My Super Ex-Girlfriend: Grade B

B

My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006)

Uma Thurman, Luke Wilson, Anna Faris, Eddie Izzard, Rainn Wilson, Wanda Sykes. Director=Ivan Reitman.

Owen Wilson has done dozens of these silly romantic comedies. This is the first time I have seen Luke hold his own without making me think he was imitating his brother. He falls in love with Uma Thurman’s character, who turns out to be a Supergirl. There are numerous quotes from the Superman movies, which is unimaginative given so many other possibilities, but this movie is not designed for subtlety. Uma does a terrific job, alluding to her Kill Bill role as a violent action hero with a comedic twist. She becomes jealous and possessive so Luke breaks up with her then she becomes vengeful, and nobody wants a vengeant, superpowered ex-girlfriend. Eddie Izzard plays the evil nemesis with terrific irony. He seems to have studied John Malkovich, to good effect. Anna Faris reprises her Scary Movie role in some scenes, but in others, gives a solid dramatic performance. Rainn Wilson cannot escape his Dwight Schrute role from The Office. Wanda is crippled by watered down dialog and overly cautious directing; too bad. The pacing and the editing are perfect. Every one of the DVD deleted scenes is good, and every one had to be deleted. It's nice to see a tight movie. The happy ending suggests so many other roads not taken. But for a mindless laugh, this movie, though really loud, is surprisingly good.

The Black Dahlia: Grade F

F
The Black Dahlia (2006)

Scarlett Johansson, Josh Hartnett, Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank. Director=Brian De Palma.

Not even Scarlett’s ruby red lips can save this film. I confess I gave up after one hour. There was just nothing there. The story is set in LA in the 1940’s and involves two detectives (Hartnett and Eckhart), searching for a killer. Each has a romantic interest (Swank and Johansson, respectively) but no romantic feeling is conveyed. The directing is abominable. Actors spew out their lines without feeling or expression, at a rate so fast it verges on unintelligibility and certainly allows no time for nuance. The photography relies on the lame device of slanting sunlight through louvered blinds, no matter what time of day it was supposed to be. Did nobody have electricity in the 1940’s? Worse, these scenes also use backlights and highlights that come from nowhere. If you can’t even get a cliché right, what hope is there? The so-called action is limited to scene after scene of talking heads commenting on things we didn’t see. The only good thing I noticed was that they got the period cars right, and they were beautiful, but predictably, all spotlessly clean and shiny. The real mystery is how so much talent can be utterly wasted.

The Beauty Academy of Kabul: Grade A

A

The Beauty Academy of Kabul (2004)

Producer & Director: Liz Mermin

Six American women went to Afghanistan to teach women how to do hair and makeup. This short documentary tracks their experiences. After a slow start about the logistics of setting up the school, the film gets into the Afghan women’s personal stories, which are remarkable, and which reveal a great deal about life in that country during and after the Taliban. Some of the Americans had fled Afghanistan in the 80’s and were horrified and moved at the destruction they found upon return, and touched by the courage and ambition of the women who stayed. It would have been only a moderately interesting documentary, but the DVD extras, which are as long as the film itself, include monologues from each of the American women telling what motivated them to join this project, and what they learned from it. These “deleted scenes” are revealing, insightful and moving. The documentary is a background context for them, and they raise the whole project to a high level of documentary achievement.

Nobody Knows: Grade A

A

Nobody Knows (2004) (Japanese, subtitled).

Akira Fukushima, others. Director=Hirokazu Koreeda

Three girls, aged about 4 to 10, and one 12 year old boy, Fukushima, are abandoned by their call-girl mother in a tiny Tokyo apartment. They try to survive, mainly through the efforts of the boy, who begs and steals what he can. Fukushima is very good looking and a remarkable actor. The children’s daily lives are full of humor, innocence, and sadness. The details in their lives and of the city are compelling, especially if you’ve been there, but even if you haven’t, the photography is excellent and itself displays a Japanese sensibility. There are a few twists and turns, but basically the story doesn’t resolve; the movie just ends. I was surprised I liked this artistically done slice of life so much.

Hard Luck: Grade B

B

Hard Luck (2006)

Wesley Snipes, Mario Van Peebles, Jackie Quinones, James Hiroyuki Liao, Cybill Shepard. Directed by Mario Van Peebles.

Wesley is a former drug dealer trying to go straight but manages to be present at a big deal that goes wrong and he escapes with the cash, Quinones his hostage. Mario is the cop in hot pursuit. In a very creative sub-story, Shepard and Liao are psycho serial killers whose lives implausibly intersect with Snipes’ escape. There is also some really original photography in the early car chase. But overall, it is a standard cops and robbers movie, filled with clichés. How many times do we have to see a pimped out black guy with dark glasses in a smoky blue strip club, distracted by the girl on the pole while he postures with his low-life buddies? Hey Mario, it’s been done! Neither Snipes nor Van Peebles show much acting talent, although Quinones, Liao, and Shepard do. There is enough creativity in the story line, photography, music, and characters to keep the viewer engaged.

Loverboy: Grade F

F

Loverboy (2005)

Kyra Sedgwick, Kevin Bacon, Marisa Tomei, Oliver Platt, Matt Dillon, Sandra Bullock. Directed by Kevin Bacon.

Kyra Sedgwick plays an overprotective mother of a six year old boy and has separation anxiety when he goes to public school. Finally he does go to school and she gets over it. That’s it. This may be a hot social/psychological issue I am unaware of but even if it is, this movie does not provide any analysis or insight. Kyra looks good for an aging beauty, but what's the point of showing that? There are some nice Hallmark Cards type of photographic moments. Kyra repeatedly explains to the kid that she wants them to be together forever, as they discover a crab on the beach or a bird fallen from a tree. The kid is super cute but that’s his only contribution. The directing is terrible, and you have to wonder what Kevin was thinking with the unnecessary display of his wife’s body. You wouldn’t think a movie with this many talented people could add up to such a big zero, so perhaps that's a tribute to human creativity.

Best DVDs I saw in 2006

Movie	Grade	Find the review archived in 2006: Month/Day
The Constant Gardner	A	1/21
Corpse Bride	A	2/11
The Ice Harvest	A	3/11
The Exonerated	A	3/12
Pride & Prejudice	A	3/28
Capote	A	4/2
Brokeback Mountain	A	5/7
Match Point	A	5/8
Celebrity Mix	A	6/18
The Girl From Monday	A	6/19
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada	A	6/25
Jesus is Magic	A	7/4
Nine Lives	A	7/8
Find Me Guilty	A	7/9
Sorry, Haters	A	8/13
V for Vendetta	A	8/14
Friends with Money	A	9/10
Lucky Number Slevin	A	9/16
Hard Candy	A	9/24
Down in the Valley	A	9/30
Edmond	A	11/5
Land of Plenty	A	11/19
Karzohat (Damnation)	A	11/27
An Inconvenient Truth	A	12/2
Scoop	A	12/3
Canadian Bacon	A	12/14
Little Miss Sunshine	A	12/25
Fight Club	A	12/29
The Aristocrats	B	2/12
(Proof):	B	2/18
In Her Shoes	B	2/19
Lord of War	B	2/20
North Country	B	2/26
Domino	B	2/27
The Weather Man	B	3/5
Good Night and Good Luck	B	3/18
A History of Violence	B	3/19
Derailed	B	3/26
Lost	B	4/9
Memoirs of a Geisha	B	4/9
The Squid and the Whale	B	4/17
The Family Stone	B	5/20
Eros	B	5/22
Transamerica	B	6/3
The War Within	B	6/4
Dear Wendy	B	6/13
Syriana	B	6/24
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang	B	7/1
The Matador	B	7/24
Second Best	B	7/30
Side-Effects	B	7/30
The Confederate States of America	B	8/13
Pure	B	8/19
Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World	B	9/3
Manderlay	B	9/3
Thank You For Smoking	B	10/7
Art School Confidential	B	10/15
Looking for Kitty	B	11/4
Sick & Tired	B	11/11
Archangel	B	12/12
The Devil Wears Prada	B	12/25
All the King’s Men	B	12/26

Fight Club: Grade A

A

Fight Club (1999)

Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Helena Bonham Carter. Director David Fincher.

I picked up this 1999 movie that had slipped by me. I expected some kind of unattractive bare knuckles fighting story, but the star lineup was persuasive. Norton is a meek and burned out insurance examiner obsessively pursuing mindless consumerism to offset his meaningless job. In an edgy satirical sequence, he starts attending support groups for cancer patients, drug rehab, AA, and so on, just so he can get hugged. Eventually he ends up staying in Pitt’s derelict old house. Pitt is a charismatic, grandiose, unconventional personality, endlessly promoting a lifestyle of anti-consumerism like some spiritual guru on PBS. He has nothing, lives in filth, yet wants nothing. Presumably the soap business keeps him in beer and cigarettes. The two become comrades though not quite friends. For no discernible reason, they begin fist fighting behind a bar and enjoy it. Over time, others watch, join in, and implausibly a secret society of fist fighters emerges, eventually with franchises nationwide and globally. There is no betting, just fighting, for no reason other than sport. There is lots of blood, broken teeth, gashed heads, broken bones and so on. It is excellent filmwork, both directing and photography, but who wants to see those gruesome scenes? Not me. I don’t even like boxing. But the movie does succeed in creating an alternate world, reminiscent of what Gibson did with Neuromancer. The storyline morphs implausibly again at least three more times, with a surprise ending that, as in Memento which came out one year later, makes you re-think what you have already seen. The acting is compulsively watchable by all three of the stars, but the story is so detached from reality that you have to seriously suspend your disbelief. The last scene, of New York skyscrapers collapsing to the ground from explosives, is eerie. I give the movie an A because of the acting, photography, and especially because the writing is totally fresh and original (from a novel by Chuck Palahniuk). But the story lacks overall continuity, so it cannot be taken seriously, and one’s attention is drawn away from the characters to the writer’s ingenuity, which is not a good thing. Still, it is an important movie and I’m glad I saw it.

Shadowboxer: Grade C

C

Shadowboxer (2005)

Cuba Gooding Jr. Helen Mirren. Directore Lee Daniels

Gooding and Mirren play assassins for hire in New York. They are also lovers, even though, or perhaps because, she shot his father when he was a boy. In one group assassination she spares the life of a pregnant woman. They kidnap her, take care of her, and raise the boy. The motivation for all this, from a couple of hard boiled killers is unclear, but they continue in the assassination game anyway. Mirren dies, Gooding becomes the (white) boy’s defacto father. Inevitably, the boy’s psychopathic bio father finds them and there is a showdown. It’s not much of a thriller, just a set of scenes. There didn’t seem to be anything at stake. The violence was hard to take at times (I don’t find any excuse for depicting torture), and the nudity and sexuality were lacking in aesthetics. It’s not a pretty picture to watch, a dark movie with murky character motivation and no particular message to deliver. Mirren and Gooding give performances worth seeing, and although I enjoyed the aggressively non-stereotypical casting, it might have been just too weird.

Neil Young: Heart of Gold: Grade D

D

Neil Young: Heart of Gold (2006)

Neil Young. Director Jonathan Demme

I confess I am not a Neil Young groupie. I like his distinctive sound; loved him in CSNY, and I respect his musical sophistication. But this movie, a documentation of two concerts he gave in Nashville, is just unbearable. It is obviously designed for hardcore fans who have romanticized the man. I am not that interested in the man, only the music, and it turns out, most of the music is not to my liking. I can’t say why. There are some fine moments, such as Harvest Moon and Heart of Gold, and whatever he sang during the closing credits- that was excellent. The support groups appearing with him are first rate. Almost anyone could sound good with that kind of support. But for some reason, this film just seemed like self-indulgent, maudlin nostalgia. And he can’t hit the notes any more, either. I was mesmerized by his recent, obscure film, Greendale, so I know he still has the magic. But Heart of Gold just didn’t work for me. Sorry, fans.

All the King's Men: Grade B

B

All the King’s Men (2006)

Sean Penn, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, James Gandolfini, Mark Ruffalo, Patricia Clarkson, Anthony Hopkins

Director: Steven Zaillian

This story, based on the life of Huey Long, Louisiana’s famous politician of the 1930’s, is of a rural politician rising to become governor on a platform of overcoming corruption and providing services for the poor. He does all that but not without becoming corrupt himself. Unfortunately the story is so fragmented, it is impossible to understand the characters’ motivations or really, what the heck is going on. It’s even worse if you don’t know anything about Huey Long. Maybe the editors killed the narrative. However, Sean Penn delivers a fantastic performance and the movie is well worth seeing just for him. Jude Law does a good job but does not handle the Southern accent well. Anthony Hopkins shines brightly as ever. The photography is compelling, walking a line between modernist and 1930’s b&w. Very creative and very good looking. The sound engineering is appalling on the DVD. I cranked the treble up to max and the bass down to 0 and still had a hard time hearing the muddy sound track. Inexcusable. See it for Penn’s great acting.

Little Miss Sunshine: Grade A

A
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Abigail Breslin, Greg Kinnear, Alan Arkin, Toni Colette, Steve Carell. Directors: Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris.

A struggling middle class family in Albuquerque take their 8 year old girl (Abigail Breslin) to California to compete in a talent contest. They all pile in the 70’s era Volkswagen microbus and start a road trip. There is the self-obsessed dad (Kinnear) who is a would-be writer of a motivational book, put-upon mom, sullen teenager, suicidal brother in law (Steve Carell), and Alan Arkin as the crusty old Grandfather. On the road, they eat in a diner, they get stopped by police, the clutch goes out on the car, Grandpa dies, and the horn sticks on the car, letting the directors brilliantly use the nasal, whiney, intermittent sound as an emotional highlight to the drama. The dialog is perfect, photography and sets exceptional, and the acting is enjoyably convincing. What makes this movie more than just a heartwarming family-on-a-road trip comedy is the scathing satire of beauty/talent contests for young girls. The ending brilliantly, wittily and deservedly scorches that pernicious world, raising a good, low-budget film up to a great film.

The Devil Wears Prada: Grade B

B
The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci, Emily Blunt. Director: David Frankel.

Recent college grad (Anne Hathaway) lands a job with a high-dollar NYC fashion magazine headed by totalitarian editor Meryl Streep. Hathaway wears frumpy sweaters and shapeless wool skirts, unaware of fashion and unimpressed by it. She is an assistant to Streep, with Blunt, who is high strung, high fashion, competitive, and wittily nasty in a Mean Girls way. Tucci is some kind of executive for Streep. Over various “crises” in the business, Streep comes to trust Hathaway, Blunt falls ill and Hathaway takes her place and eventually becomes fashion and fashion-industry aware, to the dismay of her increasingly alienated, impoverished boyfriend. Her cliché epiphany is what you would expect. The excellent humor is in ridicule of Hathaway, "fat" jokes, and parody of the fashion industry, an easy target skewered better by Altman in Prête a Porter. But the story is really only a series of clichés stitched together, its lack of inventiveness degenerating into repetitive, predictable scenes of dashing about NYC against manufactured, trivial deadlines. However, the acting of Streep and Tucci save the movie from all other ills. Hathaway is likeable but her big teeth don’t compensate for a thin performance. Funny, highly watchable, and there is one good speech by Streep that almost justifies the artificial fashion world, but overall the movie is just silly fluff.

Canadian Bacon: Grade A

A

Canadian Bacon

John Candy, Alan Alda, Rhea Perlman, Kevin Pollack, Rip Torn. Writer, Producer, Director= Michael Moore.

This is an old DVD (1995) but I only just discovered it. A U.S. president with sinking poll numbers (Alda) manufactures a new “cold war” with Canada to boost his stature. Candy is a patriotic Niagra Falls Sheriff who takes his team into enemy territory for sabotage (littering a beach- Canadians hate that). The movie is filled with satirical jokes about Canadian and American stereotypes and Americans’ shameful ignorance of Canada. It is laugh a minute enjoyment. It has the pace and form of a Leslie Nielsen comedy, with some allusions to Dr. Strangelove, with an overarching political theme. In an article in The Nation, Moore said he was appalled when GW Bush manufactured an “axis of evil,” sold it to the people, then started military actions. Events since then make the movie’s ridicule of American foreign policy look prescient. Moore also noted in his article that distributor Polygram (owned by Dutch company, Phillips) thought the movie was “too political” and released it only to a few dozen theaters then put out only a handful of DVDs, so the movie would not get seen. However, it has become popular by word of mouth, for good reason. Wag the Dog, which came two years later, told the same story without humor, and enjoyed wide theatrical release, so maybe there is more to the Polygram incident than Moore reveals.

Archangel: Grade B

B

Archangel

Daniel Craig, Yekaterina Rednikov. Dir=Jon Jones.

An American history professor, DC, gives a lecture in Moscow about Stalin’s pathological genocides. An old man on the street tips him off to the existence of Stalin’s hidden personal diary. DC dashes all over Russia in the winter without a proper coat or gloves, money or visa, evading secret police at every turn to find the diary, which reveals that Stalin had a son. Even more police pursue in helicopters, humvees and SWAT team convoys, but he locates Joe Jr, who is grown, looks like the old man, and plans to re-establish a Stalinist totalitarian regime. The sudden and predictable ending does not address the interesting theme of whether Russia today wants, needs, or is, in fact, a totalitarian regime. The plot, like that of the Davinci Code, assumes we care if The Man had offspring, but ignores the question of what that would mean for contemporary society. Also like The Code, the story moves from one incident to another at random, plot rather than character driven, so it gets cartoony after a half hour of its 2 hour length. It looks like it was shot in Russia and the Zhivago-esque scenery and sets are impressive, although the music falls short. DC and especially YR give competent performances, but the film is supposed to be a head trip and a kinetic thriller, not an artistic display. As such, it is engaging, though not ultimately satisfying.

Scoop: Grade B

B

Scoop

Scarlett Johansson, Hugh Jackman, Woody Allen. Written and directed by Woody Allen

Scarlett plays a U.S. college newspaper reporter out to interview aristocrat Hugh Jackman in London. At Woody Allen’s vaudeville magic show, she is “having her molecules disassembled” when a spirit appears to her to say that Jackman is actually the Tarot card killer, a Jack-the-ripper type. She and Woody set out to penetrate the aristocratic life to get the goods on Jackman. It is a completely silly movie, with a steady stream of laugh out loud Woody Allen jokes. I loved the Bergman visual allusion in the beginning. Terrible acting, especially by Scarlett. Could she have been directed that way, to emphasize the comic theme? She looks good though. The story, pace and tempo are like a mix of last year’s Match Point and an older picture, Curse of the Jade Dragon. This is recycled Woody Allen for sure, but the man is funny. I hope he lives forever.

An Inconvenient Truth: Grade A

A

An Inconvenient Truth

Al Gore. Director=Davis Guggenheim; Editors: Jay Lash Cassidy & Dan Swietlik

Former vice president Al Gore gives a slide show with evidence for global warming, its consequences, and a call to action. It is a montage of lecture events; he says he’s given the talk thousands of times all over the world. There’s nothing new here for someone who is up to date on science, but the presentation is masterful. The centerpiece is a chart of atmospheric CO₂ levels for the last 6,000 years (derived from ice cores) compared to atmospheric temperature. The two curves track each other precisely and rise exponentially, dramatically, unbelievably, almost straight up, since the industrial revolution. Stills and movie clips show polar ice sheets melting, and NYC being flooded by rising sea levels. There are also some clips of Gore’s autobiography, possibly to answer the question of why he should be the messenger, but also possibly because he is running for president in ’08. Politicians never miss a chance for self-aggrandizement. But I was convinced on both counts. He is a legitimate messenger and focused on this issue as a good candidate should be.

The film is extremely well-edited, saving Gore from himself. Whenever he speaks more than two sentences with the camera on him, he is boring as dirt. He can’t help it. He goes all stentorian, stating the obvious. The editors only let that happen a couple of times. As for the call to action, it is missing. The thrust of the movie is to demolish global warming skeptics, which it does, but as for what we can do about it, nothing is said. Maybe we are supposed to elect him to find out what the plan is.

Kárzohat (Damnation): Grade A

A

Kárzohat (Damnation)

Béla Tarr, writer, director. Hungarian (subtitled)

I saw this film at the Northwest Film Center in Portland, OR, on a recent visit. It was Thanksgiving evening and the whole town was locked down except this one film screening. Lucky me. Actually, about a dozen people eventually showed up to watch it. The movie was released in 1988, but I had never heard of it, or the director. It is a plodding “existential” film, shot in low-contrast black and white. The story is perfunctory: a man is in love with a married cabaret singer and schemes to get her husband put in prison. But that hardly matters. The movie is really about the relentless rain, the dimly lit industrial cityscape; decaying buildings; deserted, muddy streets; packs of feral dogs; smoky bars; laconic conversation and doleful music. There is aggressive omission of anything aesthetic; no pictures, flowers, or sunlight; even human bodies are utilitarian, not beautiful. Can people live like that? Hungary under totalitarian rule is palpably conveyed (this was pre-Wall by a year). A recurring image is water seeping over worn stone walls. It takes a lot to wear down stone, but relentless water can do it. The people are stone-faced, their humanity worn away by life in a lifeless society. I loved the photography, the excruciatingly long takes, the way sound and picture are integrated, the Hungarian music, and the sets. This two hour movie should have been boring, but I found it riveting.

Land of Plenty: Grade A

A

Land of Plenty

Michelle Williams, John Diehl, Richard Edson. Writer & Director: Wim Wenders

A PTSD Vietnam vet (JD) sees terrorists under every rock and drives his surveillance van around LA looking for “cells.” His niece (MW), newly arrived from an extended visit to Gaza, works at a homeless shelter (so the director can comment ironically on America as the land of plenty). She wants to reconnect with her family so hangs out with him as he hunts for terrorists. She seems to realize he is eccentric but doesn’t care. The uncle is brainwashed into the militarization of a “war on terror,” but she is well informed about cultural differences. In the end, he seems to realize he has been delusional, but giving it up means losing his meaning and way of being. It is a brilliant, artistic representation of different American reactions to the anxiety of post-9/11, seen by a German observer. While critical of America in some ways, the movie is ultimately compassionate. Very fine acting all around, excellent photography, good music.

The Kid & i: Grade C

C

The Kid & i

Tom Arnold, Eric Gores, Linda Hamilton, Joe Mantegna, Henry Winkler, Arielle Kebbel, Yvette Nicole Brown, Richard Edson. With appearances by Shaq O’Neal, Arnold Schwartzenegger, and Jamie Lee Curtis. Dir=Penelope Spheeris.

Tom Arnold plays a washed up movie maker who gets a chance to do a movie for a rich family. Their cerebral palsy son wants Arnold Schwartzenegger’s role in True Lies (which Tom Arnold really did write). The proposed movie will never be seen by anyone but the kid’s family and friends. Comedy ensues as Arnold learns that it is a “vanity” movie, not a real theatrical production. There are good Hollywood in-jokes and a good parody of the True Lies action movie. The kid’s action movie gets made and everybody is happy. The acting is top drawer all around, especially by some of the unknowns. It is a movie with a lot of heart, mildly amusing, and profits go to a CP charity.

The Memory of A Killer

B

The Memory of A Killer

Jan Decleir, Koen De Bouw. Dir= Erik Van Looy. Dutch (subtitled).

What a great premise for a movie: A hired killer suffers from progressive alzheimer’s. That interesting theme carries the audience over a lot of clichéd plot devices. The killer (JD) refuses to execute a 12 year old girl, so his boss has someone else do it. He is implausibly offended by this and starts a revenge spree, killing all the middlemen on the way to the boss. He has to get it done before he forgets who they are. Flashback montages convey his memory slipping away. Meanwhile the police are after him too. He has incriminating evidence against the big boss, but forgets where he hid it. Great European locations (Belgium) and the whole movie has an enjoyable European sensibility despite the very dark themes. The acting is uneven, as was the music, and the story line difficult to follow, since characters were not well-rounded and therefore not distinctive. But as far as assassin movies go, this is one of the best.

Sick & Tired: Grade B

B

Sick & Tired

Wanda Sykes

This is an HBO stand up comedy show, the second of Wanda’s that I’ve seen. Her material is very intelligent, funny and socially incisive. Her street syntax and intonation add another layer to the stories that increases their value. A lot of the stories are on socially sensitive topics, like racism, sexism, abortion, homosexuality, and the incompetence of the Bush administration. Her material is far more political than last time, making some heavy handed liberal political “points,” and while still funny, they are more clever than insightful. Perhaps the hot button social topics are already worn thin by the time the comics get to them. I like her best when her material goes surrealistically loopy, like the bit about the detachable pussy. That kind of stuff is totally original, unexpected, satirical, and LOL funny.

The Sentinel: Grade D

D

The Sentinel

Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland, Eva Longoria, Kim Basinger

MD is in the secret service assigned to the president’s wife (KB) with whom he has an affair. Meanwhile bad guys of unknown origin (KGB was suggested but there is no KGB any more), for unknown motives (they’re just bad – dark skin, foreign accents, facial hair), want to kill the president. Some other government officials are killed too, with silencers, in broad daylight, just for sport, I guess. Turns out there is a mole in the SS working with the bad guys, for unknown motives. The existence of a mole is revealed by a street informer who has no reason to know it. Everyone has to take a polygraph, to find the mole, and MD fails by lying about his affair. Kiefer heads the posse that closes in on him, so MD does the only sensible thing, goes on the run to find the “real” bad guy before it’s too late. Guess how it turns out. Plenty of gratuitous car chases, sirens, radio-speak and explosions. Lots of loud, meaningless noise. A huge helicopter taking off is not noisy enough – no, there also must be ear-splitting trombones. Of course! Why not turn the volume down? Because then you can’t hear the dialog, which, it turns out, is no great loss. MD is getting too old to be a credible action figure, especially when being chased by much younger guys like Kiefer. The women are only pretty faces. The plot has enough intelligence to be mildly interesting, if you like law enforcement pictures.

Edmond: Grade A

A

Edmond

William H. Macy, Julia Stiles, Joe Mantegna. Written by David Mamet. Director Stuart Gordon

Macy plays a bland, insignificant executive in a large corporation who one day decides to leave his wife out of sheer boredom. Exploring his new freedom, he walks around sleazy bars and strip joints in NYC, engages street hustlers, pimps, and prostitutes. In all this he seems unrealistically naïve about how street life works, and increasingly detached. Finally repressed rage bursts out and he becomes even more dissociative, manic and violent. At the end of the movie the psychosis is gone and he is only eccentric. So the short story is, mild-mannered executive has a psychotic break.

Basing a story around mental disorder is a cheap trick because no ordinary psychological motivation applies. The character can do or say anything because “he is nuts.” Consequently, the story is arbitrary and uninteresting. There is a thin attempt to say that “modern life” causes “basic manhood” to become repressed rage, but that is just cheesy psychobabble. In a DVD deleted scene, we see a fortune teller set up the story as that of Macy’s fate unfolding. I agree that would have been an even less interesting theme than unexplained madness.

Despite all these flaws, Macy’s acting leaps off the screen. He is absolutely stunning, showing amazing range of expression and subtlety, utterly convincing at all times. The movie gets an A based on his performance alone. Julia Stiles does an excellent job. Mantegna is disappointing in a bit part. Mamet’s dialog is very “Mamet-esque” and sometimes his authorial speechifying gets in the way, but I love Mamet, so never mind. The screenplay tracks his book, “The three uses of the knife” philosophically and metaphorically. I was utterly enthralled throughout, even knowing my strings were being pulled. Too bad this is an obscure independent film. It’s the best acting there is.

Looking for Kitty: Grade B

B

Looking for Kitty

Edward Burns, David Krumholtz. Writer, Director=Edward Burns

Burns plays a not-too-slick private eye in NYC who is hired to find DK’s missing wife. Turns out his wife wanted a divorce and left him because he is an unappreciative, narcissistic, baseball-obsessed bumpkin. In the course of the movie, DK realizes and accepts this. Burns, whose wife has died, comes to accept his loneliness and finally removes his wedding ring. The two men develop a friendship as they each become self-aware. Burns’ character is interested in old NYC buildings whose owners would not sell out to big developers. The implication is that both men are themselves holdouts, resisting change, clinging to the past. The movie is apparently set in modern times but no computers are shown; they drive a 70’s era beat up Ford, and only one clunky cell phone is shown briefly, so you get the feeling yourself of being a holdout against change. Dialog is sharp and witty, and the acting is first class all around, especially some of the quirky gestural moves. Music and photography are excellent. The characters and script are completely original and authentically human. I’m not sure why I don’t give it an A. Something is lacking. Is it too subtle? There is a story, but no plot, maybe that’s it.