The Sandman: Grade A

A

The Sandman (2011)

Fabian Krüger, Irene Brügger, Beat Schlatter; Writer-Director Peter Luisi. (Swiss German, subtitled).

This is a strange, original, humorously surreal story about a man whose body gradually turns into sand. The premise is bizarre, reminiscent of a Kafka novel. Benno, a stamp collector (Kruger) works in a shop where the boss is annoyed at finding grains of sand on the counter. Then Benno discovers sand in his bed. He sweeps it away, thinking nothing of it. But then there is sand in his kitchen, in his shoes, everywhere, and he realizes the sand is coming from him.

He confides in the waitress (Brugger)who works in the coffee shop below his room, even though the two of them have an icy relationship because her loud singing practice in the evenings keeps him awake. She spurns him out of hatred, and anyway cannot understand his complaint, “I am losing sand!” He starts dreaming about her every night and is quite annoyed by that. He becomes desperate when he realizes that his body is wasting away as the amount of sand he gives off increases.

It might sound like a wacky one-idea story, but it isn’t. Various twists and turns kept me guessing throughout. At first I thought it was an existential idea, of the “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” type, and maybe it is. Then it turns out that he loses more sand when he is being untruthful, so he embarks on a program of absolute honesty, as in the Jim Carrey movie, Liar, Liar. Okay, I thought, so it’s a Pinocchio story. But then another twist: anyone who smells the sand immediately falls asleep. (Some great lines here: “Smell my sand.” “No, I am not going to smell your sand!”) So, a bedtime “Sandman” story? But no, another twist develops, and then another and another. The film is endlessly creative in that way.

The cinematography is wonderful and the pictures are more and more shocking and surreal as the movie progresses. Inevitably, and rightly, Benno and “Sandra,” the girl in the coffee shop, come to a romantic understanding. It is extremely hard to write a non-cliche story with non-stereotyped characters, but this movie is an original.

Adjustment Bureau: Grade C

C

The Adjustment Bureau (2011)

Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Terence Stamp. Co-Writer & Director George Nolfi.

Maybe there is no such thing as science fiction and that’s why there are so few good sci-fi movies. Science is about logic, and cause-and-effect, whereas fiction delves into areas that are impenetrable to science, such as love.

This is actually a love story, with a sci-fi backdrop, and it works as long as you don’t try to make sense out of the sci-fi part. Damon is a New York congressman. He briefly meets a woman (Blunt) in a hotel men’s room, in strong opening scene. But despite his wish to see her again, he can’t because he lost her phone number.

Well, he didn't really lose it, it was taken from him by thugs from the “adjustment bureau,” a group of heavies wearing felt fedoras, who are divine caseworkers sent to enforce “the plan” of human predestination. The Big Guy (known as “the Chairman”) has decided that humans can no longer be trusted with free will and every life must be completely managed. In the master plan, Damon is designed to become President someday and a romance with Blunt would throw that off track. How that could happen, if free will is nullified and life is predetermined, is one of many logical lacunae that must be overlooked. Just like the fact that, since he is a well-known congressman, it would not be much trouble for her to contact him, but never mind that either.

Anyway, he persists in trying to find her, despite warnings and threats from the angelic thugs, and he even does find her once “by chance” (whatever that is, in a predetermined world), but he is again separated from her. The movie then devolves into endless chase scenes, with Damon dragging her around the city by the hand, to prove finally that love conquers even Fate. Wow, so individual free will (which supposedly does not exist) is greater than God’s plan for all humanity? Hmmm…

Nonsense aside, the relationship story between Damon and Blunt is interesting enough to keep the movie going. Damon is more than just Jason Bourne here, he actually shows some acting chops, not as good as in The Informant, but very watchable. Blunt’s role is teary-eyed, passive-submissive but she executes well. Cinematography is crisp and the city looks good.

Never Let Me Go: Grade D

D

Never Let Me Go (2010)

Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield; Director Mark Romanek.

This film represents a failure of execution, not story, because the novel is a subtle and powerful exploration of unfulfilled love. Author Ishigura’s deeply interior work can be successfully filmed, as demonstrated in The Remains of the Day. But in this case, the director and screenwriter could not find the cinematic language to express the story (despite Ishigura himself being an executive producer). We can only imagine what went wrong.

Three children are raised with dozens of others in a bucolic English boarding school, in an opening section that could easily have been edited to half its length. When they are preteen, the children are informed that they are clones, not real humans, and their purpose is to donate their organs upon maturity. For reasons unknown, they accept this fate.

As the three friends reach young adulthood they begin to fulfill their mission. They seem intelligent, well-educated and articulate, but inexplicably, never question their self-sacrificial mission, nor do they discuss what it means to be a clone “rather than” a human.

The worthy sci-fi theme of the story then is, would a clone have a soul? But this theme is not explored, hardly touched upon. Instead the focus is on the love triangle among the threesome. That could have been a good story, but the pace is so slow and the dialog so deadening that we just don’t believe in it. A final theme arises from the threesome’s belated self-awareness that they are ambivalent about their mission. That could have been a great story also. But despite their doubts, the characters unaccountably plod on.

Even if a decent editor had trimmed the prodigious deadwood out of the movie, I don’t think the remaining scenes would be sufficient: the story is just not well told. The cringeworthy maudlin music is unable to disguise the movie's lack of dramatic tension.

Keira Knightly, in a ridiculous jet-black wig (which the marketing people obviously tried to tone down on the DVD cover) is inert. She does not live up to her acting reputation. That is inexcusably bad directing. Mulligan (who was fantastic in An Education) has such an expressive face that she fills the screen even when she has no lines. Garfield (buddy to Zuckerman in The Social Network) turns in an admirable performance. Those acting virtues (barely) save this movie from the tragic failure it need not have been.

Jack Goes Boating: Grade A

A

Jack Goes Boating (2010)

Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Ryan, Daphne Rubin-Vega, John Ortiz; Director Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Jack (Hoffman) and Clyde (Ortiz) are a couple of 40 year old limo drivers in New York City who like reggae music. Clyde fixes Jack up with Connie (Ryan), a woman who works as a telemarketer with his wife, Lucy (Rubin-Vega). The date goes well, a relationship evolves, and Jack makes two promises, to take Connie boating next summer, and to cook a dinner next month at Clyde’s apartment (because Jack lives in his parents’ basement and has only a hotplate). Jack learns how to cook, and also how to swim, in preparation. The dinner party goes well at first, then turns to disaster when the food is burned and a fierce argument erupts between Clyde and Lucy. Jack and Connie make a hasty retreat and presumably will go boating next summer. That’s it. Eighty four minutes.

Now, why isn’t that the most boring movie you've ever heard of? One reason is the excellent writing. The dialog is completely original, interesting, witty, natural, and flows from the wellsprings of the human condition. (The story is from an off-Broadway play by Robert Glaudini that Hoffman starred in.) Add to that, remarkable, riveting, heartfelt acting, especially by Hoffman and Ryan. Hoffman never ceases to amaze me with his courage. He can do embarrassed vulnerability like no other actor. Ryan does vulnerability almost as well, but her character is more psychologically complex, so she adds a touch of fearful paranoia, which works extremely well. Ortiz and Rubin-Vega (also from the original stage performance) give fine performances, if not quite as nuanced. Ortiz’s voice and diction sound so much like Denzel Washington that it is distracting at first.

Then you have to consider the excellent directing, by Hoffman also. It is his directorial debut and clearly he has the knack. The overall feel is kind of stagey and a bit claustrophobic, but so are the characters’ lives, so that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The tone is Woody-Allenesque – nothing terribly original there, but the way Hoffman gets the camera right into the faces of his performers, including himself, is just as courageous as his own acting is. Finally, add in a first rate job on other elements of the movie, from the infectious reggae and Bill Evans soundtrack to pitch-perfect costumes and sets. It all adds up to a tour de force and a mesmerizing adult relationship drama that has not a minute of slack.

The Last Circus: Grade B

The Last Circus (Balada Triste de Trompeta) (2010)

Carlos Areces, Antonio de la Torre, Carolina Bang; Writer-director Álex de la Iglesia.(Spanish, subtitled).

This is one of the strangest movies I have seen in a long time; a dark, violent, horror movie; a bloody splatter picture; also a farce, a cutting political satire, and a sweet romantic comedy. It is so mind-blowingly, creatively original that I have to give it high marks. Its 107 minutes grind on too long however and the story degenerates into meaningless chaos as it comes to its prolonged, tragic finale, so it gets graded down for that.

Set in the 1930’s and the Spanish civil war, a group of circus performers is forcibly drafted into Franco’s army, but the head clown refuses and ridicules the nasty officer. For his efforts he is imprisoned, tortured, and killed, but not before he advises his confused young son to be a sad clown, not a happy clown, because life is no longer happy. The son grows up and joins a circus as an incredibly incompetent sad clown. He is so bad that he actually makes people laugh. Ironically, the circus’s happy clown is actually a psychotic woman-beater who lords it over him just as the fascist soldier humiliated his father. The pathetic, dumpy and weak sad clown naively falls in love with the happy clown’s girl, the beautiful trapeze artist, and is consequently beaten to a pulp. Retaliating, he attacks the happy clown, ripping his face apart with a farrier’s hook, in one of several extremely violent, bloody scenes, that are yet somehow squirmingly comedic because of the costumes and sets.

The sad clown escapes the police by running into the forest and living naked in a cave like an animal. A hunter finds him and takes him home as a curiosity, and you’ll never guess, the hunter is the very army officer who killed his father. The sad clown plots his revenge, but first he improvises a fantastic clown costume out of draperies and props suggestive of papal garb.

But suddenly the happy clown reappears, not dead after all, but horribly disfigured, in a fantastic makeup job. Further tragicomic-horror clown battles ensue, including a chase up a church steeple reminiscent of the chase up Mount Rushmore in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest. There are also visual allusions to Picasso’s Guernica, Puccini’s Pagliacci, and to other historical and cinematic landmarks.

The original title, A Sad Trumpet Ballad, may have some significance that escapes me, but is otherwise just the name of the musical sound track. The cinematography, and especially the lighting, are exceptionally striking throughout the movie. Costumes and makeup are unbelievably creative, as is the writing itself. Directing is excellent and well paced, until the last act. Violence and sexuality are integrated into the allegorical civil war theme and used well. Ultimately, the movie does not present a single, easy to grasp political message, or comedic tone, or horror theme, but is a dizzying pastiche of many of those, engaging the viewer on multiple levels of relentless creative turmoil.

$5 A Day: Grade B

B

$5 A Day (2008)

Christopher Walken, Alessandro Nivola, Sharon Stone, Amanda Peet, Peter Coyote; Director Nigel Cole.

This is a silly, sentimental road movie about an old guy (Walken) who has a terminal brain tumor and wants to reconnect with his adult son (Nivola), ostensibly to be driven from Atlantic City to Mexico for treatment, but actually because he wants some love before he dies. The father is a harmless hustler and a con man who gets his morning coffee from a nearby hotel’s lobby service for guests, his free breakfasts at IHOP, where he shows one of his many driver’s licenses “proving” it is his birthday, and drives a PT Cruiser wrapped in pink Sweet N Low advertising (company provided). He ingeniously lives in America for only $5 a day and the movie is ingeniously well-financed with product placements.

His son is an ex-con trying to go straight who is alternately horrified, disgusted, angered, and compassionate with the old man. As on any road trip, situations develop, complications arise, and secrets are revealed. The sentimentality is well leavened by the witty dialog and clever story to make the movie an enjoyable comedy rather than a maudlin family drama. But the bottom line is that Walken is a surprisingly subtle actor who is incapable of uttering a line that does not make you at least smile, and in this movie, usually laugh out loud. That’s not because he “tells jokes” but because he is fundamentally a funny person, with impeccable timing and tone. The movie is well worth seeing just for him, but all the major players (even Stone) do fine work here.

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.

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.

Up In the Air: Grade A

A
Up in the Air (2009)
George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick; Director Jason Rietman.

Clooney is an HR consultant hired by firms to fire people when they need to cut staff. He lives most of his life flying and traveling through airports. Along the way he meets Farmiga, also a frequent flyer, although it is unclear what she does. They strike up a relationship in an airport bar and continue a no-strings attached sexual friendship whenever their travel schedules intersect. It is an extremely slow starter. Clooney describes his life and values in a deadly voiceover and the dialog with Farmiga is so rushed and cute it is simply not believable. The first half hour is boring as mud. That relationship eventually turns extremely interesting however.

Kendrick’s character is a recent hire to the HR firm. She is assigned to travel with Clooney to learn the ropes. Her acting jumps off the screen and she certainly holds her own against Clooney and Farmiga. Her character is clunky, naïve and nerdy alternating with sensitive and sophisticated, but she overcomes the weak writing by sheer force of acting ability.

Sets, costumes, locations, cinematography, and even hair-dos are perfection in this movie. The airport hotels and the Milwaukee wedding are especially cringe-producing in their accuracy. The music is just awful, mostly a nasal folk singer whining over a thin guitar, and they gradually crescendo the sound track until it is deafening and you have to hit the mute button. That happens at least four times in the movie, so there must have been some kind of payola going on to justify it.

And speaking of payola, the movie was well-funded by product placements: American Airlines, Hertz, Hampton Inns, Hilton, to name a few. Nevertheless, a huge collection of production companies was announced in the beginning, so it would be interesting to learn how this picture came together.

The collection of wisely deleted scenes illustrates how the themes of modern alienation, difficult relationships, and economic hardship were carefully refined after shooting. Despite its flaws, I rate the movie highly because of strong acting, especially by Kendricks and Farmiga, but Clooney also acts, a departure from his usual mugging, and because of those poignant existential themes that make it provocative, a movie that makes you think about the human condition in modern America.

Fulltime Killer: Grade C

C
Fulltime Killer (2001)

Andy Lau, Takashi Sorimachi, Kelly Lin; Co-directors: Johnnie To, Ka-Fai Wai (also co-wrote). (Chinese and Japanese, subtitled).

This is a classic Hong-Kong action thriller in the style of Johnnie To. A new, brash, and flamboyant hit man (Sorimachi) is in town, challenging the hegemony of the king of assassins (Lau). They also compete over the girl (Lin). There is a high body count, as you would expect, and a plodding police detective after both young men. The acting is above average, music is excellent, and Hong Kong is displayed in all its glory. Although this is a typical shoot-em-up, the good story, acting and photography are strong enough to keep you engaged. I have probably overrated this film because I am a fan of the genre, but it is pretty good on its merits.

3-Iron: Grade B

B
3-Iron (2004)

Seung-yeon Lee, Hyun-kyoon Lee, Hyuk-ho Kwon; Writer and director Ki-duk Kim. (Korean, subtitled).

A young man (S. Lee) breaks into empty houses in a Korean city and makes himself comfortable for a few days. The owners are away (which he learns from their answering machine message) so he eats their food, sleeps there, watches TV, fixes their broken appliances, waters their plants, does their laundry, then leaves. It’s a neat premise. In one house however, there is a battered woman (H. Lee) who watches him, then confronts him wordlessly. In fact, neither character says a word to each other in the whole movie. (The woman says five words at the very end, but it is ambiguous whom she is addressing). So the movie is almost a silent film, giving it a dreamlike quality.

The young man saves her from another beating by her mean husband who comes home, and she runs off with the young man and joins him in his house-breaking enterprise. Inevitably they get caught when the family comes home unexpectedly. In one case, it is not clear how that problem was resolved, but in another, the young man ends up in jail and the woman is returned to her husband. The ending is not really a proper resolution but is emotionally satisfying. Photography is good, directing is good, and sets are excellent. It’s a beautiful, quiet, romantic story worth seeing. Only the lightweight (even silly) plot detracts from its overall quality.

Last Chance Harvey: Grade C

C
Last Chance Harvey (2008)
Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson. Writer-director Joel Hopkins.

Hoffman is an American businessman in London for the wedding of his estranged daughter. Just before going there, he was put on probation by his boss, so he is doubly upset when he learns that he is only tolerated, not really welcome at the wedding. We have no explanation why he is in trouble at work or why he is not welcome at the wedding, but Hoffman does his hurt and bewildered Willy Loman act to great effect. He misses his flight back to New York and is fired. Depressed, he meets Thompson in an airport restaurant and strikes up a conversation. It is just barely plausible that they find an immediate friendship which develops quickly thereafter into affection. Her character is a lonely single in her forties (Thomson is actually 50), and we might believe she would be open to friendship with a 70 year old American she just met and knows nothing about. For him, the motivation is completely opaque. Implausibly, he convinces her to attend the reception after the wedding, where they bond, and eventually, the two of them walk off into the sunset hand in hand.

The story starts well, with scenes from Hoffman’s life intercut with parallel scenes from Thompson’s. Both actors demonstrate why they are truly great in these opening scenes. After the restaurant meeting however, the story switches from existential angst and humor to sentimental claptrap and by the time they go to the wedding reception, the script has degenerated to adolescent melodrama, from which it never recovers. Likewise direction starts out crisply but then degenerates to cliché montages indicating “romance.” Music begins with an interesting piano tune based on a Satie groove, but quickly mutates into loud, noxious, relentless orchestration. Overall, the fine acting in the first half makes the movie worth seeing, but the last half could be skipped entirely.

The Reader: Grade C

C
The Reader (2008)
Kate Winslet, Ray Fiennes, David Kross; Director Steven Daldry.

Winslet won best actress for her role as Hannah, a dim-witted ex Nazi prison guard. She randomly encounters a young boy (Kross) on a Berlin street, takes him to her apartment and has sex with him. He is thrilled, naturally, and comes back several times for more, but she remains emotionless, and finally moves away without notice. Time passes and he is a law student attending a Nazi war crimes trial, and who is among the accused but Hannah, his former paramour. Still dim-witted, she expresses herself without guile, demonstrating what philosopher Hannah Arendt in 1963 called “the banality of evil.”

In the last scene, Hannah is released from prison after 20 years and the boy, now grown up into Fiennes, agrees to help her re-enter society. Why does he? No explanation is provided. He stares a lot into middle distance with anguished expressions, but we have no clue what he is thinking. Were they ever in love? There is no reason to think so. Did they ever care about each other? Not apparently. Do they care about each other after many decades? We are supposed to believe that they do, but it is just not believable.

Kate Winslet is a fine actor, fully deserving of the Oscar, but not for this picture, in which she is mostly expressionless. The make-up people aged her well, but that is not acting. She does the first few scenes nude, and that could be considered daring, but being naked is also not acting. The acting is pretty bad in this movie, mainly because the characters are drifting without a narrative to reveal them. You can’t show good acting if there is nothing to express. Fiennes manufactures some unspecified emotions just so he has something to do. Winslet shows an ounce of emotion during her trial, but generally remains in zombie mode. What is the point of this story? Nazis were people too? That is not a new idea. Sets, scenes, and costumes make the movie watchable but it is not very interesting.

Seven Pounds: Grade C

C
Seven Pounds (2008)
Will Smith, Rosario Dawson, Woody Harrelson. Director Gabriele Muccino.

Will Smith is aging well. The lines in his face make him look distinguished, and he can still manufacture that dazzling smile. He is an IRS agent who, improbably, goes around to people’s homes, offices, and hospital beds to hassle them about their tax debt. Along the way, he encounters and eventually falls in love with a woman (Dawson) with a bad heart who only has a month too live. Cue the violins! This is a set up for the most maudlin of melodramas, right up there with ghost lovers and reincarnation stories. As the girl gasps and faints toward her destiny, Smith continues to visit a motley selection of debtors for unfathomable reasons, doing things that are not motivated by his character. We get flashbacks to suggest a great tragedy he is trying to forget, but instead of turning to gin, he drowns his sorrows in tax collection? None of it makes sense and it is hard to take the character or the story seriously.

However the developing romance was engaging because Smith and Dawson give such interesting performances, despite the weak, unrealistic dialog. Harrelson also shines. Good acting raises this disaster of a story up to average. Sets, costumes, and camera are high quality, but the story is a fishnet with too many holes to catch a genuine emotion. Ultimately our questions are resolved in a plot turn that ties up as many loose ends as a jellyfish has tendrils, but the ending is no more believable than what has come before, and is so crassly sentimental that I just shook my head in disgust when the bell rang for me to cry. There is a serious social theme brought forward at the end but only as a gimmick. It would have been a much better movie to tackle that theme straight on and dump the ridiculous redemption story, which was incoherent, implausible, and badly told.

Slumdog Millionaire: Grade C

C
Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Madhur Mittal; Co-directors Danny Boyle, Loveleen Tandan. (In English and Hindi subtitled).

A young man in Mumbai (Patel) wins the grand prize on the Indian TV show, “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”. As he approaches winning the jackpot he is interrogated and tortured by police because, as a beggar from the slums (a slumdog), they assume he must be cheating. During the the interrogation he describes his impoverished life with his brother (Mittal), and a childhood playmate (Pinto). That life is shown in long flashbacks intercut with the quiz show and the interrogation. Improbably, the questions asked on the quiz show just happen to be on topics of which he has some personal experience from his chaotic life. That is not believable, but as a storytelling device it gives the narrative the tone of a fairy tale and removes us from immediate engagement. The young man’s brother goes to work for a gangster and the slumdog gets various jobs in Mumbai as he searches for the young girlfriend he now longs for.

This movie won the Oscar for Best Picture of 2008. Everyone loves a melodrama, I guess, especially if it involves poor children who make good and if love conquers all. Heavy-handed sentimentality does not have universal appeal however. I prefer a story that tells us what people are made of, or at least one that engages the intellect. These characters do neither. Much as been made of the great acting by the children and young adults here, but it is only “great” because they are not trained actors. If you take the acting at face value, it is adequate at best. The story is boring, repetitive, contrived, and too long (two hour running time). The characters show little emotion and they behave opportunistically, rather than from complex motives. The themes of the movie are trite (poverty is awful; rags to riches; love conquers all). On the mix of Bollywood vs Hollywood, I’d say it was 60/40.

On the plus side, it is an authentic-looking portrait of some aspects of India on the low end, beautifully photographed. Mumbai is almost unrecognizable since I was there. The music is contemporary Indian, quite interesting. Scenery, sets, and costumes are excellent. It’s not a bad-looking movie; just not very interesting.

My Blueberry Nights: Grade A

A
My Blueberry Nights (2007)
Norah Jones, Jude Law, David Strathairn, Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz; Co-Writer and Director Kar Wai Wong.

A jilted young woman (Jones) travels around the U.S. to get over her loss and get in touch with herself, but before she goes, she happens in at Jude Law’s café where he serves her blueberry pie and they talk about love and life. In her subsequent year-long road trip, she sends him a stream of postcards. Along the way, she meets Strathairn as a drunken cop in a bar where she works nights, and encounters his estranged wife, Weisz. She meets high-stakes poker player Portman in Nevada and rides to Vegas with her. Finally Jones returns to New York and Law’s cafe, realizing that love is closer than you think.

The movie is as sweet as blueberry pie; utterly charming, leaving you feeling good. The acting is spectacular throughout, even by Jones, who also narrates and sings on the sound track. Strathairn is as good or better than he was in the 2006 Sensation of Sight. Weisz seethes with a Tennesee Williams intensity, much more passionate than her usual controlled, intellectual roles. Portman plays a character older than I would have expected and jumps from the screen with exuberance. This many big names in a movie is usually the kiss of death, but everybody puts out 100%, a tribute to Wong’s directing as much as the actors’ talents.

Cinematography is so good you could print any frame and hang it in an art gallery. There are some amazing shots, such seeing the character through a long lens, through the lettering on a shop window. Colors are fantastic. The long speech by Weisz at a nighttime bus stop seems to be done all in one take and is nothing short of courageous. There is a small amount of CGI, used artistically and perfectly. Even the editing is creative. The sound track is wonderful, with Jones singing softly, but also with original work by Ry Cooder. This is moviemaking at its best. The only criticism is that the storyline is weak to non-existent and the pace is slow. I was never bored, but this film cannot go up against a superhero flick. It’s all about the characters and their relationships, not some contrived plot.

Married Life: Grade B

B
Married Life (2008)
Pierce Brosnan, Chris Cooper, Patricia Clarkson, Rachel McAdams; Co-writer and director Ira Sachs.

Fine acting is the main attraction in this quasi-noir film set in the late 1940’s to early 1950’s, judging from the cars, décor, costumes and sets, which are perfection for that period. Brosnan shows again that he is a real actor, not just 007, although he does not work as hard here as he did in Matador and Seraphim Falls. Although he is still good looking, he is too old for Rachel McAdams, the girl he steals from his childhood friend, Cooper, a businessman in his 50’s who is really too old for McAdams. Cooper’s character cannot bear to have his wife (Clarkson) learn of his infidelity, so he tries to poison her, and the director had Hitchcockian fun with that part of the plot. Cooper and Clarkson radiate acting talent. Cooper was merely stonefaced as the traitor in Breach, but here he is subtle and nuanced. McAdams tries, but she is only the McGuffin. Directing is also good in quiet scenes filled with meaningful glances or teacup rattling on saucer. Music is good but doesn’t add anything. Overall, the film is not noir enough, does not have a strong sense of style, and the happy ending is unbelievable, destroying whatever dark tone the story had, but still, the acting was far above average, well worth seeing.

Atonement: Grade C

C
Atonement (2007)
Kiera Knightley, James McAvoy, Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai, Vanessa Redgrave; Director Joe Wright.

This will be a satisfying romance for many people, but I am not one of them. An alarmingly thin Kiera Knightley delivers razor’s edge acting, but that is not enough to salvage this plodding melodrama. Just before World War I, an aristocratic young English girl (Ronan) sees an argument between Knightley and the gardener’s son (McAvoy) and interprets it as sexual aggression against her sister. Later she walks in on an intimate scene between them and makes the same Oedipal interpretation, leading her to falsely accuse McAvoy of a crime. Implausibly, that is sufficient to send him to prison. I suppose we are to assume that English law was heavily biased toward the aristocracy in 1914. From prison the young man goes to the war in France and commences the middle hour of the movie in which he tromps around in his army helmet. There is a grand panorama shot reminiscent of Flags of our Fathers, and one impressively long dolly shot, but it all just brings the romantic story to a complete halt. War is hell, but it would have been better to show him suffering in prison, since presumably he would have fought in the war regardless.

Finally the estranged lovers are re-united after the war, or are they? There are replays of several scenes, each from a different character’s point of view, to convey ambiguity about what really happens. Even that contrivance, however, does not mitigate the dishonest ending, which tries to have its cake and eat it too. Atonement for the young girl’s lie is only important if you believe it caused the destruction of the romance, but there is little evidence that it did, or even that it was much of a romance to begin with. On the plus side, the sets and costumes are sumptuous and convincing, especially life in the aristocratic castle. Knightley is fantastic, easily as good as Nicole Kidman. Vanessa Redgrave, at 71, is riveting when she delivers her few lines. But overt sentimentality does not make a good story, for me anyway. If the filmmakers thought the drama was so strong they should have omitted the hyperactive swelling strings and trumpeting French horns that indicated when you were supposed to feel something. I can see where this might have been a good psychological novel, but as a movie, it only adds up to soap.

Lust, Caution: Grade A

A
Lust, Caution (2007)
Wei Tang, Tony Leung. Director Ang Lee. (Chinese, subtitled).

Wei Tang lights up the screen in this visually gorgeous historical drama set in Shanghai in the late 1930’s. The Japanese have invaded China and Leung is a collaborator rounding up anti-Japanese resisters. Tang’s college theater group makes it their patriotic duty to assassinate him. Tang insinuates herself into his wife’s mah-jongg group then seduces him, setting him up for the kill. In their increasingly passionate relationship she sacrifices her body and her soul to gain his trust. There is no reason why the resistance cell could not just pop him while he walks down the street. The idea that he needs to be seduced is an arbitrary story device.

There are a couple of attractively photographed and very steamy sex scenes that border on the gratuitous, but could suggest her mind moving from murder to lust to love. I didn’t buy it. Tang gives an impassioned speech to her fellow assassins about how she despises the guy and is making this huge sacrifice of her mind and body for the cause. Was she lying to them? I thought not. At the key moment in the movie a big diamond clouds her mind and she makes a choice that betrays everything. Dramatic, but again, I didn’t buy it. That’s not her character. So even though tension is maintained between the title nouns, lust and caution, the plot line is anemic and inconsistent with the protagonist’s psychology. But it is a different time and a different culture, so who knows, really?

Another criticism is that every costume, car windshield, bicycle, storefront and sidewalk is perfect, clean, and brand new, not a speck of dirt, dust, or time-worn age anywhere. There are no flowing gutters, no street beggars. Lots of cigarettes but no ashtrays. I’m sure it was artistic choice, perhaps to make the sex scenes seem more aesthetic than sex is. But once you accept the abstract visual style, you can appreciate that Tang’s face is stunning, the costumes are stunning, the sets are stunning, the music is stunning. The movie is a feast for eyes and ears, so beautiful, you don’t need a plot.