Cave of Forgotten Dreams: Grade B

B

Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010)

Werner Herzog, Dominique Baffier, Jean Clottes, Jean-Michel Geneste; Writer-Director Werner Herzog.

Iconic director Herzog somehow gained permission from the French government to film the painted walls inside the famous prehistoric Chauvet cave discovered in southern France in 1994. This 3D documentary is stunning as a technical achievement and because of the cave drawings themselves. The drawings and etchings on the cave walls were made by humans living at the end of the ice age, about 32,000 years ago. There are horses, reindeer, rhinoceroses, bear, lion, mammoth, bison, hyenas, and much else. It’s difficult to imagine that world, with all those animals living alongside humans in France at that time.

Some of the drawings, made with charcoal, are incredibly sophisticated and beautiful by any artistic standard. The 3-D effect gives you a compelling sense of place. In all, the headache is probably worth it, because this film is really about the artists who made the pictures, not the pictures themselves, so you want to have a feeling for the spatial layout of the cave, which the 3D gives.

On the down side, the tone of the documentary is academic but not very scientific, so the information given, mostly in Herzog’s voice-over, is mildly interesting but not too informative. There are interviews with scientists who show what the ancient humans wore, how they hunted, and how they played tunes on a tiny, carved ivory flute that was found in the region. But there is little scientific information about climate, diet, trade, migratory patterns, housing, ecology, and so on. There is not even much technical information about how the pictures were actually made.

Instead, Herzog shows a nearby heated biodome housing albino alligators and suggests that maybe they are not really alligators but ghosts, mere reflections of the real alligators, just as the cave paintings are reflections through time of a way of life we can no longer understand. That’s a stretch, but I indulge it, because he is Herzog. So even though I am grateful to glimpse inside the Chauvet cave (which is sealed up to avoid the kind of damage that occurred at Lascaux), I would have better enjoyed a proper scientific documentary, as opposed to this sentimental approach which tries to convey the eerie mystery of our prehistoric ancestors. Still, there’s no denying that the cave is mysterious, and the drawings are incredibly beautiful.

Get Low: Grade C

C

Get Low

Robert Duvall, Bill Murray, Sissy Spacek, Lucas Black; Director Aaron Schneider.

You should see this movie because Duvall has never been better. The man is a master of the art of acting. He just possesses the screen whenever he is on it, even when most of his face is hidden by the long, ratty beard of the old hermit who is his character. And you should see the movie because Bill Murray is a great comic actor who does not need to tell jokes to get a laugh. All he needs to do is raise an eyebrow at the right moment, or toss an offhand remark. Put together Murray with Duvall, and you have an entertaining movie.

But that’s all there is. The rest of the actors do not perform well. Black in particular struggles unsuccessfully against something, maybe the director’s instructions? The story itself is exceptionally weak. The old hermit (Duvall) wants to throw a funeral party for himself, ostensibly so he can learn what people say about him. Funeral director Murray agrees to set it up, but then the old guy changes his mind after the invitations have already gone out. Anxiety follows, but predictably, the big event occurs, at which time, for reasons unclear, the old hermit reveals a dreadful family secret that does not amount to a hill of beans, but Sisssy Spacek cries, so it must be important. That is consistent with the poor writing that substitutes cheap sentimentality for characterization.

On the plus side (besides the great acting mentioned above), the bluegrass music is quite good and the costumes, sets and props for early 1930’s rural south are thoughtfully done, even though everything is brand new and shiny. But since the story line is so weak, the movie is, alas, instantly forgettable.

The Dukes: Grade F

F

The Dukes (2007)

Chazz Palminteri, Robert Davi, Peter Bogdanovich; Co-writer and director Robert Davi.

It is generally not worth my time (or yours) for me to review movies that don’t meet minimum standards of watchability, but this one is interesting because it clearly demonstrates how bad directing (assisted by bad writing) can ruin a movie that looks promising. Chazz Palminteri is one of my favorite B-list actors. He is an archetypal Italian mobster, has a great sense of comic timing (e.g., Analyze This), and some pretty good dramatic chops too (e.g., Yonkers Joe). Bogdanovich, acclaimed director and actor in his own right, is enjoyable too. Lay on a plot of three old former doo-wop singers pulling off a safe-cracking gold heist, and what could go wrong? Writing and directing, that’s what.

The writing wants to be comedic but is so lame it could not appeal to anyone over 5 years old. Have the three men dress up as tomatoes to sing a commercial ditty. Har, har, what could be more funny? The safe was open but they accidentally locked it? Omigod, hilarious! The dialog is so stilted it doesn’t sound remotely like real people, and the principals are reduced to hammy overacting because there is nothing else for them to do.

The directing is so clunky that the actors sometimes actually stand there like mannequins waiting for their cue. The cameras alternate among straight head shots according to who is talking. It has the stink of television, only not as good. Plotting is jerky and hard to follow. Secondary characters are confusing and irrelevant. And tragically, the doo-wop music is terrible. So even though the film is unwatchable for entertainment value, it could be instructive to students of film who are interested to see how badly wrong filmmaking can go.

Please Give: Grade B

B

Please Give (2010)

Catherine Keener, Amanda Peet, Rebecca Hall, Oliver Platt, Sarah Steele, Ann Morgan Guilbert; Writer-Director Nicole Holofcener.

This film is almost a remake of Holofcener’s “Friends With Money,” another talky-comedy, which was set in LA. This one takes place in Manhattan and has a Woody-Allen feel. Two families are neighbors in a condo. The Keener-Platt couple (and their daughter Steele) have bought the neighboring apartment but allow the old lady living there (Guilbert) to remain as a tenant until she dies. She is tended to by her daughters Hall and Peet.

So what happens? Nothing. In the end, the old lady dies and the Keener-Platts take possession of her apartment as expected. There is no dramatic story line running through this film. Instead, it is about the characters, but they do not develop much over the course of the film. So what that leaves you is a set of little portraits or vignettes. But these characters are ordinary, white, affluent, moderately educated, generally uninteresting people. So this seems like a setup for an extremely boring movie, except that the acting is stellar and the script is moderately witty.

All these actors are so strong that you don’t really care that there is basically no story, no dramatic tension. Little quotidian things do happen, such as the two sisters, Hall and Peet bickering, Platt cheating on Keener, the daughter Steele wanting expensive jeans her mother won’t buy, the anxiety of how much money one should give street people. None of it builds story or character, and none of it contributes to a contemporary theme you could name. But again, the writing is sharp and the acting mesmerizing, and that’s enough to carry the picture.

Fair Game: Grade A

A

Fair Game (2010)

Sean Penn, Naomi Watts. Director Doug Liman.

I give this movie high marks because I am a sucker for political thrillers, and this one is not bad, although somewhat disappointing. Penn is Joe Wilson, the ex-ambassador to African countries who investigated the White House claim that Saddam Hussein was buying uranium from Niger. Wilson found that not to be true, but George W. Bush went ahead and gave it as a justification for invading Iraq, in his State of the Union of 2001.

Outraged by the lie, Wilson wrote an op-ed in the NY Times explaining what he had NOT found in Niger. In retaliation, the White House “outed” his wife, undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame (Watts), in clear violation of the law. Her career was ruined, their lives were ruined, and the marriage went on the rocks. Should they fight back? How can you fight the White house?

The film clings closely to documentary form, careful to show actual television broadcasts featuring Bush, Cheney, Rice, and “Scooter” Libby, all hewing to party line and basically lying through their teeth. A sub-drama is that when Plame is fired, her operation of rescuing informants in Baghdad is abandoned, leaving all her personal promises to those people broken and their lives in peril. Just another hardball day at the CIA.

Watts gives a scintillating performance; best I’ve ever seen her, and the movie is worth watching for that alone. Plus, she looks a lot like Valerie Plame, which adds realism. Penn has a few moments, but the brilliant actor we know he is, cannot be seen. I gather he was interested in putting his name and reputation behind this polemical movie, but not much interested in acting. He’s good: He’s Sean Penn, after all, but he is mostly a placeholder here. This is a Watts vehicle and she fills it.

The directing and overall storytelling are slightly disappointing. The movie sticks to the historical facts, but unless you are well informed on American political infighting, it will not come across as a suspenseful tale. There is little personal peril, and little drama, as there was in All The President’s Men, for example, or in the fictional Absolute Power. The story is strictly focused on political machinations. The relationship between Wilson and Plame is mildly interesting, but mundane, and clearly secondary to the political story. For me, the political story was gut-wrenching, and it was very unpleasant to re-live the nightmare of that time. But I think for most people, the story will seem flat, not a “thriller” at all.

I Love You Phillip Morris: Grade C

C

I Love You Phillip Morris (2010)

Jim Carrey, Ewan McGregor. Co-writer and director Glenn Ficarra.

Carrey is Russell, a Texas family man who suddenly comes out of the closet and moves to Florida where he can be openly and flamboyantly gay. He discovers that “being gay is really expensive,” so he resorts to identity theft and other scams. He ends up in prison where he meets Phillip (McGregor) and they fall in love.

Upon release, Russell vows to spring Phillip so they can be together, which he does, by implausibly changing some documents to win early release for Phillip. For finances, Russell turns to conning again, this time using unlikely impersonations along the line of Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can. That movie, like this one, was “based” on a true story, but that does not make either one of them believable. Russell is busted again, but escapes from jail, in yet another unconvincing impersonation, and that con-bust-escape cycle repeats about four more times until the movie just runs out of steam and ends, with Russell in jail.

On the plus side, Carrey is an enjoyable, if predictable actor. We’ve seen all his rubber face mug shots before, but they’re still funny. He has aged well. The dialog has a few really funny moments, but mostly the script is broad farce and gags. The movie helps normalize gay relationships, for example, by showing the two men dancing together romantically and hugging in bed. On the other hand, the romance between the men was never convincing, as it was in Brokeback Mountain, for example, so all you’re left with is some scenes of men touching, hugging, and kissing. That just does not add up to romance, so if the movie is trying to normalize gay relationships, it falls short.

There are some funny situations and lines, and Carrey is genetically funny, but the movie isn’t. It’s all predictable gags and implausible skits. Nor does the movie work as a drama, because the jailbreaks are not believable (whether they actually happened or not is irrelevant), and neither of the characters shows change, nuance, or development. McGregor gives a sensitive and courageous performance, but the character is so flat that we don’t care about him. Directing is good, costumes and sets outstanding. The music is very well selected, and cinematography is bright and clear. So the movie is worth watching, but ultimately not very entertaining.

Casino Jack: Grade C

C

Casino Jack (2010)

Kevin Spacey, Barry Pepper, John Lovitz, Rachelle Lefevre, Kelly Preston, Graham Greene. Director George Hickenlooper.

Spacey is Jack Abramoff, the former lobbyist convicted in 2006 of fraud, conspiracy, and corruption. He was recently released from prison, after serving only half of his six year sentence (how does that work?). The movie wants to be a biopic of Abramoff, perhaps with the goal of humanizing a figure who, to many, is little more than an amoral, money-grubbing beast. That goal is mostly realized, thanks to Spacey’s trademark intelligent, smiling mendacity. His performance carries this otherwise weak movie. His right-hand man (Pepper), and his hired front man (Lovitz), are humorous and enjoyable cartoon characters that cannot be taken seriously, although those actors give a hundred percent.

The movie is a tragically missed opportunity. The really interesting part of the Abramoff story is not the guy’s personal life and character. There is nothing distinctive or interesting about him as a person. He is an ordinary, megalomaniacal parasite who doesn’t understand why “the law” singles him out for arbitrary punishment. We’ve seen that character in the movies a hundred times, and the dialog here is accordingly stale, cliched, and deadening.

The really interesting story is not how Abramoff brushes his teeth or likes to quote Michael Corleone, but the culture of Washington corruption and big bucks lobbying. The movie makes a few allusions, showing Abramoff’s close relationship with Tom Delay (without mentioning that Delay is now in prison for corruption and money laundering), and it takes a few vague potshots at John McCain. There is nothing at all about his numerous meetings with George W. Bush, the conviction of several White House staffers for bribery and corruption, and few details about the fraud he perpetrated on several Indian tribes.

You cannot see in this movie any actual crimes being committed, investigated, charged, or prosecuted. So in the end, the viewer is just as mystified as poor Jack about why he is in jail. That’s bad writing, and it’s a shame, because this story could have been as gripping as All The President’s Men, or any other political thriller. To get a more comprehensive view of the Abramoff scandal, one would be better off with Casino Jack and the United States of Money, a nonfiction documentary and a better movie.

The Tourist: Grade C

C

The Tourist (2010)

Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp, Paul Bettany, Timothy Dalton, Rufus Sewell; Writer-Director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Good acting by Johnny Depp and Paul Bettany save this movie from total disaster, but it is pretty bad. Jolie is “statuesque” and well-costumed, but her face is painful to look at. I guess she is considered beautiful, but I see her distorted face as frighteningly grotesque. Depp plays a straight, for-real character in the first half, a real treat, before he goes into his trademark ironic shtick near the end.

Jolie is some kind of undercover agent (it’s not clear what kind) in Venice and she is pursued by bad guys, from her point of view, although they later turn out to be cops, including Bettany. Why? Because they want her elusive husband for tax evasion. She attaches herself to a simple math teacher from Wisconsin, a tourist on a train (Depp), so the baddies will think that’s her husband. Convincing? Not for an instant. From then on there are interminable and unconvincing boat chases through the canals of Venice. There are some crude CGI shots of Venice, which makes me doubt the film was even made there. There are a few funny lines (far too few) and some of the sets are done up in sensuous detail.

Gunshots are fired, but they all magically miss so nobody is hurt. In the end, there is a hidden safe, and missing money, and I can’t even remember what all. Basically, nothing was ever at stake in this movie. It was just Keystone Cops. And unforgivably, the ridiculous ending, which anybody could see coming a mile away, undercut and contradicted everything you have seen so far, making the viewer a sucker for watching it.

All Good Things: Grade D

D

All Good Things (2010)

Ryan Gosling, Kirsten Dunst, Frank Langella; Director Andrew Jarecki.

This movie gets an A for acting. It is outstanding, really quite riveting, by all three principals and also by Kristen Wiig, who plays a small, unnecessary part. However, the movie is a failure in all other aspects: screenplay, script, directing, music, costumes, sets, and even sound engineering (volume unaccountably varies by at least a factor of three). What a waste of superior acting talent. I do acknowledge that makeup was done well.

The most obvious reason for the failure is a familiar one: the story is based on an actual unsolved mystery that took place in New York in the 1970’s, so the filmmakers could not decide whether to do a documentary or a work of fiction, so they did both, badly. And when you think about it, how dramatic a story can an unsolved mystery make? It is unsolved!

Gosling plays a rebellious son in an obscenely rich New York City business family headed by his dad, Langella. Gosling rejects the family business, smokes a lot of weed, and takes up with a “commoner” (Dunst), to open a health food shop in Vermont. That part of the movie seems to work fairly well, but it doesn’t last. Shortly after, the son suddenly decides he needs a lot of money to survive, and goes back to the city to join the family business. We peasants manage to make our way in the world without a wealthy family, but that was apparently not an option for this guy. In shades of The Godfather II and III, the wife is neglected and becomes extremely unhappy in the city. The couple becomes estranged.

At the midpoint of the movie, the husband goes borderline psychotic, becoming incommunicative, almost catatonic, and generally creepy. No explanation for the change in behavior from the first half of the movie is given. It is implied that he has been traumatized by having seen his mother die when he was young, but I guess he only remembered that trauma halfway through the movie? Then the wife inexplicably disappears, and remains missing for the rest of the movie. No foul play is indicated and no one is charged with any crime. Is that a great ending, or what?

Despite the film’s title, there are Hardly Any Good Things in this movie.

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.

Mock Up on Mu: Grade B

B

Mock Up on Mu (2008)

Stoney Burke, Damon Packard, Michelle Silva; Writer- Director Craig Baldwin

This experimental film is a collage of clips of films from the 1950’s mostly, and mostly from bad sci-fi films of that era, but also including a few good ones. Gort, the robot from The Day the Earth Stood Still appears briefly. There are also clips from dusty westerns of the period, and some dramas as well, such as Hitchcock’s North By Northwest. These hundreds, if not thousands of short clips are arranged into thirteen loose categories, such as westerns, sci-fi, scenes shot in the Sonoran desert, cave scenes, rocket launches, press conferences, and so on. Mixed in are some of live shots with about four actors in ironically bad scenes, who provide a small amount of narrative cohesion for the collages.

The result is amusing and entertaining, sort of a cross between What’s Up Tiger Lily and Mystery Science Theater 3000. I think it would be especially enjoyable if one were stoned. I watched the film twice, the second time without the sound, and I enjoyed it more the second time. With the sound on, the overall themes seem to be that humans should be mining resources, reprocessing nuclear waste, and generating energy on the moon, should not be spending tons of money developing military weapons, and finally, that L. Ron Hubbard, sci-fi writer in the 1950’s and founder of Scientology, and his closest friends, were mad and/or evil.

None of that makes much sense, and it’s not very funny, so the film is just as interesting (and a lot less noisy) with the sound off. This is a very creative effort, well edited, with some good humor. With better writing, this collage approach to film could be significant.

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 Fighter: Grade D

D

The Fighter (2010)

Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale , Amy Adams. Director David O. Russell.

A couple of brothers, Micky and Dicky, are young Irish boxers in Lowell, MA (Wahlberg and Bale). Mostly they are losers. Micky got beat and can’t seem to recover his momentum. Dicky also had a high point but then turned to drugs and alcohol. Dicky acts as Micky’s trainer, their mother is their manager, and they all have delusionally optimistic hopes of winning “the big fight” someday. The theme is Rocky, and the setting is low-class suburban squalor.

I tried hard, but could not find anything to like about this film, with the exception of Amy Adams, who, even in a stereotypical role, manages to shine. Otherwise, everything in this movie, from the casting to the costumes is the most brain-dead cliché you can imagine. Even the makeup is cliché and that's hard to do! Needless to say, so is the dialog and the cinematography.

The boxing scenes are utterly unconvincing. At no time did I believe Christian Bale’s character, a skinny little smart-ass runt, was a boxer. Wahlberg has big muscles, but does not move like a boxer. The story line is loosely connected scenes of blatant melodrama mixed with even more clichéd sets. Any dramatic tension that might be identified is completely contrived.

To my astonishment, Bale won Best Supporting for his over the top, hammy parody of a real person. His performance is so bad, I would say it is unintentionally humorous. That just shows what I know! USA Today called this “One of the year’s best films.” Maybe here on Earth it was, but on Mars, where I live, we are still trying to get the smell out of our living pods.

The Secret In Their Eyes: Grade B

B

The Secret In Their Eyes (2009)

Ricardo Darín, Soledad Villamil ,Pablo Rago, Javier Godino; Co-writer and director Juan José Campanella. (Spanish, subtitled).

This academy-award winning Argentine film is a beautiful, thoughtful mystery story that doesn’t know when to end. A retired federal agent (Darín) is writing a mystery novel based on a case he ran 25 years ago. He discusses the manuscript with his boss (Villamil) who was his boss back then too. The movie cuts away to dramatize what happened in the past.

It was a rape-homicide and by examining the victim’s photograph albums, the detective has the intuition that one creepy guy (Godino) who appears in numerous pictures with the dead girl, is a prime suspect. But a nasty superior just wants the case closed so arrests a couple of street thugs and closes the case. Nevertheless, the detective persists and does capture the real bad guy. But the nasty superior lets him go, and worse, puts him on the payroll as a street informer. Meanwhile, everybody but the detective himself realizes that he is falling in love with his boss.

The story goes on and on, with several more endings beyond the two mentioned above. The romantic story, maybe the most compelling of the several strands, gets short shrift. Nobody, not even a detective, could be that dumb about women. But another interesting theme, rather subtle, at least for Americans, is allusion to Argentina’s “Dirty Wars” of the 1970’s. The nasty superior who jails two innocents and hires the killer on his staff represents the corrupt Peron government and the sense of helplessness that ordinary people feel in the face of such abuse of power is palpable. The multiple endings may also reflect that theme.

The acting is very strong, especially by the two romantic leads, and the directing and writing are excellent, especially, again, in the scenes with romantic connections. Cinematography is beautiful and costumes are outstanding. Despite its over-long runtime, this is a consistently engaging film.

Conviction: Grade B

B
Conviction (2010)

Hilary Swank, Sam Rockwell, Minnie Driver, Melissa Leo, Juliet Lewis; Director Tony Goldwyn.

Rockwell plays an impulsive, perhaps psychopathic, ne’er-do-well, working class guy in rural Massachusetts. When a woman is found stabbed to death, the police pick him up because he has a record and is one of the “usual suspects.” But when his wife and a girlfriend both testify that he confessed that he did it, he unexpectedly goes to prison for life.

His sister (Swank) is desperate, convinced that he is innocent, but she has no resources to help him. All appeals are lost. So she goes to law school, struggles, alienates her husband, and eventually becomes a lawyer, along with her buddy, Minnie Driver, who is an eyeball magnet. As a lawyer, she discovers that DNA evidence could exonerate her brother (this is set in the 1980’s-early 1990’s when DNA evidence was just coming into use in the law). A long, drawn-out scramble follows while she tries to locate the 15 year old bloodstain evidence from the case, but eventually her brother is freed.

At 2.5 hours, this movie needed some serious editing. As with most fictionalizations of a true story, the filmmakers cannot decide if they are doing a documentary or a piece of fiction, so they do both, to the detriment of both. There are tons of irrelevant and saggy scenes that needed to go.

It is an inspirational story of one woman’s tenacity fighting an uncaring, flawed, legal system. The acting is very good, but I confess that I am not a huge fan of Swank. She is good, yes, but she just does not have the emotional range of, say, Juliet Lewis or Minnie Driver. She is either “on” or “off.” Those seem to be her only two emotions. But that is not to say she is bad – she is a good actor, just noticeably limited, and I did not get involved in her character. Juliet Lewis, now, there is a fabulous actor. In her two brief scenes, she is just electrifying. Sam Rockwell is convincing and consistent, and conveys the emotions extremely well. So despite the bloated and overly sentimentalized nature of this picture (don’t get me started on the sappy piano music –barf!), the strong acting makes it a worthwhile see.

The Next Three Days: Grade B

B
The Next Three Days (2010)

Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks. Writer-director Paul Haggis.

Banks is riveting as an ordinary office worker who is unexpectedly accused of murdering her boss. The evidence is pretty shaky but good enough for the movies. Her fingerprints are on the blunt object, although an omniscient cutaway shows us that she just moved it out of her way in the parking garage. And oh, yeah, it had some victim’s blood on it which she managed to pick up as well. That's a life sentence in Hollywood.

She goes to prison, all appeals are lost. Her husband, Crowe, is an ordinary college professor who doesn’t have the money for high priced lawyers but believes in his wife’s innocence. He is frustrated and helpless. Being a bookish kind of guy, he researches the heck out of how to accomplish a prison break. Then he carefully executes his very detailed and tricky plan, and that is the fun part of the movie.

What makes this extremely implausible story worth watching is the fine acting from the two principals. Crowe is capable of a lot more than swishing a sword around. He really can act and this is among his best performances, well worth the price of admission. He does not step out of his seething, mumbling, slit-eyed, laconic persona – he is still Russell Crowe, (nor does he go very long without the aviator sunglasses), but still, he is a compelling screen presence. Against Banks, the acting makes this thriller for ordinary people seem more reasonable than it is.

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.

Revolucion: Grade A

A

Revolucion (2010)

Unknown (to me) Mexican actors; Unknown (to me) Mexican directors. (Spanish, subtitled).

You will have to search for this DVD, but it is well worth looking. Netflix claims to have it. It was shown last fall at the New York Film Festival and I caught it at the 2011 Portland (OR) film festival.

The government of Mexico, through its National Mexican Institute of Cinematography, commissioned ten well-established directors to produce short films for the centennial of the Mexican Revolution. The ten shorts are not directly about that revolution in the sense that they do not attempt to document what happened. Rather, they are works of art, about the theme of revolution in general, and Mexican experience in particular.

So for example, the first one shows a small town brass band rehearsing a welcoming tune for some big forthcoming arrival, unspecified, in the manner of Waiting for Godot. The music is amateur and terrible, but the players mean well. The film focuses with compassion and humor on the tribulations of the tuba player as he prepares for the big event, but in the end, Godot never arrives. It’s a terrific piece of film in its own right, but under the umbrella concept it is also a strong political comment: “Revolution? What revolution? We are still waiting for the revolution.”

The other nine are equally beautiful, well-crafted, moving, and thought-provoking. Some comment on the futility of violence in general, some on its absurdity, some on the meaninglessness of political revolutions where nothing really changes. Two took up the theme of how the memory and “celebration” of the revolution only trivialize the suffering and passion of those who took part in it. There are as many ideas about revolution as there were directors. Every one of the pieces is a gem of filmmaking.

Welcome to the Rileys: Grade A

A

Welcome to the Rileys (2010)

James Gandolfini, Kristen Stewart, Melissa Leo; Director Jake Scott.

I never saw The Sopranos series, so I don’t have Gandolfini typecast in my mind. That’s a good thing, because in this movie he is completely believable as a middle-aged plumbing supply merchant from Indianapolis. He and his wife of thirty years (Stewart, who strongly reminds me of Patricia Clarkson, in look, acting style, and talent), are distant from each other because they lost a 15 year old daughter in a car crash. The wife blames herself because she was following the girl, and the husband tacitly agrees to that by letting her blame herself. She is traumatized and never leaves the house. At a conference in New Orleans, he calls home and says he is not coming back “for a while.”

In New Orleans, he meets a 16 year old stripper/prostitute (Leo), and informally adopts her, fixing up her derelict flat and giving fatherly advice. He claims he does not know why he is doing this but the viewer can see he is trying to resurrect his daughter. Eventually, his wife joins him in there, “mothers” the girl but has the sense to realize the situation is unhealthy. The girl finally runs from them, claiming “It is way too late for me to be anybody’s little girl.”

The writing is very strong (Ken Hixon) and true. Every line of dialog is on target. The acting is superior, especially by Gandolfini and Stewart. Stewart’s character takes a while to get going because there’s only so much acting you can do as a stunned, near-catatonic recluse. But late in the film she shows real depth. Leo has a stereotype character, really just a foil for the adults to work out their relationship, but there are several scenes in which it is clear that she has serious talent.

There are technical problems with the cinematography. Many scenes are so dark and muddy, it is impossible to make out what is going on. Sure, they are nominally night scenes, but still, memo to the cinematographer: photography requires light! In one scene, the picture actually drops in brightness by 50% as if there had been a power failure, but it is just a technical goof-up. The director pulled some terrific performances out of these players, but there are far too many “dead zone” scenes of people driving or sleeping. Seriously, how interesting is it to watch somebody sleep?

The story itself is not very original (grief over a lost child), but the main characters are so well developed and their acting is so outstanding, that despite its flaws, the movie is highly watchable anyway.

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger: Grade A

A

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010)

Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Gemma Jones, Naomi Watts, Antonio Banderas; Writer-Director Woody Allen.

An elderly married couple breaks up (Hopkins-Jones) when he realizes that his wife “has let herself get old.” He hits the gym and takes up with a young, beautiful, airhead, gold digger prostitute. Meanwhile their daughter (Watts) breaks up with her husband (Brolin), a failed writer. Each of the four is soon attracted to other potential mates. Everyone is haunted by failed relationships and struggles to start a new life.

It took me a while to get into this movie. It starts out with dreadful acting, a stilted script, noticeably mechanical directing, and a dreadful, intrusive narrator. I thought, "This is aggressively bad!" About halfway through, some real acting begins to show, although the characters never do become well developed. Finally I realized what Allen was trying to do. He did not want us to get involved with these characters. They are symbols, or archetypes for the lives in our culture, not real people we should care about. That’s why the plot line is practically nonexistent, the romantic relationships stereotypes, and the acting hollow. None of that matters. He is forcing us beyond the particular characters into universals. We are being shown the archetypes of modern, Western, sophisticated urban life, so that we might reflect on its meaning, or lack of same. Ultimately this is an existential movie that says, your life has no meaning, despite today’s passions and angst that seem so gripping. That is the human condition.

What makes this approach work is the superlative film making, especially the sets and costumes. Every detail, and I mean every one, is absolutely perfect. Colors, camera angles, framing, lighting, movement, rhythm, jewelry, hairstyle, buttons, every tiny detail is done to loving perfection, and the movie is worth seeing just for that exercise of craft. But as a bonus, you get the subtle existential message, and the pleasure of seeing some familiar faces on the big screen. You could watch this movie as a mildly interesting romantic comedy/drama, but you’d be missing the point. It is so much more if you look a little deeper.

Stone; Grade C

C

Stone (2010)

Robert De Niro, Edward Norton, Mila Jovovich; Director John Curran.

I love Edward Norton, and he does not disappoint in this movie. He is an almost-crazy convict pleading with his parole officer (De Niro) for early release. His hyperactive delivery, just barely under control, is electrifying. It is as good a performance as he has ever given.

De Niro shows the cynical, burned out prison employee, just a month from retirement. He deftly conveys his tiredness, confusion, and vulnerability, right alongside his trademark “tough” persona. Jovovich also performs well, although her character doesn’t make much sense, so it is hard to tell what she is trying to convey. She is the wife of the prisoner and tries to seduce the parole officer to affect his decision. She only gets stereotypical lines to speak. She has aged well since I last saw her as God, in The Fifth Element. Of course she doesn’t look as good as she did then, but nobody could.

Despite the phenomenal acting by the two men, especially Norton, the movie doesn’t go anywhere. There’s no prison break, no character development, no tricky developments. It’s just talky, talky, talky. Norton wins early release, then De Niro changes his mind, but it’s too late, so la dee dah, he just retires anyway. It is difficult to understand why a major movie, with a major budget, and with such star power could not afford a couple of savior writers, or why some producer did not see the thing drifting. Hollywood is a world where common sense does not hold much weight.

For Colored Girls: Grade B

B

For Colored Girls (2010)

Kimberly Elise, Janet Jackson, Thandie Newton, Anika Noni Rose, Kerry Washington, Whoopi Goldberg, Tessa Thompson; Writer and Director Tyler Perry.

These are vignettes from the lives of nine black women living in New York. Some of the lives intersect as the movie develops. There is not much dramatic tension, either in each life-story, or overall in the movie; it is strictly a “slice of life” approach. The stories are loose representations of Ntozake Shange’s 1975 set of poems and dances, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf. The original had only seven characters, whereas this movie has nine, making the movie confusing and hard to keep track of. Passages of Shange’s work are read by actors in several scenes and their lyrical beauty leaps out at you. It is a harsh transition back to Perry’s mundane script after those segments.

Overall, the message of the movie is simple: Men (black men anyway) are immature, lying, cheating, disease-ridden, alcoholic, thieving rapists who want only one thing. They smile and sweet talk women while betraying them, murdering their children, ruining their lives. Black women, on the other hand, are gentle, sensitive, caring souls who seek love and understanding, and tragically, that need is so great it causes them to spread their legs when they shouldn’t, and blindly trust their lives to the aforementioned male ratbastards. The thematic content of the movie is so exaggerated that it verges on tragicomedy despite all the maudlin tears. And at well over two hours, repetition soon becomes boring.

But you should watch the movie anyway. Why? For the stunning acting. Most of these women give performances of Shakespearean proportions. Thandi Newton, Kerry Washington, and Kimberly Elise – wow! It’s acting like you haven’t seen in one place before. Janet Jackson acquits herself, but she’s had so much bizarre cosmetic surgery that she looks like Michael, and that’s all I could think about. Whoopi is the weakest character but she had to be included because of her role in The Color Purple. Kudos go to Perry’s directing and writing. I did not know he had this kind of thing in him, judging from his other broad, farcical, slapstick movies. This was a revelation in that regard. Good cinematography, good music, tight editing. Despite the melodrama, it’s worth seeing.

Frenemy: Grade C

C
Frenemy (2009)

Matthew Modine, Zach Galifianakis, Paul Adelstein, Callum Blue; Director Gregory Dark.

In this extremely low budget film, a porn video store in LA is held up and two customers (Modine and Blue) are temporarily hostage, along with the owner (Galifianakis). The chatty burglar (Adelstein) engages the hostages, in the funniest scene in the movie, in which the store owner objects to all the talk, “What is this, My Robbery With Andre?”

That is the best line in this off-beat comedy, and the allusion characterizes the rest of the film which is far less interesting and funny. The two customers are otherwise seen walking all around LA, having lunch, coffee, and parties, all the while talking about the meaning of life, love, fate, death, and so on. That dialog is very mildly amusing but not really funny or insightful. Woody Allen it is not. And the acting is mediocre, at best. However, overall, the movie is original, and well-photographed, and a respectable effort.

Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity : Grade B

B
Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity (2002)

Sandra Oh, Valerie Tian; Co-writer and director Mina Shum. (Chinese and English, subtitled).

A working class single mother in a Chinese neighborhood of Vancouver (Oh) struggles to raise her extremely cute twelve-year-old daughter, Mindy (Tian). Mindy finds a magic book and begins to practice spells that will help her mother fall in love (no clue where the missing father is ). The magical-fantasy thread of the movie is that the childish spells really do work, but because Mindy is inept, they do not seem to. When she tries creating a winning lottery number for her mother, she goofs up the spell and the butcher wins instead, but Mindy never knows what happened. There are other charming episodes of that nature, and these give us a loving and intimate portrait of life in that community. In the end, Mindy’s mother does find love, and the other characters’ stories are resolved as well, not all of them happily.

The plot is pretty weak, depending on our acceptance of the magic, but the characterizations are strong, and the acting is excellent, especially by the principals, Oh, and Tian. The writing is sharp and Oh stands out as a fine actor. Cinematography is marvelous and Vancouver never looked so good, even in winter with its bare trees and gray skies. There is practically no dramatic tension in the script. It is instead an almost documentary exploration, with magical realism and humor adding spice. It is a lightweight, but heartwarming, family story that is affecting without being melodramatic, insightful without being voyeuristic.

Howl: Grade B

B
Howl (2010)

Allen Ginsberg, James Franco, Mary-Louise Parker, Jeff Daniels, David Strathairn, Treat Williams, Jon Hamm, Bob Balaban; Co-writers and Co-directors Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman.

Ginsberg’s long poem, Howl, was published in 1957 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. The book was promptly seized by the San Francisco police, and Ferlinghetti, not Ginsberg, was arrested for obscenity. The subsequent trial, dramatized in this film, discusses aspects of the poem and the obscenity statute via trial lawyers Strathairn and Hamm, before judge Balaban. That dramatization illustrates what sorts of arguments were made in defining obscenity in literature back then. Supposedly all the dialog in this movie was really spoken by the original players. While the acting is quite good, the sequence says more about 1950’s morals than about the poem.

The courtroom drama is intercut with a documentary style interview with Ginsberg, played brilliantly by Franco, in which he explains and defends the poem and discusses his artistic process and his awakening as a homosexual. Another intercut thread is a set of faux-archival shots of Ginsberg (again Franco) reading the poem at a coffee shop, and of scenes from Ginsberg’s young life (he wrote the poem when he was 29). And finally, there is an intercut thread of surrealistic animations, mostly human figures swooping about like Tinker-Bell, streaming stardust behind them, to the soundtrack of Franco reading the poem. So all four of these threads are chopped up and re-woven so you don’t get bored just listening to the poem straight through. As a cinematic technique it is brilliant. Somebody should do the same for Eliot’s The Wasteland, and other difficult modern poems.

Yet despite the clever construction of the movie, I was often bored, because the poem itself is just plain tedious in long stretches, and the film insisted on re-reading sections of it, which only increased the pain. There are brilliant passages in the poem, to be sure, both thematically and acoustically/musically. I love “Boxcar, boxcar, boxcar” as a line, for example. It sounds great, looks great, and it is very satisfying to say, and who could think of that?

So there is no denying that the poem has its brilliance. But it is over a half-century old now, and is no longer shocking. Nobody cares any more if you are homosexual; nobody cares if you say “asshole” a lot. In its time, though, the poem was extremely radical, and still worth reading today. The movie covers the poem pretty thoroughly so it is not necessary to know it beforehand.

Ginsberg himself was not that interesting of a character, so the biography aspect of the film is not riveting. Sure, he struggled with his sexual and professional identities and with drugs, but a lot of people have done the same. So while Ginsberg was probably the most celebrated poet of the twentieth century, that doesn’t make the poem better than it is. Conclusion: great movie making, okay subject matter.