Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

I doubt that I can come up with even 200 words about ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS.  The film; an innocuous, mildly amusing adventure tale for kids; looks fine, features professional performances, and generally achieves its goals.

If only it had bigger goals. 

This, the third film in the ICE AGE franchise, continues the series’ theme of family and fidelity.  It features exciting set-pieces that frightened and amused my children on cue.  I mean, it’s fine, really.  It didn’t make me look at my watch.  But there’s nothing more there.  There’s nothing to chew on, nothing to give the film resonance.  It just is what it is.

Yeah, 140 words.  That about does it.  Pony up for a rental of ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS, and you’ll get what you paid for.  I suppose that’s a fair deal.

Terror of Mechagodzilla

TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA (or GODZILLA XV, if you’re counting), starts poorly, then develops into one of the very best of the Showa series.

Wait – what? What’s the Showa series? Well, I’m glad you asked: pull up a chair! The Showa series ran from 1954-1975. It consisted of the first 15 Godzilla pictures, beginning with the genuinely scary GOJIRA and proceeding through a variety of entries ranging from the decent (MOTHRA VS. GODZILLA) to the lazy (GODZILLA RAIDS AGAIN) to the ridiculous (GODZILLA VS. THE SEA MONSTER). There’s also a 7-film Heisei series, which ran from 1984-1995; and a 6-film Millenium series, which featured the second-best of all the Godzilla films: GODZILLA, MOTHRA, AND KING GHIDORAH: GIANT MONSTERS ALL-OUT ATTACK.

Ok, back to the film at hand.

As I said, TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA starts poorly. It treats us to a full ten minutes of a droning voice over recycled footage from previous entries in the series, ostensibly to bring us up to speed on the deep and complex Godzilla history. It felt like padding to me. Then we see this film’s villains: alien invaders in costumes so silly that one surmises they’re here merely to access our textile infrastructure.

I’ll admit it: I fell asleep fifteen minutes in. Not even Inishiro Honda’s name under the director’s credit could keep me up much longer than that.

But the next day, I reattacked. And I’m glad I did. Once I got past the silly costuming, I found TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA to be a fine alien invasion yarn. It features heroic cops, mad scientists, young women torn between conflicting duties, and plenty of hot Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla action.

A note about the aforementioned action: cinematographer Sokei Tomioka TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA nails it in this one. The monsters look monstrous (yet just fake enough to not unduly frighten the little ones), the miniatures look fantastic, and the action sequences made thematic and practical sense.

This is a fun movie that delivers everything you could want from a film entitled TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA. See it with a 9-year-old boy.

Amreeka

Oh, the Immigration Story.  Is there any narrative more essential to the American Legend?  Someone hopes for a better life and comes to America.  They leave behind family, friends, careers, and ties.  The chemist becomes a cab driver.  The schoolteacher, a janitor.  The accountant, a waitress.  But they do it, and they struggle, and they face prejudice and discrimination, and they give their kids a better life. 

AMREEKA is one such story.  Nisreen Faour is Muna Farah, an Palestinian who wins the green card lottery and, along with her son, is granted entrance to the United States.  At Customs, she replies to the question “Occupation?” with, “Yes, we are occupied.”

Things do not begin well.

It’s hard to find a job or find your place in a new school in America if you’re an Arab fresh from the Levant.  People stare.  Your prior achievements don’t hold much weight.  And there’s a difference between studying a language and actually speaking its vernacular.

But Muna gives it her best shot and takes her lumps.  It isn’t easy, and AMREEKA gives us no assurances that it ever will be easy.  But, step by step, she and her son begin to get it.  And little by little, they begin to share their culture with Americans they come to know.  That’s how it works.

I hate to give the impression that AMREEKA is a Hallmark card about the Great American Melting Pot.  It’s too honest for that.  Instead, it stands as a fine retelling of the Immigration Story, one that reminds us of this crucial part of the American Experience.

Now I need to call my mother and thank her for working ‘til her fingers bled to provide my sister and me with the opportunity for a better life.  I need to thank her for coming to America.

Godzilla

Here's a review by my eldest son & Godzilla aficionado, Ian:

“GODZILLA (1998)" Is a cool movie. It has a good tune in the beginning of the movie that sounds mysterious, which  I think they were going for.  They used it when they showed the thing’s origin, & used it some more throughout the movie.

“GODZILLA (1998)” has a cool monster with a good “to be continued” ending.

ON TO THE  STORY: in “GODZILLA (1998)” Zilla is a mutated hybrid created from a nuclear  French test, & attacks fishing boats, then  rampages through New York city. Finally the navy kills it....Or so they thought…Anyway  the hero, & some French guys disguised as American soldiers go after the creature’s nest while the female hero and another dude follow them. Then they meet. Then after the baby Zillas already hatched, the main characters call the military to destroy the nest. So they send some pilots to bomb the nest in their fighter planes, which they succeed in doing. But then it turns out adult Zilla survived , so  it chases them. Then they hop into an unguarded taxi, & Zilla  goes after them. Then the military comes, & bombs Zilla. Then, for less than a second, Zilla looks the hero in the eye. They were probably trying to make you feel pitty for the gigantic dying creature. It ends with one Zilla egg that hasn’t hatched yet, & survived the bombing , hatching, makin’ way for the show GODZILLA THE SERIES.

I recommend watching this. I liked the monster .’Twas a cool monster, because it could sprint. Most giant monsters can’t do that.

The Merry Gentleman

Michael Keaton directed THE MERRY GENTLEMAN. Turns out, he’s good at it. Not only did he give his film a smooth, professional look, but he got some terrific performances out of his actors.

First among them we find Kelly MacDonald in the lead role. Before anyone utters the film’s first line of dialogue, we learn that her husband beat her, that she ran, and that she set up a new life in a new town far away. This matters as more than a reason to isolate her and give her character some texture, for her experience as both a victim of abuse and a woman with the courage to escape informs nearly every word she says, every thing she does. Watch her in this film. Watch her eyes and her body language. Watch the choices she makes and the way she makes them. Keaton the director was surely watching, and he showed the wisdom to follow her with his camera, to observe her as she thought and spoke and acted.

Next, we have Tom Bastounes, with whom I’m unfamiliar, as a detective who investigates a crime to which MacDonald has borne witness. He’s a large man, gone to seed and following a bottle on an inexorable down slope. But he has a ways to go, and his professional policeman’s demeanor hides a vulnerability that makes him all the more surprising when it’s time to play hardball.

And then there’s Keaton himself, playing the supporting role without which nothing else in the film would be possible. This is the best I’ve seen him, contained and mature, seeing everything and revealing nothing. Twenty years ago, I wouldn’t have believed it if you’d told me that Michael Keaton could be scary. But he can, particularly when he’s trying not to be.

THE MERRY GENTLEMAN won’t change your life. It isn’t big, it isn’t flashy, it isn’t groundbreaking. But it is a carefully told story, well performed and realized. I’m impressed.

Funny People

There are two Adam Sandlers.  The first, the guy from BILLY MADISON, is vulgar and silly and childish.  The second, the guy from PUNCH DRUNK LOVE, is smart and thoughtful and sensitive.  I don’t think the BILLY MADISON guy could have existed if the PUNCH DRUNK LOVE guy hadn’t made him up.

In FUNNY PEOPLE, Sandler plays a smart and sensitive comedian who makes vulgar and childish movies.  Then he learns that he’s going to die.  Now what?  He has no friends, not really, and he’s pushed away everyone who’s ever loved him.  Maybe he can hire a guy.

Does this sound like comic material to you?  I suppose it could be, if played broadly.  But director Judd Apatow doesn’t play it broadly.  He plays it close to the bone, eliciting one of Sandler’s best performances and surprising us with the first real work of Seth Rogen, who shows us that he’s capable of handling more than straight comedy.  FUNNY PEOPLE is, indeed, a funny movie, but it’s more a human drama set in the world of professional comedy than a laugh fest.  It works.

Departures

DEPARTURES is a sad, beautiful, well-told tale. It helps to know a little about Japanese culture to enjoy it, but that knowledge isn’t absolutely required. The best stories transcend culture, and DEPARTURES is one of these.

Daigo, a cellist, has lost his job after his orchestra folded. Out of options (the market for cellists being rather saturated), he and his wife move to his hometown and the house his mother left him. Once there, Daigo finds work as an apprentice to a dresser of the dead. A dresser isn’t an undertaker. Rather, he conducts the ceremonial preparation of the body for burial, an exacting, honorable, and precise function for which his years of disciplined practice as a musician has readied him.

But life in the death business has its challenges. It’s socially unacceptable to all but those who, through the loss of a loved one, have benefitted from seeing it done well. Aspects of it are difficult and disgusting. And what musician has mortician in mind as a viable backup plan? For that matter, what musician’s wife has mortician’s wife in mind as a viable backup plan?

DEPARTURES, then, uses Daigo’s journey as an exploration of the nature of dignity, of love, of duty. The credit for its success goes, in no small part, to Masahiro Motoki, the actor who plays him. He’s very Japanese, meaning that he’s a contained man who would view the American practice of wearing one’s heart on one’s sleeve with horror. But Motoki brings us into his character’s desperation, his shame, and his ultimate fulfillment with wit and honor.

This is a marvelous story, one well worth your time. I give it my unqualified recommendation.

The Hurt Locker

Guy Pearce works in explosive ordnance disposal.  He’s an E-8, a senior enlisted man, and he goes by the book.  The book’s a good thing in a combat zone like Baghdad in 2004, but there’s no guarantee it’ll keep you alive.

And so we begin with Kathryn Bigelow’s THE HURT LOCKER, a film about combat soldiering in the modern age.  About more than just soldiering, THE HURT LOCKER is about the kind of people who soldier: those who are made for it, those who become made for it, and those who should never step outside the wire.  Made with knowledge, empathy, and skill, THE HURT LOCKER takes us into the lives of people who neutralize bombs for a living and into the hearts of people who have to rocket back and forth between the safety of their Army camp and the hostile uncertainty of urban warfare every single day.

While the movie suffers from feeling more like a series of set pieces than an organic narrative, Bigelow’s directorial style makes us feel that we’re on the ground with these people, ducking for cover with them and trying to manage our emotions with them.  And when (some of them) come home, we feel their confusion with civilian life and understand their need to return to the place they’d so desperately wished to escape.

While I’ve never wanted to be in the Army and I’ve never wanted to play with bombs, THE HURT LOCKER put me in the shoes of those who are and do.  It made me see through their eyes for a time, and I think that’s a worthwhile endeavor.

District 9

Hey, who’s this Sharlto Copley guy?

The actor gives perhaps the best performance of the year as Wikus Van De Merwe, a mid-level office functionary for the lazily named Multi-National United, or MNU. MNU has successfully contracted for authority to run District 9, the refugee camp for the disgusting aliens of the eponymous film, and it has gained the authority to relocate the squalid camp and its inhabitants to a location far away. It falls to the none-too-bright Van De Merwe to manage the program. He’s in over his head.

Let’s back up a minute. The aliens arrived around 1985, hungry and exhausted, when their ship came to a stop in the skies above Johannesburg. They looked horrible, smelled bad, and were both stupid and destructive – it was like having a giant frat house dropped right into the middle of your neighborhood. These beings were not going to integrate into human society, so there was just one thing for them: refugee status. But their foul refugee camp has been stinking up Johannesburg for far too long – it’s time to move them to the desert.

So now we’re back to Van De Merwe, the putz. He’s a jovial guy, happily torching Prawn (as the aliens are called) breeding grounds and kicking down doors, completely unaware of the monstrosity of his actions. Then something goes wrong, and Van De Merwe starts to see the other side of the coin.

That’s when Sharlto Copley begins to shine. We see his character break down, and Copley takes us through every step of the process. We believe his fear, his outrage, his crippling inability to process what’s happening as his world turns inside out. This guy shows us a breathtaking range of emotions and reactions, and never for one minute did I doubt that I was on a journey with a real human being.

The film overall? Oh, yeah, it’s terrific. It does what the best science fiction’s supposed to do: take an ambitious concept and use it to comment on an aspect of contemporary society in a fresh and possibly jarring way. It looks great, sounds great, and seamlessly weaves CGI and practical to create an immersive and believable world.

So see DISTRICT 9 if you like science fiction. See it if you like social commentary. Most of all, see it to enjoy a powerhouse performance from one Sharlto Copley. I can’t wait to see what this guy does next.

Airport '79

AIRPORT '79 is crap.

They couldn’t figure out what kind of airplane disaster movie they wanted to make, so they basically made two airplane disaster movies linked by a story out of a spy thriller.  The first one was “concorde must outmaneuver military aircraft to survive,” and the second was “concorde must crash land in the Alps.”  And they didn’t even think to include any cannibalism in that second one.

George Kennedy’s Mr. Patroni, the ace mechanic from the first film, airline exec from the second, and stander around from the third, is now a salty pilot with thousands of hours in every airplane ever made.  He shares the cockpit with Alain Delon, master of the poker face, and David Warner, who had much more fun in TRON.  A variety of B-listers, each with their own little story, ride in the back.  There’s much screaming and throwing about of paper, but little actual excitement.

In fact, I just didn’t care about anything that happened onscreen during AIRPORT ’79.  When it comes to this franchise, go for the first and third installments.  Numbers two and four aren’t worth your time.

Cries and Whispers

CRIES AND WHISPERS horrifies me.

Set in a home dominated by hellish reds of fire and blood, CRIES AND WHISPERS brings us into the lives of three sisters and a maid. One of the sisters, who may love the maid, lies on her deathbed. The other two have come to join the deathwatch, but they lack the compassion or the empathy or the basic human kindness to do more than go through the motions.

Much of creator Ingmar Bergman’s work deals with the existential horror of life without faith. In a post-faith world, to what bulwark can we cling? The four women of CRIES AND WHISPERS walk different paths, two destructive and two constructive. One chooses bitterness and despair. Another embodies narcissism. A third, kindness. And the last, perhaps the luckiest, never joined the antichristian revolt of Europe’s learned class.

We learn that kindness presents the only alternative to the post-faith world’s existential crisis. The cries of despair and the whispers of hate carry so much power that only faith and kindness, or perhaps simply kindness, can provide shelter. They can’t stop the selfish from acting selfishly, the cruel from behaving cruelly. But perhaps they can give some peace when the time comes to lay one’s head on one’s pillow.

But this is not a film in which everyone learns a handy lesson. The world of CRIES AND WHISPERS horrifies because it has us bear witness to the alternatives to kindness. It dramatizes the power of unkindness and the toll it demands upon those who exercise it and those upon whom it is exercised. And it leads to damnation, for one needn’t wait for death to be damned. We can bring it on ourselves and experience it today, tomorrow, and ‘til the day we die. CRIES AND WHISPERS shows us a great deal of horror in the days of its narrative, but it greatest horror lies in the knowledge that these people will go on living as they do to the end of their days.

Airport '77

The creators of AIRPORT ’77 must have realized what a failure AIRPORT ’75 had been, so they went in a different direction.  Instead of making an airborne disaster movie that tried to recreate how the various part of the Air Safety System work together in a crisis, they made a submarine rescue movie.

You read that right: a submarine rescue movie entitled AIRPORT ’77.  They put the airplane about forty feet underwater, see.  Once it’s there, engineers can look at the bulkheads and exclaim how they’ll buckle under just a little more pressure.  Crewmen can listen for the sounds of ships passing overhead.  A guy can volunteer for a deadly mission that may save the ship but will almost certainly drown him.  You know – submarine movie stuff.

Surprisingly, it works.  Jack Lemmon makes the transition from 747 pilot to submarine commander, as the situation requires, quite admirably.  Christopher Lee, as the volunteer, reminds us why we love him even though he was in the Prequels.  And Darren McGavin makes one hell of an engineer.

I’m not in the submarine rescue business, but I appreciated how the film depicted the use of Navy and Coast Guard search and rescue assets with (what I perceived as) remarkable accuracy.  Rescue swimmers did things like letting the sling touch the water before reaching for the cable.  Divers dressed and acted like divers.  Heck, there was even plenty of egregious hot helo action, to boot.

After AIRPORT ’75, I was ready for the worst.  ’77, however, redeems the franchise.  I can’t believe I’m writing this, but I actually look forward to AIRPORT ’79.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller

What a sad, pitiless, heartbreaking film.

Warren Beatty is McCabe, an entrepreneur who comes to a Cascade mining town and sets up shop running the world’s second-oldest business. Julie Christie is Mrs. Miller, a lifetime whore and a natural businesswoman. Together, they make a go of things. That is, until real businessmen come to town.

Robert Altman directed this film, giving it a textured, living feel of conversations half-heard, buildings half-completed, and people with lives of their own. The great Leonard Cohen provided the music, a folk-influenced group of songs that speak of loss and longing and the sad, sad hope for a better day.

I admit that I never really got Warren Beatty before this picture. He’s funny in HEAVEN CAN WAIT, but even there Jack McCorkle outclasses him. In MCCABE & MRS. MILLER, Beatty incandesces with hope and hustle and an innocently amoral belief in the sanctity of business and the assurances of older, supposedly wiser men. I believed in his character from the moment I saw him, and felt for his character on every step of his seemingly inexorable journey.

Julie Christie, however, I got the first time I saw her in DOCTOR ZHIVAGO. She’s smart, tough, and vulnerable, all at once. I believed in her past and her present, and I felt for her, as well.

Many other characters live in the world of this film, and Altman is the kind of director who gives them lives beyond the edges of the frame. Perhaps this is the film’s greatest accomplishment: I never felt that I was watching actors come on, hit their marks, and say their lines. I felt that I was something of a recording angel, swirling around and about these real people as they made their decisions and tried to find their respective places. This may be the film’s greatest accomplishment: the creation of an entire world in a snowy mountain town, and the conjuration of spirits to live in them.

Airport '75

AIRPORT got my hopes up.  The film was technically accurate (within reason), well plotted, and an all-around good time at the movies.  AIRPORT ‘75, unfortunately, does not live up to the standards of its predecessor.

Yes, the film has its share of big stars, including Myrna Loy, Gloria Swanson, and Larry Storch.  Yes, George Kennedy is back to play The George Kennedy Role.  And, yes, there’s another plane in peril.  But AIRPORT ’75 isn’t technically accurate, tightly plotted, or even all that much fun.

Let’s start with the technical inaccuracies.  Where AIRPORT’s Air Traffic Control calls sounded realistic to my professional ear, AIRPORT ‘75’s sounded like they were written by a guy whose only exposure to them came from watching AIRPORT.  The airplane itself did not respond in a manner consistent with the damage it was supposed to have taken at the end of the first act.  And the relationships between the corporate, governmental, and military stakeholders in the aviation system had no relation to reality whatsoever.  Part of the fun of AIRPORT was the sense it gave us that, in the event of a situation such as the one depicted in the film, this was how events could generally be expected to play out.  AIRPORT ’75 can’t provide that because it doesn’t even try to stay grounded in reality.

As I wrote, ’75 isn’t tightly plotted.  There are entire subplots about faulty engines and fuel leaks that go precisely nowhere.  There’s a long bit about sick girl that’s resolved so sloppily that it’s clear the screenwriters forgot all about her until the last minute.  And the film makes it difficult to invest in the plucky flight attendant who saves the day by painting her as mouth-breathing moron.

But at least AIRPORT ’75 can offer tedium.  It gives us pointless celebrity cameos, characters that do nothing, and a secondary female lead whose only function is to stand around and appeal to the subsection of the male demographic that isn’t attracted to the first female lead.  This is a bad movie and an unworthy successor to AIRPORT.  How I dread AIRPORT ’77.

Sudden Fear

The creepiest moment in SUDDEN FEAR occurs in the first five minutes. An actor onstage recites the lines, “You are all the women in my life. You are the sister I never had, the mother I’ve almost forgotten, the wife I have always dreamed of. There isn’t a relationship you can name which exists between a man and a woman in which I wouldn’t say, ’Let it be you.’” Jack Palance plays the actor. Joan Crawford plays the writer of those cringe-inducing words.

Ms. Crawford goes on to fire Mr. Palance in short order, and it’s in the first act of SUDDEN FEAR that she shines. She plays a driven, hard-bitten woman who knows what she wants and knows how to get it, and I bought her in the role. When she and Palance meet again, I settled in for a battle of titans. Alas, I didn’t get one, for Palance blows Crawford off the screen for the rest of the picture. Palance charms Crawford, you see, and Joan Crawford simply does not do “charmed.” While I believed in Palance’s actions and motives, the only thing I believed about Crawford was that she spent too much time at the makeup counter.

Fortunately, there’s more to SUDDEN FEAR than Joan Crawford. The story is first-class noir; Elmer Bernstein’s score is first rate; and the photography, well, the photography shows us yet again that black and white can suggest silky depths of which color can only dream.

So perhaps the female lead will put you off. But pay no mind, for Jack Palance makes up for it. SUDDEN FEAR may not hold a spot among the elite of the noirs, but it remains a solid entry all the same. It’s just the thing for a long trip.

Airport

Sooner or later, I had to get around to watching AIRPORT. Technically accurate (w/in the limits of the dramatic imperative), well cast, and remarkably engaging, this turned out to be a pretty doggone good movie.

Burt Lancaster plays an airport manager having the worst day of his life. A blizzard is making conditions at his airport the worst they’ve been in ten years. Some bonehead pilot has taxied off the primary runway and into a snowdrift. His wife’s mad at him. His boss is on his butt. And now his jerkwad brother in law, a no-good airline pilot (and really, is there any other kind?) just declared an emergency because some moron blew a hole in the side of his plane. Someone picked the wrong day to quit sniffing glue.

This is a well-made picture. The folks behind it did their research, because they nailed many of the technical details. Air Traffic Control calls sound like Air Traffic Control calls. Cockpit banter sounds like cockpit banter. Things function and people work together in a manner that generally mirrors my experience in the airline industry. That surprised me, and it helped me stay in the moment for the duration of the film.

Further, AIRPORT is exceptionally well cast. I don’t know whether this was the first all-star disaster movie, but you certainly can’t go wrong with performers like the aforementioned Mr. Lancaster, Dean Martin as the no-good pilot, George Kennedy in what would come to be known as “The George Kennedy Role,” and even Helen Hayes as the little old felonious lady.

Finally, the film moves right along, making two hours and sixteen minutes fly right by. Knowing that we know it’s going to be a disaster movie, AIRPORT takes its time setting up the crisis. We get to know the featured players. We come to care about them. When the hits start coming, we’ve locked in. I bit my nails nearly to the end credits.

While I never watch films I don’t think I’ll enjoy, I fired up AIRPORT half-expecting a campy, ridiculous pantomime of a film. I’m pleasantly surprised, and I look forward to AIRPORT 75.

Paris 36

PARIS 36 is a wonderful film, which I think rare among pictures whose charm rests upon major assumptions about their audiences. PARIS 36, you see, assumes that you love Paris. I can’t think of a safer bet. If you’re alive, you love Paris. Even if you’ve never been to Paris, you love Paris - you just don’t know it yet.

So, what happens in PARIS 36? Well, young gamins sing and play the accordion along the banks of the Seine, the cathedral of Notre Dame in the background. Lovers meet on rooftops, where the city glitters below them and the Eiffel Tower shines in the distance. Evildoers skulk in alleyways, true friends stand together, and love conquers all. Oh, and there’s a show. Of course, it must go on.

For PARIS 36 is a show picture, a movie about theater people and the romances and dangers of their lives. Its production numbers, even its disastrous production numbers, burst with a love for performance and an exuberance that lifts the heart. It’s exciting, and fun, and everything a night out at the show can promise.

I loved it. I loved its vistas even as I saw them for the scenery they were. I loved its people and its songs and its enthusiastic embrace of all things Life. I particularly loved how it made me fall in love with Paris all over again.

See this movie.

Extract

For a comedy, EXTRACT isn’t very funny. It’s kinda sad, and it kinda rocks along pleasantly for an hour and a half on Jason Bateman’s likeability, but I only laughed twice (and that was in the first fifteen minutes).

Bateman plays the owner of a flavoring company. A chemist, he created a better vanilla extract. He rolled that creation into a modest operation that employs about fifty people and pays the mortgage on one of those ghastly mcmansions out in the exurbs. So he’s doing ok. But he’s tired of the business. He thinks his wife has lost interest in sex. He’s ready for a change.

Change comes in the form of Mila Kunis, a small-time grifter looking for a big-time score. There’s your movie.

EXTRACT has some solid things going for it. Bateman has perfect comic timing, and a supporting cast that includes Ben Affleck, J.K. Simmons, and Kristen Wiig hits all the right notes. But it felt more bittersweet than funny, and I came to it looking for funny.

So there you have it. Extract’s fine. I actually feel a little bad about not flat-out recommending it. If you like bittersweet, however, this one might be for you.

What I Thought About What I Saw: 2009

“Best Of” lists give me heartburn. I rarely see films in the theater, so I never see the year-end prestige releases in time for year-end wrap up articles. That said, here are the top and bottom ten films of 2009. Or at least, here are the top and bottom ten of the 2009 releases I’ve seen so far.

First, the best:

10. THIRST

A Catholic priest contracts vampirism through a tainted blood transfusion. Everything’s under control, right up to the moment he falls in love. Unexpected, innovative, and scary, THIRST continues director Chan Wook-park’s streak of outstanding films.

9. THE HANGOVER

I don’t particularly like THE HANGOVER. It’s crass. It’s rude. It’s like a friend from you distance yourself once you figure out what he’s all about. But doggone is it funny. It’s funny during its introduction, it’s funny for all three acts, and it’s even funny during the closing credits. I just don’t think I’d have it over for dinner.

8. CORALINE

Coming from an original story by the great Neil Gaiman, CORALINE creates a complex, layered girl in its lead role and plunges her into worlds both delightful and terrifying. Remarkably, this film hit just the right note of scariness for my fourth-grader. It spoke to the existential fear of the child in ways the child can understand, but not in ways that’ll make him wake up screaming. Quite an achievement. Quite a film.

7. DUPLICITY

Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson walk away with this adult thriller about a couple of corporate spies and their lives, loves, plots, and counterplots. Julia Roberts and Clive Owen play the spies, and they handle their repartee with excellent timing and great wit. But Giamatti and Wilkinson as the competing corporate titans who employ them – wow!

6. PARIS 36

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who love Paris, and those who don’t know that they love Paris. If you love Paris, you’ll love this tribute to the City between the wars, when romance was in the air and anything was possible. Yeah, the heroes are Reds. But let’s face it: industrialists are boring. And the song and dance numbers? Fantastic!

5. CHOCOLATE

The tagline reads, “She’s a special needs girl with a need to kick some ass.” Laying down pretty much every brand of fu imaginable, dancer JeeJa Yanin makes for a convincing martial artist in this creative, well choreographed, and altogether entertaining Thai martial arts picture from director Prachya Pinkaew, the man behind TOM YUM GOONG and ONG-BAK.

4. STAR TREK

Having grown up on the original “Star Trek” TV series, I was all set to hate this reboot. But then I sat in a theater in Fort Lauderdale and got caught up in this big, goofy, ridiculous confection. STAR TREK, far from the train wreck I expected, is big, good-natured, rewatchable fun. It’s also my biggest surprise of the year.

3. DRAG ME TO HELL

Oh, Sylvia Ganush, you had me at “I don’t want your cat, you dirty pork queen!” As I wrote in my original review, DRAG ME TO HELL is everything you could want in a movie entitled “Drag Me to Hell.” It’s gory, it’s scary, it’s funny, and it’s so far over the top that it goes down the other side, turns around, and comes back over the top again. If a Sam Raimi horror movie with mystic séances, possessed goats, and gypsy curses doesn’t do it for you, you must not like horror movies.

2. GOODBYE SOLO

Here’s a small film about regular people that avoids all the bromides about life, death, and family; all while being one of the most powerful movies about life, death, and family released this year. Red West is weariness, and Souleyman Sy Savane is the immigrant experience. It has been months since I’ve seen this picture, and I still can’t get it out of my mind.

1. UP

Not only is up the best picture of 2009, I’m seriously considering calling it the best film of the decade. Not only is it the wisest film of the year, but it’s also the most beautiful, the most touching, and the most likely to challenge and entertain viewers aged five to one hundred five. I saw it in 3-D during its theatrical run and I’ve seen it on blu-ray at home. In either presentation, it’s magnificent. This is a towering achievement from a studio that practically has “towering achievement factory” on its letterhead.

Now, the worst:

10. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS’ fantasy depiction of the United States Army adopting the tactics of Al Qaeda in Iraq to win WWII was obscene. Yes, Tarantino knows how to manage all the technical aspect of filmmaking. Yes, the projection onto smoke was brilliant. But I can’t help but think that this film was an experiment in getting Western audiences to cheer for the tactics of the enemies of our civilization.

9. BIG MAN JAPAN

I don’t ask for much from my movies, but I do like to know what the heck is going on. BIG MAN JAPAN is an hour and twenty minutes of “WTH was that” topped with ten minutes of “WTF was that.” Neither funny nor comprehensible, BIG MAN JAPAN asks us to laugh at its characters. I don’t laugh at people.

8. CRANK 2

Look, this is a bad movie. Never mind that it’s compulsively watchable – Cheetos are compulsively edible, but they’re still bad food. Sexist, racist, ageist, and just about every –ist you can imagine, this film has no redeeming qualities. I can’t wait for the next one.

7. THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE

THE FIRST DATE EXPERIENCE would serve as a more accurate title. More specifically, the part of the first date when you sit across the table from your companion and realize that she is a wholly uninteresting human being. The part of the first date when you realize there isn’t going to be a second date.

6. TULPAN

I wanted to like TULPAN. I really did. But the film gave me no reason to care about any of the people onscreen. Where do you when apathy is the best you can muster?

5. UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS

I don’t care about vampires who aren’t Korean Catholic priests and I don’t care about werewolves who aren’t attacking platoons of British soldiers and I don’t care about women dressed up in fetish gear unless they’re wearing leprechaun costumes. UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS adds nothing of interest to the vampire, werewolf, or fetishwear genres. Pass.

4. ADVENTURELAND

I fail to perceive how the events of ADVENTURELAND could intrigue anyone who isn’t directly involved in the events of ADVENTURELAND. This is a movie about people who need to get over themselves, featuring a protagonist who needs to get over himself. I got over it pretty quickly.

3. HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU

HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU made no attempt to engage me, the straight male viewer. I felt like the fifth wheel at a girls’ night out.

2. WOLVERINE

I like Hugh Jackman. I like Liev Schreiber. Heck, I even Will i Am. This overwrought film wastes the talents of all involved and, in the process, wastes our time. WOLVERINE tells us nothing we didn’t already know about the character, and it takes an hour and a half to do it.

1. THE MUTANT CHRONICLES

From writing to direction to editing to music to acting to, well, everything, THE MUTANT CHRONICLES earns its position as the biggest train wreck of 2009. This film fails on every level and has nothing to recommend it. In fact, it’s so bad that I feel bad about grouping it in with the rest of the movies on this list, since they at least were legitimate movies. I’ve seen better student films from my buddies in film school.

Thirst

I love how fiction can surprise me.

I thought the vampire genre had been pretty well played out. We’ve had vampire superheroes, vampire messiahs, even vampire glitter queens. Where else could the genre go?

Then 2009 came along, and two films from two continents reinvigorated the genre. First, there was Sweden’s LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, a staggering work of beauty and empathy about Eli, the 400 year old vampire and Oskar, the boy who’s either her latest victim or her greatest love. Now, there’s THIRST, from Korean master director Chan-Wook Park (JSA, The Vengeance Trilogy). It’s about a Catholic priest who unwittingly becomes a vampire.

Wait – a priest who becomes a vampire? I know: what a hook! THIRST has more going for it than its hook, however. As played by Kang-ho Song (THE HOST, JSA, MEMORIES OF MURDER, SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE), this priest becomes a tangle of conflicting duties and desires, his face evoking a man who is emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually out of his league. He’d only wanted to do some (self abnegating) good, volunteering for a risky vaccine trial with a high probability of death. But when he survives, finding himself with new abilities and, oh yes, hungers, he doesn’t know what to do. Imagine Thomas à Kempis with a sudden, insatiable desire for, well, everything.

Song’s Father Sang-heon navigates these waters as best he can, and director Park keeps us in his shoes every step of the way. No matter where the story goes, we never disengage; we never stop believing. By the time the other shoe drops and Park has revealed his last horror (for oh yes, this is a horror movie), he’s wrung us out.

This movie works on every level. Along with its Swedish counterpart, it gives me new hope for the future of the genre.

Star Trek: Generations

History will treat STAR TREK; GENERATIONS unkindly.

I’ve long considered it a mildly successful entry in the Star Trek canon, weaving serious themes of addiction and mortality into a decent space adventure. Upon seeing it with my 9-year-old, however, I realize that it presumes too much. It presumes familiarity with and affection for characters from two long-cancelled television series. It presumes empathy for an android who, for newcomers to Trek, is just another machine. Most damning, its most important moments represent a passing of the torch from one Captain Kirk to a Captain Picard – moments with zero meaning for the viewer who grew up on neither one nor the other.

The story is standard Star Trek. It uses pseudoscience to maneuver Kirk and Picard together, puts a populated world at stake, and ends with world-saving fisticuffs with a madman. It takes character detours from time to time, concerning itself with the emotional development of a robot whom it assumes we care about from one of the television series. It even ends on a hopeful note, with the promise of new adventures to come.

Though I didn’t care about any of the new generation characters, never having watched their series, I cared enough about Kirk and Chekhov and Sulu and Scotty to carry me through. My son, however, didn’t know any of these people and, since the film never took the time to involve him, didn’t particularly care what happened to them.

I can understand that. It’s why future generations won’t go for this one.

The Sound of Music

This spring, I’ll celebrate my 18th anniversary. Next fall, I’ll have known my beautiful bride for fully half my life.

I just found out that she loves THE SOUND OF MUSIC as much as I do.

Turns out we share the same childhood experience of gathering for the annual broadcast of this venerable musical. Turns out we smiled at the same moments, knew the lyrics to the same songs.

I don’t think she has a crush on Julie Andrews. But hey, if she does, I’m down with that.

For this is a great, great film. From the beautiful aerial photography at the beginning to the introduction of the problematic Maria to her integration into the Von Trapp family and on through the resolution, this film carries us along on the beauty of the Alps, the magnetism of Andrews and costar Christopher Plummer, and as fine a songbook as one is likely to find in the American Musical.

Sure, some elements thud. I never have cared about the romantic prospects of the eldest Von Trapp girl. Not every number reaches great heights. But on the whole, this picture just sings. It’s beautiful to look at, beautiful to listen to, just plain beautiful.

Who’d have guessed that a woman who would marry me would have such great taste.

The Phantom Menace

I see no point in writing about all the ways THE PHANTOM MENACE goes wrong. I could make jokes at its expense, but funnier people have done so. I could enumerate its flaws, but more perceptive people have done so. I could ignore it, but I have young boys – so that’s out.

Instead, I’ll focus on the one thing THE PHANTOM MENACE gets right: its depiction of the adventures of jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi. I could have gone for a whole film of Liam Neeson’s sage master and Ewan MacGregor’s enthusiastic apprentice swashbuckling their way through the galaxy. The actors share a chemistry that makes us believe they’re friends and comrades, they have the athletic ability to make us believe they’re capable of the fights and stunts we see in the film, and they possess the charisma to make us want to believe in them.

I’ll see this movie again - as I said, I have young boys – and I’ll see it again after that. When I do, I won’t focus on the film in front me. Rather, I’ll imagine the film that could have been. That oughtta get me through.

Holiday

HOLIDAY is a perfect movie.

It comes from great source material, a play by Philip Barry (who also wrote THE PHILADELPHIA STORY). Donald Ogden Steward who adapted THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, wrote the screenplay. The great George Cukor, the man behind ADAM’S RIB, THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, and A STAR IS BORN, directed. It starred Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn, and Edward Everett Horton led the supporting cast. Folks, you can’t screw this up.

And the people behind this one didn’t. The story, about a self-made man who falls in love with a young woman of privilege, provides a wonderful platform for Golden Age Hollywood banter and set pieces that radiate goodwill. Everything and everyone looks fabulous, Grant and Hepburn make their lines pop, and Horton assays yet another performance that backs his claim to the title of Best Supporting Actor Ever.

A digression on Horton: this guy really is the Best Supporting Actor Ever. He had perfect comic timing, a marvelous ability to move from stuffed shirt to Bohemian to calculator to hapless goofball without a hitch, and a gut-level likeability that has few parallels. I first noticed Horton in LOST HORIZON, which I saw nearly twenty years ago. Ever since, his appearance on the screen has upped the amperage of every picture in which I’ve seen him. The guy is just plain tops, and his picture should be on the poster of all the films in his body of work.

Back to HOLIDAY. My only question is why it took so long for this film to appear on my radar. It’s as funny, beautiful, and engaging as BRINGING UP BABY and THE PHILADELPHIA STORY. Why doesn’t it have the same pull on the popular imagination? Never mind. It only matters whether this film works for you. Give it a chance: I guarantee that it will.

College

Buster Keaton’s COLLEGE begins well enough, with a nicely paced comic bit involving a high school commencement speech, a rainstorm, and a wool suit. Unfortunately, it slows down as soon as its protagonist (Keaton) gets to college.

The character, you see, was a high school bookworm. Once in college, he decides to go out for sports. We’re expected to believe that the lithe Keaton is so incapable of athletic endeavor that he must have some kind of neuromuscular disorder, and we’re supposed to laugh at his hapless attempts at sport.

Problem is, I’m not a fan of laughing at people, and I didn’t laugh at Keaton. And since I didn’t laugh at him and never really believed in him, I didn’t care by the time he had to use his hard-won skills to rescue his ladylove. But even if I did care, the film’s epilogue would spoil it for me. I hate to get into spoiler territory (even if the film in question is 81 years old), but this film’s penultimate shot conveys such cynicism and bitterness that it sucked whatever goodwill the film had built right out of it.

Over the course of his career, Buster Keaton made some the greatest films ever. Sadly, COLLEGE is not among them.

Gates of Heaven

Errol Morris’s GATES OF HEAVEN improves with time. The more I think about it, the more I like and respect it.

It’s a documentary about the pet cemetery business, focusing on two ventures: one failed and one successful. A man who thought his dream was greater than mere business reality led the failed venture. A man who put business first led the successful one. As a study in contrasting business styles, it makes sense. But I think it’s going for something more.

I think that GATES OF HEAVEN tries to get at the nature of dreams, be they dreams of eternal union with one’s beloved pets, dreams of pursuing noble ventures, or dreams of financial, artistic, or even emotional success. While the whole pet cemetery (I keep wanting to type “Pet Sematary.” Thanks a lot, Mr. King.) thing mystifies me (bury it in the back yard, have a good cry, and move on, already), the need to dream sits right in my wheelhouse.

For isn’t that the uniquely human thing, the trait that sets us apart from everything else? Every animal eats, sleeps, procreates, and even reasons to the extent that it can. Only humans dream of a better day. Only humans fear failure or build philosophies of success or need to reconcile the hard, cold truth of death with the intuitive sense that there’s got to be more to life than, well, living.

GATES OF HEAVEN, doesn’t tell us, “This is the nature of dreams.” Rather, it works like a zen koan. It invites to observe it, consider it, meditate upon it. Like a koan, it opens itself to us as we open ourselves to it. GATES OF HEAVEN is worth the effort.

The Girlfriend Experience

So the closing credits scroll on THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE and I turn to my wife and say, “I don’t know anything about these characters that I didn’t know in the first fifteen minutes.”

Sasha Grey plays a middle – high class hooker. She appears to be primarily concerned with running her business and cultivating her clients, and making as much money as she can as fast as she can. Chris Santos plays her boyfriend, a personal trainer who appears to be primarily concerned with running his business, cultivating his clients, and making as much money as he can as fast as he can. Hovering over them and their clients is the financial meltdown of ’08.

And that’s it, really. As the film goes on and its characters’ fortunes change, they appear to remain essentially the same people they were going in. One could argue that Grey’s character learns a life lesson along the way, but I submit that anyone in her line of work would have learned that particular lesson long before the opening credits hit the screen.

Perhaps the film works less as a drama and more as a (if you’ll forgive the overused phrase) tone poem. THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE evokes a sense of uncertainty and longing, one that permeates not only the lives of its characters but American society in the dark year of 2008. That’s fine, but hey, I was in America in 2008. Take me somewhere new.

Sherlock Holmes

I never believed that Robert Downey, Jr. was Sherlock Holmes. I never believed that Jude Law was Dr. Watson. I never believed that Rachel McAdams was anyone other than Rachel McAdams. I never believed. I never believed. I never believed.

Perhaps the movie was spoiled by the previews that came before it. Seeing Robert Downey, Jr. doing his shtick as Iron Man made me realize that the guy’s been playing the same character since the superlative KISS KISS BANG BANG. By the time he came onscreen in the feature, I was already done with him.

Perhaps it was spoiled by its seeming love for Victorian London, surely one of the most depressing combinations of city and era in history. As the film went from one CGI vista to the next, I sensed that it was trying to wow me, or at least draw me in. Instead, I merely thought, “The English exploited the world merely to fund that $#!^hole?”

Perhaps its casting choices killed it. McAdams is roughly ten years too young to be her character. Mark Strong, as the villain, is so much better than everyone else that he made me wonder why he isn’t starring in major motion pictures. And the leads, well, they are who they are and they play who they are.

Then again, the problem may have been the story. There’s all this business about an ominous raven, which we know (since this is a Holmes story) is just so much jerking us around. The pièce de résistance of the villain’s evil scheme is to bring the US back into the empire. Oh, the horror! Soccer! Fish and chips! “Spaced,” “Fawlty Towers,” and “Walking with Prehistoric Beasts”! Give me a break. By the time the movie gets around to flat-out ripping off The Da Vinci Code, I was through.

My wife, on the other hand, enjoyed the heck out of it.  Then again, she'd happily watch Robert Downey, Jr. fold socks, so your mileage may vary. I wanted to like SHERLOCK HOLMES. I was ready to invest in SHERLOCK HOLMES. But I just couldn’t suspend my disbelief.

It's a Wonderful Life

You know about aspirational marketing, right? It's selling not just a product, but a lifestyle, a self image. It's pretty much everything at REI, which we buy not because we need a high-quality oceangoing kayak, but because we want to the be kind of people who need a high-quality oceangoing kayak. It's why everyone in Apple commercials are young and hip, because hey, we're young and hip, right? It's about the difference between who we are and whom we wish to be.

IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE is aspirational marketing for the noble life. George Bailey is the person we want to be, an individual who puts others before self, who stands up for what's right, who meets his responsibilities kindly and gently. And we see him garner his rewards in ways large and small, from the inner satisfactions of doing the right thing under hard conditions to the outer ones of earning the regard of his friends, relatives, and neighbors. George is even played by the man we want to be, an individual who spent his life doing the right thing; earned the regard of his friends, relatives and neighbors; and even rose to the rank of brigadier general in the Air Force Reserve. The supporting cast, of course, feels just right after all these years: Donna Reed is luminous, Lionel Barrymore is so evil he reminds us of Dick Cheney, and Henry Travers is just plain delightful as AS2 Clarence Odbody.

The whole thing works because it wears its heart on its sleeve. Frank Capra returned from WWII determined to celebrate the heroism of the common man, and IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE doesn't deviate from its theme by one iota. Each episode of George's life speaks to the idea of doing one's best within one's sphere, and its culmination in inspiring the people of Bedford Falls to do the same inspires us. It inspires us to aspire to be better people.

That's something I can settle down to every Christmas Eve.

PS Last night's screening represented the first time my 9-yr-old sat for the whole thing. I'm so thrilled that he enjoyed it.

Here's a review by my eldest son:

I just watched STARWARS CLONE WARS VOLUME 1 and it’s not good. Well, I don’t think so. The new computer animated one’s better. I think they should’ve given the clone troopers more personality. They didn’t fail that in the new computer animated series. By the way I’m 9 years old. I think they made their lines to short, & didn’t bother givin’ ‘em a stronger accent . In STARWARS CLONEWARS VOLUME 2 they gave them more personality, but still not as good as the new computer animated series. The new computer animated series is AWSOME!! ...by the way.

Avatar

I saw AVATAR with my wife. We agreed that Cameron has created a beautiful and interesting world, but she lost her suspension of disbelief during the second-act crisis while I kept it going right up to the end credits.

I think that where she saw a simplistically anti-military romanticization of neolithic culture, I saw a golden age of science fiction, Edgar Rice Burroughs - type story brought to life. This is "Astounding Science Fiction," illustrated by Frazetta and rendered in fabulous 3-D.

So what if the story is standard pulp? This is pulp done right, filled with treats for science fiction fans (Sigourney Weaver taking on "the corporation," a Vasquez - type character kicking butts, multiple nods to _Dune_ and other classics of the "warrior gone native" subgenre), astoundingly beautiful environments for the spectacle - seekers, and good old-fashioned Hollywood liberalism for everyone else.

You wanna see a completely realized alien world? Here ya go. You wanna see stuff blown up real good? Here ya go. You wanna revel in a favorite genre's pulpy past? Have at it. AVATAR offers all these delights, and in spades.

I got what I paid for.

La Dolce Vita

I need to see every Fellini movie in the catalogue.

8 1/2 is the best film I've ever seen. LA DOLCE VITA makes the top 10. I'm having a Kurosawa moment, a time when a filmmaker blooms in my consciousness as a major, defining force; a time when I realize that I must seek out an entire oeuvre, consume it, internalize it. If these two pictures of Fellini's are so earth-shakingly brilliant, I must discover what else is out there.

Fellini's meditation on what actually constitutes "the sweet life" is beautiful, insightful, silly, and profound. Marcello Mastroianni (Fellini's Mifune) is at his most charming and shallow best, and he anchors a picture that says nearly everything there is to say about the disconnect between who we are, who we think we are, and who we want to be.

What a magnificent picture.

Gommorah

You gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women.

--Tony Montana, Scarface

The average crack dealer earns $3.30 an hour and stands a 25% chance of getting killed in a four-year period.

--Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics

Two teenage boys find an arms cache of a local cell of the Camorra, or Neapolitan mob. They gleefully help themselves, then play among the ruins of a dilapidated housing project, pointing their weapons at one another and shouting, “I’m Tony Montana!” “No, I’m Tony Montana!”

Their time would have been better spent reading Levitt and Dubner.

GOMORRAH, the searing film based on the nonfiction book of the same name, takes us into the lives of the people on the lower tiers of the multi-level marketing scheme that is Italian organized crime. It does so at an interesting time, mostly due to the unintended consequences of an Italian crackdown on Camorra leaders in the Naples area. See, Naples had been at peace, its criminal factions in equilibrium. But then all the top bosses went to prison, all the politicians got reelected, and all hell broke loose. Without the bosses to impose order, Naples became a free-for-all. It was a blood-in-the-streets kind of city while ambitious young thugs slugged it out to become the new bosses. And that’s where this film comes in. GOMORRAH puts us in a world in which two cells, formerly part of a larger organization but now independent (presumably, due to the imprisonment of their common boss), fight for domination of a particularly nasty part of Naples. As is so often the case, of course, the innocents and foot soldiers do most of the dying while other men get rich.

The film weaves five storylines into a depressing, yet compelling tapestry of life in the business end of organized crime. It does so through a near-documentarian photographic style, careful casting, and smart editing that keeps us moving among stories without ever losing the thread. This is a film worth watching.

I've Loved You So Long

This picture got mixed reviews, but I had to see it on the strength of its title. I'VE LOVED YOU SO LONG sounds so plaintive, so fraught with history, that I had to find out what the film was about.

Kristin Scott Thomas has just served fifteen years in prison when her sister picks her up at the airport. Thomas is damaged, reserved, isolated, and nearly incapacitated. Her will is broken, and she's making up for it with anger and bravado and any armor she can muster. But prison was then and this is now.

And so we spend two hours with Thomas, her sister, and the family her sister has built. We get to know them, and we watch as Thomas slowly grows real strength under the shell of that anger and withdrawal. The actress carries this film with her performance, for it's a picture with few distractions. She carries it well, and we believe in her and her journey because she makes us believe.

This is a careful film, an empathetic film, and a worthwhile film. I'm glad I saw it.

Night and the City

Poor Harry Fabian. He's a sap, a sucker, an opportunist and a two-bit hustler. And he's the lead character in a noir picture, so you just know things will not go well for him. He begins the film on the run. Even in the opening moments, you know he's used to it.

As played by Richard Widmark, Fabian is calculating and naive, manipulative and painfully innocent, and nearly always in way over his head. Here's a guy who desperately wants to be somebody, to provide a life of ease and plenty to the one he loves. But he doesn't understand that ease and plenty are words that do not go together.

Fabian lives in London, photographed in beautiful black and white by Max Greene. This is a London of menace and long shadows, of big dreams and big friends and betrayal in, of all things, the sunlight. Under the direction of Jules Dassin, NIGHT AND THE CITY dares Fabian to guess what's around that next corner, what's going on behind peoples' eyes. Poor Harry, poor poor Harry. He isn't any good at it at all.

NIGHT AND THE CITY works because he feel for Harry, scoundrel that he is, and we root for him to find that life of ease and plenty. But this is a noir picture, and we know how things go. So we root anyway, and we try to look around the corners and behind the eyes, and we revel in a job well don.

Easy Virtue

EASY VIRTUE, based on the Noel Coward play, starts funny and gets serious. By the time it does so, we’ve so bonded with its characters that we care why things got serious and find ourselves invested in how things turn out.

Jessica Biel, interesting for the first time in her career, stars as the earnest American bride who accompanies her new husband to his country estate somewhere outside of London. She wants to join the family. The family wants to consume her. Only one side can win. Kristin Scott Thomas is the mother, horrified that her son hasn’t married the aristocrat next door. Colin Firth is the father, back from the war but never really back from the war. And the sisters, well, they’re going to have line up behind somebody now, won’t they?

And there you go. The film rocks along pleasantly for an hour and a half. I laughed a few times, smiled more, and generally enjoyed it. Not bad.

Big Man Japan

So, BIG MAN JAPAN. Hmm. Errg. Umm, well, uhhh.

What the &^(% was that?

I mean, WHAT THE &^(% WAS THAT?

Here’s a mockumentary about a complete loser whose job is to absorb 2.5 gigawatts of electricity and turn into Big Man Japan V, a gigantic loser who fights kaiju monsters in the cities of Japan. The Japanese people hate him for wasting electricity, breaking stuff, and getting chubby. He’ll never be as cool as his grandpa, Big Man Japan IV. I think we’re supposed to laugh at him, but I just felt bad. I think we’re supposed to laugh at the fantastical monsters he battles, but they just creeped me out.

Nevertheless, there is a lot going on here. BIG MAN JAPAN cleverly criticizes Japanese and American cultures and the fusion of the two. It laments the devolution of kaiju from the reflection of a nation’s fears to silly, cheap kids’ entertainment. It probably mocks Japanese figures with its idiosyncratic monster designs, but I’m insufficiently familiar with Japanese culture to get the jokes. But more than anything else, it baffles me.

The next morning, my nine-year-old (who’ll sit through all the subtitles in the world if there are giant monsters battling above them) started querying me about the film pretty much from the moment his head left the pillow. Being the sophisticate he is, he was trying to parse the criticisms of Ultraman from those of Power Rangers. Me, I couldn’t do it. It’s two days later, and the best I can come up with is, “What the &^(% was that?”

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

I once went to Rome. When my wife asked me what I thought of the city, I told her, “It’s as if there’s been a part of me missing all my life, and I never knew it until I came here. It’s the part of my that has been to Rome.”

THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR (MUMMY 3, or M3, hereafter) is like that. There had been a part of me missing all this time, and I never knew until I saw this film. Now, however, I have seen a yeti kick a field goal. I feel complete.

Never before in the history of mankind has there come a time when a man or woman has had to decide whether or not he or she is the kind of person who is willing to plunk down good money to see a yeti kick a field goal. But I have to ask, if you aren’t the kind of person who’s willing to see a yeti kick a field goal, then what kind of person are you? What chill winds blow through the bleak corridors of your soul?

Of course, M3 offers more than a yeti kicking a field goal. It features Michelle “I jumped a motorcycle onto the roof of a moving train” Yeoh swordfighting Jet “I don’t need a moniker because I’m Jet Li” Li. Sure, the scene’s so poorly edited that you’d think you were watching two anonymous stuntpeople instead of master practitioners of their craft, but still. The movie has silly jokes and outrageous action and everyone involved appears to be having a great time. What more do you want in a movie entitled THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR?

I mean, beside a yeti kicking a field goal.