Sullivan's Travels

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

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

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

I Am Legend

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

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

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

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

Juno

You know how, when you go see a Shakespeare play, you spend the first five or ten minutes just trying to figure out what everyone's saying; then your brain clicks into Elizabethan mode and the dialogue becomes clear as daylight? Same thing happens with "Juno."

Fifteen year old Juno speaks in the deeply idiomatic parlance of adolescence, a language so particular to time and place that it's nearly a foreign tongue to everyone not of it. Once we attune to that parlance, however, we find her dealing with some of the most serious issues a young person can face with a healthy mixture of style, brains, and staggering immaturity. In other words, she's a reasonably together teenager, one I'd be happy to call my daughter.

Yes, this is a "teenage pregnancy" movie, but it's a sharp teenage pregnancy movie, one willing to style the teenager in question as (within the range of a 15-yr-old) mistress of her own destiny. Further, it's willing to play with our conceptions of its characters, finding sympathy in some unexpected places and blinding selfishness in others, and charting those journeys in unique and interesting ways.

Screenwriter Diablo Cody is being heralded as the next big thing. I don't know if that's the case, but I do know that she's written a sharp, funny, good movie with "Juno." After five or ten minutes, I could even figure out what everyone was saying.

Finding Nemo

Oh, how I adore "Finding Nemo."

My two-year-old has just discovered it, and it's now on nearly constant rotation on the enormovision. I never tire of the film, and I suspect that's because of three reasons: compelling story, fine performances, and beautiful images.

The story is delightfully dad-centric, a rarity in this or any other genre. Marlin the clownfish is overprotective of his little Nemo and his worst fears are realized on the very first day of school: Nemo is captured by scuba divers and taken far away, and it's up to dad to find him and save him. As a dad, how can I not respond to that? How can I not relate to the conflict between Marlin's desire to shield his son from harm and his duty to expose him to risk? How can I not relate to his desperation, his determination, his no-choice-but-to-see-this-thing-through? And when Nemo learns that his dad is, in fact, supercool, well, what father doesn't want to be a hero in the eyes of his children?

This story is brought to life through well-written situations and dialogue, performed by first-class actors such as Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Willem Dafoe, and Geoffrey Rush. They hit not a single sour note, and they manage to immerse me in the goings on from start to finish.

And speaking of immersion, "Finding Nemo" immerses us in a beautiful world with a stricking color palette. It's bright and rich and endlessly interesting, and when it's on it lights up the whole basement. In fact, I have one of the DVD's special features, a virtual aquarium, going right now. This world is so captivating that it makes me want to dust off my old scuba card, fly somewhere nice, and take a plunge. This is a beautiful, beautiful film. I don't think I'll ever tire of it.

Last Holiday

“Last Holiday” asks the question, “Is Queen Latifah sufficiently charismatic to carry a paper-thin story whose every beat will be familiar to all but the youngest children?" Fortunately, the answer is yes.

In “Last Holiday,” Her Grace plays a department store cookware demonstrator who learns that she has an inoperable brain condition. She quits her job, sells her investments, walks away from the man who doesn’t even know she loves him (L.L. Cool J, making me wish I had a more bitchin’ name), and heads to an exclusive ski resort high in the Alps. There, she plans to live her life to the fullest up to the very last moment. This is a comedy, so now you know exactly what will happen. Fortunately, Her Majesty is a charming woman with whom it’s a pleasure to spend 90 minutes. As one nice thing after another happens to her, you can't help but smile along, enjoying the general sense of goodwill the film creates.

Her Majesty gets first-class supporting work from a cast including Timothy Hutton, Gerard Depardieu, Giancarlo Esposito, Michael Nouri, Alicia Witt, and the aforementioned Mr. J. Timothy Hutton, as the villainous owner of the department store chain (who just happens to show up at the resort), is note perfect. He’s despicable but not too despicable, evil but not too evil, and he's clearly having as much fun as anyone in the audience.

And this movie is very fun. If you'd like to spice it up, try watching it with a child who will worry about the star's fate, then watch his or her reaction when the inevitable happens. It's a treat, and it's the kind of experience that adds to the warm, comfort-food experience that is "Last Holiday."

Space Chimps

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

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

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

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

Batman

So there I am on the couch, a two-year-old balanced on my forehead and an eight-year-old sitting on my chest, while "Batman" plays in the background. It hurts. "How did I get myself into this?" I think. Then Lee Meriwether, in a corset-tight catsuit, comes slinking onto the screen. "Oh, yeah. That's how."

Not that the feature-length "Batman" is only about Lee Meriwether in a corset. It also features Riddler Frank Gorshin in a girdle, though he chooses to wear his on the outside of his costume. And then there's Cesar Romero's Joker, who can't be bothered to shave his moustache, so he simply applies his white makeup over it in hopes that no one will notice. But the king of 'em all is clearly the fabulous Burgess Meredith as Penguin, who manages to simultaneously act his pants off _and_ ham it up, all while having a wonderful time.

And "Batman" feels like a wonderful time. There's a scene in which Robin says something like, "Why'd you save that bar full of drunks, Batman?" Batman replies, "They may be drunks, Robin, but they can still be redeemed." I know, I just _know_, that, at that moment, the cast and crew hoisted a round of frothy mugs at their screening (and kept raising them well into the night). This movie is so silly, so joyfully, gleefully campy, that you can't help but think it was as much fun to make as it is to watch. And who carries it? Yep, Adam West and Burt Ward as Batman and Robin. God bless 'em: they're terrible actors, but they're game for anything. No matter how ridiculous the scene, these ultimate squares keep their heads up and refuse to wink at the camera. Of course, their earnest delivery makes things all the sillier.

But silliness alone isn't enough to sell a movie. "Batman" is serious about some things, and it displays a level of craft I certainly did not expect. The bright, cartoonish color palette is both visually pleasing and remarkably consistent. The costuming, lighting, and sound are crisp and professional, even if jarring uses of stock footage of things like Polaris missiles sometimes throws things off. The Blu-Ray edition of this film really shines, and I've got to admit that it was a pleasure to watch.

I fired up "Batman" so my older boy would finally get all the "Batman" references in 'Sponge Bob Square Pants' and 'The Fairly Oddparents.' I never dreamed I'd actually get an enjoyable movie, in the process. Good for you, Batman!

Rambo

"Rambo" ain't got time for character development.

Well, I guess it does, if you count an evangelical Western doctor realizing that, sometimes, you've just gotta bash a man's head in with a rock. Or Rambo getting in touch with his inner ... Rambo. But other than that, this movie's all about the viscera, man.

Here's the deal: John Rambo's a snake wrangler in upcountry Thailand (I'm gonna guess somewhere near Chiang Mai, where one of my sisters-in-law lives. She tells me it's quite nice. They have a Dairy Queen, a Home Depot, and a muy thai boxing instructor I think she has a crush on. But that's neither here nor there.). He lives rather a solitary life; just him, his two employees, and his steroid connection. When a group of medical missionaries asks him to take them upriver to savage Burma, he tells them to blow: they can't handle the horror, the horror. But when one of the missionaries, Fay Wr- no, Naomi Ca- no, Julie Benz tries to talk him into it, can beauty get through to the simple beast Rambo has become? Well, when the power of pheremones compels you, there's not much you can do. Soon, Rambo's taking the group upriver, slaying some pirates, and sending the missionaries on their way.

Rambo thinks nothing of it when he never hears from them again, but then The White Shadow himself, Ken Howard, shows up on his makeshift doorstep to tell him that the missionaries have (predictably) disappeared. This leaves Rambo with a tough decision: does he keep to himself and let the world go by, or does he forge himself up a new combat knife and get involved? Well, I'm here to tell you, when The White Shadow tells you to drive to the hoop, you drive to the f*in' hoop. And thus, John Rambo chooses to embrace his destiny as a killing machine and find comradeship with other killing machines.

That's, like, the first twenty minutes. The rest is carnage. So much carnage, such a ridiculously enormously unbelievable amount of carnage, that I laughed out loud at Stallone's wilingness to go so far over the top that I half-expected him to kill the big villain through ultimate arm wrestling. Is it entertaining? If you like to watch things go "Boom!" Is it engaging? If you want to lay odds on the number of barrels of Kensington Gore used in its making. Can it be the centerpiece of an evening with the guys, a couple of pizzas, and a case of Bud? You betcha.

So, yeah, I'd see it again. Under the proper circumstances.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

So, "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," George Clooney's directorial debut. Sam Rockwell, the Once and Future Zaphod Beeblbrox, plays 'Gong Show' creator Chuck Barris in the kind of autobiography one might expect when listening to the life story of a compulsive liar. I don't even know if the real Barris is a compulsive liar, but this tale is so cool, has so many loose ends, and makes such a fun antihero of Barris that it set off my bullshit alarm in a big, big way.

But pay no attention to the bullshit alarm. Focus, instead, on the cool and fun story of a guy whose contempt for his fellow man led to a small fortune in the world of television (This part really happened.), astonishing success with women (This part probably happened - I'm told that cocaine is a remarkable drug.), and survival in the deadly world of international espionage (Bullshit!). Sam Rockwell (quickly becoming one of my favorite actors) as Chuck Barris is a hustler born, and watching him hustle his way through life is a great deal of fun. George Clooney does a fine job of making a tiny film seem less tiny through the inclusion of a quality supporting cast - I mean, who else could have gotten Julia Roberts and Drew Barrymore to show up in such a tiny film? And the whole thing hums along in a sort of alcoholic - nihilistic - bullshitter's groove.

I liked it.

Walk Hard

I don't think I gave "Walk Hard" a fair shake.

I loved the first fifteen minutes, which I enjoyed while eating lunch. Then I started in on the laundry (with two you boys, I have a lot of laundry), and the simple act of folding and sorting took me out of the comedy headspace the film demanded.

Or maybe the movie just couldn't top, "It wasn't it fault!" "Not his fault? He cut him in half! With a machete!"

Even though the picture didn't raise many laughs after its first act, it did impress me with its music. Over the course of the feature, "Walk Hard" showcased perhaps every major genre of music to get airplay in America in the last fifty years. And the title song itself? Y'know, it's catchy. In fact, I've been humming it for days.

So, "Walk Hard." There it is. Give it your full attention, and it may pay off for you. It's hard for me to say.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

(See my comments on "Hellboy" here.)

(See my comments on "Hellboy Animated: Sword of Storms" here.)

(See my comments on "Hellboy Animated: Blood and Iron" here.)

Sorry, Internet. "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" isn't going to change your life.

Well, I suppose it might, a little. It might encourage you to spend some time reading Mike Mignola's excellent "Hellboy" comic books, a delightful reinterpretation of ancient folklore cleverly disguised as an action-adventure starring a genuine prince of Hell (rebelling against his Old Man by working for the good guys). It might even make you think a little bit about the person other people want you to be and the person you want to be. Hell, it might even turn you into a Barry Manilow fan.

But it isn't the greatest film ever.

It's merely very, very good. Not only is it a well-told story, but it's phenomenally imaginative. Creator Guillermo Del Toro (who made "Pan's Labyrinth," one of the best films I've ever seen) opens the picture with faerie tale reminiscent of "Strings," another brilliantly imaginative tale, and builds on that tale by weaving it into an exciting and funny modern adventure starring Hellboy (the great Ron Perlman), his pal Abe Sapien the gill-man (Doug Jones, whom I still haven't forgiven for the nightmare -inducing Pale Man), and the love of his life, firestarter Liz Sherman (Selma Blair, who outdoes herself here). See, the elves are pissed. Long ago, the made a deal with humanity - humans got the cities, and faerie creatures got the forests. But humans kept cutting down the forests, and the elves are running out of room. Their hotspurred prince declares war and sets out to reanimate the Golden Army - a goblin-built brigade of automatons who can't be bargained with; can't be reasoned with. They don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until all humans are dead.

There's your story, but just outlining the story doesn't do the picture justice. Del Toro has an extraordinary imagination, which is woven into every scene of this visually delightful film. From the throwaway creature designs to the evocations of other worlds, the man gives us the kind of movie we enjoy seeing in the theater but can't wait to frame-by-frame when we bring it home on Blu-Ray. There's so much detail, so much creativity at work; not only in the already-famous Troll Market scenes, but throughout the film; that this movie is more than the clever telling of a good story. It's a multifaceted experience that's well worth savoring.

But it won't change your life.

Well, okay, maybe a little.

There Will Be Blood

Ahh, summertime. For normal people, it's a season of giant Hollywood blockbusters. For those of us who see most of our movies at home, it's time for last Christmas's prestige pictures.

A short time ago, I wrote of the prestige picture, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," that it went on far too long; that it was too meditative; that it seemed the DP edited the thing. "There Will Be Blood" is roughly the same length as "Assassination," and it, too, loves the long shot, the meditative moment. But there's a difference. "There Will Be Blood" is absolutely riveting, with commanding performances by Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano, as well as strong supporting work by Ciarán Hinds and the young Dillon Freaser.

I've been aware of Day-Lewis since "My Beautiful Laundrette," and I became an outright fan with "The Age of Innocence." This, I was a little wary of his Daniel Plainview here. Was I watching a genuinely great performance, or was I merely bringing my predisposition to respect Day-Lewis's work to a pedestrian portrayal. This is where Paul Dano comes in. Looking over his filmography, I realize I've seen Dano before. But I never really noticed him, never bothered to remember his name, until now. Dano gives a performance that brings to mind Edward Norton in "Primal Fear," a commanding evocation of a young man who is part prophet, part hustler, and all calculation. Compared to Dano, Day-Lewis does, indeed, give a great performance. It's broad at times, close at others, but always commanding, always fascinating. There's so much going on behind those eyes that I was more than happy to spend two and a half hours trying to figure it out.

Of course, a major film such as this is about more than actors on a stage. Paul Thomas Anderson, who matured with "Punch-Drunk Love," directs a film that makes the Southwest of the late 19th and early 20th Century come alive. I read somewhere that he shot in West Texas, and he makes that country look as rough and deadly as it ever has, even if there are no Apache about. He made an interesting choice in Johnny Greenwood, the Radiohead musician and composer, who eschews
the standard orchestral score for disturbing, postmodernist music that keeps us in the film without ostentatiously highlighting its beats.

"There Will Be Blood" reminds me that there are no short movies or long movies. There are only poor movies and good movies. This is a very, very good movie. I could easily view it again, and I'm sure the time would race right by.

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

I didn't follow the Enron disaster too closely. It was a busy time in my life, and I was concentrating on keeping my family afloat. I did, however, have a general understanding of the magnitude of the crimes committed by the top echelon of Enron's leadership and a general feeling that they were getting off a lot lighter than the poor schlub who steals $20 from the local 7-11. I never really bothered to go back and look into the story until a trusted cousin of mine (an executive, himself)) strongly recommended that I give this movie a look.

Wow. What a shocking, well-made movie. As it turns out, the criminals at Enron weren't just the top three or four guys. There was widespread criminality throughout the company's trading floor, an entire corporate culture of "me first and screw the country" at work there. _Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room_ takes inside the company through interviews and archival footage, and it raises real questions about how to balance the freedoms necessary for capitalism to work while ensuring that those involved in the actual workings of capitalism stay on the straight and narrow.

Sure, the movie spends some unnecessary time on the salacious. Did I really need to know about one exec's stripper fetish, complete with gratuitous nudie footage? I mean, c'mon - I was watching this movie in an airport lounge! Nevertheless, _Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room_ entertains and compels. It is one fine documentary.

The Incredible Hulk

(Pictured: The Once and Future Hulk)

I liked the new Hulk well enough, but it seemed too precious to me. All the little nods and winks to previous incarnations of the character, while flatly ignoring the most recent outing, seemed rather mean, and that threw me off.

But _The Incredible Hull_ had a bigger problem, and that was the fact that David Banner, as portrayed here, just wasn't a very interesting guy. When he was human, he was a normal, unassuming fellow trying to make the best of a bad situation. When he was the Hulk, he wasn't particularly dangerous. Had the Hulk been a murderous brute, then we might have been playing for keeps. As things stood, Norton seemed primarily interested in protecting the world from excessive property damage.

That needn't have been the end of things, however. If a hero is only as good as his villain, Tim Roth does everything in his power to make Hulk one of the greatest heroes of them all. Roth plays Emil Blonsky, a commando who's out to get The Hulk.  To some extent, commandos are professional athletes. In the case of Roth's character, here was one athlete who was not going to make a graceful transition to higher leadership and the joys of paperwork. He was willing to take any steroid, go through any regimen, to keep playing with the big toys and, when his 'roid rage makes him an abomination, he welcomes it. Roth plays the transition well, and I found myself much more interested in his arc than that of the supposed hero of the story.

Though Roth does great work with his character, the filmmakers make two errors with him that broke my disbelief. First, they explain that he's "on loan" from the Royal Marines, then put him in U.S. Army working uniforms, with U.S. Army pins and ribbons. Second, they make the Hulk more than the match of his Abomination in the final battle. This film has established that Norton has spent, tops, one year in Brazil working on his martial arts skills, while Roth has been doing this stuff pretty much his entire adult life. I simply could not buy that a half-thinking, semi-trained Hulk could outfight a fully aware, fully trained Abomination. Granted, _Iron Man_ had a couple of illusion-snapping moments, as well, but that film was so much fun that I was willing to give it a pass. For whatever reason, _The Incredible Hulk_ never built up that goodwill with me, so those moments stuck.

All this is not to say that _The Incredible Hulk_ is a bad film. It's fine, for what it is, but I didn't hit my sweet spot. I may be in the minority here, but I liked Ang Lee's version a whole lot more.

The Assassination of Jessie James by the Coward Robert Ford

THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSIE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD ("ASSASSINATION," hereafter), is what you get when you put the director of photography in charge of editing. Here's a movie filled with beautiful images that linger, linger, and finally overstay their welcome. ASSASSINATION is an interesting movie. It's a beautiful movie. It could have been a great movie if it had just moved the heck along.

Casey Affleck plays Robert Ford, a man who gives Frank James the creeps just by being around, and who creeps him more the more he is around. Unfortunately, he creeps us out, too, making the seventeen hours the movie spends with the guy remarkably uncomfortable. Robert is, um, fond of Jessie in a creepily warped hero worship / deeply closeted homosexual kind of way. But Robert makes the ultimate mistake for a hero worshipper: he gets too close to the object of his admiration and learns that his hero is just a man, after all.

In the case of Brad Pitt's Jessie James, his hero isn't just a man, but an increasingly unstable psychotic who represents a danger to himself and everyone around him. Hell, by the time Ford takes his shot, it's a no-brainer. And in the moral world of the James gang, a world in which shooting a man in the back is just another day at the office, it makes perfect sense. And that works, and Pitt and Affleck are both quite good (as is the underappreciated Sam Rockwell as Robert's older brother Charley), and everything's fine, but the movie is just so damn slow.

This is a picture whose sunsets seem like they're in real time. Caterpillars mature into butterflies faster than ASSASSINATION moves along. Everything is so stately, so operatic, and for what? The murder of some other murderer? Maybe you have "get" the romance of the James Gang to "get" this movie, but all I saw was a bunch of thugs being led by a charismatic thug who eventually got what was coming to him.

No, thanks.

After The Sunset

AFTER THE SUNSET is like OCEAN'S TWELVE without everyone trying so hard to be cool.

It's a great premise - what happens after the brilliant jewel thieves pull of the ultimate heist and retire to the tropical island? Will they really be able to enjoy a life of lobster dinners and fruity drinks with umbrellas in them?

In this case, Pierce Brosnan and Salma Hayek play the thieves and Woody Harrelson is the FBI agent who just can't let them go. He follows them to the island just as a cruise ship displaying the world's most kickass diamond pulls in to port, determined to stick so close to the couple that they won't have enough room to breathe, much less try another heist.

And away you go from there, rolling into a brisk 90 minutes of jokes, cons, doublecrosses, and slamming-door farce. There is not a single beat in this film in this film that you won't see coming, in part because the film doesn't so much telegraph as broadcast its intentions. Nevertheless, the affair floats along on a tide of bonhomie, willing to bet that its audience will enjoy viewing a light, tropical, grownup fantasy as much as it seems its creators enjoyed staging it.

I rented AFTER THE SUNSET because I just loved the premise. How nice that it followed through.

Kung Fu Panda

I flat-out loved KUNG FU PANDA.

I walked in expecting a mildly entertaining Dreamworks cartoon, but I got a legitimate wuxia film with heroic swords, scrolls of wisdom, and absolutely stunning fight choreography. "But wait," you say. "You hated HAPPY FEET in part because you claimed that you can't get into CGI dancing. You've written that kung movies are basically dance movies with fake blood. So why don't you hate CGI kung fu dancing?"

Umm, because this is better. HAPPY FEET never allowed me to suspend my disbelief, but I was able to accept KUNG FU PANDA as I might any story a parent may tell his or her child. Sure, the kung fu is fantastic, but hey, it's a fairy tale, so why not?

As a comedy, KUNG FU PANDA kept my kid laughing. But hey, my kid's an easy laugher so I'm more impressed by the fact that it kept me laughing from beginning to end. As an artwork, KUNG FU PANDA is nothing short of stunning. In fact, I have an image from the film as my desktop at the moment - it's just that beautiful. And as a wuxia picture, well, the second voice we hear is that of James Hong. What more need I say?

I think this picture will wind up in my top ten for the year. It's just that good. Color me surprised and delighted.

Dragon Lives Again

DRAGON LIVES AGAIN is a cheap Hong Kong ripoff of Bruce Lee. It's a riot!

Here's the deal. Bruce Lee has returned from the dead to do justice and kick people in the face. My favorite part: the bit of exposition explaining why Bruce Lee looks surprisingly like Bolo Yeung: "Silly girl. Don't you know that people's faces and bodies look diferent in the afterlife?" If you've ever wanted to see a Bruceploitation flick featuring the The Man With No Name, the priest from THE EXORCIST, and Popeye, this is your movie. See it with friends.

Le Cercle Rouge

We were about ninety minutes into ‘Le Cercle Rouge’ when it dawned on us: “Hey, this is a heist movie!” ‘Le Cercle Rouge’ isn’t really about a heist, nor is it really about the people who take part in that heist. It’s more about a late-Sixties concept of cool, of honor, of codes and those who follow them. In that, it has a lot in common with ‘Bullitt,’ I suppose, but Alain Delon is no Steve McQueen. I found myself less than captivated.

Coach Carter

COACH CARTER is combination of Great Coach and Great Teacher movies. As such, it plays closely to form, offering few surprises as its titular character shapes his motley crew into a team, teaches his young people some truths about themselves and their lives, and guides his team to the Big Game.

But hey, we don’t knock sonnets for being fourteen lines of iambic pentameter. The real question is, how good is “Coach Carter,” even though it confines itself to the strictures of its format? The answer is, “pretty good.” Samuel L. Jackson convincingly plays a man who can control 10-15 tough kids through the power of his personality alone. The remarkably acne-free and personal-trainered kids execute their roles with precision, and everything rocks along with the smoothness of well-tuned Hollywood product. When you rent 'Coach Carter,' you get what you paid for. Take that as you will.

No Country For Old Men

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN devotes most of its screen time to a character who is not its protagonist. Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) looks like the hero of this movie, acts like the hero of this movie, but wasn't ever the hero of the movie. Sherriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is the hero of this movie, for NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN is a story about a man facing the fact that his whole life has been dedicated to pushing against a river. Not a tide, mind you, but a river, as illustrated by Ellis's story of the Apaches and Ed Tom's grandfather.

It's no country for old men, because old men have lived long enough to see their illusions stripped away; and the brutal reality behind those illusions can be too much to live with. The book, and the film, is about Ed Tom reaching that point in his life. The story, in both media, breaks my heart.

On another tack, I found the film to be a faithful rendering of one of my favorite novels. Its changes did not violate the themes of the story, and I sensed that the Coen brothers "got it," as they often do. I bought every single one of its characters, including Harrelson, whom I was inclined to doubt after reading the criticism of him here on the Balcony. I bought the milieu, the presentation, the whole package.

This is a film worth seeing.

The Flight of the Phoenix

FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX'S first victory is in its casting.

I know it isn’t fair to bring extratextual knowledge to a film, but when we see Jimmy Stewart behind the controls of that old Air Truck, we know we’re seeing a guy with a Distinguished Flying Cross, an Air Medal, a Croix de Guerre, and 7 battle stars in his dresser drawer. The movie doesn’t have to spend a lot of time convincing us that its lead character is a salty pilot because its lead character is Jimmy Frickin’ Stewart, BGEN USAFR, Ret’d.

The casting victories don’t end with Stewart, however. Ernest Borgnine is phenomenal as a mentally-challenged passenger, Hardy Krüger shines as an aircraft designer who happens to be onboard, and everyone, with the exception of Richard Attenborough, rises to their tasks. A word about Attenborough: while he’s generally fine, there’s a scene that requires him to blend laughter into jagged crying. It’s an important scene, and the actor can’t quite pull it off. Nevertheless, that’s one misstep in an otherwise fine performance.

Great casting aside, FoP works as a Boys’ Own Adventure, with all the elements of exotic location, survival concerns, competition for dominance, honor, loyalty, and the delicate balance between knowledge and skill. It works as an adventure, it works as a psychological study, and it works as a great way to spend two hours and twenty minutes. What a delight.

Un Chien Andalou

This movie struck me as so much self-indulgent wankery. Rather than try to maximize the possibilities of the art form, UN CHIEN ANDALOU settles for smugly smirking, "Look at me. I'm avant garde." Thanks, but no thanks.

Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster

I can't figure the Japanese. First, they're all freaked out about the proliferation of nuclear power plants and cook up Godzilla, the atomic fire-breathing monster. Then, they're all freaked out about air pollution (like the kind that comes from coal-burning power plants) and the cook up Hedorah, the pollution monster who must be brought down by - you guessed it - Godzilla. Subtextually, GODZILLA VS. HEDORAH seems to assert that nuclear power isn't so bad after all. In fact, it seems to argue that nuclear power will be the salvation of Japan's environment. Make up your mind, people!

On to the movie itself: GVH gives us guys in rubber suits fighting one another, a cute kid in danger, and plenty of groovy sixties-era music, ideology, and freakiness. GVH also serves up an interesting variation on the Godzilla storytelling formula: animated interstices between acts of the film, a la Terry Gilliam, moving things along and underlining important thematic elements. GVH is interesting and kinda fun.

The Ant Bully

Parents watching THE ANT BULLY will find no surprises and no storytelling innovations. They will be able to predict every plot point, every character moment, every beat. If they're like me, they'll enjoy it anyway.

THE ANT BULLY tells the story of a bullied boy who takes out his frustrations on the local anthill. Until the ants, that is, figure out how to shrink him down to their size. His punishment for his crimes? Join the colony and learn to live like an ant. It's a nice premise, and a solid chassis upon which to mount lessons of teamwork, respect, trust, and general trustworthyloyalhelpfulfriendlycourteouskindobedientcheerfulthriftybravecleanandreverent -ness. Will the boy learn to trust, find strength within and without, and earn redemption? Will the ant-sceptics be won over? Will there be a heartwarming moment near the end when ants and boy vow never to forget one another? Will the boy learn to stand up for himself in the human world? Oh, of course he will. But that's not the point. The point is that all this is executed very well, with solid animation and fine voice acting.

The child playing the titular ant bully is fine, but the supporting cast sells this picture. Julia Roberts plays his ant-mentor, Nicholas Cage the ant who figures out how to shrink the boy, and Bruce Campbell kills as as a scout who's part hero, part comic relief. Paul Giamatti, Lily Tomlin, Meryl Streep, Ricardo Montalban, and even Cheri Oteri are just great, and it's a pleasure to hear their performances.

I didn't expect to enjoy THE ANT BULLY, but I was quite pleasantly surprised. If you have kids, give this one a spin.

Shark Tale

SHARK TALE is a horrible trainwreck of a movie, a “family film” that’s too adult for kids and too childish for adults.

Will Smith plays a fast-talking loserfish who takes advantage of a misunderstanding to convince everyone that he’s a shark slayer, a protector of the reef. Robert De Niro plays the Godfather Shark who is unamused by this upstart, and away we go. I could see the concept having a certain appeal for film buffs, but who really wants to show their 8-yr-old a scene of two thugs torturing a hapless victim, no matter how many in-jokes are crammed in?

The Mummy

C'mon: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, a damsel in distress, and more aristrocratic English accents than you can shake a walking stick at. If you don't like Hammer's take on THE MUMMY, you don't like movies.

Alvin and the Chipmunks

Consider, if you will, two children's films: UNDERDOG and ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS. Both are Product with a capital P, lowest common denominator entertainments designed to keep the kids occupied while their parents (first run) get in some shopping or (DVD) take care of some chores. Sure, somewhere in the productions there are people who are actually passionate about the work, but pretty much everyone knows what they're about on projects like this.

The two films have similarly innocuous leads, follow predictable arcs, and have nothing to offer anyone much past age ten. But there's a difference between them, and that difference is worth noting.

Peter Dinklage plays UNDERDOG's villain, and Patrick Warburton plays his henchman. Both actors know what kind of movie they're in, yet they bring their A games to their work. They craft near-perfect kids'-movie villains, threatening but not too threatening, funny but not too funny, and they make roles that must have looked pedestrian on the page absolutely sing in production. David Cross plays the villain in ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS, and his contempt for the material seeps into everything he does. There's something of a sneer in the guy's performance - it's as if, in his heart of hearts, Cross knows he's too good for this movie. It kills his scenes and hurts the picture, and it makes troupers like Dinklage and Warburton shine all the brighter.

Ok, but is the overall movie any good? Well, it's about what you'd expect: something to keep the little ones occupied while you fold the laundry. So I guess it does its job.

Crash

I wanted to like David Cronenberg’s CRASH. I really did. But it didn’t give me anything to hold on to.

The film is ostensibly about a sexually adventurous couple who enter the world of automobile crash fetishisation (Note: As far as I’m aware, so such world actually exists. But the internet is a big place. It could be out there somewhere.). It’s really about compulsion and the proper location of boundaries on sexual experience. That makes it interesting, but it fails to be engaging because its characters are too remote, its music is too remote, and even its photography is too remote.

All that remoteness makes CRASH a cold, dull experience. It’s like reading an encyclopedia article on sexuality. All the words are there, but it fails to capture the essence of the subject. At no time in the course of the film did I feel like I was watching real people have real experiences or speaking in real ways. At no time did my pulse quicken or eyes dilate. CRASH is an exercise in observation, and observe it does, but it’s more science than art. Had the film given me even one character to whom I could relate, one situation that I could even tenuously connect to my life, it might have engaged me more thoroughly.

As it was, I had to will myself to power through to the end. What a disappointment.

Iron Man

There’s a sequence in IRON MAN in which protagonist Tony Stark builds and tests his Mk II fighting suit. It’s 5-10 minutes of a guy turning a screwdriver, doing some tests, and turning a screwdriver some more. The sequence requires an actor of exceptional magnetism and charisma to pull it off, and there are only two contemporary mainstream leading men who could do it.

Which is why I think it was written into the movie after Robert Downey, Jr. signed on.

I’ve been in Downey’s camp since CHAPLIN. The guy has had his ups and downs, but he seems to have hit his stride somewhere around KISS KISS, BANG BANG (touched upon here). In IRON MAN, the guy is so charismatic, so much fun to watch, that we love him when he’s a shallow billionaire and we love him when he gets a conscience. I think it’s because Downey has so much fun with the role, and director Jon Favreau lets him run.

Downey couldn’t cut loose without a strong supporting cast to keep the picture grounded. Jeff Bridges, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Terrence Howard are every bit as good as you’d expect and, heroes or villains, they keep us believing in what’s transpiring onscreen. By the time IRON MAN becomes a third-act CGI slugfest, I’m sufficiently involved in its world that I forget I’m watching pixels and hearing foley – these are real people onscreen, and I care about what happens to them.

Superhero movies are hard to do. Just ask the people behind KRRISH. But Jon Favreau really nails it with IRON MAN. I can’t wait for the sequel.

Sergeant York

hagiography, noun, pl. -phies.
1. the writing of saints' lives.
2. a book about saints' lives.
3. (Figurative.) a biography that adulates or idolizes its subject.

Sergeant Alvin York won the Medal of Honor in WWI for killing 22 Germans and forcing 132 others to surrender in battle in the Argonne Forest. French Marshal Ferdinand Foch called it "the greatest thing accomplished by any private soldier of all the armies of Europe." Hollywood told his story in 1941, just as America was gearing up for another go at the Germans.

Gary Cooper played the titular soldier, a man who sought conscientious objector status but rogered up when his application was denied. Though hampered by clunky dialogue (“I’m’a tellin’ ya that I’m’a gonna marry ya!”), Cooper gamely played the wide-eyed innocent, relying on the same bag of tricks he’d later use in PRIDE OF THE YANKEES. He does a fine job of giving us the sinner turned saint turned hero, and he’s aided by the great Walter Brennan in the role of backwoods pastor.

But there’s a problem with SERGEANT YORK. I fired up this movie expecting a WWI drama. What I got was a roughly 1.8-hr celebration of rural Tennessee wrapped around a brief military interlude. While I understand that I was watching a hagiography, I’d have been very interested to learn about how backwoodsmen like York fit into the Army culture of the WWI era. The more I think about it, the more this movie makes me want to see a modern retelling of York’s story. What was it like that day in the Argonne? How did York adjust to his status of national hero (This version tells us that he shrugged it off and went back to farming.)? Who was this guy?

On second thought, I don’t think a movie can answer all my questions about this interesting character. I’m off to the library.

The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep

THE WATER HORSE: LEGEND OF THE DEEP is your basic “boy befriends wild animal” movie. In this case, the wild animal is the Loch Ness Monster, so there’s your hook.

I like “boy befriends wild animal” movies, and I like the actors in this one (Brian Cox, Emily Mortimer, the kid from MILLIONS and some guy who looks familiar). It moves along quite well, and it’s appealing enough to young and old that my 8-yr-old turned to me and said, “Thanks for making me watch this, Dad.” What more can you ask for?

The Butterfly Effect

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT is so depressing, so unrelentingly bleak, that I have no idea how any film executive ever said, “This is a movie people will want to see on a Saturday night. Green light it!”

Here’s the setup: Ashton Kutcher has a profoundly terrible childhood. While in college, he discovers that he has the ability to inhabit his pediatric self and change the course of past events. When he does so, however, things get even worse. And worse. And worse. This movie is like some kind of weird exercise in excruciation, daring the audience to hang with it a little while longer in the hope that things will improve. They never do. THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT is hopeless, depressing, and a lousy way to spend a Saturday night. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself to skip it.

Snakes on a Plane

During one of his promotion interviews for SNAKES ON A PLANE, star Samuel L. Jackson said, “Look, it’s all there in the title. Either you’re down with snakes on a plane, or you aren’t.”

I’m down with snakes on a plane.

Now, make no mistake: there is no way SNAKES ON A PLANE qualifies as a “good” movie. It’s high B-grade, at best, and it boasts a blatant disregard for even the most basic research on snakes or planes. But it you’ve ever wanted to see someone take a snake in the eye, this is your movie. If you’ve ever wanted to see a giant boa constrictor eat a snotty jerk, this is your movie. Heck, you find the idea of Mr. Jackson shouting, “I have had it with these @#$%ing snakes on this $%^ing plane!” amusing, this is your movie.

Just, please, if you know anything about aviation, let it go. If you know anything about human nature, let it go. It’s snakes. On a plane. With Samuel L. Jackson.

Dig it.

THX-1138

THX-1138 is solid, ‘70s experimental science fiction. It presents with an antiseptic Orwellian world and one man, THX-1138, who begins to realize that there’s more to life than he’s been led to believe. Robert Duvall plays THX-1138, and it’s a masterful, understated performance. THX lives in a society in which emotion is discouraged, and Duvall is a master of showing us the deep currents swirling beneath his character’s calm exterior.

Where THX-1138 triumphs in the performance of its lead, however, it flounders in its actual story. Though the film begins with an intriguing vision of a dystopic future, it ends as one extended chase, going from foot to high-speed vehicle to foot again. Nothing really happens during this chase, story-wise. THX doesn’t learn anything about himself, nor does he develop in any way. It’s as if the film didn’t know where to go, but figured audiences love chases and that would do as well as anything.

So, should you see THX-1138? If you’re a fan of George Lucas, whose first science fiction feature this was, then I suppose you should. If you’re a fan of Robert Duvall, then you definitely should. If you’re neither, it may be worth your while if you find it on cable. That’s good enough, I suppose.

Transformers

If you like your movies bright and loud, then TRANSFORMERS is for you. I like my movies bright and loud, so I blocked out a chunk of time, darkened the basement, fired up the big screen, and got the surround speakers humming. I was ready to be blown away.

And TRANSFORMERS tried hard to blow me away. Lots of stuff blew up. It was very bright. And loud. But it was so unreal that I was unable to suspend my disbelief enough to care about any of the giant robots or believe, on a visceral level, that the havoc they were wreaking was anything more than a combination of pixel arrangement and foley work. In fact, during the climactic battle, I was more concerned with whether protagonist Shia LaBeouf was gonna score with the apple of his eye than I was with the fate of the world (There's something unsettling about Megan Fox, the romantic interest, btw. Since she reminded my of a psycho ex-girlfriend, I was torn between rooting for LaBeouf and urging to run far, far away.). Romantic subplots are great and all, but that’s no way to run a movie.

On the up side, LaBeouf is a likeable presence, and John Turturro was utterly brilliant in his role as a slightly unhinged Man in Black. Never before have I seen a government heavy played for laughs in an action movie such as this, and it was a wonderful choice. Every time Turturro showed up on screen, the film recaptured my complete attention, making TRANSFORMERS worth watching for him alone.

I didn't go into TRANSFORMERS expecting CRIES AND WHISPERS, but I was hoping for something more evenly entertaining than Michael Bay's latest turned out to be. A little more Turturro and a little less CGI, and this one could have been a winner.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

I had no intention of ever seeing this movie.

But one of my nephews had it and showed it to my 8-yr-old, who showed it to me.

Y'know what? I liked it.

Sure, the CGI overlays on some of the actors were wierd, Depp was wierd, and the whole thing was wierd. But I like wierd. I like Danny Elfman's music. I like Johnny Depp. I like any mainstream movie that shows some real originality, some creativity.

Did I believe in this film's worl? Not for a minute. Did I enjoy spending some time there? Sure, sure I did.

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

Two years ago, CHUD.com’s Devin Faraci wrote a glowing review of BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON. [It’s right here.] I banked the positive review, but I didn’t rent the movie because I’m just not a fan of the slasher genre. Last week, I saw the disk on the shelf at the local library. The price was right, and I remembered that excellent review. “Perhaps,” I thought, “this will be the one slasher movie I actually like.”

I loved it.

BEHIND THE MASK follows a team of young documentary filmmakers as they take on the subject of one Leslie Vernon, a bright and charismatic young man who aspires to join the greats of the “creative slaughter” world. In the film’s universe, Freddy and Jason and Michael are real people who, through preparation, determination, and talent, have emerged as superstars. Leslie’s just getting started, but he has all the tools: a spooky backstory, a strong work ethic, an eye for detail, and a wickedly sharp set of gardening tools.

The movie works because it so thoroughly understands and embraces the conventions of the slasher genre that the documentary footage detailing Leslie’s preparation for the big night (putting dead batteries the Target House’s flashlights, choosing the proper Survivor Girl) feels real. Further, the boyish enthusiasm of the industrious Leslie contrasts to great (deadpan) comic effect with the growing moral uncertainty of the documentarians, leaving us cheering at Leslie’s small victories while questioning our own championing of murder. When the film switches from documentary to third-person slasher in the third act, the transition feels organic and fun. We see how Leslie’s preparation has paid off, in everything from the creepiness of his mask and makeup to the strategic placement of bodies. Even so, we still feel the quickening of fear, and we shudder along with the victims.

BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON is so innovative, so enthusiastic, so fun that it makes me want to revisit the slasher genre. How bad can TERROR TRAIN really be?

Return to House on Haunted Hill

Ok, look: RETURN TO HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL is as “B” as B movies get. It’s a direct-to-video sequel to the remake of a classic B horror film that few people saw (but that I enjoyed). It stars none of the major players from the previous effort, puts the gratuitous in “gratuitous nudity” (seriously – there are random shots of naked women that do absolutely nothing to advance the story and serve only to up the film’s boobs per minute ratio) and spends more money on creature design than story development. Nevertheless, this movie is something special. To the best of my knowledge, it’s the first Choose Your own Adventure “B” horror movie.

That’s right. During pivotal moments of the story, a menu pops up and asks viewers questions like, “Should the heroine save the wisecracking good guy or get the map?” and “Should the henchwoman resist the charms of the spectral lesbians?” The movie advertises 96 possible paths through the story, though I only tried three. One of the paths, the first one I tried, got me all the way to the end. The second one cut the story short, as everyone died a grisly death. The third got me to a different ending, but without the added helping of gratuitous nudity offered by the first (Somewhere along the line, I must have chosen poorly.). If the movie had been better, I may have been tempted to try a few more options. Unfortunately, I couldn’t bear to. The acting was so poor, the story so uninspired, the villains so dull, and the motivations of the ghosts and monsters so incomprehensible that I just couldn’t take it any more.

But I must admit a grudging respect for RETURN TO HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL. It does sport some pretty cool creature designs. It unashamedly embraces its exploitative, B move pedigree. And it pulls off the branching paths gimmick pretty well, with each option a genuinely interesting choice. Is this a “good” movie? Not at all. Is it a “fun” movie? I suppose it is. But the number of journeys you’re willing to make through this particular labyrinth may be even fewer than mine.

Find Me Guilty

Sydney Lumet’s FIND ME GUILTY didn’t get a fair shake. I’m not going to argue that it’s brilliant, but it’s pretty good: it didn’t deserve its box office death. Perhaps the marketing had something to do with it. Remember all those posters with Vin Diesel dressed up as Willy Loman? At the time, I remember thinking, “How do you take a guy as charismatic as Diesel and throw all that away?

Well, the movie itself doesn’t throw Diesel’s charisma away. In fact, it relies on that charisma to get us through the true(ish) story of a charismatic New York mobster who charmed a jury into acquitting him and all of his friends in one of the biggest RICO trials to date. It works, and it does so because Diesel has the power to get an audience on his side, whether he’s playing the head of criminal enterprise, an alien convict, or a schlubby but funny gangster. I think the movie would work even better if it didn’t try to give some perspective to the proceedings by reminding us that, yes, the colorful mobsters really are bad guys and the vile prosecutors really are on the side of good. If you want to make us root for Diesel’s character, make us believe in his story, then put us in that juror’s box and convince us that he and his buddies are being unjustly persecuted. As it stands, the movie wants to have it both ways, a la “The Sopranos.” But “The Sopranos” had years to get us to know and love Paulie Walnuts. FIND ME GUILTY only has a couple of hours.

Nevertheless, FIND ME GUILTY stands as a reasonably amusing courtroom comedy, featuring a fine turn by Diesel and yet another remarkable performance from the formidable Peter Dinklage, who plays a co-defending attorney (Oh, how I’d love to have seen that Dinklage RICHARD III he did on stage a while back.). It didn’t make me laugh out loud, but it rocked along pretty well for its two hour running time. I suppose a guy could do worse.

V for Vendetta

I liked the filmed version of V FOR VENDETTA better than the comic. The comic felt like an overhyped revolt against Thatcherism, while the film makes the story more universal. While it gets in its digs at the Bush administration, the film feels more of piece with works like 1984, works which transcend the time in which they were created.

Here’s the setup: we’re in England, and things have gone sour. It’s roughly ten years after a political shift that ushered in an authoritarian government, but still thirty years or so before the system gets so entrenched that we’d be in the world of a 1984. Big Brother is everywhere, but the tvs still only go one way, if you will.

V4V asks the question, “What if someone rebelled before Big Brother could really get his hooks into everything?” In this case, that someone is an anonymous gent in a Guy Fawkes costume, a gent who was wronged by this regime and has taken is time, a la Edmond Dantes, to construct the perfect revenge. His plan? To move the people of England to rise up against their oppressors.

How he executes his plan, and how his actions affect those around him, I’ll leave for the viewer. Right now, I’m more concerned with how well the film executes its intentions; I’m happy to report that it does so quite well. Natalie Portman, the audience surrogate, reminds us that yes, she can actually act quite well. Hugo Weaving as the guy in the Fawkes costume, joins Willem Dafoe in the limited club of guys who can emote even when their face is hidden. John Hurt, who played Winston Smith in the filmed version of 1984, is a marvelous Big Brother, and the remainder of the supporting cast (including favorites Stephen Rea and Stephen Fry) also turns in professional work, without a single performance that pulls one out of the moment. The film looks slick, professional, and seamless. I bought everything it showed me, and I enjoyed the ride.

I picked up V4V on a whim – it was sitting right there on a counter at the library, and I knew I’d have a little free time coming up. I’m glad I did. V FOR VENDETTA turned to be pretty good.

Krrish

I just scouted around the internet for reviews of KRRISH, Bollywood's first big-budget superhero movie. The movie has a 100% positive rating on the tomatometer, and everyone seems to love it.

All of these people are on crack.

Somewhere in Krrish's two hours and fifty-five minutes of bloat, there's a solid little 85-minute superhero movie. Unfortunately, the filmmakers couldn't or wouldn't edit their work sufficiently ruthlessly to get to that good, fast-paced movie, so we're left with an incredibly long shampoo commercial.

Here's the setup: young Krishna is a supergenius whose grandmother hides him in a remote mountain village, far away from the eyes of evil men who would use him, if they could. The village appears to be populated by a gang of good-natured youths, a goofy sidekick, a brilliant dentist, the world's greatest hairdresser, and at least one guy who owns a gym and has access to steroids. Krishna grows up in an extended woodland idyll, maturing into an innocent gym rat with perfect teeth and hair that would put Robin Shou to shame. Oh, and he has superpowers.



Soon enough, the inevitable occurs. Krishna meets a girl, an ethnic Indian on holiday from Singapore, whose hair is even better than his.

He follows her to Singapore, where he dazzles the locals with his flowing mane.


But it isn't long before evil intervenes, and Krishna must assume a new identity - Krrish!- and save the day through the power of wind-blown locks (btw, Krrish's locks are always windblown. One of his superpowers must include the ability to levitate an invisible fan two feet from his face.).


Damn. There's slo-mo closeup of Krrish, having just risen from the sea, whipping his head about and sending perfectly lit drops of water flying everywhere. Google image search is turning up nothing.

Anyway, back to the recap. Krrish saves the world, wins the girl, and even gets a shave. There's your movie.

And it's a perfectly fine template for a movie, but it doesn't quite work. The guy who plays Krishna, Hrithik Roshan, is a skilled dancer and a fine stuntman, but his three expressions seem to be winning grin, winning grin, and palsy. The gal who plays the eventual damsel in distress (oops - spoiler!), Priyanka Chopra, appears to be more talented, but director Rakesh Roshan (Hrithik's dad, which makes the lingering shots of Hrithik's muscles, hair, and teeth kinda creepy, now that I think about it) must've told her to play to the cheap seats, because there is absolutely no mystery in her face whatsoever. It's all right there. Add astoundingly poor special effects, a score that's a direct ripoff of Danny Elfman's work on SPIDER-MAN, and the incongruous musical numbers that Bollywood demands, and you have a movie that wears out its welcome at the 90-minute mark. Had this film been edited from three to 1.5 hours, the actors would have had less time to grate; the poorer CGI sequences could have been edited out, and we might have been left with a fun, masala-flavored masked avenger flick.

But wishful thinking gets us nowhere. As it stands, KRRISH is a three hour long mess. This time around, I took one for the team.

Shrek the Third

SHREK THE THIRD ("Shrek 3," hereafter), is a joyless slog through a never ending stream of tired jokes. Sure, my kid liked it plenty, but my kid is eight years old. You gonna trust him?

Here's the setup: Just as Shrek departs on a voyage to find the heir to the kingdom, Prince Charming rallies the forces of evil to conquer said kingdom so he can, um, put on a show. Ok, fair enough. Problem is, Shrek 3 can't do anything more with this premise than it did with the two earlier, funnier installments. The fun of having fairy tales turned on their head has diminished, and this movie has little to add to that formula.

On the up side, Shrek 3 employs some terrific actors. It's always great to see Julie Andrews, John Cleese, Eric Idle, and (the surprisingly good and versatile) Justin Timberlake get work. There are no performances that pull one out of the viewing experience, though it's a shame that they're in service to such an uninspired story.

Ah, well.

Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia

BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA as a movie about constructs. More specifically, I see it as a movie about the constructs we use to give shape to our lives, and the ways in which he hold fast to those constructs even in the face of their absurdity. During the picnic, I saw two deeply damaged people trying to love each other; two people aware that a relationship was impossible, yet willing to believe in their hopes (if only for a little while).

Elita knows that Bennie knows that Garcia is her true love, and she knows that Bennie's trying to find Garcia for some malevolent purpose. Further, she knows that Bennie's no good -that no matter how much money he makes, it's all going to pass through his hands anyway. Still, she pressures him to propose to her, and she chooses to believe in her future by accepting his proposal. Later, when they're in Garcia's town, she points out that there's a church there. When Bennie doesn't so much refuse to follow through on his commitment as let it slide by him, Elita still chooses to believe.

Only when the construct is safely unattainable does Benny fully invest himself in it. When he does, he finds that the construct gives him something to live for and, perhaps more importantly, something to die for. We see this first glimmer of this fuller Bennie in the picnic scene, as he takes the first steps from nihilism to belief. Elita knows that belief will probably not end well, but she's willing to believe anyway. This is her wisdom and her strength.

Batman vs. Dracula

BATMAN VS. DRACULA retells Stoker's tale with Batman in the Van Helsing role, The Penguin as Renfield, and Vicki Vale as Mina Harker. It's a fine introduction to the Dracula story for the younger set, with the horror elements still present, if smoothed out a bit.

The animation is workmanlike, however, and the voice acting never quite captured my imagination. Further, the producers chose to make both Penguin and Joker super or, perhaps, para human, and I found that the fantastical elements of these characters detracted from the shock value of Dracula, who always works best as the unexpected supernatural player in a mundane world.

Nevertheless, BATMAN VS. DRACULA captured my boy's imagination and kept me mildly diverted. As far as kids' horror goes, you could do worse.