GRACE IS GONE
Man, it’s great to be reminded every now and then why I love John Cusack so much. Heck, it’s great to be reminded that he can still flex his acting muscles and not play a variation on a character he’s been playing for years (I say that with complete love). GRACE IS GONE of course is not just worth checking out for John Cusack though, or the other impressive performances, most notably first-timer Shelan O’Keefe. It’s an excellent film in its own right. It’s a sweet, deliberately paced and emotional look at a man dealing with grief, learning how to be a father when his children need one the most. Most poignantly it reminds us all that it’s often our own children whom we need to heal, and from whom we can draw strength in order to in turn be strong for them. All of this is conveyed in scenes that echo real life father/daughter behavior so realistically, that sometimes I forgot it involved a major Hollywood star. Sure, some have criticized the film for its seeming apolitical stance, but its humane approach to this story is precisely where its politics can be found. Above all else it’s a universal tale of the decidedly human “at home” cost of war, but that theme can easily lead you down a path to wondering whether the current Iraq War is worth that cost. Whether you choose to go down that path the film leaves entirely up to you, and that is why GRACE IS GONE proves what I feel is the key to the success of any political film: letting you choose to make politics out of a film, instead of letting a film choose politics for you.
Overall rating: A-
NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS
I know a lot of people hated the first NATIONAL TREASURE, writing it off as a INDIANA JONES knock-off, a DA VINCI CODE knock-off, or well, just bad. I’m honestly not entirely sure why it earned such ire, because I thought it was a genuinely fun action adventure treasure hunting movie. Outlandish, of course, but that’s sort of the point. It was also a film that didn’t really need a sequel, though it was obviously inevitable. That brings us to BOOK OF SECRETS, which like many poorly executed sequels drains and dilutes the franchise’s magic, rather than adding to it. It’s not a bad film, nor is it an unexciting one, it’s just too much of a slave to its own success. It tries too hard to be like the first one (even ripping itself off at times), resulting in a film that wants to be fun, but can’t break through feeling formulaic and as if it’s going through the motions.
Overall rating: C+
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I’M NOT THERE
I wanted to like I’M NOT THERE, mostly because on an intellectual level I appreciate its audacious and artistic experimentalism. But unfortunately like a lot of intellectually artistic pursuits - and this is more a shortcoming on my part than the films - it never becomes engaging for me as an audience member who needs a little more coherent narrative, and a good deal more emotional involvement instead of just intellectual stimulation (it’s why I can never get into true experimental film, a la Brakhage, etc.) Even if the one thing I can appreciate is its attempts to defy traditional conceptions of a musical biopic, precisely because Bob Dylan himself defies such neat structuring, it still has the unfortunate ability to alienate though (like me) who are just not as familiar with Bob Dylan as Haynes and others are. Regardless, on a simpler level, the film is undoubtedly well put together, features Dylan’s outstanding music, and has numerous excellent performances.
THE ORPHANGE
Produced by Guillermo Del Toro, THE OPRHANGE essentially is a spiritual partner to his own supernatural child-centered dramas, THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE and PAN’S LABYRINTH. Though perhaps not as good as either film, it’s nevertheless effective at emulating those films’ formula of being a genuinely creepy horror film that has – more importantly – a solid dramatic character story at its center It even throws in a surprising and unsettling ending.
Overall rating: B
THE GOLDEN COMPASS
Chris Weitz had a hefty task ahead of himself when he set out to adapt Philip Pullman’s “The Golden Compass,” the first in the sprawling, rich, and layered “His Dark Material” series. I certainly don’t envy him the job, but then again, given the series’ ambitions I wouldn’t have recommended it for feature film adaptation to begin with. Sadly the film provides a perfect example of how not to adapt a novel. Weitz remains loyal to the original source material in the wrong ways. Instead of capturing the spirit of the book, he excises its best scenes and elements, and desperately tries to stitch them together into a cohesive film narrative, creating a Frankenstein monster instead: something that resembles a proper film, but isn’t. It doesn’t help that the film becomes bogged down by excessive exposition, noble – but foolish – attempts to somehow find a way to convey the numerous laws of Pullman’s universe. In the end the film is really something of a soulless experience, devoid of the fantasy, joy, and wonder material like this should easily elicit.
Overall rating: C-
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STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING
I’ve always had a soft-spot for films about writers, even if few ever really portray a writer character who is truly literate, artistic, and intelligent, capable of talking about his craft in a way a real writer would. Usually if you find a writer in a film, it’s really some auxiliary element to a character, rather than a driving force in the narrative. STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING is a film about a writer, but also a film about the complexities of life that often inspire writers to bring experience to paper. It’s a highly literate script, no surprise given that it’s based on a PEN/Faulkner Award nominated novel. Sometimes that can be a detriment. The film is very dramatic – for lack of a better word, and yet in the truest sense of the word – and very artistically ambitions, not unlike a stage play. Problem is sometimes it can get too “artistic” for its own good, as there are several moments in the film where characters do things that feel motivated solely by artistic construction, rather than realistic behavior, and just come off as strange and bizarre, especially the relationship between Frank Langella and Lauren Ambrose’s character which makes you marvel at how VENUS succeeded in avoiding such creepiness. The film is pretty heavy, and certainly not light viewing, but it’s a solid exploration of art, what inspires art, and just basic human drama, specifically what cajoles stagnant lives out of their resignation. It’s especially complimented with a reliable performance from Lili Taylor and Lauren Ambrose, but most of all the astounding – and quite beautiful – understated performance from Frank Langella who was robbed of an Academy Award nomination.
Overall rating: B+
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CLOVERFIELD
At its core, CLOVERFIELD has such a clever approach that you’re shocked nobody has ever done it before. Instead of following the people (usually the army) trying to fight off a monster attacking a city, and eventually succeeding, CLOVERFIELD shows us people like you and I just trying to survive. That being said, that doesn’t stop the film from having a wishy-washy central plot right out of those typical Hollywood films that conveniently places its main characters in perpetual danger. The shaky video camera (through which the events are seen) also grates on the nerves eventually, as does the tendency of the monster to somehow always pop up when the characters need it least (then again, Manhattan is maybe not that big). Nevertheless, it’s incredibly immersive and exciting. It extracts loads of tension from its approach, effectively placing us in the shoes of its protagonists, as if we were in the trenches right there with them. It’s thrilling, shocking, scary, and even has a surprise ending. In other words, CLOVERFIELD is what we look for in films: an experience.
Overall rating: B
CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR
CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR is about a light as cotton candy, and just about as filling. It’s silly, and incredibly hard to take serious, despite the fact that it’s dealing with pretty serious stuff – mainly the initial domino that got knocked over into the others to eventually lead America to 9/11. Sure it’s entertaining, but it remains a strange film, because you’re never entirely sure what it’s getting at. At times it seems to be genuinely making fun of the absurdity of the events (perhaps in a CATCH 22 style, another Mike Nichols film), yet at times it seems to be using the humor to indicate that these events are not funny at all, and condemning America. Even if you place politics aside, it doesn’t work well as a film. You have nothing but build up, and then as Wilson achieves his goal, the film abruptly and speedily propels itself to a hasty end that leaves you a little befuddled. Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s performance as a hilariously indelicate CIA agent does make this film worth a look, as does the relish with which Tom Hanks throws himself into playing the womanizing, drug-taking, unconsciously self-aggrandizing congressman.
Overall rating: C+
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JUNO
Instead of writing a semi-elaborate review of JUNO, I’ll instead refer you to this article I wrote a while back, not because I’m lazy but because it more or less represents my thoughts on the film. The only thing I’ll add here is my …
Overall rating: C
ALIEN VERSUS PREDATOR: REQUIEM
Those of you hoping that maybe the second time around someone successfully capitalized on the potential of the ALIEN and PREDATOR crossing-over will be sadly disappointed. Though the good news is that this time we don’t get a watered down PG-13 version, the bad news is that the filmmakers focus so much on earning the R rating that they forget to do much else. The body count is bloody and high, but when aliens seem border-line omnipresent, people are killed off just be killed off, and nobody is safe (including little children and pregnant women, both of which are groups I consider mildly taboo), there’s no sense of tension. ALIEN and PREDATOR worked because the lives of characters mattered, all the more so when they died. Here characters are little more than cannon-fodder to cater to gory effects. As a result what should be an exciting clashing of two cinematic horror icons, ends up being an incredibly boring affair that makes you want to put on ALIEN, ALIENS, or the first PREDATOR instead to remind you that good movies can be made with them in it.
Overall rating: D
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THERE WILL BE BLOOD
Not only the best film of last year, but I suspect with further time and consideration it may prove to be one of the better films I’ve seen, well, ever. Without any shred of understatement, I feel it is nothing less than a cinematic masterpiece. It’s not just the sheer audacity of the filmmaking – score, cinematography, script – or the performances of Daniel Day Lewis and Paul Mano (who has gone horribly unrecognized for his work here). It’s also not just the fact that film signals an almost unbelievable tonal shift and leap in accomplishment from Paul Thomas Anderson’s previous work (which was already really good). It’s the incredible depth that slowly emerges from the deceptively simple narrative as the film beings to work you over while watching but especially later when it still haunts you and you begin to gain the benefit of hindsight. Those who have complained that the story is cliché, bare or even non-existent, I feel are missing the point. Watching THERE WILL BE BLOOD for the story is kind of like reading “Hamlet” or “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” for its narrative. The film – like those works – is about greater artistic ambitions and ideas, not plot. It’s a film that, much like the works of Fellini, Truffaut, or Bergman, requires you to engage in an intellectual conversation with it, to be completely mentally alert and receptive (in other words a film student’s absolute dream). With multiplexes being flooded with films that require you to turn off your brain, finding a film that actually challenges your brain a little should be more than a welcome change for most. Unless you’ve had a long, tiring week. Then you might be just better off with a milkshake.
Grade: A+
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I COULD NEVER BE YOUR WOMAN
Though Michelle Pfeiffer and Paul Rudd do their best to elevate Amy Heckerling’s (CLUELESS) muddled, unfocused script, they can’t. Heckerling means well, wanting to lightly critique society’s hypocrisy regarding older men dating younger women being okay, but not vice versa, as well as offer a feminist look at the forty-something modern single career mother. There is too much superficial silliness going on here, as well as too many sub-plots and poor choices.
For example, the inexplicable insertion of Mother Nature as a character who can break the fourth wall and can interact with Pfeiffer, the unrealistic relationship between mother and child, and moments that are meant to be poignant, but just end up making you feel awkward and a little embarrassed. Sometimes the path to a bad movie is paved with good intentions.
Grade: C-
THE MIST
What slightly elevates Frank Darabont’s adaptation of a Stephen King novella from being a more than competent and engaging B-movie horror flick with the usual order of chills, thrills, and goofy camp, is its sociological and political resonance (and Marcia Gay Hayden’s frightening performance). Using its claustrophobic setting, the film engages in a pop exploration of human nature in survival situations, while simultaneously veering into post-9/11 allegory. Sure, sometimes its overwrought, but then again, by the time you get to the sucker-punch ending, that’s probably all you’ll be left thinking about anyway.
Grade: B
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I AM LEGEND: Will Smith proves his natural screen presence isn’t a fluke by doing here what few actors can do: carry a large part of a film all by himself (and a canine companion). It doesn’t hurt that he’s aided by a stunning representation of Manhattan as a post-apocalyptic wasteland, overrun by fauna, wild life, and abandoned vehicles. The film starts out a haunting, carefully paced study of how the last man on earth – survivor of a deadly virus – finds the means to go on with day to day life, but unfortunately something goes wrong. Around the halfway mark a significant event occurs that catalyzes an exponential plummet in quality and squanders the potential of the film. In short, it becomes a bad Will Smith action movie, crippled by poor special effects (think Gollum on a lesser budget), overblown spectacle, weak story and characters, and an ending that’s just the cherry on top of a series of culminating disappointments.
BREAKFAST WITH SCOT: A sort of Canadian gay version of the recently DVD released MARTIAN CHILD (with John Cusack), though the film is charming, it sometimes ventures into moderately offensive territory in its representation of Scot, and at other times sub-plots get a little muddled and unfocused in the middle segment of the film. It mostly pulls through in the end though, largely because of the always great Tom Cavanagh and because it never loses the thread of its theme: what matters most is being true to who you really are, and never being ashamed of it.
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HITMAN: It’s the kind of film you shouldn’t probably like, what with its over-wrought action sequences and incredibly cliché/worn out – and at times curiously incomplete – storyline and characters. Basic idea? Assassin gets set-up by his own organization, he has to track down who set him up, he meets a sexy woman along the way who exposes his more vulnerable side, and it all culminates in lots of blood, a high body count, a twist or two, and room for a sequel. It’s nothing you haven’t seen a million times before, but HITMAN hits (sorry, I had to) enough of the right notes in an adequate enough way to make this entertaining mindless escapism for a slow Friday night with nothing better to watch.
DAN IN REAL LIFE: Though the film is at times uneven and tangential, there’s plenty here to like, including a pleasant (if somewhat over-done at times) portrayal of massive family gatherings that reminded me of my own, a refreshingly light performance from Juliette Binoche, and a solid, even occasionally touching performance from Steve Carell. And even though it’s hard to like his character at times – mostly because he sometimes annoyingly veers into Michael Scott territory – there’s enough heart in this tale about a widower and single father of three going through a mid-life crisis to make you look the other way.
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