Queued!
The Best and Worst of Netflix
in 101 Independent Movie Reviews, Vol. 2
By Christopher Smith
For Erich, who has heard all of these read aloud at least once.
Thank you.
"Queued: The Best and Worst of Netflix in 101 Independent Reviews, Vol. 2"
By Christopher Smith
Published by Christopher Smith at Smashwords.
Copyright 2010 by Christopher Smith
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
All rights reserved worldwide.
Movies:
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
Due to the great response to the first volume of “Queued! The Best and Worst of Netflix in 101 Independent Movie Reviews, Vol. 1,” I decided to immediately follow it with a second volume.
About me--and the reasons behind these books: In my 14 years as a film critic for a major daily newspaper in the Northeast, at which I’ve written more than 4,000 movie reviews, the question I’m asked most often is this: “What should I add to my Netflix queue?”
It’s not a surprising question.
Netflix, Blockbuster, Wal-Mart and any number of other online DVD rental stores is the way many are receiving their DVDs and Blu-ray discs. And why not? It’s inexpensive, and they make it ridiculously easy to order what you want. No reason to leave home. Just bring up their website, scan the tens of thousands of offerings, choose something that looks promising, in the mail it comes. And then you hope for the best.
It’s that last part that I want to remove from the equation. It’s also the sheer number of offerings that led me to write the second volume of this book, which takes a sampling of the thousands of reviews I’ve written over the years, and gives you a solid idea of what movies you absolutely should add to your queue, and what movies you absolutely should leave queueless.
Several major films are reviewed here, but what I set out to accomplish with the second volume of the “Queued!” series is to suggest films you might have heard of only in passing, or perhaps not at all, which is exactly what I did in the first volume.
There are gems out there that receive little attention because, frankly, they lack the massive marketing campaigns enjoyed by most blockbusters. In all the noise those movies make, you might have missed such terrific films as “Transamerica,” “Babel,” “The Squid and the Whale,” “Kinsey” and “Man on Wire,” to name a few.
These movies are richly drawn and worth your time. Have you heard of them? Seen them? Maybe, maybe not. But if you haven’t, Netflix at the very least has them, and by adding them to your queue, they can offer you a swell night with a movie you might never have given a chance.
Mixed into this group of reviews are some less-favorable choices, movies that receive such a massive financial push from the studios, the very idea that they’ve become part of the landscape suggests they might be worth viewing.
And so you rent them. And a sour feeling overcomes you when you realize you’ve been had. While this book focuses mainly on what you should add to your queue, a handful of some well-known yet terrible films have been selected to help save you time and disappointment.
As a bonus, these particular reviews tend to be the most fun to read.
The third volume of “Queued!” will be coming shortly. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this second volume of “Queued!” and use it to find movies that offer escape, insight and entertainment.
You can purchase the first volume of “Queued!” here.
Christopher Smith
September 2, 2010
The new J.J. Abrams movie, “Star Trek,” is an anomaly.
At first glance, the whole premise behind the film seems illogical and a set-up for failure--rebooting the iconic "Star Trek" franchise with an origins story meant to give depth and a new backstory to characters we’ve come to know intimately over the past 43 years.
Pulling off such a feat meant wedding what we didn't know to what we absolutely knew. If just the right tone wasn't struck and if the story failed to be a perfect match--there was no room for error here, particularly not with the fanbase surrounding this series--all would be lost and this fleet would sink.
This is the same dilemma George Lucas faced when he went back to the cineplex with 1999's “Star Wars: Episode 1--The Phantom Menace," which was a critical bust, straining to give new life to Luke and company in a movie that never built a convincing bridge between the new material and the entrenched older material.
That’s precisely how "Star Trek" could have gone down, but guess what? In Abrams' capable hands, the film is hugely satisfying. Smart, jaunty and savvy, the movie takes Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman’s script and races with it, boldly opening a new chapter in the series while giving it a fresh shot of life in the process. Expect at least two more spin-offs from this movie, because that’s how Hollywood rolls when it has a hit franchise on its hands.
The film’s main focus is where it should be--on the relationship between James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto), who don’t exactly hit it off when they meet as young adults. When we first see them, each is emerging from difficult childhoods. Kirk lost his father in battle, and it affected him negatively--he’s a brawler with an attitude. Since Spock is half Vulcan and half human, he struggles not only with whether to eschew emotions completely, but also how to find his place in a prejudiced world that refuses to accept him.
It’s later that they come to throes as the wildly unpredictable Kirk manages to land himself aboard the maiden voyage of the U.S.S. Enterprise, from which he’s been banned. Amid the tension that erupts between him and Spock (Pine and Quinto are excellent in this movie), the film reveals its driving force--the evil Romulan, Nero (Eric Bana), is determined to ruin Spock and take out his planet, thus murdering billions of Vulcans. It’s a set up that offers a wealth of Academy Award-worthy special effects, but truth be told, they take a back seat to the realization of the characters themselves.
It’s the cast that sells this movie. Uhura is beautifully realized by Zoe Saldana, who has enough sauce and vinegar to take on the likes of Spock in ways that might surprise plenty. Others are equally good--Karl Urban as Bones, an unlikely but spot-on Simon Pegg as Scotty, John Cho as Sulu, and Anton Yelchin as a 17-year-old version of Chekhov. Amid the action, time and care is given to rounding out each character, coupling such famous lines as “I’m giving her all she’s got, captain!” to new material that gets to the crew’s naivete.
Grounding them and the movie even further is Leonard Nimoy, who returns as a much older version of Spock in a significant role that wasn’t shoehorned into the script simply to please fans. Abrams and his screenwriters were smarter than that, and what they gave Nimoy is a sweet part that’s no throwaway.
While it’s swell to see him back onscreen as Spock, it’s even more gratifying to see that thought and ingenuity went into how he was brought back to the franchise. Just how they did so involves time travel, which plenty will be happy to do themselves since “Star Trek” seamlessly meshes that past to the present, and is set to enjoy a deservedly long run at the box office.
(Originally published 2009)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The new Harry Potter movie, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” is the sixth film in the franchise, and time is on its side.
The actors possess their best chemistry yet, slipping into this darkening otherworld of growing evil with such seamless ease, it’s as if two years haven’t passed between movies and that the stakes aren’t as high as they are. There are plenty of moments for comic asides in this movie--some corny, others bright--even though evil is busy wending its way through Hogwarts and surrounding areas at a blistering pace.
David Yates directs from Steve Kloves’ script, itself based on J.K. Rowling’s book, and what they created is a fine segue out of most of the awkwardness of adolescence and into the throws of young adulthood. A good deal of their movie is unsettling and intense, more grounded and rich than any other film in the series.
This time out, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) must not only deal with the fact that romance is entering into their lives, but also that Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) is increasingly giving himself over to a dark side that will threaten them all if he fully embraces it.
And so, while Ron and Hermione brood along the sidelines--her affections for Ron are fully revealed in this movie, though in ways that are unrequited since Ron is involved with a fierce little minx named Lavender Brown (Jessie Cave)--it’s Harry who naturally has the most challenges to contend with.
First up are dealing with his feelings for Ron’s sister, Ginny (Bonnie Wright)--he’s smitten by her. Second is the real core of the story, which focuses on how Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) needs Harry’s help to undo Lord Voldemort. To succeed, Harry must get close to Professor Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent), who returns to Hogwarts to teach his bevy of potions, but who is unaware that Dumbledore has charged Harry to pull from Slughorn a hidden memory that could help shut Voldemort down.
It won’t be easy, but Harry is game and so the story plunges forward, with audiences treated to several harrowing scenes, not the least of which involve how Harry taps into memories (it’s ingeniously rendered by the film’s superb special effects) and another scene that takes place in a cave filled with creatures reminiscent of Gollum from “The Lord of the Rings” movies. Watching them emerge from the water is a queasy experience, to say the least, and the film at its best.
While Robbie Coltrane’s Hagrid and Maggie Smith’s Minerva McGonagall continue to be shortchanged, which is a shame given the talent involved, Alan Rickman’s Severus Snape finds himself at the center of the movie, with his character realizing a depth it never has enjoyed. Rickman is all sneering evil here, so beautifully menacing, you wish for even more of him given the absence of Voldemort himself. The same goes for Helena Bonham Carter’s Bellatrix Lestrange, a wild toss of Gothic frizz who bellows through the movie and gives it a wild edge during those few moments she’s allowed onscreen.
But even when she, Coltrane and Smith aren’t onscreen, the movie satisfies with new revelations and twists, one of which is so dire, it left many at my screening in their seats long after fate revealed its cruel hand and the credits started to roll.
(Originally published 2009)
The new Judd Apatow movie, “Funny People,” poses an interesting question worth exploring.
For years, the modern comedy has been driven more by raunch than by wit. Box office figures support the fact that today’s mainstream audiences are more interested in laughs elevated by poop jokes than they are by, say, well-written bon mots that eschew le poo.
Apatow’s two previous films as a writer/director (“The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” “Knocked Up,”) embraced these more base leanings, but now, in his third film, he has taken a turn that could either turn-off his fanbase or find him a new one.
Let’s be clear: There are no shortage of sex jokes in “Funny People”--crudity abounds here and much of it is funny--but there also is no denying that this is Apatow’s most ambitious, serious-minded comedy to date. The script is injected with unexpected jolts of substance, drama and life-threatening health issues for the main character, so much so that too often there are long stretches between the laughs and, to accommodate the drama, the film is a slog, coming in at a bloated 2.5-hours.
The movie stars Adam Sandler as the comedy superstar George Simmons, who appears to have it all--success, fame, great wealth--until you look a little more closely at his life. George is a lonely man who, as the film starts, is faced with a death sentence if an experimental drug doesn’t work to rid his body of a life-threatening disease. Since there is only an 8 percent chance of that happening, George takes to the comedy circuit and delivers performances that are bleak, to say the least.
Realizing this, he decides to hire the up-and-coming comic Ira Wright (Seth Rogen), who works days at a fast food joint to help pay the bills and who shares an apartment in Los Angeles with his friends (Jonah Hill, Jason Schwartzman). George sees flashes of promise in Ira’s stand-up routine, and so he asks him to write jokes for him. It’s a gig that leads to a full-time job as Ira becomes George’s personal assistant and then caregiver as George’s health declines.
When circumstances allow for love to re-enter George’s life, it’s via his one true love, Laura (Apatow’s wife, the excellent Leslie Mann), who now is married to a hunky Australian (Eric Bana) actively cheating on her. When she and George reconnect, their connection is undeniable and love blooms again, but since Laura has two young children, what’s the cost to them should Laura and George fully rekindle that love? More complicated, how do these and the film’s other dour elements make for a consistently rousing comedy?
They don’t. When done well, the raunch comedy genre can be fun. All one needs to do is to witness Apatow’s successful two previous films to see just how fun. So what we have to question in “Funny People” is this: Should Apatow’s decision to add a string of maudlin elements to his script be considered creative growth, or a creative set back?
The answer is a bit of both. This isn’t a bad movie so much as it is an admirable failure. The performances from the cast are excellent. It’s also nice to see the talented Apatow taking a risk and reaching for something more. But if that reach means sacrificing laughs in a movie being billed as a comedy, there aren’t enough laughs in “Funny People” to make it a comedy worth recommending.
(Originally published 2009)
The new Ruben Fleischer movie, “Zombieland,” currently is number one at the box office--and unlike so many present-day horror movies (I’m talking to you, Rob Zombie), it deserves every bit of the $25 million it raked in over its opening weekend.
This spoof on the zombie genre literally and figuratively is killer. It’s laugh-out-loud funny, the gore is beautifully over-the-top, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick’s wicked script is laced with a cutting wit, and the acting across the board is superb.
Yes, superb. Whenever you’re dealing with a genre that walks the line between two genres--horror and comedy--don’t underestimate the talent it takes to successfully pull that off. It’s not as easy as it seems. Essentially, you’re asking your cast to play it up when the humor is high, and to keep it reasonably serious when the gutting gets rough.
All involved do that here, which is trickier than you might expect since nobody here shows their hand. Unlike, say, the “Scary Movie” franchise, the actors in “Zombieland” keep their tongues planted firmly in their cheeks. They never wink at the screen, and that alone gives the production a boost.
The film begins in a post-apocalyptic world in which most of the human race has been overcome by zombies. Hungry zombies. Well-fed zombies. A hot-mess slew of zombies, none of whom ever would qualify as a MENSA candidate, but all of whom score points for their robust appetites and, in many cases, their impressive cardiovascular fitness.
Naturally, some humans survive, starting with a young man who is called Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), because that’s his hometown. We know a few things about him. He’s had a sorry homelife--his parents were shut-ins. He’s something of a dork--but a shrewd survivor armed with a handful of life-saving rules. He’s also a virgin who has yet to make it to first base--and he’s eager to put a stop to that.
Next up is Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson, neatly reviving his career), a Twinkie-loving cowboy who comes upon Columbus and reluctantly decides to share the troubled road with him. Meanwhile, two scamming sisters enter the picture in Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), who have their share of trust issues, as Columbus and Tallahassee find out when all form a team.
Surprises abound, particularly in an inspired cameo not to be revealed here. Action drives the movie as swiftly as its undercurrent of humor, with some of the best scenes taking place at a California amusement park, whose rides offer plenty of clever ways to off the zombies--but also to become trapped by them. And yet what really moves the movie forward and allows it to gel into something special is the cast, all of whom have such undeniable chemistry (you’ll never look at Breslin the same way again), we can only hope for what must come next: “Zombieland II.”
(Originally published 2009)
The year’s most ambitious and visually arresting film is James Cameron’s “Avatar.” You’ve never seen anything quite like this, which works in its favor since the film’s sheer beauty is enough to detract you from the fact that Cameron, a competent writer, is not a great writer. Many of his characters are caricatures. Too much of the dialogue is stock.
The good news? Not a lick of it matters here.
Budgeted at nearly $270 million, “Avatar” spends every cent to create a world so rich and lush, so textured, real and surreal, you give yourself over to it and then lose yourself in it. Computers long have driven films, but not at this high a level and not with Cameron’s legions of gifted artists working behind the screens.
At nearly three hours, the movie is long, but the trick is that the storytelling is brisk, with Cameron focusing the bulk of his film on Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a former marine paralyzed from the waist down and now confined to a wheelchair.
How a team of scientists get him out of that chair and on his feet is unconventional, to say the least, but the year is 2154, after all, and apparently anything is possible. Besides, getting Jake mobile is critical to the movie. Doing so involves the use of a scientifically created, 10-foot-tall avatar modeled after the Na’vi, an alien race that lives on the planet Pandora, which has the misfortune of possessing a mineral called Unobtainium that could save Earth from its dwindling energy reserves if enough of it is mined.
And so it will be mined--by force, if necessary, though the idea behind these manufactured Na’vi is to allow for assimilation in an effort to move this race to another part of Pandora, where the Unobtainium isn’t present.
Through sleep and science, Jake becomes his avatar--long and blue and lithe of limb, it’s a thrill to watch him run again--and soon he’s off to Pandora with Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver, nicely channeling Ripley from Cameron’s “Alien” franchise) and a handful of others. Once there, the beauty of Pandora shields a wealth of dangers. Anything can and does happen, with Jake eventually being separated from his crew and stumbling upon the cat-like Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), who mocks him, nearly kills him, and whose parents lead the Na’vi. Naturally, in spite of all her hissing, Jakes falls for her
Since the film’s pleasures go beyond the brilliance of its visuals--Cameron’s strength always has been his ability to mount one mother of a climax, which he does here--it would be a mistake to reveal more. Safe to say that the supporting cast (Stephen Lang, Giovani Ribisi, Michelle Rodriguez) is solid; our own sorry, bloody history is evoked via the Na’vi, who recall the American Indian; and the love that grows between Jake and Neytiri is heartfelt and real.
But the movie isn’t perfect. The problem? Cameron’s use of 3-D technology.
For the most part, the effect works seamlessly, particularly along Pandora’s stellar landscapes, which are breathtaking not just in their complex, colorful realization (the set design will win the Academy Award), but in the depth of field Cameron achieves. When Jake and Neytiri take flight on their winged beasts and soar down and around a hive of floating mountains, you’ll feel each plummet in your gut. But when Cameron sandwiches his camera into tight quarters, focus issues occur and images warp to the point of distraction. This is a quibble, but it still was an annoyance and it should be noted.
So, consider it noted. Now, if you haven’t already done so, go and see one of the year’s most exhilarating films.
(Originally published 2009)
The new Rob Marshall movie is as much a curiosity as it is a disaster.
Presumably, it’s about Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis, wasted), a smoky wreck and famous Italian director not unlike Federico Fellini who, in 1960s Rome, is about to follow two recent flops with his new movie, the aggressively titled, “Italia.”
Trouble is, much like Marcello Mastroioanni’s character in Fellini’s “8 1/2,” which inspired “Nine,” Guido is crippled by the prospect of failing. Without a script or, for that matter, an idea for a story, he has no clue what “Italia” even looks like.
The same can be said for Marshall (“Chicago”) about “Nine.” Watching his film unfold in its belches of choppy extravagance, you can’t help wondering if the director himself had a clue about how to approach this former Broadway musical and turn it into a movie.
An odd kind of symmetry is at work here. Both Guido and Marshall once knew critical success, and now each is trying to top those successes while overcoming a recent failure (for Marshall, “Memoirs of a Geisha”). The irony? Since this is Marshall’s second flop in a row, he essentially has matched Guido flop for flop.
Going into the movie, it’s difficult not to be excited to see it, particularly if you saw the terrific (and misleading) trailer, if you are a fan of Marshall’s “Chicago,” and also is you’re charged by the award-winning cast.
Joining Day-Lewis are Judi Dench, who adds pluck as Guido’s disenfranchised costume designer; Nicole Kidman as a pretty icicle with coiffed hair and parted lips who plays a popular actress we never come to know; Penelope Cruz as Guido’s saucy mistress who somehow finds a personality within the thin material; Kate Hudson as a reporter eager to know more about Guido’s new film--and how fashion plays a role in it; and then there’s the biggest waste of talent of all, Sophia Loren, who is Guido’s mother and apparently only here to stretch out her arms.
There are others, specifically Marion Cotillard as Guido’s wife, Louisa. She once was a leading actress in Guido’s films, but she hasn’t worked since marrying him, and she’s well aware of how often he has deceived her with his many affairs. You feel for her, which is a good thing because she’s the only character in this movie who elicits an emotional connection. Finally, there’s pop star Fergie, who looks like a bloated cherub with a frizzy fright wig on her head--and who delivers the best musical performance in her slutty rendition of “Be Italian.”
Each actor is offered the opportunity to sing and dance in separate stage productions that take place in the cobwebs of Guido’s mind, but good luck finding a cohesive storyline attached to them. Instead of informing the movie with some semblance of a plot, most of the performances feel stapled to this musical because, well, it’s being billed as a musical. Some of the productions are fun to watch (Cruz, Dench, Hudson), but these show-stoppers nevertheless are lazily filmed and they don’t move the story forward as they did in Marshall’s “Chicago.” They’re just here--the cinematic equivalent of roosters flapping their clipped wings and crowing at center stage.
Such is the movie. Poor Guido. Poor Marshall. Poor audiences, who likely were eager to see this movie (given the hype, who wasn’t?), but who likely will leave it knowing they deserved better.
(Originally published 2009)
"The Quiet American" begins in Saigon in 1952. That's the first sign of trouble.
It's twilight. In the foreground is a river and in the background is the city, stretching low along the waterfront and glowing gold. Barely visible along the horizon are missiles lighting up the summer sky as they slam into unseen targets. Like corks, they pop.
Over this surreal fizz comes the voice of Thomas Fowler (Michael Caine), a British correspondent for the London Times who's in Saigon to cover the French colonial conflict and--eventually and unwittingly--the full weight of the Vietnam War.
"I can't say what made me fall in love with Vietnam," Fowler says as the bombs drop and the river sparkles. "But at night, there's a breeze and the river is beautiful."
That is, of course, until Alden Pyle (Brendan Fraser), an ungainly young American from Boston, is mysteriously stabbed to death and tossed into the river, turning it red with his blood.
Director Phillip Noyce, working from a script Christopher Hampton and Robert Schenkkan based on Graham Greene's 1955 novel, lingers on the wound in Pyle's back before he reaches into the past to uncover how it got there.
In an extended flashback, Noyce chronicles how Pyle met Fowler, how the two men befriended each other over tea at the Continental Hotel, and how they eventually came to fight for the affection of Fowler's mistress, Phuong (Do Thi Hai Yen), a beautiful Vietnamese taxi-dancer Fowler saved from enslavement.
Following the book, Phuong is meant to symbolize her country. She's beautiful, sensual, slightly mysterious, slightly wild and objectified by many. Like Vietnam, men are willing to die for her--and they do.
Obviously, since no good can come from such a romantic triangle, it doesn't.
Unlike Joseph Mankiewicz's 1958 adaptation of the book, Noyce, an Australian, doesn't sugarcoat Greene's prescient story or his suggestion that sometimes Americans aren't always where they ought to be. Indeed, as Greene saw it, a wealth of good American intentions can occasionally lead to disastrous results, a connection to the present that will undoubtedly resonate with some.
Deftly balancing its politics with its personalities, "The Quiet American" is a first-rate, human drama with real power that was one of last year’s best films.
(Originally published 2002)
Jonathan Demme’s “Rachel Getting Married” isn’t really about Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt) at all. It’s about her screwed-up sister Kym (Anne Hathaway in her best performance to date), a smoky, trouble-making but ultimately well-meaning mess on leave from a rehab facility who has been on drugs and booze for so much of her life, she unfortunately claimed another life along the way.
Just who that is won’t be revealed here, but it drives the emotions in a movie happy to unleash them at any point, which is often.
Shot with a hand-held camera, which gives the movie an immediacy and an intimacy it otherwise might have lacked, Demme based the film on Jenny Lumet’s script. What he features here is the year’s most diverse cast, so much so that you half-expect the pending nuptials to be held at the United Nations instead of in the backyard of Rachel and Kym’s father, Paul (Bill Irwin), and their step-mother, Carol (Anna Deavere Smith).
This is, after all, a film about the complications that come when a clash of cultures collide in a home so broken, the foundation shakes the moment Kym steps inside.
Oh, everyone tries to make it work, at least initially, with co-dependent Paul rushing to give Kym food she doesn’t really want while the elephant in the room--Kym’s addictions, her time in rehab and now her time away from it--go strenuously ignored.
Some of the movie’s best scenes are, in fact, about this family going through the motions of what they think it means to be a happy family--they laugh so hard at hollow jokes and their few good memories, you know that laughter is doomed to eventually be caught in someone’s throat, which it is.
After all, before long, Kym’s loose mouth and shattered self-esteem are testing the waters to see just where she stands with her family now. To do so, she picks fights, she drops bombs, she sleeps with the best man (also a recovering addict), she needles Rachel and others, she scratches at wounds so deep, they’ll never heal, and she isn’t really surprised to realize that she’s the one doing most of the bleeding.
That’s pretty much how it’s always been for Kym. There’s a side of her that craves those familiar lows, while another side no longer wants any part of them. It’s her struggle to get to that healthy part of herself that “Rachel Getting Married” really is about, but it won’t be easy, particularly given Kym’s difficult relationship with her distant mother, Abby (a superb Debra Winger); her strained relationship with Rachel, who resents Kym for always stealing attention away from her, particularly now on her wedding day; and all the other people she has hurt along the way.
While parts of the movie feels false and manufactured, that’s never true for Hathaway’s performance, which provides the necessary jolt of reality and isolation in a film whose family would seemingly prefer as little of that as possible. And it’s also never true when Winger enters into the equation. Her mean mouth and calculating eyes go a long way in explaining why Kym turned out the way she did, and why this family is as screwed up as it is.
(Originally published 2008)
Toward the nerve-jangling midpoint of the new movie “Rent,” when the story and its Bohemian-wannabe characters have whipped themselves into a high froth of full-blown camp, I waited for a break in the deluge of song and dance numbers to ask my movie companion a question: “Where in the hell are we?”
“In a movie script” came the reply.
An excellent point. In Chris Columbus’ self-aware adaptation of Jonathan Larson’s robust 1996 stage musical, “Rent,” there never is a question that we're dealing with a film that apparently broke a hip upon its leap from stage to screen. Occasionally, the movie is entertaining and engrossing, but too often for the wrong reasons. It's a mess, collapsing in ways from which it doesn't recover, though God knows it tries.
The problem is that "Rent" never was intended for the screen. It’s designed for the stage, a completely different beast with different needs, starting with the electrical give and take between a cast and its audience. Broadway and Hollywood know the difficulties of pulling off this sort of film, but hope, I'm afraid, is more powerful than logic, and in this case, hope got the best of "Rent." Hope sent it to hell.
A contemporary retelling of Puccini's "La Boheme," the film does bring back much of the original cast, who do their best here, and it's hardly lacking in big issues as it deals with homelessness, death, drug addiction, sexuality, HIV and AIDS. And yet in spite of this, it packs the dramatic punch of a feather. The movie has a rushed, awkward feel to it. It strains to be as engaging as Larson's songs.
Unlike Rob Marshall's excellent adaptation of “Chicago,” in which the song and dance numbers ingeniously stemmed from Roxie Hart’s imagination, or the upcoming "The Producers," which exists to spread its wings in the ether, "Rent" demands to be taken literally, which is its problem.
In one scene, a character might be having a perfectly engaging conversation about the dangers of shooting up dope or the worry of not being able to pay the rent, and then suddenly be singing his heart out, setting trash cans ablaze and dancing on tables as if that'll keep on the lights. It doesn't.
What Larson's "Rent" had going for it was rage; it was conceived out of fear and desperation. What Columbus' "Rent" has against it is apathy; it was conceived to make a buck. With the exception of World AIDS Day, in which the mass media finally puts HIV and AIDS above the fold, neither is given the focus they demand. Somehow, in spite of a pandemic that continues its dark march, we've grown so inexcusably comfortable with it, news about its progress has been relegated to the fringe.
That's the real crime this movie does make us face. It's also the reason it can't totally be dismissed.
(Originally published 2005)
Laurie Collyer's "Sherrybaby" stars Maggie Gyllenhaal as an ex-con and recovering heroin addict struggling to put her life together in spite a self-destructive streak threatening to knock her down.
From Collyer’s own script, the film features Gyllenhaal in a performance that's as raw and as affecting as Ryan Gosling’s Academy Award-nominated turn in “Half Nelson,” in which he played a middle-school teacher also brought down by drugs.
“Sherrybaby” is more content to ride the rails of formula, but not sentiment, which it resists, likely because Collyer is best known as a documentarian. Following suit, her movie has a charged air of edgy realism, with Gyllenhaal's intense portrayal as Sherry Swanson key to achieving that end.
Much of the movie is a balancing act, with Sherry trying to stay clean while finding a job (she lands one at a day care, though through questionable means) and attempting to reconnect with her young daughter, Alexis (Ryan Simpkins), who has been raised for the past three years by Sherry's brother, Bobby (Brad Henke), and sister-in-law, Lynette (Bridget Barkan). Lynette doesn't want to let go of Alexis, which creates a tense struggle of wills between herself and Sherry that's heightened because of all they leave unsaid.
This is, after all, a family that buries its emotions, which is underscored in a subplot involving Sherry's father (Sam Bottoms). While there's nothing new in the layers of dysfunction the movie peels away, there's nevertheless something exciting in the fearlessness with which Gyllenhaal tackles the role--she’s unhinged. Her power comes from Sherry's biting silences; she can dismantle you with a stare. And yet as tough as Sherry is in some scenes, her failing battle with addiction and the love she fears her daughter won't return to her complicates her character and the movie admirably.
Just as she did in the dark, sadomasochistic comedy “Secretary,” Gyllenhaal raises her share of eyebrows here, though for a whole host of different reasons.
(Originally published 2007)
In Alejandro Amenabar’s provocative, moving drama, “The Sea Inside,” Javier Bardem gives an Academy Award-nominated performance as Ramon Sampedro, a middle-aged quadriplegic who has lived 28 years beyond the day he believes he should have been allowed to die.
That day was spent diving high above the sea on the cliffs of his hometown in Spain. It ended with Ramon, distracted by the sight of a pretty girl, diving into the sea as the tide was boiling into retreat. Upon entry, Ramon struck his head on the sea’s floor and broke his neck, thus leaving him unable to feel or use his arms, torso, and legs.
Now, having lived nearly three decades without the ability to move anything other than his head, the steadfast Ramon is pushing hard to be rid of the body he feels has imprisoned him.
He wants to die. Problem is, those who love him and take care of him--his older brother, Jose (Celso Bugallo), his sister-in-law, Manuela (Mabel Rivera), his nephew, Javi (Tamar Novias), his father, Joaquin (Joan Dalmau)--want him to live.
And if they want him to live, then how is Ramon going to die without their help? Through legislation? Fat chance. When it comes to euthanasia, Spain isn’t exactly handing out lethal combinations of pills for the asking.
Making matters more difficult for Ramon is that the Catholic Church has publicly intervened with a quadriplegic priest who is outraged that Ramon believes his life isn’t worth living. The priest argues that since he himself has led a productive life while confined to a wheelchair, certainly Ramon can do the same.
Likely he could--obviously he could--but should he be forced to do so? Or, as Ramon argues, should he be allowed to do what he wants with his body? That’s the ethical dilemma steaming at the film’s center, with Ramon meeting two women along the way--the ailing lawyer Julia (Belen Rueda) and the blindly in love Rosa (Lola Duenas)--who are his best chances for the death he craves.
Based on a true story, “The Sea Inside” is unabashedly romantic, particularly in scenes that depict how Ramon has survived his condition through leaps of fantasy.
When he can, he escapes his body by imagined flights through his bedroom window and into the open air beyond, where he flies over the sea that betrayed him, soars above mountain tops he can’t climb, blasts through cities he no longer can walk through.
Some will argue that it’s a bit much, particularly since Amenabar layers “Nessun dorma,” of all arias, over the visuals. But in this context and with this performance by Bardem, it’s nevertheless powerful and effective. You can’t watch the movie passively. Just try getting through it with a dry eye.
Though some might consider the movie to be a commentary on quadriplegia, “The Sea Inside” is really a film about personal choice and control over one’s life. It will elicit anger in some, compassion in others. Its ending will render its audience still.
(Originally published 2004)
"The Exorcism of Emily Rose" isn't what you might expect from a movie about an exorcism gone awry. Levitating tweens, rails of pea soup, and young ladies who lose their manners and their bladders at cocktail parties have no place here.
Instead, what audiences get is "The Trial of Father Moore."
The film is courtroom drama first, an exorcism second. That might disappoint those who would prefer a horror movie focused solely on the expelling of the anti-Christ, but take heart. When it comes to telling the difference between demons and lawyers, the lines of evil are blurred here, with both having their day in hell.
Directed by Scott Derrickson from a script he co-wrote with Paul Harris Boardman, "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" is based on the real-life case of Anneliese Michel, a young Bavarian woman diagnosed with epilepsy in her youth who later died in 1976 after undergoing an exorcism.
Some assumed Anneliese was predisposed to seeing evil, so sensitive to the paranormal that it entered her body and transformed it. Others placed the blame on what they assumed were Grand Mal seizers, which allegedly warped her mind and paralyzed her body, though there was never any proof that Anneliese had epilepsy.
So what gives? Since that's up for debate, the movie takes the most commercial approach--Tom Wilkinson is Father Moore, the beleaguered priest who botched the exorcism of Emily Rose (Jennifer Carpenter), a troubled woman raised in a staunchly Catholic household whose soul was overcome by six demons, including Lucifer himself.
Bible in hand, Holy Water at the ready, Father Moore goes through the robust motions of an exorcism--in the middle of a thunderstorm, no less, and on Halloween to boot (the real Anneliese died in July).
His efforts prove in vain. After Emily shrieks in a clutch of foreign tongues, contorts her body like someone out of Cirque du Soleil, and screams at the screen until her capillaries burst along with ours, she curls up in a ball and dies, her eyes rolling back in her head like two poached eggs ready to be pulled from the boiling pot.
Simmering at the core of this movie are Laura Linney as Erin Bruner, the agnostic lawyer who takes Father Moore's case only to be disturbed by "evil forces" herself, and Campbell Scott as Ethan Thomas, the religious prosecutor hired to put Father Moore in jail because the man's actions allegedly pushed Emily to her death.
All of this is manufactured to the point of exhaustion, and while the cast is good and the flashback format does allow us to be voyeurs in the theatrics of Emily's possession, there's something uncomfortably cheap about the fact that we never come to know Emily herself. Here, she's merely an ambiguous, frightened shell, the hook for a movie that derives its entertainment from her suffering.
That's nothing new for the genre, but it's what will prevent "Emily Rose" from being taken as seriously as all involved would have enjoyed.
(Originally published 2005)
Watching David Cronenberg's “Eastern Promises,” which joins "The Brave One" and "3:10 to Yuma" in being among the first intelligent, adult-oriented films of the new season, is like shaking off all the bad memories that tend to go hand-in-hand with the dog days of summer.
Sitting there in the dark looking up at the screen, where a skilled director is at work and the acting is a veil, you find yourself immersed in the surprise of a gripping story peopled with real characters. There is no “Underdog” here, no “Balls of Fury,” no “Mr. Woodcock,” not “Mr. Bean’s Holiday. And while, yes, there obviously is a demand for those films, after a summer clogged with too much "Shrek," it feels good to be in the presence of the real thing again.
"Eastern Promises" is the real thing, a movie arranged to engage, shake and provoke. Steve Knight wrote the script, which sets the story in the dreariest version of London audiences have seen since, say, "Dirty Pretty Things," which Knight also wrote. He shouldn't expect the key to the city anytime soon. Like that movie, "Promises" exposes London’s uglier corners in ways that that city might sooner want you to forget.
The film explores the Russian mafia's stronghold over London, with Viggo Mortensen again teaming with Cronenberg after their successful pairing in 2005's "A History of Violence." Here, their collaboration flourishes, with Mortensen outstanding as Nikolai, a driver of few words ("I drive car") whose employer is a powerful, corrupt family led by the coolly evil Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl).
Typical of a mob story, Semyon is a hive of complexities (more Brando, less Gandolfini), perhaps more proud of his borscht than he is of his son, Kirill (Vincent Cassel), a screw-up of the first order who Semyon is working to contain.
But when a nurse named Anna (Naomi Watts) comes into their lives with the diary of a dead Russian girl whose life ended while giving birth, Semyon's focus wavers. Now he must not only keep his unstable son in line, but also Anna, who has no idea that the contents of that diary, written in Russian, can implicate Semyon and his family, and bring them down.
Who does Semyon turn to for help? Naturally, solid, dependable Nikolai. Trouble is, solid, dependable Nikolai secretly is attracted to Anna in ways that deepen the movie with satisfying twists along Cronenberg’s dark playing field.
Filled with scenes of note--the most talked about being Mortensen’s expertly handled, nude fight in a Turkish bathhouse--"Eastern Promises" is a fresh blast of toxic air that lingers. It's a movie about good and evil first, violence second, and while it might seem while watching the movie that I have that backwards, it isn't the slitting of throats you consider after walking away from the film, but those who chose a life of violence, those who chose to resist it, and the vague reasons why.
(Originally published 2007)
Francois Ozon's "8 Women" tries to make George Cukor's 1939 catfight, "The Women," look like a quaint Sunday prayer meeting among the best of friends. While it doesn’t quite pull that off (what could?), it has a great time trying and, in the end, it stands as a worthy homage to the unforgettably bitchy mood Cukor created in his film.
Set in the 1950s, "8 Women" is a haughty, heavy-breathing melodrama based on Robert Thomas' play. It's so over-the-top, it almost knocks itself out.
The film begins with a rush of strings and trumpets from Krishna Levy's triumphantly purple score and a glimmering curtain of crystal beads shimmering in a soft pastel hue. Both ground the movie in camp while priming the viewer for what’s to come. Certainly, you hope, that whatever is lurking beyond that curtain will be just as festooned, bejeweled and grotesque as the curtain itself.
It is. Indeed, when the beads wink apart, they reveal a huge snowbound French country estate that, inside, is the sort of Technicolor dreamworld that could put a crease in Vincente Minnelli's pants.
What ensues feels like Robert Altman's "Gosford Park" as written by Agatha Christie on a nitrous oxide drip. The film has more bite and more histrionics than Altman’s film, but then it also has six full-length musical numbers performed by eight famous French actresses, all of whom play suspects in the murder of the estate's wealthy owner, a man found dead early on with a knife in his back.
Who did it? Take your pick. The film’s bevy of lusty, busty babes--Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux, Fanny Ardant, Isabelle Huppert, Firmine Richard, Virginie Ledoyen, Ludivine Sagnier and Emmanuelle Beart—all could be the killer. But who has the true motive? And is the film ever really what it seems?
As it becomes clear that somebody here is more clever with the cutlery than she’s letting on, the film channels everyone from Jacques Demy to Douglas Sirk as these women work hard to root each other out. If the story sometimes strains against its seams--not unlike Deneuve in her dress--the cast is consistently strong, particularly Deneuve and Ardant, bravely throwing caution to the wind and mugging fearlessly in an all-out effort to bring down the house.
(Originally published 2002)
For three months in 1994, while the world turned away from Rwanda, Rwanda's Hutu tribe armed itself with machetes and rifles, took to the streets with their collective rage, and slaughtered nearly 1 million members of the minority Tutsi tribe.
For those unfamiliar with the events, the numbers are correct - hundreds of thousands of Tutsis were butchered in their homes and in the streets in the brief span of three months, from April through July.
The situation that ignited this mass genocide is the backdrop for "Hotel Rwanda," Terry George's earnest film about a manager of a four-star European hotel who used his formidable diplomatic skills dealing with the elite to save more than 1,200 Tutsis and moderate Hutus from certain death.
The man, Paul Rusesabagina, is played by Don Cheadle in a career-high performance that has earned him an Academy Award nomination for best actor. He's terrific in the role, infusing passion and energy in a movie that sometimes rises to the level of his performance, but which too often plays it too safe when it comes to capturing the horrors of the Tutsi-Hutu war.
As written by George and Keir Pearson, "Hotel Rwanda" errs in that its scenes of genocide are only suggested, not witnessed, timidly taking place off screen. This robs the movie of additional power, as does the narrative, which could be tighter, and the way important political details and events are either taken for granted or are so sketchy that the film occasionally lacks cohesion.
However, the movie finds enormous success in being an engrossing portrait of the bravery of Rusesabagina, the Hutu manager of the Hotel des Mille Collines who became a reluctant hero.
Obvious parallels exists between Rusesabagina and Oskar Schindler, whose life was explored in "Schindler's List," a movie whose most harrowing scenes involved the dangers of trying to outwit a mad regime. "Rwanda" follows suit, with its tensest moments involving the sly, dangerous maneuverings Rusesabagina had to craft in order to save himself, his family and all those who were counting on him.
It would be great to report that "Hotel Rwanda" has enjoyed its current rush of media attention because of interest in its story, but that's not the case. What has pushed it to the forefront of public awareness are its two Academy Award-nominated performances, the second of which is a best supporting actress nod for the marvelous Sophie Okonedo as Rusesabagina's equally brave, Tutsi wife, Tatiana.
Will the film find an audience? Likely not the one it deserves. As I write, the top e-mailed article on CNN.com isn't about the war in Iraq, the possibility of war with Iran, or even Vice President Cheney's recent casual clothing gaff at the Auschwitz ceremony in Poland. Instead, it's about another event: A massive mound of cow manure that has been burning uncontrollably for three months in Milford, Neb.
(Originally published 2004)
The new Alexandre Aja movie, "The Hills Have Eyes," is a remake of Wes Craven's 1977 classic, which caused something of a stink when it was released nearly 30 years ago. Too graphic, some said, too much blood. And few liked the idea of anyone feasting on a baby. Go figure.
Thing is, when compared to this Craven-produced jewel from Aja ("High Tension"), which incredibly received only an R rating from the MPAA when an NC-17 rating is absolutely what it deserved, Craven's version now looks like playtime for tots.
As written by Aja and Gregory Levasseur, "The Hills Have Eyes" is one ugly, violent piece of moviemaking that struggles to sustain energy in spite of all the blood it sheds, all the body parts it lobs off, all the savagery it unleashes. Its only narrative drive comes from the fact that its nasty streak of violence tends to drive people out of theaters, which was the case at my screening, with several members of its target audience unhappily filing out midway through.
It was tough to blame them.
The film begins with archival footage of nuclear testing interlaced with actual shots of disfigured children, some of whom appear to be deceased. The children and their deformities are shown in closeup before they dissolve into mushroom clouds. This is entertainment? Aja thinks so, but then his movie really gets down to business.
It cuts to the New Mexico desert, where the people who were affected by the nuclear fallout as children now are angry adult mutants who thrill at the idea of slamming pickaxes into the backs, faces, torsos and limbs of their unsuspecting victims. They do this, we learn, because they're furious to have been left behind and forgotten by the rest of the country after the nuclear testing. Fair enough. But why present their case in a movie that refuses to allow them a trace of sympathy? A more effective, timely remake would have allowed us to root for them as they fought big government. But forget logic.
Since Aja resists the idea that what is left offscreen and to our imagination often is more terrifying, he shows us everything. As such, his film trips on its own entrails--sometimes quite literally.
The movie follows the Carter family, who have left Cleveland for a vacation that finds them detouring through this desert. After the aforementioned carnage that opens the show, what ensues is 45 minutes of long-winded tedium before the movie launches into an hour of unrelenting murder, cannibalism, rape, the grotesque torture of a pregnant woman, the rough handling of her infant child, a burning crucifixion and other atrocities as the Carter family (Ted Levine, Kathleen Quinlan, Dan Byrd, Emile de Ravin, Vinessa Shaw, Aaron Stanford) is slowly carved down to only a few.
Where is the fun in a movie like this? There are no jolts, no flashes of humor, no camp aspect, no winking at the audience--just bloodletting that crosses the line. Those who want this sort of thing can have it.
(Originally published 2006)
Would somebody please hire Clint Eastwood to stare down the recession, narrow his eyes at it and lift a loaded shotgun at it?
He can shoot if he wants, but if his performance in his new movie “Gran Torino” is any indication, he won’t need to. As this film and a good deal of the actor’s career proves, he could scare the hell out of the shrinking economy with a mere sneer.
Decked out in full Dirty Harry mode is Eastwood, who directs himself in the role of Walt Kowalski, a proud American and die-hard racist who worked his entire life at the Ford Motor Company and who lives in a part of Detroit that increasingly is turning into a community of Asians.
Walt is having none of that. In fact, he’s so aggressive about his dislike of the Asian community, he’s not above walking over to his neighbor’s lawn and spitting on it while one of the home’s inhabitants, an elderly Asian woman, looks on in disgust.
Not that she’s having any of him. Since a good deal of the movie is charged with an unexpected sense of humor, the woman spits back, Walt hurls a few racial slurs at her and on he goes about his day, which usually involves spending time on his porch with his dog Daisy while drinking beer in the wake of his wife’s recent death.
From his perch on his porch, Walt observes the world around him with contempt. Nobody can live up to his standards--certainly not his two sons, who disappoint him to no end--and so his sour face and ugly disposition are a mainstay, with the lot of it turning into a full-boiled rage when one of his neighbor’s kids, a sensitive teen-ager named Thao (Bee Vang), first tries to steal his vintage 1972 Gran Torino, and then later when Thao is literally pulled out of his home by the gang of Asians who put him up to the job.
Their idea is to turn Thao into a man by forcing him to join their gang. Since their struggle crosses the line onto Walt’s lawn, out he comes with his shotgun in hand and suddenly he and it are in their faces. The gang retreats, leaving Thao for now, but not without threats that they’ll be back for him and for Walt.
What springs from this is predictable, sure, but it’s no less satisfying. The Asian community Walt long has vilified starts to lift him up as a hero of the neighborhood for helping Thao--a bounty of food comes his way. Walt doesn’t want any of it--he can’t stand these people, or any other race, for that matter. But when Thao’s sister, Sue (Ahney Her, excellent), works her no-nonsense magic on him, lives start to change as gang threats start to build.
Although he has gone on record to say that this will be his last acting role (we’ll see--and hope that’s not the case), what a way to go out. Beyond how good Eastwood is in the role--and he’s very, very good here, boiling into one character all of the elements we’ve come to love about the actor during his storied career--“Gran Torino” won the weekend box office, and it turns out to be Eastwood’s largest opening ever for a movie in which he’s the lead. On paper, that sounds like all the makings for a swell swan song, but nobody is going to want him to get too comfortable and enjoy it.
At least not yet.
(Originally published 2009)
The new Lajos Koltai movie, "Evening," is loosely based on the 1998 novel by Susan Minot, who lives in North Haven, from a screenplay Minot adapted with Michael Cunningham, who wrote the novel "The Hours,” which was successfully turned into the 2002 movie of the same name. Just as in that film, "Evening" touts the sort of cast that’s so revered, it tends to generate a groundswell of excitement.