The Private Lives of Pippa Lee: Grade C

C
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009)

Robin Wright Penn, Alan Arkin, Wynona Ryder, Keanu Reeves, Julianne Moore; Writer-Director Rebecca Miller.

Robin Wright’s acting is the star of this little domestic drama. She is married to a much older man (Arkin) and moves to a retirement community with him, where she is somewhat lost. She sleepwalks, takes speed and takes a pottery class. Her husband has an affair. She has an affair. Her daughter becomes a photojournalist. The dog gets hit by a car. Everyone eats cake.

There is absolutely no plot, and as far as I can tell, not much of a story either. It is just a bunch of rich people bumping around, acting stupidly, lacking insight, motivation, or purpose. Wright’s performance is truly stunning, but the character she plays is so dirt-boring that it is even hard to appreciate the great acting. Reeves and Ryder also give excellent performances, and Moore, in a smaller role, is riveting as always. Arkin acts like Arkin, nothing new there but still enjoyable. So the movie is an opportunity to see some first class acting, if you can stay awake through the brain-dead script.

Greenberg: Grade C

C

Greenberg (2009)
Ben Stiller, Greta Gerwig, Rhys Ifans. Co-writer and director Noah Baumbach.

Stiller is newly arrived in LA from a New York mental institution to housesit for his brother. He develops a relationship with a younger household assistant (Gerwig). She is passive and a dim bulb, so she more or less accepts Stiller’s hyper-neurotic obsessions and they form a friendly, sexually bumbling relationship that lacks the interpersonal intimacy that neither of them is capable of. And that’s it. Nothing happens of any consequence and there is no character development.

The strength of the film is the compelling dialog and extremely good acting, especially by Stiller. He really is a good dramatic actor, even though his part is still nominally comic in this story. Gerwig is a good actor but her character is so bland that she can’t do much. Ifans, as an old friend of Stiller’s is a standout. There are some subtle but not very funny jokes about LA, about dogs, about age anxiety, and so on. The script is extremely authentic, not clichéd, but clever as it is, it only concerns banalities. Nothing of import or interest is actually said. There is no story and no ending, so the movie just meanders pointlessly on. I didn’t get bored though because of the strong acting and sharp dialog, and it is worth seeing for those features, but I have to say this is a slow moving film.

The music direction and sound engineering are intrusive and destructive, with featureless tunes slowly cranked up in volume until you have to hit the mute button to protect your brain. There’s no point to that. It is not even dramatic music. It’s just noise for the sake of noise, maybe in a desperate attempt to introduce some excitement into an otherwise flat picture.

A Single Man: Grade D

D

A Single Man (2009)
Colin Firth, Julianne Moore. Co-writer and director Tom Ford.

The stars are two of my favorite actors, which is why I selected this movie, and indeed they both give extremely fine performances, Firth’s perhaps the best I’ve ever seen from him. However the story/screenplay has zero forward momentum, plotwise or characterwise, so fundamentally this picture is extremely boring.

A gay college professor in 1962 Los Angeles (Firth) is grieving the loss of his longtime partner. He does this by walking slowly, as if in a trance, and by gazing into middle distance a lot. He visits his old buddy (Moore) for consolation they have a few drinks and dance in her apartment. He carries a gun in his briefcase, in case he decides to do himself in, you never know (but of course he doesn't, for that would constitute a story line). He ogles some of the young men on the campus to show he still has libido, even in his grief. He wears heavy black plastic eyeglass frames like they did back then so you know he is in 1962. And that’s about it.

There is just nothing going on in this movie except some pretty pictures. What keeps it from complete failure are the extremely good performances by Firth and Moore, and the excellent cinematography and directing. But without either character development or story line, it just does not add up as a movie. It amounts to no more than a random collection of mildly interesting scenes.

Nine: Grade F

F
Nine (2009)

Daniel Day-Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, Marion Cotillard, Sophia Loren, Kate Hudson; Director Rob Marshall.

Usually it is not worth the time or effort to review movies that I consider failures (and there are plenty of those absent from this blog), but this musical received four 2009 academy award nominations so it seems possible that other people saw it differently than I.

It is, in large part, an homage to Fellini’s 1963 film, 8 ½. A famous Italian director (Day-Lewis) has trouble getting his movie made, and even his script written. As he imagines or stages parts of the show, we get frequent loud, colorful, feathery song and dance numbers, which are the heart of this film. Intercut are b&w scenes that look like they are taken right from 8 ½ although my memory is not detailed enough to say for sure. The analogy is self-flattery at best anyway, for “Nine” has none of the creativity of the original.

For my tastes, this film is recycled cliché (if that is possible), a lot of it taken from the dreadful 2002 musical, Chicago, by the same director. It has a similar set, similar Fosse-style choreography, and similar music. Then it tries to add Fellini-esque moves but gets those wrong. For example, there is a number with Cruz wiggling around, showing her butt like a pole dancer, but if that’s supposed to invoke earthy Fellini sensuality, it is quite wide of the mark. How much talent can a butt have, even Penelope’s? Other dance numbers involve women writhing around pseudo-erotically on wooden chairs with their knees spread as if it meant something. The dance numbers have none of Fosse’s aggressive eroticism and none Fellini’s lyricism. It is just cliché action for the sake of action, apparently with the idea that the feathers and bustiers will make up for what’s missing in musical and choreographic integrity.

Cinematography is not bad, lighting is often good, but the dance numbers are all so setbound that there isn’t much to look at. When we do get off the multiply arched Coliseum-like set (similar to that used in Chicago), the shots are stereotypes, using strong color filters, high contrast lighting, odd angles, etc. without discernible purpose.

Kidman can sort of sing, and she acquits herself without disgrace, but all the songs, to my ear, amount to little more than braying. There is zero dramatic tension, the dialog lacks any originality, and the acting is almost self-parody (especially by Day-Lewis). Even the costumes are stereotypes. All of that could be excused in a musical if the songs and dances were compelling, but here they are just noisy exercises in shouting and random wiggling. I could not find any redeeming virtue. Others did, apparently, so my conclusion must be simply that this film was not to my taste.

Shall We Kiss? Grade B

B
Shall We Kiss?
Virginie Ledoyen, Emmanuel Mouret, Michaël Cohen, Frédérique Bel, Stefano Accorsi; Writer & Director Emmanuel Mouret. (French, subtitled)

This is a very lightweight romantic comedy, but the excellent acting, directing, music, and cinematography more than make up for its silly story, though it must be said even the silly story is well-told. A young man (Mouret, who also wrote and directed) becomes super horny, as young men are wont to do, although in French, it is nothing so vulgar, but rather, a “lack of complicity with women.” Oh, dear.

He confides this to his long time best friend (Ledoyen) who is very understanding and suggests a prostitute. But after a few minutes of overly precious and coy conversation, the inevitable happens and she “services” him, out of friendship. Some time (months years?) later they meet again, now both committed in relationships to others, and agree that they should do it again, to remove the romantic mystique of that first incident. There is no meat in the sex scenes, but plenty of charming (“cute”) dialog and some very wry acting. Inevitably the two realize they are in love and must find ways to get rid of their other relationships, which they do with some complications and more wry humor.

It is quite interesting that this entire story is told (and shown) as a history by another woman (Bel), who has casually met a man in Paris who gave her a ride. They end up drinking together and eventually in her hotel room, but they are exquisitely polite while she tells the story. She won’t allow even a kiss because “One never knows beforehand if a kiss will be a small kiss or a great kiss” so one just shouldn’t. Even though the story of those two is just a framing device for the other story, it is almost as compelling as the historical drama she tells, so really, we get two stories for the price of one.

All this would only merit an “average” rating but the directing is outstanding, the sets, costumes, and scenes are gorgeous, the language is beautiful, and the music (Tchaikovsky, Schubert, and Chopin) is fabulous. Plus, as I said, the acting is above average, so add it all up and this piece of comedic fluff rises to being a very enjoyable diversion.

The Book of Eli: Grade C

C
The Book of Eli (2010)
Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Mila Kunis; Directors Allen Hughes & Albert Hughes.

Stellar acting by Denzel pulls this movie up to average. Without his performance, it would be seriously sub-par. He is a solitary traveler (Eli) in a post-apocalyptic America, a sun-burnt wasteland that looks like the aftermath of nuclear war (few buildings left). He walks from town to town for no special purpose, reading his Bible when he can. Highway robbers of all sorts try to attack him for reasons unknown (they are presumably just mean) but fortunately he has deadly martial arts skills, a big knife and a short-handled shotgun, so he is in no real danger. And he apparently skipped right over that part in the Bible about not killing.

Eventually an evil gangleader (Oldman) discovers that Eli has a Bible and will do anything to get it. Why? So he can rule the world with its ideas. Hmmm. There isn’t much to rule, really, nor even much for his gang to do, but never mind. So it is cat and mouse focused around the Bible for a while. Meanwhile, a young woman (Kunis) who used to belong to the gangleader, runs away to travel with Eli, perhaps because he keeps saving her from the danger she chronically falls into.

It’s all silly nonsense. Water is a rare commodity in the future world but petrol is still plentiful, so the bad guys can race around in giant SUVs and motorcycles, all of them in remarkably good shape, implying not only a petroleum refining and distribution industry but also a thriving machine parts industry somewhere. Eli has to shoot pigeons with a bow and arrow for food, even though everyone in the picture is quite well fed. Oldman’s gang collects books for him but he just burns them because all he wants is a Bible. This overlooks the fact that the Bible is, and always has been, the most frequently printed book in history, so statistically, you would expect to find more Bibles than any other book. Oh well.

There is a Mad Max allusion with all the choppers screaming around a dusty green environment (why the atmosphere in the future is green is unexplained). And there is a significant allusion to the Sergio Leone spaghettis in the beginning.

Besides Denzels’ strong performance, the cinematography is attractive. Many of the shots are stereotypes, but quite a few are beautiful and creative. That’s worth seeing. Overall however, the acting is clunky, directing undistinguished, story laughable, dialog obvious and stilted.

Unthinkable: Grade B

B
Unthinkable (2010)

Samuel L. Jackson, Carrie-Ann Moss, Michael Sheen. Director Gregor Jordan.

I give this movie a weak B because it has the courage to address a difficult issue: American use of torture to interrogate terrorists. Is it wrong or necessary? The terrorist is domestic, an American Muslim (naturally) who has planted three nuclear bombs in three American cities. They will all go off in six days unless the US Government agrees to withdraw from “all Muslim countries” immediately. (Why that demand, and how it could be satisfied in time are glossed over). He is quickly captured. Apparently he wanted to be captured, but his reasons are unclear. “To make a point” is the best we can surmise.

Jackson is “H.”, some kind of ex-government black ops guy who specializes in torture. He is called in to do the dirty deed, and he does it with flair, in a great acting performance. His emotions are extremely well played as he alternately cuts off fingers then despairs for his decency. Moss is an FBI officer who is brought in for reasons unexplained by the story, but her character serves the purpose of expressing the average person's conscience. She is outraged and objects to the treatment given the prisoner, but she doesn’t do anything about it, because, well, those bombs are ticking.

So the simpleminded drama is a variation on the Dick Cheney formula: if there is a 1% chance of a terrorist attack like this, they you must take it 100% seriously and do everything possible, including (judging from history), ignoring your principles, values, and humanity to engage in torture. Moss’s character makes the liberal arguments: torture doesn’t work, the subject will tell you anything, it is dehumanizing, it is illegal, etc., etc. “H.” says only, “We have three hours left. What do you propose instead?”

It is a shame that the movie ends without resolving this conundrum. We are left to wonder: were the bombs found in time? Was the prisoner telling the truth? Does torture work? It seems like the filmmakers were too chicken to take a stand, or maybe they decided that the question is unanswerable, but I found the ending weak, unimaginative, and disappointing.

Only Jackson’s acting is worth watching. All the other actors are wooden, speaking predictable lines with predictable expressions, none of them convincing. Jackson however creates a true persona on the screen, creepy, but in a human way that the audience can connect to. It’s not a great movie, but it raises an important question that makes it worth seeing.

Tetro: Grade B

B

Tetro (2009)

Vincent Gallo, Alden Ehrenreich, Maribel Verdú; Writer and Director Francis Ford Coppola. (English, Spanish, French; subtitled).

A young Italian man working on a cruise ship (Ehernreich) looks up his long-lost brother in Buenos Aires (Gallo), but finds a self-centered, embittered person who does not take kindly to him. Nevertheless, the young brother is invited by the girlfriend (Verdu) to stay with them and several conversations and reminiscences ensue. It is very slow moving by normal American movie standards. Nothing much happens but people talking.

However, the cinematography is stunningly gorgeous, 95% of it black and white, but even the few color scenes are extremely well shot. And Coppola’s eye is present throughout, such as when the brothers sit at a sidewalk café. The shot is from above, not quite vertical, as if you were watching from a high window on the other side of the street, the exact angle that was used when Marlon Brando got shot in The Godfather. This is no Godfather, though. There is no crime and no guns. This is just a couple of brothers talking.

Every shot in this movie could be framed and put in an art gallery, it’s that beautiful. A second highlight is the story’s focus on the obsessions of family, another theme from the Godfather, and from Italian families in general. Except here, the ins and out of family relationships are taken to a ludicrous extreme, and even dramatized by inserted scenes from Italian operas, to emphasize the point that this family obsession is really over the top. The final denoument reveals the “dark secret” of the brothers’ relationship. It’s highly improbable, even silly, perhaps an autobiographical self-parody by Coppola. But the images stick in your brain for days afterward, and that is the mark of a great movie.

On the down side, the acting is only average, and the music is interesting but unremarkable. For all the terrific cinematography, it is true that the lighting schemes get pretty monotonous. The favorite is strong light from 12 noon plus bright diffuse light from the side, often in situations where that would be literally impossible. The picture looks good unless you stop to think about how lighting like that could occur, and you realize it couldn’t, so that pops you out of the scene to admire the technical craft. That’s fun the first few times, but the lighting director on this picture was a one-trick pony. Overall though, this movie is worth seeing as an example of Coppola’s talent.

The Green Zone: Grade D

D
The Green Zone (2010)

Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear; Director Paul Greengrass.

Damon is a US Army officer in charge of finding Iraqi WMDs just after the invasion of Baghdad. He keeps coming up empty and begins to suspect that the intelligence he is being given is bad. He whines to the CIA, which acknowledges something is wrong with the intel, and hires him to look into it. Some unlikely coincidental events occur that lead to the bent politician (Kinnear) to be in pursuit of Damon so he does not uncover the coverup that there are no WMDs. In this, the story vaguely follows the structure of Three Days of the Condor a great 1975 film with the government out to silence one of its own people for some political advantage. But this film is not great. It tries to make up in aggressive sound engineering what it lacks in dramatic tension. Loud crowd noises, featuring people yelling “Hurry,” squealing tires, gunshots, and obnoxious trombones attempt to convince you that you are feeling something. The pace of the story is slow, the acting is terrible, the editing is so cut up you can’t see anything, and the story line itself is just too jumpy to be coherent. If you did not know the real history of the WMD deception you would be hard pressed to make head or tail out of this project. That's too bad because it is an inherently interesting historical drama.

Shinjuku Incident: Grade C

C

Shinjuku Incident (2009)

Jackie Chan, Naoto Takenaka, Daniel Wu; Co-writer and Director Tung-Shing Yee. (Chinese, subtitled or dubbed).

Jackie Chan is a simple farmer in China when his wife (or girlfriend, I wasn't clear), goes off to Japan on some errand and does not return. He goes to Japan, where, as a way to survive as an illegal immigrant, he falls in with ethnic Chinese gangsters in Tokyo. Because of his cunning, wit, and fighting skill, he is soon the head of the gang, which bumps against the Japanese yakuza (Mafia). He’s a good gang leader, but being formerly a country farmer, remains innocent of the darker currents moving around him. His innocence is further challenged when he does find his wife.

Chan is still a great martial arts choreographer as he demonstrates with a few of his signature graceful and witty street fights, but this is not primarily a martial arts film. Rather it is an odd blend of gritty, urban Hong Kong crime drama (set in Tokyo), martial arts, and a character-driven drama of one man’s journey. Chan, and the rest of the cast, demonstrate some serious acting. The scenes and sets in Tokyo are great (especially those in the underground Shinjuku train station, my favorite city-within-a-city). Cinematography and directing are noticeably good. The conventions of the Hong Kong genre are followed, so much of the narrative is predictable, but this is an interesting variation on a theme, worth seeing.

Pontypool: Grade B

B
Pontypool (2008)

Stephen McHattie, Lisa Houle, Georgina Reilly, Hrant Alianak; Director Bruce McDonald.

Like many people, I have had it up to here with zombie movies, but this one is different because nearly all the suspense and horror is implied, not explicit. Sure there is a bloody-mouthed zombie who smashes herself repeatedly against a window, smearing up the glass with some nice gore, but we do not have to endure the stereotypical armies of stiff-legged zombies biting people’s necks open and so forth.

The main scene (and almost the only set) is inside a tiny radio station in a small town, Pontypool, Ontario. The new announcer (McHattie) tries to “build an audience” by provoking listeners with controversial statements. The producer (Houle) wants him to cool it and just read the schools’ snow closure list. The assistant (Reilly, in a standout performance for a small role), hears a police radio report of a riot downtown and feeds it to the announcer. As bits and pieces of the riot story dribble in, it begins to appear that large mobs of people are inexplicably on the rampage, killing other people. It turns out to be a zombie infestation, but our heroes don’t realize that at first, and wouldn’t believe it anyway.

The camera hardly leaves the tiny set of the radio studio, and except for the three principals, there are few other players, making the story quite setbound. That made it cheap to produce no doubt, making it a good choice for amateur thespians in years to come. The directing, cinematography and overall art direction are excellent however, so while I noticed the static set, I was not bored or put off by it. The fine acting combined with very good editing kept the visuals varied, and the pace never sagged, even for what is basically little more than talking heads.

The story line is extremely clever, the idea that a person “goes” zombie when they are infected by certain highly emotional English words. The idea of a mimetic virus has some basis in speculative philosophy, and the writers have some fun with it, such as the observation that everyone knows talk radio is highly infectious anyway, and dangerous too. There are also a few good jibes at French Vs. English biases in Canadian culture. But while the script has plenty of wit, this is not a comedy or a social satire, but a straight-ahead zombie picture, with no overarching message, which was a bit of a disappointment to me -- the possibilities were bountiful.

The ending is conceptually foggy but overall, this movie is extremely well made, especially since the threat develops slowly and plausibly (or just barely so), and the threat is mostly implied, not in your face (or neck). It is really unusual for such a crude genre to treat the audience with such respect. This small, Canadian Indie is well worth looking for.

High Life: Grade B

B
High Life (2009)
Timothy Olyphant, Stephen Eric McIntyre, Rossif Sutherland, Joe Anderson. Co-writer and director Gary Yates.

Four Canadian junkies rob a bank in 1983. Needless to say they are all grossly incompetent, immature, and irrational. It is not exactly a comedy, but the tone is light and that’s what makes the movie interesting, since it contrasts sharply against the drug addiction-crime theme which is so heavy. The characters are fairly well defined or at least easily distinguishable.

When the robbery goes bad and there is a big shootemup, that was a disappointment, because up to that point, we were getting invested in the characters’ personalities. A gun battle is just another gun battle, so who cares, and some people get shot and some or all who survive go to prison. The ending is not spelled out. You are just to understand, “disaster.”

But what raises this movie above the typical loser-junkie-crime movie is extremely good acting, excellent directing, and outstanding cinematography, especially in the lighting department, great sets and scens, good costumes. The script is also very good, not stereotypical and always interesting. So this film is worth watching to get a look at some fine young actors who have a great future ahead of them, and some very competent filmmaking.

Invictus: Grade D

D
Invictus (2009)
Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon; Director Clint Eastwood.

The historical basis for the story is that immediately post-apartheid, the South African rugby team (mostly white players), the Springboks, was seen as the creation of, darling of, and symbol of, the oppressive Afrikaner regime. At international matches, the whites would cheer the Springboks, but all the blacks would cheer the visiting team.

When Nelson Mandela became president (Freeman), he understood that to unite the country and prevent civil war, he had to get everybody cheering for the same team. So he urged the captain of the Springboks (Damon) to try really, really hard to win the 1995 World Cup. Using sheer determination, inspired to win one for the Gipper, Damon leads the impossible underdog team to victory. Who could’ve seen that coming?

Acting is unbelievably bad, the script obvious and predictable, and directing klunky. Freeman does a fair job imitating Mandela, and only he would have the stature to do it, but still, he is crippled by the awful script. “So what you’re saying then, is that it is very important that we beat the Australian team?” “Yes sir, very important.” Hey, what a dramatic setup! Other characters are equally stilted and stereotyped, reduced to spreading their lines between thick slices of ham. Rugby scenes go on and on, repetitively and interminably, without structure or drama, action for the sake of meaningless action.

Cinematography is above average however. There are some very fine speeches by Mandela/Freeman, and those may have been taken right from the historical record because they stand out so sharply against the rest of the sludge, but beyond that, this is a real snoozer and a missed opportunity to tell a historically important story of Mandela’s efforts to unite the country.

The Messenger: Grade C

C
The Messenger (2009)
Woody Harrelson, Ben Foster, Samantha Morton, Steve Buscemi; Co-writer & Director Oren Moverman.

Two army soldiers (Harrelson and Foster) have the job of informing NOKs (Next of Kin, in military acronym-speak) when a soldier has died. They knock on the door and recite a bland script conveying the Secretary of the Army’s regrets. The interest comes in the family’s reaction. But how many times can you show the same drama and keep it interesting? There are only so many ways it can go. Nobody is going to be happy to hear the news; everyone is going to be upset, emotional. Poignant as the scene is, after four or six episodes of the same routine, the viewer is ready to quit. Thus, the thin premise cannot bear the burden of a feature-length story.

Harrelson’s acting is the main reason to stay on. He does a first-rate job, with considerable range, the best acting I have ever seen from him. The story does develop a bit, with Foster’s character establishing a friendly relationship with one of the NOKs (Morton), but not much happens there. Foster’s acting is also strong. He looks like he has been studying Edward Norton. Samantha Morton has always been an excellent actor. She was blimped out and almost unrecognizable since I last saw her, but still giving a very good performance.

In one sense, the film is more honest about war and death than a movie like Hurt Locker, which was a cartoon full of explosions and cardboard people. This movie, where ordinary people confront the hard fact that their loved ones have been taken in the cause of war, is much more real and true. But the filmmakers did not exploit that angle dramatically, as they could have, by developing questions about patriotism, service, costs versus values, calling, and son on, so the story is just not very interesting, even though the acting is worth seeing.

Edge of Darkness: Grade C

C
Edge of Darkness (2010)
Mel Gibson, Ray Winstone, Bojana Novakovic ; Director Martin Campbell.

This is a smart comeback vehicle for Gibson, after screw-ups in his personal life more or less destroyed his superstar status. It is a traditional paranoid whistleblower thriller in which a woman (Novakovic) tries to report illegal government activity at a nuclear weapons site and is finally forced to “go public” with her information, and she goes public to her dad (Gibson), a Boston police detective. As he gets closer to the truth the body count mounts.

Gibson does a respectable acting job, considering the stereotypical role. He is a good actor (I’ve seen him do Hamlet), but the screen persona we want to see is the fearless action hero. Here, he is altogether too serious, sporting a contrived “pained” look throughout. Obviously, he couldn’t be a cocky, wise-cracking cop and project the humility required for his comeback.

Ray Winstone is the one who jumps out in this film though. He’s a terrific actor who’s been around forever and is only recently getting some attention (He starred in “44-inch Chest,” reviewed in this blog recently). His character, a hired killer, oozes menace, but also subtlety and complexity. A fine performance.

The movie is based on a BBC television series and that’s how it plays, like TV. The story has lots of arbitrary twists and turns, which is what happens when writers have to come up with a new thrill every week, so there isn’t much coherence to it all. There are plenty of loose ends and non-sequiturs, and so many bad guys you might need a scorecard. So it is not a satisfying thriller and its anti-government-corruption message is not anything new, and the acting is only slightly above average. Directing and cinematography are unremarkable. Still, it is nice to see Mel with an automatic pistol in his hand again.

William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe: Grade C

C
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe (2009)

William Kunstler (historical footage). Directors: Emily and Sarah Kunstler.

This is an interesting biographical snapshot of a remarkable defense lawyer who was at the forefront of radical politics in the ‘60s and ‘70s. He defended gangsters, murderers and mobsters, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. He defended the inmates who revolted at Attica prison, members of the Chicago Seven, the Black Panthers, and the American Indian Movement at Wounded Knee. The biography is also therefore a review of troubled times in America, a time when many of us, like Kunstler, for the first time realized that the government was not “on our side,” but bent on self preservation and crushing dissent. That was a startling realization that spawned and sustained much social unrest.

Kunstler’s two daughters obviously tried to be sure the project was not simply a paean to their father nor a sentimental memoir. They succeeded in that. It is a reasonably balanced view of the man, his times, his accomplishments and failures, although not his motivation. The filmmakers claim to struggle, even now, to understand how their father could defend some very nasty people who were clearly not innocent. However, I simply do not believe that these educated, wealthy, articulate women are confused about that. It is quite obvious that the clients’ innocence or guilt had absolutely nothing to do with Kunstler’s choices, and this is true for any good defense attorney. What they defend is the legal system itself, by making it earn its legitimacy. The daughters’ alleged confusion about that is, in my view, just a dishonest patina added to the picture to dumb down the message, and maybe to inject some artificial mystery into what otherwise is a mildly interesting report.

Bliss, aka Mutluluk: Grade A

A

Bliss, aka Mutluluk (2007)
Özgü Namal, Talat Bulut, Murat Han; Director Abdullah Oguz. (Turkish, subtitled).

A young girl (Namal) is raped in a small village in Turkey and then is rejected by her family and village for that “crime.” She won’t say who did it. Her uncle orders her killed to restore the family honor and assigns his son (Han) to the task, but he can’t go through with it and runs away with the girl to the sea. Thugs are sent in pursuit. The mood between the son and the girl is tense, but gradually they develop a working relationship because they recognize that neither can ever go back to the village. They meet a rich, well-educated professor (Bulut) from Istanbul who takes them aboard his gorgeous wooden sailboat and they are exposed to secular life and values for the first time. They are shocked, horrified and fascinated at the same time. In the end justice is done.

It’s a beautiful film to look at, the acting outstanding, the characters engaging, but the sharply drawn theme was the highlight for me. The rigid village traditions seem ridiculous, but most people in the world live in such traditional societies and it makes you wonder why. The answer must be that without those rigid rules (including religious rules, although that aspect is not raised in this film), people would not know how to behave at all. How could you know what was right and what was wrong? Life would be chaos. The rules of traditional society tell you what a person should be, just as military training does for our soldiers and religious training does for most people. Although the result is only a person shaped for a narrowly defined world, the alternative would be a person without a compass. So you realize how necessary traditional values are.

But then you wonder, how do we get by in secular society? The answer this film offers is education. If you are educated, you can discern up from down, right from wrong. Is that correct? I’m not sure it is a complete answer. The movie also says it helps if you are rich so you don’t have to deal with the grubbiness of life. The character of the professor is a too-easy answer, not entirely convincing, but it is one answer. The final message of the movie in any case is that secularism is better than traditionalism.

The tension between traditional and secular society is at the core of modern Turkey, underlying its politics, sociology, and its struggle to join the EU. For Turks, this would be a powerful film that goes right to the heart.

You Don’t Know Jack: Grade B

B

You Don’t Know Jack (2010)

Al Pacino, Susan Sarandon, John Goodman, Danny Huston, Brenda Vaccaro; Director Barry Levinson.

Pacino plays Dr. Jack Kevorkian, aka Dr. Death, in this worthy HBO biopic. Kevorkian’s last years are shown, when he’s in his ‘70’s and decides to make a national issue out of doctor-assisted-suicide, to help those with terminal illness end their suffering and their lives with dignity.

This is definitely a pro-death with dignity message. Kevorkian is shown as quirky and egocentric, but compassionate and dedicated to his patients in the cause of the right to die point of view. The other side of the argument (which seems to be that “God would not approve”) is not presented except to show angry protesters shouting and carrying picket signs. I’m sure there is a reasoned argument to be made for the other side (although I don’t know what it is), and this would have been a better movie if it had not been so one-sided, because it is ultimately an “issue” movie. The biographical material about Kevorkian is sketchy and there’s no telling how accurate it is.

Pacino gives a terrific performance. It is nice to see him act again instead of just barking and hamming and mugging around. He’s still got it. Sarandon is, as always, compelling. She just is a convincing person. And it is nice to see Vaccaro on the big screen again. Cinematography has a few moments of artistry, but this is a TV show after all so the directing and photography are in your face and whap on the side of the head obvious. But the strong acting raises it above mediocrity.

It would be a good picture to show in a high school class to stimulate discussion. It’s a shame this is still a controversial issue. Kevorkian was released from prison in 2007 and we still have only two states that legally admit that “Dying is not a crime.”

Peacock: Grade C

C
Peacock (2010)
Cillian Murphy, Ellen Page, Susan Sarandon. Co-writer & Director Michael Lander

This hard-to-find indie is worth a look because of some good acting. Murphy plays a slightly retarded man in a small Norman Rockwell town of about 1960, who suffers from multiple personality disorder, what is properly called Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID. His two personalities are John, the bank clerk, and Emma, wife of John. The personalities communicate through handwritten notes (all of them Emma to John) and other artifacts, such as groceries, clothing, etc. around the house. So the two personalities are aware of each other, yet at the same time estranged.

DID is extremely rare in real life, so much so that many psychiatrists dispute its legitimacy as a diagnosis. Among documented cases, it is even more rare for the personalities to be aware of each other. So while vaguely tracking the main features of the disorder, the movie takes considerable artistic license, as it should. It could be that John is simply a transvestite and not psychotic at all. But the movie tries hard to make us believe it is a case of DID.

The DID theme is an excellent device for interesting stories, such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It gives a character the chance to do all sorts of things he would like to but wouldn't dare. But in this case, since the personalities know each other and “live together” like husband and wife, the idea is much less interesting. The backstory, that somehow John was traumatized by his mother as a child, is supposed to explain his condition, but it doesn’t, so we just have to accept it as a weird condition.

Acting by Murphy is quite good. That would have to be a challenging role for any actor, to play both genders. But the script is weak and the dialog clunky so he does not have much room to maneuver in the two characters. The different costumes, male and female, cue us into the differences between the personalities, except that Emma, even with her wig, still looks like a guy in drag. One must suspend incredulity that the townspeople are not hip to the deception and cannot see past a little eye makeup to realize it is the same guy. But oh, well.

Ellen Page does an outstanding job as a poor single mother. She really shows her acting talent and range here, as this is not just another smart-mouthed Juno-like character, but one with some real depth. Sarandon is always convincing but her role is extremely limited and she can’t do much with it.

Overall the story doesn’t make much sense, is not very interesting, and there are all kinds of flaws in its logic, and it is psychologically not believable. The pace is way too slow. After a couple of costume changes, we get the point of the DID, but there is still another hour to go. Snoozaroo! If you see the DVD around, rent it to see Page’s performance, and the rest of it is not terrible.

Crazy Heart: Grade D

D
Crazy Heart (2009)
Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhall, Colin Ferrill, with Robert Duvall. Co-writer & Director Scott Cooper.

Bridges won his first Oscar for his role of Bad Blake, a washed up, alcoholic country singer. It’s a decent performance, especially for him, although he is not in the same league as winners like Sean Penn, Dustin Hoffman, Marlon Brando. Probably the award was mainly to acknowledge his long career of competent acting.

Blake is 57 years old, broke, and happy to get a gig in a bowling alley in some southern town. A newspaper reporter (Gyllenhall, who won best supporting) interviews him and eventually they develop an unlikely and unconvincing romantic relationship. We know how this story goes, from dozens just like it. In the end, Blake must decide what he values in life so he turns a new leaf.

I confess I am not a fan of country music. I find it simplistic, repetitive and maudlin. The songs in this movie were inoffensive and unremarkable, as were Bridges’ performances. He is not much of a singer and the songs were chosen to suit his narrow range so he could bark them out as much as sing them. The story was trite and the acting only competent, even by Maggie, who gave 110% to a weak character. I’ve never been fond of Bridges. I don’t appreciate his broad gestures and blustery overacting. But if you are a fan of his, this is typical Bridges. Cinematography included a lot of stereotypical concert shots with highlighted hair from behind, fast pans through colored spotlights, etc. You know the drill. Some of the backup bands were good.

What is extremely annoying about this DVD was that fast forward was locked out, so it was impossible to skip past the boring parts, presumably because the filmmakers insist that there are no boring parts, but trust me, there are. A long shot of a car driving down a highway is boring. I know they teach you in film school to establish the scene and show time passing, and document change in locations, etc., but I’ll tell you what: it is boring. Same for people walking down hallways and people performing body functions. It’s all just deadwood. But I was forced to endure it, and that added to my overall impression that this movie is just plain boring.

44-inch Chest: Grade B

B
44 Inch Chest (2009)
Ray Winstone, Tom Wilkinson, Ian McShane, John Hurt, Joanne Whalley; Director Malcolm Venville.

This set-bound talking head drama features some extremely fine acting and engaging (though profane), dialog that sounds like Mamet or even Beckett. Working class, aging British losers try to convince their buddy (Winstone) to kill the young man who cuckolded him. The victim is tied to a chair with a bag over his head, just like in Reservoir Dogs, and the allusions to that film are strong.

The men discuss, rant, and digress, with the director being forced to move the pace along with interesting cuts, time-slices, and even a gratuitous insertion of a clip from the old Sampson and Delilah movie. The desperate directorial need to relieve the claustrophobia of the set reminded me of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966), and it doesn’t quite work in either movie, so you are left with the look and feel of a stage play.

There is a lack of action and story, a lack of character development, and an overabundance of words, but still the movie is well worth watching to enjoy the excellent acting and directing. The sound track is engaging and the set is very good. Cinematography is varied and interesting but the sepia palette gets old (a problem with having only one set). There is nothing new here, but great acting can redeem just about anything.

An Education: Grade C

C
An Education (2009)
Cary Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina, Emma Thompson; Director Lone Sherfig.

Mulligan is a teenager in London in the early sixties who is studying hard to get admitted to Oxford to “read” English. She meets and falls for an older playboy (Sarsgaard) who has plenty of money and a fancy car. He takes her to night clubs, jazz concerts, and even to Paris, and she is swept off her feet.

The contrast between the excitement and passion of this “good life” and the tedium of studying Latin verbs is sharply drawn. That contrast is also drawn, more importantly, between the promise of an alive, exciting future, and the crushingly cramped and dull lives her middle-class, suburban parents lead. Of course she chooses life in the large.

But when her boyfriend turns out to be not all that he seemed, she has the predictable epiphany about the short term pleasures of the senses and the long term value of an educated mind. It’s a predictable and well-worn story, but the acting by Mulligan and Sarsgaard is extremely good. (And Molina and Thompson, in small roles, perform brilliantly as you would expect). Mulligan clearly has enormous talent, and a poise and control that will make her a big star (this was her movie debut). Nevertheless there wasn’t much believable chemistry between the two leads, which I put down to weak directing. I never felt the love or passion that was supposed to be developing between them.

The script was snappy throughout and the photography and sets were good (especially the fine old cars and shots of London and Place Pigalle in Paris of a half-century ago). So there is plenty to keep a viewer interested, and even though, as an educator myself, I am a sucker for movies that glorify education, this is just not a very compelling movie overall.

Broken Embraces: Grade C

C
Broken Embraces (2009)
Penelope Cruz, Lluis Homar. Writer & Director Pedro Almodovar. (Spanish, subtitled)

The combination of Almodvar and Cruz is usually a winner, but not this time, and it is the director who did not hold up his end of the deal.

The main character (Homar) is an aging blind writer who must come to terms with his past (shown in time cuts), when he was a sighted film director. Working on his last film, he had a passionate affair with his leading lady (Cruz) who was two-timing her rich but gerontological husband. As we learn later, children of indefinite paternity follow.

But it is a soap-opera story full of clichéd melodrama that produces no dramatic tension and little interest. Instead the only things to keep a viewer interested are Cruz’s acting and Almodovar’s directing. Cruz is a fine actor and does an impressive job with the weak material, but the main thing about her in this movie is how she looks. The director has her in dozens of costumes and wigs, with all kinds of makeup and sometimes no makeup, which is a bit shocking, to see her as an ordinary woman. If Almodovar wants to burst the movie bubble and show her as just a woman, fine, but what’s the point? We knew that. We go to the movies for the fantasy.

As for the directing itself, it is interesting and colorful, as you would expect from Almodovar. Having the camera pan back and forth between actors having a conversation was like watching a tennis match, but it was interesting, and it did work, and a technical marvel, as the focus stayed completely sharp. But despite these and other creative innovations, you have to ask, what is the point? There was no significant story driving it all, and only very mundane dialog. I felt like I was watching a daytime soap on Univision. So there is enough interest here to make the film worth a look, but that’s all.

Endgame: Grade B

B
Endgame (2009)

William Hurt, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Johnny Lee Miller, Clark Peters. Director Pete Travis.

I have often wondered how, exactly, the apartheid regime in South Africa fell without civil war. I have the same question about the fall of the Soviet Union. When the dominant group has all the political power, all the money, all the jobs, all the guns, what motivates them to yield to change?

If I were not so lazy I could read the history books and find out. But this docudrama answers the question for South Africa to my satisfaction. There were secret talks held between the two sides, Afrikans professor Will Esterhuyse (Hurt) who secretly was working for government intelligence, and Thabo Mbeki of the ANC (Ejiofor). The personal relationship that develops between those two men goes a long way to explaining what happened.

There are political facts too, of course. F.W. de Klerk decided to pursue reconciliation soon after taking office (for reasons not made clear in this movie), and for that, rightfully shared the 1993 Nobel peace prize with Nelson Mandela. There is not much action in this movie beyond newsreel footage of riots in the streets. Instead the drama is entirely “inner,” psychological.

Unfortunately, you do have to know a bit about recent South African history to appreciate the full depth of that drama, and even to keep the characters straight, so this would be an excellent film to show in a college classroom, but maybe not so enjoyable for someone who does not have a clue about the fall of the apartheid regime.

The acting is good, especially by Ejiofor, and the cinematography compelling. Location sets are interesting. The sound directing is so bad it almost spoils the entire picture unfortunately. Little sounds are way overmiked, volumes are far too variable, and obnoxious, irrelevant music is a poke in the ears. Beyond that however, the film is extremely worthwhile.

Bad Lieutenant: Grade B

B
Bad Lieutenant – Port of Call: New Orleans (2009)
Nicholas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer. Director Werner Herzog.

This remake of the 1992 picture starring Harvey Keitel is almost as good, thanks to extraordinary acting by Cage. He has genuinely acted before in movies, but when he gets into those long spells of Disney things, one tends to forget what real talent he has. His acting in this story is fantastic, especially in the second half after the movie finds its feet.

Cage is a dirty N.O. cop with a spinal injury that leaves him constantly in pain, so he becomes addicted to painkillers, and to cocaine, although to my knowledge, coke does not help at all with pain, might even make it worse. Pharmacology aside, Cage does a convincing job of walking, standing, and moving like a man in pain.

That would be achievement enough. But he also manages to convey vividly the sense of a man constantly on the edge of flipping out; someone who is just barely under control in the social context. He delivers his lines in the same way, dripping with inner torment. It is an amazing performance, well worth seeing.

That aside, however, there is not much to recommend the movie. He is a typical bad cop, similar to every other gritty, urban bad cop movie you have ever seen. He steals dope from the property room, shakes down club-goers for their dope, bullies suspects, abuses his badge and authority to get sex, and all the rest. In the Keitel original, the character was more believable as a burned out, borderline psychopath who was in the end redeemed (partially), by showing a spark of conscience and sense of justice. It was a worthwhile human drama.

Cage’s cop is cartoony and does not hold together well. His gambling habit does not really fit with his character and is not well-integrated into the story. It seems to be there just because it was a there in the original. His romantic relationship with Mendez is flat. And the ending is just stupid, where suddenly in the last 5 minutes he wins enough to cancel all his gambling debts, the mobsters lay off, charges are dropped, he is promoted to captain, his back pain is apparently gone, he has a smile on his face, a happy family, and he and his girl and his father too, have all gone through rehab and celebrate by drinking San Pellegrino. Right. That is Hollywood showing its most cynical contempt for audiences, and it just ruins whatever story they had going. I’m surprised that a big name director like Herzog could not prevent such atrocity.

Unless it was supposed to be ironic, a drug-induced delusion of Cage’s character. There are a couple of surrealist scenes in the movie involving singing iguanas and a dancing dead man which are complete non-sequiturs and can only be interpreted as representing drug-induced hallucination even though that is not consistent with the character's state. That is a generous interpretation of the bizarre ending.

Val Kilmer doesn’t do anything in this movie, but he has lost weight, so that’s something. And the title suffix “Port of Call-New Orleans” is meaningless. The story is nominally set in New Orleans but you would never know it from the cinematography, and there is no nautical theme in the movie, and the location it is not important to the story anyway. However, in sum, you have to see both versions, the original with Keitel for his acting and for the tight story with meaningful character arc; and this remake just because of Cage’s amazing acting.