WriterDave Reviews

Waves (I) (2019)

A Devastating Work of Art with Glimmers of Truth and Hope

[10/10 · 30 November 2019]

After my wife and I walked out of the movie theater, completely devastated (in the best possible ways) by what we had seen, there was a group of teenagers (the perfect audience for this film) buying tickets and I couldn't help but think about how lucky they were to be seeing Waves. It's the type of film that if one sees it in their youth, it could change how you view movies, art...life.

I will say nothing more about Waves except it is an absolute must-see, and if it finds its audience, it has the chance to be a generational touchstone film.

Phantom Thread (2017)

Do it Carefully

[10/10 · 2 January 2018]

Every stitch of the filmmaking (the directing, the photography, the screenplay, the acting, the exquisitely beautiful music from Jonny Greenwood) mirrors the careful threading of fabric and creations of the film's focus: 1950's London dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock (played perfectly by Daniel Day Lewis). But writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson flips things on their head by making the new love interest, Alma (an amazing Vicky Krieps), the protagonist...and her emotional chess match with Reynolds creates the film's beautiful, subdued, classy, and darkly humorous suspense.

Fans of refined cinema should rejoice. Phantom Thread is a carefully constructed and mesmerizing masterpiece. It is both unlike anything we've seen before from Paul Thomas Anderson and everything you could hope for from such a talent (the underlying themes carry across from other works, and the attention to detail remains paramount). If this is Daniel Day Lewis' last film (as reported), then he leaves on a very high note.

Quite simply, this is the film of the year...and one of the best of the decade.

Read full reviews at theschleicherspin.com

Rope (2010)

Great Short Film Leaves You Hanging

[8/10 · 26 August 2010]

Like the best short stories, the best short films are compact, compelling and open-ended. "Rope" - at a tight four minutes - is one such film.

Writer/director Ian Clay makes great use of voice-over narration to bring the audience inside the fractured and troubled internal monologue of a man planning to hang himself. Polished editing and sound design techniques (reminiscent of early Nolan films) highlight the story. There's a bit of mystery (a reference to a girl...and an accident perhaps?) and a surprising visit by a dog in the end...leaving us to wonder...will he or won't he?

For a short film done on the cheap, "Rope" has solid production values and leaves a lasting impression on the viewer.

The Hurt Locker (2008)

Bigelow Detonates All the Right Marks

[9/10 · 28 July 2009]

Staff Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner) is the "wild man" team leader who has defused more than eight hundred bombs and has built his reputation on being an adrenaline junkie in order to mask his inability to cope with the emotional connections he feebly tries to make at home and on the job. Sergeant JT Sandborn (Anthony Mackie) approaches his work with a by-the-book stoicism that can't comprehend the recklessness of James. Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) is highly trained but still feels overwhelmed by his morbid thoughts on war and his role in it. These are the members of the EOD Army bomb squad stationed in Baghdad in 2004, and "The Hurt Locker" is their story.

After failing to do so with the depressingly somber and serious "In The Valley of Elah", screenwriter Mark Boal wisely places politics and moralizing aside this time to give us an intimate look into one squad with a highly specialized job to do. Hollywood has always loved to play with the grunt's-eye-view-of-war-as-hell theme, but "The Hurt Locker" spins that volatile cocktail on its head and blows it up all over the screen by focusing on an elite team and proposes the notion that maybe war is a drug...for some.

Director Kathryn Bigelow hits all the right detonators with her fascinating presentation of modern warfare in the Middle East. Bigelow hasn't really made anything memorable since her 1987 breakthrough, the cult vampire/western "Near Dark", but she has always managed to make interesting failures-- just take a look at her attempt to do a literary adaptation with the superficially obtuse "The Weight of Water". Often living under the shadow of ex-husband James Cameron or having to share the title of "that female action director" with Mimi Leder (until Mimi murdered her film career with the abominable "Pay it Forward") Bigelow, determined to finally leave her mark, displays an astounding technical prowess with "The Hurt Locker" that can only come from the wisdom of experience. Close-ups, slow-mo's, quick cuts and inventive plays with the camera's point-of-view are used sparingly and with pin-point precision to heighten tension. Here she shows the "good ol' boys" she once emulated but has now trounced that style can be used for dramatic effect but need not be excessive. Her sense of space allows us to be right there with the bomb squad as they are faced with unimaginable danger. We always know where each character is positioned in relation to the bomb, and we always find in turn our stomachs have hit the floor. Her technique is brilliant and delivers a picture that is so taut it might be the most intense experience this side of Clouzot's "Wages of Fear". Now knowing all the moves, however, I wonder how the film will hold up on return viewing.

"The Hurt Locker" is not for those seeking generic thrills or anyone currently on medication for emotional problems. It gets deep down into the gritty nature of bomb defusing by offering us lessons on suicide bombers, IED's and body-bombs that will make your gut churn. There's also some fantastically rendered sniper scenarios that are used not just for a visceral jolt, but also as a way to explore character development. Soldiers are not only put in precarious situations during combat but also in their day-to-day life dealing with their own conflicted emotions on top of a moody Iraqi populace that includes people treating them as tourists and looking to make a quick buck, people looking at the carnage as a spectator sport, people suffering as innocent bystanders, and people who wish to kill the soldiers and any one else in any way possible.

While there are a few details one could quibble with (for instance, the title is never explained), "The Hurt Locker" is impossible to dismiss and sometimes hard to digest. It paints a picture of war that shows there are no politics when it comes to the daily experiences of soldiers in the field. Their everyday heroism is painted in varying shades of moral ambiguity, while their internal struggles are shown to receive no emotional closure. As in real life, the story arcs of the fictional characters seen here are left open-ended, and the possibility of redeployment looms not just as an act of cruel fate but as a conscious and determined choice.

Public Enemies (2009)

Handsome Depp Gangster Flick Lacks Depth

[6/10 · 2 July 2009]

Johnny Depp (in a subdued cool swagger) is Public Enemy #1, John Dillinger, in director Michael Mann's handsomely mounted but curiously distant riff on Depression Era Gangster Shenanigans. Christian Bale is Melvin Purvis, the G-man hunting down Dillinger's gang, but the cat-and-mouse game never reaches the boiling point some viewers will desire, resulting in a tepid film designed to make you think you have to admire it.

Lifting material from the true crime book by Bryan Burrough, the workmen-like script from Mann, Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman tries clumsily to weave in too many secondary characters while staying on point with the historical events. There are some decent attempts to anchor the film with a love story between Dillinger and Billie Frechette (played by the French actress Marion Cotillard, who is wisely striking while the iron is hot in her first stateside role since her Oscar win), but there's not much else in the realm of character development, and no one is given any backstory. The writers start "in media res" to give it that classical epic structure, but it doesn't work when you can't even identify the peripheral characters from each other. What results is a cavalcade of apparently great supporting turns from a large professional cast, everyone spot on with their period cadence and mannerisms but no one leaving any kind of lasting impression in the wake of the great turns from Depp and Cotillard, the only two in the cast given anything to work with. There are also some missed opportunities to explore Dillinger's Robin Hood mentality and the public infatuation with his "celebrity" -- just two of the potentially great subtexts that are only given brief surface level treatments by the screenplay.

From a technical standpoint, there's plenty to chew on here for thoughtful audiences. Mann's use of HD video to shoot the film gives the period-piece gangster film an interesting texture. I found it refreshing to watch a Depression Era film not washed out in sepia tones and instead look crisp and fresh, with the nighttime shots especially compelling from a composition standpoint. However, there are times when in tight quarters that the digital camera-work gives the film a "home movie" aesthetic, and whether shooting on film or in digital, the shaky hand-held work during action scenes is always a mistake in my book. Mann also attempts to do some throwback Fritz Lang "M"-style work on the sound design, which works well in some of the "silent" scenes but often results in dialogue that is hard to hear and gunshots that are clamoring. These artistic choices are highly debatable, but I admire Mann's vision to do something different with a generic story. Whether you think Mann's manipulations work or not will be left to a matter of personal taste.

"Public Enemies" is a film composed of many handsome elements from the costuming to the finely detailed set designs to the soundtrack, which most notably creates a recurring theme with "Bye, Bye, Blackbird." There are also some good standalone scenes including a well shot rain-soaked police escorted airplane landing in Indiana, some charming movie theater moments, a thrilling nighttime shootout in the woods, and a killer Cotillard-focused coda that would've packed more of a wallop had the rest of the film added up to the sum of its parts. While it's easy to admire the work of Depp and Cotillard, Bale is off key in his attempt to add subtlety and nuance to his hollowly scripted character. Sadly, Mann's film is a good-looking but shallow exercise in self-seriousness largely due to a faulty script that never successfully identifies the heart of the story. Watching that tear run down Cotillard's cheek before the credits roll, though, you might swear you had just watched something better.

Whatever Works (2009)

"I'm not a likable guy..."

[7/10 · 29 June 2009]

Woody Allen's alter ego, Boris (a bitterly good and sardonic Larry David) makes this statement to the audience rather early on in "Whatever Works". The truth is, no matter how misanthropic, sarcastic and neurotic Woody Allen is, he ultimately is a pretty likable personality...if you like that type. Allen's return to Manhattan after three stays in London and a wonderful stop-over in Barcelona is yet another niche film. Fans of Allen, as well as fans of Larry David's "Seinfeld" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (which not so ironically should be the same folks) will find plenty to laugh at here, while others will inevitability whine, "I don't care for Woody Allen...and oh, that Larry David! Can't stand him!"

The plot of "Whatever Works" is irrelevant. Boris is some sort of genius-level physicist trying to speed his way to death, though those metaphors are never explored as poignantly as they should be. It all just serves as a soap-box for Allen (through David) to funnel his usual dialogues about relationships, love, luck and the meaning of life. It's all very broad and obvious this time around, but it's sometimes nice to still be laughing at the same old feel-good shtick. It should come as no surprise that Boris also tells the audience this isn't a movie designed to make you feel good, unless you're Allen fans, and then you'll feel pretty swell afterward. Leave it to Allen to infer moviegoers are inherently morons, but we're sophisticates for watching his films.

Apparently this is a re-worked screenplay from the 1970's and the "Annie Hall" style monologues to the audience are evidence of that. In the jokes department you'll find old standards mocking the French and suggesting kids should attend "concentration camps" for the summer mixed with modern humor about the Taliban and Viagra. There's also one hilarious throw-away/blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to James Cameron's "The Abyss" that makes you wonder if perhaps the screenplay was first reworked in the 1980's before its final incarnation here.

In the casting department we find Patricia Clarkson, yet again, is a delight in her curiously under-written over-written role (which is far too simply complex to explain in a traditional review) and continues to build a case for herself to be declared this generation's "Best Supporting Actress" twenty years from now. Evan Rachel Wood is cute-as a-button (oh, as her character might declare, what a cliché) as a Southern cutie-pie who runs away to New York City and meets up with the suicidal Boris. Allen, as always, is luminous with his photography of the "young lady." And unlike the similarly dumb motor-mouthed funny-voiced Mira Sorvino character from "Mighty Aphrodite", Wood's character is actually given an arc here and proves not to be as shallow and moronic as Boris originally assessed, which indicates maybe Allen is growing just a teeny bit in his view on women...or maybe not.

Ultimately this is yet another testament to Allen's world-view, which is summed up here as do whatever works for you to trick yourself into believing you're happy in this miserable world. Sure, there are times when Boris' diatribes run a few lines too long, or when the film stops dead when he is not on screen, but for the most part, this is Allen doing what works best for him. No other director can call himself out on all his personal pratfalls and annoying quirks yet still find a way to endear himself to the faithful who are ever patient with him and his films. No other director can be so charmingly mean-spirited and self-deprecating yet still find a way to declare his alter ego a genius at picture's end. And that's why we've always liked you, Woody, for better and for worse. For what it's worth, when it comes to Allen's better and worse, "Whatever Works" falls happily in between and works just fine, thank you very much.

Away We Go (2009)

Successful Detour for Director Mendes

[8/10 · 7 June 2009]

Just six months after introducing us to one of the most unlikable and miserable movie couples viewers had ever seen in "Revolutionary Road", director Sam Mendes takes us on a little detour from his usual style/genre and allows us to meet one of the most likable on-screen pairings in recent years with "Away We Go".

TV's John Krasinski is the amiable goof-ball and insurance-futures' salesman Burt and SNL alum Maya Rudolph (in a quietly revelatory performance built on her gift of perfectly timed facial expressions) is his long-time girlfriend Verona who does illustrations for medical textbooks. Suddenly they find themselves pregnant and searching for a real home in this semi-autobiographical tale from scribes Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida. The pair, untethered to their current situations, decide to travel all over North America visiting family and friends so that they might find that perfect spot to lay down roots. Fans of Eggers' books should be pleased that the screenplay is imbued with his popular brand of sharp humor mixed with diluted sentimentality. The tale of these two thirty-somethings trying to do the right thing not only for themselves but for their daughter-to-be is filled with humor and warmth that allows us to relate to both the chaos around the characters and their desire to shield their baby from it.

Under Mendes surprisingly laid-back director's hand, the material and the performances rise above the clichés of the "she's having a baby!" sub-genre of dramedies while successfully interweaving elements of "discovering yourself on a road trip" indie flicks. Episodic and sometimes meandering in nature, the film's acts range from laugh-out-loud hilarious (including a scene-stealing Allison Janney making a bid for worst mother of the year in grand comedic style) to laughably absurd (witness Maggie Gyllenhaal as a self-righteous alterna-mom with an unfounded hatred towards strollers) to unexpectedly poignant (in an unexpected side-trip to Miami to help Burt's brother through a crisis). You won't find any screamingly awful delivery room scenes here, and while there is some semi-crude sexual humor, it's reality-based instead of raunchy and never overshadows the film's heart.

As with any Mendes' production, the cinematography (this time from Ellen Kuras) is artistically sound and serves as the perfect place for Mendes to paint his details. When the director uses a steady tracking shot moving through the passengers on a plane in mid-flight to focus in on the sun's hazy golden light coming through the windows highlighting the faces of our two stars sitting side-by-side, you can see Burt and Verona unified in a yearning pensive loneliness that makes you instantly root for their success. The promise of that scene is wonderfully fulfilled in the closing act (the details of which I will not divulge) which is probably the most hopeful denouement -- beautifully understated and with minimal dialogue -- you will ever find in a Mendes' film. As with anything in life, even in the most hopeful of atmospheres there is still some uncertainty, but if we're lucky, we'll see the talented Maya Rudolph in more lead roles and Sam Mendes will take time for more pleasant detours such as this.

Adoration (2008)

Interesting Dramatic Experiment

[7/10 · 31 May 2009]

A teenager (Devon Bostick) who was orphaned after the tragic deaths of his parents is prompted by his teacher (Arsinee Khanjian) to deliver a fictional monologue about his father's failed terrorist act as fact in an elaborate "dramatic exercise" in Armenian-Canadian auteur Atom Egoyan's latest thought-provoking piece of abstraction "Adoration". As the fiction spins out of control over the internet, the true motives of those involved in the lie are revealed and back-stories come collapsing in on each other in Egoyan's signature elliptical style.

Egoyan, as always, gives patient viewers plenty to chew on. Like the young man's monologue that marries a true story to a false one about his parents, "Adoration" itself is an interesting dramatic experiment designed to provoke. It tackles many issues including the motives of terrorists, fractured familial relationships, the hollowness of alleged connections made through modern technology and the dangers of thinking those connections can replace real face-to-face human interaction. Though I always question Egoyan's motive in casting his wife Arsinee Khanjian in his films, in many ways, she gives her most understated and powerful performance here. Bostick does a decent job with a tough role, though Rachel Blanchard is curiously flat in the flashbacks as his mother. The true revelation is Scott Speedman as the troubled tow-truck driver who reluctantly steps in to raise his sister's son after she dies. His story arc proves to be the most involving, though one wishes his background had been more developed.

The bizarre detour into sleazy mediocrity with "Where the Truth Lies" seems to have made Egoyan a little rusty as he returns to a more familiar form here for those who have been watching the arc of his career. The elliptical folding in of the converging plot lines seems clumsier in "Adoration" than it did in his earlier works, and the "big reveal" comes a few scenes too early and sucks out the emotional impact. Unlike "Exotica" which had the swagger of a young auteur at the top of his game, or "The Sweet Hereafter" which came from the sublime source material of novelist Russell Banks, "Adoration" represents Egoyan bruised from years of wear left to his own devices. Though compelling, he gets the best of himself and let's the ideas take over the characters. He also relies far too much on visuals of non-characters in chat rooms or of people being recorded with cameras. However, Egoyan scores when Mychael Danna lends his musical compositions. The frequent collaborator does a magnificent job creating a haunting score with a recurring violin motif that plays integral to one of the back-stories.

Back in the late 1990's Atom Egoyan was in a league of his own and master of his own style. In the past ten years, however, international cinema has seen the emergence of filmmakers like Mexico's Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu ("Amores Perros", "21 Grams" and "Babel") and Germany's Fa-tih Akin (whose superb "The Edge of Heaven" deserved a bigger audience stateside last year). They often tackle similar themes in an elliptical Egoyanesque manner. But because their films are presented on a larger scale and infused with a certain energy and immediacy, Egoyan's films, in all their isolated scholarly austerity, have been unfairly left out in the cold. "Adoration" may not be Egoyan's best, but it proves he still has some good ideas in him and he isn't ready to be dismissed just yet.

Star Trek (2009)

Damn it, Jim, I'm a TV Producer not a Film Director!

[7/10 · 10 May 2009]

TV guru extraordinaire J. J. Abrams beams up as producer and director of this zippy and serviceable relaunch of the moribund "Star Trek" film series, itself a spin-off Gene Roddenberry's iconic 1960's sci-fi drama. There's plenty of circularity in concept and execution as Abrams does an adequate job of paying homage to the original TV series while giving everything a big epic, slick, modern film veneer. Abrams displays his usual flippant emo-sensibilities (lest we not forget his first claim to fame was the insufferable TV show "Felicity") in creating a colorful back-story to familiar characters, but he wisely focuses on action for the better parts of the film and keeps the pacing at warp speed even though we really know he just wants to play with Trekkies' emotions, much in the same way a swaggering Kirk antagonizes the desperately logical Spock.

Though Zachary Quinto is fairly lifeless as Spock, the rest of the cast is up to task doing fine impersonations of the senior Trek crew. Simon Pegg gets plenty of laughs as Scotty, and Karl Urban is mockingly masterful in his delivery of all the classic Doc McCoy witticisms. As the young Kirk, Chris Pine puts an entertaining spin on the role as he seems to be channeling both Christian Slater doing Jack Nicholson and, well, Chris Pine doing William Shatner. But it's only the dashingly smart and sexy Zoe Saldana who takes things to a new level giving Uhura a personality and vibrancy that was never apparent in the original film series.

Comparing the film to others in the series, it probably ranks somewhere in the middle. By far it displays the best production values and special effects of any Trek before it on the big or small screen. Always crucial to the film series, the villain in this one (a tattooed Romulan named Nero played by Eric Bana) is clearly no match for the mythic-sized Khan of said "Wrath of" or the unstoppable Borg Queen of the Next Generation's "First Contact". And while the early years of Kirk, Spock and the U. S. Enterprise are fairly well played here, the main storyline is where the film really suffers as it mashes up a big old mess of a plot involving black holes, time travel and planetary annihilation.

While I grew up watching the "Next Generation" on TV and enjoyed the original film series, I'm by no means a Trek purist. I am, however, a stickler for good storytelling. By playing with all this time-travel mumbo-jumbo, the screenwriters have essentially wiped the slate clean and negated the entire original series. The same old characters are now free to roam outer space on brand new missions, which is a brilliant business building ploy but lazy writing and a big cop-out. By going backwards in the serial mythos instead of forging ahead further into the future, the filmmakers have backed themselves into a corner. Just how many of these new adventures can the old crew have? And will it all lead to the inevitable...Picard's Academy Days or the origins of Data? While this new film was modestly entertaining and better than your average sci-fi flick, it didn't really leave me clamoring for more. Will the filmmakers eventually "make it so"? Quite frankly, I'm indifferent, though Abrams probably "gave it all she's got".

State of Play (2009)

Yesterday's News Still Blog-Worthy

[7/10 · 20 April 2009]

A gruff old-school reporter (Russell Crowe playing his A-game) becomes personally entangled in a breaking news story surrounding his old college buddy turned congressman (Ben Affleck, not as bad as you would think) and a young female aid who died under mysterious circumstances in the surprisingly plausible political thriller "State of Play" from director Kevin MacDonald who was previously responsible for "The Last King of Scotland". Though designed as a throw-back to paranoid investigative thrillers from the 1970's, relevance is gained when the massive cover-up revealed becomes a vehicle for the filmmakers to explore the death of print news at the hand of digital mediums.

The twisty and engaging screenplay is credited to three scribes: Matthew Michael Carnahan, Tony Gilroy and Billy Ray. But it's Gilroy's fingerprints that shape the story with all the overlapping dialogue and conspiracy talk that will remind many of his "Michael Clayton". Adapted from a sprawling BBC miniseries created by Paul Abbott, the trio is especially deft in their condensing of the story into a fully digestible two hours. Even as new characters and twists keep coming, the audience is never left out in the cold. They also give the cast plenty to chew on with some great throw-away lines amidst all the posturing between the cops, reporters, politicians and sleaze-bags.

Though it's Crowe and Helen Mirren as his sparring and quick-witted boss who shine the most, this is essentially an ensemble piece, and it's especially clever when Jason Bateman arrives on screen for a few pivotal scenes as a smug public relations guru who's too dumb to realize he knows too much. The cast also includes Robin Wright Penn as Affleck's wife, Jeff Daniels as the arrogant majority whip and Harry Lennix, who as a D.C. detective makes a compelling case here for the lead role in the Barack Obama Story. The only miscalculation in the casting is poor Rachel McAdams, lovely but annoying in her high-pitch as Crowe's blogging tag-along looking to kick it old-school and get something in print.

By the third act "State of Play" overplays its hand in its attempts to be timely with too much talk of the privatization of the military, Capitol Hill sex scandals and traditional newspapers losing out in the digital age to bloggers more concerned with gossip than real journalism. It could've also been more subtle in its preaching about the importance of serious investigative reporting. It should be commended, however, for an otherwise smart screenplay that doesn't spell out all its twists and turns too early and the well polished cast who give the film a slick sheen. Even though it might be reporting on yesterday's news, "State of Play" still makes for solid rainy day entertainment and is worthy of blogging about.

Sunshine Cleaning (2008)

A Blunt Ray of Sunshine through the Darkness

[8/10 · 22 March 2009]

A struggling single mom named Rose (Amy Adams in her comedy/drama wheelhouse) gets tired of working for a maid service and boldly decides to branch out into crime scene clean-up with her lay-about sister Norah (Emily Blunt, ironically named) in Christine Jeffs' observant and easy-going "Sunshine Cleaning".

Although it has been marketed as one of those quirky dramedies the studios love to shove down our throats every year, Jeffs' film (from a solid screenplay from Megan Holley) is more in tune with somber yet hopeful indie character studies. The film deals with some dark subject matter and poignantly explores grief and family dysfunction but maintains a positive outlook and contains some solid situational laughs. The combination of an interesting set-up, smart writing, likable characters and winning performances make the film, even when it teeter-totters from dark to sappy, go down smooth. None of the characters seem forced upon us, unlike the overtly quirky family from "Little Miss Sunshine" or the stylized dialog spewing teens from "Juno". These characters talk and interact like real people and there's a naturalism in the way their relationships develop.

It makes for engaged viewing when a film like this doesn't feel the need to explain every detail or tie up every loose end so nicely. Some subplots involving Norah taking a personal interest in one of the clean-up jobs that leads to an awkward friendship with a blood-bank worker (Mary Lynn Rajskub of "24" fame) or a one-armed supply store guy (Clifton Collins Jr.) who takes a shine to Rose aren't resolved in a typical fashion, and some things are never made known or left open-ended. It makes the film feel truer to life. Even when Rose's precocious kid (Jason Spevack) tries to talk to heaven on a CB radio in what would normally be considered a contrived and cutesy moment, you feel like you've grown to know the character and it's just something he would do. Likewise, Alan Arkin as the sisters' scheming entrepreneurial father behaves and acts like a real guy who's had to struggle raising two girls alone and is just trying to help them catch a break.

Amy Adams, of course, is an absolute delight. Something about her girl-next-door good looks combined with her innate talents as a comedienne and her theatrical background that produces some of the best facial expressions and crying-on-cue you'll ever see make her the perfect choice for this type of role. While it's easy to sing the praises of Adams, and she's never been more endearing or relatable than here, Emily Blunt proves to be an excellent foil. It's Blunt's sharp portrayal and her character's story arc that provide the film its emotional weight. Both actresses deserve to be remembered come awards season, and "Sunshine Cleaning" is that rare spring-time bird: a film worthy of buzz.

The International (I) (2009)

Classy Globe Hopping Thriller Pays its Dues

[8/10 · 16 February 2009]

A world-weary but determined INTERPOL agent (Clive Owen) teams with a District Attorney from New York City (Naomi Watts) to bring down a corrupt bank funding arms deals in Tom Tykwer's accidentally timely globe trotting conspiracy flick, "The International".

My drab one-line plot synopsis in no way prepares you for this film's smartly executed centerpiece, an outlandish and wildly entertaining shoot-out at the Guggenheim Museum that is both a bullet-riddled blood-soaked multi-media homage to Hitchcock and an artistic F-you to all of the mindless "shattered glass" suspense thrillers that have come down the pike in the last twenty years.

Those who have been keeping tabs on director Tom Tykwer's career, from the frenetic originality of "Run Lola Run" to the ungodly weird epic sumptuousness of "Perfume", might mistakenly think he was doing this one just for a paycheck. However, "The International" is far more ambitious than its genre conventions imply. Tykwer and his crew create an engaging and twisty film that combines the thematic elements of our modern CSI-style detective shows with the visual elements of Hitchcock's 1950's vista-vision thrillers. Here Tykwer's vistas are architectural landmarks from around the world that serve as picture-perfect set-pieces and back-drops for the carefully stacked plot and action.

In a modern movie world where thrillers are currently regulated to the pulse-pounding non-stop movement of the Jason Bourne films or the dumbly torturous sentimentality of something like "Taken", it's refreshing to see a film of this ilk built in such a classical way. "The International" begins "in medias res" with one of those clichéd secret meetings gone wrong, then delves into a series of expository scenes that lead to a masterfully staged assassination attempt in Milan that leads to rising action (during which I overheard a viewer behind me proclaim so succinctly that the suspense was killing her) culminating in the aforementioned Guggenheim shoot-em-up that leads to falling action that ends with a roof-top chase over the lively markets of Istanbul.

In its attempt to keep the plot one step ahead of the viewers, and the viewers one step ahead of the characters, the sometimes convoluted screenplay loses its footing and sense of pace. The cast, however, is game to play against this jaw-dropping architectural scenery. No further proof is needed beyond this film to show Clive Owen would've been a superior James Bond. Naomi Watts, whose natural charms and beauty are felonies of their own, is a bit miscast, but she does her best with the role. The revolving door of supporting players is top notch as it goes through the requisite motions. All transmitted through the keen eyes of Tykwer, "The International" crackles with tension and arrives on the world scene as a refreshingly old-fashioned suspense thriller in a post-modern milieu.

Taken (I) (2008)

Don't Be Taken for a Fool

[4/10 · 3 February 2009]

And now producer/writer Luc Besson and director Pierre Morel present the comedy event of the year!

Here's the pitch: Two spoiled obnoxious teenage girls from California go to France and get kidnapped by a group of Albanians trafficking dumb tourists into sex slavery to the highest bidders--and you guessed it, one of those high bidders is a Middle Eastern sheik. But oh yeah, did I mention one of those girl's fathers just happens to be a retired Jack Bauer-style super-spy who's about reign down a sh*t-storm on the streets of Paris in order to rescue his idiot daughter? And guess what--it's Liam Neeson!

Yes, there is a bit of a novelty factor in watching the guy who played Oskar Schindler go against type and get crazy on these moronic dirt-bags. And gosh darn it, Liam does his best with the role. I can't remember the last time a film was sold to the American public entirely on the sound of one man's voice reading dialog. He alone makes the otherwise unbearable film watchable. However, let's be honest. As much fun as it is to watch Liam Neeson outrun a speeding car or electrocute some guy or kill a dude with a broken bottle, Clint Eastwood's "Gran Torino" was a far better and more refined example of grizzled old guy "badassery", and it was a hell of a lot funnier, and fancy that, had a moral.

What we have here in "Taken" is tone deaf French filmmakers sticking their nose up at Americans and spreading xenophobia abroad. I'm pretty sure they thought there were making a slick black comedy that no American would see through. Had they manifested this with a harder edge or more overtly satirical tone, they might've been on to something. Instead we get a second-rate episode of "24" watered down by a PG-13 rating that takes away any possibility of entertainment on even an exploitative level.

Bottom line: Don't be fooled by Liam Neeson's voice. He commanded our attention in the teaser trailers, but this should be film not taken.

The Wrestler (2008)

Down and Out in New Jersey

[7/10 · 9 January 2009]

A fading wrestling star (Mickey Rourke, perfectly cast) suffers a heart attack and must battle with being down and out in Sh*thole, New Jersey in Darren Aronofsky's gritty character piece, "The Wrestler." Message to Hollywood: there actually are nice places in Jersey...really...I'm not joking...trust me...but that's another story.

Aronofsky utilizes a self-consciously shaky camera and grainy cinematography to emphasize his depiction of a life literally on the ropes. For much of the film we are walking with the camera behind Rourke seeing everything from his point of view--another stylistic choice that may wear on some viewer's nerves while seem like a stroke of genius to others.

Admittedly I've never understood the appeal of pro wrestling, but I imagined it could be a decent vehicle for a character drama. Aronofsky delivers a mixed bag in this respect. Despite the expertly edited piece detailing the humorously brutal and tragic bout that leads to the aforementioned heart attack and the match that closes the film, the remainder of the wrestling bits are unnecessary and really add nothing to the story. The scenes in a shady gentleman's club (featuring a fabulously adept Marisa Tomei playing the over-the-hill but still hot stripper friend with a heart of gold) and the clips detailing Rourke's character's everyday struggles (including some great bits where he works a deli counter) are slightly more appealing and deliver some genuine moments. However, the scenes where he attempts to reconcile with his estranged daughter (an over-acting Evan Rachel Wood) seem staged and under-developed, which undermines the documentary style feel of the rest of the film. I won't deny I felt something for these characters, but haven't we seen this all before?

As finely tailored as Mickey Rourke is to his part, his is essentially a one-note character where we see him in varying stages of failure that lead him to believe the only place he can find acceptance is in the phony but dangerous world inside the ring. As good as Rourke and Tomei are, the script plays their story safe and succumbs to clichés. That being said, "The Wrestler" is still more engaging than your average Hollywood character study, and it's worth viewing for the occasionally authentic moment and the fine performances from Rourke and Tomei. But as Bruce Springsteen's theme song played over a black screen before the credits rolled, I couldn't help feeling sorry for Rourke and his character--and maybe that was the point. They try their hardest, but the film in which they appear isn't worth the hype.

Revolutionary Road (2008)

They'll Never Have Paris

[8/10 · 3 January 2009]

In one of the classiest pieces of stunt casting in recent years, Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes reunites his wife, Kate Winslet, with her "Titanic" shipmate Leonardo DiCaprio to play the Wheelers in his screen adaptation of Richard Yates' novel "Revolutionary Road." It adds an appealing accessibility to an otherwise depressing tale.

The film opens boldly enough, spending just a few fleeting moments showing us how the Wheelers met before throwing us head first into their disaster of a marriage. April (Winslet) always had dreams of being an actress and Frank (DiCaprio), well, Frank always had some vague idea of living in Paris. The film chronicles their sad story. The Wheelers are meant to represent the post WWII generation who during the prosperous 1950's created suffocating lives due to dreams deferred in exchange for chasing the so-called "American Dream" that they never really believed in. Everyone else in the film is in some sort of love with the Wheelers and their picture perfect lives, but the Wheelers hate themselves, each other, their neighbors, and what they have become. It's a damning little portrait that has been painted before in literature and film, but never quite so acutely.

I haven't read Richard Yates' novel, but I am currently reading his collection of short stories which address many of the same themes and bear his hallmarks present here: cutting dialog, keen insights into the psyche of his sometimes despicable or just plain sad characters, and obsessive attention to details of time and place. In terms of the tone of Yates' writing, Mendes is successful in his translation. However, that tone that worked so well on the page doesn't always work on screen. We're never sure if we're meant to sympathize with the Wheelers or if Mendes wants us to view it as a dark comedy where we watch in sick delight as the popular kids who always thought they were more interesting than everyone else grow up to be horribly dysfunctional and cripplingly normal. Much of the audience I saw the film with laughed to break the tension during some of Mendes' trademarked "uncomfortable dinner table scenes", but we all watched in horror as the film spun out of control into its downer of a climax.

Ultimately one sits through a film like this for the acting, and it doesn't disappoint on that level. Taking a line from the film, DiCaprio is a "cracker jack" playing for the first time a husband, a father, and a hopelessly average Joe. Winslet is on more familiar ground, but never has she been given so much range to roam, and her director husband lets her run wild and free. It's a neurotic, brave, and sometimes questionable performance that is a rare sight to behold. At times it seems as if Mendes is directing a stage-play rather than a film, and he lets the whole cast scream and holler against his finely detailed period backdrops, but it's still entertaining for those who enjoy watching polished professionals (including Michael Shannon portraying a man on leave from an insane asylum in a perfect pitch) stretch their acting muscles.

One watches the grim dissolution of this marriage wondering if there isn't some subtext to explore with regards to Winslet and Mendes' own seemingly perfect Hollywood marriage. And as unlikable as they are at times, and no matter how much we would rather laugh at then relate to another human being, one can't escape the sickening feeling that there might be a little bit of Frank and April Wheeler in all of us.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

Nothing Lasts Forever

[9/10 · 28 December 2008]

On a cold night on the eve of WWII in Russia, a diplomat's wife (Tilda Swinton) shares tea with a most peculiar tugboat man named Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt). When she asks him where is he from, Benjamin replies, "New Orleans...Louisiana." Swinton's character replies, "I didn't think there was any other."

This moment comes about forty minutes into the film which has been established on the grounds of a woman (Julia Ormond) reading to her dying mother (Cate Blanchett) from the diary of Benjamin Button as Hurricane Katrina sweeps over New Orleans. The ghost of a New Orleans now lost haunts David Fincher's lyrical adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story about a man who ages backwards. There's no denying this film couldn't have been made five years ago, not only because the technology wasn't there to make the process of aging backwards look real, but it would've also been a completely different movie as screenwriter Eric Roth wouldn't have been able to bookend the film with Blanchett on her deathbed as Hurricane Katrina comes to literally wipe away her life. The story is hung on a gimmick, and the film told as a fable, but there's grounding in the reality of life's greater mysteries that speaks volumes about not just the death of a man or a woman, but the death of a city and the death of a way of life.

A big part of making the audience believe in the story falls on the film's technical aspects: the make-up, the CGI, the period-piece details of the film's set designs and costumes. If you look close enough, you can find things to nitpick, like the distracting disembodied voice of Cate Blanchett distorted onto a little girl, but for the most part Fincher constructs it all seamlessly. In terms of scope and sentiment, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" seems a complete departure for a director usually obsessed with darker more violent tales, but Fincher has always liked his plots to begin (think "Seven" or "Panic Room") or end (think "The Game" or "Fight Club") with a gimmick, and he's always been a filmmaker obsessed with cutting-edge technology (think of the VIPER camera used to film "Zodiac"). Fincher does a superb job with his meticulous construction of these elements (complimented nicely by Alexandre Desplat's subdued score), and he really wins the audience over with his flashbacks within flashbacks that are done in a charmingly stylized manner that remind us we're watching a movie that's meant to be enjoyed above any other pretense.

By shifting the central location of the story from the original setting of Baltimore to New Orleans, Roth opens the film up to a new layer of interpretation. Though the episodic tale of Pitt's Benjamin growing younger while Blanchett's Daisy grows older spans the globe from Manhattan to Russia to Paris, the characters' hearts remain united in New Orleans. Roth, who also penned the thematically similar "Forrest Gump" peppers his screenplay with many momentous events from the 20th Century, but those moments ebb and flow through Benjamin's life just as the other characters do showing us that life is made only of moments. None of them last forever.

The supporting players (including a gutsy performance from Taraji P. Henson as Benjamin's adoptive mother who runs a nursing home) are wonderful and allow Pitt and Blanchett to shine as the movie stars that they are. Sure, these two have probably given better performances elsewhere, but here they have been given roles for which they might be best remembered long after their star-power has dimmed.

In a year when the films with the most impact (like "The Dark Knight") have been those that have tapped into the fears and mindset of the times we live in, it's rather fitting that a movie like "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" comes along at the end of the year. It should be one of those movies that hold audiences rapt in hushed silence, but it's also the type of movie that usually receives instant backlash. I wonder how it will stand up over time. On the surface it attempts to tell a timeless tale, but in a bittersweet way proves the opposite. Movies stars like Pitt and Blanchett, movies like this, stories, fables, dreams, cities like New Orleans...none of these things are timeless. Timelessness is just a flight of the imagination...like the idea of a man aging backwards.

But what a wonderful flight it is.

Doubt (I) (2008)

Perhaps We're not Meant to Sleep so Well...

[8/10 · 21 December 2008]

It seemed rather fitting that I saw "Doubt" on the first day of winter, the sun making its shortest visit of the year, the advancing cold indicative of the looming incertitude of the characters in the film. This is the second film in a row after "Frost/Nixon" that has been adapted from an award-winning play. Unlike that film, "Doubt" is directed by the playwright, John Patrick Shanley. Wisely he employs the best in the bizz, cinematographer Roger Deakins, to translate his theatrics into film language. The crooked camera angles, the overt symbolism of storms approaching, windows blowing open, snow covering the ground, crows squawking, and lights blowing out, all smack the viewer in the face. There's no denying what lies at the heart of "Doubt."

Set in New York in 1964, the film tells the story of Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep acting in her wheelhouse), the principal of Saint Nicholas' School, who begins to suspect the new priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman, insidiously innocuous) is developing an inappropriate relationship with one of the altar boys, who also happens to be the school's first African-American student. The naive Sister James (a perfectly cast Amy Adams) is at first pulled into Sister Aloysius' plot to uncover the truth, but soon falls under the priest's spell and is convinced of his innocence. But things aren't so cut and dry, and soon both women are riddled with doubt after being so certain they were on the side of the just.

Some have claimed Streep's performance verges on camp and that the film relies too much on Gothic overtones. However, anyone who was raised Catholic and attended Catholic school knew a nun just like her (mine was Sister Laboure), and her portrayal of a domineering principal who still defers to a higher power is nothing short of brilliant. Also, the Gothic nature of the film falls right in line with the traditions of Catholicism as it subtly hints at other crimes and sins in its sly treatment of secondary characters and plot lines that stir the audience's imaginations not unlike Henry James worked readers into a tizzy with "The Turn of the Screw" over one hundred years earlier. Yes, there are moments where the film plays like a psychological thriller, and that's part of its brilliance, for in no other way can we come to accept the sins but in the guise of horror.

Like "Notes on a Scandal" the film uses a salacious topic as a vehicle for an acting showcase. The fireworks amongst the three leads are worth the price of admission alone. In its treatment of the Catholic child abuse scandal, the film accurately portrays how insular the Church was (and still is) from the rest of the world and how easy it was for the accusations to be never voiced properly, or if they were, swept under the rug. In its closing scene of Streep and Adams finding solace in each other's doubts on a bench in the dead of winter, Shanley seems to beg the audience for a little bit of sympathy on behalf of the Church. However, it left me thinking of an earlier scene where Hoffman's priest asked Streep's nun, "Where is your compassion?" To which Streep replied, "Nowhere you can get at it." Perhaps any sympathy should be showered on the victims...for I feel nothing for the Church. "Doubt" will leave you chilled, and like the Sisters, perhaps we're not meant to sleep so well as long as the crimes continue.

Frost/Nixon (2008)

Mr. Nixon, It's Time for Your Close-up

[8/10 · 18 December 2008]

Ron Howard's competent film adaptation of Peter Morgan's play (who also scripted and co-produced here) dramatizes the famous Frost/Nixon interviews from 1977. At one point in the film, Kevin Bacon's character explains to Frank Langella's Nixon that a portion of the interview will focus on "Nixon the man". To which Nixon retorted, "As opposed to what? Nixon the horse?" Of course what was on everyone's mind at the time was Watergate and how American was never able to give Nixon the trial they so desperately wanted. Through the unlikely Frost interviews, the American people finally heard the truth behind the scandal--straight from the horse's mouth.

Morgan's source material translates smoothly onto film. Much as he did with "The Queen", he mixes a behind the scenes look at the immediate time period leading up to the historical event and closes with an almost word-for-word dramatization of said event. Also, like "The Queen", we have the excellent Michael Sheen on board, who after playing Tony Blair now takes on the mannerisms of the legendary British talk-show host and man-about-town David Frost. Director Ron Howard nicely interweaves archival news footage, faux-post interviews with the secondary players, and the dramatic reenactments of the actual Frost/Nixon interviews. Howard's studied but pedestrian style of direction lends itself well to this type of docudrama as he allows the actual events to speak for themselves and the fine performances to shine on their own. Though it takes quite awhile to get where it's going, the final interview where Frost takes Nixon head-on about the Watergate cover-up is a payoff well worth the wait.

Of course the most fascinating aspect of the film is Frank Langella's portrayal of a shamed and swollen Richard Nixon. He plays him as a fallen man desperate for an act of contrition but still in too deep with his old trickery and slick ways. His performance, and the way it connects with the audience, is wonderfully layered. On one level, we have an aged actor thought to be well past his prime firing back on all cylinders in a renaissance role that will likely lead to a showering of award nominations. The way the film reduces his performance to that one lingering close-up after being steamrolled by Frost on the last day of the interview leaves a lasting impression. But it also works on another level as it is meant to represent the reduction of Nixon's political life to that one lingering close-up on the television monitor when he realized it's all over for him. The audience members who remember watching the interviews and can picture the actual close-up they saw on their TV screens are now allowed to share a communion with the audience members who weren't even born yet and now only have a memory of Langella's face on the silver screen. In that sense, Langella truly became Nixon, and his performance will not soon be forgotten.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)

The Day the Audience Shrugged Their Shoulders

[1/10 · 14 December 2008]

"The Day the Earth Stood Still" is a stunningly inept remake of the 1950's classic of the same name. It's one of those big-budget films so unfathomably dull and inane, you wonder how it ever got made. Whereas the original warned of the dangers of nuclear armament, this modern update boldly chides us for being mean to each other and not taking care of the environment. Gee, Hollywood, thanks for the swell insight! This Christmas season Hollywood teaches us that people can sometimes suck, but only that special kind of film can suck totally.

Although the entire production is horrible from top to bottom, the inert direction of Scott Derrickson and the randomly asinine script from David Scarpa bear most of the blame. The screenplay clearly went through arbitrary rewrites, perhaps after being focus-grouped to death, and shows not a single breath of imagination. Around every turn, it wastes opportunities and insults the intelligence of the audience and gives us not one authentic character or moment to connect to. Even when it thinks it's being cool (like the lame reveal that those alien spheres are actually "arks" trying to save animal life before the world is annihilated) the script fails miserably. One sphere that is shown on the back of a pick-up truck being attacked by flame-throwers in some foreign desert town inexplicably contains squid, because, well, the shadows of squid inside a giant sphere look kinda neat, that's why! At least the script teaches us one thing. Apparently all you need to do in order to survive an apocalyptic robotic alien insect attack that devours everything in sight is to hide under a bridge in Central Park!

The saddest part of the film is how the director wastes his talented cast. The always wooden Keanu Reeves was perfectly chosen to play the alien Klaatu, but even he seems to be disbelieving the words that are coming out of his mouth. Poor Jennifer Connelly, an immensely emotive and alluring actress, appears to be in physical pain or constipated for most the film, obviously stunned she agreed to star in this junk. Kathy Bates and John Cleese apparently showed up only for their paychecks and sleepwalk through their lines, and at one pivotal moment where Bates' Secretary of State attempts to show regret for some bad decisions made, she actually appears to fall asleep in her chair. And then there's poor little Jaden Smith, who appears bored to tears throughout the film and is given no direction from Derrickson except when he is asked to cry on cue in the supposed emotional climax of the picture that left me feeling sorry for all involved.

However, if anyone should be hung for this travesty, it's the producers, who must've run out of money at some point and filled the gap in funds with some nauseating product placement. How else do we explain Klaatu's trip to McDonald's for an important meeting with another of his kind?

"The Day the Earth Stood Still" is easily the worst film of the year. At least "The Happening" had its accidentally humorous moments. This clunker offers no such relief. Even the special effects are done in a lazy and unimaginative manner. It's so awful, I was stunned into stillness while the rest of the audience seemed to shrug their shoulders.

Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

Not Even Bizarrely Plausible

[5/10 · 8 December 2008]

A young call center worker from Mumbai with a rough-and-tumble past named Jamal (a likable Dev Patel) becomes a contestant on the Indian version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" in the hopes that his true love (the beautiful Freida Pinto) will see him on TV and come back to him for good. Much of "Slumdog Millionaire" is done in flashbacks as the audience learns the personal story behind each of the questions. For some strange reason the filmmakers want us to think a person like Jamal wouldn't normally know the answers to these random trivia questions, but he does because of his unique life story, see? Well, it's a mildly interesting central conceit that quickly falls apart. At one point, a policeman questioning Jamal remarks that his story is "bizarrely plausible." I wish I could say I felt the same.

It seems to be a trend this year for movies to contain wildly shifting tones. This is the type of film that thinks it's endearing and cute when a little Indian boy is given no choice but to dive into a pit of raw sewage to get a chance to meet a movie star, and then tries to be gritty and deadly serious when a man takes out an orphan's eyes with a spoon so the kid will make more money on the street as a blind urchin. Combining elements of "Oliver Twist", "Romeo and Juliet" and "City of God", Danny Boyle and his co-director Loveleen Tandan create a flimsy mosaic of convention and post-modern pastiche. With its sometimes fascinating look at Mumbai and its strange juxtaposition of modernity and immense wealth run amok with the biggest slums on earth, "Slumdog Millionaire" is not without some intense and keenly interesting vignettes. However, the paper-thin script full of lazy characterizations and arbitrary moments leads to a painfully predictable denouement with a silly message about Destiny.

Boyle is a director whose style has run out of steam. All of his trademarks are here: the shoddy editing; the shaky, grainy digital photography; the hyper-bright lighting that washes out most colors and makes whites and yellows blinding. Why is it I always feel like I'm getting an eye exam when I sit through his films? It left me with a headache that wasn't helped by the loud soundtrack. Any compelling moment, like the train ride that ends at the Taj Mahal or the early chase scene through the slums of Mumbai, I credit to Boyle's co-director Tandan.

"Slumdog Millionaire" is an energetic film I desperately wanted to like. Had it a sharper focus and harder edge that more thoroughly explored just one of the millions of enthralling stories that exist in cities like Mumbai, it could've been a rousing success. Instead, with its slapdash enthusiasm that feebly tries to thread some meaning into the barely plausible tale, I'm left thinking that Mumbai deserves a far better film.

Australia (2008)

The Wizard of Aussie-land Conjures Something Shockingly Good

[8/10 · 30 November 2008]

And now it's time for a story about our friend Baz. Mr. Luhrmann holds the dubious honor of directing the only film I have ever walked out on in the theater. After fifteen minutes of the insipid kitsch of his "Moulin Rouge!" my friends and I bolted. About a year later I watched the film in its entirety to give it a fair chance and declared it the worst film of all time. His nauseating, hyper-realized, quick-cut style of editing and boiling down of every story arc to its rotten simplistic core was the most obnoxious trend in film-making I could ever imagine. Well, Baz went home to Australia to think long and hard about where he was headed as a director. After a seven year hiatus, he conjured up a huge budget, invited his muse Nicole Kidman for the ride, whipped up every conceivable cliché from epic movie history into a slow boil and spewed the sprawling tale of his homeland onto the screen in "Australia."

"Australia" has an opening fifteen minutes that are cringe-worthy. It appeared Baz learned nothing from his walkabout and was delivering a mega-storm of comical kitsch that almost had me heading for the exit. But there was something oddly magical about this unwieldy dust storm of muddled Australian history, Aboriginal mysticism, and Outback adventure that prompted me to stick with the film and see if Baz had learned any new tricks. Much to my surprise, Mr. Luhrmann did, and it's not just the slow-mo cam or the sweeping shots of the Australian Northern Territory that Luhrmann warmed to. It turns out when your heart is in the right place, clichés can work and become dramatically engaging. Luhrmann not only attempts to create his own modern version of "Gone With the Wind" with the cattle ranch at Faraway Downs substituting for the plantation at Tara, but he also desires to heal the racial wounds of his entire nation. He's a man madly in love with movies and recklessly drawn to his homeland's history. His handling of Australia's part in WWII and the racial strife between Australia's Aborigines and the English settlers may strike some as condescending and trite, but those would be the people missing the point of the film.

At its core, like Tarsem's "The Fall", this "Australia" is about creating a good story and the mythos of film. Whereas "The Fall" presented us dazzling images we had never seen before, "Australia" presents us a dizzying array of epic filmdom's greatest hits. There's a rousing cliffhanging cattle stampede, a romantic kiss in the rain, a not so subtle "Wizard of Oz" motif, a Japanese bombing of Darwin, a daring rescue of orphans, and a weepy reunion in the wake of tragedy. There's comedy, thrills, drama, romance, and a message. No stone is left unturned on this vast continent, and the most wonderful thing about it is if you can forgive the opening fifteen minutes of dreck, the remaining two and half hours work splendidly as grand-scale entertainment.

Ignore the critics and leave your prejudices at the door. The plot of the film is irrelevant as any story arc is merely an excuse for Baz Luhrmann to unleash another sumptuous image from his dreams of Australia's past. And though the characters are drawn in broad strokes, know that the performances are uniformly finely wrought, with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman complimenting each other nicely and proving to be especially adept acting through the wildly shifting tones. By framing the story through the narration of Nullah, a half-caste Aborigine boy played sympathetically by Brandon Walters, Luhrmann lets the audience know that this film is about telling your own story and dreaming big dreams. In doing so he re-imagines the history of his Australia as a fable and with the help of a little movie magic adds a relevant layer to the mythos of film. Crickey, that sounds like a pretty good story to me.

Quantum of Solace (2008)

Bond Back in Action

[7/10 · 15 November 2008]

As one of the few people who thought that "Casino Royale" was just okay, I found its action-packed sequel "Quantum of Solace" to be genuinely entertaining. The film picks up exactly where the last one left off, but thankfully leaves its predecessor's bloated sense of self-importance and run-time behind. Thanks to the tone set previously by Daniel Craig, this Bond maintains the darker hard edge. Directed with appropriate kinetic zeal by Marc Forster, the film never lets up and takes Bond away from that all that silly deep introspection and returns him to pure action while still playing a strong hand with its "this time its personal" theme.

There's really not much more to say about such an indomitable franchise. Of course, in an attempt to appeal to audiences who have preferred Jason Bourne over James Bond in recent years, some of the action has a slap-dash over-edited feel, but never in a Bourne film would you find exploding planes and death-defying stunts involving every mode of transportation except by train. "Quantum of Solace" also suffers from one of the worst Bond themes and opening credit sequences ever, but really, who cares about that?

The bottom line: Craig is as cold as ice and the action and the women are smoldering hot. "Quantum of Solace" successfully serves up a healthy dose of Bond-fueled entertainment that will leave you shaken but not stirred.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008)

The Holocaust Presented as a Grim Children's Fable

[8/10 · 14 November 2008]

It's official. The award now goes to the British for making the most depressing film I have ever seen. For the first time in my movie-going life I witnessed an audience member's physical reaction to a film when a father was observed outside the screening room for "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" collapsed against the wall with his child emotionally distraught and crying in his lap. With the rest of the audience, including myself, stunned into silence after the film and exiting the theater a communal internalized wreck, I don't know if I was more devastated by what I had witnessed on screen or by that poor little child out in the hallway whose father for some reason thought this film would provide a history lesson his child could stomach at such a young age. As the film proves, the innocent are not cut out for war.

That being said, I would recommend "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" to anyone emotionally prepared to sit through it. The film's climax will hit you like a sucker punch to the gut…but there is a lesson to be learned for those in the right frame of mind and mature enough to handle it. In adapting John Boyne's novel, director Mark Herman envisions the Holocaust as a grim child's fable, and in doing so, presents the historical events from a daringly simple new angle. Yes, "Life is Beautiful" attempted something similar not so long ago, but that film was told from the point of view of a child-like man trying to shield his son from horrors and had abrupt tonal shifts that sank its dramatic impact. "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas", however, keeps a powerfully consistent tone, and until the harrowing final act, is entirely told from the point-of-view of the young son of a German commandant assigned to run a concentration camp.

Herman directs the film fairly well, utilizing visual motifs and not so subtle foreshadowing (that left me with a sinking feeling in my gut as the film progressed), and he is aided greatly by the wonderful cinematography by Benoit Delhomme. The script, though contrived in parts, is tight and moves at a brisk pace, and the normally sappy composer James Horner shows great restraint with his score that is both haunting and reverent to the events that unfold. The mostly British cast is stunning. As little Bruno, Asa Butterfield successfully permits us to relate to the child's naïve innocence without ever allowing the character to become cloying or blissfully ignorant. David Thewlis commands attention as his tortured and misguided father, and Vera Farmiga is dynamite as his distressed mother. She gives a powerhouse performance and proves yet again to be a gripping chameleon of an actress nearing the level of a Cate Blanchett.

With its slim run-time, "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" seems a sound choice for a future generation of teachers to show their high school students in lieu of an epic like "Schindler's List". It also makes a good visual companion piece to Eli Wiesel's literary "Night" as it shows a fictionalized flip-side to the same tragedy. As the real survivor accounts sadly fade with the passing of time, the horrors of the Holocaust will remain firmly in place in the world's historical fiction for centuries to come long after the last person who actually witnessed it has died. These stories will forever be screaming at us, and we would be wise to listen. Fault the film if you wish, but in its bold child-like simplicity it shows the insidious evil of the Nazis as two-fold. Yes, they slaughtered six-million innocent Jews, but it was an act of murder-suicide as in doing so they also sentenced themselves to death.

W. (I) (2008)

Waiting for the final ball to drop...

[8/10 · 18 October 2008]

With his "in the moment" biopic "W." the normally volatile Oliver Stone wisely saves his judgments for history when hindsight will be 20/20. Achingly subdued and slightly satirical, Stone plays it straight and to the bone. Here he presents us with the early years of our current lame duck president, showing Dubya rushing a frat-house at Yale, meeting Laura at a barbecue, living in the shadow of his father and brother, his troubles holding down a job, his failed bid to become baseball commissioner, and his defining moment when he gives up drinking and becomes born-again. All of which leads us to his first term and the Iraq War quagmire, where Dubya honest-to-goodness truly believes "God" wanted him to become president and that Iraq did have those rascally WMD.

In the lead role, Josh Brolin is an endearingly bumble-headed Dubya, and Stone presents him as a simple-minded man with good intentions who has been crippled by his "daddy issues" and has surrounded himself with the most cynical, self-serving, and corrupt administration in modern American history. The supporting cast is a hoot, with highlights including Thandie Newton eliciting big laughs just with her facial expressions as a wicked and moronically faithful Condi Rice, Elizabeth Banks giving a winning portrayal of Laura Bush, and Richard Dreyfuss playing Cheney as the most insipid megalomaniac American politics has ever seen.

Stone accomplishes three major coups here that should surprise those who expected a one-sided liberal smear job. First, he humanizes George W. Bush. The director does this with savvy editing showing the back-story of why Dubya does the things he does (i.e. why he uses nicknames for everyone or why running three miles every day is so important to him), and then juxtaposing that with the inane decisions he has made as president. By utilizing actual transcripts from press conferences, news coverage, and meetings, Stone and scribe Stanley Weiser allow Bush and his administration to speak for themselves, and it's both comically cathartic and occasionally frightening to see it dramatized so well. Second, he redeems the presidency of George "Poppy" Bush (a somewhat miscast but still effective James Cromwell) by showing what a restrained and thoughtful Commander in Chief he was compared to his naive and too-eager-to-please son. Thirdly, he redeems the legacy of Colin Powell (a surprisingly good Jeffrey Wright), who is shown here as the only person in the administration with any hindsight or foresight, and the only sane voice who questioned the motives for entering Iraq, though he eventually caved in and played along. His "f-you" to Cheney towards the film's final act is priceless.

As the actual presidency still has a few months to go at the time of the film's release, Stone's biopic was never written a true ending, leaving us with a symbolic image of Dubya looking up to the sky in center field waiting to catch a ball that will never drop. It may be another twenty years before we can pass any accurate judgment on Dubya's legacy, and likewise, Stone's film will have to wait. It's going to be a long time before anyone catches all those balls George W. Bush's administration threw up in the air.

Burn After Reading (2008)

The Coens Take a Hatchet to their League of Morons

[7/10 · 14 September 2008]

The Coen Brothers' "Burn After Reading" is one of those movies with a farcical and convoluted plot involving idiotic one-up-manship that is essentially an excuse for the filmmakers to poke fun and for their stars to have a great time doing silly bits. Here our zany Brothers return to one of their favorite themes: what happens when simpletons get in way over their heads with a cynical league of morons. Clooney, McDormand, Malcovich, Swinton, and especially Pitt, all whip out their best comedic timing and smarmy facial expressions in this tale of misguided blackmail and bumbling counter-intelligence. Unlike their last two comedic travesties (the barely there "Intolerable Cruelty" and the wacko "Ladykillers"), the Coens' focus is sharper and crueler in this "Reading" and pointed directly at the government, society, themselves and their audience.

I've seen four out of the last five Coen Brothers' films in crowded theaters where their faithful often laugh out of turn at some of the most unfunny of moments. "Burn After Reading" has plenty of those moments, as well as some truly funny ones, but one has to wonder why such a talented pair would shoot so low as to desire the elicitation of that "solo" laughter from the loons in the audience that constitute the filmmakers' personal league of morons. When Clooney's hardwood floor-loving womanizer unveils his "special project" to McDormand's plastic-surgery obsessed internet speed dater, it's a hilarious anti-climax to what had been a long build-up in previous scenes that had the whole crowd groaning and giggling. But isn't Clooney's rear-entry sexual-aid device a bit emblematic of how the Coens' have been treating their audience lately? Later, when Malcovich's alcoholic ex-CIA analyst literally takes a hatchet to another character, it again elicits uproars, but I couldn't help but think the Coens' were symbolically taking out their frustration on the faithful who have been befuddled by their recent offerings. We're a cynical bunch, and so are the Coens, and whether they see themselves as the simpletons in over their heads and their audience as the league of morons, or vice versa, is never clear.

At least with this slow "Burn" we don't have to deal with the pretentious philosophical ruminations of their literary bound and insanely overrated Oscar-winner, "No Country for Old Men". While this might not recapture the pure joy of their original dark comedy, "Raising Arizona", this star-studded and occasionally hilarious "Burn After Reading" is the Coen Brothers' most entertaining film in years, even if we're all a little more bruised from the wear.