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.