12: Grade B

B
12 (2007)
Numerous Russian actors unknown in the west; Co-writer and director Nikita Mikhalkov. (Russian, subtitled).

This is a remake of the 1957 classic American courtroom drama, Twelve Angry Men, done in a peculiarly Russian way. The broad outlines of the original story are kept, but instead of the American version’s didactic exercise in critical thinking, the Russian characters make their points and persuade each other with rambling, often poignant, personal stories, characteristic of traditional Russian culture. The accused is a young Chechen, reviled and presumed guilty of killing a Russian military officer, but the stories gradually introduce a sliver of compassion, shreds of doubt, and eventually a re-thinking that overturns the initial consensus. It didn’t seem as dramatic a conversion as in the American tale, but that is probably because I am American, not Russian. I got the sense from the stories told that the drama would have been quite intense for a Russian audience. Acting is uniformly good, pacing is good, and it is enjoyable to get glimpses into the values and thinking of ordinary Russians. It would have been a better movie if it had been an original Russian story “based on” a similar situation and had not used clunky adherence to original plot points. But maybe the larger message was that educated Russian society is now thinking about democracy and justice along American lines.

The Caller: Grade C

C
The Caller (2008)
Frank Langella, Elliott Gould. Co-writer and director Richard Ledes.

In this stylish neo-noir drama, Langella is a financial analyst who blows the whistle on an energy company’s evildoings. Naturally, they hire a contract killer to silence him. He knew they would do that, so he hires a PI (Gould) to keep an eye on him, but he tells Gould (with an electronically disguised voice) that “the subject” is a dangerous murderer. The logic of that move is unclear. The PI gets to know the exec, without realizing he is also his employer. He learns a few things about the exec, all of it mundane, none of it important. In a series of irrelevant Langella flashbacks to a WWII childhood, we learn that the exec and the PI were childhood friends who narrowly escaped the Nazis in France. Gould however is unaware of this historical link, and in the climactic scene of the movie, he becomes aware. So what? So nothing. The story in all its parts is pointless. However, you might want to look at this movie anyway to see Langella’s fine, brooding performance, and excellent acting from Gould and several other characters, and the high quality cinematography, directing, and music, especially bandoneon music, which I am nuts about. This is really an attractive movie; too bad they did not have a decent story to tell.

Humboldt County: Grade C

C
Humboldt County (2008)
Jeremy Strong, Brad Dourif, Frances Conroy, Peter Bogdanovich; Co-writers and co-directors: Darrin Grodsky & Danny Jacobs.

Uptight medical student Peter (Strong) goes on a bender and wakes up in a hippie house in the redwood forests of Humboldt County, CA, the marijuana growing capitol of the nation. Some mildly humorous straight vs stoned scenes follow as we get to know the colorful characters of the community. Peter abjures the weed and vows to get back to town but somehow manages to miss the once-daily bus several times. Gradually he becomes sympathetic to the potoculturists and when he is finally “rescued” by his overbearing and arrogant father, a prominent physician who treats him like an idiot, Peter has to make a life choice. Guess what it is.

The acting is good and the characters are interesting, although shallow stereotypes only. They laugh and sing, eat and drink, forget things and tell wild stories, but only one of them, an ex-theoretical physicist, has any background of interest. We get just a tiny glimpse of that. Overall, it is a pro dope movie, and the growers are shown in a favorable light. They argue that they are simple farmers who live lightly on the earth, harming no one, and should be left alone. They don’t mention who their buyers are, and whether those buyers are also committed humanists or possibly armed members of international drugs cartels, and there is no hint that the growers are part of an illegal drugs supply system that brings untold grief to millions of people and their families when users end up imprisoned, or worse. So that argument is extremely one-sided and annoying for that.

Yet when Peter argues that as a medical student, he accomplishes more in one week than his cannabis obsessed counterpart has in his lifetime, that is something to think about. Is it true? What do medical students accomplish? What does anybody accomplish in life? Aren’t all our so-called accomplishments just exercises in self-aggrandizement? When you’re dead, what does all that accomplishment matter? Maybe you will get a bridge named after you. Whoopee. If “accomplishment” is an inauthentic value, why not just smoke dope, don’t worry, and be happy? Why worship the frontal lobes? It makes you think (if you don’t inhale).

Having Peter and his father be physicians gives more weight to their argument, because physicians alleviate human suffering, surely a worthwhile value and a legitimate rebuke to the dope growers. In the end, Peter chooses the life of the weed, so the film makes its point. Yet there is ambiguity. Was Peter’s choice a personal Oedipal reaction, or was it a symbolic rejection of mainstream society’s emphasis on achievement and accomplishment? While these issues are presented sophomorically, it’s still a good film for a discussion group.

Another Woman: Grade A

A
Another Woman (1988)
Gena Rowlands, Mia Farrow, Ian Holm, Blythe Danner, Gene Hackman, Sandy Dennis, Martha Plimpton, John Housman. Writer & Director Woody Allen

Despairing the quality of summer releases, I went to the stacks and pulled out this gem from 20 years ago. Better acting in an adult relationship film you will not find. Gena Rowlands is an eminent college professor who overhears a conversation between a young woman (Farrow) and her psychiatrist concerning love, relationships, self esteem. This gets the professor thinking about her own life and relationships. Later we see that her relationship with her husband (Holm) is perfunctory, and although she still seeks a flame of romance, he has long since shut her out with clever words. She meets an old friend (Dennis) and discovers that relationship is not what she thought it was. She sees her husband with another woman. And on and on. Nothing happens. There are no gunfights, explosions, car chases or even much laughter. But the story does goes to the heart of modern adult relationships. Sets and costumes are deliciously perfect in the Woody Allen trademark style of wealthy New Yorkers. Every detail is perfect. Cinematography (Sven Nyquist) is stylish and perfect as always. And the acting! Gene Hackman was flat, but the others were memorable, especially Sandy Dennis. This is a movie that rewards another look.

The Code: Grade D

D
The Code (aka Thick as Thieves) (2009)
Morgan Freeman, Antonio Banderas, Robert Forster; Director Mimi Leder.

How does a big star like Morgan Freeman get roped into projects like this? He is a master jewel thief who recruits Banderas, apparently a professional thief as well, to steal two Faberge eggs from “Romanov’s” a Russian jeweler in NYC. Stupidly but predictably, the owner of the shop gives a guided tour of the impenetrable security, demonstrating the biometric passwords, laser scanners, motion detectors, and the biggest steel vault door you have ever seen. But this is all no match for our thieves. Catherine Z. Jones looked good dancing between the laser beams in some other movie with this cliché scene, whereas Banderas slips by on a mechanic’s crawler. In the end, there are complex double-crosses and surprise plot revelations that contradict whatever fragile plausibility the beginning of the movie ever had, so the story only works for people with memory deficits and short attention span, which is maybe the intended audience. It’s a waste of acting talent, although the players do their best. It was nice to see Robert Forster on screen again.

Saturday Night Fever: Grade A

A
Saturday Night Fever (1977)
John Travolta, Karen Lynn Gorney; Director John Badham.

This glorification of the disco era is much better than I remembered it. The acting is remarkably good, directing is good, and the story has a lot more subtlety and sociological complexity than I remember. New York sets are rich and authentic. Travolta is king of the Brooklyn disco hall, often opposite partner and romantic interest Gorney. Disco dancing (of the Travolta-esque kind) looks contrived and silly, but the killer Bee Gees music makes it infectious nevertheless. I always liked disco music and was sorry to see it fade away. None did it better than the Bee Gees. This is definitely worth a repeat look.

Don't Move: Grade D

D
Don’t Move (2004)
Penelope Cruz, Sergio Castellito; Director Sergio Castellito. (Italian, subtitled)

This was Cruz’s breakthrough to stardom and it is worth watching just to see what she looks like without makeup and before her face work. Her performance is good, as is Castellito’s but the story is weak and I never believed in the relationship between the two main characters. A married surgeon from the city has a car breakdown in the country. He meets Cruz and asks to use her phone but then rapes her. Great way to start a relationship. Weeks later he returns to apologize but ends up having sex with her again. She submits passively and unenthusiastically for reasons unknown. He doesn’t even bother to take off his pants when he does her. Actually there is very little nudity in the film. Similar episodes are repeated several times until they are in a sort of default “relationship.” Few words are ever spoken between them. Meanwhile, his daughter is injured in a traffic accident and he is upset by that. Finally, both women get pregnant, his wife and his country lover. You would think that as a doctor he would have some clue about how such things work. Everybody is thrown into crisis and the ending is somewhere between despairing and tragic. The cinematography is good, scenery is good. It is a very slow movie since only about three events happen in the whole 90 minutes. It is billed as “erotic” but I found it to be anything but. You can see the spark of life in Cruz however that eventually made her into a big star.

Defiance: Grade F

F
Defiance (2008)
Daniel Craig, Liev Schrieber; Director Edward Zwick

Two Jewish brothers flee the Nazis in Poland to hide the forests of Belarus. Others get the same idea and soon they have a community of several dozens, then hundreds of refugees. Nazis hunt them down, and so do Russians, with whom they form an uneasy alliance to fight Nazis. There are a few gun battles of the type where no Nazi can hit any target but no Jew ever misses, but mostly it is the story of how the community survives and evolves. They are hungry, dirty, sad, and despairing, but they endure with dignity and fortitude. Craig stares off into middle distance quite a bit, supposedly to indicate depth of character, but actually indicating air-head since we know nothing about the character or what he might be thinking. Characters speak English among themselves in the forest but only Russian outside it, for some reason. Finally the time is up and the movie ends without resolution. Supposedly the whole tale is “based” on a true story, but so what? Nothing interesting happens. Dialog is pedestrian, vignettes are mundane, characters are not developed. I think we have already got the picture on this period of history. Nazis: bad. Jews: victims. There is nothing new to learn here. Some nice scenery and sets are shown, but even there, the forest had no underbrush, which seemed unnatural.

Grand Torino: Grade A

A
Grand Torino (2008)
Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang, Ahney Her; Director Clint Eastwood.

Eastwood is Walt, a crusty old Korean War veteran who lives alone in a run down section of Detroit that has been taken over by immigrant families including the extended southeast Asian Hmong family next door. He talks to himself and his dog so we can understand that he is still fighting the war, angry, alone, bitter, and an unrepentant racist. By chance, he saves the young neighbor boy from a group of Hmong gangbangers, so he becomes a neighborhood hero. He tries to reject that role, but gradually and grudgingly takes a liking to the young boy and his sister. The youngsters all speak English while the parents and old people do not, which gives ground for a good deal of humor. Walt voices some outrageous racist comments, which the Hmong youth accept with equanimity since he is obviously just an old fart who doesn’t know any better. That part is not exactly realistic, but it does show the audience the racism that is just under the surface in real life so it serves a social function. Walt teaches the young man some skills, and he gets a job, but the gang just won’t leave him or Walt alone. Walt realizes that the younger generation has no chance at all of making a decent life while the gang is around. His dramatic resolution to the problem invokes a complex of Dirty Harry and Catholic symbology in a predictable but effective ending.

The movie is a deft combination of serious drama, sociology, humor, history, tender feelings and “message.” For example, Walt gives the “Clint Eastwood Look” of intimidation several times and waves large guns while staring down bad guys, but never fires a weapon in anger. The only people who do are handcuffed and sent to prison. Yet the spirit of Dirty Harry is not lost. “You ever notice how there are some guys you just shouldn’t fuck with? Well I am that guy.” There are many layers and allusions to appreciate in this movie. I’d have to say it is as good, or better than Forbidden. Clint is nearly 80 now and we probably won’t see him on screen much more. If so, he goes out on a high note.

Valkyrie: Grade D

D
Valkyrie (2008)
Tom Cruise, Kenneth Branaugh, Tom Wilkinson, Terrence Stamp, Eddie Izzard; Director Bryan Singer.

Cruise is Claus von Stauffenberg, the Nazi colonel who led the 15th and final plot to assassinate Hitler during WWII. The plot fails and he is shot. The movie relies on general historical knowledge, general interest in Nazis, and on some big name stars to keep you interested but it barely does. There is virtually no dramatic tension in the film. The bomb is in a brief case so there are not even any red LED numbers counting down. Most of the movie is taken up with bureaucratic infighting and negotiations among the Nazi officer corps (“Are you with us or not?”). The characters are flat and the acting mediocre, even by Branaugh. Wilkinson gives the best performance but he is swamped by swooping cameras and over-lit sets. Direction looks like made-for-TV. CGI effects are noticeably weak. Sets and costumes are immaculately clean and shiny, and nearly the whole movie is shot on unconvincing sound stages so we do not have a sense of time and place. The war itself is strictly in the background. Dialog is lame. Cruise’s motivation is simply declared in the beginning, but we don’t know where it comes from because we don’t know who he is. He demonstrates non of his natural wit and style; just speaks his lines on cue. Pounding heartbeat music tries to inject some drama. The period vehicles are nice to look at, and the story plods along slowly but steadily. There is just enough color and movement to save the movie from utter disaster.

The International: Grade B

B
The International (2009)
Clive Owen, Naomi Watts. Director Tom Tykwer.

In this thinking-person’s thriller, Owen is an Interpol agent trying to bring down an international bank he believes guilty of money laundering and weapons dealing. The bank is named after the real IBBC bank which collapsed in a cloud of corruption and criminal scandal in the 1980’s. Watts is a NYPD detective pursuing the bank’s New York office, working with Owen on the case. Unfortunately, Watts gives a terrible, flat, non-believable performance that kills any relationship theme between the two of them. This is a mystery in itself because Watts has proven herself a first rate actor in other contexts. She must have had bad direction.

Owen’s Interpol partner is killed as he interviews someone at the bank who will turn state’s evidence, and as Owen pursues clues, everybody ends up dead either just before or just after he talks to them. The point of view is omniscient so the audience knows more about what’s going on than he does, and that puts the burden on us to keep it straight, but after the movie is over, you realize there were a million loose ends. Who killed Calvino, and why? IBBC had no motivation. Why would Calvino’s sons believe Owen’s wild tale? At the time, you think such mysteries will eventually be resolved so you let them go, but in the end they are still hanging out there.

Owen’s performance is quite good, as are several supporting actors, and the overall story is marginally plausible. The film is visually excellent, shot in high contrast blacks, whites, and yellows, and featuring some very fine European architecture and some creative angles. The action highlight is a terrific gun battle inside New York’s Guggenheim. Music is unobtrusive and attractive. It is not a satisfying story, but an entertaining movie.

Revolutionary Road: Grade B

B
Revolutionary Road (2009)
Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio. Director Sam Mendes.

Winslet was nominated for best actress in this film and won best actress for her much less compelling (although naked) performance in The Reader. This is by far her better work. DiCaprio also delivers outstanding acting and the two of them raise this mediocre screenplay far above average. Imagine Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf meets The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. DiCaprio is some kind of cubicle worker in 1955 New York city (did they have cubicles then?) and Winslet is the suburban housewife in Connecticut. Despite being young newlyweds at the bottom of the food chain, their house is a magnificent, two-story, 5,000 sq. ft Colonial outfitted for a prince, but never mind that, because real estate agent Kathy Bates calls it a “charming little cottage,” so there you go! We never do understand what DiCaprio does for a living but he hates the job, has martinis for lunch we see the affair with the secretary coming from a mile away. We don’t know what Winslet does all day either. She acts in a dreary community theater, but her two young children don’t eat, read, go to school, play ball or even talk to her, so that must leave her a lot of free time. Yet she feels suffocated in a pre-Betty Friedan sort of way and yearns for she-knows-not-what, but it would definitely be in Paris. Instead of that, DiCaprio takes the big promotion at work, so they fight. Dishes are thrown, chairs are smashed, epithets are hurled. Events ensue. The ending is not happy.

The screenplay is mundane and predictable. The 1950’s are caricatured as strict, suffocating conformity, and some of that was true, but I remember those times and there was plenty of diversity. After the war (WWII), people were extremely eager to have stability, conformity, predictability, respectability and above all, steady income. It was not oppression, it was opportunity. For DiCaprio and Winslet to be existentially tormented, they would have to come from a very non-typical background, but we know nothing about their history, social class, education, parents, military service, nothing at all. We don’t know why they feel trapped by circumstance. They are mere stereotypes.

Recreation of the 1950’s is pretty good, although with anachronisms, and over-use of the same Buick. This could have been a killer movie if it had been set in modern times, because then the writers could not have relied on 1950’s stereotypes and would have had to come up with some real character motivation and dig into some genuine existential issues. Still, it is worth watching for the good acting.

Out of England The Stand-Up Special: Grade A

A
Out of England The Stand-Up Special (2008)
Ricky Gervais. Director John Moffitt

Gervais is the very talented writer, director and star of the original BBC The Office television series. I was not aware that he also did standup. This is his first HBO standup comedy special and it is a home run for those who enjoy British humor. His genius is in convincing you that he is telling you a story he just thought of. You know it takes weeks and months of very difficult work to get 90 minutes of material, but he makes it seem spontaneous. He does great facial acting, embarrassed giggles, and convincing self-interruptions to suggest that he is just making it up as he goes along, which is of course far from the truth. His best material tends to the intellectual, where he deconstructs ridiculous advertisements, pamphlets or child-rearing practices. I also loved his animal jokes, in which he seduces you into imagining animals having fantastic conversations. One of my favorite bits was on the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme. Note to parents: if your surname is Dumpty, don’t name your offspring Humpty. He’s already an egg anyway, isn’t he, and that’s bad enough. I was less amused by his crude sodomy and masturbation jokes, but it is his job to provide laughs for all levels of humor. His riff on obesity as a disease was misinformed and not funny for that. But he did have some great bits on the holocaust and on cancer patients, if you can imagine. Overall, I was delighted.

Let the Right One In: Grade B

B
Let the Right One In (2008)
Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson; Director Tomas Alfredson. (Swedish, Dubbed)

Oskar is a 12 year old, bullied terribly at school. He meets Eli, a 12 year old girl who moves into his apartment building. They strike up a friendship, but soon it becomes apparent that she is a vampire. Oskar is horrified but being so alone, he likes her anyway. She likes him well enough to avoid biting him, and she encourages him to strike back at the boys who bully him. These two themes are explored separately, the bullying and the vampire life, in a charming relationship story that seems quite ordinary except for the awkward detail that Eli must kill someone every day. This counts as a horror film for sure -- plenty of blood -- but the story is so gentle in its own way that it takes you by surprise. The final scene was obviously an afterthought designed to avoid ending on a completely down note, but it is not satisfactory. Too bad, because 20 minutes could easily have been pulled out of the rest to allow for a properly developed ending. Another complaint is that the voice actors were terrible. Animations can get good voice actors, why are they not available for dubbing? Maybe it was a cost constraint. Fortunately, this is a quiet film with not much dialog, so the bad dubbing is tolerable. I would much rather have enjoyed the Swedish language and read subtitles. Despite some obvious logical loopholes in the story, this is a well-made and surprisingly enjoyable movie.

Paul Blart Mall Cop: Grade C

C
Paul Blart Mall Cop (2009)
Kevin James, Jayma Mays, Raini Rodriguez; Director Steve Carr.

James is a proud but lonely security guard at a typical American suburban shopping mall. He imagines that he is actually a state trooper as he whips around the mall on his Segway. He longs for a young woman (Mays) merchant in the mall, to no avail. Bad guys invade the mall, take hostages, and it is up to James to save the day. The story is completely formulaic. It could have been lifted directly from Kung Fu Panda, for example, but the attractiveness of the movie is actually James’ comedic talent, which is considerable. He’s a great face actor, and remarkably light on his feet, turning in some good stunts. The script has some delicious moments (James co-wrote), such as when he corrects someone about his title: “Security Officer, actually, not Security Guard.” More of that could have made it a real winner. The movie is apparently designed for children (or adults with child-like minds), so a scene where he gets sloppy drunk in a bar seems out of place, but that is the only false note. It’s the kind of movie that makes you smile rather than laugh out loud.

Nobel Son: Grade B

B
Noble Son (2007)
Alan Rickman, Bryan Greenberg, Shawn Hatosy, Eliza Dushku, Mary Steenburgen, Bill Pullman. Co-writer and director Randall Miller.

In this offbeat comedy-caper, Greenberg is the twenty-something son of an egocentric, overbearing father (Rickman) who gives him nothing but contempt. The son meets a weird, poetry-reading woman (Dushku), but before the relationship can develop, he is kidnapped by Hatosy. The ransom payoff involves one of the more interesting car chases you will ever see. There are so many double and triple-cross plot turns that you don’t know who you can trust. The plot is thus unguessably clever but also self-consciously writerly. We don’t for a minute believe in any of these characters, but the dialog is intermittently witty enough that the implausible story successfully navigates between ridiculous irony and serious drama. Excellent acting by the three young people (Greenberg, Hatosy, and Dushku) makes the film compulsively watchable. Dushku especially is magnetic. Rickman blusters as only he can, and Steenburgen, as the youth’s mother, proves her greatness again. A small part with Danny DeVito is gratuitous. The music is strangely eclectic, from pounding techno-rave to subtle orchestration. Camera work and editing are often intrusive, probably trying to align with the comedic element. Despite a too-slow half hour opening, the movie quickly picks up the pace to become an unexpected oddball delight.

Dark Matter: Grade C

C
Dark Matter (2007)
Meryl Streep, Le Yiu, Aidan Quinn; Director Shi-Zheng Chen.

Le Yiu is one of a group of students from China who come to America for doctoral research in cosmology under a famous teacher (Quinn). Streep is a social facilitator who helps the students find their feet in the new culture. Le Yiu is a brilliant mathematician but proposes a thesis that goes against the professor’s pet theory so he does not get his Ph.D. and becomes depressed.

Nothing much happens in this movie. The dramatic turns are tense to anyone with advanced academic experience, but pretty boring to everyone else. Exploration of the Chinese students’ cross-cultural experience is realistic and insightful. The highlight of the movie is outstanding acting from Streep and Le Yiu. Their expressions seem real and heartfelt and make the movie worth seeing. However, since nothing happens until the very end, the movie is basically boring. And the ending was obviously an afterthought. It rings false, inconsistent with the character. Photography, directing, and music are all good, and the acting raises the picture to the high end of average.

Taken: Grade C

C
Taken (2008)
Liam Neeson, Famke Janssen, Maggie Grace; Director Pierre Morel.

Neeson is an ex-government tough guy of unspecified type whose daughter (Grace) is kidnapped in Paris and sold into sexual slavery. He rescues her, apparently before much harm has befallen her. How he does this is not entirely clear. He just seems to know who the bad guys are and where to find them. When he does find them, he hits them with a single hand chop, which usefully renders any assailant lifeless. Despite his age, he is able to beat up whole roomsful and boatloads of young toughs in this way. Fortunately, none of them can hit a target even with a machine pistol at 6 feet, although Neeson does take a minor flesh wound late in the movie. By contrast, he never misses, felling his opponents with a single squeeze of the trigger. His body count runs over a dozen but the Paris police don’t give him any trouble. The car chases are conventional, the explosions grossly exaggerated. Music is loud orchestration designed to add excitement where the picture itself doesn’t have much. Dialog is predictable, the story unimaginative, and the acting unremarkable. This will do fine on TV.

Just Another Love Story: Grade A

A
Just Another Love Story (2007)
Anders W. Berthelsen, Rebecka Hemse, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Charlotte Fich; Writer & Director Ole Bornedal. (Danish, subtitled).

An ordinary family man living an ordinary life is in a car accident. The other driver becomes traumatically blind and amnesic. To get into the hospital to see how she is doing, he says he is her boyfriend. Her family is there and assumes he is the boyfriend they know about but have not met. Through deft directing and scriptwriting, it happens that he can’t get a word in edgewise so goes along with the ruse. The injured woman shows some improvement so the wealthy family urges him to visit often, which he does. He soon falls for the recovering woman and is accepted into her family, giving him a whole new life. However, as you might guess, things do not work out perfectly for him in the end.

It is a well-crafted story with just a few psychological loopholes, but they are small and no story is airtight. Suspense is high and the pace never flags. Characters are plausibly motivated. Acting is terrific, music attractive, mood-setting, but unobtrusive. Sets are quite good, except I got tired of the hospital bedside scene, which was overused. Cinematography and directing are exciting and creative. The filmmakers intercut pictures and juxtapose sound tracks aggressively as part of the storytelling, but it’s not overdone. The opening is especially creative. Sadly, the ending is a compromise. It is by no means a happy ending, but a jarring, self-referential voiceover attempts to insert some ironic humor into what would otherwise have been a very bleak ending indeed. It is supposed to be film noir, but apparently the market doesn’t take noir very well, so the filmmakers lightened it up, the spineless chickens. Apart from that, this is a nearly perfect mystery-thriller.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Grade F

F
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, Taraji P. Henson; Director David Fincher.

This movie was not popular on Mars, where I live, although I understand Earthlings were wild about it, nominating it for best picture of 2008. It tells the story of a person born at 80 years old, whatever that means. Embryology aside, the person is baby-shaped and baby-sized, but has facial wrinkles and a doctor says he also has arthritis and cataracts, and is going to die. But no, this baby (Benjamin) will grow in reverse, to become younger every year, although his brain must develop in the normal direction, since an adult brain does not fit in a baby skull.

As Benjamin “ages” he gets younger, and moves from balding hair in a wheel chair at 7, to a mature gentleman, who, although only 20 years old, acts like he is 60. His skin has become smoother, his head hairy, but he also has grown into an adult-sized person, which wouldn’t make sense if his body is aging in reverse. How did Benjamin learn bodily coordination without a childhood of playing? Wasn’t school a bit awkward when he looked like he was in his 70’s? And were there no doctors or scientists around who might have been curious? Oh well.

In his “youth” Benjamin befriends the little redhead neighbor girl. Later, he goes off to seek his fortune at sea. He returns home in his twenties as Brad Pitt and by then the little red-haired girl is a young Cate Blanchett. They marry and have a child. Nobody notices or is concerned about his younger appearance. Oddly, Pitt loves rock and roll and living like a hippie, though his mental age would be over 60 at this point. He and Blanchett understand that he will be a mere child when the daughter grows up, so he leaves. The girl grows up and reads this entire story out of a diary he left, although we never saw him write in any diary, nor show an iota of self-reflection. So most of the movie is tedious voice-over, showing disconnected vignettes as illustration. Dialog is banal. Acting is unremarkable, except for Swinton who does a good job with a terrible part.

CGI effects are laughable, but interiors are detailed and interesting. Makeup is amazing but there was no DVD extra on makeup, so nothing to learn there. There should have been some thought-provoking ideas but the basic premise was so confused that nothing can be inferred. As a 30 minute short, this could have been a charming conceit and we would forgive the contradictions. As a 2.5 hour movie, we expect some serious exploration of the idea, or the characters, or the historical period, or existential themes, or something, but there is nothing.

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.

Nothing But the Truth: Grade C

C
Nothing But the Truth (2008)
Kate Beckinsale, Matt Dillon, Vera Farmiga, Alan Alda, Angela Bassett, David Schwimmer. Writer and Director Rod Lurie.

Vera Farmiga, who we do not see enough of on screen, is a covert CIA employee in Washington outed by a newspaper reporter (Beckinsale). National security officials (Dillon, Alda) require the reporter to reveal her source or go to jail. She chooses jail. In a final flashback we learn who the source was.

Despite a fine cast and some good acting by Farmiga and Dillon, the story is not very dramatic. Why should we care who the source was? It means nothing to us. Nor do we really care that the CIA agent was exposed. No consequences are suggested, nothing is at stake. The reporter goes to jail for some months, and her husband (Schwimmer) leaves her, but jail was her choice; what did she expect?

The real life story on which this unimaginative tale is based was rich and dramatic. The agent (Valerie Plame) was allegedly revealed by a deliberate leak from the GW Bush administration in order to punish her husband, Wilson, a diplomat on assignment for the CIA. Wilson claimed that Bush lied about Iraq having bought uranium from the African state of Niger, part of Bush’s justification for the invasion of Iraq. Wilson found the report of uranium sales was fraudulent, and later the CIA confirmed that. His wife’s career was ruined as retribution for him revealing the president’s lies, he claimed. The White House denied this, although an aide to Vice President Cheney was convicted of obstruction of justice in the case. It later was revealed that the leak had come from the State department, not the White House. Plame’s career was ruined nevertheless and she resigned the CIA.

That is a way better story than the simple-minded one this movie told. This event could have been made into a fabulous political thriller. Instead, the movie took a pedestrian approach: reporter declines to reveal source, goes to jail, the end. It is yet another of Hollywood’s inexplicable lost opportunities.

While She Was Out: Grade F

F
While She Was Out (2008)
Kim Basinger, Lukas Haas; Co-writer and Director Susan Montford.

Basinger is an ordinary suburban housewife who can’t find a parking spot at a shopping mall at Christmas. She is annoyed by a big old car taking up two spaces and leaves a hostile note on its windshield. When she comes out of the mall, the owners of that car are waiting for her, four young punks who surround her with hypermacho lip. A mall guard intervenes and they shoot him dead. Basinger jumps in her car and for some reason flees to an uncompleted housing construction project, where she grabs the metal toolbox from her car and hides in some framing. The toolbox miraculously has no mass and she carries it effortlessly. The punks chase her into the nearby woods, improbably a mature Northwest rain forest. As they pursue her through the inexplicably well lit night forest, she manages to ambush them one at a time, killing them with tools far too large to have come out of the box. On the last bad guy, she uses her feminine wiles to get him sexually distracted, which works, despite the large difference in their ages.

Basinger has had some amazing cosmetic surgery that makes her appear thirtyish if you don’t look too closely at the grotesquely sculpted features or at her 55 year old hands. Still, she is far from being a female Bruce Willis, which I guess is what I was hoping for. The acting is abominable, especially by the young men, in keeping with the brain-dead story. Costumes, sets, music, directing, scenery, cinematography – all are so bad that you keep watching in horrified fascination, but that doesn’t make it worth your time.

The Hit: Grade C

C
The Hit (1984)
John Hurt, Terence Stamp, Tim Roth; Director Stephen Frears.

An English gangster (Stamp) turns state’s evidence against the gang then goes on the lam in southern Spain. Eight years later, inevitably, a couple of henchmen (Hurt and Roth) come for him. They need to transport him to Paris, where he will be killed, so the rest of the movie is a long road trip north, through the Pyrenees, into France. The trio acquires a young Spanish woman to act out stereotypical scenes. There are various incidents along the way such as bar fights, car breakdowns, temper tantrums, and so forth, as the characters get to know each other and we get to know them, during their journey. The henchmen are perfect stereotypes, Hurt with his implacable face and steely gaze, Roth the labile psychopath. Stamp plays a sort of otherworldly existentialist who accepts his destiny with equanimity, talks about life and death in philosophical terms, with humor, and does not try to escape. All three of those performances are enjoyable, even if the characters are superficial, because the story is delightfully oddball. This is a recent Criterion Collection re-issue with the film all cleaned up, colors bright, sound clear. Unfortunately there is only one DVD extra, a very boring television interview with Stamp.

The Wrestler: Grade A

A
The Wrestler (2008)
Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood; Director Darren Aronofsky.

Rourke is “Randy the Ram,” a washed-up wrestler (theatrical wrestling, not the real sport). He looks great with his chiseled, beat-up face, long blond hair and muscular though sagging body. He speaks in a deep mumbling monotone like Stallone, that gives the sense of a large, dangerous, but confused animal.

He has a heart attack and must quit wrestling. Completely lost, he confides in his only friend, a middle-aged pole dancer (Tomei) at a sleazy club. The similar yet different lives of the flesh these characters lead are parallel. Each of them knows they are too old to be meat-based performers, but neither knows what to do. While much has been made of Rourke’s seemingly autobiographical performance (and it is tremendous) the best moment of the movie is Tomei wiggling around the pole and coming to an epiphany, shown by her facial expressions alone, “What the hell am I doing?” It is a truly memorable moment of film acting.

The relationship between Rourke and his estranged daughter (Wood) is a small subtheme that gives him a chance to display his tender side, but even there the interaction feels genuine and Wood delivers a fine performance. The story is extremely well written, so the parallel between Rourke’s and Tomei’s desperate lives is well defined. In the end, each character takes their drifting life into their own hands, each in their own way. The directing is exceptionally good as well. You get a real olfactory sense of those locker rooms, gymnasiums, and that strip club. A moving film, worthy of its many award nominations.