Movies

Max Payne is a dark, noirish, nearly perfect action thriller based on the video game of the same name. I had low expectations; I expected it to be marginally less loathsome than last year's Hitman--having little or no redeeming qualities to offset a gratuitous on-screen death toll. But Max Payne does have the redeeming qualities to make it a good movie, actually a great movie within its genre.

The casting choices were quite odd. Sometimes it worked really well (Donal Logue in a small part), other times not so much (Mila Kunis) as a hardcore criminal (to her credit, she does a good job, but it's just such a departure for her). Marky Mark's subdued performance makes the character believable.

It's a good, tight story; there are turns but you anticipate all of them. Visually the movie hits all the right targets: an icy, overcast New York deep in winter, where the only warm tones are in Max's memory.

I didn't hear or read much about The Good German, and hence was very pleasantly surprised after finally seeing it. This is Steven Soderbergh's WWII-era drama starring George Clooney and Kate Blanchett. It uses many stylistic devices of 1940's and 50's Hollywood films including, first and foremost, a black & white print. I wasted a good chunk of my childhood watching movies of this era on Seattle's KCPQ "Q-13" (I think they stopped filling their air-time with vintage movies right around the time I left; nearly 20 years ago). So it was kind of cool to see all those techniques and styles put to use again.

But, more importantly, it has a good plot. Set in Berlin right after the German surrender, it involves intrigue among various (and historically fairly accurate) factions: Americans who want to capture and prosecute Nazis, Americans who want to find the brightest rocket scientists to kick-start our own missile program, Russians who want to find them before we do, Germans who want to escape their complicity in Nazi war crimes, and Germans who want to cooperate and bring justice to those responsible. So given all the competing motives, you can imagine that a few plot twists are in order. Throw in a journalist just trying to get to the bottom of a story (Clooney), a corrupt Army sergeant (Tobey McGuire, his dopeyness is less out-of-place than usual here, given the actors that might have filled the role in a classic movie) and a possibly widowed German driven to prostitution (the aforementioned Blanchett) into the mix, and you have a plot that Hollywood would have loved sixty years ago.

But it still works today, and part of that is due to (no spoilers) working into the screenplay some of the actual historical facts that we have learned, namely the personal participation of German rocket scientists (including von Braun) at the slave labor camp where the V-2 was put into production. Struggle over direct evidence of such participation becomes a central plot-line providing additional drama with modern-day resonance.

There's nothing Hollywood does quite so well as dramatic tales of rogue cops and corrupt police departments, good guys gone bad, violent power struggles with Internal Affairs, and the bloody carnage of those who decide they're above the law. Street Kings is the latest in this long line, and it's quite entertaining. It is hard-fuggin-boiled, sometimes just about to the point of absurdity, lending it a latter-day noir-ish quality. Keanu Reeves' character is the bad cop, a "guided missile" with no regard for due process, taking on thugs and fellow officers alike. I gotta say, he's gradually become a better actor and he actually gives the role something very much akin to... ...believability. He's aided here by an exceptional cast: Forest Whitaker, Terry Crews, Jay Mohr, John Corbett, Hugh Laurie, Chris Evans, and others. I want to watch it again!

The Yes Men are prankster activists attempting to show the harm caused by global corporatism. They first became known for a fake GW Bush campaign site, for which the real GW famously said "There outta be limits to freedom."

Their movie has some truly hilarious pranks. The clips are on YouTube (of course!) but require some intros, as they are missing the long lead-ins which make them much funnier.

In the first, they pose as WTO representatives at a conference in Finland. After a presentation favorably comparing the use of third world sweatshops to slavery (among other outrageous statements), they whip out a demonstration, a futuristic business suit that allows managers to watch their workers by means of a giant phallic extension with a TV screen embedded in it, the Employee Visualization Appendage.

Amazingly, the stuffed shirts at the conference never catch on that they are being pranked. Here's the clip.

In another, they give a talk before an economics class to introduce a new plan to feed starving people in the Third World and at the same time make lots of money. After generously feeding the entire class with McDonald's, they show a video of the concept which is called "ReBurger." Let's just say that it would give new meaning to the phrase "ordering a number two." Here's the clip. Shocked and disgusted, the class ultimately does realize it is a joke.

Southland Tales, the latest movie from Donnie Darko creator Richard Kelly, was savagely trashed by movie critics. I had to check it out to see if there were any redeeming qualities.

It's set in 2008, but in a world very different than ours. A massive terrorist strike on U.S. soil has shocked the nation, and catalyzed dramatic changes in American society. Republicans have used the tragedy to crack down on civil liberties. New branches of government have been created to monitor citizens. In Southern California, left-wing celebrities form a sort of unorganized resistance movement. Oil is in short supply, adding strain to the economy and leading to urgent searches for new energy sources. Media outlets alternate fear-mongering news with sex-obsessed coverage of Hollywood stars. Porn has become mainstream.

Oh wait; that's exactly like our world.

Southland Tales is a complex film, with a plot so opaque it could not be followed, even if it did make sense. It reminded me of certain films from the 1970's like Tommy or A Clockwork Orange that are sprawling, seemingly drug-induced, and non-linear. The characters are well drawn and, for the most part, well acted. Kelly uses a great many comedic actors in dramatic roles (including 4 or 5 SNL alums), and it works.

If I had half a day to spare, I'd read the plot synopsis and figure out what it all was about. But it probably still wouldn't make sense. There are some similarities with Donnie Darko particularly the apocalyptic focus, time travel, strange loops, wounded eyes.

Many of the quotes from this movie are hilarious. My favorite is from Sarah Michelle Gellar's character, who hosts a TV show like The View except with porn stars: "Join us for an in-depth discussion of the penetrating issues facing society today. Issues like abortion, terrorism, crime, poverty, social reform, quantum teleportation, teen horniness and war..." And one of the main characters, a police officer, wears a vest with the letters UPU2 (Unified Police Unit 2?)

Good stuff. I'd stop short of calling Southland Tales a misunderstood masterpiece, but it is worth seeing, especially if you liked Donnie Darko. Just don't expect it to make sense.

Well, I thought the coolest part from Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull was where it is revealed that Indy was a double agent for the OSS (precursor to the CIA, see The Good Shepard) during WWII. Now that would have made for a much better movie. As it was, Indy IV was okay, but I think it will be remembered as the 4th best in the series.

The setup sequence was pretty neat, sort of a tribute to 50's Americana. Now, obviously, what Spielberg and Lucas have always done very well with this series is recreate the feel of old movie-reel cinema cliffhangers (PBS used to replay them on Matinee at the Bijou), where the characters are caricatures and everything is larger than life. This movie is definitely in keeping with that tradition. The foley work was almost comically loud for instance. But surviving a nuclear blast? In reality, if that fridge had been accelerated like that, he would have been turned into goo. And Grays? As Mayan Gods? In a giant flying saucer? Shia as a dead ringer for Marlin Brando in The Wild One? I thought it went too far, but I suppose it's really the only place you can go after immortal crusaders and the holy grail.

The genius of the dark comedy slash horror movie Teeth is that it combines the fear of sex represented by the vagina dentata myth with the all-too real repercussions of social conservatism in modern American schools. And also that, in its own way, it satirizes the teen-horror genre, where the first victims are always the sexually active ones, while at the same time offering enough blood and fake mutilation to qualify as a real horror film itself. And finally, by putting identifiable characters in absurd, but strangely realistic, situations, to be a truly great dark comedy. I loved it; it's definitely going on my ten-best list.

Dawn, the lead character, is initially unaware of her second set of chompers. She's a prominent student leader of an abstinence-until-marriage group at her high school. She, and her friends, are having difficulty keeping to the ideal of "purity"; impure thoughts are driven into them by movies, advertisements and their own raging hormones. Their teachers are no help at de-mystifying sex; their health teacher cannot even make himself utter the V word. In their textbooks, a depiction of female genitals is covered up by a giant gold sticker. The teacher has trouble explaining why the corresponding male anatomy can be shown until Dawn offers a reason: that women have an innate modesty (and the boy who has a crush on her is quick to agree). It's the resurgent but age-old American puritanism: female sexuality is a threat to a male-dominated order; driven down by making it unspeakable.

But perhaps helped by the nuclear power plant looming near Dawn's house, Nature has responded with a new adaptation. In a discussion of evolution, their science teacher is very careful to avoid scientific evidence and give credence to "alternative theories." In this repressed environment, the scene is set for Dawn's terrible blossoming.

Her step-brother is a polar opposite. Tattooed and pierced, fixated on his step-sister after a childhood incident that opens the movie, with his heavy metal cranked, he can hardly get off his girlfriend's ass long enough to smoke a bowl or shoot his B.B. gun into the wall.

But I don't want to give away too much more. See this movie! In a decade filled with third-rate horror movies, many of them knock-offs or remakes of those from the 1980's, this one really stands out as using the genre in a smart, witty, darkly comedic way. The actors, all of them, are perfect in their roles. [And I'll again mention Lightning Bug which also uses some conventions of horror, but in a much different way, to dramatize a kids' escape from an abusive step-parent in the repressive environment of a small town in the deep South].

In the recently watched category:

Cloverfield

Entertaining, I would even go so far as to say it lived up my expectations. It should have ended with a nuclear blast! And characters that seemed like they actually lived in Manhattan... real New Yorkers.

Flight of the Living Dead

For some reason, I thought this was another George Romero movie, like Land of the Dead, which is my favorite. It definitely isn't; it's pretty bad.

TED: The Future We Will Create

This is an interesting look at the TED (Technology, Education, Design) conference from 2006. There's a number of cool, futuristic concepts presented along with present-day work by big thinkers to make the world a better place. Maybe next year, someone will make a documentary about the grassroots BIL conference!

Jumper

Usually (read 99.999% of the time), when Hollywood takes a concept from science fiction, they make it a totally ridiculous movie. Even more frequently when it is geared toward a younger audience. So it was surprising to see this exception to the rule!

Michael Clayton

Confusing movie. Only by the time you are well into do you understand who Michael Clayton is, who he is working for, what the case is about, etc, etc. I guess I'm not a fan of movies that keep you in the dark, struggling to puzzle out characters and their motives. It didn't seem to be Oscar caliber material.

This Is England

Amazing independent movie from the UK. Set in 1983, the story of a kid drawn slowly into the circle of skinheads, straining his other burgeoning friendships. Ultimately examines the intersection of bigotry, nationalism, and hate crime. But otherwise, it does a convincing job of presenting England as it was a quarter century ago, and the early scenes of kids playing among the detritus of a collapsed economy made me slightly nostalgic for that bygone era. Five out of five stars.

Juno

I found the character played by Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner to be more interesting than the teens, possible because the character of Juno was completely off the wall, and the role played by the kid from Superbad isn't given much room for character development. So the older couple are 30-something yuppies who superficially appear to have it made, but are ultimately revealed to be victims of their own conformity.

More reviews of recently seen flicks.

There Will Be Blood

A truly excellent film; five thumbs up!

Lions For Lambs

This movie does a fair job at something very difficult: boiling down the big problems of the day into short sentences and having its characters enunciate them. And I don't normally like movies that try to do it, that try so hard to be relevant. At various points, characters describe what is wrong with our government, our press, the War on Terror, politicians, society, education, youth. But it is able to do this without seeming overly contrived. And finally it makes a good point about our apathy in general. Tom Cruise is good as a young GOP senator with McCain-like mannerisms.

Walk Hard

There are quite a few laugh-out-loud moments in this parody of Ring of Fire and other music biopics. A nice satire of the rock-star excesses of the 60's and 70's. And the songs are actually pretty decent. But ultimately, I was left with the feeling that it could have been even funnier, like Spinal Tap, with better writing.

Eastern Promises

I think this is my new favorite David Cronenberg movie. Disturbing, surprising, violent and brilliant.

Enchanted

An attempt by Disney to make a movie that appeals to both kids and adults, and almost succeeds.

What makes James MacAvoy such a great actor? Here's three movies we saw recently featuring the young Scot.

Penelope

Starring Christini Ricci in the tale of a girl cursed with a pig nose, but Mr. MacAvoy steals the show. In this case, I felt the concept of taking a whimsical story and placing it in a modern setting didn't really work.

Starter For Ten

This, on the other hand, was a much, much better movie. The story of a working-class Brit who makes it into an elite English university and joins the trivia challenge team. As a 'Knowledge Bowl' competitor myself in high school (we placed 2nd in state), I enjoyed that aspect of it. Catherine Tate (hottie alert) place his love interest. The ups and downs of the team, plus dealing with his blue-collar friends, makes for some interesting, original drama.

Atonement

I felt this would have worked better as a pure tragedy without the postmodern twist at the end, and without the typewriter clacking as some sort of soundtrack. MacAvoy is really good here, even without having a lot of lines. And it's nice to see Keira Knightly in a real role again. Note: Hey guys, if composing an ode to punani, make sure it gets to your lover, and not her precocious freak kid sister!

This is a clever, terrible, error dialog I saw on the Internets. Ha! (It refers to a specific scene in the movie). I was just thinking how Anton "Suger" Chugah is one of the great, all-time, classic silver screen villains. What I find wonderfully funny is how deeply, even absurdly so, he is imbued with the "not from around here" vibe. Like, in the world of the novel and movie, he's a composite sketch of how all these folks in a tiny West Texas town in 1980 might remember an outsider, gradually exaggerated with each re-telling of the story. And maybe, again of course in the world of No Country For Old Men, he really was just some bad guy from Jersey or somewhere, but still so alien to the folks who happened to get in his way but lived to tell about it, that he ends up being remembered as having the Prince Valiant haircut, the weird speech, an unpronounceable name, a soulless killing machine, etc. I'm going to have to read the book....

To get caught up, here are micro-reviews of movies we saw in the latter half of 2007.

Hitman

Not having played the game, I don't know how well the screen version translates. But if an unremitting series of increasingly violent assassinations sounds like a good time to you, then you will probably like this movie. But if you're like me, the only redeeming quality you'll find is sultry Olga Kurylenko (Ukranian for sexy-sexy). Timothy Oliphant must have done this movie for the money; he probably needed all the talent in his left pinky to play this zero-dimensional character.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Baroque costumes are about all this sequel has going for it. The plot is ridiculously over-the-top at one point, when Sir Walter Raleigh dives underwater to swim through rough seas, sets a ship on fire, leading an assault on the Spanish Armada.

Live Free or Die Hard

Speaking of ridiculously over-the-top.... But that's what you expect in a Die Hard movie. They did go too far with the whole scene where he's jumping onto, and off of, a Harrier jet while it spins out of control. If you can suspend your disbelief in a deep cryonic freeze for two hours, then you'll find this one nearly as good as the original Die Hard.

The Dog Problem

Scott Caan wrote, co-starred in, and directed this Indie flick about a Hollywood loser (played by Giovanni Ribisi) who gets his life together with the help of a pet (that he has no idea how to take care of). I hope he continues to make movies like this one: the type that will never be made inside the studio system because they're too unusual and original.

Sicko

This is Michael Moore's best film yet, and an important film that everyone should see. It's his best because it sticks to a single thesis: that socialized health care works, and it works much better than our current system. He makes the argument steadfastly, through facts and testimonials, that national health care is better for patients (of any economic class) and better for doctors. Most of all, he shows how shameful the situation in the U.S. really is.

The Good Shepherd

This is really an amazingly good movie. It weaves the history of the CIA into the narrative of a single fictional life, into a character played by Matt Damon. De Niro shows that he's as good a director as he is an actor.

The Brothers Solomon

Insipid with few funny parts. I don't think Will Forte is the least bit funny in anything he's done.

George Lopez: America's Mexican

George Lopez has some very, very funny routines in this HBO special. It doesn't quite rise to the classic level of say, a Eddie Murphy or Richard Pryor. Last year, Mary and I watched re-runs of his sitcom (The George Lopez Show) just about every night, and it is probably one of the top ten sitcoms of all times.

Hot Rod

Yet another barely amusing movie from SNL stars; it has none of the cleverness of Andy Samberg's Digital Shorts.

Rescue Dawn

I had high hopes for this one with Werner Herzog behind the camera and Christian Bale in front of it. It's a great (true) story, and the cinematography is exceptional, but somehow I felt that it lacked drama.

The Kingdom

An American bomb squad crew is put on a terrorist case in Saudia Arabia; they put the pieces together, kick ass, and take names. Just the type of thing that South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone parodied with the song America: Fuck Yeah! in Team America: World Police. I'll take the parody any day.

Stardust

Definitely a children's movie, but a good one.

The Bourne Ultimatum

As good as the first one; 'nuff said.

December Boys

It starts slowly, but this coming-of-age tale of four orphaned brothers in western Australia is good. Daniel Radcliffe especially; it's great to see him not as Harry Potter, and he really does a fine job.

No Country For Old Men

This latest Coen Brothers movie reminds me of their first, Blood Simple, but with everything they've learned about making movies in a quarter century. And it's quite brutal and bloody. I still haven't quite figured out how the Mexican drug runners found Moss before Chugah. The ending was disappointing; still, it's a great movie; I want to see it again.

Death At A Funeral

Alan Tudyk (the pilot of Serenity (Firefly) has some good moments as a guy unwittingly dosed with LSD at a funeral, but overall the movie had very few laughs

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

This movie is slooooow. They could have cut at least 30 minutes out. Casey Affleck is perfect as Robert Ford, outshining Brad Pitt as Jesse James. Really great cinematography.

Blind Dating

This was a pretty enjoyable movie, about a blind guy who falls in love with an (East) Indian girl but not before his brother, played by the shit-brick guy from American Pie tries to set him up with prostitutes from his escort service.

Weirdsville

This is a weird, original, indie stoner-buddy comedy with a dark side. It would have been better if it dropped its obsession with death, it makes for jarring transitions from the funny bits, which are quite funny and surreal.

The Heartbreak Kid

With Ben Stiller again, the Farelly Brothers take obscene humor a few notches lower. But this time out, the result has very few of the endearing qualities that There's Something About Mary did.

The Invasion

Okay, I must admit that I haven't seen any of the previous versions of Body Snatchers. This was actually pretty good, with the exception of a quick everything-turns-out-okay ending.

Black Book

A Dutch tale of WWII by the director of Starship Troopers and various other action/sci-fi blockbusters (that I really like). Uneven pacing mars what is otherwise an exceptional movie. It edges into the must-see category.

Flyboys

WW1 gets the full Hollywood treatment. Move along, nothing worth seeing here.

Mr. Bean's Holiday

Only one scene is uproariously funny, but a marvelous ending definitely makes up for it, an ending that merges Mr. Bean's physical comedy with a movie-within-a-movie (in a French cinema, in Cannes). Willem Dafoe is great as a pretentious American film-maker.

Bagdad ER

From HBO Films, a documentary looks at Army medics in Iraq. Supposedly the first television documentary filmed in HD, which I'm sure must be sickening with the buckets of blood and severed limbs. Actually the gore that is shown is very infrequent, and very brief.

I felt like I was being preached to a little bit, at the conclusion of I Am Legend.

Spoiler Alert!

Will Smith's character is on the verge of finding a way to finally halt a global pandemic that has killed off the vast majority of the world's population, and turned the rest into bloodthirsty vampires. Loneliness and traumatic incidents have driven him mad. A mutation has rendered him immune, perhaps the sole survivor. This much of the movie was well done and entertaining.

Enter another survivor and her son, they rescue Smith, but alert the victims to their presence, bringing on a climactic battle. We find that Smith has indeed found a way to restore humanity. Through their dialog, we find that her faith in God has led her there, and gives her hope that others are out there and by taking the cure to them, together they can heal the victims and build a new civilization. If there was a message to the movie, it was that in the most desperate the circumstances, hard work and science are not enough, that we would fail (as Smith's character would have) without faith in a higher power. It wasn't heavy-hamded or anything, but it seemed to me that by putting that dialog there near the end, with explicit reference to faith/God, that it was trying to make that point. And I don't mind that, but it did add to the odd feeling of the ending. Leading up to this point, the movie had gotten darker and darker, showing us terrible events in the movie's present and past (as he remembers the full horror of what happened to his family); the movie's 180 degree turn in tone was abrupt and unsatisfying.

There's an alternate ending you can find floating around on the intertubes; it's not much better.

The deaths of Brad Renfro and Heath Ledger within a week of each other, both involving drugs (legal or illegal), was disturbing. Two great talents; two of my favorite actors. Brad's portrayal of a teen pushed to murder of a sociopath in Bully (based on a true story) was incredible. Heath of course became a far bigger star, so his story is eclipsing Renfro's. I think Ned Kelly is my favorite movie of Ledger's; it's hard to pick one. He could do so much with just vocal inflections... a really amazing talent that few actors have.

Here's a cartoon that appeared in the Daily Wildcat.

Sunshine is an outrageously good sci-fi thriller. We just finished watching the DVD. There has not been a science-fiction movie this good in quite a long time. It ranks up there with 2001, Alien and others. The story certainly isn't as original as those; it does rely on some conventions of the genre such as crew difficulties on a long space voyage, computers that over rule humans, and spooky abandoned spacecraft. And it borrows from 2001 and 2010 with the hard science-fiction style that tries to get a lot of the technical details right. But it really uses those formulaic elements in such a masterful way that it seems completely fresh.

Ridley Scott's new movie, starring Denzel Washington and Russel Crowe, is well worth seeing. The story of the rise and fall of an infamous drug kingpin, it's set in Harlem in the late 1960's and early 70's. One of the most amazing things about this film is the sheer number of different sets, all lavish in detail and seamlessly set in their time. I'm guessing that this movie cost around 100 million dollars, and you can just about see that spent in the 2.5 hours on screen, as scene by scene plays out. Here and there, the history of the era develops, as fashions change, color tv replaces b&w, microwave ovens appear ("they re-arrange the molecules!"), Vietnam explodes and dwindles, chain stores replace mom&pop, hard-core drugs decimate the inner city.

Particular attention is placed on Frank Lucas' (the aforementioned gangster) notion of drug dealing as business, complete with a brand name (his mix of heroin) and the economics (paying protection money to crooked cops), and his character tries to justify it at several points in the movie. This is somewhat balanced by shots portraying the destroyed lives of junkies and, ultimately, by Crowe's character calling out Frank directly on the tremendous swath of misery he has caused.

It's hard to determine how much of the story is true. The article and interview with the real Frank Lucas (linked above), which was the basis of the screenplay, leave the impression that some of the details may be the result of tall tales (and there is no mention of a climactic gun battle / raid), but the broad outline of the story seems to be supported by facts.

Stranger Than Fiction is worth seeing, if for no better reason than to see a reality that could only exist in fiction, where an omniscient narrator meets one of her characters. It raises, but does not explore, some of the same existential issues as (the much better) I Heart Huckabees. A tragic ending would have been simple and perfect. By the way, isn't it ironic that imaginary characters can achieve what we cannot; namely, immortality?

The previews for Lady in the Water, which seemed to be in heavy rotation last summer, didn't really provide any sense of what the story was about. I like all of M. Night Shyamalan's other films, particularly Signs and The Village.

The set featured in the previews looked totally bizarre also. A bland, modern apartment complex enclosing three sides of a courtyard, and on the fourth side, a ramshackle cottage amidst tall, wild grass and weeds. It just seemed incredibly implausible that such a juxtaposition would ever occur in the real world.

Getting past that, there is a nice little story that this movie has to tell. Actually it is clever, incorporating a meta-story, or a story about story-making. It could be a metaphor for itself, though Mr. Night does not delve into those deep waters. Though there is one brief scene where the movie confronts itself in the hallway, when the character of Harry Farber (Bob Balaban, I can only think of him as "the president of NBC"), the know-it-all critic, finds out that he doesn't know it all about the movie, or his own place in it as a character!

Mike Judge's Idiocracy is worth watching, a sharp satire on the dumbing-down of American culture. It doesn't however have the qualities of his previous film, the now-classic Office Space. Mostly that is because the story is not as captivating, but also that Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph are given so few good lines. Dax Shepard is great however (and incidentally really stands out in Employee of the Month). Only the viciously funny satire saves it.