Winter's Bone: Grade A

A

Winter’s Bone (2010)

Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes, Garrett Dillahunt; Co-writer and Director Debra Granik.

This is a dark, depressing story of a seventeen-year-old woman (Lawrence) living in abject poverty in the Ozarks. Her mother is mentally ill, on meds, so the girl tries to raise her two young siblings.

The father has been arrested on a drugs charge. The sheriff (Dillahunt) tells her the father put the property up to make bail, and if he doesn’t appear in court next week, they will lose the house. She vows to find him before that happens, but everywhere she goes, hostile neighbors and relatives tell her to butt out.

Her scrawny, coke-snorting older brother (Hawkes) reluctantly investigates and reports that their father is dead. But unless she can produce the body, there is no proof and the house will be lost anyway. She asks everyone, but only succeeds in getting herself beat up.

Acting is very strong by these unknown (to me) players, and the movie is well-made and well-directed. The basic story line is not tremendously compelling (save the farm), but that weakness is more than compensated by the strong sense of place.

Scenery, sets, and costumes are on pitch, and we feel the cold dirt, the grime, the hunger, poverty, ignorance, and hopelessness of the people. Actually the sets are overdone. In their zeal to project squalor, the set designers overexaggerated. Unpainted wooden houses are in ill-repair, outbuildings are in ruins, roofs collapsing, mildew covering the walls. The winter trees are bare, the ground is frozen, the air is blue, and every house has a rubbish fire burning in a steel barrel, sending dirty smoke onto pathetically worn clothing hanging on a line. Every house has empty or partly empty five-gallon plastic buckets lying around multiple derelict vehicles.

It is all too much. These cliches are interesting at first, but strain credulity with repetition. Grungy costumes have the same effect: they’re good, but relentless.

But these are minor flaws. Despite the weak and slow-paced story, strong acting and interesting visuals make this movie linger in your mind for days.

The Girl Who Played With Fire: Grade C

C

The Girl Who Played Who Played With Fire (2009)

Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyqvist , Lena Endre; Director Daniel Alfredson. (Swedish, subtitled).

Rapace still has her dragon tattoo in this cinematic installment of the wildly popular Stieg Larsson series of novels. She is Lisbeth, a young gothic woman recently released from a mental institution, where she was held for setting her father on fire. Lisbeth is wealthy, living off a trust fund, and she is an expert computer hacker. And oh, yeah, a master kick boxer too. She seems to be on the lam in Stockholm, doing what, we do not know.

But the story begins elsewhere, when Nyqvist, a reporter and publisher, is about to expose a government sex scandal. His informants are murdered and Lisbeths’ fingerprints are on the murder weapon. Suddenly she is hunted by the police (which she learns about by seeing a poster tacked to a phone pole. Maybe that’s what they do in Sweden). Nyqvist does not believe she did it, because of his relationship with her going back to Dragon Tattoo, but I can’t remember what that was. So the race is on: can he find and exonerate Lisbeth before the police get to her? (Yes, of course).

The character of Lisbeth is much stronger than the acting by Rapace, but she fills the role adequately with her chain smoking, furrowed brows, and multiple nose rings. Not much else, though. None of the acting is strong in this movie. The plot is always on the verge of confusion, but can be followed. Lisbeth doesn’t actually play with fire, and the shot on the DVD cover does not occur in the movie. That must be a trait that was in the book (which I haven’t read) that did not make it to the film.

Characters are cartoony, not realistically motivated, but you kind of expect that in a thriller. Scenery, sets, and costumes are excellent. It’s nice to see several views of Stockholm, a gem of a city I have visited only once. You see the stunning beauty of the area around the old town, but also some of the gritty neighborhoods. The directing / cinematography has the deadening syntax of television. The pace is slow, as most European movies are for Americans. If you edited out all shots of people getting in and out of motor vehicles and driving them around, the movie would be shorter by 10 minutes. Cut all shots of people walking on sidewalks, down hallways and across fields, and you have saved another 5 minutes. Save 10 more minutes by cutting out shots of people staring into computer screens and watching data scroll past. In the end, I didn’t care about the story or the characters, but overall, the film was mildly interesting and easy to look at.

Awake: Grade C

C

Awake (2007)

Hayden Christensen, Jessica Alba, Terence Howard, Lena Olin. Writer-Director Joby Harold.

Christensen is a young business tycoon with an international, multi-billion dollar empire, but a defective heart. He needs a heart transplant. While he waits for a donor, he falls in love with the domestic help, his mother’s secretary (Alba). Mom (Olin) does not approve, but what can you do. The donor heart comes through and the young tycoon (way too young to be even close to believable in that role) goes under the knife of transplant surgeon Howard, the only one in this movie who is a good actor. For reasons unknown and unexplained, the patient experiences a rare (actually disputed) condition called anaesthetic awareness, in which his body is immobilized but he retains full consciousness during surgery. He hears everything that is said in the operating room, much to his own surprise and panic. What he hears is a plot against his life. Improbably, he is saved at the last minute and the bad guys get their due.

Reported cases of anaesthetic awareness are rare in the medical literature, mostly anecdotal and not well documented, and strongly denied by both anaesthesiologists I happen to know. In the most credible reports, patients have post-surgery memory of snippets of conversation, from which we can deduce they were, at least partially, awake. Full waking consciousness during anaesthesia has never been documented, to my knowledge. That the patient could do crime-solving problem-analysis under anaesthesia is not believable. Other facts depicted, such as the idea that the patient feels pain or might cry, are virtually impossible. But hey, it’s a movie.

The crime story is just barely believable but it hangs together better than the central biological premise. What makes the movie worth watching is that it is well made. The open heart shots are very good, very realistic. When the patient is supposed to be awake, we see him walking, running, and hovering around the hospital corridors like a ghost, trying, in vain of course, to convince other players to save him. That was a creative approach. Alba does a reasonable acting job, but I couldn’t stop wondering about all the cosmetic surgery she has obviously had, at such a young age. Hollywood is extremely harsh on women. Unfortunately, Christensen, playing the main character, was the weakest actor. Music was inoffensive, editing notably good, directing competent. Worth watching on DVD or on TV.

Women in Trouble: Grade C

C

Women in Trouble (2009)

Carla Gugino, Adrianne Palicki, other relative unknowns; Writer-director Sebastian Gutierrez.

Ten women in LA are chronicled for one day. Some of them know each other, some lives intersect spontaneously, but there is no organic narrative connection among most of them, only the movie itself. So this actually boils down to six or eight vignettes, ruthlessly intercut. All these women are obsessed with sex and speak of little else. Two are hookers, two pornographers, two adulterers, one masseuse, and so on. These women talk about cocks, pussies, oral sex, anal sex, and just about every imaginable body function and body fluid.

Nothing much of interest happens however. One woman learns she is pregnant. One learns her husband is cheating, two are stuck together in an elevator for a couple of hours, and so on. The women spend an incredible amount of time prancing around in their underwear, but there is no nudity in the film, and no sex. A few men appear in the film for brief supporting parts.

The dialog and the story are intended to be comedic, and mostly the movie is a comedy, except for the last 45 minutes when everything inexplicably goes emotional, teary, sentimental and maudlin. As a comedy, the movie is pitched to an adolescent taste, not necessarily a bad thing, but this is all girl-talk, lots of reminiscing and telling, no action, and with no character development. For an adult male it is pretty lame, with some exceptions. There was just enough witty writing to keep me engaged, such as, “No I’ve never been to Canada, but I like the food.” There are not enough really funny lines or situations, which is a shame because the writer clearly has the capacity for a better grade of humor.

A serious problem is that all the women look more or less the same: light hair with dark roots, big lips, symmetrical face, strong chin, slim bodies, big boobs; white skin and large, perfect, too-white teeth, all speaking unaccented English with the same level of diction. There are minor variations, but basically they are cookie-cutter Hollywood actors, and with only a few exceptions, were difficult to tell apart. The only interesting casting was a teenage girl, the daughter of one of the women. Despite all their sameness however, they are very good actors, a fact that raises this film above drudge.

Leaves of Grass: Grade B

B

Leaves of Grass (2009)

Edward Norton, Keri Russell, Tim Blake Nelson, Richard Dreyfuss, Susan Sarandon. Writer-Director Tim Blake Nelson.

Edward Norton displays his remarkable talent by playing twin brothers, one a professor of philosophy at a Northern university, the other a pot-growing redneck in Oklahoma. The professor escaped his steamy southern hometown and his eccentric (if not crazy) brother and mother (Sarandon) years ago, and has made a name for himself, when he is tricked by a false report of his brother’s death into returning to “Daisyville” or whatever the town’s name was. But his brother is alive and wants the prof to show himself to the locals to provide an alibi while he, the pot-grower is in Tulsa dealing with a problematic drug lord (Dreyfuss). Needless to say, the plan does not go well and disaster ensues.

The story is not believable, and the characters unconvincing. For example, the redneck brother convinces the professor to suck on a bong, his first day there, and he agrees. Believable? Not to me. Likewise the prof agrees to the wacky impersonation scheme because, well, because I don’t know why. Then he falls in love, and who wouldn't, with an enigmatic teacher (Russell) because she quotes Walt Whitman. Then a random orthodontist suddenly turns sleuth, discovers the impersonation, and buys a gun to threaten the brothers, for reasons never made clear. Right: an orthodontist would do that. It’s just bad writing.

The dialog is stilted and unimaginative ( “I can’t believe I’m doing this”). There are some redeeming story virtues, such as having the two brothers use distinct vocabularies and grammatical constructions (and accents, too, of course). There are some really funny lines, though far too few, and all the performances are strong, despite the weak material.

Cinematography is traditional and unobtrusive. Music is twangy Okie tunes, presumably genuine, but they drove me up the wall, forcing emergency >>FF. Pacing is unreliable, with lots of sagging dead space, such as cars and trucks driving around (so the dreadful songs could play).

Despite these serious flaws, I recommend the movie just because Norton is so unbelievably good.

Solitary Man: Grade D

D

Solitary Man (2009)

Michael Douglas , Susan Sarandon, Danny Devito, Mary Louise Parker, Jenna Fischer; Writer and co-director Brian Koppleman.

Douglas is a former car dealer in New York who was apparently once super successful and wealthy from a chain of dealerships (this is all told to us as backstory) but he committed some unspecified fraud and spent everything he had staying out of jail. Now he is near destitute and tries to get a new start, but alas, he suffers from a narcissistic personality disorder that makes him obnoxious. He sleeps with women and girls of any (legal) age, although it is not credible that an 18 year old college student would agree to sleep with a 70 year old geezer, especially if he is her mother’s current boyfriend. Everyone rejects him on general sleazeball principles, even the bank, and he can’t get a restart. DeVito, an old college pal, gives him advice he ignores. He is irresponsible to his grandkids, and an all around, immature jerk. Supposedly we watch him degenerate into self-destruction but in fact, he is just plain unlikeable, and has a police record. He doesn’t do drugs or drink, gamble, or contemplate suicide. He’s just an ordinary baboon and it is difficult to feel sorry for him or to even be interested in him. At the end, he conveniently tells his ex-wife (Sarandon), that he is afraid to die and that is why he is a jerk. Right. That explains everything.

Granted, Douglas is a powerful screen presence, and Sarandon does more acting with one eyebrow than a dozen other people, but that’s not enough to redeem this dead weight of a movie. Directing is significantly terrible, with good actors just woodenly announcing their lines. Everything about the film is bland and familiar and uninteresting. The script is so incredibly boring, it stands as an example of what happens when a writer-director has too much control with no pushback. A lot of talent is wasted in this project.

The Good, The Bad, The Weird: Grade A

A

The Good, The Bad, The Weird (2008)

Kang-ho Song, Byung-hun Lee, Woo-sung Jung; Co-writer and Director Ji-woon Kim. (Korean, Japanese, and Chinese: subtitled).

This violent and bloody Korean action movie is also a comedy. There is an ancient treasure map that several parties want. There is no compelling evidence that it is a real treasure map, but it is the “McGuffin,” as Hitchcock would say, that motivates all the frenetic chasing about. Late in the movie, there is a hint at another layer of meaning when it is suggested that it is really a political map for use in organizing a rebellion against the Japanese invasion of Manchuria (the movie is set in the 1930s). However, the political theme was either not developed or was edited out, leaving only a violent, bloody, yet madcap comedy. A shame, that.

Nevertheless, the humor, mostly visual, is effective, from broad farce to subtle parody. The acting is hard to evaluate because the characters and the story line are so offbeat that there are few standards to judge against, but in general, I would say it is quite above average.

However, what makes this movie a real standout is the fantastic cinematography. The pictures are stunning, and in many cases I wondered how they even got them. The narrative descriptive shots are best, for example very long dolly shots through narrow, twisting alleys that seem impossible. The sets and scenes are exquisite, and only enhance the fine camera work. I thought the action shots were less good, on the whole, because they were done with hand-helds, so the camera is jerking all around and the action is blurry, and the shots are in very close and the editing is so short that you can’t see anything, so you come away with only a sense of “action” that is not satisfying. There were some martial arts acrobatics that tried to capture the wit and grace of Jackie Chan’s work but fell short. And there were some wonderful surrealistic action shots reminiscent of Batman or maybe Matrix. It does say "weird" in the title.

The stunt work in this movie was phenomenal. Characterization was extremely creative. I especially liked the Johnny Depp-like evil killer in a pressed white collar. Many shots and the music too, harkened back to the spaghetti westerns, as the title clearly acknowledges. In fact this movie’s overall mood and tone is reminiscent of another weird Asian ersatz spaghetti, Sukiyaki Western Django (2008) which had the Tarantino imprimateur.

The silly, disjointed story line and the absence of offsetting character development are serious flaws, but because of creativity and sheer enthusiasm, I have to give this movie an A.

Harry Brown: Grade C

C

Harry Brown (2009)

Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer. Director Daniel Barber.

This is a close remake of the Charles Bronson vigilante movie Death Wish (1974). Caine is a pensioner living in “the projects” in south London, where he and his chess playing buddy are constantly harassed by lawless, drug-dealing, youthful hooligans. When they kill the chess buddy, Caine goes on the rampage, hunting them down and killing them. The police become aware that they have a vigilante on the loose and gradually sniff out Caine. The investigator played by Mortimer is sure it his him, but nothing can be proved. In the end all hell breaks loose.

Acting by Caine is very good. He has always been one of my favorite B-grade stars. Mortimer is actually a better actor, but this is not much of a role for her. I like the vigilante theme, and Caine executes it with aplomb, but the directing is only so-so and the villains are so completely clichéd that it is humorous. Likewise the inept police. The first 10 minutes of the film dealing with the vigilante’s dead wife could be excised with no loss at all. When the predictable ending begins – the big gunfight and big explosions, the movie is basically over. So there is about one hour of good material in the middle that makes the film worth watching.

The Killer Inside Me: Grade B

B

The Killer Inside Me (2010)

Casey Affleck, Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson, Ned Beatty; Director Michael Winterbottom.

Casey Affleck is a revelation in this crime drama set in the 1950’s. His superb acting animates the main character, Lou, a psychopathic small town sheriff in the south, a well-worn cliché, to be sure, but he breathes life into it. The story gets off to a shaky start when he is ordered to run a prostitute (Alba) out of town, but decides to kill her instead, by beating her to death with his fists. (There is plenty of bloody brutality in the movie, especially directed toward women – another tired cliché we don’t need repeated). Why does he do that? There is some sketchy backstory about how a certain guy in town may or may not have facilitated the death of his brother years ago, in a construction incident that may or may not have been an accident. So when this other guy shows up at the prostitute’s place as arranged, Lou shoots him with her gun then places the gun in her hand, thus achieving revenge. But a detective from out of town is not satisfied with the evidence and relentlessly sniffs around until the predictable revelation and conflagration at the end.

So if this movie is just one predictable cliché after another, why give it such a positive rating? Acting is the main reason. It is riveting throughout, especially Affleck’s version of a calm, polite, friendly, cold-blooded psychopath. Directing is excellent. Sets and scenes are perfect. Cinematography is perfect. Costumes are perfect. The old cars are lovely. And the music is fantastic, mostly authentic period country, like Hank Williams, Carl Perkins, etc., but also with some very fine operatic interludes (Puccini, I think). This movie is so well constructed that you just have to give it a break and overlook the dreadful misogyny and clichéd story.

The Ghost Writer: Grade A

A

The Ghost Writer

Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Cattrall, Olivia Williams, Tom Wilkinson; Co-writer and Director Roman Polanski.

This is a well-made political thriller, as you would expect from a big name like Polanski, but it is the strong acting and cinematography that carry it. It is not an edge of your seat thriller and the dramatic tension is never very high.

McGregor does an amazing job portraying a ghost writer hired to re-write the memoir of a former British Prime Minister, who has a retreat on an island off Massachusetts. The ghost writer is the second to try, as the first was found dead in mysterious circumstances. McGregor plays the part of “the ghost” extremely well. His character has no family, no political ax to grind, no strong emotions, no strong motivation of any kind. Yet he has enough curiosity to dig in and uncover the truth about the ex-PM that explains why he acted like the U.S. president’s poodle during his tenure at Number 10.

The plot has more tension if you care about such recent politics. As written, it is hard to care about the story on its own merits. As it happens, I do care about politics so I found the story quite enjoyable, though not everyone would.

The acting is so good, though, and the sets and scenery are photographed so well, that my attention never flagged over the two hour film. Besides the lightweight plot, the only other serious flaw was the annoying music, unnecessary and twice as loud as the dialog, usually high pitched, repetitive violins designed to suggest high tension when there really wasn’t any. I would rather have listened to the rain pounding on the ground.

$5 A Day: Grade B

B

$5 A Day (2008)

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

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

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

A Prophet: Grade B

B

A Prophet (2009)

Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup, Hichem Yacoubi; Co-writer and Director Jacques Audiard. (French and Arabic; subtitled).

A young North African Arab (Rahim) is sent to prison in Marseilles, for what I can’t remember, and begins his prison career as a naïve innocent, subject to the brutality and racial gangs that are endemic. The Islamic gang is ineffective and unable to protect him but an older Corsican gangster (Arestrup) admires his strength and independence and offers Corsican protection if he will kill a troublesome foe in the prison. The youth agrees and becomes a sort of mascot to the Corsican gang.

As a model prisoner he is eventually let out for a day a week on a work-release parole, during which time he accomplishes various gangster tasks for the Corsican mobster, including drug trafficking and murder, but always, it seems, working first and foremost for himself. After nearly 2.5 hours (!), he has become the “Godfather” of all the gangs in Marseilles by the time his prison term is up.

The plot is a little too complicated at times to keep the players and their mutual grievances straight, but that’s not too important because they are just gangsters acting gangstery anyway. This is not Coppola’s Godfather as blurbed on the video box, where characters were well developed. These are not. But the acting is terrific by these non-professional actors and the viewer gets a palpable sense of gritty, violent, amoral prison society, an exotic and alien society that exists invisibly within our mainstream one. For all that, it is a worthwhile film.

The Killing Gene: Grade B

B

The Killing Gene (2007)

Stellan Skarsgård, Barbara Adair; Director Tom Shankland.

This British crime drama is violent, bloody, and brutal. There is torture, mutilation, rape, and lots of blood. I generally dislike gory violence and especially, torture, because it is almost invariably gratuitous – blood for the sake of blood. Pure sensationalism. But not in this film.

The idea is that a rape and mutilation victim who recovered and survived into adulthood wants revenge on the police detective and several others who failed to capture her tormentor. But the interesting thing about revenge is that it does not work. Let’s say you track down and kill the person who did you wrong. The perpetrator gets little or no satisfaction from that, and the victim of revenge typically feels anger but not remorse. Nobody is satisfied, nobody learns anything, and the project is a failure.

What if you just beat up and mutilate your tormenter? Same thing: It does not make you whole, and it is not a situation in which the tormenter has an inclination to remorse. Again it fails. I had thought that the perfect revenge movie could not be made therefore, but this one comes close.

The vengeant woman’s strategy is to capture her victim and, somebody that person loves. Then she tortures that person until they agree to kill the person they love to end the pain. That’s her revenge, to watch her tormenter suffer both physical and emotional pain the way she did. That might work, psychologically.

In this movie, she kills the victim after the victim kills the loved one, whereas it seems it might be better to let that person live with the psychological pain of what they did. That would be better revenge. And she not only kills them but mutilates them by carving messages into their flesh (before or after the torture is not clear). What sense does that make in the context of the revenge theory? Not much, so that mutilation aspect borders on the gratuitous.

Nevertheless, there is an overlaid story that she is or was a mad scientist of some sort who had studied the genetics of altruism and was interested in finding out if the genetic predisposition to care for your loved ones can be overcome by torture. That is a pretty weak experimental question, and in the final scenes, the victim and the loved one are not even genetically related. So overall the story does not make a lot of sense, but it is well acted, well photographed, thought-provoking, and I liked its new theory of revenge, so I give it a paradoxical B even though I dislike blood and guts movies as a rule.

Police, Adjective: Grade A

A

Police, Adjective (2009)
Dragos Bucur; Writer & Director Corneliu Porumboiu. (Romanian, subtitled)

A police detective (Bucur) in a small town in Romania tracks a teenager who occasionally smokes pot, hoping to find his supplier. Actually, he does not hope that because he thinks the whole investigation is stupid, but he has been assigned to the case by the police chief. He reminds the chief that nobody in Europe gets busted for smoking a joint but the chief tells him that it is the law, and asks him, “Are you above the law?” The theme of the movie is really not about drugs, but about morality, the nature of authoritarian power, the tedium of everyday life, and Romanian politics. (Consider examples of how the word "police" is used as an adjective, to appreciate the subtlety of the political commentary). In illuminating these values, it succeeds completely.

It also succeeds as a masterpiece of cinematography. Every shot is visually perfect, even though it is obvious in many scenes that a building has been painted a certain way for the shot or a post has been whitewashed to bring brightness to the drab, wet, autumnal scene. The camera often lingers, unmoving for long minutes, so we can absorb the stillness of time in that town, in that country, in that character’s life. Several interior shots are through doorways and having the shot framed by the door jamb gives a startling sense of intimacy.

Caution, however: This not an American style film. It is extremely slow, even by European standards, and absolutely nothing happens. There are no guns, no car chases, no naked women, no drug deals, no violence of any kind. There is nothing going on but a detective walking the grubby streets, smoking, talking in the office. The beauty and the mastery of the picture is entirely “inner.” If you are not an inner person, there is nothing here for you. But if you liked Porumboiu’s 12:08 East of Bucharest (2006), you’ll understand what this one is about.

Fraulein: Grade A

A

Fraulein (2006)
Mirjana Karanovic, Marija Skaricic; Director Andrea Staka. (Serbian & German, subtitled).

A young woman (Karanovic) who lived through the Bosnian war, makes her way from Sarajevo to Zurich to seek her fortune. She gets a job at a tiny restaurant/cafeteria run by an older woman(Skaricic) who migrated from Belgrade. The young, happy-go-lucky woman gradually softens the gruff and unemotional older one until they eventually form a close friendship. There is a tragic theme that brings sharp drama to the story, but basically it is about the friendship, set against the background of the wars that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia and the fact that technically, the two women were on opposing sides of one of the nastier struggles. But you don’t really have to know that history to appreciate how beautifully and lovingly this film portrays these characters and their friendship.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo: Grade D

D

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

Michael Nyqvist, Noomie Rapace; Director Niels Arden Oplev. (Swedish, subtitled)

I have not read the international blockbuster bestseller, but that’s OK because a movie has to stand on its own two feet, but this one barely can kneel. A disgraced newspaper reporter (Nyqvist) hires out as a detective to solve a 40 year old cold case, the murder of a young childcare nanny who, as it turns out was his own caretaker. Working for a wealthy industrialist, head of a large wealthy clan of families, he sniffs around until he gets a few clues.

Meanwhile, the eponymous “Girl,” a sort of hip goth type, (Rapace) helps him out with data she has hacked, although they don’t know each other and we don’t know her motive for helping. We learn that she lives on a trust fund but must beg (and worse) for her allowance from an evil executor (who gets a grisly comeuppance at her hand eventually). She does have a fabulous dragon tattoo on her back however, for reasons unknown, but that is quite irrelevant to the story. Her little drama with the fund administrator has nothing to do with the decades-old murder mystery, but it is actually the interesting part of the movie.

The murder mystery rambles on and on with various twists and turns, all of which seem manufactured and not integral to the plot. The “evidence,” such as it is, is mostly pictures of pictures: photographs, newspapers, and computer screens, all of which we see repeatedly, in case we are losing the thread of the story, which is easy to do. That is poor directing, poor basic storytelling even, but consistent with the equally weak technique of telling the audience the story with line after line of endless dialog instead of showing the story by having characters react to conflict. You really have to be a fast reader and can hardly take your eyes off the subtitles to watch the movie, because the whole screenplay is so incredibly wordy.

In the end, the bad guy is caught and his/her motive is utterly lame, but that is consistent with the quality of the rest of the screenplay. Some fairly good acting, especially by Rapace, redeems the film from complete failure.

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee: Grade C

C
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009)

Robin Wright Penn, Alan Arkin, Wynona Ryder, Keanu Reeves, Julianne Moore; Writer-Director Rebecca Miller.

Robin Wright’s acting is the star of this little domestic drama. She is married to a much older man (Arkin) and moves to a retirement community with him, where she is somewhat lost. She sleepwalks, takes speed and takes a pottery class. Her husband has an affair. She has an affair. Her daughter becomes a photojournalist. The dog gets hit by a car. Everyone eats cake.

There is absolutely no plot, and as far as I can tell, not much of a story either. It is just a bunch of rich people bumping around, acting stupidly, lacking insight, motivation, or purpose. Wright’s performance is truly stunning, but the character she plays is so dirt-boring that it is even hard to appreciate the great acting. Reeves and Ryder also give excellent performances, and Moore, in a smaller role, is riveting as always. Arkin acts like Arkin, nothing new there but still enjoyable. So the movie is an opportunity to see some first class acting, if you can stay awake through the brain-dead script.

Greenberg: Grade C

C

Greenberg (2009)
Ben Stiller, Greta Gerwig, Rhys Ifans. Co-writer and director Noah Baumbach.

Stiller is newly arrived in LA from a New York mental institution to housesit for his brother. He develops a relationship with a younger household assistant (Gerwig). She is passive and a dim bulb, so she more or less accepts Stiller’s hyper-neurotic obsessions and they form a friendly, sexually bumbling relationship that lacks the interpersonal intimacy that neither of them is capable of. And that’s it. Nothing happens of any consequence and there is no character development.

The strength of the film is the compelling dialog and extremely good acting, especially by Stiller. He really is a good dramatic actor, even though his part is still nominally comic in this story. Gerwig is a good actor but her character is so bland that she can’t do much. Ifans, as an old friend of Stiller’s is a standout. There are some subtle but not very funny jokes about LA, about dogs, about age anxiety, and so on. The script is extremely authentic, not clichéd, but clever as it is, it only concerns banalities. Nothing of import or interest is actually said. There is no story and no ending, so the movie just meanders pointlessly on. I didn’t get bored though because of the strong acting and sharp dialog, and it is worth seeing for those features, but I have to say this is a slow moving film.

The music direction and sound engineering are intrusive and destructive, with featureless tunes slowly cranked up in volume until you have to hit the mute button to protect your brain. There’s no point to that. It is not even dramatic music. It’s just noise for the sake of noise, maybe in a desperate attempt to introduce some excitement into an otherwise flat picture.

A Single Man: Grade D

D

A Single Man (2009)
Colin Firth, Julianne Moore. Co-writer and director Tom Ford.

The stars are two of my favorite actors, which is why I selected this movie, and indeed they both give extremely fine performances, Firth’s perhaps the best I’ve ever seen from him. However the story/screenplay has zero forward momentum, plotwise or characterwise, so fundamentally this picture is extremely boring.

A gay college professor in 1962 Los Angeles (Firth) is grieving the loss of his longtime partner. He does this by walking slowly, as if in a trance, and by gazing into middle distance a lot. He visits his old buddy (Moore) for consolation they have a few drinks and dance in her apartment. He carries a gun in his briefcase, in case he decides to do himself in, you never know (but of course he doesn't, for that would constitute a story line). He ogles some of the young men on the campus to show he still has libido, even in his grief. He wears heavy black plastic eyeglass frames like they did back then so you know he is in 1962. And that’s about it.

There is just nothing going on in this movie except some pretty pictures. What keeps it from complete failure are the extremely good performances by Firth and Moore, and the excellent cinematography and directing. But without either character development or story line, it just does not add up as a movie. It amounts to no more than a random collection of mildly interesting scenes.

Nine: Grade F

F
Nine (2009)

Daniel Day-Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, Marion Cotillard, Sophia Loren, Kate Hudson; Director Rob Marshall.

Usually it is not worth the time or effort to review movies that I consider failures (and there are plenty of those absent from this blog), but this musical received four 2009 academy award nominations so it seems possible that other people saw it differently than I.

It is, in large part, an homage to Fellini’s 1963 film, 8 ½. A famous Italian director (Day-Lewis) has trouble getting his movie made, and even his script written. As he imagines or stages parts of the show, we get frequent loud, colorful, feathery song and dance numbers, which are the heart of this film. Intercut are b&w scenes that look like they are taken right from 8 ½ although my memory is not detailed enough to say for sure. The analogy is self-flattery at best anyway, for “Nine” has none of the creativity of the original.

For my tastes, this film is recycled cliché (if that is possible), a lot of it taken from the dreadful 2002 musical, Chicago, by the same director. It has a similar set, similar Fosse-style choreography, and similar music. Then it tries to add Fellini-esque moves but gets those wrong. For example, there is a number with Cruz wiggling around, showing her butt like a pole dancer, but if that’s supposed to invoke earthy Fellini sensuality, it is quite wide of the mark. How much talent can a butt have, even Penelope’s? Other dance numbers involve women writhing around pseudo-erotically on wooden chairs with their knees spread as if it meant something. The dance numbers have none of Fosse’s aggressive eroticism and none Fellini’s lyricism. It is just cliché action for the sake of action, apparently with the idea that the feathers and bustiers will make up for what’s missing in musical and choreographic integrity.

Cinematography is not bad, lighting is often good, but the dance numbers are all so setbound that there isn’t much to look at. When we do get off the multiply arched Coliseum-like set (similar to that used in Chicago), the shots are stereotypes, using strong color filters, high contrast lighting, odd angles, etc. without discernible purpose.

Kidman can sort of sing, and she acquits herself without disgrace, but all the songs, to my ear, amount to little more than braying. There is zero dramatic tension, the dialog lacks any originality, and the acting is almost self-parody (especially by Day-Lewis). Even the costumes are stereotypes. All of that could be excused in a musical if the songs and dances were compelling, but here they are just noisy exercises in shouting and random wiggling. I could not find any redeeming virtue. Others did, apparently, so my conclusion must be simply that this film was not to my taste.

Shall We Kiss? Grade B

B
Shall We Kiss?
Virginie Ledoyen, Emmanuel Mouret, Michaël Cohen, Frédérique Bel, Stefano Accorsi; Writer & Director Emmanuel Mouret. (French, subtitled)

This is a very lightweight romantic comedy, but the excellent acting, directing, music, and cinematography more than make up for its silly story, though it must be said even the silly story is well-told. A young man (Mouret, who also wrote and directed) becomes super horny, as young men are wont to do, although in French, it is nothing so vulgar, but rather, a “lack of complicity with women.” Oh, dear.

He confides this to his long time best friend (Ledoyen) who is very understanding and suggests a prostitute. But after a few minutes of overly precious and coy conversation, the inevitable happens and she “services” him, out of friendship. Some time (months years?) later they meet again, now both committed in relationships to others, and agree that they should do it again, to remove the romantic mystique of that first incident. There is no meat in the sex scenes, but plenty of charming (“cute”) dialog and some very wry acting. Inevitably the two realize they are in love and must find ways to get rid of their other relationships, which they do with some complications and more wry humor.

It is quite interesting that this entire story is told (and shown) as a history by another woman (Bel), who has casually met a man in Paris who gave her a ride. They end up drinking together and eventually in her hotel room, but they are exquisitely polite while she tells the story. She won’t allow even a kiss because “One never knows beforehand if a kiss will be a small kiss or a great kiss” so one just shouldn’t. Even though the story of those two is just a framing device for the other story, it is almost as compelling as the historical drama she tells, so really, we get two stories for the price of one.

All this would only merit an “average” rating but the directing is outstanding, the sets, costumes, and scenes are gorgeous, the language is beautiful, and the music (Tchaikovsky, Schubert, and Chopin) is fabulous. Plus, as I said, the acting is above average, so add it all up and this piece of comedic fluff rises to being a very enjoyable diversion.

The Book of Eli: Grade C

C
The Book of Eli (2010)
Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Mila Kunis; Directors Allen Hughes & Albert Hughes.

Stellar acting by Denzel pulls this movie up to average. Without his performance, it would be seriously sub-par. He is a solitary traveler (Eli) in a post-apocalyptic America, a sun-burnt wasteland that looks like the aftermath of nuclear war (few buildings left). He walks from town to town for no special purpose, reading his Bible when he can. Highway robbers of all sorts try to attack him for reasons unknown (they are presumably just mean) but fortunately he has deadly martial arts skills, a big knife and a short-handled shotgun, so he is in no real danger. And he apparently skipped right over that part in the Bible about not killing.

Eventually an evil gangleader (Oldman) discovers that Eli has a Bible and will do anything to get it. Why? So he can rule the world with its ideas. Hmmm. There isn’t much to rule, really, nor even much for his gang to do, but never mind. So it is cat and mouse focused around the Bible for a while. Meanwhile, a young woman (Kunis) who used to belong to the gangleader, runs away to travel with Eli, perhaps because he keeps saving her from the danger she chronically falls into.

It’s all silly nonsense. Water is a rare commodity in the future world but petrol is still plentiful, so the bad guys can race around in giant SUVs and motorcycles, all of them in remarkably good shape, implying not only a petroleum refining and distribution industry but also a thriving machine parts industry somewhere. Eli has to shoot pigeons with a bow and arrow for food, even though everyone in the picture is quite well fed. Oldman’s gang collects books for him but he just burns them because all he wants is a Bible. This overlooks the fact that the Bible is, and always has been, the most frequently printed book in history, so statistically, you would expect to find more Bibles than any other book. Oh well.

There is a Mad Max allusion with all the choppers screaming around a dusty green environment (why the atmosphere in the future is green is unexplained). And there is a significant allusion to the Sergio Leone spaghettis in the beginning.

Besides Denzels’ strong performance, the cinematography is attractive. Many of the shots are stereotypes, but quite a few are beautiful and creative. That’s worth seeing. Overall however, the acting is clunky, directing undistinguished, story laughable, dialog obvious and stilted.

Unthinkable: Grade B

B
Unthinkable (2010)

Samuel L. Jackson, Carrie-Ann Moss, Michael Sheen. Director Gregor Jordan.

I give this movie a weak B because it has the courage to address a difficult issue: American use of torture to interrogate terrorists. Is it wrong or necessary? The terrorist is domestic, an American Muslim (naturally) who has planted three nuclear bombs in three American cities. They will all go off in six days unless the US Government agrees to withdraw from “all Muslim countries” immediately. (Why that demand, and how it could be satisfied in time are glossed over). He is quickly captured. Apparently he wanted to be captured, but his reasons are unclear. “To make a point” is the best we can surmise.

Jackson is “H.”, some kind of ex-government black ops guy who specializes in torture. He is called in to do the dirty deed, and he does it with flair, in a great acting performance. His emotions are extremely well played as he alternately cuts off fingers then despairs for his decency. Moss is an FBI officer who is brought in for reasons unexplained by the story, but her character serves the purpose of expressing the average person's conscience. She is outraged and objects to the treatment given the prisoner, but she doesn’t do anything about it, because, well, those bombs are ticking.

So the simpleminded drama is a variation on the Dick Cheney formula: if there is a 1% chance of a terrorist attack like this, they you must take it 100% seriously and do everything possible, including (judging from history), ignoring your principles, values, and humanity to engage in torture. Moss’s character makes the liberal arguments: torture doesn’t work, the subject will tell you anything, it is dehumanizing, it is illegal, etc., etc. “H.” says only, “We have three hours left. What do you propose instead?”

It is a shame that the movie ends without resolving this conundrum. We are left to wonder: were the bombs found in time? Was the prisoner telling the truth? Does torture work? It seems like the filmmakers were too chicken to take a stand, or maybe they decided that the question is unanswerable, but I found the ending weak, unimaginative, and disappointing.

Only Jackson’s acting is worth watching. All the other actors are wooden, speaking predictable lines with predictable expressions, none of them convincing. Jackson however creates a true persona on the screen, creepy, but in a human way that the audience can connect to. It’s not a great movie, but it raises an important question that makes it worth seeing.

Tetro: Grade B

B

Tetro (2009)

Vincent Gallo, Alden Ehrenreich, Maribel Verdú; Writer and Director Francis Ford Coppola. (English, Spanish, French; subtitled).

A young Italian man working on a cruise ship (Ehernreich) looks up his long-lost brother in Buenos Aires (Gallo), but finds a self-centered, embittered person who does not take kindly to him. Nevertheless, the young brother is invited by the girlfriend (Verdu) to stay with them and several conversations and reminiscences ensue. It is very slow moving by normal American movie standards. Nothing much happens but people talking.

However, the cinematography is stunningly gorgeous, 95% of it black and white, but even the few color scenes are extremely well shot. And Coppola’s eye is present throughout, such as when the brothers sit at a sidewalk café. The shot is from above, not quite vertical, as if you were watching from a high window on the other side of the street, the exact angle that was used when Marlon Brando got shot in The Godfather. This is no Godfather, though. There is no crime and no guns. This is just a couple of brothers talking.

Every shot in this movie could be framed and put in an art gallery, it’s that beautiful. A second highlight is the story’s focus on the obsessions of family, another theme from the Godfather, and from Italian families in general. Except here, the ins and out of family relationships are taken to a ludicrous extreme, and even dramatized by inserted scenes from Italian operas, to emphasize the point that this family obsession is really over the top. The final denoument reveals the “dark secret” of the brothers’ relationship. It’s highly improbable, even silly, perhaps an autobiographical self-parody by Coppola. But the images stick in your brain for days afterward, and that is the mark of a great movie.

On the down side, the acting is only average, and the music is interesting but unremarkable. For all the terrific cinematography, it is true that the lighting schemes get pretty monotonous. The favorite is strong light from 12 noon plus bright diffuse light from the side, often in situations where that would be literally impossible. The picture looks good unless you stop to think about how lighting like that could occur, and you realize it couldn’t, so that pops you out of the scene to admire the technical craft. That’s fun the first few times, but the lighting director on this picture was a one-trick pony. Overall though, this movie is worth seeing as an example of Coppola’s talent.

The Green Zone: Grade D

D
The Green Zone (2010)

Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear; Director Paul Greengrass.

Damon is a US Army officer in charge of finding Iraqi WMDs just after the invasion of Baghdad. He keeps coming up empty and begins to suspect that the intelligence he is being given is bad. He whines to the CIA, which acknowledges something is wrong with the intel, and hires him to look into it. Some unlikely coincidental events occur that lead to the bent politician (Kinnear) to be in pursuit of Damon so he does not uncover the coverup that there are no WMDs. In this, the story vaguely follows the structure of Three Days of the Condor a great 1975 film with the government out to silence one of its own people for some political advantage. But this film is not great. It tries to make up in aggressive sound engineering what it lacks in dramatic tension. Loud crowd noises, featuring people yelling “Hurry,” squealing tires, gunshots, and obnoxious trombones attempt to convince you that you are feeling something. The pace of the story is slow, the acting is terrible, the editing is so cut up you can’t see anything, and the story line itself is just too jumpy to be coherent. If you did not know the real history of the WMD deception you would be hard pressed to make head or tail out of this project. That's too bad because it is an inherently interesting historical drama.