Best DVDs I saw in 2007

Movie	Grade	Find the review archived in 2007: Month/Day
Nobody Knows	A	1/2
The Beauty Academy of Kabul	A	1/2
Free Zone	A	1/8
Expiration Date	A	2/10
Know Your History	A	3/19
Stranger than Fiction	A	3/25
Sherry Baby	A	3/25
Children of Men	A	3/29
Conejo en la Luna	A	4/15
Alpha Dog	A	5/5
The Dead Girl	A	5/27
Fay Grim	A	5/28
Seraphim Falls	A	6/3
Half Nelson	A	6/21
Daniel Tosh-Completely Serious	A	7/8
Ever Since the World Ended	A	7/15
Amateur	A	7/22
The Aura	A	7/25
The Lost Room	A	7/30
Hot Fuzz	A	8/4
Fracture	A	8/26
The Lives of Others	A	9/3
The TV Set	A	10/13
Do or Die	A	10/21
The Hoax	A	10/21
Talk To Me	A	11/3
Three Days of Rain	A	11/10
This is England	A	11/19
Waitress	A	12/10
Eastern Promises	A	12/23
The Boss of It All	A	12/25
Hard Luck	B	1/1
The Illusionist	B	1/3
My Super Ex-Girlfriend	B	1/4
4	B	1/7
Rhinoceros Eyes	B	1/14
Gypo	B	1/15
Kamataki	B	2/4
Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land	B	2/11
Babel	B	2/24
The Departed	B	2/26
A Tout De Suite	B	3/4
Running on Karma	B	3/4
Look Both Ways	B	3/5
Fuck: A Documentary	B	3/10
Fast Food Nation	B	3/11
Casino Royale	B	3/17
A Little Trip to Heaven	B	3/17
Shut Up and Sing	B	3/25
Cars	B	4/1
The Good Shepherd	B	4/7
Color Me Kubrick	B	4/22
The Last King of Scotland	B	4/22
Does God Exist?	B	4/30
Moonlight	B	5/7
.45	B	5/20
Pan’s Labyrinth	B	6/2
Breaking and Entering	B	6/17
The Beat That My Heart Skipped	B	6/18
Shooter	B	7/1
Breach	B	7/1
For Your Consideration	B	7/1
Harsh Times	B	7/8
Even Money	B	9/15
Inland Empire	B	9/17
13 Tzameti	B	9/27
Knocked Up	B	10/7
A Few Days in September	B	10/8
Man Push Cart	B	10/22
In the Land of Milk and Money	B	10/31
Idiocracy	B	11/5
Sicko	B	11/11
Fido	B	11/12
Ratatouille	B	11/12
Outsourced	B	11/26
Rescue Dawn	B	12/1
The Wind That Shakes the Barley	B	12/3
Superbad	B	12/9
The Nanny Diaries	B	12/9
Man From Earth	B	12/16
Interview	B	12/23
The Simpsons Movie	B	12/24
Bam Bam & Celeste	B	12/26

Who’s Your Caddy:Grade D

D
Who’s Your Caddy (2007)

Big Boi (Antwan Andre Patton), Tamala Jones, Jesper Parnevik; Co-Writer & Director: Don Michael Paul.

This Caddyshack ripoff makes me embarrassed for black people, not just because of the ethnic stereotype jokes but because it seems that as a culture, we have come farther than this. Patton is a zillionaire hip-hop star who manages to join an exclusive white golf and polo country club by buying the estate that owns the 17th green. Hilarity supposedly ensues as Patton and his entourage race around the course in their pimped out cart, “stickin’ it to the man.” Besides being utterly derivative and cliched, the story is nonexistent, acting amateur, and the humor emphasizes farts. The hip hop music is a bright spot however, and some of the jokes are so extremely stupid that they are actually funny. Why would I give this dog a passing grade? I believe there is a genuine attempt here, misguided though it is, to do something for race relations. For example, we see three fully naked black men (back side only) in a locker room when a white guy comes in. That scene is for whiteys to conceptualize the fact that black people are black all over. A silly idea, I know, but I think it is an attempt to “humanize” the black body for ignorant white folk. Also, you see good looking black people walking around a golf course in the fading afternoon light, talking. This is the kind of golden hour scene in which you do not normally see black people. It is an image that attempts to recontextualize blacks for white folks, and maybe some blacks as well. Maybe I read to much social intention into the movie, although Queen Latifah co-produced, and she is a serious person. So there is a chance that the target audience is anyone with an IQ below 100, black or white, who needs to reconsider race and human relations.

Bam Bam & Celeste: Grade B

B
Bam Bam & Celeste (2007)
Margaret Cho, Bruce Daniels, Alan Cumming, John Cho. Director Lorene Machado

Standup comic Cho wrote this 2005 comedy which I never heard of until it recently came out on DVD. It is her first narrative film, the story of a gay hairdresser (Daniels) and his gay girlfriend (Cho) who want to escape their small, Midwestern town where they are treated badly because they are different. They win an appearance on a beauty “makeover” show in New York (run by Cumming), so they head for the big city in their hot pink Civic festooned with plastic flowers. They have a couple of humorous adventures along the way and do well in the contest. I think the target audience is primarily teens and subteens who feel rejected by society for being gay or being “ugly,” whatever they think that is. Cho wears preposterous gothic outfits to help young girls identify with the rejectionist theme. During the journey, ignorant, racist, homophobic, and just plain mean people abuse the pair but they soldier on. In the end they demonstrate that real beauty is within. This is pretty sappy stuff, but the lines and situations serve up a few witty, if predictable social criticisms. Cho has always spoken out for social acceptance of homosexuality, and in this film she reaches out to socially rejected youth. If any of them sees this film, I think they will appreciate it, and that is surely a better diversion than more lethal ones they might consider. For an adult audience though, even including those of us who have enjoyed Cho’s standup acts, this film is only mildly amusing. The best bit is Margaret playing “Mommy,” her much-beloved Korean mother with fractured English. Individual scenes are witty and creative (what could top magic wand eyelash curlers?) but not with the stinging, sharply observed humor we expect from Cho. Acting is strong by Cumming and John Cho (no relation), much less so from Daniels. The overall storyline is lame, however, and the directing unremarkable. I rate the movie above average for its wit and because I admire Cho’s attempt to speak to troubled youth.

The Boss of it All: Grade A

A
The Boss of it All (2006)
Jens Albinus, Peter Gantzler. Writer-Director: Lars von Trier. Danish, subtitled.

The owner (Gantzler) of a small, featureless IT company in Denmark is about to sell to an Icelandic buyer. The owner has always represented himself merely as the local manager, with the real boss being an American who never visits Denmark. That way he could avoid responsibility for implementing difficult decisions on his staff. He has over the years manufactured memos from the big boss. But the new buyer insists on signing with the big boss, so the owner hires an out of work actor (Albinus) to play the part, issuing him temporary power of attorney. The actor walks in totally unprepared but survives bizarre conversations in which he has no idea what is going on, by seeming skillfully terse. “Have you seen the numbers?” “Of course I’ve seen the numbers.” “Well, are they good?” “The numbers are shit.” “But your memo said they were good.” “Not good enough.” This is a funny premise and leads to many humorous and sophisticated scenes.

The main theme focuses on the employees’ helpless trust in the boss. There is an ethical subtheme about the owner’s duplicity. There is a satisfying denoument. The sets and colors are cold, like the work environment itself. It is snowing outside, the trees are bare, the walls are blue and the furniture is that God-awful teak and “7-chair” motif. Although that may be normal furniture in Denmark, it looked uncomfortable, cold and harsh. There was some interesting political hostility between the Icelandic buyer and the Danish owner, but not all of it was translated. I would have liked more focus on those tensions, but this is supposed to be a comedy. There was some deliciously ironic commentary on what constitutes good acting, which may have been the main point of the film, but the topic was not highlighted enough to make it shine. According to an interview in The Guardian, von Trier used an “Automavision” camera, in which a computer introduces arbitrary cuts and tilts into each scene, so the overall effect is jumpy, as if a really bad editor had been at work. Maybe it was a vaguely humorous allusion to von Trier's Dogma days. It was interesting, but I didn’t see how it contributed to this light, not-too-funny, but richly engaging comedy.

The Simpsons Movie: Grade B

B
The Simpsons Movie (2007)
Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Harry Shearer, other voice actors. Director: David Silverman. (Animated).

In this movie-length episode of The Simpsons television series, Homer pollutes the town’s water supply so badly that the EPA is called in. The EPA administrator recommends to President Schwarzenegger that a giant dome be put over the town to protect the rest of the country. Cut off from the world, the townspeople march to Homer’s house to lynch him, but he and the family get away and even escape the dome, becoming fugitives in Alaska. The story continues in a long series of disconnected jokes, visual gags and isolated scenes. I really enjoyed the satirical political humor, especially the Al Gore send-up, and the visual parody of Disney animation from Bambi. But there wasn’t much of that. Most of the humor concerned family relationships and farce, and that was funny, but only as funny as a Roadrunner cartoon.

I confess I have never seen The Simpsons television show. I have looked in, but it never held my interest, so I did not recognize or appreciate the plethora of characters from the TV show in the movie, nor did I understand any allusions to the TV show. I just watched an animated movie, and I found it funny, well-written and well-drawn, but not hilarious. I think Leslie Nielsen movies are funnier. Shrek I was funnier. Finding Nemo was funnier. Team America was funnier. The Simpsons humor is centered around ridiculing social ineptitude, low intelligence, and lowlife motivation, and because of those base themes, it is soon tedious. The best part of it for me was the visual humor, not the script. I recognize that The Simpsons is an international phenomenon and that I am the odd one out here. The box office grossed almost half a billion dollars and the DVD will probably do three times that. I acknowledge that Bart, Homer, Marge, Lisa, and all the others are cultural icons, but for me, honestly, this movie was only a mildly amusing diversion, above average for its genre.

Eastern Promises: Grade A

A
Eastern Promises (2007)
Naomi Watts, Viggo Mortenstern, Vincent Cassel, Armin Mueller-Stahl. Director David Cronenberg. Mostly English, with some subtitled Russian.

It’s Russian mafia trafficking in women vs. Chechen criminal gangs, all in modern London. Into that dark, cold, extremely violent world stumbles Watts’ character, after a young, pregnant Russian girl arrives at the hospital where she works. The girl dies, the baby survives, and so does the girl’s diary, which reveals incriminating facts about the Russian gang’s operations. Before the diary is translated, Watts tries to find a relative, to prevent the baby from going into foster care, and discovers “godfather” Mueller-Stahl’s restaurant. He learns of the diary and sends thug Mortenstern to get it. Meanwhile there are murders and retaliatory murders between the Russian and Chechen gangs. There is more than a little allusion to the Godfather series, but this movie actually reminds me a lot of 1994’s Little Odessa. I kept expecting Tim Roth to appear. There are many unexpected events and shocking scenes that jolt you upright in your chair. There is a fight scene in a public bath house where Mortenstern, completely naked, defends himself against two assassins with knives. The vulnerable flesh against the hard tile is almost more painful to watch than the bloody slashing. It is a memorable scene that held me breathless. But there is more than violence and gore here. Both Mortensterns’ and Watt’s characters develop plausibly as events continue, and the intellectual thread of the plot is engaging. Although the ending is a little too pat, it works. Watt’s character often behaves in the infuriatingly stupid ways that characters do in cheap horror films. There are some loose ends, and that always bothers me, but they are minor. While not for the queasy, the movie is a memorable masterpiece of filmmaking.

Interview: Grade B

B
Interview (2007)
Steve Buscemi, Sienna Miller. Co-writer and Director: Steve Buscemi.
Buscemi is a political reporter assigned, to his great chagrin, to interview an American soap opera star (Miller). 99% of the movie takes place in her apartment where they exchange insults, eat, drink, smoke, answer the phone, fail to answer the door, snort coke, put on coats, take off coats, talk some more, stand, sit, pace, lie down, etc. It is a very setbound one act play that reminds me of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (with lesser actors). It would do well in any community theater. Still, for all these failings, the script is witty and sharp, and both actors give excellent performances. I was never bored even while I was aware of the director’s desperate attempts to keep it moving. The two characters learn more about each other and seem to form a relationship that may or may not be genuine. It all seemed plausible and I was absorbed into the characters. This is a case where outstanding acting saved what could easily have been a disaster project. The movie is a remake of murdered Dutch director Theo Van Gogh’s 2003 film of the same name.

Man from Earth: Grade B

B

Man from Earth (2007)
David Lee Smith, John Billingsly, Ellen Crawford. Director Richard Schenkman.

This is definitely a thinking person’s sci-fi story because there are no space ships, no aliens, no explosions, not even any developed characters or serious human relationships. It is 87 minutes of 6 professors discussing whether it is possible that a man born 14,000 years ago, toward the end of the last ice age, could have lived to the present time. The biology professor does the mandatory hand-waving to explain that it is theoretically possible, and we are off.

Professor Oldman (get it?) (Smith) claims to be that man. He stopped visibly aging when he was 35. The others are incredulous at first, but very quickly take leave of their critical thinking and become persuaded, to various degrees. Unfortunately, their questions gravitate to what Oldman experienced and remembers about Biblical times and characters, which is, to my mind, the least interesting topic they could possibly have chosen. Nobody, not even the anthropologist or the psychiatrist, has the wit to ask about the origins of human language, social patterns, the effects of population growth, technological changes, the meaning of the cave paintings, climate changes, medicine, the invention of agriculture… I would have had a very long list of questions. But these professors are only interested in whether he knew any Christian apostles.

Acting is no more than adequate, the same for directing. I liked the way the room became increasingly cave-like as day wore into evening, but I was annoyed by the contrivance of having characters erupt into anger, tears or threats for no reason other than to break up the monotony of conversation, for the benefit of those who find conversation monotonous. On the plus side, the directing was true to the Twilight-Zone genre, an homage to Jerome Bixby, author of the novel on which the movie is based, and who wrote for Twilight Zone and the original Star Trek. If you can visualize Rod Serling monotoning, “You unlock this door with the key of imagination…”, then you are in the right mind-set to enjoy this film.

When Nietzsche Wept: Grade F

F

When Nietzsche Wept (2007)
Armand Assante, Ben Cross. Co-writer and Director Pinchas Perry.

Nietzsche would have wept to see how his life and work were treated in this historical drama about the relationship between himself and Viennese physician (and Freud’s mentor) Joseph Breuer. At least the main points of the story were historically accurate, and the sets and costumes looked authentic 1880's. But the acting is abominable. When the normally monosyllabic, tough-guy action figure Armand Assante is the best actor in the cast, you know you are in trouble. A stilted script that had everybody barking declarative statements did not help, but some real acting might have saved it. Instead, actors announced their lines in stentorian tones as if they were robots. The exceptionally lame dream sequences were boring, graceless, and did not move the story, which was supposed to be about Breuer’s self-realization of his attachment to several women: his wife, Lou Salome, and his patient Anna O. A sub-theme, well-known to historians of psychoanalysis, is that Freud stole all his main ideas from Nietzsche, but Freud is only a peripheral character here. Assante’s performance is a revelation, but slogging through this dreadful movie to see it is too high a price to pay.

The Bourne Ultimatum: Grade C

C

The Bourne Ultimatum
Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, David Strathairn, Joan Allen. Director Paul Greengrass.

This third of the Bourne series is actually a Superman movie. Damon doesn’t have the cape and tights (our loss) but otherwise is invulnerable. He drives a car off a building to the concrete below and just hops out (none of the cars in this movie has airbags). He is shot in the leg, limping badly, but still manages to jump from a moving train and outrun the Russian police. He has no trouble beating up 3 or 5 big muscular guys at once. If someone has the drop on him with a gun, he just takes the gun. He does leap tall buildings in a single bound, but can he fly? We’re not sure. We see him jumping 20 foot alleys on rooftops, but we never see how he gets from Turin to Madrid to New York in a single afternoon. Stiles has some minor powers, such as taking a full force bad guy elbow in the face that knocks her across the room but does not damage her cute nose. The evil CIA has omniscient powers, as you would expect, such as being able to control all the CCTV cameras in London from their offices in Virginia, being able to read the handwritten papers on someone’s desk in another country, by technology unknown. The story is literally incredible, an unintentionally humorous parody of the paranoid chase thriller. None of it makes any sense and none of the characters is realistically drawn or motivated. Acting is uniformly wooden, to put it kindly. On the upside, the chases are mostly on foot, unlike other such films that depend on vehicular action.

There are some virtues. One fistfight scene is edited into second and subsecond disconnected segments, giving it a good-looking martial arts grace. I think that is a cinematic innovation for a western fight scene. The filming locations are compelling, with big colors and big sound (especially around 20 Hz where you can feel it in your belly), including all the slamming metallic door sounds you could hope for. Note to sound designer: it has been a very long time since any computer emitted a little tone with each letter appearing on the screen. I analyzed several long chase scenes into cuts lasting an average of 2 seconds with a standard deviation of 1 second. These incredibly short cuts combined with shaky hand-held cameras make a dizzying experience, a strain to watch. Nevertheless, I think editing a 2 hour movie into thousands of disconnected 2 second scenes also counts a cinematic innovation, although to what end I cannot say. Three Days of the Condor (1975) is the same movie at the languid pace of a pre-computer, pre-internet, pre-video game, pre-cell phone, pre-GPS world, yet holds vastly more tension.

Waitress: Grade A

A
Waitress (2007)
Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion, Adrienne Shelly, Cheryl Hines, Jeremy Sisto, Andy Griffith. Writer-director: Adrienne Shelly.

I discovered Adrienne Shelly in Suddenly Manhattan (1996) which she wrote, directed, and starred in. It was a real charmer, and so is Waitress, a quirky romantic comedy. Keri Russell exudes charm out of every pore as an impoverished waitress working at a diner and tormented by an abusive husband (Sisto). Her dream is to save enough money to enter the state pie bake-off and win the big prize. She is a pie artist. She expresses herself by inventing pies with whimsical names and the camera shows them being prepared in drooling close-up. She wants to win the prize as a self-definitional statement because she senses, but can’t quite see that her miserable passivity is a social artifact, not her destiny. At work she shares her troubles with coworkers Shelly and Hines, and cranky customer/owner Griffith, all in wonderful performances, with warm, genuine, yet charmingly loopy interactions. The waitress’ passion flares and is reciprocated when a new doctor comes to town (Fillion), but he is also married. The story then is her journey of finding her physical, moral, and spiritual center. The film reminds me of Shirley Valentine (1989), also a theme of a woman trying to find her center, and of Little Miss Sunshine (2006), another lightweight, feel-good comedy. The sappy ending of Waitress was a big disappointment intellectually, but an appropriate whipped cream topping. The movie was finished right before Shelly was murdered in New York City, so I am generous toward it for sentimental reasons, but it is completely entertaining.

The Nanny Diaries: Grade B

B
The Nanny Diaries

Scarlett Johansson, Laura Linney, Chris Evans, Alicia Keys, Paul Giamatti, Nicholas Art. Co-writers and co-directors Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini.

Johansson is a recent college graduate in NYC who loves anthropology but is urged into business by her mother. To avoid that conflict she becomes a nanny to the ultra rich “Mrs. X” (Linney) on the upper east side. The deeply satirical anthropological analysis of upper class life is, sadly, dropped after a few hilarious minutes in favor of a much milder, but still funny farcical spoofing. Linney plays perfectly the neurotic, child-neglecting, lonesome mother. Scenes are well-written but stereotypical and only superficially humorous rather than fulfilling the promise of acerbic observation. Still, the emotionally desperate plight of the rich women is shown with some sympathy. Scarlett looks fantastic in her natural hair color. Blonde is so wrong for her. The child she cares for (Art) was physically and emotionally unattractive to me, spoiling that relationship. Giamatti is wonderful as the self-obsessed jerk father, a role one would not expect to see him in. The Mary Poppins allusions and the occasional trick camera work seem like afterthoughts inserted to liven up what is basically a sappy, sentimental, “message” movie. Strong acting from Johansson and Linney, great sets, plus a moderately witty script, keep your interest throughout.

Superbad: Grade B

B

Superbad (2007)

Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Christopher Mintz-Plasse. Director Greg Mottola

What raises this teenage anxiety comedy above drudgery is the fine acting by all the young people. The cops (who include Seth Rogen, who co-wrote), played well too, but the characters were way too crazy to be taken seriously. The nerdy high school loser guys from Knocked Up are desperate to get laid before graduation, and to do that, they believe they must get the girls drunk, and to do that, they need fake ID to get alcohol. The bulk of the story is the adventure of trying to get the alcohol. There is a long dead spot in the middle where Hill and Cera crash an adult party and steal some booze, but except for that, the writing, editing and directing are sharp and often witty. I was a little disturbed by the matter-of-fact glorification of alcohol and drunkenness among teenagers, but maybe I am out of touch. In the third act, the college-bound guys come to terms with separation anxiety and begin to have real conversations with girls. The suggestion that Hill and Cera have a gay relationship is always under the surface and the idea is almost overdone, but it is used effectively to mark their rite of passage into adult heterosexuality. I was surprised at this turn of sophistication at the end of a uniformly vulgar slapstick comedy of stereotypes. Despite the sexual vulgarity, there is no nudity and the women are treated with respect by the camera. The unrelenting obsession with male genitals and the mechanics of intercourse in the first 90% of the movie wears thin, but good writing, acting, music and directing keep the laughs flowing.

The Wind that Shakes the Barley: Grade B

B
The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006)
Cillian Murphy. Director: Ken Loach

Irish Republicans form a ragtag gang to resist the British occupation in 1920. The camera follows Murphy as he reluctantly joins the gang when his tolerance for British brutality is exceeded. The group trains in the fields, steals guns from British barracks. Members are captured and tortured. Most escape and continue to fight until some endorse a cease-fire proposal while others reject it and are killed by the Brits. It is a one-sided story, sympathetic to the Republican cause, so even though it makes you want to learn more about the conflict, this is by no means an educational film. The acting is quite good throughout the cast, but there is no thematic development. It is just one incident after another. No ideas are presented beyond Irish: good; British: bad. The accents are difficult to decipher, but since there is no real story to follow, it doesn’t matter. The cinematography is sensuous and saturated with color. The Irish countryside is gorgeous. Music includes beautiful Celtic songs. Directing is impeccable. Costumes and sets convey genuine 1920’s. The movie is a treat for the senses, if not for the brain.