Forgetting Sarah Marshall

If you were in charge of marketing the film, you'd have no hesitation before deciding to advertise Forgetting Sarah Marshall as the latest from producer Judd Apatow. Which is why it's a bit ironic that this film would be better if we were somehow able to completely forget that Apatow's earlier films existed.

Sure, Forgetting Sarah Marshall was written by first-timer Jason Segel, but this film (along with Superbad, the recent Pineapple Express, and the upcoming Zack and Miri Make a Porno) is unmistakably part of the Apatow franchise. It centers around a positively Apatowian slacker-star; it features numerous references to cannabis; and, while it does cash in quite a bit on gross-out humor, it does so without checking its brain at the door.

Writer Jason Segel, recognizable as one of Seth Rogen's stoner friends in Knocked Up, also serves as the star of this film, a musican named Peter Bretter. The movie begins with Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell), the star of a prime-time crime procedural drama called "CrimeScene: Scene of the Crime," breaking up with Peter, who does the music for the same show. Peter's pain is magnified by the fact that Marshall is now dating Aldous Snow (Russell Brand), a vaguely Liam Gallagher-esque British rocker. The pain is further compounded when Peter takes a Hawaiian vacation to ease his pain, and ends up at the same hotel that Sarah and Alduous are staying at.

The movie cashes in on the pathos of Peter's impossibly bad trip for awhile, until he starts falling for the hotel's hospitality director, Rachel (Mila Kunis). Then there's the excitement of new love, the confused and complicated mixture of feelings for lovers old and new, the inevitable misunderstanding, and, finally, the satisfying resolution.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall is helped quite a bit by the loving attention it devotes to its smaller roles, most notably the suddenly ubiquitous Jack McBrayer as a sexually confused honeymooner. It's also helped by the fact that it avoids making any character entirely into a villain. Sure, Sarah Marshall cheated on her boyfriend, but it's not like he was being an ideal boyfriend at the time. Sure, Aldous--as the new boyfriend--is kind of a tool. But he's also--as Peter admits--kind of cool.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall is hurt by the fact that it seems about 30 minutes longer than it needs to be. And by the fact that it's kind of, well, forgettable. But why is it forgettable? Well, that'll require us to glance back at the recent history of comedy.

When you do look back, there's actually a pretty predictable pattern with comedy franchises. There's the Discovery, the Crowning Achievement, and then the Gradual Decline. For example:

The Farrelly brothers announced themselves to the watching world with Dumb & Dumber, established themselves as a lucrative comedic force with There's Something About Mary, and then released a few more movies that ranged from decent to abysmal, none of which could come close to matching the success of Mary.

While Will Ferrell made his reputation on Saturday Night Live, he got "discovered" by the greater public by being the funniest thing in Zoolander. He was then given a vehicle that was distinctively his in Anchorman, and has yet to match the success of that vehicle.

Even a more highbrow comedic director like Wes Anderson fits this model: He announced himself with Rushmore, had his financial crowning achievement with The Royal Tenenbaums, and hasn't had any movie do as well since.

So it shouldn't come as any surprise that the Judd Apatow franchise is falling into the same pattern. He was "discovered" after 40-Year-Old Virgin, crowned after Knocked Up, and is now enjoying a very slow decline.

So what really hurts Forgetting Sarah Marshall is the same things that hurt all the other comedic franchises listed above. What makes any comedy sparkle is the element of freshness, of surprise -- the ability of a comedic mastermind to make you see something in a way that you've never seen it before. But the Faustian trade-off of the Crowning Achievement is that once you've been crowned, you're known. And your perspective--which was once fresh, unique, surprising--is now, well, mainstream.

That's not necessarily a death knell; comedic franchises can go on to have long and successful Gradual Declines (as Adam Sandler has proved). But it's nearly impossible to recreate the success and excitement that comes with the Crowning Achievement.

So for better or for worse, Forgetting Sarah Marshall is sort of what you'd expect. It offers that same Apatow sensibility that you already know, which is both its benefit and its curse. In the end, it's not an embarrassment, but neither is it a triumph. In short, it's about a 5.

Iconic lines:
"When life gives you lemons, just say 'F*ck the lemons,' and bail."
"You have Christ between your thighs... only with a shorter beard."
Aldous, in a music video, holds up a sign that reads "Sodomize Intolerance."

Becoming Jane

Initial Reaction: Well, excuse me, but I liked it.

I'm what you may call a fan of Jane Austen. Considering the time in which she lived and what she accomplished, I find her works inspiring and comforting. I've read four of her novels, and have watched film adaptations of all of her works. I could watch the movie Pride and Prejudice (both 1995 and 2005 versions) every week, and sometimes I do. The film Becoming Jane, based on her life, exceeded my expectations.

I didn't rush out to see Becoming Jane, actually I only watched it during a late night babysitting on my laptop. I didn't really have much in the way of expectations, since a few people I know (you know who you are) saw it and didn't like it. It also didn't do well by the way of the critics, if you pay attention to that sort of thing. Ironically, I think these factors probably helped me to enjoy Becoming Jane even more.

The film has the same flavor of film adaptations of Austen's books. The plot is loosely based on Jane Austen's life, since very few details about her life are actually known. Jane lives with her parents, the Reverend and Mrs. Austen, her engaged sister Cassandra, and her brothers Henry and George. She writes for enjoyment, and surprisingly, her family seems fairly supportive of this.

Only now as I sit down to write this do I realize how little actually happened in the film. But that's something that I really appreciate about Jane Austen's writing...so much of what happens with the characters is based on social interaction and internal struggles, not depending on a lot of external events to drive the story. Anne Hathaway stars as Jane Austen herself, and James McAvoy was her love interest Thomas LeFroy. In the roles she plays, Hathaway seems to carry a bit of confidence and spark, which works here. McAvoy is thoroughly believable as Thomas LeFroy, having an interesting balance of goodness and sex appeal beneath his devil-may-care attitude.

Austen, like so many of the women she wrote about, is young and in want of a husband. Her want isn't so great, however, that she would accept the first proposal that comes her way. She refuses it, in fact, because she can't justify marrying for anything other than love. She is thrown to the lions of society and criticised for her ill-advised choice by family and acquaintances alike. In the meantime she meets Thomas LeFroy, a carefree young man studying the law under his Uncle and who is determined to enjoy himself in spite of his responsibilities. After a rocky start and some witty banter, the two become better acquainted and recognize an undeniable attraction between them. As anyone who has ever seen a film will tell you, however, all is not as simple as it initially appears, and Jane and Thomas must come to grips with some harsh realities.

Negatives? There were a few ... one being that in reality, I wouldn't necessarily see Austen and LeFroy falling for each other. Their motivation for doing so is unclear to me, unless it was only physical attraction. But the audience is led to believe there was more to it than that. Also, though I think most people assume that not everything in these "based on real people" films is true, I think that many will take away what happens in the plot as more or less true, which is the dangerous thing about these movies.

One thing I very much enjoyed was the struggle of Jane in dealing with being a female author. We know that Austen was fairly respected in society and came from decent family, and she wasn't seen as a rebel or outcast or anything like that. Yet she embraced who she was and pursued her ideals in a time when doing so had serious consequences. It added some weight and inspiration to the story mostly centered around her love for LeFroy.

Rating: 14

I'll admit: I'm extremely biased to these kinds of stories. Give me an oppressed heroine in the 19th century who falls in love with a man despite what society may say, throw in a "I bid you good day," and I'm sold. Maybe this allows me to make more concessions than most, but I don't care. I loved it! I thought the acting was extremely satisfactory, the characters interesting, and the story beautiful. Take that, nay-sayers.

Bobby

When Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated, I was actually -13 years old.  I was not even a “glint in my father’s eye,” as it is said (though not in my mother’s, either, I imagine).  Suffice to say, I was not around.  But all it takes is just the right director with just the right movie to put me in the correct emotional state to feel what people where feeling on that night in 1968.  Bobby was that movie.

It starts with something very simple.  Bobby Kennedy was fatally shot in a crammed hotel kitchen right after delivering his victory speech for winning the California presidential primary.  There were 77 other people in that kitchen at the time.  Emilio Estévez, the director of Bobby, had a question to which the answer was ultimately this movie: “What about those 77 people?”

Now, the cast of this movie simply boggles the mind.  There are no less than 16 very famous faces in this movie, including two Oscar winners (Anthony Hopkins, Helen Hunt) and two nominees (Laurence Fishburne, Sharon Stone).  No doubt, under normal circumstances, this movie would have an astronomical budget from salaries for the actors alone.  The only explanations I can come up with for this movie getting made with so much proven talent are these:  all the actors are Estévez’s friends, or a film about Bobby Kennedy truly spoke to them, and they wanted to be a part of it.  Both are probably true.  Despite the out-of-this-world star power this movie has, no one really grabs the spotlight from anyone else.  I am astounded that this movie didn’t even get nominated for a single Oscar.  C’mon, Academy!  You love ensemble casts!

The closest things to standout performances come from Martin Sheen (the director’s daddy) and Anthony Hopkins.  Sheen plays a rich socialite who contributed to Kennedy’s campaign and who was treated for depression.  Helen Hunt plays his young wife, a very vulnerable and scared woman.  In each other, they rediscover the meaning of love.  Hopkins plays John Casey, semi-retired doorman for the Ambassador Hotel.  He and his friend Nelson (Harry Belefonte) are struggling with old age, and John deals with it by continuing to do a job that no one has required that he do in 25 years.  William H. Macy plays the hotel’s manager who is cheating with a hotel switchboard operator (Heather Graham) on his wife (Sharon Stone), who is also the hair and nail salon manager in the hotel.  Also in the mix are two high-level campaigners in the Kennedy campaign, played by Joshua Jackson and Nick Cannon, the latter of which is doomed to be an angry black man till the day he dies.  Shia LaBeouf and Brian Geraghty play low-level campaigners who skip out on their door-knocking to get high on LSD sold by Ashton Kutcher, the three of whom provide the film’s comic relief.  In the kitchen of the hotel, Freddie Rodriguez and Jacob Vargas are both working double shifts as busboys.  Rodriguez has Dodger tickets he can’t use (Don Drysdale shattered a record that night by pitching 6 consecutive shutouts) that he gives to the head cook (Laurence Fishburne).  Vargas is upset at the racial inequality in this country that is keeping Mexicans down, but Fishburne offers a different and interesting perspective.  Svetlana Metkina plays a Czechoslovakian reporter who is very determined in her quest for just 5 minutes with senator Kennedy, but is blocked by Jackson’s character because she writes for “a communist paper in a communist country allied with the Soviet Union.”  To top it off, Lindsey “Disney Druggie” Lohan plays a young woman marrying a young man (Elijah “Frodo” Wood) solely so he won’t have to go to the front lines of Vietnam. Her confusion with the war is translated into compassion for him, but morphs into love.

And that’s not even everyone.  But the film parades all the characters out in front of you in a pretty easy fashion.  Because no one character has a very big arc, no one has a lot of screen time.  Arcs do exist, however.  Notable arcs are the ones Lohan’s, Cannon’s, Macy’s, and Sheen’s characters go through.  Almost everyone makes the most of limited screen time, and the editing is such that no one has the spotlight, yet no one seemed like they were short-changed.

But all that misses what Bobby is really about, and the reason it’s a great movie.  Bobby, more than anything else, is a snapshot of a time and place.  Bobby Kennedy is not an actual character in the movie (all his appearances are stock footage of the real man), and his assassin only has two appearances and one line.  That’s not what the movie is about.  It’s really about that turbulent turning point in American history, 1968.  The movie tells you about that time not through historical instruction or exposition, but rather through empathy.  It presents you with snapshots of several people living in that time, in the hopes that at least  one of them will connect with something you’re going through yourself.

Bobby is also about what, at its bare bones, the real Bobby’s campaign was about: that underneath all the strife, division, hatred, and miscommunication, America is a great nation made up of great people.  Flawed people, yes, but that’s part of what makes them great, and the nation great in turn.  The idea that we can put aside our differences and remember that we are all brothers, even for a moment, is revolutionary, even in this day and age.

Indeed, Bobby has relevance now that it didn’t when it was made.  Like Bobby before him, we have a presidential candidate who may have a unifying ability.  Barack Obama is a politician who, against all odds, is giving people hope for the future, and possesses a lot of promise to fulfill that hope.  Let’s just hope his fate is a lot brighter than that of Bobby’s.  Now, some believe that he’s just another suit and smile, that his program of positive change can never come true, and maybe they’re right.

But maybe they’re wrong.

Iconic lines:

“Clearance sale!!!  Everything must go!!!”

“You’re more than the shoes on your feet or the designer dress on your back.  You’re more than the purse you carry or the money inside it.  You and I are more than the stuff, more than the things in our lives.  Somewhere between our things and our stuff is us.  I don’t want to lose us.”

“Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.”

22 rating: 16

Particle Man

Circle of Friends

When I was 12 or 13, my aunt took me to see a movie called Circle of Friends. Of course it wasn’t exactly a movie my parents would want me to see at that age, but my aunt always felt that I was more mature than everyone gave me credit for. So I sat there in the theater thinking that Chris O’Donnell was pretty dreamy and that was it. However, it was the first “grownup” movie I had seen so I was very pleased with myself. About 13 years later, I still think of the movie occasionally, so I decided to review it.
Circle of Friends tells the tale of Bernadette Hogan, Eve Malone, and Nan Mahon, who were raised in Knockglen, Ireland. The movie, set in 1957, follows these three childhood chums through their college experience (which includes love, lust, and betrayal) and how each of them comes through these experiences. The story mainly focuses on Bernadette Hogan (Minnie Driver) who is an only child who is shouldering a very unreasonable expectation. As everyone can relate to, there are times when parents think they know what is good for their children and that the children should just obey. Benny (as she known in the movie) is facing the fact that her parents think she should be with their creepy store clerk, Sean (Alan Cumming), but Benny has already fallen in love with a man she met at college, Jack Foley (Chris O’Donnell). Although Benny is obviously the heroine of the movie, we still see the lives and struggles of her two childhood friends Eve and Nan. Benny’s main struggle is that she is not classically beautiful. I would say that she is on the average to pretty side of the looks continuum. Her main problem with herself is her irrational belief that she is too fat for anyone to want her. But what girl hasn’t felt like that at one time or another?
This was an extremely hard movie to locate. I could only find it at one store around my area. This puzzled me because I remember the movie being very popular, but after having viewed it, I can somewhat understand the less than thrilling demand of this movie. The acting is average, there is nothing horrible about it, but I feel that acting didn’t wow me this second time around. I think my main issue with the acting was the Irish accents, which could have been better. It seemed like there was a constant switch between Irish and English accents.
Another problem that I had with the movie was the pacing; there were many times were I felt bored and that the pacing of the movie was too uneven. I switched from almost turning it off to being really interested in the scenes multiple times. I think that more could have been done with the story to fill in these gaps. I wasn’t expecting a fast paced car heavy shootout in the middle of an Irish village, but there was definitely room for improvement.
One interesting thing about the movie was the casting of Alan Cumming. This Scottish actor is probably most commonly known for portraying Nightcrawler in X-Men 2. Cumming played the role of the creepy store clerk with an eye for our heroine. As much as I enjoy his acting, I feel like he was type cast. He doesn’t have the conventional Hollywood look and all he had to add was a few sketchy looks and moves to transform into this creepy guy.
I like the story of this movie and did enjoy watching it for the most part. I certainly do feel that they could have done better with the acting, but it’s not like they didn’t try, like in some movies I have reviewed. Overall, I would say that the movie is worth a viewing, and Chris O’Donnell is still pretty dreamy, especially when he gets his Irish accent right. So unlike my personal circle of friends, which I would give a 22, I’ll have to give the movie Circle of Friends a 5.

The Onion Movie

A few years ago, I was having a sleepless night. Rather than try to fight it, I went into my living room, grabbed a snack, and started flipping through channels. When I got to C-SPAN 2 (the least-watched channel at 4 a.m.), something caught my eye: an interview with a handful of the editors of The Onion. The Onion had been my favorite satirical news website for a few years at that point, so I stopped to watch. Of all that was said that early morning, one thing stuck with me. One of the editors (I forget who), was asked a question about some of The Onion's articles being in bad taste. He answered by saying something like: "I think there's such thing as good taste in bad taste."

That summed up The Onion perfectly for me: Sure, they'd print outrageous and inflammatory headlines (example: a picture of a janitor with the caption "Mexicans Sweeping the Nation"), but they were always irrepressibly clever or so well honed on the idiosyncrasies of our modern life that they made you double back and wonder what, really, should have been offending you in the first place.

That impossibly long intro (I'm sorry) brings me to The Onion Movie, which seems closer to "bad taste" than it is to "good taste in bad taste." The Onion Movie is primarily a series of seemingly unrelated skits, interspersed with an anchor reading random news headlines -- headlines that will seem very familiar to Onion aficionados ("8-Year-Old Accidentally Exercises Second-Amendment Rights", "Georgia Adds Swastika, Middle Finger to State Flag").

Some of the new material includes: Steven Seagal (really!) as the big-budget action hero Cockpuncher, a sultry teen singer who earnestly proclaims the innocent intentions of songs like "Take Me From Behind," and a subtle twist on a normal suburban evening when murder mystery game is replaced by a rape mystery game.

If you watched just a short glimpse, you couldn't be sure you weren't watching an example of the infernal pox that is the _____ Movies (fill in the blank with "Date" or "Epic" or "Not Another Teen"). The jokes, in general, are fairly lowest common denominator. But The Onion Movie never really tips its hand as to whether it's revelling in lampooning these easy targets or lampooning those who would lampoon. (Which, I suppose, includes themselves.) In one of the its best bits, The Onion Movie breaks from itself to get commentary from a panel of distinguished film critics, one of whom decries the film's pandering to the masses. The panel host then introduces the next commenter: The Masses (played by a frat boy wearing a "Beer F***ing Rules" shirt). "The Masses" talks about how gay the critics are and how awesome the Cockpuncher bits were, and then the movie resumes where it left off.

These brief flashes of self-awareness -- and the occassionally hilarious one-liners, such as the man who overcomes adversity to become the world's first comatose diver -- make it hard to get a real handle (a.k.a. rating) on this film. In the end, though, the pass-it-on factor seems the most fitting. With the best moments of the print version of The Onion, I eagerly pass on headlines, articles, and man-on-the-street interviews to my friends (whether they want to hear them or not). With The Onion Movie, I really wouldn't be bothered if not a single other living soul watched it. Moments of hilarity notwithstanding, that can't afford The Onion Movie any more than a -6.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Unfortunately, I watched this film for the first time so long ago that I don't remember my initial reaction. It has, however, left an everlasting impression.

I was actually surprised when I looked at the DVDs on my shelf that neither I nor Dr. Worm have reviewed this movie yet. Eternal Sunshine falls in my top 5 films of all time, and whenever I get to chance to talk it up to an unsuspecting passer-by, I jump at it. It gets better with time, and in my opinion, this is due to the great performances and incredible attention to detail by the filmmakers. I didn't watch it in full before I wrote this review, but I popped it in to refresh myself on a scene or two, and had a hard time turning if off again.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a romantic comedy starring Jim Carrey (as Joel) and Kate Winslet (Clementine), directed by the incredibly artistic Michel Gondry and written by himself and Charlie Kaufman. In this film, the exceptionally timid Joel Barish meets and falls for the demonstrative and quirky Clementine. Seemingly an unlikely pair, the two awkwardly hit it off and begin a relationship. But the film, which jumps around in time a bit, quickly fast forwards to their break-up and a broken-up Joel. After an encounter with Clementine that he doesn't understand, during which she seems to pretend she doesn't even know him, he turns to his friends in confusion and pain. Eventually Joel learns the truth: that Clementine had him erased from her memory.

Joel can't seem to wrap his mind around this idea, so he finds the doctor who performed the procedure. Angered that she would do such a thing, he decides to undergo the same procedure out of spite and a hope that maybe this would help the pain to go away. And so most of the rest of the film happens in Joel's mind, as we track his memories of his relationship with Clementine backwards through time. As he relives these memories, he feels vindicated that the recent, tumultuous times they'd been experiencing are no longer his to remember. As he goes further back, however, he begins to realize the true meaning and the gravity of his choice. Unfortunately, once the procedure has begun, there is no backing out of it.

The other characters in Eternal Sunshine complement Carrey and Winslet to a T. Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, Kirsten Dunst and Tom Wilkinson all stand out without being overpowering. There are some really great comedic moments, but it really isn't as straightforward a comedy as most others are, more subtle and dramatic due to the fact that it's portraying a difficult break-up.

This movie is incredibly filmed. Every time I watch it, I notice some detail or nuance that I didn't see before. Even though it jumps around in time, it doesn't happen in a way that is too confusing or difficult to put together. I absolutely loved how memory is represented, and how the filmmakers depict the erasing of those memories. Carrey and Winslet are absolutely wonderful--they have great chemistry, and they seemed to effortlessly show us honest feelings and depth of character.

Finally, I really love the main thrust of the film. So often when we experience a particularly painful loss, we want relief as immediate as possible. I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people who would jump at the chance to erase someone or something from their memory. But if that happens, we lose a part of ourselves as well. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind aptly proclaims this message and helps us to see the beauty in our day to day pain.

Rating: 20

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is beautifully and creatively filmed. Joel and Clementine have a captivating story, and the outlandish nature of the plot nicely highlights some simple, basic truths about life and love. It's funny, touching, life-affirming, and well-done...just what I think a movie should be.

Favorite Lines:

"Sand is overrated. It's just tiny, little rocks."

"I'm making a birdhouse."

4-Year-Old Joel: "I really want her to pick me up. It's weird how strong that desire is."

Flags of Our Fathers

Movies, at their fundamental level, are for entertainment. They’re a way to occupy two hours, and you’ll hopefully get something out of those two hours. Now, good movies will teach you something about yourself that you didn’t know before, or connect with a part of you like nothing else can, and it will do all of this while entertaining you. The subject matter doesn’t necessarily have to be uplifting, but the story has to engage you, and reward you for investing yourself.

That’s part of why I didn’t like Flags of Our Fathers, and why I generally don’t like war films. I fully recognize that it was a competent and good movie. Acting, cinematography, plot flow, theme, music, etc., all those elements were in place for Flags; but it wasn’t entertaining. Why? It was about war.

War sucks. I don’t think anybody actually likes war. It’s tiring, it’s messy, it’s evil, and it crushes the human spirit if carried on too long. Sometimes it’s necessary, but it’s never glorious, never loving, and never a good thing to do. Nations will do what they have to do, but when they go to war, they better damn well have NO other options left. The idea that war is a last resort isn’t new, and has indeed been around since the first time a human did something that another human didn’t like.

Flags of Our Fathers didn’t suck, but its subject matter did. That’s not a death sentence for a movie, but war is pretty much the suckiest of the suck. To me, war is never a good place to start a story. You can have a war in it, but start with something else; a character, an event, a blade of grass, anything. There have been lots of good war movies, and Flags can count itself as one of those, but none of them have been entertaining experiences for me. Schindler’s List had that Spielbergian element of hope and goodness to it, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the dismal subject matter. Platoon had fantastic acting, but that’s very cold comfort among the horribleness of Vietnam. And I’m blanking out on other war films I’ve seen; I dislike them so much I black them out.

And therein lies the problem with Flags of Our Fathers. Because it wasn’t entertaining, I didn’t feel satisfied at the end. It wouldn’t even be all that different if it had a very good story, or more relatable characters, neither of which it had. It didn’t try to give you resolution or have a summation; none of the Clint Eastwood films I’ve seen do, actually. On top of that, it contained some pretty horrible things, because hey, war is pretty horrible. Two sequences in particular stuck with me; one in which a main character is having flashbacks of all the men he saw die during the war, and one in which some soldiers stumble across an underground bunker where some Japanese have set off a grenade on themselves so as not to be found. That’s the kind of thing you wish you could unsee.

Now, the themes of Flags were not lost on me. I totally got the idea that we should pass down things from generation to generation, so as to always learn from our forbears’ mistakes. I also saw the value in honoring those that made the ultimate sacrifice in service of their country, those who died abroad in order to protect the safety of those at home. Also, there was the idea of what a hero actually is, and how all the people we say are heroes would strongly disagree with us. There was even an indictment of American sensationalism, and how great things are made fake and cheap through over-attention. So don’t get me wrong; I think this movie has a lot to offer. But I can’t in good conscience recommend it since I didn’t enjoy it, and sorta wish I hadn’t watched it at all.

Iconic Lines:
“Well what’d you do, raise a goddamn flag every time you stopped for lunch?”
“With all your friends dying, it’s hard enough to be called a hero for saving somebody’s life. But for putting up a pole?”
“You want us to plant a flag on a mountain of papier-mache?”

22 Rating: -2

Particle Man

The Chipmunk Adventure

It looks like a hula-hoop isn’t the only thing Alvin wants. Recently, I caught the end of the new Chipmunks’ movie. After seeing that I was inspired to watch a beloved classic from my childhood, The Chipmunk Adventure. This 1987 movie shows us an exciting chapter in the lives of these adorable and mischievous chipmunks. Dave is packing for a European trip and Alvin is begging to be allowed to tag along. The babysitter, Ms. Miller, will arrive soon and then Dave will be off. To distract themselves from missing Dave, the Chipmunks decide to hang out with the Chippettes and play videogames. After an intense argument over who would win a balloon race in real life, they are given the chance to find out by two smugglers and the adventure begins.
I really enjoy this movie. I didn’t know if it's memories of sitting in the movie theater watching it (this was the first movie I’d ever seen in theaters) or if it was just that good. There are some just movies that just stick with us. It seemed time to give it another try and measure my enjoyment. As it turns out, I would still enjoy this movie as much if it hadn’t been the first movie I saw in theaters. I love Alvin and Brittany’s narcissistic tendencies and the way they clash with another. I love cute little food obsessed Theodore who just wants one meal without a music duel or scary henchmen interrupting it. I also love Simon and Jeanette’s pragmatic views, and how they still go along with everything Brittany and Alvin decide to do.
This movie shows us the wonder of cartoons, where anything can happen and since it is a cartoon no one is really expecting reality. Don’t get me wrong, I wish I could belt out a rock song on top the ancient ruins of Greece, or return a kidnapped baby penguin to its parents, but alas I can’t. However, I can still live this fantasy vicariously through this movie. There is also something wonderfully beautiful in the simplicity of the movie. It’s not pretentious just enjoyable. I feel like (with the exception of this summer) there have been many movies in the recent past that go for that thrill factor instead of relying on the audience's enjoyment. There were no crazy plot twists; it was just a straightforward story with no real subplots. I know my readers may think I am being a bit nostalgic, but what are some older films that you just enjoy? They may not even be good, but you enjoy them.
I am actually kinda hesitant to give this movie a rating. My enjoyment of the movie is really high up, but I don’t know if the movie is actually that good. So to appease myself I’ll give it two ratings. My enjoyment rating is 15. However, the movie is nothing that is going to change the world or knock everyone’s socks off like The Dark Knight, so this movie gets a 10. Oh yeah, and a hula hoop!

The Savages

Back in October of 2006, in a review of the stinkbomb Man of the Year, I included the following parenthetical: Does anyone do hard-working-but-lonely better than Laura Linney?

Since then, I've thought of Linney as essentially a one-note actress. She plays her note faithfully, dutifully, competently, but it's just one note. Well, The Savages altered my perception. Linney is still playing essentially the same note, but it sounds so much richer when it's used in just the right song.

The Savages is the story of your average American dysfunctional family, but all grown up. Wendy Savage (Linney) and Jon Savage (Philip Seymour Hoffman) are middle-aged brother and sister, living relatively normal and successful separate lives, when Linney receives a phone call indicating that their father has dementia. The bro-and-sis combo must fly from New York to New Mexico, clear out their father's house (their mother has been out of the picture for some time), find a good nursing home for him, and basically wait for him to die. Sundance's Geoffrey Gilmore calls it a "coming-of-middle-age story," and that's really a good way to think of it.

In that vein, it's more or less a straghtforward drama. There's no big explosions, there's no steamy sex scenes, there's no huge laugh out loud moments (though there are a few mild chuckles). It's really just a pointed look at two people dealing with one of the uncomfortable realities of being adults.

That can be tiresome if it's not well-written and well-acted. Fortunately, The Savages is. Writer/director Tamara Jenkins does excellent work by almost letting you forget she had anything to do. The dialogue isn't particularly snappy, the plot twists aren't particularly brain-twisting, the camera angles aren't particularly experimental. It just feels like you're watching a slightly edited slice of life--an effect that seems much easier to produce than it actually is.

Jenkins has ample help from her cast. Linney particularly shines (she was nominated for an Academy Award)--but, again, not so much because she transcended her estabished acting ability, but because she found a vehicle that made her specialty seem special. In Man of the Year, for example, she's just the cliché of the modern conscientious-but-overwhelmed female dealing with all the demands society puts on her. She's that here, but she's more. In the context of The Savages, something about the roundness of her eyes seems to suggest that she's not just yet-another struggling, working, lonely woman, but that she's really deep down inside still a very vulnerable child who is doing everything she can do keep from being exposed by the never-ending demands of the adult world. With that infintesiminal shift, she becomes much more watchable and much more likable.

Philip Seymour Hoffman's reputation for excellence is well-established, but he, like Linney, has also found a film that suits him perfectly here. He plays the rumpled theater-teaching realist to Linney's put-together playwrighting idealist. Both seem to be struggling with the pressures of adulthood, but she looks like she's trying way too hard and he looks like he's not trying hard enough.

It's also easy to overlook the performance of Philip Bosco, who plays Len, the dying Savage father, and that's sort of the point. Jon and Wendy Savage must deal with the storage and disposal of their father, and as much as they know he's a person, his utter dependence can't help but turn him into a bit of an object. The film lures the audience into this easy-but-erroneous categorization of old-guy-as-baggage, but at two or three points subtly reminds the viewer that Len is still a person, too. The relatively unheralded Bosco does superb work in yielding the spotlight to Linney and Seymour Hoffman but in hitting all the right old, infirm, slightly demented, and human notes that he's asked to hit.

If there's a bone to pick with this movie, is that it's not particularly earth-shattering. It keeps the interest and says something both truthful in relevant, but it's not something that will particularly change the viewer. It's just a simple, well-made film about two people dealing with a difficult task. So it gets an 10. It's not a movie you need to rush out and see, but if you're at the video store and nothing else looks good, this is a perfectly suitable choice.

The Dark Knight

The recent comic book movie boom, despite it's ubiquitousness and financial success, has a lot to answer for, as far as I'm concerned. Sure, quality has been fairly high this year, so far, but the level of storytelling generally misses the mark when most of the films are measured against the original source material. The X-Men movies gave us a cast of dozens, who were mostly poorly introduced and developed, and swapped scrappy little Wolverine for Clint Eastwood tall, good looking, get-them-gals-into-the-theater Wolverine. The Spider Man movies were more or less faithful to the stories, but somehow couldn't resist adding a thick layer of cheese to the material that was neither warranted or welcomed, in addition to bland, uninspiring casting choices for the two most important characters in the films. Superman Returns was almost a fine return to form, if it hadn't been so quiet and slavishly faithful to the old Richard Donner films. But then came The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan's follow up to 2004's excellent Batman Begins, and I say, his masterpiece thus far.
The Dark Knight picks up directly from Batman Begins: Batman (Christian Bale) and Lieutenant Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) are quickly changing Gotham, keeping the mob on the run and backing them into a corner. But, problems are still there: amateur copycat Batmen are popping up, giving Batman more to worry about when fighting crime. Also, an unpredictable criminal mastermind known as the Joker (Heath Ledger) has been making the scene, and offers his services to the mob to rid them of Batman. Add to the mix idealistic DA Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), who both helps and complicates matters by aligning himself with Batman and Gordon, and dating Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhal, ably replacing Katie Holmes from the first film). Things are going to get worse before they get better.....a hell of a lot worse.
It's been said that The Dark Knight is a writer's movie, and that's putting it mildly. TDK takes the standard script/act formula for a summer tentpole and smashes it to pieces. There are multiple story subtypes in the main theme, an unorthodox act structure, multiple climaxes (!), but Christopher and Jonathan Nolan make it all work. Nolan has acknowledged inspiration from Michael Mann's Heat, and it resembles that film in some ways (a high-profile bank robbery, archrivals, lots of attention to the supporting cast, really an ensemble piece at heart), but to say that it's a superhero version of Heat is selling it short. When I walked out of Batman Begins, my mind was reeling with all the possibilities that they could continue with. Nolan took all of those opportunities, and one or two I didn't think about. We see more of Batman, his tactical genius, his detective skills, and even him working during the day as Bruce Wayne, where Batman can't go. Gary Oldman's part is substantially expanded from the first film, as he gets to hit all the right notes for Gordon: hero cop, family man, Batman's greatest ally. As Harvey Dent, Aaron Eckhart nearly owns the picture for his portrayal as a man so inspiring that Bruce Wayne wonders if he could and should replace Batman as the hero Gotham City deserves. The film has a truly epic feel, yet the dialogue is pretty minimalist: I don't think there's a single wasted word in the script. There is no kid stuff to be had here: this is a superhero movie for adults, and it's tone exceeds other dark second acts (if they make a third.....) like The Empire Strikes Back and The Two Towers. The film is rated PG-13, but it felt R-Rated to me. A daring status quo is established at the end of the film that makes me want to see another to see how it will play out, if for no other reason.
The thing that got some extra interest for the picture, for better or worse, was Heath Ledger's tragic overdose earlier this year. Watching him in TDK only makes that sadder, because I had no idea how much potential he had. Had he not died, there would still be a lot of buzz about him because really, he's that good as the Joker. We see performances this incendiary only once in a great while. Robert Mitchum in Night of the Hunter. Peter O'Toole in The Ruling Class. Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet. Geoffrey Rush in Quills. And Heath Ledger does that here. When the Joker is onscreen, there is not a second in which Ledger isn't conveying a very palpable sense of danger and chaos that Jack Nicholson couldn't convey with his nonthreatening Joker from Tim Burton's Batman. With his unkempt hair, strange makeup, and Chelsea grin, he disappears completely inside the character (isn't that what an actor's supposed to do anyway?) The Joker seen here is the closest we've seen to the comics in terms of his unpredictability, threat level, and criminal genius, but with a touch of added anarchy. Nolan and Ledger did a fine job indeed of pulling the garish Joker into the "real world" nicely. It should be noted that Ledger does not overpower any other actor in the film, IMHO: everybody does solid, careful work with characters less outlandish than the Joker. Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman, respectively reprising their roles as Alfred Pennyworth and Lucius Fox from the first film, get a lot done with very little screen time. If Alfred had a bigger role in this picture, I would say that Michael Caine deserved an Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actor. Honorable mention also goes to Eric Roberts, for his portrayal of smarmy mob boss Sal Moroni.
TDK is a summer movie in almost every sense of the definition: while a lot smarter than the typical summer movie, it's no less fun. The ante is upped with several major action sequences that far surpass the very competent, but much smaller in retrospect, Batman Begins. TDK whizzes along at a breakneck pace that makes the two and a half hour film feel much longer, without actually dragging. Multiple viewings are practically required to really absorb the story, and its subtleties. Despite that, TDK is easily the most satisfying film I've seen in years. And now, there's no looking back. Comic book movies have no excuses for playing it safe now that this film has raised the bar, and given us the crime epic that a character as great as Baman deserves. This formula can be easily applied to other existing franchises. I don't believe that Sam Raimi put Spider Man through the wringer half as much as he could have, and the character wouldn't (and shouldn't) react by simply crying and turning disco, either. Give us X-Men that are the misunderstood freaks who protect those who fear and hate them, instead of the really, really, really, good-looking mutants. I want an Iron Man movie heavy on the political/military intrigue, ala Tom Clancy. Throw Tony Stark's alcoholism into the mix ala Leaving Las Vegas, and you have something potentially very powerful indeed.
The only caveat I have with TDK (if you can even call it a problem) is that it's a pretty hard act to follow, even for a filmmaker as gifted as Christopher Nolan. Still, I believe that he is capable of it. After all, he just gave me the superhero film I've been waiting for for a very long time now. I had absurdly high expectations for TDK, and it met them handily. This movie is Best Picture nomination (if not outright deserving of the prize) good, no joke. This is genre filmmaking on a level never, ever seen before. Still, I hope that Christopher Nolan can pull off a third act that at least meets this one in quality, if not beats it. It's because of that hope that I give The Dark Knight a 21.5 on the 22 scale.

Memorable Lines:

The Joker: "You see, nobody panics when things go according to plan. Even if the plan is horrifying. If I told people that a gangbanger was going to get shot, or a busload of soldiers was going to get blown up, nobody would panic. Because it's all part of the plan. But tell people that one tiny little mayor is going to die and everyone loses their minds!"

Batman: "Why do you want to kill me?"
The Joker: "Kill you? I don't want to kill you! What would I do without you? Go back to ripping off mob dealers? No, no, you... you complete me."

Maroni's Mistress: "It's too loud in here, we can't hear each other talk."
Salvatore Maroni: "What makes you think I want to hear you talk?"

The Joker: "Do you wanna know why I use a knife? Guns are too quick. You can't savor all the...little..emotions. And..you see..in their last moments...people show you who they really are. So, in a way, I know your friends better than you ever did. Would you like to know which one of them were cowards?"

Harvey Dent: "The night is darkest just before the dawn. And I promise you, the dawn is coming."

La Vie En Rose (or, La Môme)

Initial Reaction: Sacré Bleu!

As self-appointed foreign film specialist of TMBC, I bring you a French biopic about one of the most famed singers of France whose talent reached international renown in the 1950s and 60s. I think the reason that I enjoy biopics so much is because though I’m not really one to get interested in history or biographies, watching a film about someone’s life is totally captivating. These films offer very unique experiences, and I love being able to expand my horizons by feeling or seeing what another person has seen or felt.

Édith Piaf had a tragic, soulful voice which matched the things that happened throughout her personal life. From her childhood until her death, Piaf was haunted by misfortune and tragedy. For the most part, the movie spans her entire life, but not sequentially. It consistently jumps to different times in her life, which at first is a bit disorienting, but it’s pretty easy to catch on. As a young child, Édith went from living with her mother, who was a street singer, to her maternal grandmother, then her father, and eventually to her paternal grandmother who ran a brothel. For several years this was her home, and she grew close to one of the women there named Titine. Titine came to look at Édith as her own child, caring for her and encouraging her pray to Saint Theresa. During this time, Édith also suffered from an illness which gave her long-term temporary blindness.

Regardless of these things, Édith seemed to be happy and loved in this environment. But her bad luck came back full force when her father returned unexpectedly and uprooted her, bringing her with him where he worked in the circus as a contortionist. At first things seemed even more unfair than ever, since she wasn't even allowed to watch the acts and was forced to cook and clean for her father, but this is the first opportunity she got to experience what would be her love affair for life: singing.

One big plus for this film is the music. Mostly, the songs are being sung by Piaf herself, (a good choice by director Olivier Dahan) and aside from maybe the first number, Cotillard did a great job lip-synching. Piaf had a very unique sound and style, which was described as being “the soul of Paris.” I was ashamed to realize after watching the film just how famous Piaf was, not only in France, and I wasn’t even aware.

Now, in regards to Marion Cotillard and her performance in this movie: wow. I have a lot of respect for this actress, and she totally deserves the academy award she got. The amount of time she spent learning how to stand and sing like Piaf has got to be staggering, but she says herself that she didn’t only strive to copy the singer. She made her a real person, and embodied her spirit. Also noteworthy is that she acted as Piaf as a young woman, spanning the years until she is at the end of her life. This was when she was in her 40s, though because of extremely poor health, she looked more like she was in her 60s or 70s.

So, why should you see La Vie En Rose? While I think most will probably accept the fact that it's extremely well-done with one of the best acting performances ever, I don't think many are rushing to the rental store to pick it up. Here are some reasons why you should: the story of Piaf's life is really an incredible one. I've given you a small piece of her childhood, but her adult life is what really touches our human core as she lives, loves and continues on in spite of everything that would seek to drag her down. The music is wonderful...she is truly unique and not only performed, but sang with truth and spirit that came from her life. The film is extremely well-done, clearly fashioned with great attention to detail and a successful attempt to capture her story and her life. Finally, if none of these things appeal to you, Cotillard's performance should. I've seen her in other films before, but until I looked her up on the Internet Movie Database after seeing this movie, I didn't think I had ever seen her. She has thrown herself into this role, and in doing so has brought Piaf back to life, renewing interest in her legacy and allowing us the chance to connect with the experiences of others, no matter how far removed and distant those experiences may seem.

Rating: 18

La Vie en Rose is one of those stories that you keep thinking about after you see it. Édith Piaf is a French icon whose story and contribution to music should not go unnoticed. This movie doesn't seek to overly glorify her or paint things in ways that they didn't happen; it delivers to us a real person who, though she might not always be likeable, draws us in with her vibrant spirit, incredible talent, and tenacity, which kept her singing until her life was cut short. Mais, elle ne regrette rien.

Strange Days

The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of a system, or the inability for a system to do its work, will increase over time, eventually reaching a maximum at equilibrium. Now, to me, that’s a lot of gobbledygook; I just looked it up on Wikipedia. The Irish poet W.B. Yeats had a much simpler and more understandable way of saying it: things fall apart. Anything that’s set in motion will gradually break down, till there is no motion at all. Love fades, food rots, and our bodies continue their downward slide. So what the hell, let’s make a movie!

Strange Days is a film made in 1995 set around New Year’s Eve 1999, a time when the country is basically going down the crapper. Projections about the very near future are never a good idea, especially when they’re as radical as the ones in Strange Days. Granted, they’re not that the shape of the earth has changed or that we’re living in pods in outer space, but their just extreme enough to make people in 2008 snicker a little. A particularly funny moment was when there was a lament that gasoline was over $3.00/gallon.

It technically qualifies as a sci-fi movie, and here’s why. Central to the plot are illegal devices called SQUIDs. A SQUID is a device that goes over your head like a hairnet, and when you plug a mini-disc-like cartridge into the remote device wirelessly connected to it, you can have an audiovisual/tactile experience in first person, as if you are there. The cartridge is a recording taken from the cerebral cortex of someone also wearing a SQUID. People get hooked on it like drugs, and like some drugs, overuse of it makes you paranoid. Strange Days’s main character is a dealer of these black market devices named Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes). He’s an ex-cop now working on the wrong side of the law, but still basically a good person. Also in the story are his friend Mace (Angela Bassett), a tough-as-nails limo driver, Max (Tom Sizemore), his P.I. buddy, and Faith (Juliette Lewis), a singer/hooker who happens to be the (only) one that got away. The trouble starts when Lenny gets sent a mysterious “black jack” cartridge (the SQUID equivalent of a snuff film) depicting the brutal rape and murder of Iris, a hooker friend of Faith’s. Iris indicated that Faith might be in danger before she died, and because of his obsession with Faith, Lenny gets involved.

Strange Days is very story-driven, so I won’t reveal much more than that. The screenplay, written by James Cameron of Titanic fame, is smart and tightly wound, even though it doesn’t make sense in places and is slightly ridiculous. However, I’m not sure who Strange Days thinks it’s appealing to. It’s too violent, disturbing and swear-ridden to appeal to sci-fi geeks, and it’s too cerebral and futuristic to appeal to the meatheads that would like the guns and bad people in it. In the end, it winds up being a jack of all trades, master of none. Acting is competent from all involved, especially Angela Bassett. It strikes me that she would be perfect for the role of Storm in X-Men, and would do an infinitely better job than Halle Berry. Strange Days has far too long of a beginning, though, and consequentially clocks in at almost 2 and a half hours. The director (Kathryn Bigelow) could have trimmed the fat without taking out the punch or grit, which the movie had in spades.

It was a little too needlessly graphic and pessimistic for my taste, and I didn’t like the anti-society message the movie (perhaps subconsciously) seemed to present. It had a great premise, and the screenplay was intricate and intelligent with fantastic dialogue, though the plot holes eventually made it look a little like Swiss cheese. The cinematography comes from an age when CGI wasn’t the thing that it is now, but in this case, it’s a good thing. The set and costume designs (and lack of CGI) make the world the characters exist in eerily like our own, but fast-forwarded enough to still make it escapist. But overall, the problems Strange Days has make it difficult to recommend very highly. It’s definitely not for everyone.

Iconic lines:
“Cheer up. The world’s gonna end in ten minutes, anyway.”
“The issue’s not whether you’re paranoid. The issue’s whether you’re paranoid enough.”
“Two million years of human evolution and that’s the best you can come up with?”

22 Rating: 5

Particle Man

Love's Labour's Lost

I love Shakespeare. I love musicals. So obviously by putting those two together would send me to heaven. Well before we get to that, let’s examine the plot of Love’s Labour's Lost. Kenneth Branagh is at it again with an interpretation of the immortal bard. Again, our friend Mr. Branagh does not make Shakespeare into anything crazy. The language is the same; only this time he is mixing it with song and dance routines. Nothing crazy like contemporary dances, but those you would find in the classic musicals of the 40s or 50s. Which works very well since the movie is set in 1939.
Branagh brings us into the story with a newsreel reminding the viewer that WWII is very near entering France. While I applaud Branagh’s attempt to merge the story with a different time, the newsreels that occur throughout the film do get somewhat tedious. We are told that the King of Navarre and his 3 cronies have decided to shut themselves away for three years of intensive study. The biggest thing about this is that no women can be seen by ANY of the scholars or the King’s subjects, along with other crazy rules. Of course that oath is swiftly tested when the Princess of France visits with her 3 ladies in waiting. The oath takes a beating from him and his compatriots as well as by his subjects.
This movie was enjoyable. I feel that saying it was good would be exaggerating slightly. This movie had a lot of famous people in it but I don’t think that improved it any. As always, Nathan Lane delivers a top-notch performance as the court clown, and gets to sing and dance as well. For the “Men of Navarre” Kenneth Branagh is the most famous person with Matthew Lillard coming in a distant second. While I found Branagh convincing as the sarcastic and self-loving Berowne (yeah, like he really had to act), Lillard was horribly miscast. Although he can sing well enough, I guess, he does not come off as even remotely masculine. Even when wooing his Lady of France he seems to be trying to convince the audience and himself that he is not gay. The “Ladies of France” have as their recognizable star Alicia Silverstone. She does a competent job in conveying the princess, and despite her convincingly acting ditzy in Clueless, did not trip over the big Shakespearean words. Timothy Spall turns in a showing as the weird count. I think he was supposed to be whimsical, but is just plain weird and weird looking as well. Richard Clifford as Boyet is on the side of good this time as the servant to the Ladies of France. Last time I saw Mr. Clifford he was serving the evil and sulky Prince John in Much Ado About Nothing.
As I said before, I love both Shakespeare and musicals but I don’t know if they gelled together the way they were envisioned. Something about Kenneth Branagh in a wife beater trying to be all sexy while seducing Alicia Silverstone just does not do it for me. Nevertheless, the movie is an enjoyable musical romp with a few missteps thrown in. Obviously, I did not hate it enough to avoid buying it. I would have to go with a 9. I think there is one line in the movie that defines what happened. “Let’s face the music and dance.” This seems to be a good idea of director Branagh assessment of the situation. “Well, it is not going to be stellar, so let’s just have fun!”

WALL-E

Pixar is an embarrassment to the moviemaking industry.

By that, I mean that every other studio in Hollywood should be embarrassed that Pixar consistently outshines them.

Rival studio executives hoping for a little schadenfreude at Pixar's expense will have to keep on waiting—by every conceivable measure, WALL-E, Pixar's latest offering, is a huge success. It racked up a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 93% on Metacritic. It earned 63 million dollars in its first weekend—easily outgrossing a film whose trailer prominently featured Angelina Jolie's unadorned back. It currently sits at #6 on IMDB's top 250.

I'm here to tell you that these metrics all undersell it.

If you haven't already heard, WALL-E tells the story of its titular robot, a trash-compacting droid still plugging away on Earth hundreds of years after humans—and pretty much all other forms of life—have left. Starved for company (aside from his pet cockroach), WALL-E whiles the day away picking up trash, compacting it into tight little cubes, and stacking these cubes miles high. When Eve, a plant-sensing robot hundreds of years more advanced than WALL-E, arrives on the godforsaken Earth, WALL-E looks past her apparent indifference to him (and the fact that she could easily destroy him) and attempts to befriend her. Just as his persistence begins to pay off, WALL-E shows Eve a plant he found, causing her to snatch it from him, stow it, and go into a dormant mode until she is picked up by a spaceship. WALL-E, not allowed to let his one friend disappear without a fight, stows away on the spaceship in hopes of rescuing Eve.

Of course, that little plot summary does the film absolutely no justice.

Pixar has long made a living creating characters that are adorable without being sickening, and flawed without being irredeemable. WALL-E ratchets up the adorable while still adroitly avoiding the sickening—probably because he's so much more than that. He's clever, he's dogged, he's inquisitive, he's resourceful, he's hopeful, he's loving, and he's refreshingly unconcerned with himself. He'll also probably go down as one of the most memorable characters of this decade.

Pixar has never really shied away from putting small social messages in their films, but they probably make their boldest statement here. Not only is the Earth left completely uninhabitable by human consumption, but the humans out in space do nothing but consume, converse, and coast around in these neat little hover-chairs. Their every whim seems to be catered to by a conglomerate called "Buy-n-Large"—a not even remotely veiled swipe at Wal-Mart. (And in what I understand is the first appearance by an actual human in a Pixar film, the inimitable Fred Willard plays the CEO of Buy-n-Large at the time of Earth's evacuation.) That said, the environmental and consumerist warnings are delivered with enough of a wink that they at no point seem preachy.

WALL-E does all of what Pixar does best. It's gorgeously rendered. It features a subtle but incredibly efffective score. It uses non-human characters to remind us what it means to be human. But WALL-E outstrips its Pixar predecessors in a number of key ways as well. While all Pixar movies take us deep into the psyche of a three-dimensional main character, WALL-E takes us there with barely a shred of dialogue. While all Pixar movies offer a new way to see the world, WALL-E goes further by offering a whole new world to see. But where WALL-E really blows away the competition is in its contagious, infectious, intoxicating sense of discovery. It's enough to turn even the most stone-hearted viewer into a state of wide-eyed wonder.

I don't know what more to say. WALL-E made me laugh. It made my eyes well up. It made me cheer. It filled me with hope. It did everything you'd ever want a movie to do, and only my extreme hesitancy to use the very top number on our belovéd scale is keeping WALL-E at a 21.

The Incredible Hulk

There are few things more pleasing than when a film surprises you with how damn competent it is, especially in this day and age when we've seen everything. There are several reasons this happens, including poor promotion, but it seems more impressive when it happens against poor speculation towards it's prospects, ala The Bourne Identity. That's why it was so pleasing to get a double-surprise of Ed Norton returning to form as a leading man in Hollywood, and to do it via a star/producer/co-writer vehicle in The Incredible Hulk.
Norton stars as proto-geek Bruce Banner, the man with the most conspicuous anger management problem on the planet. The film begins with a credit sequence that refreshes people on the "familiar"* origin of the Hulk in about a minute and a half (THANK YOU. This is how origins should be dealt with), and moves on to show Banner hiding out in Brazil, working as a janitor in a bottling plant, and studying with a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu master to defend himself and control his anger. What? I know, right? Not your typical superhero fare. This early sequence of the film showcases the honestly beautiful cinematography in the film (most notably a shot of the crowded city that circles up.....and up.....and up.....), and showcases Banner's plight in hiding, the consequences of not being able to maintain absolute control, and the general tragedy of being the Hulk very vividly. Meanwhile, General "Thunderbolt" Ross (William Hurt, phoning it in) is determined to catch the Hulk, and use him for his original purpose: as a bio-weapon, with the assistance of Royal Marine Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth). The crux of the plot revolves around Banner's determination to find a cure for the Hulk aided by the mysterious "Mr. Blue," and how his quest is opposed by Ross and his obsession with the Hulk.
Much has been made of the maligned (and rightfully so) 2004 Hulk film, and people were wondering if the franchise was cursed. How does this new version compare to the Ang Lee version? The answer is, very, very well. French director Louis Leterrier (The Transporter 2, Unleashed) handles directorial duties nicely, in a fast-moving, funny, and thoughtful popcorn film that makes it very easy to care about the protagonist. The script by proven Marvel adapter Zak Penn holds up well, especially the Norton-added references to the Hulk's universe, and a hard-to-miss reference to Captain America via the Super-Solider Serum. BUT, the easter eggs and references never get in the way of the plot, or story.
There was a lot I liked about this film that I hated about the first one. The Hulk gets his powers from gamma radiation, not sea-cucumber splicing. The Hulk talks. The Hulk fights a super-villain, not the Army the whole time, which leads to one small caveat: how stupid are these guys anyway? They spend millions of dollars pursuing the Hulk, and yet they can't figure out he's bullet-proof, so maybe they shouldn't waste any ammo lesser than, say, a Stinger missile on him? If I were a taxpayer in the Marvel Universe, I'd be pretty pissed off that they were spending all that money going after domestic "problems" like the Hulk, instead of Dr. Doom and his weapons of mass destruction. Screw diplomatic policy.
All in all, it's been a great year for comics at the multiplex. While not quite as good as Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk pretty much lives up to its name. I give it a 15 out of 22 on the 22 scale.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Initial Reaction: "Whew!" (reaches for tissue).

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (or Scaphandre et le Papillon) is based on a true story of the man Jean-Dominique Bauby (Jean-Do), the editor of Elle magazine who in 1995 suffered a stroke and was diagnosed with "locked-in syndrome." Essentially, this means that while he was cognitively fully functioning, he is unable to move or speak at all. In the film, Jean-Do wakes up from a coma after this stroke and learns that he's paralyzed from head to toe. The movie wastes no time with exposition, because the situation lends itself beautifully to introduce the story and the characters.

This is a French film directed by American Julian Schnabel who won best director at Cannes Film Festival. It stars Mathieu Amalric who was praised for his role as Jean-Do. While there was nothing lacking in his performance, I have to say that I'm not quite sure what could be so amazing about playing a guy who can't move at all. (I was curious about how they got his lip to droop, though.) The only thing that Bauby can control is his left eye, and with help from the hospital staff he learns how to use this to communicate. The amazing thing is that through this method of communication he is able to write his book, the memoir that the film is based on. The rest of the characters, including Emmanuelle Seigner as Celine, Marie-Josee Croze as Henriette, Anne Consigny as Claude, and Max von Sydow as Papinou (among others) made so much of their characters. I loved how genuine and understated their performances were. Even though this script has the potential to be a drama-filled weep fest, it didn't go there at all.

Another way that this film was honest with us was in the actual character of Jean-Do. While I can't say that the story's representation of Bauby is completely accurate, it didn't attempt to make him a hero or a sacrificial lamb. From the very beginning we hear his internal monologue as he lives through the experience, and he is a complete person with all his bitterness, sarcasm, grief, and fear. An example of this is when he first sees himself in the reflection on a window, the same point at which we first see him. He is taken aback by the face staring back at him, and so are we, because all we've been aware of is his youthful, healthy voice, the voice he himself is used to hearing. As he looks at the reflection, he bluntly says to himself "I look like something from a jar of formaldehyde."

This was not a film I'd recommend for pure entertainment value. It's a difficult movie to watch, not only for the reason you think. It is filmed from Jean-Do's perspective, so the majority of the movie is what he is seeing or experiencing. As a viewer, this doesn't conjure up pity as much as empathy. Rather than looking at this pathetic creature bed-ridden and unable to do anything himself and thinking "Aw, poor guy, that sucks," we're looking out from his eyes and thinking "Hey, you there! On the outside! This sucks!" The way that director Julian Schnabel achieves this is through some very creative, unusual camera work. We literally are in Jean-Do's head, the cinematography reflects this realistically and seamlessly.

Rating: 16

This film is much more of an experience than a story. We get to experience the horror of locked-in syndrome, but also the simplicity and hope of life newly-realized. While I give credit to a great movie where credit is due, it was a bit difficult to watch, and so my enjoyment of it went down a smidge, which resulted in a 16. What a wonderful tribute to a man and his incredible story.

Baby Mama

Tee-hee, procreation is funny.

But seriously, a huge part of creating comedy is finding the amusing in the everyday. Something that might not seem funny to you can be given a whole new spin in the hands of a skilled comedian. Now, I’m not saying that we should have comedies about the Holocaust or suicide bombings; some things are just out of bounds. But most of the good comedy movies would work nearly as well as serious dramas. Melinda & Melinda explores this idea more thoroughly, but that review is for another time. In this one, we’re talking about Baby Mama, and whether or not it worked.

The answer to that question is, “for the most part.” It wasn’t all giggly moments, which I appreciated, but some moments fell flat, and others were just plain not funny. The story involves a 37 year-old woman in Philadelphia named Kate (Tina Fey), whose biological clock is telling her she needs to have progeny. Since she’s married to her career, the traditional method of getting pregnant isn’t really an option, so she tries other ways, eventually settling on having her eggs fertilized and placed in a surrogate. That lucky lady is Angie (Amy Poehler), a Dr. Pepper-drinking party girl just a step above white trash. Kate works for a health food company owned by a whacko sketch-monster named Barry (Steve Martin), and lives in a posh apartment building with a ghetto doorman (Romany Malco).

While scoping out sites for a new store the company wants to open, she runs into Rob (Greg Kinnear), a small-business owner/ex-lawyer who runs a clone of Jamba Juice, who becomes her significant other. Things proceed as normal, except that Angie has all the motherly instinct of a sledgehammer, and she and her skeezy boyfriend (Dax Shepard) have a secret. Fey is all right as the straight woman, but I like her better when she’s playing the sardonic jokester, as she did so often on Saturday Night Live. Poehler, another SNL alum, really gives it her all with Angie, and the result is a very funny character, with moments of seriousness amidst the levity, both of which she does quite well. She has a knack for ridiculousness and flamboyance.

But, as with all ensamble comedies, the real gems are the supporting characters. Kinnear is splendid as Rob, with surprisingly good comedic timing. He’s a great match for Fey’s kinda buttoned-up control freak. Malco is the shiz as Oscar the doorman, though he plays largely the same character as his 40 Year Old Virgin gig, the only other film I’ve seen him in. Maura Tierney plays her role as the sensible sister competently, though she seems a little out of place. Sigourney Weaver even shows up as the weird and kooky head of the agency where Kate has her surrogacy done. And Siobhan Fallon provides several guilty giggles as a birthing instructor with a massive speech impediment.

Baby Mama had plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, but nothing was too out of the ordinary, with the exception of a very odd scene where Angie is getting pregnant with Kate’s eggs. Let’s just say it was a sex scene like no other. This movie had an all-star cast, though nobody really stole the spotlight from anyone else. Though the story mostly centered around Kate and Angie, each of the minor characters had their moment (or moments) in the sun. I also appreciated the happy ending, even if the movie was a tad sentimental before then.

Michael McCullers (an SNL writer sitting in the director’s chair for the first time) does a good job of balancing humor with weight, though the flow of his narrative leaves something to be desired. The dialogue is a little stilted, especially for someone who wrote for SNL. But I might have been spoiled rotten forever, since Arrested Development. I could also pick on his directorial and editing style, but this is his very first movie, so that seems a little hard-hearted. And the message of the movie seems to be that in this age of so many new ways to become parents, there is one thing that never changes: love. This gets it a lot of points in my book.

In general, Baby Mama is a fun lark, though it need not be watched on a theater screen; DVD will do just fine. It was released at a pretty inopportune time, what with Indy 4 and Iron Man still running, but it’s worth the ticket.

Iconic Lines:
“Yeah, I just don’t like your uterus.”
“Congratulations, Kate. Now, I’m going to reward you with 5 minutes of uninterrupted eye contact.”
“I’m gonna bang all your friends! Consider them banged!”

22 Rating: 8

Particle Man

27 Dresses

Is it just me or did Pythagoras make this film? That was pretty much my reaction to 27 Dresses. This movie “starring” Katherine Heigl and James Marsden, follows the typical chick flick formula. Jane (Heigl) is someone who is always a bridesmaid and never a bride. She seems to hold down two jobs: a full time assistant to a man that she is in love with and a doormat who people use to plan their weddings. However, they don’t pay her for her services, and all she gets to do is be a bridesmaid. She is perfectly happy with this life until her sister comes into town and falls in love with Jane’s boss and becomes engaged to him. This throws Jane into a tailspin as she must plan her sister’s wedding to the man they are both in love with. Enter Kevin Doyle (Marsden). He comes into Jane’s life and refuses to leave it. In the beginning he tries to get on her good side to get the dirt on a story he is currently writing, however, as anyone could predict, he falls in love with her, sees the error of his ways, and becomes a better person.
Well, now that I am done throwing up I can continue with this review. I would just like to say that this movie was so formulaic that it could have been written and directed by mathematicians. I do apologize to mathematicians EVERYWHERE for this offense. We as film viewers do understand that we do not go to a chick flick to be mentally challenged, but c’mon, use some originality, morons! I could predict what was going to happen even before it happened in the movie. I am not psychic or intuitive or anything, it was just the film seemed to not progress beyond the storyboard aspect of development. On top of the horribly unoriginal plot, there was the acting. NOTHING in this movie made me care for anyone. I didn’t care what happened to the characters; they could've fallen down a sewer for all I cared, and I blame this on the terrible acting. I know that it was probably hard to get any emotion out of this math problem of a movie, but they didn’t even try. It was completely ridiculous.
Some people (myself included) have said, yeah, it was not a great movie, but it had some cute points. Does that mean you would go and watch an autopsy if it had cute parts? My answer is no! There is nothing cute or precious enough in this film to even remotely save it. This film gets a -12, and I should consider some shock therapy as a way to forget this movie.