcases a clearly talented filmmaker who is still in the process of growing into himself. He directs the story of a talented but fragile woman who's on the road either to breakdown or rebirth, or maybe both, and he does so with empathy for her story and the sparklings of the kind of visual flair we come to expect in his later films. Interestingly, her story isn't quite as compelling as that of Penelope Cruz in VOLVER. Even in Almodovar's world, fiction can be, well, more dramatic than real life. And that's fine. Just keep 'em coming, Pedro.

Chicken Little

If CHICKEN LITTLE is set in middle America, why does the dad speak with a thick Brooklyn accent? The film establishes that said dad went to the same high school as the eponymous chicken, so ya think the accent might have dulled a bit around the edges, ya know? And here's another question: if you're Disney and you're making a decidedly average movie, do you really want to start it with references to THE LION KING and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK? Those are some pretty challenging points of reference you're putting out there.

Welcome to my inner monologue as I sit on the couch and watch CHICKEN LITTLE with my seven-year-old, who thinks it's hilarious.

Well, I'm not seven, and this movie had nothing to offer me. It had all the subtlety of a 2x4 to the nose, its music was forgettable, and its characterizations were the epitome of "meh." Am I saying that CHICKEN LITTLE is a bad movie? No, not really. I'm just saying that it's remarkably average. Sure, spend an hour and a half on the couch with it and your kids. But bring a magazine.

Stealth

Some time ago, I wrote a generally positive review of THE GUARDIAN, a bad movie that made the effort to get the little details of military aviation and culture right, thus earning it enough goodwill to overcome its inherent badness. STEALTH, a film about naval aviators flying stealth jets, was made by people who seem to never have met anyone who has ever served in the military in any capacity; further, these people never bothered to read even the most rudimentary book about stealth technology - I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that they don't even know the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum even exists. Thus, it generates so much ill will that its badness gets magnified a hundredfold. The captain of an aircraft carrier (Joe Morton, discarding the last of the credibility earned in BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET) wears a jacket patch for a different aircraft carrier. Another captain (Sam Shepard, paying the bills) wields more power than a 3-star admiral. A naval aviator, when told that his boss has lined up some liberty in Thailand, responds, "But we just got here!" (Here being the aforementioned aircraft carrier.) Note to future screenwriters: when any naval aviator, under any conditions, is told that he's going to Thailand, there is only one possible response: "Giddyup!"

STEALTH begins with an aerial sequence that demonstrates the decided unstealthiness of our heroes' aircraft. They don't even bother to baffle the exhaust ports, guaranteeing infrared signatures that'd be observable from space. From there, we're told that we're in Fallon, NV, where our heroes (Josh Lucas, Jamie Foxx, and Jessical Biel) are putting their birds through their paces. Never mind that Fallon isn't used for that. Next, we see them in town in their whites (another no no), where the guys are charming the ladies at an upscale sushi bar while Biel sits chastely, waiting for her One True Love, presumably, to reveal himself. OK, stop. I've spent significant time in Fallon. This is a town that offers three different kinds of food and two kinds of drink: rare, medium, and well-done steak; and Miller or Bud. By the time the heroes get to the boat, where they stay in CO's staterooms even though they're lieutenants, I'd gone well past suspension of disbelief and into resentment at the film's laziness. And I haven't even brought up its violations of the laws of physics, warfare, geography, and politics.

It's as if the makers of STEALTH set out to make the most aggressively stupid movie they could possibly make. Instead of shooting for themselves or anyone who might be interested, they shot for the broadest cross-section of international box office, making a movie that anyone, anywhere could understand. Problem is, they overshot understandable and wound up in stupid. When the guy who programmed the drone-gone-wild that the heroes defeat (Richard Roxburgh) chides Shepard, "You can't tell it to learn and then tell it who to learn from (sic)! Einstein, Hitler, they're all the same to him," we think, "Thanks for telling me that now, jerkoff, now that you've cashed the check. Where was this wisdom when you were writing up the technical proposal?" And don't get me started on the most lightly guarded section of the Korean border since Sgts. Lee Soo-hyeok and Oh Kyeong-pil spent their nights yucking it up in their shack.

Oh, this movie was beyond ghastly. It was beyond terrible. It was an affront to the very concept of film as an entertainment and artistic medium. I'm sorry it ever turned up on my radar.

The Hunted

What if someone remade FIRST BLOOD, and improved it in the process? We'd have THE HUNTED, a visceral and propulsive film that takes the basic premise of FIRST BLOOD (commando on the run from the law) and improves it by following the chase through both urban and wilderness milieus and punctuating it with exciting, realistic knife fights that add to the drama.

Here's the setup: Benicio del Toro is the commando. Unlike John Rambo, however, he's crazy - so there's that. Tommy Lee Jones is the guy who trained him and now shoulders the task of tracking and capturing him. Oh, yeah - the FBI and some shadowy DoD types get involved, too. But don't worry about that. This is the Benicio and Tommy show, and the two play off one another wonderfully. Jones, of course, is a master of looking like all the world's on his shoulders, and we feel his pain as he tracks down one of "his boys." del Toro, for his part, is very good at "psycho," in that he can both function in society and remain outside of it. Together, they provide all the characterization we need to keep us engaged as they run, jump, hide, fight, and generally battle across 90 minutes of solid, nonstop entertainment.

William Friedkin directed THE HUNTED, and it shows. This is first-class, professional, layered entertainment, professionally done. I enjoyed the heck out of it.

To Be or Not to Be

I knew who Ernst Lubitsch, Carole Lombard, and Jack Benny were before I saw TO BE OR NOT TO BE. I knew that Lubitsch was a German Jew who fled to Hollywood during the rise of Hitler. I knew that Carole Lombard was a screen queen of the Golden Age. I knew that Jack Benny had a popular television show and made a running gag of his stinginess. I didn't know that Lubitsch had the talent to actually pull off a screwball comedy about the Warsaw Occupation. I didn't know that Lombard, in addition to being staggeringly beautiful, had perfect comic timing. And I didn't know that Jack Benny mixed detachment and warmth that kept me laughing both at and with him.

As previously mentioned, TO BE OR NOT TO BE labors under the burden of being set in the Nazy occupation of Warsaw. At the time of the film's release (1942), this was serious business, yet the full scope of the horrors of the occupation had yet to come to light. From our current vantage point, it's hard to associate the Warsaw Occupation with anything other than those horrors, but it's worth it to try and adopt the mindset of an America at war. At that time, it was common to paint our enemies as buffoons, and we were more than happy to engage with a troup of plucky resisters. Once we do adopt that mindset, we're in for a great time at the movies. Lubitsch takes jealousy, vanity, bravery, and fear; and he mixes them into high comedy combined with dramatic tension and a bit of cheerleading for the Allies.

He couldn't do it without Lombard, who comes off as smart, funny, and the greatest wearer of white silk dresses in Western history. She's the pivot about which the enterprise turns, and there isn't a moment she's onscreen that we don't invest in her. Benny's a great counterpart, a little older, a little vainer, and very jealous of his wife (as well he should be, with young Polish Air Force officer Robert Stack sniffing about), and the two play off one another with the aplomb of old pros.

So, while I admit that TO BE OR NOT TO BE made me a little uncomfortable at times (Col. Earhardt as a buffoon? That monster?), it stands as an excellent comedy and deserves its status as a classic of the screwball genre.

And now I know who these people really are.

Dave

While DAVE may, technically, be a romantic comedy in that it's romantic and everything turns out right in the end, it isn't particularly funny. It's, well, it's congenial and comfortable, like a golden retreiver that puts its head on your knee, looking for a scratch behind the ears.

DAVE stars the eminently likeable Kevin Kline as the titular character, a regular guy who doubles for the President on the fateful night when the Chief Executive goes down with a brain anyeurism. Before he really knows what's happening, he's been pressed into service as a stand-in President by marvelously evil Chief of Staff Frank Langella (in a career-resurrecting performance). Wouldn't you know it, Dave's a better president than the President. Add in some domestic conflict with an estranged first lady (Sigourney Weaver, excellent as usual), some fuzzy politics about full employment, and some wonderful character moments with Charles Grodin as a small-time accountant who advises his friend to "Get out of here as fast as you can," and you have a congenial, comfortable romantic comedy that's as warm as as pair of good slippers.

DAVE works for many reasons, not the least of which being the balance between Kline's charm and Langella's menace. Kline's one of the most likeable actors working today, and he uses that likeablility to make us buy speeches and moments that we'd reject from a lesser actor. Langella strikes just the right chord of menace for a romantic comedy - scary enough to create dramatic tension, yet not so evil as to blow the film's mood. It's great work, well directed by Ivan Reitman, and the whole thing is a pleasure to watch.

As far as romantic comedies go, it's a classic.

Hot Fuzz

HOT FUZZ is better than SHAUN OF THE DEAD. And I liked SHAUN OF THE DEAD.

SHAUN breaks down a bit in the third act, when it transitions from "zombie comedy" to "zombie horror." FUZZ, on the other hand, benefits from the action tradition it gently mocks - there's plenty of room for comedy in an action picture, and this film uses every square inch of it.

Here's the setup: Sergeant Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is such a great London cop that he's superiors (Martin Freeman, Steve Coogan, and Bill Nighy) transfer him to a quiet little village in the country, where he won't make everyone else look so bad. Once he gets there, he finds that someone, presumably the creepily hale proprietor of the local supermarket (Timothy Dalton, finding the scenery delicious), is committing murder that would be most foul if it weren't in retribution for doing things like putting on laughably bad productions of "Romeo and Juliet." From there, as any action-movie aficionado can tell you, it's but a short step to massive explosions, the crackle of automatic gunfire, and a fugitive swan.

It's loads of fun, with wonderful comic turns from a cast that includes Cate Blanchett, Jim Broadbent, Paddy Considine, and even Peter Jackson. It features gags from broad to subtle, as well as surprising performances from Timothy Dalton and Paddy Considine, two actors I don't normally associate with comedy. HOT FUZZ kept me chuckling from beginning to end.

What a delightful film.

The Manchurian Candidate

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE remake offers a twist on the paranoid thriller. It's a hippie paranoid thriller. Unfortunately, the hippie element so intrudes on the paranoid element that I had difficulty discerning whether the film wanted me to gnaw my fingernails, laugh out loud, or just peace out, man.

While the film hits many of the beats of the original, it also takes time to tap on pretty much every board of the Democratic Party's then-current platfom. From the Prescription Drug Benefit to Halliburton to G.W . Bush himself, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE sets 'em and knocks 'em down, one after another, to such an extent that it actually becomes a distraction. I mean, c'mon, Al Franken as a nightly news reporter?

That's not to say that THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE doesn't have anything going for it. Jeffrey Wright is, as usual, phenomenal; Denzel Washington is, as usual, so good that we don't notice how good he is; and Liev Schrieber makes me wonder why the hell that Mr. Clark movie never happened. None of them, however, are a match for Meryl Streep. Not only does she blow every one of them off the screen, but I bet that when this thing was running in the multiplexes, she blew everyone in all the other movies off their screens, too. She's evil, she's creepy, she's smothering, and she is 31 different flavors of awesome.

While THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE is a bit slight and more than a bit hamhanded, it's worth watching for Streep's performance alone. And who knows? Maybe the hippies are right.

L'Eclisse

I hated L'ECLISSE.

The film begins in the drawing room of Monica Vitti and Francisco Rabal. They're exhausted, both emotionally and physically. She's leaving him, things could get ugly, but they never do. That would be too dramatic. Instead, they end up simply going their separate ways, and the film follows Vitti over the next several days.

Unfortunately, Vitti is neither particularly interesting nor particularly pleasant to look at. She feels disaffected, she walks here and there, she falls into an unengaging relationship with Alain Delon; none of which happen with much passion (I know a film romance is in trouble when a doorbell rings and I think, "Maybe somebody will come in and shoot them. That'd add some drama."). Finally, the film ends with something I interpreted as a big "f you" to the audience: minutes and minutes of dull, empty cityscape. No drama. No story. Just images. F you, Antonioni. If I want images, I'll go to an art museum. Tell me a story.

I do respect that Antonioni is trying to do something here. Mine is not ire at poor craftsmanship or lazy filmmaking. L'ECLISSE certainly does not aspire to the mediocrity of, say, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE remake, which I'm having trouble mustering the energy to write about. My problem is that Antonioni disregards the first law of narrative film: engage and entertain your audience. L'ECLISSE is two hours of people I don't care about doing things I don't care about for reasons I don't care about. I'm glad it's over.

The Proposition

Ray Winstone. Guy Pearce. Danny Huston. John Hurt. That spooky Aborigine tracker from RABBIT-PROOF FENCE. These guys are serious guys in a serious movie, THE PROPOSITION, written by Nick Cave and directed by John Hillcoat with brutal pitilessness. Winstone's the law in an arid Outback town that may as well be called Tombstone, and he's out to capture or kill Huston. Others will die, some by intention and some by accident, but it matters not: Huston's the rabbit, Pearce is the hound, and the rest, well, perhaps they'll survive.

But then things change. I won't say how or why, but I will say that they do so in ways I did not expect. That's the trick of this film, and its unique allure, though I'm not sure if it's enough to recommend a viewing. THE PROPOSITION is difficult to watch not because it's brutal, but because it's brutal to people about whom we come to care. Further, it's slow, reflecting a time during which patience wasn't a virtue so much as a requirement. The two combine to create a sense of dread that, while powerful, is far from pleasant. One can imagine that this is how people lived, and this is how they made the decisions they made, and this is how they came to regret them.

So, THE PROPOSITION. It's a well-made film, but I did not enjoy viewing it. Your mileage may vary.

The Guardian

Here's a nugget of hard-won wisdom: never believe a wrestler who recommends a wrestling movie.

I learned this lesson in the '80s, when some friends on my high school's wrestling team told me that VISION QUEST was one of the greatest movies ever made. The lesson was reaffirmed as recently as the release of WE ARE MARSHALL, which some Marshall alumni friends declared was one of the greatest movies ever made.

So you've been forewarned. I'm a former Navy search and rescue (SAR) pilot who flew the helicopter flown in THE GUARDIAN. I'm now a C-130 pilot in the Navy Reserve, and THE GUARDIAN gives that mighty aircraft plenty of screen time. I once led my helo squadron's aircrew division, which was comprised of rescue swimmers (Motto: So Others May Live). I used to hold a Water Safety Instructor certificate, and one of my favorite classes to teach was advanced lifesaving. One of my helo squadron-mates transferred to the Coast Guard (Sitka Station) because he wanted to save lives. I have fond memories of standing outside my hangar, coffee cup in hand, looking up at the low, low clouds and commisserating with my buddies, "You flying today?" "Nope. I'm not flying today." Then, wop-wop-wop, there went the Coast Guard, flying out to sea to save another life. I love those guys.

That said, THE GUARDIAN is a deeply flawed movie. Its romantic subplot neither adds value to the story nor bothers to give us characters with a modicum of chemistry. For every great detail such as accurate squadron patches on the back of a pilot's flight jacket, it sports a knee-slapper such as a tough-guy Navy bar where Coasties can expect a fight (This just in: nobody hates Coasties. Hating Coasties is like hating paramedics.). Its denoument is so hamhanded and ill-considered that it's like a pop in the nose, and even the songs playing over the closing credits feel insultingly bad. Nevertheless, I really, really liked it. I liked the reasonably accurate (within the bounds of dramatic necessity) depiction of helicopter SAR operations. I liked the interactions between senior enlisted aircrew and the pilots who know and trust them. I liked the training sequences, which felt real, and I like Kevin Costner's Senior Chief character (Costner's been getting some rough breaks over the last few years, but this is another solid performance from the man.). Furthermore, the movie looks great. The cinematographer and special effects crew work together to create eye-popping, exciting environments, and they know how to give nighttime SAR operations the drama they deserve.

As a "movie guy," I'm here to tell you that THE GUARDIAN's flaws outweigh its positives, and that you should probably give it a wide berth. As a "SAR guy," I'm here to tell you that THE GUARDIAN is one of the greatest movies ever made, and that you should see it tomorrow. Let your wisdom be your guide.

Cops

My kid has been on a SpongeBob kick lately. I can take the cartoon in small doses, but I burn out after an episode or two. That's why I put my foot down the other night: "No SpongeBob. There's gotta be something better on the TiVo."

And there it was on the list, a Buster Keaton picture by the name of COPS which had aired on the station that has become the only reason I continue to pay for TV: TCM. COPS begins with a rejection: a wealthy young lady tells the hopeful Buster that she won't marry him until he makes it in business. Well, Keaton's no slouch. Before he knows it, he's the proud owner of a cart full of household goods that may or may not technically be his, but that's not really a problem until he, well, the title does imply that cops get involved, so I'm not giving away too much, am I?

This is a terrific chase movie, loaded with stunts both funny and dazzling. We rewound bits and pieces several times over, both for guffaws and wows, and the aforementioned kid chuckled, giggled, and outright laughed far more than I've ever seen him do while watching SpongeBob. Thanks, TCM, for providing a home for so many wonderful silents. You make my satellite subscription worth every penny.

Alphaville

I fired up ALPHAVILLE feeling neutral. I'm not a Godard fetishist, but neither do I repudiate the man. I was ready to take what this movie had to give and give it, in return, a fair shot. ALPHAVILLE began by puzzling me. Who was this supposed reporter from "LeMonde / Pravda"? Who were these people he was interested in? Why did some guy burst into his hotel room and try to kill him, and why did our supposed hero proceed to unwind by playing a little William Tell with his handgun and a hotel prostitute?

After a while, ALPHAVILLE went from puzzler to fascinator, as it rolled into a water ballet from Busby Berkeley's most depraved fantasies. In the process, it evoked the constant, all-pervasive fear that comes of living under a totalitarian regime and drew me into its world and its hero, one Ivan Johnson (or, as we would later come to call him, Lemmy Caution). As Lemmy came to understand Alphaville, its government, and its people, so I came to understand what was going on, who was targeting whom, and what the heck Anna Karina had to do with anything. As Lemmy took action, the scenario grew simpler still, 'til I was cheering him on and hoping he'd find both what he'd been sent for and what he needed.

I may have come into ALPHAVILLE feeling neutral, but I came out of it feeling energized and excited. Here's a movie that's willing to take risks with the conventions of filmed narrative, and here' s a movie that wraps its thoughtfulness in pulp and never takes its eye off the ball of any sound film's first priority: entertaining its audience.

ALPHAVILLE is a winner.

The Host

THEHOST violates the first rule of monster movies: it shows us the whole monster, in daylight, in the very first act. The film gets away with this infraction because the monster is a masterpiece of computer animation. The monster moves like a real creature might, it looks like a real creature might, and its integrated so well into the live-action shots that we never stop to think, "Eh, it's just a bunch of pixels."

Here's the setup: the Han River is horrbily polluted, presumably thanks to the uncaring U.S. Army and its Korean lackeys. Eventually, something mutates; something big, with three mouths, several tails, and a whole lot of appetite. This something eats some people on the spot. Others, it captures for later dining. Will a family from the fringe of Korean society, a family barely keeping it together themselves, be able to work as a team and effect the rescue of little Hyun-seo, daughter of the most wayward of the family's three siblings? Oh, yeah? How about if the Korean and U.S. armies are looking for
them? Oh, yeah? How about if Korean Society has been informed that family hosts the virus that led to the evolution of the creature? How about if everybody -and I mean everybody- is trying to capture them before they can infect the world? Oh, yeah? How about if the creature has stored the girl in its inescapable lair within the sewers of Seoul? Well, the little girl's aunt is an archery champion, even if the aunt does have a tendency to choke at the critical moment. And the family is really, really dedicated ...

This is a setup for a terrific monster movie. It has a creatively imagined beast, sympathetic characters, a resonant theme, and some wonderful images. For some reason (and I can't quite figure out what that reason is ... give me a break, I'm an amateur), however, it didn't resonate with me. I never fully engaged with little Hyun-seo's wayward father and his quest to rescue his daugher. I knew how the movie was going to be resolved before the monster even appeared. I think the Koreans sometimes like to have it both ways, vilifying the American presence while never quite working up the courage to ask us
to leave.

I dunno, maybe I was just having a bad day when I sat down to watch this one. Everyone else seems to have loved it, and I admired much about it, but it just didn't hook me. That said, if the film's description captured your attention, you may want to give this one a shot. After all, your mileage may vary.

Yi Yi

I found YI YI to be excrutiatingly depressing. It ruined not one, but two days; bringing me into work sad, lonely, and full of heartache. I suppose that a film that makes that kind of emotional impact could be construed as "good," but who wants to go through that kind of a wringer?

That's not to imply that sadness, loneliness, and heartache can't make for an excellent filmgoing experience, but they demand something -anything- to leaven the dough. Beauty, perhaps. Unfortunately, the print of YI YI from which they struck the Netflix disk is so muddy, it's like watching a film projected on the bottom of a lake. That leaves us with the aforementioned pain, and that makes for a rough time at the movies.

Edward Yang, YI YI's creator, sets this family drama in urban Taipei, and he paints it as a city both familiar and wholly inhospitable. It's familiar in that it has the same restaurants, traffic patterns, and development you'd see anywhere. It's inhospitable because the homes lack soul, the restaurants distinction, the life ordinary. In that city, he places a family in crisis: the father's facing the failure of his business, the untrustworthiness of his partners, and the temptation to remake a choice he's always regretted; the mother's undergoing an existential crisis; the grandmother's in a coma in her bedroom; the daughter is learning about love the hard way; and the son, both genius and victim, is trying to learn how to hope in a cruel world. And that's just the nuclear family at the heart of the story - don't get me started on the relatives.

There's a lot here, and I admire the film's complexity and its willingness to tackle relationships in a serious, adult manner. Nevertheless, I can't help but compare it to THE BEST OF YOUTH, an Italian movie that looks at some of the same themes and also does it in a serious, adult manner. THE BEST OF YOUTH, however, has beauty, and a touch of joy, and that makes the medicine go down. YI YI just wants to make us grin and bear it. No, thanks. I can do that in real life.

Flushed Away

Poor Hugh Jackman. The guy's trying to be a movie star: he really is. He made a romantic comedy with Meg Ryan, an action movie with Stephen Sommers, even a prestige picture with Christopher Nolan. What does he have to show for it? More flops than a skid row hotel. FLUSHED AWAY, with Jackman voicing the lead, was another in the long list of studio loss-makers. Check off "kid's film," Hugh. Perhaps you'll have better luck in a zombie movie.

FLUSHED AWAY looks like a successful kid's movie. It's structured like one, with all the beats, gags, and character moments we'd expect, and it's a perfectly fine entry in the genre. It's lacking something, however - that heart, that hook, that special something that makes it the kind of picture you don't mind seeing again and again. Here's the setup: Roddy (our hapless Hugh) lives the sweet life in Kensington, which, I infer, is a posh London borough. He's a housepet, and a happy one, until circumstance conspires against him and he's literally flushed away into the London sewers. There, he discovers Rat Culture, finds a place in it, and even defeats the evil Mr. Toad (whose toadies include Le Frog, whose henchmen respond to the command, "Fight like Frenchmen!" by raising their hands in surrender).

The movie's visually rich, it has gags galore, it features character design in the beloved Aardman style, and it feels like the kind of thing that went through committee after committee until every cog in a soulles creative machine was happy with the output, right down to the musical number that closed things out. There's no "there" there and, compared with a masterpiece like RATATOUILLE, FLUSHED AWAY is merely a trifle, something to sedate the kids while you mow the lawn.

Better luck next time, Hugh. And really, think about that zombie movie. It might finally put you over the top.

Memento

I liked MEMENTO the first time I saw it. It had an interesting structure and a different take on storytelling: instead of describing a change in a protagonist, it creates a change in our perception of a protagonist. I suspected that it might not hold up well on further viewings, so I never bothered to revisit it. Until last night, that is.

MEMENTO came free with my new BluRay player / videogame console, I couldn't sleep, and there it was, calling to me. "See it again, but this time be able to count the pores on Leonard's nose!" Unfortunately, however, I was right - MEMENTO does not hold up well on further viewings. It's a one-trick story, and once you've seen it (assuming you remember it), there's little to be gained by seeing it again. It offers no new insights into the human condition and it isn't aesthetically beautiful.

Ah, well. At least now, I have a ready-made gift for my next friend who buys a BluRay player.

Zodiac

ZODIAC is a terrific film, once you get past the fact that it isn't about Zodiac.

Director David Fincher (Seven, Fight Club, Panic Room) gives the movie a completely absorbing feel, beginning with '60s -era Paramount and Warner Brothers production logos. He casts it with a veritable all-star roster of character actors (Brian Cox, Elias Koteas, Phillip Baker Hall - hey, where's Jim Beaver?) and stars with the hearts of character actors (Jake Gyllenhall, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey, Jr.). He shocks us early with the violence of the Zodiac murders, and then pulls back into one of the most interesting takes on the procedural I've ever seen.

I walked into this movie thinking it would be, essentially, Jake Gyllenhaal and the Quest for the Zodiac. Fincher fools us into
believing that would be the case; but he takes long detours into the life of Inspector David Toschi (Ruffalo), a then-famous member of the SFPD who served as the models for both Bullitt and Dirty Harry; and shorter ones into the life of Paul Avery (Downey, turning in another in a long list of memorable performances). Gyllenhall's the obsessive, the guy who's fascinated by the Zodiac killings and just can't let it go, at the expense of his relationship with his wife and children. Toschi's the professional, the guy who does this for a living and, for all his notoriety, comes across as the most balanced individual in the entire enterprise. Downey, well, he's a shipwreck waiting for a shoal, and Zodiac provides that shoal as he lets his own
fascination with the case drag him down.

Most procedurals are about the details of hunting down a given criminal, normally culminating in a car chase or a shootout. This procedural is about those same details, but it's also about the nature of obsession. The main characters deal with it in different ways, and the film itself does a wonderful job letting us dip a vicarious toe into that whirlpool, ourselves. It works - by the third act, I was so thoroughly hooked that I lost track of my surroundings and nearly missed my Metro stop.

After seeing a string of kids' movies and foreign pictures, I was ready for a modern American drama. ZODIAC delivered.

Wedding Crashers

WEDDING CRASHERS has its moments, but it's ultimately unsuccessful for two reasons: the comedy runs out in the third act and the villain is just too evil.

We've all been to comedies in which story overtakes the humour in the last act, so I won't belabor the point. I'm more interested in the concept of the comedy villain and how WEDDING CRASHERS goes wrong in this regard.

WC's villain is one Sack Lodge, played by Bradley Cooper. Lodge is evil and vicious. Not funny, not idiosyncratic, not an otherwise interesting Baxter. He's just plain evil and vicious. Evil and vicious is not funny. Consequently, the character is a comedy black hole whenever he appears on screen. Not only does he not radiate funny, he sucks the funny out of all surrounding scenes.

In contrast, consider Ben Stiller's White Goodman in DODGEBALL. Goodman's the villain, but he's ridiculous enough to be nonthreatening and, consequently, funny. In Dodgeball, the Goodman character's just villainous enough, just over the top enough, to both keep the story moving and keep the laughter flowing. I with WC's producers had brought Rawson Thurber, DODGEBALL's writer, aboard for a scrub before this production began. He would've known what to do with his villain. He could've taken WEDDING CRASHERS from merely ok to very good.

Unfortunately, they didn't and WEDDING CRASHERS is the worse for it. Too bad.

Broken Flowers

The blog has been relatively quiet lately; sorry for that. With a famly vacation and various summertime activities, it's been hard to break off the time to write up my impressions of the movies I've seen.

That said, something's better than nothing, so here's a quick jot about Jim Jarmusch's BROKEN FLOWERS:

I'd like to take a moment to celebrate one sequence from the movie.

When Murray visits old flame Sharon Stone, he finds himself in the middle of a Nabokov novel. Thing is, he realizes it; but neither Stone nor her eminently available daughter (aptly named Lolita) are in on the joke. Murray's deadpan delivery acts as the perfect counterpoint to the ridiculousness of his situation, and the whole affair is entirely successful.

Much like the rest of the film.

SpongeBob Square Pants: The Movie

So, here's the thing about SPONGEBOB SQUARE PANTS: THE MOVIE: it's not as bad as you think.

The picture begins with a pirate ship at sea. They spot a floating seachest, open it, and are delighted to find tickets to the SpongeBob movie. They break into a terrific chanty-style rendition of the SpongeBob theme song, and before you know it we're in Bikini Bottom, home of the titular sponge.

The story itself is your basic quest tale, with fun turns by guest voice actors such as Jeffrey Tambor, Alec Baldwin, and Scarlett Johansson. It's pleasantly diverting stuff, but there's something about it that both sells this movie and takes it completely over the top. SpongeBob has unmasked the villain, but the forces of evil are closing in on him anyway. Suddenly, apropos of nothing, he breaks into a rock tune (written and performed by Twisted Sister's Dee Snider), a guitar materializes in his hands, and before you know it, he's freeing the city by shooting laser beams out of aforementioned guitar while simultaneously rocking the house. This is bona fide silly fun, and I loved its audacity of concept and cleanliness of execution, right down to the sampling of David Lee Roth's scat from "Just a Gigolo."

I don't know if I'd call this a pleasant surprise: I expected it to be odious and it turned out to be only ok. Nevertheless, I'll chock this one up in the "win" column. Omilybooblyzeeblybop!

The Simpsons Movie

THE SIMPSONS MOVIE begins with the Simpsons in a theater, watching "The Itchy and Scratchy Movie."  During the movie, Homer stands and shouts, "This sucks!  Why should we pay money to watch something we can see at home for free?"

Truth be told, I can think of only one good reason: you're on vacation, it's raining, and you need to get out of your hotel room.

Coincidentally enough, I'm on vacation with my family in Northern Michigan, it was raining the other day, and we needed to get out of our hotel room. So there we sat, enjoying a dazzling digital projection of THE SIMPSONS MOVIE and having a pretty good time. THE SIMPSONS MOVIE is a slightly raunchier-than-usual longform episode of "The Simpsons," which is either the highest of praise or most neutral of statements, depending on how much you like "The Simpsons." I like it just fine, and I chuckled throughout the running time of the film. THE SIMPSONS MOVIE never quite took me over into belly laugh territory but, if it's raining and I'm just looking to get out, I'll happily settle for a steady stream of chuckles.

I'll happily view it again when it comes on TV and I can watch it at home for free.

Duel

I'd been meaning to see DUEL pretty much forever. I knew it was
Spielberg's first picture, and that was enough to get me to queue it
up. Had I known that Richard Matheson had written it, however, I'd've
queued it up much sooner than now. Matheson, of course, wrote some of
the best episodes of The Twilight Zone. How could I have missed his
involvement in DUEL?

DUEL plays like a long-form Twilight Zone episode. A man is cast into
a stressful and eerie situation and the drama goes from there. It's
successful, in that it takes a premise that makes one think, "How are
they going to spin this out for an hour and a half" and manages to
work that premise to great effect. Dennis Weaver, as the hapless
everyman, does fine work, and the movie grabbed me from the opening
shots.

DUEL is a winner.

Godzilla and Other Movie Monsters

GODZILLA AND OTHER MOVIE MONSTERS, which purports to be a documentary about, well, Godzilla and other movie monsters, is basically a clip show. The film keeps the clips coming fast enough to avoid copyright entanglements while giving a brief overview of giant monsters in film, an overview spanning THE NIEBELUNGENLIED to JURASSIC PARK. It should
be dreadfully dull, but wry narration and a droll sense of humor keep the project afloat for nearly two hours of running time.

This one won't rank among my favorites, but it's a reasonably entertaining way to spend a couple of hours.