Reviews

I would really like to see Todd Solondz produce something on the level of WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE or HAPPINESS again but I'm afraid that I'll just have to settle for watching those earlier works. To be fair, I don't know what he could have done with the characters from HAPPINESS that would have worked better. I revisited HAPPINESS before seeing LIFE DURING WARTIME to refresh my memory. That film crackles throughout with uneasiness. When we laugh, it's to release tension. It's not the cast's fault that this film lacks the same punch. While unrated in the US, my guess is that this would have received a PG-13 or an R for a few exposed breasts. HAPPINESS would have been NC-17 for sure. HAPPINESS was about getting whatever happiness one can no matter the cost to others. This is a film about forgiving and forgetting and moving on. I can certainly forgive Todd Solondz for what he tried to achieve here even as the film fades from memory.

I very likely would have given THE HURT LOCKER a 9 if I had been able to see the work that Kathryn Bigelow's production team had done. Unfortunately, the decision to go with the "realism" of a hand-held camera throughout, often involving abrupt pans and focus shifts (even when filming two stationary people conversing) resulted in some of the most self-consciously awful cinematography I've ever seen. What is constructed to be a high stakes chase scene, consists entirely of characters, or what we presume to be characters, making blurry light smudges across the screen. It's really a shame because Bigelow, whose innovative take on the vampire genre NEAR DARK and turn of the millennium sci-fi STRANGE DAYS made her a director to watch, has once again led the pack by turning the day-to-day work of a bomb disposal unit into a nail-biting evocation of asymmetrical warfare. To say THE HURT LOCKER has a documentary feel gives documentary cinematography a bad name. Steadicam anyone?

I've had a lot of respect for the Pixar folks over the past several years. I enjoyed THE INCREDIBLES and WALL-E and to a lesser extent FINDING NEMO and RATATOUILLE. CORALINE is a different class of movie altogether. While Pixar has been breaking barriers in realism, CORALINE follows Alice down the rabbit hole into a world of fantasy. And it's a fantasy land I haven't visited in a while: a welcome change. CORALINE's world is designed to beguile her with wonder and Henry Selick manages to beguile the audience with wonder too. This is the first 3D movie I've seen that actually knows what to do with the process. While the story is as classic as a trip down the rabbit hole or to Oz, its sinister twist and vivid imagination make it a fresh experience.

Wendy wants to take her dog to Alaska where she hopes to find work in a fish cannery. Car troubles complicate her plan. Wendy's only real sin, and the engine that drives the story, is that she doesn't have a lot of money. She needs to get to Alaska and earn some more before she runs out. It is the simplicity and universality of her predicament and the matter-of-fact details with which Kelly Reichardt documents it that make this tiny slice of life unforgettable. Easily ninety percent of Michelle Williams' performance is non-verbal. She betrays as little emotion as she can, trying to maintain her self control. The brilliance of this understatement is that we must constantly place ourselves in her position to understand what must be going through her head. Everything about this film is deceptively easy. It is so brutally honest that any attempt at a Hollywood story element would break the movie's spell. WENDY AND LUCY's brevity is one of its chief virtues.

In many ways, Joe Carnahan's ONCE is a musical version of David Lean's BRIEF ENCOUNTER. The simple story of an aspiring musician and a Czechoslovakian cleaning woman who meet on the streets of Dublin and literally make beautiful music together is both conventional and original. ONCE is original in the way that it addresses the awkwardness of characters breaking into song. For the most part, the music we hear is being performed. It isn't something that only the characters hear. This prevents the tunes from clashing with the naturalistic setting, the gritty locales, the hand-held camera work. It's also just disarming enough to help us overlook that the story being told both apart from and through the music is essentially a romantic fairy tale. The title should clue us in to that.

When I first heard about RATATOUILLE, I thought that Pixar had finally "jumped the shark." A movie about a rat who dreams of becoming a cordon bleu struck me as a disconnect between wealthy Pixar folk who can afford to dine at the finest restaurants in the world and...everyone else. I gave Brad Bird the benefit of the doubt. I wasn't surprised to learn that he did not originate the project but deserves credit for the "save." The story about a rat who wishes to follow his dream is universal enough to overcome the snobbishness of the arena in which he wishes to make his mark. The element I found myself questioning was the hyper-realistic setting. When the kitchen and the food are made to look so real, it calls into question whether or not this could have been shot, much less expensively, as a live action film.

Razor sharp dialog peppers a surprisingly tight script (for a 2.5 hour historical drama) as Thomas Becket, whose only allegiance is to the honor of a job well done, goes from being his king's closest ally to his greatest nemesis simply because of a change in job title (from Chancellor to Arch Bishop of Canterbury). Peter O'Toole is great fun as the boorish, drunkard of a king who misreads his helpful subject's pragmatism as devotion. His domestic problems foreshadow his character's problems in THE LION IN WINTER. Richard Burton is cool and understated as the pursuit of excellence, which fueled his meteoric rise, now jeopardizes his safety. John Gielgud is a mischievous King Louis VII.

I'll admit that I usually don't go see stories about inspirational teachers and redemption. I don't have anything in particular against them. It's just that I'm familiar with the formula. I went to see this because I kept hearing that it transcended its subject matter. I wasn't particularly excited about the idea of student helps teacher instead of vice versa but I gave it a chance. Overall, I didn't have any problem with the performances. I just found the movie to be impossible. The classroom of unbelievably well-behaved middle school students existed only for the writer to make remarkably unsubtle points about opposing forces and change. The central character seemed to handle his addiction as a minor inconvenience. The student's home life was stereotypical. When I reached the point where I didn't care whether or not the student redeemed the teacher because all of the characters were impossible creations, I gave up.

I'm a pretty big Werner Herzog fan. I loved Grizzly Man. I loved Aguirre, Wrath of God, especially Herzog's commentary track. His performance in Incident at Loch Ness was amazing. I enjoyed The Burden of Dreams slightly more than Fitzcarraldo or My Best Fiend but I appreciate the whole narrative as documentary idea and vice versa. In this film, I was happy to see Brad Dourif stick his mug in the camera as a crazy alien. I went to see this at a Portland Werner Herzog mini-festival because I read that although the work was made for the BBC, the photography had to be appreciated on the big screen. I couldn't disagree more. The photography, home movies of people floating around in a space capsule or diving in a poorly lit sea looked like outtakes from any decent nature documentary. If accompanied by the experiences of the participants, it still could have been a decent show. If reconfigured as a clever twist on the imagery, a la Woody Allen's What's Up Tiger Lily? it might have held my interest. Unfortunately, the poor photography was, for the most part, accompanied by music. I have no problem with this. I enjoyed Koyaanisqatsi and Man With a Movie Camera. But here, the images are boring and the music (pseudo-throat singing and scratchy amateurish cello ambiance) is grating. As an example of the poor quality of the imposed story, here's an example. The explanation of divers swimming toward the light of a whole cut in an ice cap are explained as astronauts transporting themselves by disintegrating themselves into pure light and reconfiguring at the other end. It's an amazing visual effect, I suppose for someone who has never noticed that looking through water in a glass distorts an image. Then again, anyone under three would be bored to tears by the images of a scientist nodding off during an interview. This experience is probably closest to something like Andy Warhol's Sleep, which was a long, unbroken shot of someone sleeping for a guy sleeping for five hours. I could have take a nap during that, though. The music in this film kept jarring me awake. I rarely post negative comments. Why bother? But if I can convince one Herzog fan to watch this on DVD, where he can turn it off, instead of sitting through it in a theater, I will have provided a useful public service.

The sound bytes that I heard on NPR's coverage of "Thank You For Smoking" were the best moments in the movie. It shouldn't come as a surprise that the best things in a movie about spin should be watching the process of spin in action, and spin is all about sound bytes. Aaron Eckhart is wonderful as the cigarette spin doctor and he is supported by an A-team of character actors including William H. Macy as a Vermont senator, Robert Duvall as "the Captain" of big tobacco, Sam Elliott as a Marlboro Man diagnosed with cancer and J.K. Simmons as Eckhart's boss. Rob Lowe steals the show as a Hollywood product placement mogul only too eager to find a place for cigarettes somewhere in "the future." The film's strength, the joyful fun it has with a very deadly issue, is also the key to its weakness. The targets are easy and the plot turns contrived. Katie Holmes is weak as a femme fatale reporter but so is her contrived story line. The movie is definitely worth seeing for its brilliant flashes of comedy but it leaves you with a craving for more.

The most amazing thing about Philip Seymour Hoffman's portrayal of Truman Capote is that it has almost nothing to do with his mastery of the man's unforgettably precious speech or coy mannerisms. His true achievement is making those affectations disappear almost immediately beneath the skin of the most complex character Hoffman has ever played on screen. When Capote, the egomaniacal young city slicker, decides to explore how a sleepy Kansas town is affected when four members of one of its most prominent families are brutally murdered, he has no idea where the story will lead or the emotional toll that it will take on himself and those around him. In one of the convicted killers he finds a real life character beyond anything his mind could have conjured. But the fate of his book and that of its subject are inextricably linked and it can't turn out well for both. The commingled bravado and vulnerability with which Hoffman as Capote faces this paradox is his truly amazing feat.

"Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World" is Albert Brooks as we haven't seen him since 1985's "Lost in America." This satire, in which Albert Brooks accepts a governmental commission to write a 500-page report on what tickles the Muslim funny bone, misses no opportunity to poke fun at America's cluelessness about other cultures. Like "Lost in America" and "Real Life," its humor comes from Brooks's character's desperate attempts to salvage some dignity when a grand idea goes terribly wrong. This time his satirical targets include his own career: the burden of being better known for voicing a fish in a cgi cartoon than for all of his other work combined. For those unfamiliar with Brooks's earlier work, think of him as a forerunner of Ricky Gervais's characters in "The Office" and "Extras."

Good musicals are few and far between and good movie adaptations are fewer and farther. Musical comedy fans should applaud Susan Stroman's faithful film adaptation of THE PRODUCERS. The big, wide-screen spectacle recalls THE MUSIC MAN in its skill for bringing musical set pieces to the screen.

Stroman bucks the trend of filling leading roles with film stars who are singing and dancing (or being dubbed and doubled) for the first time in their careers. Nathan Lane finally gets the chance to show movie audiences why he has won two Tony Awards for roles originated by Zero Mostel. Gary Beach is side-splittingly funny in his dual role as Roger Debris and Adolph Hitler. Matthew Broderick, whose face is frozen in terror during his dance moves, shows the weakness of casting movie stars in Broadway musicals but he faithfully recreates his stage performance here.

Of the supporting roles cast with film stars, Will Ferrell holds his own against even Lane in his scene chewing performance as Nazi playwright Franz Liebkind. Uma Thurman gets everything there is to be gotten out of the stereotypical Swedish blond bombshell Ula.

For the most part, Stroman resists the temptation to "open up" the musical with actual New York settings. In an even shrewder move, she resists the urge to slavishly preserve all of the musical numbers. The nips and tucks help keep the two hour fourteen minute comedy moving right along. I suspect that The King of Broadway, which finds its way onto the soundtrack album will also make it to the DVD. Also note that audiences are amply rewarded for sitting through the credits.

It's always fun to watch Farley Granger sweat bullets over a screw-up. This time the part-time letter carrier stumbles upon a quick way to pick up a couple of hundred bucks so that his pregnant wife can have all the good things in life, namely a private room at the hospital. When he ends up with a bit more cash than he bargains for, he begins to behave every bit as stupidly and nonsensically as you would expect him to. Anthony Mann skillfully keeps the usual suspect noir elements in the mix. Jean Hagen plays the saloon singer who prefers to drink her meals at the improbable club Les Artistes. James Craig plays the big lug with a shady past and the police detectives including the frog throated Charles McGraw have plenty of colorful characters to question. But it's Farley Granger who keeps the ball rolling. You never know what dumb move he'll make next.

SHOPGIRL reminded me of LOST IN TRANSLATION transplanted to the alien landscape of Los Angeles. Vermont native Mirabelle (Claire Danes) stands behind the glove counter at the LA Saks Fifth Avenue to pay off her student loan and support herself as she pursues a career as an artist. One day, Jeremy (Jason Schwartzman), a disheveled font designer with no social skills awkwardly begins hitting on her at the laundromat and she begins dating him out of sheer boredom. When the wealthy, sophisticated older man Ray Porter (Steve Martin) invites her to dinner, she is game to go that route instead. Steve Martin the writer is not a wild and crazy guy. He specializes in stories about misfits trying to cobble together some kind of life. Claire Danes is perfectly cast as the title character and the subdued Martin and over-the-top Schwartzman add resonance to this minimalist romantic character study.

When a documentary like SPELLBOUND succeeds there is a tendency to jump on the bandwagon and this film about kids of a similar age participating in a ten-week ballroom dancing course ending in a competition seemed like it might be trying to follow the formula. It is. But that's a good thing. The story is shaped with plenty of warmth and humor that comes out of the kids themselves. There is inherent drama and humor watching the kids face the opposite sex, mastery of their changing bodies and the pressures of competition simultaneously. Where any fictional film about kids this age is bound to sound a lot of false notes, this one knows how to watch for the little moments and cut on the visual punchlines. Example: when the interviewer is speaking with a teacher whose class is waiting quietly for the end of the period, the teacher begins to tear up about how her kids are becoming grown-up ladies and gentlemen. As if to remind her that she's full of it, a kid in the middle of the room turns around to catch a glimpse of his teacher getting all weepy. He can't wait to tell his friends, gentleman or not.

A local reviewer called "Bad Education", "Vertigo" with drag queens. That's a much more appealing depiction than the off-putting montage of images that make up the trailer. After two black comedies, Almodóvar has returned to the psychological thriller. The effect is not unlike a Hitchcock script directed by Luis Buñuel by way of early Brian DePalma, particularly "Sisters", which upped the ante on Hitchcock by adding a bit of shock value. Almodóvar's shock value comes from the Gothic horrors of a Catholic boarding school education and its ramifications on a pair of students, one who grows up to be a filmmaker and the other who grows up to become an actor/writer. Almodóvar's slyly subversive humor permeates the film: faux Bernard Herrmann title music, a twisted homage to "Breakfast at Tiffany's", a pivotal scene set in a bizarre museum, and his trademark garish color schemes. The homosexual lovemaking provokes a nervous MPAA into issuing an NC-17 rating for scenes that heterosexually would have earned a mild R or perhaps a PG-13. "Bad Education" is the work of a master craftsman who hasn't lost his impish sense of fun.

This English-language Bollywood film is typical of the genre. It's a silly little romantic comedy that wins us over by refusing for a moment to take itself seriously. The hallmark of the Bollywood film is the ridiculously over-the-top song and dance number. This film's silliest incorporates the elements of a helicopter ride through the Grand Canyon, a ridiculously large gospel choir and California surfers joining in by swaying their surfboards as two young lovers stroll along the beach. It's similar in tone to Cleavon Little riding past the Count Basie Orchestra in BLAZING SADDLES. One wonders how they film these things without cracking up. The outtakes during the credits answer the question: they can't.

Anyone who enjoys hiking or camping will take something away from this lively documentary about thru-hikers on the famed Appalachian Trail. Having hiked portions of the trail and enjoyed Bill Bryson's account, "A Walk in the Woods," I was psyched to see what Mark Flagler had done. He has conveyed the experience of thru-hiking without romanticizing it. Parts of the film seem repetitive and there are some stretches that are less interesting than others but everything serves to convey the experience, which itself can seem repetitive and uninteresting at times. For those unfamiliar with the trail, it's a good way to sample it and choose bits and pieces to visit.

In its own way, this little character study offers a nice piece of unconventional escapism for grown-ups (say 35+). Focusing on the Grodin family who live mostly off the land in rural New Mexico, its simplicity and gentle humor reminded me of KITCHEN STORIES and the young Valentina de Angelis recalls Keisha Castle-Hughes's performance in WHALE RIDER. Director Campbell Scott, lends some beautiful pictures to Joan Ackerman's play but solid, understated performances by Sam Elliott, J.K. Simmons and Steppenwolf Theater veterans Joan Allen and Jim True-Frost would have carried the film even without the beautiful backdrop. It's unlikely that this film will last long in theaters because its strength lies in its simplicity but it should enjoy lasting popularity through Netflix and video stores that stock more than the basics.

It's ironic for someone reviewing movies on the Internet to have such a predilection for low-tech films.

Much of the charm of Scott Dikkers' B-movie comedy SPACEMAN is its nostalgia for the days when sci-fi was made on the cheap. When I was a kid watching Buster Crabbe as Flash Gordon on Saturday morning TV, it didn't bother me that his rocket was powered by a 4th of July sparkler!

SPACEMAN'S writer/director Scott Dikkers created THE ONION, which proclaims itself America's Finest News Source. With branches in several major cities, it's the largest circulation humor publication in the country. The paper's satirical take on the major and minuscule events of the day is certainly more frank than your average daily rag.

One of the driving forces behind THE ONION'S success was Scott's uncanny media savvy. In additon to editing the newspaper, he has created radio, TV, the Web, and edited a couple of best selling books.

SPACEMAN is the tale of a young boy who is abducted by aliens only to crash land on earth twenty-five years later with powers pretty far beyond those of mortal men. Spaceman's (David Ghilardi) commanders have inserted an electrode in his brain that stimulates his taste for violence and obedience. On this planet, however, he finds little demand for his work experience as a ceremonial combatant. Given the way TV is trending he's slightly ahead of his time.

He makes a reliable but intense grocery clerk until a series of culture clashes lead him to an inevitable brush with the law and commitment to a hospital for psychiatric treatment. When a fellow patient mentions that he'd rather hire a hitman for himself than go through another drinking binge, Spaceman stumbles upon a line of work for which he's suited.

Along the way, he meets a young woman (Deborah King) who is turned on by the fact that he kills people, is stalked by a pair of X-File government agents who LOVE to dissect aliens, and seeks employment with a sorry excuse for a Chicago mob based in a rundown barber shop.

It's all a pleasant departure from Hollywood's current love affair with gross out comedies. The commentary track by director Scott Dikkers (who claims to have gone insane during this Quixotic no-budget enterprise) is a shot by shot lesson in why you shouldn't try this at home!

For all of its budgetary constraints (two of the actors were homeless men, one of whom had to be reached through his parole officer) it is sharply written and performed and boasts an unexpected original symphonic score (by Edward Pearsall).