Sunday, March 26, 2006

V FOR VENDETTA

Director: James McTeigue (2nd unit on Matrix and recent Star Wars)
Writers: Wachowski Bros. (of Matrix noteriety)
Starring: Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea, John Hurt

V for Vendetta? More like V for video game.

A success can be a terrible weight to bear, or so it seems for the Wachowski brothers. The Matrix was a wonderful acheivement, but that achievement will necessarily be compared with whatever else these two do, and so far, nothing has measured up. With their silly, pompous and annoyingly overdone sequels to the Matrix, the Wachowski brothers managed to fritter away much of the cinematic capital they earned from that supremely satisfying original. As far as I’m concerned, V for Vendetta has just spent most of the rest.

This film suffers from the exact same problems as those frustrating Matrix sequels. Oh, none of these films are necessarily “bad” movies. They all have entertainment value. They all have moderately exciting moments. They’re all watchable. I certainly took the time to see them all. What they’re not is anywhere near as good as The Matrix. It seems that since the original film, the Wachowskis’ writing has taken a nosedive into adolescence. Vendetta (and the Matrix sequels) are filled to the brim with annoying, desperate, almost pitiful attempts to be taken seriously as philosophy and political discourse.

Plot-wise Vendetta is the story of a flamboyant vigilante who dons a Guy Fawkes mask and leads the people of Britain to overthrow their dictatorial government sometime in the near future. He slips into the most secure levels of the corrupt government’s machinery and teaches the people that their own fear is the only thing allowing the government control them. Natalie Portman is his main convert. He teaches her (using such methods as physical and mental torture) that her fear can be overcome and she can become a good-guy vigilante terrorist too.

Despite many (very many) attempts by the writers to make this man poetic and momentous, he tends to come across as rather foolish and childish. Despite many (very many) attempts to describe corrupt government and society, this film just doesn’t have a clue how they work. On the positive side, when the characters aren’t talking, the film is fairly entertaining. There are explosions and theatrics and twists (although at least one of these was jaw-droppingly stupid in my opinion – see the torture aside above). This film reminds me quite a lot of Michael Bay’s The Island released last year. It’s a film that (almost desperately) wants to be smart, but just doesn’t seem to realize how trite it really is. This film was a video game. It’s on that level. There are overdone theatrics and explosions and fight scenes, and not much that really relates to humanity. As a teenage action movie, it works pretty well. As a dialogue on the Bush admistration and terrorism, which it obviously has aspirations of becoming, it just doesn’t.

Standouts: Some solid, heavily theatrical entertainment value.
Blowouts: Attempts to make the movie meaningful … cause it just wasn’t.

Grade: B-

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

AMERICAN DREAMZ

Director: Paul Weitz (American Pie, About a Boy, In Good Company)
Starring: Hugh Grant, Dennis Quaid, Mandy Moore, Sam Golzari, Willem Defoe

I had hoped to see V for Vendetta last evening at the Shaker Square Cinemas. I came in, bought my tickets, got directed to a particular theater with a Vendetta mylar above the door, was surprised to be searched for cameras by some corporate schmucks, and sat down in a very crowded theater. Pretty quickly we realized we must be seeing a midweek special screening due to the saved seats, large crowd and corporate stooges worried about camera phones. We assumed it was a screening for Vendetta though. Once the 7:00 start time on our tickets passed, we started to wonder about what exactly had happened. When American Dreamz popped on the screen at 7:30 we knew. I blame the doofus who sold us our tickets.

After seeing Dreamz, I’m pretty confident I would have rather seen Vendetta. It wasn’t a horrible picture, it was however, a highly average one. The comedy was cute and moderately funny in a very broad sense, but not in any memorable way. I don’t think this flick is going to have any legs.

American Dreamz (with a “Z”, as the title track sung by Mandy Moore tells us) is more or less American Idol. The show is run and hosted by Hugh Grant’s pompous and unloved character (who is more or less the English jackass on American Idol). They get a collection of characters as their contestants, including the white trash Mandy Moore character (Britney Speare’s lookalike) and a reluctant middle eastern terrorist.

To concisely sum up, the president (played as a well-meaning, but bumbling George Bush by Quaid) will guest judge the finale of the show and the terrorist is supposed to blow him up. I’ll blow the ending for you, since I’m sure the tension would just be too much, but he doesn’t do it. Bush survives and even learns to lead on his own without the Dick Cheney character (Defoe) leading him like a marionette.

I don’t have a lot more to say about this broad comedy. It had its funny moments. I particularly liked the line “I’m going to prove how stupid I am by blowing myself up with this bomb I found”. That’s funny. It had a lot of less funny ones as well, unfortunately. As a final note, Mandy Moore really isn’t a very intersting actress. I’m not sure who’s putting her in movies. They should stop.

Standouts: The Middle Eastern kids were the funniest, Quaid’s President Bush wasn’t bad either.
Blowouts: Mandy Moore and the so-so script.

Grade: C

Thursday, March 16, 2006

TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY

Director: Michael Winterbottom (24 Hour Party People, The Claim, Welcome to Sarajevo)
Starring: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, and much of the rest of the British acting union

Prior to seeing this film, my knowledge of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentlemen began and ended with the fact that the book was a notable precursor to postmodernism. I didn’t even really know when it was written, or set. Now I do, assuming that this film can be trusted on these points. Tristram Shandy is the twisting, highly self referential story of the birth of an English gentleman in the 18th century. I think it’s literally about the birth of this man, but I can’t really confirm that. You see, this film is only vaguely about the book.

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story is a choppy, self referential tale about actors (named Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, etc) making a movie about Tristram Shandy, a supposedly ‘unfilmable’ book. Their lives mimic, or at least reference, the events of the movie. Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon play games of oneupsmanship with each other in the filming. Coogan fools around, while his girlfriend and baby are in the hotel upstairs. The film lurches and heaves forward eventually getting completed. Occasional artful characters describe the meaning of the story they’re filming, but most simply want to find a few laughs and live their lives. And in the end that seems to be the point of the story we’re watching, that plans are made to fall apart in a person’s life. That we lurch and weave and waiver around from birth to death. Blah blah blah.

The construction of the story is notable. It’s a complicated weave between the original book, the film-making process and the lives of the actors in the fictional movie (who happen to have names like the real actors portraying them). Complicated, huh? There are certainly similarities between this work and Adaptation, the quite good Nicolas Cage film of a few years back, and I feel similarly about both of them. This film was interesting, intriguing, and yet not entirely compelling.

I loved Winterbottom’s previous film 24 Hour Party People with it’s tight and enriching dialog and story. This film was similar in tone, but while unusual and intriguing it was simply not as good. The characters and dialog were hilarious at times, but sometimes were very much not so. So if you enjoy vaguly experimental film construction, that’s quite smart, but only moderately funny and compelling, you’ll probably very much enjoy this one. High marks for the effort behind this movie. I also have a feeling that this will be a movie I enjoy as much or more on repeated viewings. I imagine it's rich and layered enough to provide something new each time.

Standouts: Smart, quirky, complicated story construction. Steve Coogan.
Blowouts: The details in the story. It’s only marginally funny and occassionally boring.

Grade: B+

Friday, March 10, 2006

EIGHT BELOW

Director: Frank Marshall (Pretty Woman, Congo, produced Raiders of the Lost Ark, much more)
Starring: Paul Walker, Bruce Greenwood, Moon Bloodgood, Jason Biggs

I can’t really prove this, but I think that Disney created the courageous live-action anthropomorphic animal adventure somewhere back in the 60s or 70s. At least I remember a fair number of films of the ilk back in that era. They usually seemed to involve a dog, a cat and a duck getting left behind and having to find their family in Oregon or some such. There was also the odd grizzly bear or cougar struggling to feed their cubs type pics, but I liked them all as a kid. I’ve always been an outdoorsy kind of guy and I enjoy seeing the wilds of America, and really, who doesn’t like dog, cat and duck adventures?

Now we’re in 2006, though, and cute animals in the wonderful wilderness just isn’t enough. Now we need extreeeeeme courageous live-action anthropomorphic animal adventures. Eight below is the story of Huskie dogs surviving on their own in Antarctica for months and months (and months), and it’s very, very extreeeeeme.

Here is the plot: Man in Antarctica science station takes scientist out with his sled dogs. The dogs save the scientist's life when the foolish scientist doesn’t know as much about surviving in this extreeeeeme environment as the hyper-intelligent doggies do. A horrible storm hits Antarctica and doggies are left behind when everyone at the science station leaves for the winter. The doggies break their chains, develop advanced hunting techniques, battle extreeeeeemely evil CGI monsters and stuggle to survive. (By the way, not all of them make it, if you’re the crying type …)

You probably thought I just slipped in that “battling evil CGI monsters” bit as a joke, but you’re wrong. They really do fight nefarious digital creatures. It was a surprising twist to the movie.

Anyway, eventually Man, and the scientist the doggies saved earlier, come back to rescue the doggies and find that they’ve survived 863 days on their own in Antarctica (or something like that). It’s astounding.

As these flicks go, I preferred the old cutsie anthropomorphic animal adventures (Benji or the already discussed dog,cat,duck trio) over this new breed of extreeeeeme movie, but I can’t really complain too much. This film was moderately enjoyable, pretty much succeeded in doing what it was trying to do, and, you know, was extreme and all. I enjoyed the human parts much more than the middle of the film where the dogs created their own little canine society in the snow, but in the end I can only say that this film was what it was: A professionally done job of making a kids' movie. It really wasn’t bad.

Standouts: Anything Extreme.
Blowouts: The horrible CGI monster and the doggies' hyper-intelligent planning.

Grade: C+

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

CRASH CONTROVERSY - part deux

I noted in my last post how the Academy doesn't exactly have a perfect record deciding their best picture winner. I used this to excuse the selection of Crash as the best picture of 2005. After noggining about it a bit more, however, I think this year's selection really does have some differences from past choices. Frankly, Crash might just be the worst film ever selected as best picture. In fact, it might be the worst by a sizeable margin. Given this, I've been interested enough to peruse the web on the subject. I've found quite a few bits of interesting commentary the past few days regarding the big win by Crash at the Oscars.

By far the best researched and most in depth is by Jim Emerson, the editor of Roger Ebert's website:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060307/SCANNERS/60308001

There's much interesting material to be gleaned here including how many Academy voters (notably Tony Curtis) vowed not to see the gay cowboy movie much less ever vote for it as best picture.

Perhaps my initial reaction after seeing the surprise victory for Crash was correct: That there really was some degree of bigotry and voting politics at play in this decision. Most interesting to read about, however, is how the voting turns out winners in practice. Winners. Not necessarily 'the best' film, simply the winning film. To quote Emerson:

"If you believe in democracy in any form you know that the decisions of the voters are not in any way connected to choosing the "best" outcome (or selecting the "best" candidate for an office), but the most popular or generally acceptable ones."

Conversely Roger Ebert himself gives an essay on the reaction to Crash by it's haters (include me in there) and his personal choice of Crash as the best film for 2005. I will note that Mr. Ebert has in the past made some pretty tenious claims on best pictures. My 'favorite' of his unusual choices was Dark City, his pick as the best film of 1998. He apparently saw more than just an episode of the 'Outer Limits', which is all I saw in that movie.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060306/OSCARS/603070301


Finally, I include my original review of Crash where I applaud the films goals, but lightly lambast its execution.

CRASH (DVD)
Director: Paul Haggis ( writer/producer Million Dollar Baby, long list of TV work)
Starring: Ensemble incl. Matt Dillon, Don Cheadle, Thandie Newton, more

I think that this broad, vaguely cheesy movie about racism showed some worthwhile ideas on screen. The film portrayed a dozen characters each confronting and practicing racism (like we all do in some way or another). It showed these characters lashing out at others because they have so many other struggles to deal with, and how it’s just easier to lash out.

Well, the screenplay has this right in some ways - maybe not without fault, and it’s definitely not a comprehensive study of racism, but it got its little part right. For that I applaud the film. Detractors of the movie will rush to shout down the awful score, the absolutely, unbelievably, unabashedly simple characters, and the absurd coincidences that bring the dozen or so characters of this film together, and they may be right to do so. These were not particularly effective aspects to this film. It’s a pet peeve of mine, however, how critics will particularly ravage an idea that dares to reaches high and may fail in some way. If you dare to attempt to write a screenplay on racism, you damn well better not give us any broad strokes. Well, screw you Mr. or Ms. Cowardly Low Self Esteemed Reviewer. If you can’t handle someone having the balls to tackle a difficult subject and fail then you’d be best to quietly go work in your garden and shut up about art because you don’t have the slightest idea how it works.

So yeah, this movie missed in a lot of ways, succeeded in some others, but was pretty much watchable throughout. So, to concisely sum up: Uneven but with some to recommend.

Standouts: Effective acting by Matt Dillon, Thandie Newton, Don Cheadle and others.
Blowouts: Horrible score, silly plot coincidences, and ridiculously broad characters.

Grade: B-

Monday, March 06, 2006

THE 2006 OSCARS, or rather THE 2006 CRASH CONTROVERSY

Some basic facts and figures:

Number of Academy Awards won by:
Martin Scorsese - 0
Robert Altman - 1 (but only after last night's honorary award)
Stanley Kubrick - 1 (for "special visual effects" in 2001 ...)
Orsen Welles - 0


The film Crash - more than these guys.

Some past Academy Best Picture nominations and winners:
1974 - The Towering Inferno (with OJ Simpson no less!)
1976 - Rocky (over Taxi Driver, Network, and All the President's Men)
1979 - Kramer vs Kramer (over Apocolypse Now and Manhatten)
1980 - Ordinary People (over Raging Bull? Come on)
1998 - Shakespeare in Love
1983 - Terms of Endearment
1981 - Chariots of Fire (over Raiders of the Lost Ark and Reds)
1958 - Gigi (over Touch of Evil and Vertigo)


And 2006, Crash (over, well, pick any movie you'd like, because I don't think Crash is that much better than anything you could come up with).

Yes folks, Crash was the big winner at the 2006 Oscars. Personally, I was floored (and vaguely disgusted) by this choice. Despite some reviewers (such as Roger Ebert) promoting the film, this movie fan just doesn't see what it had going for it. Oh, I may go back and give the film another shot. I've certainly been wrong before. Never before have I reconsidered a film I found as utterly cheesy as Crash and realized that I was watching a work of genius, however. I may have underated films before, but nothing like what would be required for Crash to turn into my best picture of 2005.

I am not a conspiracy theorist. Far from it, in fact. But with that said let's just say I have doubts about motives in this selection. Could it be that voters were a tad bit afraid of certain gay cowboy themes? Especially with yammering right wing talking heads taking as many pot shots at Hollywood as they possibly can. Could it be that many Academy voters (who definitely trend toward the older end of the age spectrum) find promoting tolerance of blacks easier than tolerance of gays? Could voters have simply been more accepting of an easy anti-racisim movie set in LA than a countrified story of repressed homsexuality?

The answer is that I don't know. Maybe I am looking too hard for a conspiracy theory? Maybe the voters just plain messed up again, just like they did in all of the choices I listed at the start of this entry. Maybe Crash is just this year's Ordinary People?

Anyway, with all said and done I found last night's Oscar ceremony neither good nor bad. I have a 'sort of okay' vibe thinking about how Jon Stewart performed as host. He utterly fell flat early, but did manage to find a few laughs later on. I'm very glad Ang Lee won best director, but was rather bored by the pararde of art awards that Memoirs of a Geisha received. I refuse to comment on the best song winner. I've actually been making fun of that song for a month now, after hearing it in Hustle and Flow. Ohhhh, I can't resist. "It's hard out here for a pimp?" Are you freaking kidding me? It's hard out here for good taste, that's what it's hard out here for.

In the end, I'm confident that the Oscars are not the the defining judge of film. They never have been, and I doubt they ever will be. If you look back over the years though, I won't dare fault them too much. It's obvious that the Academy has done a pretty good job. Despite the fact that Scorsese and Altman never won an Oscar, they did get the nominations time and again. And in past Oscar nomination lists you'll find Fellini and Kurosawa and Bergman and many other greats. So despite my disagreement about Crash, I can still say that from this year's list of nominated films will come some flicks that we'll look back at as great, great movies.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the fine batch of 2005 flicks as much as I did, because now we're off to 2006. I already have some high hopes this year, especially for The DaVinci Code, Oliver Stone's 9/11 project, Mel Gibson's Apocolypto and many more. Here's to the movies! (Now I can go watch March Madness basketball.)

Friday, March 03, 2006

FLIGHTPLAN (DVD)

Director: Robert Schwentke (no major film work)
Starring: Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard, Sean Bean

Jodie, Petie, and ... Sean-ie - 3 actors I dig immensely. This is high quality acting stock, folks, Jodie with a long famous career behind her, and the other two with significant careers ahead of them I think. Flightplan shows what good actors can do with relatively mundane Hollywood fare.

At first glance this story is absurd. A preposterous thriller that would never work - an eye-rollingly over the top story. You know, just like any of the other hundred films of its ilk that come out of the major studios these days.

But here's the thing, there is a very good reason why Hollywood churns these things out. Every once in a while one comes along that's mightily entertaining. I don't know if I'd call Flightplan "mightily" entertaining, but I did find it entertaining. Part of that might be attributable to a slighter better than average script, but I think the real reason had to do with those three actors I mentioned before. They helped make some of the ridiculous situations seem plausible.

Jodie Foster plays a mom who's husband has just died in an accident. While transporting his body back to America on the new Airbus jumbo jet, she awakes from a nap to find her daughter missing. She was sitting next to her an hour before, but now she's gone, and in the very limited space of an airliner (even one as huge as the new jet). From there tension and twists ensue as we debate whether Jodie was crazy, or if in fact there is a giant Hollywood plot crashing down upon us.

Jodie's real success in this role comes from her ability to never quite convince us one way or another during this debate. I've seen a lot of movies, and I absolutely, positively, one hundred percent knew that there was a crime caper at the end of this plot. Nonetheless Foster still made me believe that she might just be crazy in the early scenes. Quite a good job for this fairly standard flick.

After it's all done you'll say there's no way this plot could have occurred. You're absolutely right. It's utterly implausable, logically absurd. It's still kind of fun along the way, though. A fairly enjoyable movie as these things go.

Standouts: Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard and Sean Bean lift up your run of the mill Hollywood thriller.
Blowouts: A ridiculously implausable plot.

Grade: B

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

THE WEATHER MAN (DVD)

Director: Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean, The Mexican, The Ring)
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Michael Caine, Hope Davis

The Weather Man is a story of achieving a working relationship with the struggles of everyday life. It’s a story about taking the effort to tackle tough issues. Nicolas Cage is a divorced weatherman at a local TV station, struggling mightily with connecting to those around him, his confused children, his ex-wife, his wise old father dying of lymphoma. Actually it would be better to say that he’s not struggling to connect with those around him. He’s wishing that he could connect, and frustrated mightily by his failure, but this man has chosen to take the easy route in most every aspect of his life. In a nutshell this story is precisely about the easy way versus the hard. And as Michael Caine says (in an excellent performance as the supremely wise and talented, even Pulitzer Prize-winning father) “Easy doesn’t enter into adult life”. He’s right. The Weather Man is not.

Nicolas Cage gives a very good performance as this average Joe, depressed with his lot. He’s paid an enormous salary to do a nonsensical job. He has zero respect from anyone in the film, except for his father who accepts him while pushing him to be more. Strangers on the street throw milkshakes at him. His children don’t know much, except that they don’t understand this man. They sense that he’s not a bad person, but they certainly aren’t thrilled by his presence. His ex-wife (Hope Davis) has simply had enough of him. It turns out that the easy path is the path of self-involvement. It’s extremely simple to fulfill your own desires, and that’s just what Nicolas Cage did in his marriage. He wasn’t necessarily selfish to the point of not caring about others. He definitely did. He was simply selfish to the point of not taking the effort as he should to positively affect others – a fine point to be sure, but a very important one. This man didn’t cheat on his wife. He just didn’t take the time to care about her.

In many ways this film could have been excellent. In the end, however, almost nothing really came together. Nicolas Cage and Michael Caine are two extraordinary actors. Hope Davis isn’t exactly a slouch, either. All of them give quality performances here, but there’s nothing exceptional in them. The script touches on very interesting material, has its moments of humor and pathos, but mostly it’s just boring. The direction was extremely ho-hum. This is a film that had potential, but missed the target.

Standouts: Workmanlike quality from Cage and Caine.
Blowouts: The script had its moments, but didn’t really make it. Direction was average.

Grade: B-