Lady Vengeance: Grade A

A
Lady Vengeance (2005)
Yeong-ae Lee, Min-sik Choi; Co-writer and Director Chan-wook Park. (Korean, subtitled).

This is the third and final film in director Park’s revenge trilogy. I have seen and reviewed recently Old Boy, the second in the series. In this one, a young woman (Lee) is unjustly imprisoned for the kidnapping and murder of a child. In intercut scenes we see her as a model prisoner, kind to all, and yet managing to make a prison murder look like an accident, so we know she has two faces. Upon her release, she is intent on revenge against the man who set her up (Choi), and she engages other ex-cons to help her. The final revenge involves torture and buckets of blood (this is a Tartan films release), but unlike Old Boy, the torture is not explicit and that makes those scenes watchable. So revenge is had. Or is it?

I don’t think Park really has captured the full phenomenology of revenge, either in this film or the last. When you have a psychotic serial killer, death or even torture, is not sufficient because he will never feel remorse. You can cause physical pain, but revenge is about dealing with the victim’s psychological pain, which is not satisfied by blood. In Lady Vengeance, this is acknowledged, because despite the ultimate torture and murder of the perp, the focus is on the families of the murdered boys. They get their pound of flesh, but are they satisfied? The perfect revenge movie has yet to be made.

However, Lady Vengeance is well worth watching because it is beautifully shot and creative, well-acted and masterfully directed. The music is wonderful, classical notes setting a calm tone that only heightens the story’s mood of desperation. There was also a stunningly beautiful vocal piece in there that may have been from Orfeo and Euridice, the opera. My main complaints are that the narrative was jumbled by aggressive time slicing, making it often confusing, and that there are at least two anti-climactic endings, the final one being especially superfluous (although beautiful to look at). So overall, this is a beautifully made film that also makes you think.

Lone Star: Grade B

B
Lone Star (1996)

Chris Cooper, Elizabeth Peña, Kris Kristofferson, Matthew McConaughey, Ron Canada; Writer-Director John Sayles.

It’s not a western, although it is set in a small Texas border town and the major players wear cowboy hats and guns strapped to their hip. Deeds (Cooper) is the town’s sheriff, the third in a line of bigger-than-life figures to hold that office. His father was a legendary sheriff in the 1950's who succeeded the evil Charlie Wade (Kristofferson), a corrupt racist who stole thousands from the town pension fund and absconded without a trace. But when a skeleton with a sheriff’s star is dug up in the desert, Deeds wonders who it was. As he unravels the mystery, he learns more about who his father was, and who he is. There are several compelling subplots that run parallel to that main theme. I saw the surprise ending coming, but even so, it was interesting and reasonable.

About the only thing wrong with this movie is its 2:15 length, which is due to a slow pace and perhaps too many subplots. Sayles’ writing and directing make the characters rounded and believable, except Kristofferson’s. That character, who shoots Mexicans and blacks on sight if they do not pay extortion, is over the top. He stands as an unrealistic personification of evil that the other characters can work against. However, sets and cinematography are perfect. Costumes are excellent. But the characterizations are the best part.

Cooper’s performance in particular creates a genuine character, with spot on accent and speech timing, but he was a bit too taciturn, too remote to be fully engaging. I like a little more personality in my brooding sheriffs. Tommy Lee Jones captured the character in Electric Mist (2009), which may have been an attempt at a remake, although it was a terrible movie. It’s not so easy to imitate John Sayles. His artistry makes this film a completely engrossing experience.

The Taking of Pelham 123: Grade C

C
The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009)

Denzel Washington, John Travolta, Luis Guzman, John Turturro, James Gandolfini; Director Tony Scott.

I never saw the 1974 original, so I took this remake on its own terms. Hijackers (Travolta and Guzman) take over a NYC subway car and hold 17 hostages, demanding 10 million dollars. Washington is the train dispatcher who becomes default hostage negotiator, a role he has played before. Turturro is the “official” hostage negotiator who tries to muscle in on Washington, but Travolta won’t have it. Gandolfini is hizzoner, who must come up with the money. The money is transferred, most of the hostages are saved, the bad guys almost get away, but not quite.

The story is extremely weak, with innumerable non sequiturs, absurdities, loose ends and contradictions. The basic plot, as described above, is basically boring. The obvious attraction of the movie is the spectacular special effects and great photography of New York City. The sound engineers obviously had collected tons of authentic train sounds, and they make sure you hear them. Pseudo-dramatic music, and traffic are equally deafening, triple the level of the dialog. This is a very noisy movie. You will need your mute button. The visuals are very good, for the most part, although some shots near the end plainly look like models. The stunts/special effects are the usual car crashes in the city with taxicabs flipping end over end. Happens all the time in New York, I’m sure.

Travolta plays an excellent psychopathic bad guy, enjoyable to watch despite the stereotype. Washington plays himself. Gandolfini turns in a sincere, believable, non-hammy performance. That’s the good part.

But the plot is so implausible, it is very difficult to stay interested. If Travolta is actually doing a stock market manipulation, what does he need the hostage money for? If he didn’t already have the money, how did he make the stock market bet on gold? Why does the money car coming from the federal reserve have a police escort? It is obviously useless for anything but bright lights, loud engines, and sirens, since the convoy has three spectacular fatal accidents on its short trip. Couldn’t the police have just turned all the lights red? How do the police identify two random-looking men on the street as bad guys and proceed to shoot them to death? Did they have “Bad Guy” stenciled on their foreheads? And so on.

The movie is obviously about car crashes and sparks flying from the wheels of trains, not plot development, not character exploration. It will be successful among children and child-like minds as yet another immature action movie. Just what we need.

French Film: Grade B

B
French Film (2008)

Hugh Bonneville, Eric Cantona, Anne-Marie Duff, Victoria Hamilton, Douglass Henshall; Director Jackie Oudney.

This light romantic comedy is remarkably witty, very well-acted, and nicely directed. Two couples in contemporary London are all friends. Jed and Cheryl (Bonneville and Hamilton) have been living together for ten years but the relationship is stale, even though Jed insists that it “works.” They begin to see a couples counselor. Their friends Marcus and Sophie (Henshall and Duff) are in a seemingly ideal romantic relationship.

Blanketing all the couples’ chit-chat are intercut scenes from a supposed documentary interview of a “major” French film director (Cantona), who self-importantly explains what love is, how it works, and how to recognize it. He illustrates his points with clips from his own films. These clips are melodramatic black and white relationship scenes that look like they could be from the French New Wave of the early ‘60’s, actually attractive in their own right. Cantona’s pontifications are hilariously pompous, with his bearded visage and thick French accent, waving a cigarette in one hand with satirical gravity. He serves as something like the Greek Chorus, commenting indirectly on the romantic relationships developing in the main part of the movie.

So Marcus falls in love with another woman (real love this time, though, he insists), and the couples counseling goes south. Everything falls apart but there is a predictable happy ending (as the French film director had already explained: “Ze ending ees found in ze beginning”).

The acting is first rate in this film and that’s good enough reason to enjoy it. The humor is terrific, although it is very British humor, not American farce. Cantona’s performance is the highlight. The film reminds me of early Woody Allen films like Manhattan, couples walking about and sitting in cafes saying clever things. It is all just talking heads where nothing is discovered, but a delight nevertheless.

Adoration: Grade B

B
Adoration (2008)

Devon Bostick, Scott Speedman, Arsinée Khanjian. Writer-Director Adam Ergoyan.

A high school student (Bostick) writes a short story for his French class about how his father was a Muslim terrorist who attempted to smuggle a bomb onto an Israeli airline to blow up his mother (pregnant with himself) and everyone else. The teacher (Khanjihan) likes it and since she also teaches drama, encourages him to develop the story into a dramatic monolog, which he does, and he tries it out on his friends, on the internet, as a true tale. They believe him and he does not disabuse them of the ruse. We find out later that his parents were killed in a car crash, which is why he lives with his uncle (Speedman).

So is that the whole movie? -- Boy plays practical joke on his classmates? That’s just about it. But by intercutting dramatizations from the parents’ imagined past and their real past, Ergoyan manages to create some confusion about the truth, even though it is just obfuscation. Also there is an interesting relationship between the teacher and the uncle, who are both concerned about the boy’s developing sense of personal identity, not having known his parents. So overall, it is a pretty lame story. Incidental mentions of terrorism, Muslim extremism, racism, and other political themes are just gratuitous comments, adding nothing.

But what makes the movie strong are the magnificent visuals and the interesting dialog. Cinematography is stunningly beautiful (although the lighting is overdone in some indoor scenes, such as in the violin shop). Many shots involve striking symbolic imagery that you want to stop and examine in detail. The dialog has an extremely spare quality about it, not exactly realistic, but not exactly artificial either. It has a Mametesque quality in its minimalism and use of ambiguity, but it is not an imitation. There is an “Ergoyan” style of dialog, I would say, and I like it. Music is quite pleasant (violins, since a violin features in the story), but is not distinguished. Acting is very strong by the three principals. Overall then, the story is not successful but good acting and good visuals raise the quality to above average.

The Maiden Heist: Grade B

B
The Maiden Heist (2009)

Christopher Walken, Morgan Freeman, William H. Macy, Marcia Gay Harden. Director Peter Hewitt

The three men are long time security guards at a Boston art museum and each has a favorite work of art that has become an obsession. When all three of those pieces are to be traded to a museum in Denmark, they are devastated, and decide to steal them, replacing them with fakes. They do that, and that’s the movie. Along the way there are complications of course, but what makes the film enjoyable is the great performances by seasoned actors, and some witty writing. Macy especially hams it up to hilarious effect. Walken is his usual droll self. He is much funnier in some of the deleted and blooper scenes, but the director kept him dialed down. Freeman is just fun to watch. Harden, as Walken’s character’s wife, has fun with a stereotypical ditzy wife, very enjoyable to watch. This is a lightweight, really, throw-away caper movie, with visual and narrative elements from Space Cowboys, The Thomas Crowne Affair, Entrapment, The Italian Job, and others. It is not a satire of the heist genre, just a silly romp worth an hour and a half for fun.

Whatever Works: Grade F

F

Whatever Works (2009)

Larry David, Evan Rachel Wood, Patricia Clarkson, Ed Begely Jr.; Writer-Director Woody Allen.

And whatever does not work should not be foisted off. This movie is close to completely unwatchable, that’s how painfully bad it is, and that is remarkable for a long-time Woody Allen fan to say. An elderly New York misanthrope (David) rants without mercy about how he is a misunderstood genius but the rest of humanity is scum. This might have been funny in high school, but for an adult movie it is extremely lame.

David’s performance is amazingly stiff and you can actually see him glance at the script on occasion. All the actors chronically suffer from having their mouths too full of words to deliver any meaningful lines. Patricia Clarkson is by far the strongest, although Wood does as well as she can with a miserable role.

The overarching theme of the film is that one should not be constrained by society’s traditional ideas of what a “normal” relationship is. Old guys and young foxes are ok (David-Wood), homosexuality is fine, and if ménage a trois works for you then go for it. This is not exactly a mind-bending concept. The movie does not even bother to showcase Manhattan as so many other Woody Allen movies have. Allen “breaks the fourth wall” as they say, by having David address the camera and the audience directly, and in the beginning, even gives a longish soliloquy in second person voice, an impressive writer’s tour de force. But alas, even that speech is stultifying in its banality. High schoolers and younger might find something to like in this movie, but to any normal adult, I am sorry to report it is a disaster.

Old Boy: Grade B

B
Old Boy (2003)
Min-sik Choi, Hye-jeong Kang, Ji-tae Yu; Director Chan-wook Park. (Korean, subtitled)

A middle aged man (Choi) is imprisoned in a windowless hotel room and he does not know why. Food appears under the door, and each day the room is filled with gas that puts him to sleep while the staff cleans the room. Predictably, he goes nuts, but he recovers (more or less) upon release without explanation or context after fifteen years.

He meets a sympathetic waitress (Kang) and develops a relationship with her, but he is consumed by desire to know what happened and for revenge on his captor (Yu), who he discovers through careful research. There are many twists and turns and a surprising ending.

The film is beautifully photographed, well directed, and the music is outstanding. The picture is extremely stylish and good-looking. It is also drenched in blood. Tartan Films (Tarantino’s outfit) “presents” the movie, so you should know what to expect. I just fast forwarded past the most violent scenes.

Acting is outstanding by Choi and Kang and it is fun to get a glimpse into Korean culture. A sense of modern, urban, existential alienation comes through although the ultimate theme of the story is fairly pedestrian, not as shocking to an American audience as the actors’ reactions suggest. I recommend it on the basis of excellent filmmaking.

Not Quite Hollywood: Grade C

C
Not Quite Hollywood (2008)
Writer-Director Mark Hartley.

This is a documentary of Australian action and horror films of the 1970’s and 1980’s, few of which are known to a wide audience. Mel Gibson’s Mad Max is probably the best known example. They featured buckets of blood, naked breasts, and above all, high speed land and sea vehicles that ultimately explode.

Dozens of films are briefly reviewed with short clips and commentaries from the actors who appeared in them, their producers and directors, film critics, and Quentin Tarantino, who presents himself as some kind of an expert on the genre and who seems to want to elevate it to the level of the Spaghetti Western.

The films are interesting, especially in the first hour, but Tarantino’s comments are inane and obnoxious, telling us over and over how great these films were and how much he loves them. That is just not informative or helpful. However, the comments of the aging actors who appeared in them are often insightful. They include a few well-known actors such as Dennis Hopper, Jamie Lee Curtis, and George Lazenby, but mostly are unknown (to me) Aussies.

There are some worthwhile insights about the development of the Australian movie industry in general. After about an hour though, the whole project becomes repetitive and boring. How many exploding cars can you watch? It becomes apparent why the genre never transcended its roots.

American Violet: Grade C

C
American Violet (2008)
Nicole Beharie, Alfre Woodard, Will Patton; Director Tim Disney.

A young African-American single mother (Beharie) with four kids is wrongfully arrested on drug charges in a small town in Texas. The police “drug task force” had her name on a list of pushers provided by a mentally incompetent informant under duress. She is offered 6 years as a plea bargain, against 25 years if adjudicated guilty. The local DA is the stereotypical racist “lock ‘em up” bastard. The ACLU intervenes and persuades the mother to sue the DA for racism, an almost impossible charge to prove.

Based on a true story, the movie highlights many legal problems, not just in Texas but all over the country: racial profiling, disproportionate numbers of blacks in prison, use of dubious police informants, the problems inherent in the plea bargaining system, and of course, racist DA’s. These are all important issues, so the movie gets points for didacticism. Acting is strong, particularly by newcomer Beharie and by a sensitively played ACLU local counsel, Patton. Directing is undistinguished, cinematography is television cliché, and so is the writing. The pace is far too slow to sustain what little legal tension there is in the script. It will do fine on TV.

The Brothers Bloom: Grade C

C
The Brothers Bloom
Adrian Brody, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel Weisz, Rinko Kikuchi; Writer-Director Rian Johnson.

Brody and Ruffalo are brothers and con men in New Jersey. Brody wants out, but Ruffalo talks him into one last job, a complex hustle of a rich heiress (Weisz) that takes the trio to Paris, Prague (if I recall), someplace in Mexico, and other places. The McGuffin is a rare medieval book worth millions. Predictably, Brody falls in love with the mark and the job goes bad. Or does it? Maybe that was all part of the con. Maybe Brody is being played by Ruffalo. Or maybe Weisz is actually not the mark but is in on the con. By the end of the movie it is impossible to tell what is real and what is the con, which is how Brody’s character feels. So I guess that is tricky. What put me off though (besides Brody’s excruciatingly stiff acting), is the wacky screenwriting. Why was it necessary to have Weisz’s character demonstrate that she could juggle chain saws while riding a unicycle? Is that funny? It has nothing to do with anything. There are many such campy, tongue in cheek scenes that don’t make any sense and disrupt the story. Maybe I’m too old to understand the humor. Ruffalo gives a good performance, and Weisz is beautiful. Locations are attractive, but overall, the story was lacking in tension, not believable, and unnecessarily complex. Characters were less than two-dimensional, if that is possible. They were actually caricatures of characters. The movie is worth a mindless kill of two hours if your expectations are low.

Crossing Over: Grade C

C
Crossing Over (2009)
Harrison Ford, Ashley Judd, Ray Liotta, Jim Sturgess, Alice Shepard; Writer-Director Wayne Kramer.

Good plotting saves this familiar story of illegal immigrants trying to make a life in southern California. We’ve seen it all before: the immigrants are hard-working family people, but the nasty ICE keeps snooping around, deporting people, separating mothers from children, breaking up families, ruining lives, etc., etc. This edition of the story has a few variations that make it better than a mere rehash. Liotta is a crooked immigration bureaucrat who exchanges sex with a cute Aussie illegal (Shepard) for a green card; Ford is a way-past-retirement street officer who takes the trouble to return the child of a deported mom to the grandparents in Tijuana, and he also manages to solve a murder case involving an illegal muslim family. The film tries to represent the immigration authorities sympathetically. They are not uncaring bigots but sensitive officials and ordinary human beings just doing their jobs. It also tries to air brush the fact that the vast majority of immigrants to the US are Mexican. It does this by presenting a (non-random) “sample” of immigration stories including an Israeli, an Aussie, a Kenyan, a Korean family, and several Iranians, along with one Mexican family. However, Mexican immigrants constitute about 25% of all immigrants, while the next closest ethnic group is Chinese, at 5%. Why the film would attempt to distort these facts is unknown. Perhaps it was simply to introduce variety for entertainment value, but the political agenda of the movie suggests otherwise. Overall then, the film is mildly interesting with a bland but confused political message, some familiar actors but only mediocre acting and directing, and stereotypical characters. However clever mini-plots keep you just connected enough for its two-hour anthology of cases to be shown.

The Merry Gentleman: Grade C

C
The Merry Gentleman (2008)
Michael Keaton, Kelly MacDonald, Tom Bastounes. Director Michael Keaton

Keaton is a Chicago hit man who chances to meet a young woman (MacDonald) who is hiding from an abusive husband. They develop a tenuous relationship that grows into friendship, although neither knows the other’s secret until a detective (Batounes) investigating one of the murders starts sniffing around. He questions the woman, who got a glimpse of the perp escaping and decides to ask her out, but he is coarse while she is polite and proper so they don’t hit it off. However, he finds out she is seeing Keaton and as much out of jealousy as professional duty, tails him for a while until his police instincts make him suspicious. He conveys his suspicions to the woman, who then becomes suspicious also. The end.

A movie can get away without a plot as long as the character studies are compelling, but in this case, we learn nothing about the characters, who are all stereotypes. The hit man shoots people, but we don’t see him in any context or have a clue about his motivation or background. Except for the fact that he is a cold blooded killer, he seems like a nice guy, albeit with a depressive streak. The woman has an extremely cute working class Scottish accent, but otherwise is a cipher. The hard-bitten detective is the best motivated character but that’s not saying much. So without plot, without character, what do you have? Some very good acting. Keaton especially gives a knockout performance, possibly his best ever. His supreme confidence nails the role. MacDonald is a rising star, for good reason, and newcomer Bastounes reminds me of Joe Mantegna. So this picture is worth seeing for the excellent acting and to see Keaton's very respectable debut as a director.

Savage Grace: Grade C

C
Savage Grace (2007)
Julianne Moore, Stephen Dillane, Barney Clark, Eddie Redmayne; Director Tom Kalin.

If you like sumptuous costumes and sets, this docudrama is for you. The story spans 1946 to 1972, following the wife of an infinitely wealthy European (Brook Baekeland, heir of the inventor of Bakelite, an early form of plastic). Moore is the wife and she swoops around Europe in stunning outfits, visiting stunning villas and stunning restaurants, all lovingly photographed. It is a feast for the eyes.

Moore gives a riveting performance as the wealthy, foul-mouthed, gold-digger wife who married for money and cares nothing for her husband but dotes on her son (Clark and Redmayne). There is no plot. She and her son just appear in various places around Europe acting rich and fabulous, but as they do, we become aware that the relationship between mother and son is disturbingly more than just close, and that she is mentally unstable. In the end, we learn that the son is mentally incompetent too, although there was little forewarning of that fact, a weakness in the narrative. There is no throughput to the narrative however; it is just scene after unconnected scene until the tragic end. Characters are “based on” actual people, but we do not see any psychological development over the 25 year period, so there is nothing there. The residual is Moore’s excellent acting and the stunning photography of the costumes and sets, which is enough to make you sit and enjoy the whole thing.

The Escapist: Grade B

B
The Escapist (2008)
Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes, Damien Lewis, Seu Jorge, Liam Cunningham; Co-writer and director Rupert Wyatt.

It’s definitely “a guy thing” and maybe just a married guy fantasy, but I love prison escape movies, and this low budget drama is one of the best ever. Brian Cox heads the team of lifers who breaks out of a prison somewhere in Britain. The sense of place and time are deliberately foggy perhaps because they are lifers, and you can focus on the characters. On display are the prerequisite whispering plan in the cafeteria, bareknuckle fistfights, and plenty of digging, of course. There are long journeys through pipes, sewers (why is it always the sewers?) and subway tunnels. But these features simply define the genre. What the film is really about is the inner character of Frank Perry (Cox), and how that is expressed in his fine acting. Cox has been around forever, playing secondary roles since the 1960’s but he only came to my attention in 2004 when he stood out in The Bourne Supremacy as the only person who could act. This is his first starring role and it is well-deserved. Supporting performances are all very strong, a tribute to the director. Photography is excellent and the music, featuring cellos and other strings, is extremely good (although far too loud: three times the level of the dialog, according to my on-screen indicator). Actually, there is not much dialog in the whole movie. It is a visual story, which I like. Admittedly this film is not great art, but for its genre, it is sure to be a classic.

The Inheritance: Grade A

A
The Inheritance (2003)
Ulrich Thomsen, Lisa Werlinder; Co-writer and director Per Fly (Swedish and French, subtitled)

Christoffer (Thomsen) is the son of a wealthy steel tycoon in Sweden. He has left the family firm to pursue his dream of building a restaurant business in Stockholm. He has the support and love of his actor-girlfriend Maria (Werlinder). But when his father dies, his mother urges him to take the lead at the steel company, as a crucial merger with a French firm is in the works. The mother insists that the younger brother, Ulric, is not competent to lead. Against his better judgment, and against the wishes of Maria, Christoffer takes the helm. He quickly finds that the company is in dire straits and that severe action is needed, like massive layoffs. He is required to become cold-blooded, which he does, but Maria leaves him. It’s the story of the human cost of modern capitalism.

The internal structure of the story has much in common with The Godfather, I thought, including the betrayal by the younger brother, the “whacking” of close associates, and so forth. (No actual whacking. This is a character study, not a mobster tale, but many of the moves are similar). Christoffer’s ambitious mother takes the Vito Corleone role, while Werlinder plays Diane Keaton’s part. Not to make too much of that analogy, because this is a completely different film, but the family dynamics are just as dramatic. Acting is uniformly strong, sets are excellent, directing is deft (although a little slow for my preference), and photography is compelling. Plus, as a bonus, it makes you think. How much is business success worth? Your whole life? Maybe so, if you have nothing else going for you.

The Future of Food (2004): Grade C

C
The Future of Food (2004)
Writer-Director Deborah Koons.

This obviously heartfelt documentary shows how large agricultural companies like Monsanto are force-feeding unlabelled, genetically modified food down our throats. They create special seeds through genetic engineering, patent them, then sue the socks off of any farmer who has any crops with their genetic signature, no matter if those seeds came onto the farm in the wind or by bird droppings. The agribusinesses own the farmer’s crops and it is against the law for the farmers to re-plant their own seeds once their fields are contaminated with GMO seeds. The film also documents government collusion in this takeover of American farming by giant seed and chemical companies, by stacking executive agencies like the EPA and the judiciary with “business-friendly” leaders. This sad story is well-told, but it is not a new story. Shows like this have been on TV for a long time (PBS at least). There is little or no new information here. The film is well-photographed, with good production values, but like a PBS-NOVA presentation, which it emulates, the material quickly becomes repetitive and boring. A feeble call to action is presented at the end: eat organic and buy local. Would that help? Maybe if you are rich. Organic produce usually costs at least double and often is of inferior quality. Maybe it is worth it though, to prevent Monsanto from taking over the world. But this documentary never does gen up a really rallying cry. It is strictly an “ain’t it awful?” presentation. Yeah, it’s awful, tragically awful, but Americans don’t seem to care. Maybe more call to action would have leavened the heavy fact-based presentation to better effect.

The Return: Grade B

B
The Return (2003)
Vladimir Garin, Ivan Dobronravov, Konstantin Lavronenko; Director Andrei Zvyagintsev (Russian, subtitled)

In this lyrical visual poem, two teenage boys (Garin and Dobronravov) must come to terms with their taciturn father (Lavronenko) who appears unexpectedly after a twelve year absence. They know him only from a single picture their mother kept. The father (who has no name in the movie) takes them on a road trip to a remote seashore, and then in a small dingy to a mysterious island some distance out. All the while the boys talk about the father, argue about him, wonder. He treats them very sternly but also with respect. There is no plot. Oddly, there is a quasi-McGuffin, a buried treasure the father digs up on the island, but we never learn what is in the box or why he wants it, even though it apparently is what motivated the journey. We never learn why the father was absent or where he has been. The story is all about the relationships among the three, and it explores them masterfully. It’s a quiet movie, mostly visual, with little dialog and very little music. The cinematography is thoughtful and beautiful. There is always a palpable sense of mystery, even foreboding, even though ultimately nothing happens. Objectively, the pace is extremely slow since there is no story deveopment, but in fact I was totally engaged for the whole ninety minutes with the visuals, the extremely fine minimalist acting, and the emotional tension. The movie has that mysterious and unforgettable sense of time, place and character, such as in Le Chateau de ma Mere (1990).

Waltz With Bashir: Grade B

B
Waltz With Bashir (2008)
Ron Ben-Yishai, Ronny Dayag, Ari Folman (voices); Writer and Director Ari Folman.

This hand-drawn animated documentary is stunningly beautiful. The sets and characters are drawn with such care that it is sometimes worthwhile to stop the DVD and examine details in the background. Colors are mesmerizing. Motion animation is only perfunctory, so the feel is that of a graphic novel, not a Dreamworks project. The illustrations are there to help the documentary along, not to create a whole alternate world.

And the story is tough. It is about Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in the early 80’s, the horrors of war, and ultimately about a massacre of civilians committed by the Israelis. The main character is a soldier who allegedly does not remember what he did in the war, so he goes around interviewing his old war buddies and gradually his memory comes back. This is a neat device for telling the story and allegorically, it also reflects the psychological and emotional conflict this story presents to modern Israelis, who do not want to admit that they committed such a massacre. It is apparently a very sensitive, political topic even today, and this film presents a radical breakthrough in public discourse in that respect. An animation also lets an Israeli audience maintain some emotional distance from reality even as they learn what happened.

The story is very sympathetic to the Israeli soldiers, not necessarily justifying the killing or the war, but it is from their point of view, showing how they were just ordinary soldiers suffering the privations and confusion of being in battle, not monsters, not killing machines, not committers of war crimes. The actual massacre is only touched upon lightly at the end, as if it were too “hot” even for this movie. So I don’t think it is as brave a picture as it pretends to be, but I am not Israeli and not a historian. Politics aside, just as an appreciator of film, I’d say it is engaging, a good-looking piece of work, worth seeing.

The Man Who Came Back: Grade F

F
The Man Who Came Back (2008)
Eric Braeden, James Patrick Stuart, George Kennedy, Armand Assante; Co-writer and Director Glen Pitre.

I don’t normally take the trouble to review movies that I don’t feel have anything to offer, but this one fails in so many interesting ways that it might be worth talking about. In the 1860’s right after the Civil War a plantation supervisor (Braeden) speaks to the plantation boss (Kennedy) about how his arrogant son (Stuart) apparently has not received the memo that the slaves are free, and has been treating them cruelly. The boss fires the super on the spot for being an abject nigger lover and puts the arrogant son in charge instead.

In fact, the old cowboy is then accused of killing one of the black men in a sort of Crossbow Incident scene. The accusation is a fabrication, but everybody backs up the evil boss and his son. To make things about as mean as they could be, the evil son cages the super and makes him watch as he and his men rape his wife and throw his young boy down a well. That would make anybody mad, for sure. The old cowboy escapes from territorial prison, after several direct visual quotations from Cool Hand Luke, and goes back to town for revenge, killing at least half a dozen of the ordinary townsfolk who falsely spoke against him and of course the plantation owner and his son.

I love a revenge story and I enjoy a good western so I had hoped this would be along the lines of the terrific Steve McQueen film, Nevada Smith (1966). And maybe it is vaguely like that in structure, but there is no drama here. The lead cowboy, Braeden, has only one look, a stoneface gaze with head tipped down, eyes staring from under furrowed brow. It’s a good look, but it’s his only one. Also he rides a horse well, I’ll give him that. Despite being in his 60’s the character can absorb a severe beating without consequence and punch out a man half his age, not too believably however.

Kennedy gives an admirable performance with the stereotype part he has, but that’s not enough to hold up the whole picture. Assante has the perfect look of a sonofabitch cowboy, almost like Lee Van Cleef, but without the acting ability.

It takes an hour to get to the revenge part of the story but the prelude is so over the top it is ridiculous. A ten minute scene would have motivated the revenge. In the last half, Braeden casually walks up to each citizen and kills him. He is not tricky or stealthy. There is no tension, no hunt, no mystery. He doesn’t give a speech, the victims don’t plead. The townspeople seem disinterested. It’s just boring. Wow. How could a story like that be boring? That is aggressively bad writing and worse directing.

The costumes are ludicrous. All are spotless, new, perfectly stitched, pressed and starched, a stupid error, but also they are very fancy fine clothes, with many topcoats in identical shades of implausible purple. How could something like that happen? Was nobody in charge? Props are shiny museum pieces. Anachronisms abound. Slaves speak modern English. Buildings are built with modern lumber. The whore has tons of modern makeup, professional hair color and lingerie from Victoria’s Secret. Was this supposed to be a historical drama or not? The visuals are unimaginative, grainy, set-bound, and give no sense of time and place. Sound is muddy.

Oh well, that’s enough. There is nothing good about the movie, but oddly, it seems like it was a sincere attempt. I wonder how a movie like this gets made.

Adam Resurrected: Grade A

A
Adam Resurrected (2008)
Jeff Goldblum, Willem Dafoe, Ayelet Zurer; Director Paul Schrader.

Is it better to accept an unjust death with dignity or at least defiance, or would you completely humiliate yourself to purchase continued life? That is the dilemma faced by Adam (Goldblum), a Jew from Berlin during World War II. The psychopathic Nazi commandant (Dafoe) allows Adam to survive and maybe his wife and daughter too, if he agrees to live like a dog, literally, on all fours, barking, eating from the floor, sleeping outside in the cage with the dogs. A more abject degradation can hardly be imagined. It is a compact metaphor for the subhuman status of the concentration camp inmates, without cataloging yet again the individual horrors they suffered.

Prior to the war, Adam was a famous vaudevillian and stage magician, and even in captivity he can force a funny face or play a tune on the violin to amuse the commandant. After the war, in Tel Aviv, he is a patient in a psychiatric institute for holocaust survivors. He uses sharp wit, clever remarks, practical jokes, and alcohol to avoid engagement with his therapist and as defense against his mental dislocation. The movie effectively intercuts his postwar struggle with his wartime experiences (in black and white), to tell this psychological story.

Goldblum’s acting is phenomenal, way beyond his usual mad scientist role. Photography is excellent, especially the sepia-toned scenes. The rich story raises questions about life, fate, God, grief and loss, human nature, and the accidents of history. When I was young there were lots of Holocaust survivors about but I was only dimly aware of them and had little feeling for their experience. Now they are virtually all gone and the Holocaust story is becoming social mythology and historical symbology. This movie reconnects us with a personal story.

On the down side, the start is slow, and directing is crude and obvious throughout, pitched for melodrama rather than drama. Adam swans about the hospital cracking jokes, spouting Yiddish phrases; making lame allusions to the Nazis. It is a poor introduction to the character, not amusing or believable. Other patients and the hospital staff are two-dimensional. Ridiculous German accents persist, but we overcome all that and finally connect with Adam. The implausible introduction of a feral child adds symbolic interest to the story but comes out of left field. The recurring element of magical realism is distracting. Though the directing is big and heavy, there are some moving moments. Despite these flaws, the multi-layered story and great performance by Goldblum make the movie worth seeing.

Sunshine Cleaning: Grade C

C
Sunshine Cleaning (2008)
Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Alan Arkin; Director Christine Jeffs.

Adams is a single mom working as a housecleaner in Albuquerque. She realizes it’s a dead-end job so she cajoles her sister (Blunt) to start a waste removal cleaning service with her, cleaning up blood and guts after crime scenes, suicides, etc. There are plenty of gross-out scenes as the ladies deal with all manner of body fluids and filth, but the main theme is the drama of Adams trying to better her station in life by doing “whatever it takes” to make good.

The best scene is when she goes to a baby shower for an old high school acquaintance and hopes to appear successful and respectable to the snooty middle-class women there. It is a tribute to the director who pulled that performance out of Adams. Lord knows how many takes it involved; the editing is not seamless. The scene stands out head and shoulders above all others in the movie, the way Virginia Madsen stood out in Sideways(2004) when she explained Pinot Noir. Adams definitely demonstrates her acting chops in this movie.

But beyond that sterling performance, there is little going for this picture. It is moderately funny in places, mildly interesting, slightly charming. Blunt and Arkin turn in good performances. But the story goes nowhere. Two girls start a company, ta-da. Nor is there any character development. So the movie adds up to zero, but Adams is the reason to take a look at it.

Sleep Dealer: Grade A

A
Sleep Dealer ( 2008 )
Luis Fernando Peña, Leonor Varela, Jacob Vargas; Co-writer and Director Alex Rivera. (Mostly Spanish, subtitled).

This low-budget, sci-fi indie gets an A for its genre, but like nearly all sci-fi movies, it is more fascinated with its technology than with human drama, so allowances must be made.

In a near-future North America, Mexican laborers “telecommute” to the U.S. by plugging their nervous systems into computers so they can remotely operate robots across the border that pick fruit, perform welding and yard work. As the manager of a telecommuting center in Tijuana notes, it gives America its foreign labor without the foreigners. The main theme is technological imperialism and human exploitation, ostensibly under the guise of anti-terrorist vigilance.

Memo, a young Mexican in Oaxaca (Pena), built his own HAM radio and while surfing picks up a police channel. He overhears police chasing then killing some offender. In his own neighborhood, drone aircraft patrol the private dam that has blocked his village’s river and ruined his father’s small farm. The drones are operated remotely by pilots in San Diego. When the San Diego corporation detects that they have been overheard by a HAM operator, they order a strike, and Memo’s family home is blown up, his father killed. The incident is reported on TV and hailed as a victory in the ongoing fight against terrorism.

Memo leaves for Tijuana to earn money for his now destitute family. He finds work as a telecommuter, operating remote construction robots in California. He must have “nodes” installed on his body to interface to the computer, and an attractive young woman (Varela) installs them for him, and they develop a relationship. The details of how Memo plugs into the computer are visually fascinating, reminiscent of scenes from Brazil (1985) and Blade Runner (1982), as well as William Gibson’s classic novel, Neuromancer. We, and Memo, discover however that “jacking in” to the computer eventually destroys your nervous system and makes you blind, so the human exploitation embodied by the system is total.

The romantic story with the girl develops in an interesting way, and so does an unlikely relationship between Memo and the pilot who killed his father (Vargas). The ending is predictable and unimaginative, but plausible and Hollywood Happy.

It is an extremely well-made film, especially considering its budget; beautifully photographed, intellectually stimulating, and dramatically interesting. I especially appreciated creative camera work, shots using mirrors, and so on. The main disappointment is the lack of an overall message. The important political and economic themes of the movie are not dealt with. Those issues are raised, shown, but abandoned. Perhaps that is the film’s message: heartless capitalistic exploitation will continue and nothing can change it.

Gomorrah: Grade B

B
Gomorrah (2008)
Salvatore Cantalupo, Salvatore Abruzzese, others; Director Matteo Garrone. (Italian, subtitled).

The movie documents some activities of the Camorra, the crime syndicate of Naples. The American spelling of the title is arbitrary.

The camera stays mostly close up on various characters as they extort money, trade guns and drugs, commit murders, make dirty deals, and intimidate people. A postscript emphasizes that these are genuine activities of the Camorra, which is a plague on southern Italy.

The narrative skips among three threads: two airhead young men who want to be gangsters find a cache of weapons and embark on an “independent” life of crime, which is not tolerated by the mob; a high fashion tailor sells trade secrets to a competing Chinese couture house, a move the mob does not appreciate; and a group of mobsters provide a discount hazardous waste disposal service, but they just bury the stuff illegally at night.

The movie is confusing. You can vaguely discern the outlines of the three threads, but they don’t intersect and lack internal structure. None has much dramatic tension or character motivation. Unidentified people are killed for vague reasons not established. There is no unfolding drama as in The Godfather or Goodfellas. Rather, daily murder and mayhem are as mundane as going in to the office every morning. Ignorance, decay, poverty, and egocentricity are palpable and stifling. Acting and directing are so good it doesn’t seem like acting and directing. You feel you are watching a verite documentary.

There is a keen feel of reality, as if you had been inserted into Camorra operations without a clue. You would be confused and disoriented, horrified and frightened. The close camera gives that sense of presence. Sometimes I thought I was a mosquito about to buzz into someone’s ear. Even long shots are framed by a close-up detail like a window frame so you always know where you are located in the scene. The camera did not seem to be hand held, although it moved around anthropomorphically. The sense of presence given by the camera was something I had not experienced before. You could almost smell the body odor of the characters.

What makes this movie worth watching is the extremely fine cinematography. I was enraptured for the entire 90 minutes by the pictures, even though I had little idea what was going on. Every shot was stunning in color, composition, and point of view. You could turn the sound off and enjoy this movie. I have rarely seen such a confident camera. To fill the frame with a close profile and watch a man smoke a cigarette takes guts. You have to truly believe it is an excellent shot to spend a full 15 seconds on it. And in this film, there were a lot of courageous shots and they were all excellent. I often paused the DVD to take a longer look.

The movie is “presented by” Martin Scorsese. I’m not sure what that means, but his imprimatur is not wasted on this cinematography.

Tyson: Grade D

D
Tyson (2008)
Mike Tyson; Writer-Director James Toback.

This documentary biography of boxing champion Mike Tyson is mildly interesting. Head shots of him (now in his 40’s and retired) talking about his life are interspersed with archival clips from his life, mostly from the ring, but also of weddings, press conferences, and so on.

He had a remarkable life, rising from poor, neglected street kid in Brooklyn to a multi-millionaire, international sports figure. Along the way he served prison time for rape, and famously, bit off part of the ear of one of his heavyweight opponents during a match. But no topic is pursued in detail. There is no interviewer and no hard questions are posed. Tyson simply rambles on in self-exculpatory fashion. He does reveal himself, perhaps more than he intended, as an angry and depressed, uneducated, under-socialized criminal, irresponsible and financially incompetent; a rapist and a drug addict (all this by his own admission except the rape charge, which he denies without detail). How interesting can a psychopath like that be? His moments of self-reflection produce banal conclusions. He seems not capable of providing insight into his, or any life. For crucial incidents (such as the ear-biting), he simply denies personal responsibility (“I just blacked out momentarily”). Maybe that’s so, but it illuminates nothing. The result is a superficial exercise in self-aggrandizement, of value only for dedicated fans.