Rudie Obias

Existence and The American Dream: A Film Trilogy by Terrence Malick - Days of Heaven

2012-01-14T12:52:00.002-05:00

Recently, I’ve noticed that Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” was on a good number of film critic's and blogger's list of, including mine, top ten movies of 2011. Considering this was probably the most polarizing, “over-hyped” film of 2011, it was surprising to see so much backlash and affection over a small film from Terrence Malick. Audiences across the country and the Internet were puzzled by “The Tree of Life” and somewhat feel duped by showing up to the theater to see the latest film featuring Brad Pitt. As a majority of moviegoers stormed out of mega-plexes and demanded their money back, to many, “The Tree of Life” was considered the worst film of 2011, so why was this film held in such high regard by cinephiles?

Why were people so upset with this film? Was it the unconventional narrative? Was it the lofty melodrama expressed? Or was it simply the “over-hype” machine of Internet bloggers and pundits? Personally, I feel a lot of the outcry towards “The Tree of Life” was due to the fact that most people really haven’t seen a Terrence Malick film, and if they did, they didn’t fully understand what they were watching. Because if they did, they would notice that, “The Tree of Life” was exactly what it claimed to deliver, a Terrence Malick film.

But what makes a Terrence Malick film, a Terrence Malick film? How could so many people love “The Tree of Life,” while at the same time so many people hated it? In this series of essays, I will try to examine the loose trilogy of humanity, existence and ideas of the American Dream Terrence Malick is trying to examine. Namely focusing this on his 1978 film, “Days of Heaven,” his 1997 film, “A Thin Red Line” and his 2011 film, “The Tree of Life.”

Terrence Malick’s “Days of Heaven” is a beautiful film, not only in its photography but in its narrative. “Days of Heaven” follows the story of a small family of drifters, finding work in the Texas panhandle during the 1920s. At the start of the film, we get an idea of what kind of approach Malick wants to put on to this film. I’d like to point out that it’s vastly different from his 1973 film, “Badlands,” a film that would be considered to be more conventional than his later work. In “Days of Heaven,” Malick let’s his camera and story unfold organically. It seems like he had no concern of delivering a direct storyline but rather he felt fit to “find” the film in editing. But what he found was something more than what can be found on the page.

In the Criterion Collection’s release of “Days of Heaven,” there’s an exclusive interview with Richard Gere, who played Bill. During the interview, which is really just an account of his time while working on the film, he states that, at times, he would butt heads with Malick over the character of Bill and the story of "Days of Heaven." They both came from different schools of thought on acting, Gere being more theater oriented and Malick, obviously, being more cinematic. This reminded me of Sean Penn’s experience on “The Tree of Life,” in an interview with Le Figaro, Penn states:

“I didn’t at all find on the screen the emotion of the script, which is the most magnificent one that I’ve ever read. A clearer and more conventional narrative would have helped the film without, in my opinion, lessening its beauty and its impact. Frankly, I’m still trying to figure out what I’m doing there and what I was supposed to add in that context! What’s more, Terry himself never managed to explain it to me clearly.”

Understanding this approach is the key to understanding the films of Terrence Malick. Watching one of his films could be frustrating and intimidating but if you accept Terrence Malick on his own terms, then it’s really easy to enjoy his films and ultimately find something rewarding.

I have a feeling if we read the script for “Days of Heaven” it would be vastly different from the final product. But inside of “Days of Heaven,” I feel Malick is exploring ideas of the existence of man and his conflict with other human beings. The dramatic conflict in “Days of Heaven” is the struggle between Bill (Richard Gere) and The Farmer (Sam Shepard) for the affections of Abby (Brooke Adams). But what’s deeper is how these characters relate to each other, their environment, along with notions of the class system in America, rich and poor, as well as the pursuit of happiness or the American Dream.

The conflict between Bill and the Farmer is very interesting considering that in a typical movie, Bill would be considered the hero, he his the one we are following, he is a hard worker and he is the love interest of Abby, and the Farmer would be considered the antagonist, he is rich and ostensibly a slum lord, he is an obstacle between Bill and Abby, but in “Days of Heaven” no one is really considered good or bad, they are defined by their actions. After all, Bill is crooked, sly and unhanded, taking advantage of the Farmers illness by pawning off Abby to marry him with the thought that the Farmer will soon die and they will inherit his fortune. And in contrast, the Farmer is kind-hearted, a fair businessman not driven by greed but by good work. When we first meet Bill, he is a worker in a steel mill in Chicago. He gets in an argument with a co-worker, most likely over Abby, which leads Bill to murder. This is a major clue into how we should view Bill. But strangely, as the audience, we continue to root for Bill, even when he kills the Farmer and is on the run from the law. Why is this? Are we just conditioned by Hollywood filmmaking to believe that Bill is the good guy because the handsome Richard Gere plays him?

I feel Terrence Malick is making the point, that man will be the end of man by showing all of this in the backdrop of the beautiful Texas panhandle (but really this was all shot on location in Canada). Despite how man treats the environment, it will always come roaring back but the destruction of man comes from man himself more so than the environment that surrounds them. To Malick, the world is beautiful and man is the one that makes it ugly. This is a theme brought up over and over again in all of Terrence Malick’s work. Some would slight Malick as being more interested in nature photography than cinema, considering that a good chunk of his pictures are deliberate close-ups of trees, plants and animal interactions. To some, this serves no real purpose to the narrative of his film, but on the contrary, nature plays a big role in Malick’s exploration of man’s place in it. Overall, exploring his personal reverence to nature and the environment.

In “Days of Heaven,” the idea of work and play happen in the same location is interesting. All to the end, when the locusts invade the wheat fields and then set ablaze. None of this destroys man; it is Bill’s jealousy that kills the Farmer, not the fire that surrounds them. A jealousy fueled by greed and the promise of the American Dream. After all Bill and Abby were poor, working class people that married into wealth. Linda (Linda Manz), Bill’s alleged sister, makes the point, “All the time in the world to play. Boy! The rich have it all figured out.” This would suggest the “ease” of climbing the social ladder in America. Hard work isn’t enough, but the ability to take advantage of the people around you is the key to real success in America. For Terrence Malick, “Days of Heaven” is a model for finding the American Dream.

Seemingly, I feel that, “Days of Heaven” is Terrence Malick’s most accessible film. It’s his easiest film to understand and less intimidating than his later work. It’s full of beautiful photography, all set famously during the “magic hour” of the day. “Days of Heaven” is a good entry point to the work of Terrence Malick and should serve as a template or a blueprint into understanding his brand of cinema. I feel that Terrence Malick is exploring notions of humanity, how it fits into the world and the conflicts people have with other people. Overall, how humanity’s downfall will not be nature’s undoing but man’s, and that nature will live on, long after man has left this world.

The Divide

2012-01-13T19:08:00.001-05:00

Well, this is January. The month of January is historically known in the movie world as a dumping ground for new releases. Studios and distributors take their movies that have been sitting on the shelf for years or movies quality that is at the very least questionable and release them at the beginning of the year so audiences can quickly forget about them. But strangely, January 2012 is a bit different, movies like "The Grey" and "Haywire" have that high quality you might find in, let's say, September. A good rule of thumb is the later in the year a movie is released, the better it might be. "The Divide" is an anomaly in my opinion. The new film from Xavier Gens is chocked full of ideas of humanity, the end of the world, terrorism and patriotism, but what falls short is that the director doesn't make these ideas interesting at all.

"The Divide" starts off with a bang! Literately, a nuclear bomb has gone off in New York City and the tenants of a Manhattan apartment building race down flights of stairs in a mass of confusion looking for refuge. As the audience, we are thrown into the action with no context, or rhyme or reason. This was a daring way to start a film but at the same time it makes it extremely engaging and not alienating. A small group of strangers find themselves sealed off in a basement bunker, where they are left to wonder what is going on and how can they survive this. But problems arise with the character dynamic and the narrative right away.

In-fighting for leadership and overall survival becomes the end goal but what is so problematic is that it happens way too soon. We know nothing about these people and they're already fighting with each other. Gens makes the point to show how humans devolve into animalistic tendencies so fast that we don't get the weight of the conflicts themselves and therefore it feels false and heavy handed. An example of this is a scene involving the survivors finding a cache of food when they believed there was no more food left. They quickly devour the food as if they were animals but, the voice of reason throughout the whole film, Eva (Lauren German) eats her food with a fork as if she didn't want to give up her humanity. C'mon! The film is full of moments like this.

As the story unfolds, we find this group in a strange position as the sci-fi elements of the film perk up as a group of well-armed men dressed in protective suits find their way inside of the bunker. It is not clear who they are or what they are up to, but we soon see that they are not here to help. As the group investigates the identity of these men, they quickly give up and never really come back to this plot element. Why? This seemed like a good place to go.

A lot of "The Divide" feels exactly as the title would suggest, as a divided amalgam of plot elements and character moments that never come together and that are quickly undercut as ridiculous by the over-the-top performances. It takes itself far too seriously to be a self-aware romp and the bigness of the acting is too funny to take seriously. The pacing of the film is far too slow to be exciting as I found myself uninterested in these people, which is a shame. I feel there's a good movie here somewhere. But I take issue with director Xavier Gens' choice of wanting to be shocking instead of interesting. The elements are all there for success but it feels too disjointed and unintentionally comical to be considered as a quality movie. With "The Divide" it sure feels like January to me.

Grade: D+

Movie-Goers Had No Love For 2011

2012-01-04T15:19:00.006-05:00

With 2011 behind us and the promise of 2012 lurking about, it has been a rather disappointing year in movies in terms of audience attendance. If fact, 2011 had brought in the lowest box office receipts in recent years. As reported, Hollywood revenues were down a considerable 3.5 percent from 2010, despite the allure of 3D and IMAX movies. This drop off represents the highest downfall since 1995 when audience attendance were down a whopping 4.4 percent.

The big question is, why were audiences so reluctant to go to the movie theater in 2011? Was it the failing economy that has undercut revenue and tightened wallets across the board? Was it the numerous options for entertainment value, fragmenting audiences into smaller groups? Or maybe it was the simply quality of movies in 2011 that kept audiences at home?

Ticket prices being what they are these days, in New York City the price of admission to a matinee screening at an AMC theater is $13, it is easy to see why it is increasingly harder to bring people to the movie theater. Considering if you have a family of 4, you’ll be spending at least $50 before spending more money on popcorn, soda and candy for the kids. The promise of 3D and IMAX screenings add value to the film itself but families are unwilling to spend the extra $4 to $6 for these upgrades when they can simple stay at home and watch quality movies on their TVs.

Internet TV has given the opportunity to many to simply stay at home, find a movie or TV show easily and watch at their own pace, free from the distractions and annoyances of crowds. Internet services like Netflix, Hulu and iTunes have become the standard in home entertainment, along with Internet ready TVs with 3D that replicate the theater experience at home. Considering the top 10 grossing movies of 2011 were either sequels, remakes or comic book adaptations, the lack of originality from Hollywood is probably the biggest factor the low box office attendance. So pick up the pace Hollywood!

The Problem With FOX News' Analysis of The Muppets

2011-12-05T20:27:00.004-05:00

I think the best way to start this is to come from the viewpoint of art, history, cinema and storytelling as a way to tackle the analysis of FOX News’ point of view of “The Muppets.” The idea of brainwashing children into thinking capitalism and success are bad things. Yes, from the point of view of FOX News is that money is good and people and government are bad. An “attack” from the liberal biases of Hollywood would make sense then, and after all FOX’s way of running this country is the right way. I really don’t take anything seriously on FOX News anyway. But I found the point made on the FOX News show “Follow The Money,” hosted by Eric Bolling, to be inherently loaded (of course it is), comical, maddening and obnoxious.

The idea of the villain of “The Muppets” being Tex Richman, played by Chris Cooper, as a money hungry corporate cliche is true. This character is gossamer thin and one-sided but it brings up the point of the film so well, let’s save the Muppets. And to the respect of the film, every character in “The Muppets” is plainly thin with little to no nuance. But I don’t think the filmmakers involved with making “The Muppets” are vilifying the oil executives for being successful and rich, I think it’s vilifying the actions of oil executives, which are greedy and unethical.

I don’t feel success and capitalism are bad things for this country but with everything in life, it boils down to actions more than labels and stature. Labeling someone is entirely too easy and easy enough to make your point about people in general, but what separates a person from a large group is based on their actions and whether or not their actions fall into an ethical standard of right and wrong. Is it wrong to make money and be successful? Absolutely not. But is it wrong to make money and be successful at the expense and hurting of others? Absolutely!

In “The Muppets,” we as the audience are not aware Tex Richman is the villain of the movie when he enters the picture until he reveals his plan to tear down the Muppets studio to drill for oil. Is drilling for oil evil? No, we need oil to survive in this modern world. But is it evil to drill for oil at the expense of the Muppets studio? For the purposes of the film, yes. I don’t feel Kermit, Gary, Mary and Walter would feel as driven to stop Tex Richman from drilling oil somewhere else, or trying to stop him from running a corporate entity, or at least that bit isn’t as clear in the movie. They just want him to not tear down their beloved Muppet studio. Should they just stop, give up and make way for a brighter tomorrow, if so, it would be a short and pointless movie if they did.

This isn’t a new narrative device. Did we hate Mr. Potter in “It’s A Wonderful Life” for being successful? No. Did we hate Mr. Potter in “It’s A Wonderful Life” because he was screwing over the people of Bedford Falls by being a horrible slumlord? Yes. In “It’s A Wonderful Life,” Frank Capra makes the point that Mr. Potter’s wealth and manufacturing business led to the end of World War II, in many ways he’s a hero but we dislike this character because he is exploiting the poor in this small town by not giving them a dignify place to live, while at the same time swindling $8,000 from his rival. So much so, that in the alternative Bedford Falls, the town is in ruin because making money and Mr. Potter’s greed was the driving force instead of the townspeople’s well-being.

There are numerous examples of characters in movies and literature that are villains because of their actions and not their wealth. From the bankers and the California State Patrol in the novel “The Grapes of Wrath” to Biff Tannen in “Back To The Future Part 2,” (who didn’t transcend from bully to villain until he was rich and his greedy actions led to the alternative 1985 and the death of George McFly), good storytelling makes the point of a person’s actions have consequences rather than just simply labeling them as rich, an oil executive or a millionaire. We root for Danny Ocean, played by George Clooney, and his gang in Steven Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s 11″ because he was screwed over by Terry Benedict, played by Andy Garcia, a wealthy casino owner. From what I know about “Ocean’s 11,” Danny Ocean was wealthy and well bank rolled himself.

But bringing up their point about children being brainwashed, last time I checked children had parents and teachers to influence their lives and as much as I love movies, I don’t think movies and TV have as strong as an influence on them as these people. I’m sure FOX News would like to think they have a profound influence on children, but the reality is parents, neighbors and teachers have more influence on children than anyone else. And are the ideas of sharing with others and the ethical treatment of people bad ideas to pass down and embed in children? Too some, I’m sure it is, money and success is more important to these people but, I feel, too the many, philanthropy and charity is the essence of being an American and to the idea of freedom.

In terms of religion, as an example, Jesus Christ, as much as I am not a religious man at all, I have studied religion for seventeen years when I was in school. Take the story of Jesus at the Temple. The sight of His Father’s home being turned into a marketplace disgusts Jesus and currency exchange center, so much so he destroys the marketplace and risks his safety to make the point that the Temple is not a commodity. He gets arrested, which leads to his eventual crucifixion. Now, some people, today, would think of Jesus as being part of Occupy Wall Street or some kind of liberal bleeding heart, some would see fit that He would be thrown into jail so the people in the Temple can be left to be successful, make money and create jobs. Some people should consider the Bible to be a form of brainwashing but we don’t vilify it, we actually teach it in some of our schools. Maybe this isn’t the path to take, but if Christianity is their standard then maybe they should really read their Bible more and practice what they preach.

In terms of art, what is presented in movies, TV, literature and music is almost always a reflection of society. Art is a benchmark of the times we live in. It’s an expression of what’s going on today instead of as a historical record. Art works both ways and can be prevented into propaganda; it’s both the beauty and danger of art. If a movie is reflecting the idea of a greedy billionaire oil tycoon crushing helpless people for his own gain, then chances are it’s going on in society and needs to be addressed. If there are movies about a war in Iraq, then there’s a good chance there’s a war in Iraq.

The idea of brainwashing children is not a subject that should be taken lightly, and really if you don’t like “The Muppets” then don’t watch it, but if you mistakenly see the movie and feel it is giving the wrong message to your kids then simply talk to them about it. At the end of the movie, Tex Richman does have a change of heart and decides to give the Muppets the money to buy back their studio. He’s still a rich oil tycoon at the end but because of his actions, he’s no longer greedy. Maybe FOX News should have considered that when drumming up this piece to pedal their agenda. I don’t consider the opinions of the paid pundits of FOX News to tell you what you should and should not be watching. I never take FOX News seriously and Lord knows, I’m not a fan of their brand of brainwashing America.

via MediaMatters.org

Melancholia

2011-11-11T20:25:00.001-05:00

Lars von Trier is a good example of the auteur theory at work today. His films are very divisive, relentlessly punishing and emotionally heartbreaking, but at the same time there’s this lyrical beauty to them, looming in the background, in terms of the human condition and its extremes. Even at his most basic and simplistic, stripping away the limitations of cinema with his Dogme 95 films, von Trier tries to nail down the limits of human emotion. In his new film, “Melancholia,” von Trier evolves as a filmmaker on a technical level but still refines his curiosity in pain, pleasure and depression, keeping in mind the villainy of humanity and nature playing against each other.

The film is separated into two parts, the first dealing with the wedding of Justine and Michael, a very attractive young couple played by Kirsten Dunst and Alexander Skarsgård; and the second part dealing with the Justine’s depression and her sister, Claire’s, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, inability to understand and treat her. All of this while a mega planet called Melancholia is on a collision course towards Earth, bringing forth the end of the world. What is interesting to examine and discuss is Justine’s depression and paranoia. We get a sense of this happy couple and their happy lives, and as the film unfolds, we see Justine’s psyche, or wall, chip away piece by piece as if what is inside is to be guarded at all times. Her beautiful wedding dress, glorious hair and magnificent makeup serve as a facade to the world around her, and as the outside world pokes to get inside, these constructs strip away like an egg shell. Justine copes with her world falling apart by resorting to her animal instincts. These scenes are very haunting and disturbing and will stay with the film’s viewers long after the film is over.

As the film shifts into the second part, it takes its attention to Justine’s sister, Claire. Claire is happily married to John (Kiefer Sutherland) and the mother of Leo (Cameron Spurr). Their life is affluent, luxurious and, ostensibly, loving. The only problems in their lives, outside of a mega planet speeding towards Earth, is their approach in raising Leo, Claire being more spiritual and John being more pragmatic, and serving as Justine’s caretaker after her nervous breakdown at her wedding. The shifting tone feels like going from Thomas Vinterberg’s “The Celebration” to Alain Resnais’ “Last Year At Mariendbad” from hour to hour. Although I feel this shift is natural, there is a slight tinge of a jarring feeling but I feel von Trier hides it with the cinematography and the score, which is just as masterful and beautiful in respect to the film.

Nothing in “Melancholia” is spelled out for the audience, Lars von Trier is a much smarter filmmaker than that, but I feel all the clues and evidence of the brilliance are present in the film. Also serving as a clever way to deal with the emotion of the film and the narrative than focusing on the outcome of the end of the world, von Trier does away with all of that within the first fifteen minutes of the movie. In a very impressive sequence, von Trier gives us all of the events of the film including the destruction of the world in a super slow motion, epic sequence that can only be described as purely cinematic. He played with these techniques and style in his 2009 film, “Anti-Christ,” and brings it to a more mature plain in “Melancholia”. So as a member of the audience, you’re not thinking about will they or won’t they survive or outwit the end of the world, you know definitively, they don’t, but rather, it is more interesting to see how these people interact and cope with their own demise and Justine’s depression and nervous breakdown.

Now, getting down to the performances of “Melancholia,” which is considerable considering the amount of punishment these actresses have to endure to, firstly, convey what von Trier is going for, and secondly, achieve the level of emotional resonance within the audience. Kirsten Dunst is simply magnificent! She has never been better in a movie and, dare I say, this is the best of Kirsten Dunst you’ll get in theaters. You can see her get lost in the character of Justine from start to finish, solely for the bookend scenes and the smile of her face. At the beginning, her smile is to show the sheer joy and excitement of being just newly wed, to at the very end, her smile shows the acceptance of her life despite the catatonic depression and dementia. The pain, grief and sorrow being locked inside, ready to explode in a mad and animalistic outbursts is precise and visionary. This serves as a wonderful emotional arc. What can be grounded in her performance is Charlotte Gainsbourg, as Claire, Justine’s sister. Gainsbourg’s impeccable performance gives Justine’s bewilderment the emotional punch to the audience as we see her through Claire’s eyes, wanting so desperately to simply “fix” her ailing sister. Partly why Dunst’s performance works so well is Gainsbourg’s support and empathy. Her frustration is the audience’s frustration.

As much as I feel “Melancholia” is Lars von Trier’s most accessible and conventional film, it’s still very much a Lars von Trier film. Complete with all the themes, rituals and style he likes to put in his films. And as much as people like to think of von Trier as some sort of misogynist monster, always punishing his female characters at every turn, I feel the complete opposite. This is something you might see on the surface, but I feel von Trier treats all of his characters in this brutal manner, both the male and the female. It feels like no one is clean and everyone is copable for the evils of humanity, von Trier just always has women as the main roles.

This is one of the best movies of the year and is not to be missed. The theatrical experience is paramount in the enjoyment of “Melancholia,” as it serves as a visual spectacle and emotional and heartbreaking narrative about the end of the world. This is Lars von Trier’s masterpiece and the culmination of his past work. It feels like all of his past films led him to make “Melancholia” one of the best films of the year, which is a statement I don’t use lightly. This movie is a must see!

Grade: A+

Scenes of a Crime

2011-11-10T20:24:00.001-05:00

Getting caught on videotape is probably the most damning piece of evidence brought into a trial, but what happens when the circumstances and practices of what is caught on videotape is in question. What happens when an accused man’s confession is psychologically coerced from detectives? In the documentary, “Scenes of a Crime,” filmmakers Grover Babcock and Blue Hadaegh try to question police practices and somehow overturn a jury’s final verdict in the case of Adrian Thomas in Troy, New York, accused of murdering his infant son.

The film starts with very haunting images of a small, bare single room with the accused sitting in the middle of it being questioned by detectives. This is something you might see in the “Paranormal Activity” series, but the greater horror is these videotapes are taken from reality. In these recordings, there is over 10 hours of questioning of Thomas and what is drilled into the audiences as the film unfolds is the motives of the detectives to get a confession. This video footage is intercut with a police interrogation video and interviews from detectives on sight. Smartly, the filmmakers start off by presenting the information in a objective light. It seems fair and well-balanced, which is effective to the filmmakers end. They want to put the idea of a reasonable doubt into the audience, thus serving as a surrogate jury.

Adrain Thomas is an unemployed father, trying to balance finding a job to provide for his family and taking care of newborn twin boys. When one of the boys is rushed to the hospital, doctors conclude that boy was abused. Adrain is taken into the local police station and questioned for 10 hours. During the interrogation, he confesses to being responsible for the boys eventual death. But what is presented to the jury during the trial was far different from the reality of the situation and a conviction of 25 years is the result of these video recordings.

The defense during the trial takes the side of faulty police work and the actions of irresponsible doctors as the result of the infants death. The film does a fantastic job presenting both sides of the defense and prosecution in a fair and well-balanced manner, even interviewing jurors and juror alternates to come to the conclusion that Adrian Thomas may be falsely accused and convicted. It’s horrific to think that this could happen to anyone.

“Scenes of a Crime” is a well presented documentary, getting all sides of the case of this infant’s death and doesn’t necessarily jump to the conclusion of innocence or guilt. It is an effective documentary and more haunting and horrifying than any found-footage horror movie, solely because it tries to dig for the truth rather than present it as the truth. And what can be taken away from this documentary is always have a lawyer present with you if you are ever questioned by the police. It can mean the difference between fact and fiction.

Grade: B-

Into The Abyss: A Tale of Life, A Tale of Death

2011-11-08T20:22:00.000-05:00

The balance between life and death is extremely fine, and as a society we’ve accepted a pack to recognize that murder is not an acceptable way to act. But does that include all murder? What is justified and what is a crime of passion? Is the government justified in taking someone’s life after they commit a crime? Filmmaker Werner Herzog examines these notions while keeping true to the premise that murder is not acceptable no matter who is involved. In this way, I feel “Into The Abyss: A Tale of Death, A Tale of Life” is a fair, interesting and involving documentary.

This film follows the case of Michael Perry and Jason Burkett, two young men from Texas, who commit a triple murder after a burglary has gone wrong, 10 years earlier. Both men, state they are innocent of these charges but police evidence says otherwise. This film marks as Herzog’s personal statement of beliefs on the American death penalty, while at the same time showcasing the evidence against these two young men. Perry is sentenced to death, while Burkett is sentenced to life in prison. Herzog questions the value of life the state of Texas puts upon these two men. In this way, the film serves as a good crime and punishment procedural as well as a personal examination and the nature of life and death.

The way Herzog presents these cases is simply phenomenal. While the film firmly takes the side of these two men are guilty of the crimes charged upon them, it still puts a human spin on their situations by interviewing many of their loved ones and acquaintances, but Herzog also interviews the victims loved ones as a way to balance the film. Getting as much information to either back up or go against Herzog’s case is wonderfully put together. You never really get a sense of righteousness in this film’s presentation, but rather you get a sense of conviction.

“Into The Abyss: A Tale of Death, A Tale of Life” is a magnificent film that gives its viewers valuable insight on the U.S. justice system, vengeance and sorrow that come along with the mysteries of life. Masterfully constructed, Werner Herzog does a fantastic job in this film’s construction and narration. He has one of those voices that feel so familiar and soothing but at the same time confrontational and firm in the point he is trying to make about life and death. I feel this documentary sheds light on an issue that is not completely black and white, and allows the audience to sit in a grey area of right and wrong in morality. But Herzog doesn’t leave it up to the audience to decide if the death penalty is justifiable or not, he firmly states through the film it is not. The evidence and morality do not add up to the former, but rather Herzog holds up the idea of what is the right thing to do as civilized, compassionate people. This is something we should all aspire to be, albeit it is not the easiest way to be.

Grade: A-

The Other "F" Word

2011-11-03T20:20:00.000-04:00

Dealing with your public life and private can be a tremendous balance, especially if you are in the public eye and also considered punk rock royalty. But taking that delicate balance and adding a family, kids and a home life can make for an interesting dynamic to boot. In the new documentary, “The Other F Word” explores notions of being a responsible, authoritative parent and being in the lime light as a punk rock icon, who tells their loyal fans to “Fuck authority”. This juxtaposition is the centerpiece of this wonderful documentary, which also serves as an accurate depiction of an aging band on tour coming to grips with being middle aged with the punk rock band, Pennywise.

Largely, this film is about the lead singer of Pennywise, Jim Lindberg, and his struggles to be a good father and the vision of teenage rebellion. It gives a concise history of punk rock from the people who actually started the movement in Southern California with interviews from Ron Reyes of Black Flag and Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion. Starting this movement, not to make a career out of it and make money, it was far more shortsighted than that, until the point when it became a global phenomenon and viable career choice. After all, punk rock means a completely different thing when you’re 15 years-old boy as it does to a 45 year-old man. Part of the “graduation” to manhood comes from accepting the responsibility of having and taking care of your offspring. This is when the party is over, or at the very least, when it becomes an increasingly harder job to balance the two personas.

This film is full of interviews from various punk rock icons like Fat Mike from NOFX, Lars Frederiksen from Rancid and Flea from The Red Hot Chili Peppers, all giving their accounts of when they started to become fathers and how hard it was to be in a punk rock band afterwards. Some balance it well, some do not, which makes this documentary more compelling than your average music documentary, adding the heart needed to drive the centerpiece of the film, Jim Lindberg.

Being on tour for a staggered 200+ days is a daunting task alone, but add the stress of supporting a family, it becomes intolerable. “The Other F Word” explores what it means to be on the road as, how Lindberg puts it, “a working class band”. Pennywise, as a band, does well enough to keep going but not well enough to actually have more help on the road. They seem like they have a small road crew traveling with them around the world over the course of a year. They don’t have the luxuries of bigger, more well-known and more established bands like The Rolling Stones or Pearl Jam, to have the nights at five star hotels and gourmet meals, it seems like there’s a lot of Holiday Inn Express and McDonald’s for Pennywise on the road. This adds the textures and how exactly mundane the road gets as an interesting look at a middle-aged man losing passion for music, performance and the fans.

To say the very least, “The Other F Word” is thorough with almost every aspect of fatherhood and being in a band than most music documentaries aspire to be. Viewers will get a great sense of the love between a father and their children, despite the childhood of most of the man in this film. And in this way, “The Other F Word” is a valuable and an insightful documentary of what it means to be in a band when you have a family to support and when rock n’ roll becomes more of a job than a passion. It’s real! It’s full of the pleasures and pitfalls of real life, real music and real fun.

Grade: B+

Lemon

2011-11-03T20:18:00.000-04:00

What happens when your star has fallen? Stardom can be a blessing and I feel most people would relish the moment of getting recognition for their work, monetary compensation for said work and most importantly, being the best of the best. But when all of that goes away, what do you have left? In the new documentary, “Lemon” examines that very question. And following the subject Lemon Andersen, the three things he has left is family, ambition and talent.

In the early 2000s, Lemon Andersen was one of the breakout stars of Russell Simmons’ “Def Poetry Jam”. A TV series that highlighted the extraordinary talent of street poets from all-around the world. Lemon’s poems were heartfelt, raw and passionate, which is reflected in the man himself as well. “Def Poetry Jam” was a big success for Russell Simmons and Lemon Andersen, alike and in 2003, they won a TONY Award for Best Special Theatrical Event. The original company went on a nation and international tour, performing their styles of wordplay and truth. This gave Lemon accolades, respect and money but when the spotlight went away so did the money. Lemon resorted to crime and was imprisoned and spent most of the latter half of the decade getting his career back on track while struggling to “stay above water” and raise his family.

At the start of the documentary, we see glimpses of Lemon’s brilliance with words and performance, which is apparent due to his charm and persona but we soon learn that is all Lemon has going for himself. He lives with his wife and his two daughters in wife’s parents cramped Brooklyn apartment, along with his brother-in-law’s family. Lemon and his family are living below the poverty line after years of critical and financial success. The question remains what happened. The documentary isn’t too clear with what happened. How did Lemon lose all of his money? Why was Lemon a criminal? And why did the Broadway show close? We can only assume, which is a dangerous thing to do in documentary filmmaking.

The documentary gives a clear impression of Lemon’s past. Growing up in a rough neighborhood in Brooklyn in the early 90s, during a time of crime and drugs. Lemon sought refuge in the streets, living in a single mother home with a brother from another father, Lemon didn’t know his father as well. Soon the film comes to grips with his mother’s contraction of HIV then eventual death. Lemon deals with this tragedy as a young man, alienated by his family in New York and Puerto Rico. The film does a fine job conveying this alienation with his family, while shaping the character of Lemon Andersen. But it almost services it to no end, due to the incongruity with Lemon’s life between his childhood and adolescence; and Lemon’s mission after losing all of the money he earned on Broadway.

Lemon’s ambition and work ethic is what to takeaway from this documentary. We do get this clear sense of talent when we first meet Lemon as he tries to find funding for his one man show, while he was developing it with The American Place Theatre. What is interesting is when Lemon decides to take it to another, more prestigious theater, The Public Theater. This conflict is the thrust of most of the drama in “Lemon,” and a lot of it is placed in sticky situations when relationships become frayed. But when Lemon’s one man show “County of Kings” doesn’t generate the kind of buzz and critical reception that would garner more funding, Lemon is force to leave the theater.

Through these struggles Lemon’s only source of support his from his loving wife, Marilyn, and daughters, Heaven and Shine. This kind of support cannot be measured but shown and at points of the film, it feels like the marriage is suffering because of Lemon’s ambition and drive. But we soon learn, it’s Lemon’s family life that keeps him ambitious and driven.

“Lemon” is a wonderful documentary of a man who is both a failure and a success. We should learn as an audience that these two things are integral and are more related in life and not separate and really do not serve well as a measuring stick of a man. There is a lot to gain from this film and it is completely worth watching.

Grade: B-

Beats, Rhymes and Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest

2011-11-01T20:15:00.000-04:00

Lately, there’s been a run of music documentaries coming out, more of them being actual love letters to the music instead of actual films is slightly annoying to the landscape of cinema. Recently, Cameron Crowe released his love letter to Pearl Jam in “Pearl Jam Twenty,” which was an examination of how wonderful the band Pearl Jam was and is in pop culture and to Cameron Crowe. But despite the glitzy frills of concert footage and more recent interviews melded with home videos from the late 80s and early 90s, “Pearl Jam Twenty” doesn’t offer anything more than what’s on the surface. In the new film (or should I say love letter) from first time filmmaker, Michael Rapaport, “Beats, Rhymes and Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest” follows suit in Cameron Crowe’s mediocre effort, only Rapaport tiptoes, then dives into the waters of actual drama behind the band.

The documentary follows the influential hip-hop band A Tribe Called Quest in their quest for hip-hop legitimacy and success. From the very start of the inception of hip-hop in the early 80s, the members of the band have committed themselves to the art and style of the emerging music genre. Taking real life footage of old shows and old recording sessions, mixed with current interviews and confrontations, Rapaport does do an effective job in presenting the band in a objective light. The documentary feels problematic when it doesn’t go deep enough with its subjects. Why did the band break up in the first place? Why was there such a heavy resentment between the two lead rappers, Fife Dawg and Abstract? It doesn’t feel like it wants to go far enough to be thorough to be an effective documentary as a piece of cinema instead of being content with wanting to be a love letter.

It’s obvious Rapaport has an affection for this band, and as a reviewer, so do I, but is this film trying to convince the audience of A Tribe Called Quest’s appeal. From time to time, this documentary sure feels like it. There’s not much to takeaway from this film because it’s so surface level. There was a band called A Tribe Called Quest, they were popular among their peers, audiences “ahead of the curve” loved them and then they broke up because of in-fighting and record label troubles. What separates these plot point from any other band? The other times in this film, Rapaport effectively lets the music speak for itself by letting it speak for itself with performances, but to what end. It feels like the actual drama and story with A Tribe Called Quest is more meatier but in the end, it feels like an unsatisfying meal.

I feel “Beats, Rhymes and Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest” would be a good movie for any hip-hop fan or fan of A Tribe Called Quest, but it doesn’t cross-over with the filmmaking to an audience who has no interest in the music or band. Good music documentaries, or any good documentary for that matter, should transcend its subject to a larger audience, otherwise, what’s the point. It might as well be a bonus feature of a deluxe box set instead of a theatrical release. It can be a love letter but there needs to be something more substantive than just praise from one of their biggest fans.

Grade: B-

Broke*

2011-10-23T20:14:00.000-04:00

This is a new era, in not just music but in music distribution and production. These days, if someone has a good computer, good friends, a good work ethic, talent and a Facebook and Twitter account, then they could do practically everything a major label can do. In other words, anyone can produce, create and distribute their own music. So why is there a need for major labels? In the new film from recording artist and filmmaker, Will Gray, “Broke*” explores what one man can do on his own without a record label. The problem is, the effectiveness of D.I.Y. (Do It Yourself) filmmaking when it comes to the documentary genre.

Will Gray is talented, charismatic and a hard worker. This is apparent on the screen, we see Will Gray make great music and at the same time, explore notions of the need of the music industry as we know it. We get to meet other recording artists and musicians like Emily Hope Price, Nathan Johnson and Bobby Bare Jr. that achieve their music without any outside help from a major label. They do this through hard work and talent. I don’t question the quality of the music, the talent or the hard work behind it, but I question how close the filmmaker is to the subject matter. Well, he is the subject matter. It’s problematic to have the filmmaker and the subject as the same person. The end result is an unfocused film, with too many strings and ideas, that never come together as cleanly as they should. It would be difficult for a seasoned documentarian to accomplish what Will Gray is doing with this film, and in the end, it feels too much like an inside joke among friends. We see people laughing at a joke and we don’t understand why it’s funny.

Will Gray introduces numerous recording artists to share their experiences with dealing with a major label versus their experiences dealing with their music independently. And that’s really about the end of these experiences, examples of how this works but never any concrete experiences. This is intercut with Will Gray going on tour with his band, making music and struggling financially to keep his head above water. Smartly, this resonates at points, but overall the execution is clumsy and a bit “too inside baseball” to connect the two ideas because it just seems far too unpolished to be effective. When points are made, they don’t hit as hard as they should, leaving the heavy lifting to the audience without any direction.

This film is part documentary and part concert footage, “Broke*” never feels like anything is coming together and at times, feels tedious to get through. The humor in a majority of the film falls flat, while talking head interviews, keep repeating the same point over and over again. It’s better to do things on your own because you have freedom to create. What are the benefits of working with a major label? How are these two experiences different? Does signing to a major label make you less of an artist? These questions remain open ended and Will Gray’s experiences never sheds light on them.

Maybe Will Gray is too close to the material and subject matter. He is the subject and the filmmaker after all. It feels as if an outside filmmaker should shape and capture Will Gray’s main problem of whether or not to sign to a major label. At the end of the day, it feels like Will Gray is just showing off as such a talented artist. I am a fan of the music but it seems like Gray places himself before the documentary and film itself, which is a problem in the search of truth on the screen.

Grade: C-

Pearl Jam Twenty

2011-10-22T20:12:00.001-04:00

Most bands don’t stick around long enough to make it a career. Hell, most bands don’t stick around long enough to even play their first show. So it’s quite an accomplishment for a band to stay together for twenty years and still retain the excitement, fan base and artistic integrity from their first day as a band. And I concede, as much as I am not a fan of Pearl Jam or their music, I can appreciate the longevity and their intent. In the new film from Cameron Crowe, “Pearl Jam Twenty” he examines the band from their birth, their highs and lows at the start of a musical and cultural revolution, to date.

The start of the film doesn’t really start with the inception of Pearl Jam, the actual name of the band didn’t come to light until legal issue detoured them from using their original name, Mookie Blaylock, the NBA player, but it starts with the band before lead singer, Eddie Vedder, joined the band, Mother Love Bone. Mother Love Bone was one of the most popular bands in Seattle in the late 80s, but tragically broke up when their lead singer Andrew Wood died of a heroin overdose, at age 24. After Wood’s death Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament found Eddie Vedder and founded the band that would turn into Pearl Jam.

As much as this film is about the band Pearl Jam, it’s also about the filmmaker, Cameron Crowe. Cameron Crowe moved to Seattle from San Diego in the mid-80s. Once there he was part of the Seattle music scene, hanging out with bands like Mother Love Bone, Alice In Chains and Soundgarden. This film weaves in and out of Crowe’s film career and personal interest in the band itself. Pearl Jam was featured in Crowe’s 1992 film, “Singles”. A film that was seen as an exploitation or capitalization of the Seattle music scene, when in fact, it was part of it, being completed a year earlier in 1991, but not released due to Warner Bros’ inability to figure out what to do with it. There’s actually a scene in “Pearl Jam Twenty” that takes a look at the notorious MTV “Singles” promotion party, where Pearl Jam played and completely destroyed the stage and offended the corporate partygoers.

The film takes a look at their part in the commercialization of their beloved music scene in the early 90s. Once the band Nirvana broke out, Pearl Jam was the next, and from then on there was always this stigma of a rivalry between the two bands, when in fact, there was no visible rivalry. But dealing with that musical explosion and the suicide of Nirvana’s frontman, Kurt Cobain, took a real life toll on Pearl Jam, that would define the rest of their career. The band had bouts with Ticketmaster for monopolizing the concert industry and questionable Grammy Award “acceptance” speeches, surrounded the band. But interestingly, the film shifts into the last ten years of the band’s existence when they weren’t the biggest band in the world and pop culture and musical tastes have shifted to general pop music acts like Britney Spears and N’SYNC.

As a band, dealing with the change, Pearl Jam carried on and stayed true to their fans. This film does take a good look at practically every facet of Pearl Jam, but something in it doesn’t feel right. Cameron Crowe has a pension of sugarcoating his films, wanting to persevere the underlying sweetness within. A case in point is his 2000 film, “Almost Famous,” which never deals with the darkness of rock n’ roll and music in the early 70s, IE drugs, suicide and pain. I can’t help but feel that there’s something missing in the portrayal of Pearl Jam, as if the members of the band never fought or were resentfully of each other, namely Eddie Vedder’s overall pop culture status. Maybe Pearl Jam never had the stereotypical bouts with each other so that’s why that’s missing from the film, or they never had problems with drugs and alcohol. But it just seems like all of Pearl Jam’s problems are external and never internal.

At the end of the day, “Pearl Jam Twenty” is an interesting enough documentary on the history of Pearl Jam. That said, I find the history of any band interesting and this film never evolves into anything much more than VH1′s “Behind The Music”. There’s never a sense of dread or the possibility of the band’s break-up with “Pearl Jam Twenty,” but maybe that’s how Cameron Crowe wanted it. It feels more like a love letter to the band, as a part of Crowe’s life as something that is more inspirational. And in that way, “Pearl Jam Twenty” only works on a surface level, and not anything deeper.

Grade: C+

Goodbye First Love

2011-10-19T20:10:00.001-04:00

One step from childhood to adulthood is to meet someone, have good chemistry with them, fall in love and have sex for the first time (not necessarily in that order). It’s the time of your life where it’s ok to be foolish, in love and reckless. Sometimes your first love will be your only love and you’ll live happily ever after, and other times, your first love turns out to be a horrible person, leaves you for something shinier, and to say the least, it just doesn’t work out with them. You get your first real instance of failure, disappointment and heartache. This instance in your life, unassumingly shapes the rest of your life. You aren’t so optimist about love, you’re a bit more guarded and cautious; and you’re just not as trusting as you used to be. You’re smarter! In the new film from filmmaker Mia Hansen-Løve, “Goodbye First Love,” captures these moments so well that at times it feels more like a documentary than a narrative film.

The title alone is something to consider and really says everything about this movie. Going into it, you’ll know exactly what’s being explored, but underlying it is this hint of sobering truth. The story is simple enough and is old as time itself. Girl meets boy. Girl and boy fall in love. Girl and boy become inseparable, then boy leaves girl. While away, boy promises to write girl but then slowly inches away from girl. The girl in question in “Goodbye First Love” is Camille (Lola Créton) and the boy is Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky). They are both 15 years-old and all they know is their love, but quickly you get a clear impression that it means more to Camille than Sullivan. So much so, that he choses to leave their hometown of Paris to travel to South America to find adventure. Of course, Sullivan is justified in this decision because it is, after all, his own life, but Camille can’t stand the idea of being without Sullivan that she threatens him with suicide if he ever leaves her. Teenagers are realistically over-dramatic, and we get a great sense of this melodrama in “Goodbye First Love,” but what happens when threats turn into action.

Interestingly, this film isn’t really about a nasty break-up, but rather the effects of that nasty break-up on the rest of your life. The film follows the span of 8 years in these characters lives, but more importantly, Camille, this is her movie. She attempts suicide, survives, graduates high school, goes to college, graduates college and starts a very promising career as an architect. During all these events, transitions and turning points in her life, there is this looming thought or ghost of her past lover. A linger that handicaps her pursuit of any meaningful love. In fact, she starts to have an affair with her architect professor (Magne Håvard Brekke), which starts playfully but ends up to be a serious and mutually loving relationship, but as Camille states latter part of the film, “It’s a different type of love”.

Effectively, Hansen-Løve never creates a scene that doesn’t have that hint of truth I brought up earlier. It never devolves into a “happy, love conquers all” movie like something we might see in “(500) Days of Summer,” but rather she lets the scenes go on longer than they should so the point hits harder or in contrast, cuts to the next scene as quickly as possible, never giving you the feeling of complacency during the more loving affectionate scenarios. Is this to show the dynamic of what it feels like to have your first love break your heart? Are we at a cautious distance to this film like Camille would be to potential suitors?

Mia Hansen-Løve has created a gem with “Goodbye First Love”. She has made a film with a rich and deep world with equally rich and deep characters to inhabit it. Hansen-Løve delivers true emotion, I feel anyone who has ever had their heartbroken at one point in their lives, can appreciate and recognize “the look” on the screen. “Goodbye First Love” is an accurate (or at least, close to as accurate as a movie can be) to the triumphs and pitfalls of first love. This is a valuable look and should serve as a roadmap for heartbreak and disappointment.

This film ends with such a bittersweet note that can be interpreted as either hopeful or hopeless, it all really depends on your personal outlook on life and love. The sentiment of goodbye first love shouldn’t just apply to the film’s title or subject matter, but it should apply to life in general, especially when it comes to that most important thing.

Grade: A-

The Descendants

2011-10-18T20:08:00.000-04:00

Life gets easily interrupted with, well, life. It’s so easy to fall into routines, trying to make up for lost time and getting comfortable with your situation. Sooner or later, those routines get in the way and you forget what’s the most important thing to you, your family. Dealing with work, or school leaves you with blinders to the rest of the world but then the rest of the world, sneaks up behind you to give you a real dose of life. It’s important when these bouts of life come out of nowhere to hit us over the head, to always try to keep your head despite life trying to knock it off. In the new film from Alexander Payne, life is not that easy to stay on top of.

Matt King (George Clooney) is a lawyer from Hawaii. He has his practice which is his main source of income, but he is also the descendant of Hawaiian royalty, whom entrusted him and his cousins a beautiful piece of land that most of them want to sell for commercial and private investors. Matt’s life becomes fragile when his wife gets into a boating accident and quickly falls into a coma. Now Matt must deal with trying to manage his two young daughters, while trying to care for his dying wife and manage his family’s land deal. To many filmmakers, this premise would seem to be over bloated and somewhat convoluted, but for Alexander Payne, he does an extraordinary job balancing the different story lines and characters, while at the same time, showing a man trying to do his best at keeping his family and inheritance together. A real emotionally resonant film emerges here.

As Matt King, George Clooney is shown in a different light from other films he has starred in, he’s a father in “The Descendants”. Giving a wonderful performance managing compassion, rage, understanding and eventually complacency, Clooney is strong and sympathetic in all of these roles. Smartly, Payne never makes this film saccharine or precious, and when this film inches towards those ends, they are quickly extinguished as the plot drives on. It would be easy to have King’s younger daughter, Scottie (Amara Miller), end up to be some sort of precocious mix of Abigail Breslin and Chloë Grace Moretz, but the character never devolves into that, but rather she emerges to display pathos.

Taking into question this family when we are introduced to, who on the surface appear to be unlikeable and shrude, but as the film unfolds they are the complete opposite. They are a family in need. But as we soon will learn, this need started before the accident and not the result of it, which is refreshing to try not to feel ambivalence toward Matt’s wife. Payne takes these tropes that we might find in lesser made-for-TV movies and turns them on their head. The characters are both mean-spirited and compassionate; dull and exciting, and in this way, “The Descendants” is an intimate look at a family trying to do their best in life, whether or not if it’s convenient for the story. This adds an additional layer of meaning and sincerity.

“The Descendants” is a prime example of how to balance complicated story lines with honest emotion. This is a delicate balance and would be easy to ruin the dynamic of the characters or the story, ask Cameron Crowe with “Elizabethtown”. Alexander Payne is back and he delivers an extraordinary movie, capped off with George Clooney at his best, playing the patriarch of a family trying to do their best.

Grade: B+

The Artist

2011-10-17T20:06:00.001-04:00

The Artist
by Rudie Obias

This is a magical film! Simply stated, there’s not much really more to say but to say that “The Artist” is a magical movie. It takes what people love about movies and it’s early days, and puts that landscape and elements and infuses them with an innocent and charming love story. By matching the style, subject matter and the passion into one film seems like a gigantic undertaking but filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius makes it look effortless and powerful.

Taking place at the dawn of Hollywood in the late 1920s, it follows the transition of the establishment into the silent era of films into the inception of sound, following a seasoned actor, George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) and his budding love affair with newcomer Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo). For George, sound in movies is just a fad and will soon be forgotten but for Peppy, it’s the future. It’s interesting alone to see the transition from one era to another that feels so distinct and can’t help but think about this current era of cinema, 2D to 3D.

Even in 1927, where the film starts off, we can see a correlation between the emergence of 3D today. Will this new technology be the standard in the future? What will happen if actors and filmmakers can’t make that transition like the ones that didn’t back in the early 1930s? I’m not sure what that will mean going forward, but in “The Artist” is gives use warning signs of our uncertain future.

Smartly, “The Artist” is a silent film. It was shot like a silent film, it was acted like a silent film and with all respect to the filmmakers and actors involved, it is a silent film. But what general audiences can hold on to is the love story between the two leads and their on-screen chemistry. Jean Dujardin as George Valentine is charming and suave, while Bérénice Bejo is alluring and hypnotic, you can’t be help but fall in love with them as they fall in love with each other. And for anyone put off by the fact that this film is a silent film, don’t worry, there’s enough here to keep you engaged and thrilled. Hazanavicius may use silent film techniques but ultimately he uses modern conventions with driving a story to be appealing to general audiences of all languages and ages.

Everything in this film builds up to a certain point and explodes in a fantastic climax that is completely fitting and memorable. The conflict between the old way and the new way comes to an interesting compromise when both leads decide to display their talents in a joyous manner. And in that way, what will transcend cinema will not be technology but talent and charm on the screen.

This is a darling picture and harkens back to an era of filmmaking that has been forgotten and should be remembered. This film is really the prime example of the power of cinema as a whole in popular culture. Even a film that uses conventions almost 100 years removed can still resonate with audiences today, just as much as they did back in the late 1920s.

Grade: A-

Corman's World

2011-10-14T20:04:00.000-04:00

For anyone who doesn’t know who Roger Corman is, he’s probably the most influential and prolific American filmmaker still working today. Not solely for the movies he’s made but the filmmakers that “graduated” from his “school” of filmmaking. Roger Corman, himself, has directed over 56 movies and produced over 395 movies. Wow! Titles that range from “Sharktopus” and “The Beast with a Million Eyes,” to “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden” and “Death Race 2000,” he was dubbed “The King of Schlock” and “The Master of B-Movies.” This documentary, “Corman’s World,” looks at his entire career and his influence on filmmakers and the industry, all the way up to him receiving an honorary Oscar in 2009.

It goes film to film, looking at what he was trying to do as a director and why he wanted to become a filmmaker. It’s in the same vein as other documentaries that examined cinema and genres like “The Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession” and “American Grindhouse” or “Not Quite Hollywood,” it spans Corman’s career as a B-movie mogul. Not limited to the movies he has made and why he became popular or the audiences that found his work, but it’s simply impressive to see what other filmmakers came out of his “school” of filmmaking.

Roger Corman owned various production and distribution companies, his movies never went over-budget and always made money. If you were a young filmmaker, then Corman would give you a shot to direct. Filmmakers like Ron Howard, Joe Dante, James Cameron, Peter Bogdanovich, Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese all got their start with Roger Corman. The disciple of tight filmmaking and never going over-budget trickled down to their way of making movies. He was responsible for the New Hollywood style of filmmaking during the late 1960s and 70s. Irreverent movies that went against the status quo with deep characters and sophisticated story lines like in “Five Easy Piece” and “The Last Picture Show.” He gave young actors like Jack Nicholson and Peter Honda a chance early in their careers, which paved the way for the seminal film, “Easy Rider”.

This documentary is a touching look at a filmmaker who didn’t reach conventional success, but rather influence and nurture success in others. Everyone involved in the interviewing seems to have a reverence for Roger Corman and pretty much all of them are indebted to him because of their success. This film is for anyone who is interesting in Hollywood history, filmmaking and schlock. Roger Corman paved the way for exploitation and gore and doesn’t apologize for it. It’s a valuable look back in history and a filmmaker’s work. This one is worth watching and is one of the best documentaries showcased at the film festival.

Grade: B-

The Dead

2011-10-13T20:02:00.000-04:00

There’s not much ground covered in most zombie movies. Some of them tackle social issues, others take on notions of conformity, while others are just happy enough with blood and gore. In the new film from The Ford Brothers (Howard J and Jonathan), “The Dead” takes an interesting approach to zombie movies, in terms of setting. It’s a zombie movie set in the deserts of Africa. And what is displayed on the screen, will surely shock, horrify and excite most horror fans.

The film starts with a lone man, wondering the desert, he’s dressed in all black, and when he comes across these slow moving dead walkers, he takes action. We soon learn he is an American Air Force Engineer, Brian Murphy (Rob Freeman), and come to learn how exactly he got in the middle of the desert. A series of flashbacks tell that a group of military personnel, escape the outbreak of zombies in a large aircraft, but when one of the survivors turns into a zombie himself, the plane crash lands back, where it started from. We continue on with the lone survivor, Brian Murphy, as he looks for help and a way out of danger.

The intersecting story of an African army Sergeant, Daniel Dembele (Prince David Osei) searches for his wife and son after a zombie attack on his village, brings these two unlikely pair together. Now together, they must work to survive while trying to get back to their loved ones. Of course there’s a culture clash between them and it’s something they must work through, but the interesting thing about this film is the setting of the deserts of Africa.

This film is dry, warm and isolated from the rest of the world. It suggests that even the worst of western civilization can make its way to the middle of nowhere. We soon learn there’s an epidemic that has taken over the world and despite help from others, we are all alone in this battle. But what springs forth is friendship and, surprisingly, unity, in this post-apocalyptic world.

As far as horror goes, “The Dead” is serviceable, smartly going the route of practical effects rather than CGI. A lot of this movie has no dialogue but is driven by camera movements and editing. This is a good piece of filmmaking from the directors. It manages to keep your attention, while at the same time giving horror hounds, a bang for their buck, or should I say bucket, as in buckets of blood. In conclusion, “The Dead” is a fun movie and gives horror fans and general moviegoers something to hold on to. Although the story and character moments are somewhat thin, there’s enough here to root for.

Grade: C+

This Is Not A Film

2011-10-12T20:00:00.000-04:00

To enjoy, or get anything out of “This Is Not A Film” is to know a little bit about the filmmaker and subject, Jafar Panahi. Last year, Panahi was on trial and found guilty for making a movie that went against the Iranian regime. He was sentenced to six years in prison and a twenty year ban of filmmaking. This “film” was made while Panahi was appealing the court’s decision. “This Is Not A Film” is exactly that, it’s not a film. It’s more like a faux-documentary or farce, but at the same time an essay on the importance of self-expression and the power of cinema, when in fact, this “film” is not cinematic at all.

It was shot with a digital camera and an iPhone in Panahi’s apartment, and it follows an average day in the life. Panahi eats breakfast and calls the documentarian, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, to follow him around with a camera for the day. During the day, Panahi watches old movies, and key scenes of his past movies and also storyboards or acts out his newest screenplay. In this way, he showcases his new work, that he’s not allowed to film. They begin to talk about the accusations the Iranian government has put upon him and the audience gets a clear impression of what this “film” is trying to get at. After all, if someone films Panahi while he’s simply telling a story, then has Panahi broken any laws?

“This Is Not A Film” is not for everyone. It doesn’t have any value unless you know who Jafar Panahi is or have a love for cinema yourself. The “film” doesn’t work because it’s not a film itself but at the same time it says so much more than any movie on the subject of cinema or free speech can say. What Panahi and Mirtahmasb have created here is something more lasting and special, and created in such a way to convey, that this in fact is not a film but an expression of someone who is isolated. And despite the conviction, Panahi remains defiant and artful.

Grade: C+

Hugo (Work-In Progress Screening)

2011-10-11T19:52:00.000-04:00

Last Wednesday, the organizers of the New York Film Festival announced there will be a special “work in progress” screening to take place on the following Monday, October 10th. They didn’t announce what the film would be but they teased it by saying it was a movie that would come out later this year and it was by a legendary master filmmaker. That’s it! Tickets went on sale to the general public on that Friday, October 7th, and if you were a member of Lincoln Center then it would go on sale for you on that Thursday, October 6th. Now I am not a member of Lincoln Center, although I would like to be if my cash flow was right, so I had to buy my ticket on October 7th at 9:30AM, when the box office opened. So that’s exactly what I did. I bought a ticket to a movie I didn’t know the title to.

The excitement was killing me! There was speculation that the movie in question was going to be David Fincher’s “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”. The festival premièred Fincher’s last film, “The Social Network” and a lot of the film’s showcased at this year’s film festival were from Sony, which is releasing “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”. I was skeptical because as much as I love David Fincher, I wouldn’t consider him legendary or a master filmmaker, not yet anyway. Clint Eastwood’s “J. Edgar” and Wong Kar-Wai’s “The Grandmasters” were also being rumored to be featured for the secret “work in progress” screening. But what it turned out to be was something far more special, Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo”.

Now mind you, what was presented was definitely a “work in progress”. The score didn’t go through its final mix, although there was a great rough score by the composer Howard Shore, the special effects were not finished, a lot of which were still in its pre-vis (previsualization) state and some of the action sequences were not finished in terms of editing. This, of course, will not be the case with the final product when it is completed and released on November 23rd. As of now and the screening, I don’t think it’s fair to review an unfinished film but I will say this, “Hugo” is worth watching. And what was finished for this screening was truly special. Scorsese has a way of conveying such grand emotion and world building even in a rough capacity, which lends to the master filmmaker title.

The screening took place at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City and part of the whole Lincoln Center complex. Avery Fisher Hall has an almost romantic feeling to it, and add the mystique of New York City and you have an idea what’s in store for you. This was the perfect site for this movie by summing it by saying charming and magical. The performances were great and pitch perfect. A big stand out, in terms of magnitude and height, was Sasha Baron Cohen as the train terminal inspector. He steals the show by adding the perfect amount of comedy. And someone who isn’t a big fan of 3D, I must say see this one in 3D. It adds so much to the film and what Scorsese is trying to go for with subject matter and the audience.

I’m not going to go on by giving you a plot synopsis or what worked and what didn’t, I feel that will start to go into reviewing territory, remember this is only a reaction to the screening and the movie. But what Scorsese delivers in “Hugo” is a love letter to the early days of cinema, and who he delivers it to is for the children who are going to see it this November. Instilling that kind of love and reverence to cinema and movies at an early age is important to the art form. Moreover, the importance to film preservation and restoration is an invaluable lesson to learn as a way to how to view these rare pieces of art and what it can mean to your childhood and life.

Here are a few Twitter reactions to other film bloggers at the “Work In Progress” screening in New York:

Matt Patches, Movies Editor of Hollywood.com
“Really enjoyed #Hugo. Not a kid’s movie, but a movie to help kids fall in live with cinema. Spectacular 3D. More thoughts when I get home!”

David Ehrlich, Writer for Movies.com and Box Office Magazine
“In-depth discussion re: how HUGO validates 3D (in some respects) & speaks to visual currency in the digital age must wait till November.”

Katie Calautti, Writer for MTV Movies Blog and SpinoffOnline.com
“I didn’t think Hugo was perfect, but it has its Cinema Paradiso-esqe moments. #NYFF”

Angie Han, Writer for SlashFilm.com
“Hugo has flaws. But I loved it. Haven’t felt that good walking out of a theater since Midnight in Paris.”

Jordan Raup, Editor-In-Chief of TheFilmStage.com
“Hugo: Only Scorsese could pull off a lesson on film preservation and film history 101 with a family movie. Quite an achievement. #NYFF”

Pina

2011-10-10T19:50:00.000-04:00

As much as I love documentaries and the work of Wim Wenders, I find huge faults with his latest effort “Pina.” A documentary exploring the work of legendary choreographer, Pina Bausch, but from the perspective of this film, we learn nothing about why she’s legendary and why she’s important. To the films credit, it illustrates how she’s legendary. But expanding the film to 3D automatically makes it cinematic but this would only be the feature to consider this film as such.

The film starts when you put on your 3D glasses, a stage presentation takes you to her company as they waltz in a line and sign the changing seasons, spring, summer, autumn and winter. The 3D adds depth, it looks and feels like a theater experience and a performance is being presented. But when the film gets more elaborate, and the dance gets more feverish, the pitfalls of 3D take over.

The way 3D is shot, in the framing is important to consider. 3D presents the foreground and background with depth, giving the audience a clear sense of an immersive experience, so in that way, 3D has to be precise. Movies like “Avatar,” “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” and even “Green Lantern” shoot in a simplistic way to convey this experience. The problem here is Wender’s compositions are so rich in texture, that letting your eye wander to enjoy what he photographs is completely wrong for 3D. This will give the audience a headache, or at the least become increasingly annoyed by the technology.

The difference between “Pina” and “Step Up 3D,” another movie about dancers and also in 3D, is the director of “Step Up 3D,” Jon M Chu, understands the limitations of 3D and shoots things accordingly. The action or dance is front and center, you eye is drawn to this and leaves nothing in the background to catch it. This is a far more effective use of 3D and dance in a movie.

The content of “Pina” leaves much to desire as well. Again, we never get a sense of why Pina Bausch is important. We see why she’s important to her troupe, the gave their account of her and perform their piece but how is this interesting or a narrative. I would consider a documentary on the subject is hard to tackle but another film, I would direct the audience is “Music According To Tom Jobim”. This film is as much of an experiment as “Pina,” in terms of editing and subject matter. It’s not a conventional documentary either, there are no talking heads, where “Pina” benefits, but somehow “Music According To Tom Jobim” transcends its subject to something more cinematic and affections to the audience. Wherein, “Pina” fails.

I feel “Pina” would be best in small doses. If each piece were a short film instead or places together on Youtube, then this will capture your interest instead of putting you to sleep. Ultimately, “Pina” is a considerable experiment but really adds up to nothing meaningful or visceral, and give a bad name to an annoying technology.

Grade: C+

My Week With Marilyn

2011-10-10T19:48:00.001-04:00

Being in awe of celebrity is reason enough to write about that experience, especially if it was a personal and long-lasting experience. This is not a new theme explored by Hollywood. The latest one that comes to mind was Richard Linklater’s “Me and Orson Welles,” this experience gains a bit of insight to celebrity, catching the figure in an honest light. In the new film from Simon Curtis, “My Week With Marilyn” explores intimate moments between the author of the source material, Colin Clark and movie star Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams), but what is offered in this film is old fashioned Hollywood movie making, clumsy writing and story structure and overall, a far too conventional film to receive high praise.

The film takes place in 1956, while Marilyn Monroe went to London for the first time to star in the new film, “The Prince and The Showgirl,” by Sir Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh). A young assistant director, Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne), gets caught in-between two styles of acting and filmmaking, Monroe is more Hollywood and Olivier is more classic theatrical, and is forced to get the production back on track. In the meantime, the relationship between Clark and Monroe flourishes into a short-lived love affair. But what this film hopes to strive for doesn’t really hit as well as it feels it should. “My Week With Marilyn” is a very middle of the road kind of film. It doesn’t try to do anything more than what it’s confined to do and in that way, it’s watchable but if you’re looking for something more, it isn’t here with “My Week With Marilyn”.

The narrative and writing is clunky by never really giving a clear path or intension of the protagonist. Also questions of who is the actual protagonist. If it’s Colin Clark, as the title suggest, then nothing is really gained or learned, and this is not a character study so that can’t be considered in the equation. If it’s Marilyn Monroe, which would seem more apt seeing how she evolves into something more by the end of it, then the titles is a misnomer and Colin Clark is a weak enough character to be considered a cypher. Either way, their motivations are never really interesting enough to care. A subplot with a wardrobe girl, Lucy (Emma Watson), doesn’t add up to anything and feels like it’s only in the movie because it happened in real life, and it feels like a real missed opportunity. The true conflict is between Monroe and Olivier, the old way clashing with the new, but this is never really explored outside of what’s on the surface.

The real takeaway from “My Week With Marilyn” is Michelle Williams portrayal of the iconic bombshell. Williams is charming and bubbly, alluring and convincing. And for a moment you think of her as Marilyn Monroe instead of an actress playing Marilyn Monroe. After all, Marilyn Monroe was a character herself played by Norma Jeane Mortenson (Baker), the idea of sex and curves oozed into celebrity. This idea is explored in only a few lines in the film. She conveys a certain preciseness in every scene but has no direction to take that precision. Williams’ performance and range is apparent on the screen and no one can take that away from the film. She gracefully glides across the screen and demands your complete attention, but sadly this goes to waste without a strong director.

“My Week With Marilyn” is a serviceable mess of a movie. An audience will be in awe of Michelle Williams performance of Marilyn Monroe but won’t takeaway the narrative or character building. Nothing is more interesting than a conventional film that doesn’t what to be conventional, and it shows.

Grade: C+

Sleeping Sickness

2011-10-08T19:43:00.000-04:00

From the start of “Sleeping Sickness,” you get a clear impression that this film will be more tedious than interesting. A German family is stopped by local police on a Cameroon highway, they ask the patriarch of the family, Ebbo Velten (Pierre Bokma), if his family have their passports. The police are looking for a bribe, but what they find is a long drawn out scene that suppose to unveil how off putting and fascinating Ebbo is, but they come up with nothing, except a small amount of money. The audience finds nothing as well, and we didn’t get money at the end of this screening. I’m sorry but finding a gun in the truck and waving it around and placing it to your temple isn’t nuance, interesting or character development, it’s for too assuming. It’s assuming that this is the moment where the audience with come along on this journey and find the characters in it well-rounded and exciting. I’m sorry to say, it did not.

The first half of “Sleeping Sickness” plays a lot like this opening scene. We get the cultural conflict between Germans and Cameroon people, their wine shouldn’t be as expensive as our wine, it just comes off as dull. Ebbo is a doctor in charge of funding a number of Cameroon hospitals with money from the West. They find no more traces of illness (Sleeping Sickness) and therefore have to leave and drop the funding. The battles between first world countries and third world countries when it comes to medicine and aid are there and apparent but it just never really adds up to anything. It is only until the second half of the film when it starts to become interesting, which is why this is slightly more positive.

The second half of this film takes a dramatic turn, it slows down to tell another story about another doctor who is part of the funding of the Cameroon hospital. Dr. Alex Nzila is a young doctor sent to Cameroon, his family’s origin country, to evaluate these hospitals. He’s young and attractive and people around him seem to be drawn to him. This charm is captivating to the audience as well. It starts off with him in Paris taking the trip back to his father’s land. Although he looks Cameroon he is more Parisian than anything. The culture class with Dr. Nzila is far more interesting than Dr. Velten’s. Nzila is ostensibly African and the Cameroon people take him at face value but he struggles to fit in. He struggles to not look like a tourist, although he is. As the film unfolds, Dr. Nzila takes a trip to a hospital in the middle of the jungle, he struggles to find his footing and is forced to perform an emergency Cesarean section, his first surgery as a doctor. He is there to meet Dr. Velten to evaluate the money spent on these hospitals.

Once there, the conflict in the first half of the film, pays off with in the second half. When the audience is re-introduced to Dr. Velten we learn that he was taken a lover and has (some what) become part of her family. The dynamic of fitting in and becoming part of something that is different from you, in other words, adaptation is explored. His relationship with her family is never really built up though. Her father seems to approve of him because he is German (white) and is a doctor, although her brothers do not. That’s all that seems to be there but it just seems to only be on the surface.

Of course, the movie isn’t plot driven but rather mood driven. The mood is effective but to what end. Nothing feels like it adds up to anything except the second half but by then, we are not invested in characters. Thematically it’s almost consistent but to what end.

Grade: C-

Shame

2011-10-07T19:40:00.000-04:00

In Steve McQueen’s 2008 film, “Hunger”, also starring Michael Fassbender, McQueen took a “fly-on-the-wall” approach to the Irish Republic Army prison hunger strike of 1981 and the martyrdom of their leader, Bobby Sands. Although stylized with graphic violence and slow motion sequences, its view of Bobby Sands was always held far away. This is shown in the film’s most iconic scenes between Bobby Sands and his priest (Liam Cunningham), which last for a riveting eight minutes in one take. McQueen hints at that style in his new film, “Shame” but marries the technique with a more character driven narrative.

“Shame” follows the life of Brandon (Michael Fassbender), a high powered ad executive from New York City and examines his addiction to sex. His life is interrupted by his estranged sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan), who has no place to live so stays with him. The premise of “Shame” is quite simple but the methodology and examination of sex addicts is not. At the beginning of the film, McQueen uses that “fly-on-the-wall” approach to great effect. We truly get an idea of the mind set of Brandon from the opening frame to the last. His decisions don’t seem foreign to us because we are along for the ride. His reactions are our reactions. Smartly, McQueen lets the opening scene and sequence linger from room to room, brilliantly cutting between Brandon’s private home life, his work life and his interactions with people (mostly women) in casual, everyday settings like taking a subway or walking home from a bar. The collaboration between McQueen and Fassbender is impressive. We get a good sense of two artists at the top of their game in this film.

When Sissy comes into the picture, the film shifts into something more dark. A film dealing with sex is naturally arousing and tantalizing but “Shame” takes it to a place that isn’t necessarily violent but to a place that is sad and off putting. The relationship between Brandon and Sissy is somewhat vague. They deal with each other like former lovers; playful, familiar and once intimate but on the other hand, you could say that they’re acting like very close siblings. There is a love there between them but the film is ambiguous enough never to out right say, but it feels incestuous. This creates more problems, not in terms of narrative but in relation to character. Sissy’s life is a mess yet Brandon’s (on the outside) is more responsible, but when his addiction gets in the way of their relationship, McQueen’s camera captures it all.

There is a lot of sex in “Shame” but it never feels uncomfortable or gratuitous, it feels necessary to the exploration McQueen and Fassbender are searching for. It makes a firm stance suggesting that there’s a difference between sex and intimacy and never lets that notion go during the whole film. In a pivotal scene between Brandon and his would-be new girlfriend Marianne (Nicole Beharie) intimacy is hard to come by. This is an important turning point in the film, this is the first time we see Brandon’s vulnerability, not only physically but emotionally as well. From this point on Brandon tries to capture back that vulnerability even if it means having sex with as many people as he can. To this point, this action is in conflict to Sissy’s safety, which Brandon is forced to choose.

McQueen’s second film is very strong and more accessible than his first. The idea of exploring sex addiction may be arousing to most, but beware, McQueen takes that idea and examines it to its darkest depths. “Shame” is a quiet triumph for everyone involved and should bring more attention to McQueen and Fassbender, respectfully. There work together is invaluable and exciting. The way Fassbender’s charm and pathos are interlocked is one to consider and McQueen seems to know how to get that performance out of him, while at the same time captures it. This one is worth watching and will leave you hungry for more.

Grade: B

A Dangerous Method

2011-10-06T19:39:00.000-04:00

If you buy into the Auteur Theory of film criticism (that a filmmaker’s films reflect the filmmaker themselves), then you can see “A Dangerous Method” fits perfectly in David Cronenberg’s canon. It deals with the themes Cronenberg usually tackles in his films, in regard to psychology (“Videodrome” and “A History of Violence”), on the surface level, a story about the emergence of popular psychology and friendship between Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and Carl Jung (Michael Fassbinder). In regard to sexual repression (“Crash”), the subject matter on another level and the birth of kink, and in regard to, a hidden identity (“The Fly” and “Dead Ringers”), what goes on behind closed doors and the grotesque. But what you wouldn’t find in Cronenberg’s work is a period piece, in this case being set in Vienna and Germany at the turn of the 20th Century. And in regard to this, Cronenberg shines but doesn’t last.

“A Dangerous Method” examines the relationship between Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud and Jung’s love affair with fellow psychologist, Sabina Spielrein. It’s not told in a conventional, love conquers all type of Hollywood movie, it’s a bit more methodical than that, but rather the point of reason and why sex drives all of human needs and desires, the basis of Freud’s psychology. The constant mental battle between Jung and Freud, never giving the other one the upper hand and the quick mind games that done in conversations and letters. This mirrored with Jung’s love affair and passion for Spielrein, who has a pension for bondage and sadomasochism, “A Dangerous Method” offers audiences storytelling and character moments that never really come together as cleanly as they should, even in terms of a Cronenberg film.

Wonderfully shot with landscapes of amazing gardens and cascading and flowing rivers and streams, “A Dangerous Method” doesn’t go any deeper than the psychology discussed within it. The friendship between Jung and Freud are interesting enough to get through the film, but it never evolves into rivalry, or if it does, it’s too subtle but to the film’s detriment. The love affair between Jung and Spielrein is not pronounced enough and is just hinged on sex, maybe that’s the point but it doesn’t seem as genuine, until the final shot of the film. But until that point, it frustrates the narrative.

Adapted from the stage play, “The Talking Cure” by Christopher Hampton, “A Dangerous Method” feels stale when it shouldn’t, it feels overlong when it shouldn’t and it feels less than Cronenberg-ian, when it shouldn’t. It’s not a bad film, but it’s a far less interesting film to pay it mind and a far too unconventional film to make it complete. A film that spans 8 years of the tumultuous love affair and friendship should be more exciting or at the approach the film takes, should be more introspective and methodical, which I guess does reflect the title of the film to its filmmaking and narrative, but to what end.

Grade: C+

The Skin I Live In

2011-10-05T19:36:00.001-04:00

Pedro Almodóvar has made an entire career of embracing the melodrama. With most every one of his films gravitating to highly emotional points, exaggerated plotting (almost to the point of a soap opera treatment) and vastly interesting characters driven by their emotions and yet, these decisions are often ambiguous and not clear why they were eventually driven this way. His new film, “The Skin I Live In,” is no different, but what is worth watching this time around with a new film by Pedro Almodóvar is the storytelling. The storytelling is so tight, but at the same time almost lucid, and focused but at the same time muddled; but in the end, everything seamlessly comes together and leaves you exhilarated and wondrous but at the same time haunted.

The story revolves around Dr. Robert Ledgard (Antonio Banderas), a brilliant plastic surgeon and geneticist. He is introduced to us by grafting new synthetic skin on one of his patients, Vera (Elena Anaya). She is secluded in Dr. Ledgard’s estate, where he continues to develop new ways to reconstruct her frail body. He presents his new advancements in skin regeneration and grafting to a scientific board as a way to save more lives, but there’s a looming suspicion of the medical ethics behind his techniques. The audience is left to wonder how Vera’s body was so disfigured and why Dr. Ledgard is so obsessive in making her well. We are introduced to Marilia (Marisa Paredes), Ledgard’s servant, head nurse and mother, as she attends to Vera’s needs. Her long lost son, Zeca (Roberto Álamo), who pays his mother and unexpected visit and turns their world upside down. The plot of “The Skin I Live In” is fragile, much like Vera’s body, and what pays off is intoxicating when confrontations turn violent and the film’s secrets become apparent to the audience.

There is this ethical question of a doctor’s relationship to their patients when empathy turns into passion between Dr. Ledgard and Vera. Told in a series of dreams, which reminds me of the work of Federico Fellini and Luis Buñuel, Dr. Ledgard and Vera’s back story is masterfully told and gives the audience a bigger piece of the puzzle throughout. The shifts in tone, going from a romantic drama into something that is almost horror from the likes of Eli Roth and Pier Paolo Pasolini, in terms of torture and the grotesque. Almodóvar marries these two genres seamlessly because what sells it is the editing and the performances of Antonio Banderas and Elena Anaya.

Antonio Banderas lends a certain stoicism to the character of Dr. Ledgard’s approach. His story is one of redemption, obsession and madness, all portrayed with a stone face, which is very cold and calculated. Dr. Ledgard is driven to advance the science because he lost his wife to a car accident, which led to her body receiving 3rd degree burns throughout, which led to her eventual suicide. He is also driven to revenge after his only daughter was violently raped, traumatized and, like her mother, committed suicide. Now alone, his obsession takes him to care for Vera.

Elena Anaya’s Vera conveys an eerie nature that is both ambiguous and sympathetic. For a majority of the film, we don’t know why she’s a patient of Dr. Ledgard. We are introduced to her doing yoga in a minimal room, wearing a full protective body suit to protect her skin. But as the film unfolds, we discover something more sinister and haunting behind the body suit. Anaya gives the brunt on the pathos of this film, never giving away too much no matter how over-the-top or exaggerated the story gets.

“The Skin I Live In” is a must see and is especially top-tier and moving. Please keep in mind, at the end of the day, this film is a horror film with the sheen of melodrama, and in this way, it’s more effective than the horror-de jour with the likes of “The Human Centipede,” which is frivolous and empty. Smartly, with Almodóvar, it’s not what shown, it’s what’s conveyed, in other words, actual filmmaking. Almodóvar doesn’t reveal too much of the story to the audience until it is time and even then he leaves so much to the imagination, which makes the horror twice as much disturbing and lasting. Along with the brilliant score by Alberto Iglesias, which drives the horror element really effectively. The character moments and motivations are the ones to watch here, which are small and subtle, that if you blink, you’ll miss it. The title alone adds a level of meaning that is more than just on the surface level but is something that is more than just skin deep.

Grade: A

1911

2011-10-04T19:35:00.001-04:00

In the grand tradition of epic films, with epic battles and significant meanings and turning points in history, “1911″ is an exercise in how delicate the balance of success and failure when it comes to movies like these. For “1911,” it’s the latter in terms of execution, performance and pacing, which is embarrassing because the subject matter is too important to modern Chinese history to under shoot. It is a failure in terms of scope and managing to balance the information alone.

At the turn of the 20th century, China was in a very interesting position. As the world is becoming more Westernized with the emergence of the United States and Europe coming into play, with the Industrial Revolution, trade and commerce, China’s old way of a monarchy rule with the Qing Dynasty is quickly coming to an end. The people of China are starving, poor and jobless and a grand people’s revolution is about to spark to overthrow the old way and bring fourth something new in China, democracy. But the revolution lacks leadership and support from the West as the Chinese military hopes to bring the rebels down. Depicted very well, in Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Last Emperor,” which gives the same events shown through the perspective of the oligarchs and the Forbidden City, “1911″ tells the tale from the people’s point of view and struggle. The problem is filmmakers Jackie Chan and Zhang Li, over stuff the narrative with odd sub-narratives, a love story and far too many characters and title card scrolls to never engage and audience but bombard them with a Chinese history lesson.

Strangely, with a running time of 125 minutes, “1911″ never finds its footing, is clumsy with structure and feels Jackie Chan’s self-importance than the people who fought and died in this revolution. Practically every scene in the movie begins with a long title scroll, telling the audience what’s going on in history, why is this important and the context for the battle, meeting or situation. How is this effective storytelling? How is this anything less than engaging and tedious? Taking cues from another Bertolucci film, “1900″ (the titles and subject matter are somewhat related), which illustrates the struggle and revolution of working class Italians and the aristocracy of Italy, “1911″ tells the narrative of two good friends, Huang Xing (Jackie Chan), the general of the people’s army of rebels and Sun Yat-Sen (Winston Chao), the first President of China. Going from their idealistic friendship to their ill-mannered relationship as the people of China gain more ground to defeat the Qing Dynasty. Nothing in this friendship is nearly as interesting or as compelling to unfold as a story surrounding the Chinese Revolution, it all seems too surface and too comical to take seriously or to grow any attachment to.

With a clunky narrative, confusing editing and pacing and just a complete lack of understanding of filmmaking, “1911″ squanders the significance to these events and feels more like Kevin Costner’s “The Postman”, self-important and over-stuffed than what I feel it’s trying to get at, Bernardo Bertolucci’s “1900″ or Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon A Time In America”. The language of cinema isn’t there to make this argument false, rather “1911″ cheapens this language and the revolution and delivers something unbearable, a complete mess and just flat out bad.

Grade: D

Tahrir

2011-10-03T19:30:00.000-04:00

At the beginning of 2011, a small protest gathered in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt with the hopes to oust President Hosni Mubarak out of office. The unemployment rate and living conditions in Egypt were on the decline and in contrast, the social awareness and anger inside of Egyptians were on the upswing. This small group became larger and larger, gathering for a call to the people using social networking platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Hundreds become thousands and soon enough, those thousands turned into one million people, all gathered together for one goal. This protest was at first peaceful and soon turned violent as Mubarak’s army turned on the people it swore to protect. This protest lasted 17 days in Tahrir Square until Mubarak eventually resigned the office and left Egypt.

It’s complete astounding the filmmaker Stefano Savona was in the middle of the confusion, pain and, eventual, excitement of this 17 day long protest, and what is captured is clearly breathtaking and inspiring. The acts of every day working class people fed up with the status quo, to actions and not arms to create a social revolution is one to see. The film starts on the 6th day of the January 25th protest, we are thrown into this world, following a man wandering around, perhaps looking for his family. His confusion is our confusion, Savona, smartly, doesn’t follow this man for the duration of the film but follows many people in trying to make sense of what’s going on.

There is no clear entry into this film as there is no clear entry into the protest, the camera lingers and captures the faces of the people. For the most part it’s a hard struggle, their faces look grim, not knowing how long this protest will last and perhaps sooner or later it will end, or reality will kick in and people will soon leave for their jobs. But the reality is, these people don’t have jobs to go to, they don’t have ways to make money, they have family and loved ones to provide for, and that is the problem. We can see moments when frustration turns violent when rocks are being thrown (on both ends) and the threat of gunfire lingers in the air. Strangely, we don’t know who threw the first rock, but more importantly, a war broke out.

This film is so rich with imagery not covered by mainstream or even independent media as US policy is brought into question, whether to side with President Mubarak or the people’s struggle for freedom, which is the example of how the US was founded. As President Mubarak makes a speech addressing the protestors, that he will not leave office and will only do so when the next election comes up, the crowd becomes more and more frustrated with the way the protest is happening.

What this film boils down to, is capturing an important moment in, not only Egyptian or Middle Eastern history, but just in human history. It’s truly inspiring to watch a movement grow into one singular voice. Even as a member of the audience, you can’t help but not feel energized by the people as the march to freedom. This is a very important film and should be seen by everyone, it should be taught in our classrooms and be discussed by everyone, no matter what your personal politics or religious beliefs lie. The film ends on a sour note, former President Mubarak has resigned and the people disperse back to their lives, but the question the film ends on is “what’s next?”. Is it enough for this man to resign or is there something more? The protestors can’t answer that and neither can the audience. I guess it’s to show that this struggle for freedom isn’t over because one man is out of office and more importantly, it continues with you.

Grade: A

4:44 Last Day On Earth

2011-10-01T19:28:00.001-04:00

The end of the world seems to be a theme from movies of 2011. Movies like “Melancholia” and “Take Shelter” seem to explore notions of how people act and react to the end of everything. Maybe it has to do with the superstition of the 2012 predictions of the end of the world, but regardless, this notion has seem to captivate filmmakers. In the new film from director, Abel Ferrara, “4:44 Last Day On Earth” seems to follow suit, but in this regard, this is a more horrible failure than the actual end of the world.

The title of this film suggest the exact time the end of the world will happen, 4:44AM EST. It revolves around a couple Cisco and Skye, (Willem Dafoe and Shanyn Leigh) living in an amazing apartment in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. I use that word “amazing” because it is really the only element in this film that is worth praise. As the end of the world looms upon the people living in it, this couple comes to terms with their lives and relationships. Everything, except the apartment, in this film is completely laughable. The acting is over the top and meaningless, the themes are cliche and eye-roll worthy and the filmmaking is a joke.

I’m not sure what Ferrara was going for in this movie but it seems like he takes pleasure in boring audiences and at the same time delivering a film that will make them laugh in its sincere moments. Why is the world coming to an end? Well, it’s due to corporate greed and the people’s apathy to realize it. How do we show this? Through Apple computers, large flat screen TVs and dream sequences of Dafoe chopping down a tree while screaming and crying. C’mon. What are we doing here? Is a this film for a film school exercise?

When Ferrara isn’t delivering laughable dialogue matched by obtuse imagery and on-the-nose symbolism, he gives us gratuitous sex scenes of this couple. And when they’re not having sex, they’re fighting. I wonder what Ferrara is saying here. As they fight, Dafoe’s Cisco wanders through the streets of New York coming to an existential conclusion. Who cares?! What’s interesting about this movie? Why are we watching this?

The filmmaking comes off as amateurish and lazy, depending too much on Dafoe and Skype. Skype! I’ve never seen a movie that completely relies on Skype and does so in an uninteresting and dull way. There are so many scenes that take place over Skype it comes off as inept and clumsy. Why not iChat? Why not ICQ or Google Voice? Ugh! Who cares!?

As a singular vision, Abel Ferrara is an auteur, which is an argument against the auteur theory. This film is mindless, pointless, fruitless, nonsense, a hopeless waste, laughable, lazy, moronic and sophomoric. It’s amazing to me how the end of the world is an uninteresting exercise. It’s also amazing that the complimentary thing for me to say about this movie is the apartment where its set. There’s a line in this movie that perfectly sums up and describes it, Willem Dafoe’s Cisco is going on an emotional tirade, when he picks up this book where he keeps his research of the end of the world, grabs it, literally wrestles with it and throws it off his roof. He points at it from above, screaming “Fuck this book! Fuck this book!”. I would like to mirror that scene but instead of that book, have his movie in my hands, screaming “Fuck this movie! Fuck this movie!” That’s as clever as I’m going to spend on reviewing this movie. Goodbye!

Grade: F

Martha Marcy May Marlene

2011-10-01T19:27:00.000-04:00

There’s a mystery going on here. Not just in terms of plot and the story but in this film’s characters, setting and title. From the looks of things, one might be led to think that this film is ostensibly about four different women, but actually it’s about one young woman, Martha (Elisabeth Olsen) and her escape from another ambiguous element, a cult. It’s never stated in this film that it is a cult but all the trappings and conventions are there. A group of young people led by a charismatic leader, Patrick (John Hawkes), manipulating his way for complete control of these young people through intimidation, drug use and a group mentality. Nothing in this film is easy to come by and it’s to the film’s benefit. First time filmmaker, Sean Durkin has constructed a fascinating puzzle of memories, moments and incidents for its audience to put together and figure out. Interestingly, the assembly of this film will not be clear from person to person, and moreover, neither will the outcome or story. And in that way, “Martha Marcy May Marlene” is quite an accomplishment from any filmmaker due to its sophisticated storytelling, ambiguous nature and riveting aftermath.

When we first meet Martha, she is escaping from this cult during the dim early morning of a grim upstate New York day. As an audience, we get glimpses of the life of this would-be family, complete with dinner preparation and consumption and the haunting imagery of their group sleep. Martha, given the pseudonym Marcy May by the cult leader Patrick, sneaks off into a full forest to emerge on the other side into a small nearby town. She stops to eat, only to be confronted by one of Patrick’s henchmen, Watts (Brady Corbet). He sits with her and finishes her french fries and asks her the question “why,” a question so simple with an answer so complicated. We can’t help but think why as well throughout the whole film. We later find Martha making a phone call to her estranged older sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson) and her newlywed husband, Ted (Hugh Dancy). Martha isn’t sure if she wants to go back to her real family but also feels she has no other place to go. We don’t get a reason why she’s escaping or why her family life was so awful that she felt a need to leave in the first place but we see it in her eyes and in the way she shakes, that it’s not an easy thing to do but what other option does she have.

From this point on in the film, the chronology jumps back and forth between Martha’s life with the cult and her reunited life with her sister. Durkin, smartly constructs these scenes to mirror her two lives together, her life as Martha and her life as Marcy May, which leads the audience to put them together. But when viewing these scenes, along with the pacing and what is being conveyed, it’s almost telling to extrapolate that maybe the chronology is even more ambiguous then what would first appear. If this whole film is a puzzle then any way to put it together would have to fit. The editing and pacing of this film is almost rhythmic, being more poetic than a narrative.

Martha’s new (or maybe not) home life with her older sister is off putting to everyone involved. Lucy is trying to re-connect with her sister without being too intrusive but overcompensates and ends up mothering her to the point distance and her husband Ted is trying to relate with youth and tries to play the role of involvement as a new entry into this family. But for all their shortcomings, Martha, Lucy and Ted simply don’t understand each other and begin to alienate each other by being vicious and verbally brutal to each other. Durkin sets up these scenes to achieve a certain level of passive-aggressive confrontation until it boils over in to a brazen climax. And by the end of which, we get a more clear idea of who these character are and what trauma (both emotional and physical) does to an individual.

Marcy May on the other hand isn’t as ambiguous with her actions. What happens from the start with first entering this cult is simply engaging to watch. When Marcy May first meets Patrick, we get this looming feeling that Patrick is an evil man. We get the impression that he preys on the lost and the weak-minded to achieve his sexual and monetary desires. The cult runs a self-sustaining farm with a group of young men and women working together to make the farm work. They eat together, the men before the women, they play together and participate in group sex. Think of this as a screwed up Pleasure Island in the guise of a family life. When their money runs out, the group go out into well-to-do neighborhoods, break into large houses and steal what they can. But when one of this outings turn violent, Marcy May rethinks her involvement in her new family. They recruit very young girls and we see the process of them getting integrated into this new family. First from the perspective of Martha, who becomes Marcy May and then learns to find her role in her new family. Then with Sarah (Julia Garner), a 14 year-old runaway, introduced to the family by Watts and taught to find her role in it by Marcy May. In this way, Marcy May is now seen as a leader and a teacher among her new family. A title that will later haunt her. This really completes Martha’s transformation into Marcy May, which leads her to “setting up” the eventual rape of Sarah by Patrick, in an indelible ritual that every young girl must go through to become part of this Jonestown-esque cult.

What an audience should takeaway from this film, in terms of performance, are that of Elisabeth Olsen and John Hawkes. Olsen’s (somewhat) duel role bring so much sympathy and pathos that it’s almost palpable. Going through the intensity of re-learning how to live in the real world and then having that education stripped away to the bewilderment of the audience is integral to this film success. In some ways, we are put into the roles of Lucy and Ted, wanting to help but helpless to understand how. I’m not sure which is more crippling but in the end it doesn’t matter, the damage is done. John Hawkes as Patrick is equally captivating. Patrick is a grotesque human being feeding off the weakness of others for his own gain and John Hawkes envelops every bit of this despicable man on the screen, therefore it is highly effective.

The question of the name Marlene comes into light when character’s take on another persona. This adds another layer of fantasy, disguise and psychology. When recruiting a new member of this cult, everyone in it has to answer the only phone on the grounds as either Mark (male) or Marlene (female), this give Martha’s character another level of delusion, completing the promise of that the title suggest. A film more about process and theme than the characters within. After all, there is no emotional or narrative arc happening with Martha, giving the impression that themes and tones are more important, which fits the film’s aesthetic. Sean Durkin seems to be channeling Austrian filmmaker, Götz Spielmann in this respect, especially in terms of his 2008 film, “Revanche,” which also explores notions of the psychology and methods of traumatized people dealing with every day life.

The approach of “Martha Marcy May Marlene” also seems to be somewhat a more European approach to filmmaking. After all, it’s a film that slowly builds to an ambiguous conclusion, making it more interesting to talk about and not as conclusive as most American films. It’s an impressive piece of work from a first time filmmaker and actress in Elizabeth Olsen, which shows a lot of trust between the two collaborators. It’s fascinating to see the depths in which Olsen goes to create and bring to life the characters of Martha, Marcy May and Marlene.

For all the technical aspects of this film, in regards to acting and direction, “Martha Marcy May Marlene” has a lot of heart behind it. I find it difficult not to watch this film and not feel anything for these characters, moments and situations. It gives a more clear impression of what makes this film not only work but work so well, is the combination of the puzzle to the human condition. And in this way, it’s more important not to understand but to sympathize.

Grade: A-

Miss Bala

2011-09-28T19:24:00.001-04:00

The psychology of needing to be wanted is fascinating. Wanting to be put on that pedestal and have people admire and love you for something superficial or noble is part of the job of being a celebrity. This idea, or notion, of wanting to be desired, or the cost of fame, or just wanting to represent your people is mixed and infused with drug trafficking in the new film, “Miss Bala”. The power and influence a, seemingly, small drug cartel has in the border town of Baja, California, Mexico is set in motion early on in this unassuming thriller.

“Miss Bala” is the story of Laura Guerrero (Stephanie Sigman) a young woman in her early 20s from Tijuana who wants to enter a beauty pageant with her best friend Suzu. As the story unfolds, they find themselves in the middle of a drug trafficking ring when the invasion of a local nightclub becomes a bloodbath of DEA agents and police. The pair gets separated and the film follows Laura in her pursuit to find her friend. What comes next is a series of mind bending and confusing situations that lead Laura to running drugs and money for the drug cartel.

When I say confusing, I mean it. The audience is put into Laura’s position throughout the whole movie. Her confusion, desperation and fear is now the audience’s. We never get a good foothold with the world around us until the very end. We meet the would be leader of this drug cartel, Lino (Noe Hernandez), who forces Laura to do demeaning and demoralizing things to run drugs and money over the border into the US. It is interesting to see how Laura is completely broken down from beginning to the end of this film. Starting off as a strong, caring young woman, turning into a shell of a human being. An audience might be put off by the way Laura is treated during this movie but it goes along with the theme of mental trauma and survival. We are questioning every decision Laura makes as she is led into this corrupt and dishonest world but that’s what makes this film so fascinating and rich.

This film takes cues from Steven Soderberg’s “Traffic” in terms of photography and pacing. The film has this warm feeling, which goes along with how dry the setting is but there’s this coldness that lingers throughout. As moments of this film pass by, we increasingly become distant from Laura but not her plight. Does she represent the bewilderment of drug mules and victims of the drug wars? Or is she the coldness that comes along with this line of business? Or maybe more simply put, is she just someone caught in a horrible situation, doing their best to survive it? Either way, this film is haunting and eerie with tones of the surreal. This is a strange odyssey and if you’re up for it, it’s worth the journey. It feels like the further away from the film and the material you get, the more you’ll grow to appreciate it. There is a sense of hopelessness that comes with the entire picture. This is due to the fact that drugs trafficking is a problem for both Mexico and the US, with no end in sight.

Grade: B+

Carnage

2011-09-27T19:22:00.000-04:00

The newest film from controversial filmmaker Roman Polanski is set to open this year’s New York Film Festival. And rightfully so, the New York Film Festival usually looks for high profile films to kick off the two week festival of Hollywood fare and Art House cinema. Last year, David Fincher’s “The Social Network” opened the festival to the delight of moviegoers and critics alike, also kicking off the fall Awards Season. This year, it’s Polanski’s turn. With “Carnage,” we see something we usually don’t see from this filmmaker, a comedy but moreover, a comedy of manners (of sorts).

“Carnage” starts harmlessly enough, cast and crew credits overlay a backdrop of a Brooklyn park with a group of young boys monkeying around on a local playground. Their fun and amusement turns physically confrontational when one boy, Zachary, strikes another boy’s face, Ethan, with a tree branch. The aftermath follows as each set of parents (Alan and Nancy played by Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, and Penelope and Michael played Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly) of the young boys meet to resolve their differences and remedy any physical damage. What starts off as a polite and cordial meeting, gradually turns into passive-agressive, undercutting words to comically drenched confrontations of each couples unions, personas and relationships.

As the tensions and drama escalate, the comedy and their honest increasing gets more apparent. It is interesting to see what starts out as pleasantries gets warped and mangled as each sets of parents become increasingly more protective of their children and relationships. Simply put, it’s an invasion of their own personal space, either found in the home or in themselves. Questions about the authenticity of their parenting and what they hope they will get out of this meeting get amped up as each minute or argument passes by. It’s surprising as convictions start to collapse and the couples start to break apart from said convictions and, more importantly, each other. Polanski nails the breaking point, delivering it in comedy and not in drama.

I find it interesting that this is a comedy, perhaps it’s easier to swallow the subject matter when an audience is laughing but “Carnage” isn’t a disposable film to gloss over. The notions of economics, cultural and class divisions are brought up. Alan (Christoph Waltz) is a high powered lawyer, interrupting conversations to answer his Blackberry and his wife, Nancy (Kate Winslet) is an investment banker. Michael (John C. Reilly) is a hardware salesman, albeit a business owner and his wife, Penelope (Jodie Foster) is a writer. Those constructs are reduced to nothing because they are all people trying to deal with the same situation, where money and class can’t help in either way.

“Carnage” can be a loose entry into Polanski’s “Apartment Trilogy,” alongside of “Repulsion,” “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Tenant”. I say the words loose because “Carnage” is not a horror film, or even anything heavy, it’s rather light in terms of tone and feeling, but it is completely set in a single location of Michael and Penelope’s apartment in Brooklyn, New York. Polanski uses this space rather well and adds to the clusterphobic nature of the film and it heightens the tension between the couples. This leads to the acting in “Carnage,” which is top-tier and well balanced. No actor is overshadowed or forgotten, each of the four leads play their characters well with a believability and vulnerability to it.

I do recommend Roman Polanski’s “Carnage” as a good way to kick off the 49th New York Film Festival. It’s one of the few comedic films showcased this year and would be a good break from the more headier films. It’s interesting to see how well-mannered people stop being polite as they slowly sink deeper into truth, honesty and sincerity and at the end of the day, conflict resolution has to take a break and has to start getting funny.

Grade: B-

Music According To Tom Jobim

2011-09-24T19:19:00.000-04:00

Music is a consistent theme at this year’s New York Film Festival. Documentaries and concert films about George Harrison and Andrew Bird make up the festival’s line-up but not to be overlooked, a documentary about musician and composer, Antonio Carlos Jobim is not to be missed. “Music According To Tom Jobim” is a wonderful film that follows the career and influence of this musical visionary, and is probably the most fun you’ll have during the whole film festival.

Antonio Carlos Jobim, also known as “Tom Jobim,” created and revolutionized pop music in the 60s, not only in his native Brazil but in the entire world. His soulful blending of a jazzy tone, afro-beat sensibility and Brazilian flavor, wowed audiences in the late 50s and early 60s and can be felt in pop music today from artist like Beck or Cibo Matto. Jobim was the primary force behind the Bossa Nova movement in Brazil. A movement that gained popularity with “The Girl From Ipanema” (Garrote de Ipanema), and many other standards embraced by singers like Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and Ella Fitzgerald. This energy and style is captured so well in “Music According To Tom Jobim” that it’s intoxicating and infectious to the film’s audience.

The structure of the documentary is an interesting one, not told in traditional “talking heads” or even structured in a narrative, “Music According To Tom Jobim” feels free from these conventions, letting it’s subject speak for himself through his music. There are no audio clips of interviews with the legendary composer but rather numerous audio of his music performed by not only Jobim, but classic and contemporary artist. This “greatest hits” of filmmaking is refreshing and lends itself to the charm and relevance of the Bossa Nova movement.

The filmmaker sets a pretty clear goal with this film, to celebrate the life and music of Antonio Carlos Jobim. It doesn’t inform you on the man and his family life, but gives an audience a clear view and feeling of his music by experiencing it. In this way, “Music According To Tom Jobim” is arousing and joyous movie. Spanning the source of influence from Brazil to the United States to Japan is a pretty impressive feat.

The film is edited and curated with an expert eye, consisting of found footage, concert footage and old live TV broadcasts. We see that influence as remarkable artist like Dizzy Gillespie and Elis Regina take the stage or the recording booth to sing or perform this material. This is a valuable thing to watch if you are a music lover or filmgoer. This film is so rich with tones and moments that hit hints of sweetness and longing, such is a life told in music and soul.

This is a beautiful and moving film. “Music According To Tom Jobim” is a gem in this year’s New York Film Festival line-up. An audience can appreciate this key figure’s contribution to the arts and culture and do it in such a way that’s not boring and dull but quiet the opposite. Tapping your foot and nodding your head to the beat is inescapable and is a requirement for the sheer enjoyment of this film and Antonio Carlos Jobim’s work. This is definitely worth watching!

Grade: A-

The Loneliest Planet

2011-09-20T19:15:00.002-04:00

The vast wilderness of this planet is so far removed and remote from our perceptions of how we live in it every day. Interacting with our surroundings usually involve the geography of a city, town, suburb or even village. Being surrounded by miles and miles of wilderness, mountains, rivers and plains would seem foreign to most of us, which is why the title for the latest film from filmmaker Julia Loktev is so apt. “The Loneliest Planet” explores the terrane of the Georgian countryside. Easily put, it feels like another planet, not of our own, but just as lonely.

The story follows two lovers, Nica and Alex (Hani Furstenberg and Gael García Bernal), backpacking through the country of Georgia, once part of Russia. The story involved, and I use that term “story” very loosely, is more of a mood piece and a character study. Nica and Alex are led by a backpacking guide named Dato (Bidzina Gujabidze), and their interactions with him are just as engaging and magnificent as they interact with each other. I hate to say that the landscape and terrane are also characters, so I’m not, but rather their interaction with their surroundings whether that be a creek or other passersby would be a good substitute. Either way, filmmaker Julia Loktev engrosses the audiences with small details and social gestures, which makes the film an interest to watch.

The film is quiet. A film set in the wilderness of a foreign land needs to be. There are no politics between characters, no cultural differences, just people interacting with people and the world surrounding them. The moments don’t lay on huge, plot-driven moods but rather small, intimate moments between two lovers about to get married. Their wondrous gaze on the landscapes, peoples and cultures reflects the audiences wondrous gaze. It’s easy to get lost while watching these moments unfold on the screen but the filmmaker does a great job keeping your interest and focusing the audience on this couple. Their confusion is our confusion, their relationship is our relationship with the film. Like any intimate relationship worth pursuing, it’s not an easy battle, well neither is this movie but it’s just as rewarding.

There’s a certain point in this movie where this wondrous mood shifts into something more reflective and intense. The young couple struggles with their decisions and reactions to a moment that is rather frightening. Again, this is played with the audiences expectations of how would we react in that same situation, and more importantly, how would we react to the outcome of that situation. The young couple sits uneasy as do the members of the audience while they sit in the theater. The reflective nature of this film reminded me of a film that was released earlier in the year, Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life”. Only in terms of photography and mood, “The Loneliest Planet” is not as abstract as Malick’s picture but it is as resonant and emotionally moving, albeit more precise.

Although a majority of this film are beautiful shots of landscapes, capturing the richness of this land, there is a certain claustrophobia to them. We see the characters interact with this land and we know what they’re dealing with internally, it feels as if we want the characters to run away to surroundings more familiar to them and the audiences. Never capturing the vastness of the sky lends to this claustrophobic feeling, which works extremely well in the picture.

A huge takeaway from this film was the emergence of the beautiful Hani Furstenberg. Her presence on the screen is the audiences connection to this film, it’s magnetic. She brings a certain grace with her smile and confidence but at the same time, it can turn on a dime with a longing and confusion that will envelop the viewer with pathos. Not many actors have that range along with grace, which, to me, was just so refreshing. The strengths of the actors is what makes this film so grounded and special. Not to take away from Gael García Bernal and Bidzina Gujabidze, who both do great jobs in this movie, considering Bidzina Gujabidze is not a professional actor and was cast because he’s a damn good guide, they’re performances work because of Hani Furstenberg’s Nica.

A film like “The Loneliest Planet” is perfect for the New York Film Festival. It strikes a great mood and balance between character study and mood piece. This film is a special one and I highly recommend anyone experiencing it.

Grade: B+

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

2011-08-03T12:01:00.003-04:00

From the start of “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” the audience is instantly sympathetic to the apes in the film. By effectively showing how a group of primates are split up and captured by poachers, “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” quickly becomes one of the most heartfelt and tender movies of the summer. Taking audiences on an emotional roller coaster by the highs and lows of the characters within was an extremely smart decision by director Rupert Wyatt. “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is a rarity in summer movie fare, it drives its story by characters and emotions rather than by plot points and action. The film is sweeping in scope as it attempts to ask the question, when should a father let go of his child?

Arguably the film would be bogged down by plot, these elements are not at all interesting in comparison to the father/son relationship between Alzheimer's ridden, Charles Rodman (John Lithgow), Geneticist Will Rodman (James Franco) and self-aware ape, Caesar (Andy Serkis). Taking in Caesar at birth due to the murder of his mother, Bright Eyes, after an experiment goes wrong when animal instincts collide with rational thought, there’s an instant repoire between the two. Will takes care of his dying father, Charles, while Caesar is used to bridge the gap between the two’s heartache and situation. The three become an instant family. This family dynamic is what drives this story more so than any scientific experiment, laboratory accidents or seemingly evil CEO, Steven Jacobs (David Oyelowo), hellbent on making profits than helping people. Gladly, these elements are swept aside really fast and show up in small doses simply to alert the audience why things are happening the way they are.

Sooner or later, an accident involving Charles’ memory and actions with an always villainous next door neighbor, Huniker (David Hewlett), provokes Caesar to resort to his animal instincts and he his soon after, taken into the state of California’s custody. Caesar now lives at a monstrous animal shelter for primates being run by father and son John (Brian Cox) and Dodge (Tom Felton) Landon. Dodge abuses the apes while John turns a blind eye, while Caesar is not used to this abuse, he unites the other primates to uprise against their human oppressors. Sadly, the supporting cast have very little to do but drive the plot. Brian Cox and Freida Pinto (as Will Rodman’s girlfriend Caroline) are wasted in this film. Tom Felton will perennially play a dick-ish villain, and at times, it feels like he should end every sentence with the words “Potter” in a resentful manner. But the true star of the show is Andy Serkis as Caesar.

Andy Serkis continues to be a marvel. Playing fully realized characters by saying little to nothing at all. His brand of acting is long gone from this modern day Hollywood of telling an audience what to think and feel, it’s very refreshing to see nuance and subtly on the big screen in a summer blockbuster. The look and feel of Caesar is 100% convincing due to the hard work from the people at WETA, it’s amazing how the steps of motion capture can now capture human emotion. It’s a shame Andy Serkis will most likely never get recognition from the Academy Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his work because most of that work is enhanced by CGI or motion capture, he really does fit in that league of great actors and this performance seals that reputation.

“Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is a wonderful, smart and visually breathtaking film. The level of technical craftsmanship doesn’t takeaway or distract the storytelling but rather enhances the emotional payoffs and the interesting characters. This film is a surprise and is absolutely worth seeing for any science fiction fans or general audiences. Taking the source material and elevating it to a high level and washing out the bad taste left by Tim Burton.

Grade: B-

Captain America: The First Avenger

2011-07-22T00:30:00.001-04:00

This summer is unlike any other from the past. Namely due to all the comic book and superhero movies we’re getting from major movie studios. Are general audiences getting sick of this trend in Hollywood? The minor success of two other comic book movies that already came out this summer may suggest so. X-MEN: FIRST CLASS and GREEN LANTERN, despite their fandoms, has opened to lukewarm box office receipts. Although their opening take was high, the expectations from studios and pundits were not met. So is CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER worth seeing? Yes, absolutely! This is the first comic book movie of the summer that actually embraces it’s comic book origins and aesthetic.

The story of patriot Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is not as well known as Peter Parker or Bruce Wayne, but it’s just as resonant unlike GREEN LANTERN’s Hal Jordan. Set during World War II, Steve Rogers wants to join the army and serve his duty to his country, the only problem is he is not physically fit or as big as his friends, who are getting recruited without fail. Steve Rogers stops at nothing to get what he wants. This says so much about the will and drive of Americans like no other film this summer. Locked in a patriotic spin, practically every frame of this movie is packed with American imagery of stars and stripes and rich in tone with red, white and blue, that you can’t help but get caught up in it’s pro-American stance and sentiment. Reasonably, this works.

Rodgers is then chosen to participate in a super soldier experiment because of his heart and courage, and right before our eyes, he is then turned into Captain America. While evil is brewing across the sea in Europe with Red Skull (Hugo Weaving) and his Hydra Force’s determination to take over the world by destroying big cities with the mysterious cosmic cube, CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER keeps true to the comic book feel, mentioned above. It’s a good old fashioned good vs. evil movie, complete with thrilling action and steamy romance, this movie is sure to please general audiences across the board.

The romance between Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) is very engaging and effective. Chris Evans and Hayley Atwell have a natural chemistry and appeal which is apparent on the screen. This is probably the most compelling romance I have seen in a comic book movie this year. I found this to be one of the more enjoyable elements of CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER, surprised with my emotional reaction to one of the more heartbreaking moments in the movie.

Taking it’s cues from comic books from the 1940s, the humor in this movie is completely corny and mushy. Now, I don’t mean to use these words as a negative but quite the opposite. The more corny this movie got, the more general audiences will fall in love with it. Joe Johnston knows what this movie is and plays up the genre and period as its strengths. CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER harkens back to Johnston’s 1991 summer action movie, Disney’s THE ROCKETEER, and would probably serve as a good double feature. In THE ROCKETEER, Johnston also plays up the strengths of 1940s film serials that emphasized daring heroics, steamy romances and thrilling action. In this way, Joe Johnston is completely consistent and solid.

Now, CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER is not a perfect movie, it’s a solid one. There are problems with CGI and a few special effects, namely with the “shrinking” of Chris Evans to portray the scrawny Steve Rogers. At times, it looks good but the other times, it looks completely unbelievable as fit Chris Evans’ face is completely unattached to his small body. Albeit these were very minor problems and gladly it doesn’t take long for Steve Rogers to turn into Captain America.

At the end of the day, CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER is the perfect summer movie. It is fun and thrilling with big action, laughs and a heartfelt romance. An audience will walk away from this one, feeling like they’ve spent their money and time well at the theater. It’s not going to change the world or give you something heavy to think about, it’s not going to bore you or leave you unfulfilled either. There’s plenty for kids and adults with one and it’s extremely broad for all Americans. Get your popcorn ready because Captain America wants you!

Grade: B-

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 2

2011-07-13T14:59:00.007-04:00

It’s over! A film series like none other, the Harry Potter series of books and movies has captured the imagination of young adults from around the world for more than a decade. The last film in the series was split into two parts to what I can see; to milk more money from this cash cow and to placate the many fans of this beloved series. Namely, this last film could’ve been one long 3 and a half hour movie, but really fans were glad they were ultimately split into two, in which these movies were made for. For some context, I was deeply opposed to this practice, stating “Part 1” generally doesn’t work as a movie. It ends like there should be another scene after the ending. There was no payoff or catharsis for the characters or as a movie. In “Part 2,” it suffers from the same thing, but only in the beginning.

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2 is the continuing saga of Harry Potter and the final showdown with his nemesis, Lord Voldemort. The line was drawn in the sand and there is no return at this point. But from the beginning of the film, it takes awhile to get into the story. Please be advised, watch the “Part 1” before watching “Part 2”. Not having that context, a viewer could be extremely confused in the approach of the storytelling. Which is why, ultimately, splitting one movie into two parts doesn’t work. But I will concede that the reality is this movie is two parts and what was captured in the second part was thrilling and exciting, for the most part. The world created in all of these movies are completely breathtaking and vast. The concern with this world is the characters don’t seem rich enough to inhabit it, emotionally or contextually.

The main problem with all the Harry Potter movies are that they are never elevated to the cinematic experience. What works perfectly well in a book doesn’t always translate to the big screen. Most of the time viewers feel like they are being told a story rather than being shown a story. In a book, a reader uses their imagination to guide them through the unknown, in a movie, a viewer must be shown this and should leave with wonder. You can feel that there is a great sense of wonder here but it never scratches the surface. In saying that, it’s a hard line to walk, should a filmmaker elevate the material to a cinematic level and they risk alienating the core fans by straying away or should they just follow the books. Most of the Harry Potter movies follow the latter.

This lack of the cinematic language can be felt when a certain character’s redemption and payoff fails and falls flat because it is told entirely as a flashback or a glimpse into the past. We see this character’s life, motivations and reasoning in a long segment that really bridges act two and act three of this movie. During this sequence, an audience is told why this character was doing what they’re doing over the course of eight movies rather than shown. But then when it is shown, it’s shown in flashback, making the payoff cheap and uneasy. Overall, looking at “Part 2” as a whole, this sequence doesn’t payoff in a satisfactory way, but only to serve as a loose plot point and a throw away line at the very end. A sequence like this would serve better if I were reading it in a book rather than it being played out in a movie.

But what is cinematic is completely thrilling, namely the battle scenes and sequences in the third act. We get the final showdown between good and evil, Harry Potter vs. Lord Voldemort. A scene built up over the last eight movies. We got a glimpse of this fight scene in HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE, when Lord Voldemort came back in human form. Ralph Fiennes does a magnificent job, sneering and snarling his way through the movie. You can get a sense of joy watching Fiennes play Lord Voldemort. But at the end of the day, most of the action is very anticlimactic. Again, this is the symptom of most of the bigger problems with the Harry Potter series of movies, the payoff is not satisfying, or at least, it’s not satisfying as it should be. It seems like the cliff notes of these movies fall in the books themselves. This is great for fans but it feels mediocre for general audiences and the uninitiated.

The first Harry Potter movie came out in 2001 with HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER’S STONE and 10 years later, the series is over. We’ve seen Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint grow up before our eyes on the big screen. There are moments in this movie that call back to the first film and looking back on the career of these three is completely satisfying. We have seen them really hone their craft to become really solid actors and performers and I’m sure the Harry Potter series will be a small part of their careers to come. HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2 is not a perfect movie, and as a whole combined with “Part 1,” it’s a minor step above. In relation to the series, I’m sure hardcore and casual fans will enjoy it but at the end of the day, the real magic is in the books and their imaginations.

Grade: B-

Best and Worst Movies of 2011 (So Far)

2011-07-08T15:17:00.004-04:00

Some people will say 2011 isn’t a great year for movies. I would tend to disagree with that sentiment. It’s true the number of great films (so far) in 2011 are fewer than 2010 but the ones we do have in 2011 are pretty spectacular and worth watching and discussing. There are movies like Gore Verbinski’s “Rango” or Joe Wright’s “Hanna” are among the favorites of general audiences, just looking at the critical response and box office receipts, but there are also smaller movies that seem to have been forgotten like Cary Fukunaga’s adaptation of “Jane Eyre” and Tom McCarthy’s comic gem, “Win Win”. All of these titles are worthy for entries for the best of 2011. Here are two of my favorites.

Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life”

This is probably the most controversial movie of 2011 by dividing audiences and critics, alike. And I do get it, it’s not a very accessible film. It is long and boring and nothing “really” happens. It’s quite and pretensions and only film snobs like it. But there is something to be said about this film, no matter how you feel about it, you can agree you’ve never seen anything quite like it. Terrence Malick is known as a reclusive filmmaker, making movies once a decade, and since 1975 has become more and more abstract. “The Tree of Life” for me is a celebration of life and movies, and what can be done with the medium of film. After 100 years or so, cinema still has the capability to change, transform and transcend audience’s expectations and limitations into something more truley spiritual. “The Tree of Life” is a very challenging film and for those who are up for that challenge will walk away from this film with something rewarding.

Joe Cornish’s “Attack The Block”

This can be seen as somewhat of a cheat, “Attack The Block” doesn’t officially come out in the US until July 29th but I’ve felt compelled to express my love for this movie. This small movie from the UK is just a joy to watch. It’s exciting and fun and no popcorn film like this deserves to be made this well. It makes me think why can’t more popcorn movies be made so tightly, sharply and as funny like “Attack The Block”. The story of an alien invasion in the very urban and poor South London as taken the UK and festival circuit in the US, by storm. It’s not often we get movies with actual lovable characters in daring and exciting situations, that allows an audience to have as much fun and terror as the people on the screen. This is the first feature film from writer and director Joe Cornish, who has an exciting career ahead of him. Steven Spielberg’s “The Adventures of Tin Tin”, due out this December, was co-written by Joe Cornish, along with Edgar Wright. So far in 2011, this is my #1 movie of the year. A MUST SEE!!

It wouldn’t be a year in movies without having a few awful movies. Luckily, most of the bad stuff is far behind us being released in January and February, but here’s to hoping the worst is behind us. Some movies that have been released were, in my opinion, unfairly categorized as bad like Zack Snyder’s “Sucker Punch,” which is a movie that’s not bad but just has no direction. Todd Philipps “The Hangover Part 2” is just lazy, recycling what worked in the first film and shoehorning them into the second, at least there were some genuine laughs. But the two movies I will mention were just too painful to watch and endure.

David Gordon Green’s “Your Highness”

This has to be the most disappointing movie of the year. I love David Gordon Green. His career started out with small, more personal indie films like “George Washington” and “Undertow” and has recently evolved into more Hollywood fare. I am a big fan of his crossover movie, “Pineapple Express”. A movie that is a perfect blend of a stoner comedy and an 80s action film. In “Your Highness,” we got a lazy, uninteresting and painfully dull movie from a talented cast and crew. A movie written by Danny McBride and David Gordon Green should have been clever. A movie starring James Franco, Danny McBride, Natalie Portman, Zooey Deschanel and Justin Theroux should have been more charming and witty instead of being so unbearably drab.

Gregory Orr’s “Recreator”

I don’t know what to say about this movie. I don’t even know if it is fair for me to say anything bad about this film because there is no release date for a theatrical, DVD or VOD release. This sci-fi/horror mashup about a group of teenagers on a camping trip, to be later cloned by a mysterious mad scientist is simply awful. The characters are dull and cliched, the narrative is disingenuous and passionless, I wonder why this movie was even made. I can understand a passion project from a first time filmmaker, at least, that passion can be seen on the screen and in the actors but this effort is so soulless, I wonder if it was meant to be a heartless clone as the name suggests. It feels like a pure money grab for small time producers who are just out of touch with who this movie is targeted for. Fair warning, this is premiering at San Diego Comic Con this year, go for the unintentional laughs this will sure create. Actually, don’t.

With half of the year behind us, I look forward to the rest of the summer and fall movie releases. Award season is coming upon us and there should be undoubtedly wonderful films to be excited for.

Bennett Miller’s “Money Ball” (September 23rd)

I am a huge fan of Aaron Sorkin. I believe no other writer can capture world building and character just through dialogue and character interaction like Aaron Sorkin. On top of that, his words are so distinct, you can’t help but notice. “Moneyball” is the story that embodies the phrase, “inside baseball,” when in fact it is about insider baseball. How the Oakland A’s of the early to mid 2000s built a championship caliber team with very little money. Based on the bestseller by Michael Lewis, “Moneyball” is sure to be a home run.

David Fincher’s “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” (December 21st)

The much anticipated new film from modern day auteur, David Fincher has the movie blogging world going crazy. Based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Swedish writer, Stieg Larsson, this movie will be sure to engross general audiences. Sure there is already a movie based on this book from Sweden but David Fincher is such a big named director, you have to take notice. So much buzz was already generated by the “leaked” trailer, that you have to think this might be the best picture of the year. Also, it’s Fincher’s followup to last year’s “The Social Network” and it would be interesting to see what he does with this one.

Happy Moviegoing!!

Cars 2

2011-06-24T12:36:00.002-04:00

What do you look for in a children’s film? Do you look for a movie that appeals to adults and kids alike, or do you look for something kids will enjoy and relate to? In the new film from Pixar Studios, CARS 2 is the latter. CARS 2 is the follow-up to the 2006 film, CARS. A film that gained moderate box office success as well as an equally mixed critical reception. Although this is a beloved movie for kids, most didn’t see it fitting for a sequel. Is CARS 2 a worthy entry into the Pixar catalog?

CARS 2 is a story set in a mythological world, where everything in it is mechanical and there are no signs of organic life. Our protagonist in the first film, Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson), a car struggling with his own hubris as a Nascar race car, is now a supporting character. The lead in the sequel is Matar (Larry the Cable Guy), the slack jawed, hillbillie-type, buck toothed tow truck and best friend of Lightning McQueen. While traveling the continents in a world’s Grand Prix challenge, Matar is caught in an international game of espinoage between british intelligence led by Finn McMissile (Michael Caine) and Holley Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer) and an anonymous international crime ring. Half spy thriller and half Grand Prix racing movie, this film works but leaves it very limited for an adult to enjoy. That said, this film is not sophisticated or nor it should be, this is why children under 12 will enjoy it.

To the films credit, what CARS 2 does well is really expanding this world that humanizes vehicles and other mechanical objects. Literally, showing how these cars go to the bathroom, travel, fall in love, eat and engage in socio-political conflicts. But to the dismay of any viewer above the age of 12, it deals with all of these elements in a very rudimentary way, thus never engaging enough to hold their interest. Being so base, this will remain to be very boring and tedious for most, but for children, this is perfect.

Much is to be said about our protagonist, Matar. Many would compare him to the infamous JarJar Binks from STAR WARS: EPISODE 1, THE PHANTOM MENACE, an annoying, scene killing, comic relief sidekick. CARS 2 would feel like if JarJar Binks was the lead. At times, he is annoying and grating but at other times, a young viewer may find him to be endearing and funny. I believe the character and the voice acting from Larry the Cable Guy to be very serviceable and perfect for the world the filmmakers, John Lasseter and Brad Lewis, have created. There is a certain level of sympathy an audience would have with Matar, which is why it works when you want him to succeed.

Visually speaking, this film is a worthy entry in to the Pixar catalog. Beautiful coastal lines into a vast gorgeous oceans as cars speed down a curvy racetrack, CARS 2 is a sight to see. The film has a certain international flavor and completely takes advantage of its settings. The 3D does add depth to the moving images, but again, most of the problems I have with 3D comes from wearing the glasses and the darkness of the images. The colors just don’t pop like they should, instead they are shrouded in the shadows created by clunky and distracting 3D glasses. It seems like the cars want to race off the screen but the limitations of the 3D technology keep the cars at bay.

It wouldn’t be summer without a movie from Pixar. Since 1995, Pixar Studios and Disney have been release instant classics like FINDING NEMO, TOY STORY 3, UP and WALL-E. CARS 2 is not an instant classic. Their follow-up to CARS, released during the summer of 2006, has garnered a low to mixed critical response. Some say it’s probably the worst film Pixar has ever releases, while others would say it’s a fun, thrill ride kids will enjoy. But does this constitute a pass for Pixar? I think general audiences will agree it’s not the best Pixar has to offer, but instead of an emotional heartfelt payoff, it delivers an action packed one. And maybe for CARS 3, Pixar can do better.

Grade: C-

A Better Life

2011-06-22T14:25:00.003-04:00

Chris Weitz surprised me on this one. From the filmmaker of THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON comes a very small, intimate and touching look of a father and son learning to understand each other, on the backdrop of East Los Angeles. Weitz could have done anything film after the financial success of the second film in the Twilight series but he opted to do this one. For this, I admire Chris Weitz. That said, A BETTER LIFE is film that has its moments, which come off as strong but what bothers some viewers about this film is that it doesn’t take it’s themes and ideas and explore them any deeper than it should.

A BETTER LIFE is the story of a father and son, Carlos (Demián Bichir) and Luis (José Julián) Galindo. Carlos is a Mexican immigrant, living illegally in California. He works various odd jobs as a landscaper. He has a good working relationship with another landscaper who tries to sell him his truck so he can build a better life for himself and son. Carlos is hesitant to buy the truck, which would give him an advantage of taking more jobs, because he can’t afford the truck and, most importantly, staying under the radar of the U.S. Government. He gets a loan from his sister and eventually buys the truck. His son, Luis was born in the states and goes to high school, but he’s troubled. He doesn’t have a mother because she married another man, for a green card and financial security, and he doesn’t have a strong father figure in his life. He struggles with school and gangs and can be easily led down the wrong path of crime and violence.

The most interesting thing about this movie is the relationship between a father and son. It flourishes when Carlos and Luis are forced to search for the truck when it gets stolen. Seeing two generations of this family is very engaging to watch. You can get immersed in their characters and become invested in their decisions, but this movie falls a bit short when their search becomes more procedural than introspective. When their search takes this minor shift, it feels like circumstances lead the characters to serve the plot, which feels false and forced in. Interestingly, the film shifts back to being character based and therefore saving it, and delivering the tone it promised at the beginning.

There’s a strong sequence involving the search, which leads the pair into a fiery Hispanic nightclub. The man who stole the truck works at this nightclub as a dishwasher. What goes on in this nightclub is highly effective. Weitz does an effective job of creating tension between the audience and the screen and in this way we are put into the shoes of Carlos, who goes into the nightclub. A well-screened viewer might recall Wim Wender’s PARIS, TEXAS in this scene, which I feel is intentional, taking in the subject matter of the film. This element serves the film very well, taking it from a questionable character piece to a nuanced development of a father and son relationship.

But what could be taken away from this film? Is that there was not enough to string along the sub-themes? The main theme of the film, which holds pretty well, is the father and son relationship. Getting down the brunt of what makes them distant, which leads into why they’re starting to bond again is well conceived. Carlos works to much to be there for Luis. Luis needs a strong father in his life to reach his potential. Carlos and Luis regret the loss of Luis’ mother. What the film hints to, but only examines on the surface, is illegal Mexican immigration. This film could’ve done even better if it served this theme as well as the father/son relationship. It hints and deals with this theme in only small doses and is very piecemeal, which is strange when the entire third act is built around this idea but it doesn’t firmly pay off, we only get a whimper.

Still A BETTER LIFE is a better movie than one would except the followup of the director of a Twilight movie would be. It’s far more interesting, spending time and seeing the dynamic of a father and son coming to terms with the fact that they are all that they have in life, despite at times, not wanting each other. A BETTER LIFE is a good side note of big summer action and comic book movies and is recommended. It’s a good precursor to more character and emotionally driven movies that are sure to come out this fall.

Grade: B-

Sex Crimes Unit

2011-06-19T16:15:00.003-04:00

Documentaries are a strange beast. They can be seen as educational, informative and, at times, entertaining. But to a much higher extent, a documentary must be at all times, engaging. Most of the time they are and when they are not the fall flat. In the latest documentary in HBO’s Summer Series, SEX CRIMES UNIT is all of these things wrapped with a procedural sensibility. To some viewers, this could be problematic, taking its cues from episodes of C.S.I. and LAW & ORDER: SVU, but the film does such a great job with editing, that its procedural nature turns into something more narrative, while giving into that element of documentary filmmaking, being engaging.

The film chronicles the case of a young woman named Nastasha Alexenko, a transplant from Canada, living in New York City, who was violently raped at gunpoint in her apartment building in 1993. The film is told in a series of other tragic rape cases in the city, as it builds towards a resolution with Alexenko, by showing the advances of the city’s Sex Crimes Unit division in the District Attorney’s Office. It’s sad to think that this office is relatively new in the city, being established in 1974, and was the first of its kind in the country. Technology in DNA testing and gathering has come a long way and is the key to bringing most of these cases to justice.

At the same time, the film tells the story of District Attorneys, gathering evidence and building a case against Kevin Rios, a man accused of violently assaulting and raping a prostitute. Putting Rios at the crimes scene and proving he committed them is not the hard part, it’s finding and convincing a jury that he is guilty because the victim is a prostitute. How do you convince a jury that the sex was forced and not consensual? The film does a wonderful job in showing how these lawyers work endlessly to seek justice for their clients.

The film does an effective job telling and presenting two separate sex crime cases, while at the same time, giving history and background of the Sex Crimes Unit office from its beginnings to today. It is hard not to watch this documentary without feeling horrified and disgusted by these men’s actions towards women but the film presents the facts and the real life human emotions in such a well constructed manner. The narrative flows with such ease, giving its viewers valuable information, a sobering view of sex crimes and well documented insight on lawyers in the criminal justice system.

The real eeriness comes at the very end, when a viewer knows they are invested in the story and the film, when Nastasha Alexenko comes back to the scene of the crime, almost 20 years later. Walking through the apartment building, recalling the events as they happen, and taking the viewers to the location of the actual sex crime. This moment is simply chilling but at the same time reliving, we see in Nastasha eyes and demeanor that she has finally gained some prospective, that she is now empowered because justice has been served. This gesture to gain some of herself back is why a city’s Sex Crime Unit is extremely important to the welfare of these victims. It’s hard not to watch this documentary and not feel profoundly moved.

Grade: B

The Art of Getting By

2011-06-16T15:16:00.002-04:00

Existentialism in movies is a hard thing to nail down. How do you illustrate nothingness in being in a movie which has a plot, narrative and characters? It is even harder to pull this off and be completely entertaining. I wanted to like this movie so much but I feel it got in the way of itself. For all the themes and relationships presented in the movie, it ultimately falls flat but is, somewhat, kept alive through its very charming leads, Freddie Highmore and, the alluring, Emma Roberts. But as much as their chemistry and interactions appealed to me, their nuances and situations, in relation to their world, ring false.

“The Art of Getting By” follows George Zinavoy (Freddie Highmore), a high school senior struggling with his mortality and existence and therefore feels no need to go on, not quite suicidal, George searches for meaning in life. His schoolwork lacks despite his intellect and he’s threatened with expulsion, leading to not graduating. His home life also lacks that foundation he is searching for. His world is changed when he meets Sally Howe (Emma Roberts), a girl in his class with very little in ways of attributes and traits but is kind, good, curious and an inspiration to George. What is missing from this recipe is a genuine spark. Their worlds are different and we see their influence on each other but themselves as individuals are so surface, it’s hard to fully trust this relationship.

A subplot which involves George graduating feels false as well and gives an unclear message of hard work. George hasn’t turned in a single assignment all year and at the last minute, he’s presented with a decision, make up every assignment in three weeks and graduate or expulsion. What does this say about hard work? Half-ass your way through life and you’ll manage it OK. The idea of getting by is rewarded instead of punished, again rings false and, somehow, conventional, when a montage of George at his desk completing assignments complete with hip indie music in the background does not come off artful as the title suggest.

George’s family and friends seem to be only constructs to get him along his way. An artist is introduced only to serve as a glimpse of George’s future and a device, in pursuit of Sally. And often times, Emma Roberts as Sally is surface, which is blamed on the faulty script but enhanced with her charm and screen presence. I feel a better movie in this one, only if it were more focused and tight. Emma Roberts is a vision and I look forward to her next film and I see further down the line, she’ll be a bonafide star in Hollywood. She’s an actor that goes for it, which is commendable, but has to take stronger roles, with stronger material.

Freddie Highmore is very strong as well, which is suffocated by the material. He has an engaging air to him and need to be fully explored. But as an audience, we get a hint of something lingering there, but it’s never truly explored in an interesting way. This film should’ve been more character based but instead it was set at being more plot driven, which is all wrong for small films like this. Movies like “Rushmore” and “Harold and Maude”, serve these kind of films and what they strive for better, “The Art of Getting By” is just so lackluster and false.

Side characters only to serve the story and main character’s actions that only serve the plot, keeps an audience from liking this movie despite its tricks on casting and tone. It comes off as obnoxious rather than charming and sweet. “The Art of Getting By” doesn’t get by on these very surface elements. It feels like it wants to be smart but, again, gets in its own way.

Grade: C-

Green Lantern

2011-06-16T13:02:00.002-04:00

Comic book superhero movies this summer is now in full swing. It started with THOR and it will end with the release of CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER. Marvel Studios is taking big strides this year to be on top of the summer movie blockbuster heap. They are quickly amping up for 2012’s release of THE AVENGERS. DC Comics is falling behind and fast, GREEN LANTERN is their savior for 2011, and sadly, no matter what kind of constructs this Green Lantern can conjure up it won’t save the world, or this movie. Admirably, this film went all out with its space opera themes but falls short in its construction.

The film follows Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds), a cocky and brash test pilot, who was chosen by the ring to become a Green Lantern. The ring is part of a super galactic police squad who bring order to the universe. Typically, the ring only chooses those who are fearless, as Jordan’s weakness, being human, becomes his greatest strength. There are many rings, the green ring represents will power and the yellow ring represents fear. Jordan must come to grips with his duties, but through the course of the film he shies away from them.

As plot heavy as this may seem, it’s surprisingly simple to follow. The film does create a vast world and a mythology very well and doesn’t shy away from its origins as a cosmic, superhero property. I found this to be refreshing as it doesn’t water down its source material, it revels in it. To the film’s credit, a willing viewer will revel in it as well. But what falls flat is not its source material, it’s the film’s execution.

For its 105 minute running time, the film doesn’t get its footing until well into the movie. It has problems establishing character motivation, proper villain and tone. Starting off with a narration is good to get into this cosmic world, but it never gets fully started on Earth. Yes, you do have to establish this world, yes, you do have to establish Hal Jordan as a cocky and brash test pilot and yes, you do have to establish the origins of the ring and how it found Hal Jordan, but to do all this in a very clunky and laboring way is just irritating. Hector Hammond, the lonely scientist and eventual villain is introduced in a very strange manner, literally just cut into the movie. For a minute, a viewer would think, “What just happened? Was there a reel missing?”. All of these elements could have been spliced into each other, giving the film a sense of urgency and kineticism, instead of this disjointed, piecemeal manner.

While the film has trouble trying to establish itself thematically and narratively, it also has trouble establishing a coherent tone. A viewer is left to wonder if this is a comedy or drama or an action film. The drama is dull and surface and the comedy is flat and humorless. The space opera elements did hold tight and interesting but never really explored and the comedy seems wrangled in there because of the star, Ryan Reynolds’ personality. This may not necessarily be at fault of the actors, because the direction and writing gets a big chunk of the blame, but they have to be accountable.

Blake Lively as Carroll Ferris gets much of the blame, or maybe just Martin Campbell’s direction of her, as she has nothing really to do on screen instead of being the love interest and the damsel in distress. I know she’s a solid actor as a viewers would remember her from her Oscar worthy role in THE TOWN but in GREEN LANTERN she comes off stale and uninteresting. Ryan Reynolds is fine as Hal Jordan, always charming and witty, but as fans of the comic book would say, Hal Jordan is neither of those things, he’s more brooding than anything else. Mark Strong as Sinestro is much like his name suggest, strong. A mentor to Hal Jordan, we get a super-small glimpse into his evil turn but they are played as suggestions rather than implications. Peter Sarsgaard as Hector Hammond is somewhat notable, chewing the scenery as much as he’s allowed too, but ultimately the villain is a weak character, only played as a “macguffin” for the plot, which for purpose of this review, could have been stronger.

A redemption/heroes journey story is probably the most relatable to moviegoers and audiences. And for the most part, GREEN LANTERN is effective in that, having all the elements of a heroes journey but at the end of the day, the film deals with these issues and themes in a poor way. Never really executing its redemption elements very well at all. It introduces this element of Hal Jordan’s father, Martin Jordan’s, tragic and traumatic accidental death, but the film never does anything with it. It’s simply introduced at the beginning and never examined again, outside of Hal Jordan leaving a room when anyone ever asks him about it. This is just poor storytelling. An interesting way to examine this is to have Hal revisit this event when Parallax confronts him with his fears, instead the film opts to visit Carol Ferris relationship to him.

Visually speaking, this film as a lot going for it. Green Lantern’s suit looks great and his constructs look believable but the movie depends on how vivid these colors, green and yellow, pop off the screen, but they get distracted and toned down by the 3D. As the summer presses on, more and more movies are presented in 3D. At this point, many viewers are turned off by 3D because of what it does to the image on the screen, namely it depresses the hues by darkening it, which is detriment to GREEN LANTERN.

Overall, there are some things to like with GREEN LANTERN, the vast world building, the imagination and action, but at the end of the day, the film is weak, deeply flawed and ultimately clunky and disappointing. Whether it be DC or Marvel, good storytelling and execution is invaluable to moviegoers, no matter how strange the source material may be. Look at THOR, another comic book superhero movie with heavy themes and a space opera world. It manages to be interesting, action-packed and humorous as it manages to switch back and forth between a cosmic world and our own. It doesn’t nearly have as many problems as GREEN LANTERN. This movie could’ve and should’ve been better instead of being disappointing and middle of the road.

Grade: D+

A Matter of Taste: Serving Up Paul Liebrandt

2011-06-14T16:27:00.002-04:00

Cooking shows have evolved in modern day reality TV. From the days of Julia Child, when cooking shows were simply more instructional than anything else, now they have a spin on capturing the attitude and ambition of young chefs looking to become master chefs or open World Class restaurants. Even in case like these cooking shows, they only really involve the passion and intensity of the kitchen, but what happens when the chef fails to keep their job, or the restaurant has to close down due to lack of patronage, or when foodie trends change, forcing a restaurants to change their menu to prevent closing down. This is exactly the drama I found so interesting about the second film in HBO’s Summer Documentary Series, A MATTER OF TASTE: SERVING UP PAUL LIEBRANDT.

Paul Liebrandt is a young chef and aspiring restaurateur from England. He immigrated to the States to pursue his dream of opening a World Class Restaurant in New York City. The film opens with Paul Liebrandt during a photo shoot, he looks menacing, covered in fake blood over the head of a dead pig. This is a very haunting image but it immediately cut with the charming wit of Liebrandt. He jokes about how “this is an appropriate image for someone who’s looking for venture capital money” to start a restaurant. This is just a taste of his personality that drives the documentary, and from the start, viewers are drawn in.

The documentary spans between 2002 to 2008, as Liebrandt works as a chef of a neighborhood bistro, frustrated by cooking hamburgers and french fries, to opening his own restaurant in Tribeca and the pursuit of wanting the restaurant to be well-received by critics and publications, namely that of the New York Times. What I found so interesting about this film was the hard work in going to build a kitchen, training a wait staff and creating an atmosphere that would highlight the artistry and flavor of the food. This film effectively captures what it must feel like to be in a small kitchen on a very busy day and depending on your entire cooking staff, even dishwashers, to create a masterpiece.

What actually goes into receiving a two star (two stars is actually good) review from The New York Times. Not only being on point for one visit, but having to create the highest quality of atmosphere and food for three separate visits from a single food critic. Restaurants in New York City, live and die by write-ups and reviews from The New York Times, so putting that kind of pressure on a staff is nothing short of intense. This film captures that intensity so well, it’s almost palpable.

Grade: C+

Who Took The Bomp? Le Tigre on Tour

2011-06-12T14:47:00.001-04:00

Most music documentaries use that style and genre very loosely, not actually providing any insight to the band itself or on the process of making music, or actually providing a contextual narrative that would give the non-fan that sort of insight. Usually just producing a 90-minute montage of performances or just filming a concert and bam, there’s your “documentary”. But there’s something different about “Who Took The Bomp? Le Tigre on Tour” It provides the aforementioned traits but it also delivers a pretty engaging story of a band coming to terms with their popularity and a well crafted peek into the day-in and day-out grind of a band on tour.

The documentary follows Le Tigre, the electro pop-punk outfit that promotes feminism and lifestyle in rock n’ roll. Many of the candid moments in the film express that struggle exactly. From radio interviews to magazine write-ups that emphasize this ideal and taken aback to coping the same answer over and over in a struggle to taken seriously and not just a bunch of cute girls on stage playing pop music. In that endeavor, I found this documentary to be very refreshing and delightful. Namely, seeing Le Tigre interact with other band while on tour and playing big outdoor festivals.

An incident with the hardcore spectacle band, Slipknot, I found to be most ironic. The members of Le Tigre are waiting to perform and talk about trying to get a picture with Slipknot. Slipknot for all their hardedge music also look the part, by dawning haunting and creepy masks as they perform or even walk around in public. Think of KISS, if they were from Hell and on the way to Earth they stopped off at Hot Topic. Obviously, Le Tigre’s tone towards Slipknot is mocking, based solely on their image. The irony comes from the scene before it by Le Tigre ridiculing a radio DJ for doing the same thing to them. All in all, I think everyone intensions were pure and were in the sake of good-hearted fun but there doesn’t seem to be a disconnect between the two.

Overall, “Who Took The Bomp? Le Tigre on Tour” does something very effective, it gives its viewers a glimpse of a life on the road for a band; it also gives valuable insight to a band to their many fans. In this way, it gives a general audience and hardcore fans something to hold on to, a true rarity in modern day band documentaries. There’s a moment at the beginning of the documentary showing the band setting a bottle rocket on the roadside of an open field, they light the fuse and it skyrockets in a quick and dazzling fashion, this provides a good metaphor of this journey. Quick to realize, it crashes back to Earth. At the end of the film, a final farewell gives the band and their fans a tearful goodbye as Le Tigre plays their last show in New York City. These are good bookends to an insight film.

Grade: B-

Bobby Fischer Against The World

2011-06-06T13:32:00.002-04:00

What’s in a name? As much as a film’s title should reflect the content or tone of it, the title of this film, BOBBY FISCHER AGAINST THE WORLD, is so fitting and revelatory for what viewers are in for. While of course an obvious title, it captures Bobby Fischer, one-time Chess World Champion and U.S. chess icon and celebrity, rise and fall in the competitive gaming world, but also captures his eventual dissent into madness and paranoia. The new documentary by filmmaker Liz Garbus premieres on HBO tonight and kicks-off their 12-week summer long documentary series. BOBBY FISCHER AGAINST THE WORLD is an intriguing documentary to start this event.

The film follows the life of Bobby Fischer but not in the normal sense of most documentaries, it follows his life with a sense of style. For most, they only know Bobby Fischer as an icon; this documentary effectively shows Bobby Fischer in his own words by taking rare and candid interviews while at the same time displaying talking head interviews with Fischer’s old colleagues, trainers and mentors. In this way, it effectively engages an audience to the man himself and through the way people saw him. By laying over Isaac Hayes’ theme from SHAFT to illustrate how good Bobby Fischer actually was in the chess world but as seen in 70s pop culture. He was a badass!

The effect Fischer had on pop culture was staggering to someone who didn’t grow up in the era, comparative to Michael Jordan’s effect on pop culture in the 90s, Bobby Fischer grew the game of chess in the U.S. and all over the world. He had a nation paying attention, which speaks volumes to his personality and skill as a champion. But fame and exposure comes with a price, and ultimately it was his undoing both personally and professionally. Fischer sunk into a deep depression and paranoia after winning the World Championship of chess in 1972. Whether it was the fame or the pressure to retain the championship is a question that will remain unanswered. But what we do know is Fischer developed a deep anti-Semite demeanor, which is in fact odd because Bobby Fischer was Jewish.

Anti-Semitism led to paranoia, paranoia led to hubris, and hubris led to eventual isolation and exile from the U.S. having fear of imprisonment after willfully breaking an U.N. embargo with Yugoslavia to participate in a comeback chess tournament. Seeing the sadness in the eyes of his former colleagues, trainers and mentors are both heartbreaking and powerful images of a man’s fall from grace. In which, the film ends with a man’s death, highlighting only what he has done in a 5 year stretch over the 64 years he had lived. A man who has burned every bridge he crossed, a man with no friends or family to stick up for him and a man almost forgotten until his death. Only questions remained on his whereabouts, both physically and mentally. This is truly a haunting and sobering vision of genius and madness. The only battle Bobby Fischer couldn’t win was with him, having no strategy to overcome his own demons.

BOBBY FISCHER AGAINST THE WORLD premiers on June 6th at 9PM/8c on HBO.

Audio Interview with Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, the Writers of Kung Fu Panda 2

2011-05-28T10:48:00.003-04:00

KUNG FU PANDA 2 opens wide today, May 27, in 3D. I enjoyed the movie quite a bit and I hope you do, too. You can read my review here. Part of the fun, for me, with KUNG FU PANDA 2 was the expansion of the mythology of the world created in the original. This sense of world building came from the collective work of screenwriters Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger.

Aibel and Berger are writing partners who got their start writing and producing episodes of the animated series King of the Hill for FOX. People who have seen this show know the humor doesn't come from pop culture references, gross out humor, or absurd situations, it comes from small, character-driven motivations. Taking that experience they've gained from King of the Hill, you can see why KUNG FU PANDA was so successful critically, with audiences and at the box office. This is why KUNG FU PANDA and KUNG FU PANDA 2 stand out among the other films from DreamWorks Animation, which rely on pop culture and hip attitudes for their success.

Interview with Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger by RudieObias

You can see more of their work on MadTV, the ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS series, and in MONSTERS VS. ALIENS.

Kung Fu Panda 2

2011-05-26T14:11:00.004-04:00

The tricky things about sequels are expanding the world and taking the opportunity to fix the problems with the original while at the same time pleasing the audience and fans of the first movie. Many sequels fall into the trap that bigger is better, making this the quick fix and can be perceived as half-hearted and lazy. Luckily, KUNG FU PANDA 2 does not do any of these things. It takes elements moviegoers loved about the original and expands the mythology; while at the same time continues the story of Po (Jack Black), the panda “Dragon Warrior” destined to save the world. Interestingly, creating a worthy installment in this saga that will please children, adults and families alike.

KUNG FU PANDA 2 continues the story told in the original very naturally. Introducing the audience into the crux, motivation and mission of the narrative in an accessible clever way. A sequence involving 2-D animation both serve as an introduction and provide background when necessary. This gives the film a certain style and keeps true to its Chinese post-modern aesthetic. Right here, we have everything we need to know about the premise of the movie, everything else will be built on top of this opening sequence. The new villain in this sequel is Lord Shen (Gary Oldman), a flamboyant, cunning and vicious peacock, hell-bent on revenge and claiming his right place in the world. In the original Tai Lung (Ian McShane) was strong and bruiting, while Lord Shen is smart and quick.

Much of the story is spent as Po masters the art of Kung Fu while trying to gain inner peace. Again, expanding the mythology by giving a wonderful backstory of Po’s origin as the son of a noodle shop owner into the Kung Fu panda we know in these movies. This is what I loved the most, continuing the hero’s journey in not only defeating his enemies but also defeating the enemy within. For me, KUNG FU PANDA 2 serves as an EMPIRE STRIKES BACK-style of storytelling. Going to darker places in a hero’s mind and soul and becoming victorious at the end. Learning what the past can do for the present and the future is an invaluable lesson in being the “Dragon Warrior” and discovering your family.

Po’s new family is taken in The Furious Five, each one representing a style of Kung Fu. The sequel does a great job incorporating and building upon those elements in the original. We, finally, see Po actually fighting with The Furious Five in one of the first action sequences, and to me, this was one of the joys of the movie. Seeing a well-choreographed fighting sequence against Lord Shen’s minions, a pack of wild wolves, was so amazing and fun, especially injected with the humor of Jack Black.

Interestingly, the villains in this movie are actually complex. There are moments when hints of good shine through, giving an audience a bit of jump and not knowing what to do with this information. I found this to be very refreshing, not just giving into the pure evil sense most children’s animated features showcase. The race to stop Lord Shen involves the scariest of elements, technology in the wrong hands. This film explores themes of the old tide conflicting the new one. Can old ways defeat new ones? The film poses these threats in a smart way, giving its general audience something to think about.

Ultimately, KUNG FU PANDA 2 is extremely fun to watch. It’s full of action packed highs, thrilling Kung Fu fight scenes and touching, heartfelt father/son moments, while at the same time being very funny for general audiences of all ages. KUNG FU PANDA 2 consistently hits the mark for quality and excellence, it could’ve been easily the same movie as the first one but happily, it wasn’t. It’s a great sequel and leaves me wanting more from this magnificent series. This movie will give Pixar a good competition this summer.

Grade: B

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tide

2011-05-18T22:56:00.003-04:00

I am unabashedly a fan of the original PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN trilogy, not just THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL and DEAD MAN’S CHEST, I’m a huge fan of AT WORLD’S END. These films mark an era of movie going that is exciting, adventurous and full of swashbuckling fun. Sure, some of their elements are overlong and unnecessary but it’s all part of the deeper mythology and world building filmmaker Gore Verbinski was trying to create. For their faults, you can’t deny these films don’t feel lush, rich and vast. The pirate ships alone, The Black Pearl and The Flying Dutchman, are worth a museum exhibit highlighting the world and time of the Colonial Caribbean. In the fourth installment of the franchise, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDE, the scope and mythology seems relegated to shabby set pieces matched with dull, uninspired swordplay. So why does everything built in those films fall so extremely short of expansive in this film?

ON STRANGER TIDE follows Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) and Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), in pursuit of the myth of the fountain of youth. This premise set up at the end of AT WORLD’S END. Sparrow wants to get back his ship, The Black Pearl, while Barbossa wants it to claim it for England. Since the last film, he was made a Captain of the British Navy. Also on the pursuit of the fountain of youth is the Spanish Monarchy, in a claim to destroy the fountain for the glory of God. During this journey, Sparrow is reunited with the only woman he has ever loved, Angelica (Penélope Cruz), the daughter of the infamous pirate, Blackbeard (Ian McShane).

Points for interest, involving the fountain of youth is a great way to capture the imaginations and attentions of a general audience but the only problem is there is no mythology behind it in the film itself. The film suffers from a lack of scope and world depth. Things were built so well in the last three films, that I was afraid to see it all crashing down to go on some silly quest. The adventures and end points of the series have always been silly but it was married and grounded so well with a great sense of mythology. Being as such, Blackbeard as a proper villain is no Davy Jones. He has no menacing presence, let alone an underlying sense of sorrow. It’s not the actor, Ian McShane as the villain Tai Lung in 2008’s KUNG FU PANDA was fantastic. There he conveyed presence, ego and pathos all through excellent voice acting, here he just seems wasted. All in the pursuit of eternal life and youth, a concept that lends itself to myth and legend, in this film it’s handled as a poor plot device instead of held in reverence or in any importance.

See, this premise is supposed to sound cool and should be cool but it’s not. It’s over rot and tedious. Everything is brought together with the bare minimum of heart and soul. This film needed a good injection of heart and soul but it’s visibly missing. In the last three films, Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom met those roles and elements very well. In ON STRANGER TIDE, Johnny Depp and Penélope Cruz try to fill those roles but fall painfully short. There is no spark or any sense of romance here.

To a lesser extent, those romantic roles could also be given to Sam Claflin, who plays a captured preacher Phillip, and Astrid Berges-Frisbey, who play the doe-eyed mermaid Syrena. A relationship based on good looks and not much else, Phillip puts it on himself to save and rescue the mermaid in an effort to save her and Blackbeard’s soul. The mermaid serving a plot element in finding the fountain of youth, they need a single mermaid’s tear to drink from two mystical challises. The mermaid-hunting scene leaves a lot to the imagination, reminding audiences of a brutal dolphin massacre from the documentary THE COVE.

These elements are put together so poorly. All together unfocused, slack and excruciating and almost unbearable to watch, it’s hard to believe Rob Marshall was a Best Directing Oscar nominee, a Best Directing Golden Globe nominee, and a six-time Tony Award nominee and was a five-time Emmy Award winner. I don’t know, with a highly regarded background like that, you’d think he’d make a movie that would good or at least, tolerable and entertaining to watch. In the original trilogy, Knightley and Bloom had the heart and romance, Depp had the wit and comedy, sadly Depp can’t hold this picture together by himself and in the end the movie is just as lost as the fountain of youth.

GRADE: D

Louder Than A Bomb

2011-05-18T13:00:00.004-04:00

We all have a need to be understood. That is the underlying essence of being human. For some it comes easy and for others, it’s difficult to convey especially if you’re a teenager. In these years, adults, teachers and parents are preparing you for the real world. For wonder why teens are rebellious and anxious, just itching to express them but held under strict discipline and rules. But finding the one thing that makes you happy and shows who you really are is important to teens especially at this young age. This is what’s ultimately going to make you, you. In “Louder Than A Bomb”, teens find an outlet for their angst in spoken word poetry.

“Louder Than A Bomb” is a documentary that follows a group of misfit/outcast high school students in Chicago who discover their voice, passion and love in spoken word poetry. They compete in an all city tournament called Louder Than A Bomb for the prestige of being the best high school poet in the city. And what is conveyed in this film is heartwarming, triumphant and wonderful.

Filmmakers Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel successfully convey the highs and lows of being a misunderstood high school student who find solace in words. Infusing the thrills and pitfall of a sports competition movie realizing the winners and losers of street poetry. They also seem to capture the joy of students realizing their potential and the hard work put behind it. This is probably the most rewarding aspect of the film, seeing a piece come to fruition from inception to performance. It hits home the sincerity and emotion of these kids so well and the same time putting away stereotypes of the inner city youth.

It remains to be seen though, another documentary about street poetry released during the 2010 DOC NYC film festival feels more cohesive narratively, and that documentary is “To Be Heard”. I know it’s completely unfair for me to compare these two films but that thought and comparison popped in my mind while I was screening “Louder Than A Bomb”. In “To Be Heard” the subjects struggle with the real world of street crime, employment and drugs. Finding solace in poetry had more weight and the documentary evolved into a film about survival. It’s unfair to compare these film because “Louder Than A Bomb” doesn’t go in this direction, it finds itself with the joy poetry can bring a teenager.

What feels most cohesive and interesting about “Louder Than A Bomb” is dispelling the stereotype put upon teenagers in general. It puts them in a light where they are empowered and brilliant. This is what any moviegoer should take away from this film. Teenagers are not all troublemakers, there is an abundance of untapped potential waiting to surprise adults, teachers and parents by impressing the fact that when these teenagers take the stage and perform their work for an audience, their impact is felt and is in fact louder than a bomb.

Grade: B-

Fast Five

2011-04-27T16:02:00.002-04:00

Forget THOR, the summer movie season has started with the release of FAST FIVE. This is everything you would look for in a summer movie blockbuster, attractive people doing attractive things, thrilling action sequences complete with fast, over-the-top car chases and a very light and broad storyline. And sure, you’ll get the cheesy dialogue, passable but not very good acting and glaring plot holes but despite all of that, you’ll get a fantastic time at the movies. After all, this movie is meant to be fun and exciting and not a display of high art.

FAST FIVE is the fifth installment in the widely popular franchise, which started in 2001. This series, at times, gets unfairly trashed for being mindless, ridiculous machine-go-boom type of filmmaking, and for the purposes of this review, you’d be completely correct, but really, this is one of the few movie series out there that actually gets better as each film is released. Why is that? It started in 2006, when director Justin Lin took the reigns of this thrilling series. Until then, the idea of THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS was sold solely on the hot cars and the thrilling drag races. Directors, Rob Cohen and John Singleton wanted to make police procedurals that happened to take place in the world of street racing, but Lin changed that in THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT (the third in the series) by incorporating the drag races into the actual plot and making them the character’s motivations. He grounded the world in the simplicity and the culture of street racing. Since then, Lin has directed the rest of the series by adding in a genuine mythology, grounding it in a loose family drama and making modern day Westerns, replacing cowboys and horses with drivers and high performance vehicles.

The story is not sophisticated at all but it serves the setting of THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS very well. It picks up where FAST AND FURIOUS (the fourth film in the series) leaves off. Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto is bussed to prison and Paul Walker’s Brian O’Conner and Jordana Brewster’s Mia Toretto try to bust him out. The film is sold on the opening sequence and my God what a heart-stopping ride! But it was just a taste of the action to come. The old gang is back together again, this time in Rio de Janeiro, and as the plot unfolds, as Joaquim de Almeide’s Jose Reyes, the big crime boss in Rio, wants to kill the duo for stealing his luxury cars, which have important information to his empire. At the same time, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s Hobbs, a Federal Agent who is on hot pursuit of the escaped Dominic Toretto. Arguably, this is probably the most plot heavy film in the series, which doesn’t bode well for the plot holes that follow. A film that would seem like a game of cat and mouse quickly turns into an exciting heist film when Dominic decides he wants bringing down Reyes’ evil empire by robbing his strongholds. To do some, Toretto and O’Conner assemble an OCEAN’S 11-type gang of old favorites from the previous FAST AND THE FURIOUS films.

Amazingly, Lin manages to balance this ensemble cast very well. Focusing on Diesel or Johnson would probably satisfy a lesser filmmakers but Lin makes it work. Everyone has a good scene presence and it doesn’t feel like the leads are overshadowing anyone. We get the witty charms of Tyrese Gibson, the smart mouth of Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, the smart and sexy Gal Gadot and the show stealing Sung Kang as Han. Involving the character of Han, a favorite from THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT has brought the series to a likeable charm that somewhat like what Bernie Mac gave in his performances in the OCEAN’S movies, at the same time injecting the grounded reality of Lin’s first film BETTER LUCK TOMORROW, in which Han is also a character in.

Obviously, the big take away from this movie is the action, which there is plenty of. From a brutal fist fight between Diesel and Johnson, which begs the question, why isn’t Dwayne Johnson in more action movies, to an extremely exhilarating 20 minute car chase sequence that gets more and more exciting as each minute passes. By the end of the film, I was even more excited than I thought I would be for a sequel. FURIOUS SIX is the next logical conclusion and it has to be made! There are not too many series out there that will make you clamor for more. Justin Lin is quickly becoming one of the few filmmakers in Hollywood who understands action, pacing and general audiences. Wow! What a movie! The 2011 summer movie season has official begun in my book.

Grade: B-

African Cats

2011-04-22T01:25:00.002-04:00

Every year, around Earth Day, Disneynature releases wildlife documentaries for general audiences. These documentaries follow migration trends, survival stories of animals in the wild or just how the Earth is so vast and full of life. This year is no different, with the release of AFRICAN CATS; Disneynature sets the benchmark for cinematic excellence. Honestly, I wish Disney would release more movies like these every year. These groups of movies don’t break box office numbers or set general audiences or children flocking to their local theaters but they do spark the imagination and leaves an audience full of wonder.

AFRICAN CATS tells the story of two families, one a pride of lions called the River Pride whom is protected by mighty but aged lion called Fang. His pride is full of lionesses and their cubs, one of which is Layla, the most experienced of hunters, like Fang, she is aged but seeks out to protect her only cub, Mara. Their pride is threatened by a neighboring lion pride led by the powerful Kali and his sons. The other family in the story is a small coalition of cheetahs with Sita as a matriarch and her newborn cubs. Sita is a single mother and she will stop at nothing to protect her family from scavengers and the unforgiving elements of the African Savannah.

Finding food for a growing family is hard to do when the wildebeest make their annual migration. The landscape is severely changed and these families must adapt to survive the season. What is interesting about this film is that it captures these images of survival so well. We are sympathetic to these animals and watch as they try to find food and water. But the harshness of Mother Nature doesn’t provide for Hollywood endings, some of the subjects we follow don’t make it, but the ones that do survive provide us with the joy of overcoming certain death. They live for another day but for how long.

Remarkably, this film is so engaging and full of humor. Images of a protective mother carrying her newborn cub with her teeth across the Savannah are just so darling and precious. Narrated by actor, Samuel L. Jackson, AFRICAN CATS is a story of survival and family. This was quite an experience to watch what filmmakers Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey have captured in the Maasai Mara National Reserve. And what is captured here is simply breathtaking and majestic. Seeing families of African cats, bonding, playing and taking care of each other shows us that we are not too different from wildlife after all.

I really do have to hand it to Disney for making movies like these every year. They don’t rake in the dollars like other Disney films, but they provide a valuable service to general moviegoers and children. Showing that there are another animals out there that are not Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck. Giving audiences a film that is both educational and entertaining is a rarity in today’s landscape of children’s films and documentaries, both genres not usually mutually exclusive. AFRICAN CATS delivers the real-life LION KING. A film full of astonishment, humor and the circle of life.

Grade: B+

Meek's Cutoff

2011-04-07T22:35:00.005-04:00

Instincts for survival are the one trait that connects humans to animals. The ability to adapt, find food and water and just the sheer will to live drives us to keep going forwards. Conversely, jealousy, prejudice and scorn are what separate humans from animals. Interestingly, we’ll always throw those traits out the window just to survive. In Kelly Reichardt’s latest film, MEEK’S CUTOFF, is a realistic take on the Western genre, and explores these themes and notions. In a way, it subverts the expectations of what you might find in the genre. This film conveys the desperation of a small group of pioneers led by guide Stephen Meek (Bruce Greenwood) in the pursuit of water, gold and a new home en route via the Oregon Trail.

The film takes place in 1845 and starts with images of settlers gathering water for what would be a long journey. It slowly dissolves into long treks and dryness. This is the most important image because it’s the last time we see mighty rivers or vast lakes in the movie. This film seems to be mostly about process and moving forward. Whether it be loading and shooting a rifle or lowing a wagon down a steep hillside, Reichardt shows us the process of the mundane to convey the hardships of the pioneer lifestyle. But to what end? In the guise of the American dream for happiness and wealth, the story turns into one of survival. The group is lost and is quickly running out of water.

The convoy takes a turn when they come across a lone Native American man. He follows them through their journey but they don’t know why. Is he following them to kill and rob them? Is he following them because he is lost too? Once they capture him, they have an interesting decision to make, whether to kill him or keep him as a guide through the unforgiving wasteland. Ultimately, the decision they make splits up the group’s morale and turns into paranoia.

MEEK’S CUTOFF lives in the realm of highly effective visual storytelling. Adding to the film’s realism is the way this film was shot. It was all shot in 4:3 full frame, which gives it an un-cinematic nature. Kelly Reichardt achieves so much from very little, especially when that tiny morsel is set in the vast expanse of flatlands of the United States. Easily thrown off, this story does take place in the United States, which can be forgotten, as there are no roads, no cars and no strip malls, what can be taken away is the notion of staying the course and always moving forward whether or not if it’s the right thing to do. Gladly, the film never draws that line between right and wrong, which could stem from the ambiguous nature of the title. Stephen Meek is the title character but is not the main character; arguably Michelle Williams’ Emily Tetherow is the film’s centerpiece. But conceivably, one is the action and the other is the reaction, which draws more questions about the title itself.

It’s not fair to discuss this film without bringing up its ending, I’m not going to spoil the ending but let’s just say, it’s a bold way to end a movie like that. The audience is left with this strange feeling of bewilderment but moreover the feeling of hope and uncertainty. MEEK’S CUTOFF is a film that will spark endless conversations to the many questions the film presents. Is this a story of survival? Is this a cautionary tale of right and wrong? Is this an allegory for the war and invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan? This film can be taken in the context of all of these questions. This is not a cut and dry film in the slightest, it’s challenging and poignant, and because of that, it’s worth watching.

Grade: B

Arthur

2011-04-07T17:32:00.003-04:00

Russell Brand has made an interesting decision in making ARTHUR his follow-up to last year’s GET HIM TO THE GREEK. It seems like his on-screen persona reflects his former off-screen persona. In GET HIM TO THE GREEK, Brand played Aldous Snow, a former rock star battling his drug addiction, in ARTHUR, Brand plays, well, Arthur a man coming to terms with his alcoholism. Both movies play, as a comedy but there’s nothing funny about them. Surprisingly, ARTHUR has a lot of heart and warmth for theatergoers, but ultimately it falls flat.

ARTHUR is the remake of the 1980 film starring Dudley Moore as the title role. That film was a comic look at excess during the decade of excess, the 80s. It would be in poor taste to focus this new film on excess during this hard financial time. But why this film fails comes from its script and direction. The story follows spoiled man-child, Arthur having to choose between luxury and real love. He has to choose between Susan, a high power executive hell bent on obtaining more power and Naomi, a mousy hipster-ish dream girl. We know whom he’s going to pick at the end and the journey to get there isn’t compelling or funny at all. I feel bad for Greta Gerwig, an actress I thoroughly enjoy and love to see on the big screen but in ARTHUR she’s so doe-eyed and hapless, it’s embarrassing.

Russell Brand is charming and playful as always, but I would love to see Brand in a good movie instead of mediocre ones. He reminds me of Adam Sandler in 2001, he was in some good but mostly bad movies that played up the comedy of his anger and arrogance. It wasn’t until Paul Thomas Anderson cast him in PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE. Anderson played up those qualities in a serious off beat note; Brand needs to do something interesting like that.

Why ARTHUR falls flat is it thinks it’s funnier than it actually is. Committing crimes of pandering to audiences by trotting out children when jokes fall flat. There are a number of times in this movie when children are front and center in delivering punch lines. Look how cute these kids are when they say embarrassing or grown up things. Brand tries his best to come off witty and sharp but when cute kids come into the picture, they steal the show. You can’t get mad at cute kids now!

ARTHUR had so much potential to be good. The cast is so full of talent but at times they appear to be sleepwalking through the production waiting to get a paycheck. Helen Mirren, wasted. Greta Gerwig, wasted. Luis Guzmán, absolutely wasted. The character of Arthur himself is an interesting one to begin with, a narcissistic alcoholic trying to deal with the trappings of a privileged lifestyle. It would be more fascinating to subvert this notion or easily make a fun movie but the film seems satisfied to deliver the same old, same old.

Grade: D+

Your Highness

2011-04-07T14:30:00.002-04:00

The follow-up to, filmmaker David Gordon Green’s smash hit, PINEAPPLE EXPRESS has left a bitter taste in my mouth. YOUR HIGHNESS is an extremely juvenile film. There is something said about the sheer one-noteness of a filmmaker in decline. Strangely, at the start of his career, David Gordon Green, explored themes of childhood and the actualization of decisions turning into consequences in GEORGE WASHINGTON and now has devolved into exploring themes (I use that term loosely) that are simply childish.

YOUR HIGHNESS is the story of two princes, Thadeous (Danny McBride) and Fabious (James Franco). Thadeous is a lazy, brutish slag and Fabious is brave, heroic and noble. Wouldn’t it be funny to see how these opposites interact with each other? This is the question posed by the filmmakers, and the answer is “no”. Fabious returns from a noble quest with his new would-be bride, Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel). During their wedding ceremony, the evil Leezar (Justin Theroux) comes to kidnap the princess-to-be for some convoluted notion to deflower her as the two moon eclipse to create some sort of super-dragon. Why a super-dragon? Why not? That seems to be the theme of this film. Why not? Why not have a less than mediocre story as an excuse for uninteresting, unfunny and un-engaging movie? Why not? Natalie Portman shows up for some reason.

It saddens me to see a promising filmmaker, writers and an extremely talented cast produce such a horrible movie. It should stand to reason that this group of talented artists should make a film that is good, but really we get a film that is lazy and poor. There is occasionally a semi-funny joke here and there but those come very few and far between. Ultimately, the film boils down to one joke. This is a fantasy film set in a fantasy realm. The characters speak in proper Old English and in lofty platitudes but occasionally swear in modern English using modern slang. This is funny but it can’t be the only thing that supports this movie. This group is far too talented for that. With the occasional dick joke, which wears out its welcome pretty fast, YOUR HIGHNESS is just too dumb even for your typical stoner comedy. There is no heart, soul or even enjoyment in YOUR HIGHNESS.

For shame on you, David Gordon Green, your talent and execution is quickly losing credibility and can now only be seen as lazy and schlocky. PINEAPPLE EXPRESS was not as funny as it thinks it is but the talent surrounding that film was enough to make it semi-enjoyable. Its talented group of filmmakers and actors can’t save YOUR HIGHNESS. The only way I see any one enjoying this movie is when it comes out on DVD and someone has cut it down to clips and uploaded to YouTube or CollegeHumor.com. That’s what you’ve become David Gordon Green, the director of hilarious YouTube clips.

Grade: D-

Hanna

2011-04-06T00:36:00.002-04:00

It seems like this year’s slate of spring releases are following a good trend. It’s a formula Hollywood hasn’t invested in or produced in a long time. From BATTLE: LOS ANGELES to SOURCE CODE, even movies like YOUR HIGHNESS and SUCKER PUNCH are part of this trend. The movies being released (for the most part) this spring are based on original screenplays. Sure, we have sequels coming up like SCREAM 4 and FAST FIVE (the fifth installment in THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS franchise, the fifth!). This spring is seen as some sort of a weigh station for the summer of sequels, reboots and comic books. It’s very refreshing to go to a theater this spring and see a long string of original movies. Movies like Joe Wright’s latest, HANNA fits this mold of originality, even though it feels somewhat familiar.

The plot of HANNA is simple. A girl named Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) and her father Erik (Eric Bana) hide out, live and train in the wilderness of Finland. They are hiding out from the C.I.A. as Erik is a rogue agent who raises his daughter to become a well-skilled killer who can always think on her feet. They are on the run from a ruthless C.I.A. operative, Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett). The movie starts off with slowly paced and methodical training sequences. Not to use the words “slowly paced” as a pejorative but quite the opposite. Hanna stalks, hunts and kills her prey; in the case of the beginning of the movie, a moose, this is a metaphor of the entire movie and moreover, the tagline of the film, “adapt or die”.

The tone and pacing of this film is very interesting, it plays and moves more like a European art house film. A film more concerned with form and motivation, which makes it thoughtful. I am reminded of Anton Corbijn’s THE AMERICAN. Another film that was sold as a high-octane thrill ride, but to an audience’s surprise the film was quieter and subtler than that. HANNA follows suit. There is a definite European feel to this film, and not for its locations and cast but in tone. Not to say that the action isn’t thrilling or heart stopping, it is. At times it feels like “Run Hanna Run”. The action in this film was very well done considering it comes from a director not known for elaborate action sequences or well-choreographed fighting scenes. And man, does this movie get brutal. Joe Wright does not shy away from the harshness and bone crushing nature of violence, all captured through his wonderful camerawork.

There is much to be said about the score and sound design of HANNA. The Chemical Brothers follows a smaller trend of well-established pop artist doing a film’s score. And you can argue, in the context of the film, The Chemical Brothers score for HANNA trumps Daft Punk’s score from TRON: LEGACY. It was extremely clever to incorporate a certain theme from the score to the unfolding of HANNA’s plot. Even thinking about that theme, gives me chills remembering the brutality and weirdness of Hanna’s would-be captures. What make most action films successful are the sound design and the sound design and editing in HANNA is remarkable. This creates a deeper level of action and gives the film a certain texture and note, almost lush and rich. This movie is loud!

But at the end of the day, HANNA is the story of, well, Hanna. A young girl that is not limited to her enclosed surroundings. A young girl who discovers herself through the people she meets, the places she’s been and the experiences she has. It’s just that this young girl is an extremely well trained killer. Saoirse Ronan plays Hanna with a curiosity, vulnerability and sheer sense of rage and violence. With such a wide range of mystery, skill and pathos, it’s hard to believe Saoirse Ronan is only sixteen years old. Ronan is the center of attention and she holds it well.

HANNA is a wonderful film and is one of the first legitimately good movie of 2011. It has an engaging story that boils down to the essence of growing up and coming of age. HANNA is smarter than most action films but reluctantly, it’s not as smart as most art house films. The film seems to be a movie of opposites. From the near silence of the first 20 minutes of the movie to how sound just crashes into the movie as if Hanna herself is screaming, “I’m here!” to HANNA being Joe Wright’s follow up to THE SOLOIST, ATONEMENT and PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, films that are quiet, proper and sagacious to a film that is loud, cutthroat and ferocious. Even musically going from classical orchestra to bass thumping electronica. HANNA serves its filmmakers and cast well. Hopefully, the trend of original stories stays a trend in Hollywood. HANNA proves that an exciting, thrilling, yet thoughtful action film can be made for a relatively small budget. Now this is something I think we can all enjoy. HANNA is worth watching!

Grade: A-

Super

2011-04-02T15:35:00.002-04:00

As an audience, we like rooting for the underdog. We like the idea of upsetting the favorite. Something about coming from behind or overcoming your personal best is pretty exciting to us. In the new film from James Gunn, “Super”, we are not prone to rooting for the underdog here, more like the filmmakers making us feel bad for rooting for the underdog, especially if that underdog is psychotic, idealistic and hopelessly obsessed with finding purpose.

In “Super”, James Gunn takes those ideas and mixes them with the ideals and glorification of the superhero and soon after subverts them by asking the question, “what if”. This is not a new concept; we saw this in Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass from 2010, but where that film fails in answering that question, it seemed more interested in following those comic book troupes and embracing their cartoonish side, “Super” succeeds by really questioning the motives of its characters and more importantly, their actions.

“Super” is the story of Frank (Rainn Wilson), a short order cook in a dingy diner whose wife (Liv Tyler) leaves him for a sleazy upstart drug dealer (Kevin Bacon). To over compensate for his shortcomings as a husband, a man and even a human being, he prays to God to make him super and exceptional. He feels it’s his duty to become a real-life costumed superhero. He adopts the name “The Crimson Bolt” and patrols the streets preventing crime. But when a local spunky comic books store clerk (Ellen Page) discovers his true identity, she wants in on the action and adopts the persona, “Boltie”, his sidekick. This is taken and played as comedic; the sequences involving crime fighting are highly effective in regards to laughter. But there is a moment in the film where the laughter quickly turns into true horror. Effectively, James Gunn makes a statement about violence, fan boy enthusiasm, morality and justice. This was also the moment “Super” succeeds, for me, but easily I can see how it might not for others. James Gunn pushes his chips in the center of the table and hopes he has a winning hand, whether the film succeeds or fails is up to you. And for my money, he does.

“Super” is a very bold film. Not to be mistaken for a typical comic book movie, it’s far more interesting in that. The morality placed on its characters and audience is completely fascinating. Really, “Super” feels like Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” in that manner. Both dealing with the self-importance of its main characters and subverts an audience’s expectation and notions in what can happen in these sorts of films. And ideally, the movie lives up to its title.

Grade: B-

Source Code

2011-04-01T11:42:00.002-04:00

It’s not often we leave a theater and feel fully engaged with a movie, moreover it’s not often we leave a theater and feel we just watched something special. This is the case with Duncan Jones’ new film, “Source Code”. After leaving the screening of this film, I felt as if I just watched a new entry into the realm of sci-fi classics. “Source Code” belongs with the likes of “Blade Runner”, “Total Recall” and “Minority Report”. A film that, at times, feels clunky and disjointed but ultimately, with time, it emerges as “one of those” movies, a movie that will gain a cult following despite its flaws.

“Source Code” is the story of Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal), a man who wakes up to find himself, in the identity of an unknown man on a speeding commuter train making its way towards Chicago. He has eight minutes to find the identity of a terrorist plotting to blow up the train and its passengers. Once he retrieves this information he is then transported to an unknown military base to stop future terrorist attacks around the city. Captain Colter Stevens must relive the last eight minutes before the train explodes over and over again until he finds the terrorist. If this sounds complicated, you’re right, it is. But through the direction of Duncan Jones, “Source Code” delivers a suspenseful, action-packed and touching sci-fi film that is one half “12 Monkeys” and one half “Total Recall” with hints of “Groundhog Day”.

But with any movie that explores time travel, there are bound to be flaws and missteps. Sure, the science in this movie is somewhat flimsy and never really explained. It takes its cues from fantasy more than science fiction. Rather the source code itself feels like magic and not science. But despite that, I think the film works. It is more concerned with following through to the next logical step. Which, for me, is greatly appreciated.

The film is highly effective creating a world in such a small space. There is weight to character’s decisions despite the premise of restarting over and over again like a video game. Duncan Jones gives this film much needed heart by injecting emotional payoffs with a strong co-star in Michelle Monaghan’s Christina, easily it could’ve been cold and sterile and I’m glad it wasn’t. As much as the audience is invested in the prevention of a terrorist attack, we are just as invested in the budding romance between Captain Colter Stevens and Christina.

If Duncan Jones delivered a “Solaris” type film in “Moon”, a meditative examination of the existence of man and his role in the greater good of society, then “Source Code” is Jones’ entry into thrilling, high action, speculative science fiction. Either way, Duncan Jones is making a name for himself in Hollywood and in the geek sci-fi crowd. “Source Code” is an exciting and thoughtful film and definitely worth seeing! Time will tell whether or not “Source Code” will be a sci-fi classic but for my money, you can count on it.

Grade: B+

Sucker Punch

2011-03-24T18:17:00.002-04:00

The will to be free is inherently an all too human trait; some people will do whatever it takes to gain freedom. Zack Snyder’s latest film, SUCKER PUNCH, explores this exact theme, but does so in the context of video game storytelling, ambitiously high concepts and extremely lush art direction all through the cinematic experience from the director of WATCHMEN and 300. And, boy, what an experience! Samurais, steam-punk zombie soldiers, and shiny robots, but as visually stunning and arresting as SUCKER PUNCH may be, it’s lacking the narrative cohesiveness to make it an engaging experience.

The story follows Babydoll (Emily Browning), the ringleader of a group of sexy and charming mental patients (you heard me correctly) trying to escape from a heavily guarded mental institution. That’s as easy a synopsis as the story will allow, but, as they tend to do, the plot thickens. The story is told in elaborate fantasy sequences involving the group’s quest in gathering five items that will secure their freedom. If this sounds like a video game, you’re right; it plays out like one, too. For every item the girls try to retrieve, they are thrown in a new world of nameless enemies trying to stop them. Whether it is the aforementioned samurais, steam-punk zombie soldiers, or shiny robots, the girls have to defeat them. Overall, this works, combined with thrilling action sequences and well-choreographed battle scenes, but what lacks is an emotional tie or connection to these girls.

This group is sexy! Zack Snyder doesn’t shy away from showing how beautiful, talented, or seductive these ladies can be, down to giving them cutesy names like Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), and Amber (Jamie Chung). As an audience we want to care about these girls, but we can’t. The barrier to this film is its narrative. It does take a while to get started and during that time, it feels clunky and slack. SUCKER PUNCH is already a high concept film; it has to (pardon the play on words) punch you in the face. I’m not saying each girl should be a stereotype, which thankfully they are not, or should have some vapid back story, again thankfully they did not, but entry can be done throughout by possibly interplaying the fantasy aspects with emotional arcs throughout in the “real world.”

I’m reminded of Nobuhiko Obayashi’s HOUSE, a Japanese horror film, a film with an equally sexy group of young women with cutesy odd names, only Obayashi handles their personalities in exactly that matter. And it worked. HOUSE is just as high concept as SUCKER PUNCH, but the audience isn’t alienated by that film’s narrative, rather they are engaged and wowed. With SUCKER PUNCH, I was wowed but never engaged, or at least, I had to work really hard for entry.

Zack Snyder’s strength is his cinematic eye. He’s an excellent visual storyteller, as we see in the highly effective prologue of the film. We get the set up of Babydoll’s backstory without any dialogue, mostly told through filmmaking and Snyder’s understanding of cinema. But it quickly falls apart when characters start talking to each other. The acting isn’t bad, but quite the opposite. Luckily, Snyder realizes this is not his strong suit, and keeps the film mostly visual. In saying that, SUCKER PUNCH is a fourteen year old boy’s dream movie.

Another example of Snyder’s understanding of cinema is creating a certain mood with music. The score is epic and strong, but Snyder once again picks songs that are just too on the nose. In WATCHMEN, using “99 Red Balloons” to tell the audience that this is the 80s, using “Hallelujah” to tell the audience this is suppose to be sexy, and he does it again in SUCKER PUNCH, using “Where Is My Mind?” when we’re in a mental institution. I like that song, too, but c’mon, you can do better than that.

SUCKER PUNCH doesn’t suffer the same way WATCHMEN does, a film arguably too faithful to the source material and completely unfocused, I actually like SUCKER PUNCH more, but the film suffers with its ambition. I must hand it to Zack Snyder, SUCKER PUNCH is a wholly original film, I’ve never seen anything like it on the big screen before. That’s not a negative, either - it’s very inventive and full of imagination, consistently playing with the idea of crossing genres into each other. It feels like a less smart and a less exciting INCEPTION. But SUCKER PUNCH could have been a better movie in better hands and, instead of feeling like a section of a director’s reel, it could have actually showcased what a filmmaker can do. SUCKER PUNCH is not a hit, but it is a movie I didn’t see coming.

Grade: C

"True Lies 2" Is More True Than Lies According to Tom Arnold

2011-03-21T17:33:00.005-04:00

He's back! When Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his return to Hollywood, studios everywhere wanted a piece of the former-governator. Now that Schwarzenegger was back, studios were free to unearth any reboots, remakes or sequels to some of the biggest blockbusters of the 80s and 90s.

Studios want to bring back these classic action films and have already courted Schwarzenegger. One of the rumored films, True Lies, was ripe for a sequel. Now co-star, Tom Arnold says that "True Lies 2" will happen.

In an interview with MovieWeb, Tom Arnold said,

"We (Arnold and Schwarzenegger) have both read the script. There is a script that James Cameron and a guy named Jeff Eastin, who created the TV show "White Collar," wrote. It is really great. Jim can't direct it. But he can produce it. We hope it gets done. We have a few fun things we want to do. I am supposed to remain cool about this. For me, it would be a lot of fun to work with the guys again."

A sequel to "True Lies" would be cool but don’t get too excited, we still have “Ghostbusters 3” and “Arrested Development The Movie” to look forward to. I know Tom Arnold really wants this to happen. There were a lot of cool buzzwords thrown around in that quote, namely James Cameron, but possibly not being attached to direct can be problematic. An action-comedy, tent pole summer blockbuster is exactly the right movie for the return of Schwarzenegger. Throw in Jamie Lee Curtis and you could have a possibly better film about aging super-spies than "Red". “True Lies 2” has to be a better career move for Jamie Lee Curtis than selling yogurt.

Is the country ready for "True Lies 2"? Would this be the perfect project for Schwarzenegger's return to Hollywood?

Netflix Streaming Vs. Hulu Plus: The Online Fight For Your Money

2011-03-18T01:59:00.004-04:00

We have all been excited about the Criterion Collection joining with Hulu Plus. In the recent weeks, we have discussed, in length, the possibilities of having 150 movies from the Criterion Collection at our fingertips, instantly. Right now, Criterion is rolling out more and more titles to add to this 150 and by the end of 2011; Criterion/Janus will have 800+ movies available instantly. At first, I thought this was great, I love the Criterion Collection, I love watching movies instantly and I love the progress of media moving away from the physical format. But the experience I’ve had with Hulu Plus is not worth giving them $7.99 a month when I can get the same movies from Netflix (albeit in a physical form via DVDs and Blu-rays) and save a little money.

My experience with Hulu has been well documented on the podcast. Especially coming across my first hiccup with the service when I decided to take advantage of the 2-week free trial invitation from existing members. Really, it’s one month of Hulu Plus for half the price, charging $4.32 a month instead of $7.99. Technically this is free but it’s also highly misleading. The 1-week free trail is a clean 1-week of free Hulu Plus. Their wording and definition of the word “free” is specious and double handed. But despite that, I pressed on, eager to get my eyeballs wrapped around Criterion/Janus releases.

After listening to my own words while putting the show together, I decided to be fair and give Hulu a second chance. I wanted to really like Hulu Plus. After recording episode 69, I spent hours on the Hulu website, adding subscriptions to my queue, adding Criterion movies to my list, learning the ins and outs of the Hulu interface. I downloaded and updated the Hulu Desktop app for Mac and decided to give it a go. And truth be told, I enjoyed my experience with Hulu Plus at first, the convenience of watching TV shows, I missed out on, not really minding the ads between commercial breaks and feeling comfortable with the Hulu interface.

TV on Hulu+

Overall, I’d say that it was mostly positive but then the bombardment of content completely turned me off. After an episode of “Parks and Recreation” ended a new episode of “Perfect Couples” came on. This somewhat bothered me but just shrugged it off. I just went to the next episode in my queue, but then it happened again. After watching “Glee”, the same episode of “Perfect Couples” came on. What was going on here? Was Hulu trying to push this show on me or something? This occurrence happened to me almost every time I finished an episode of TV. If it wasn’t “Perfect Couples”, it was something I didn’t subscribe to or want to watch. I know Hulu wants to keep me on their site and in their app but this was just flat out annoying, enough so that I left the app or the site all together. Now you might be thinking, I’m being too nit-picky but since I pay for this experience, I want it to cater to me.

Then I realized, I really don’t take advantage of the back episodes of TV shows, I just want the current ones. So I thought, why do I pay for this? I can just watch the same content for free with regular-ass Hulu. So for my money, the plus side of the TV branch of Hulu was not worth my $7.99 a month.

MOVIES on Hulu+

And I know, you can argue that some of these movies are not available on Netflix or DVD. Movies like “I Was A Teenage Zombie” and “Four Feathers” are not available on DVD and are ONLY available on Hulu Plus. For some, this is completely worth it but for others, I would recommend signing up for a free trial and watching them that way and then cancel your membership. The video quality isn’t that great. To be honest, it doesn’t seem like the titles I’ve seen were in HD or even near-HD quality. I’m still not happy with the web version of Hulu, which offers the Hulu watermark on the lower left-hand corner of the screen in full screen mode. Albeit this is watermark does not appear on the Hulu Desktop and seems to be only on the web version.

CONCLUSION

There are no advantages of Hulu Plus on the TV side and if you have Netflix, upgrade to receiving a disc in the mail. It will be cheaper than having both services. Right now, there is no clean alternative to cable. I hate cable. I don’t have cable. I rely on the Internet, over-the-air TV and sports bars to receive my content. And if I do decide to sign up for a service like Netflix or Hulu Plus, it better be worth my time and money. So far, Hulu Plus hasn’t proven to me that they have a clean and seamless experience like Netflix. Netflix is the standard. Watching Criterion films on their website, Criterion.com, is still an option. The greater point is, these movies are available on other platforms and are not exclusive to Hulu (yet). Again these movies are still available on Netflix as DVDs and Blu-rays. Criterion won’t take those away. Please don’t dive in, head first, without testing the waters.

Win Win

2011-03-17T20:34:00.002-04:00

It’s easy to know the difference between right and wrong but it’s tough to actually act upon. This is what makes good cinema interesting, dealing with the grey area most people live in. Nothing is so clear-cut and black and white. Do you give a kid back to his just out of rehab mother or do you keep the kid in a good environment where he can thrive? In the new film from writer/director (and actor) Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent and The Visitor) explores these themes in something unassuming, a comedy.

Win Win follows the story of Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti), an attorney with a failing practice, a husband and father of two and a high school wrestling coach. Interestingly, he plays these roles with the same morality and nuance that you might actually find in real life. There’s nothing showy about Giamatti’s performance or character, which makes it great. Coming close to losing his practice and struggling to provide for his family, Mike comes by an interesting dilemma, become the guardian of one of his elderly clients, Leo Poplar (Burt Young) battling dementia. Doing the right thing isn’t so easy when you’re about to lose your livelihood.

After becoming Leo’s legal guardian, Mike puts him in a retirement home and collects a monthly $1,500 from Leo’s estate. The morality doesn’t come from this action but in the reaction and the events that happen soon after. Leo’s grandson, Kyle (Alex Shaffer, this was his first role) pays him a visit. Kyle is a runaway. Hoping to stay with Leo, Mike reluctantly takes him in.

This is the third film from Tom McCarthy and it delivers the perfect amount of heart, sweetness and laughs. Win Win is extremely well directed, balancing the many story lines and characters on a tightrope of comedy isn’t easy to do but through McCarthy’s eye, it certainly appears easy. Most films fail with bogging the story down with characters and too much story but Win Win succeeds. Practically every performance and character moment in this film is memorable.

From Jeffery Tambor’s Stephen Vigman, Mike’s assistant coach to Amy Ryan’s Jackie Flaherty, Mike’s wife, but the performance that shines is Alex Shaffer as Kyle, the centerpiece of the film. Shaffer gives a wonderful performance, injecting heart and a certain likeability you can root for. When Kyle is introduced in the film you can take him at face value, a 16 year-old punk runaway. Kyle smokes and gets into trouble and would easily be seen as an annoyance but as the movie progresses those constructs go away. As we, the audience, witness this transformation, we are mesmerized by Kyle’s talent and work ethic.

I’m afraid this film will not be taken seriously as a showcase of direction and writing. It would be easy to dismiss this movie because it is a comedy, and a pretty broad one at that, but I feel the direction and writing is just so top notch and tight. Almost every element in this film works and works extremely well. This is something we might see in a Preston Struges or Frank Capra film, a movie full of memorable characters, stylized dialogue and situations that challenge the character’s (and audience’s) morality and motivations. Please don’t overlook this film. Win Win is a win!

Grade: A-

Paul

2011-03-15T13:40:00.002-04:00

This year’s spring slate of movie releases seem to be drawing from the overload of summer movies. And by all means, Paul’s appeal leans toward the summer movie market than the spring. It appeals to a broad audience but at the same time to a niche market, it’s widely fun and exciting and full of great cameos that would seem ridiculous for any other movie not released in the summer season. But alas, Paul is not a summer movie, being released in March, although it easily could’ve been.

Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen) is an alien who crashes on earth in the 1940s, since then he was kept by the government and was responsible for most of pop culture and technology in the up-coming years. While trying to escape, two British nerds (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost) while on holiday in the states for Comic Con find Paul in the southwest. On the run from government agents (Jason Bateman, Bill Hadar and Joe Lo Truglio), the trio must make their way so Paul can “call home” and go back to his home planet. Paul is one half buddy road movie and other half space alien movie, it serves both roles pretty well, all wrapped in a nerd-gasm of geek porn. The movie is full of sci-fi, comic book and movie geek references that will have any one who has ever went to comic-con in hysterics as they point to the screen, “Hey! That was from Indiana Jones” or “Hey! Check out that Scott Pilgrim reference.”

The only real issues I have are with the pace of Paul. It doesn’t feel as if the content was infused with the style of the film. Director Greg Mottola doesn’t achieve the same preciousness as his previous films Superbad and Adventureland. Not to say it feels cold, it’s very funny, but I feel Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s material would have served better with Edgar Wright’s hyper-reality style. This was the second movie the trio hasn’t worked on together (the first being Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World). Paul would have been a good entry into their previous works, Shaun of The Dead and Hot Fuzz. This movie was made by comic-con nerds for comic-con nerds so it would lend itself to the complete parody. I guess I’m saying the movie didn’t feel nerdy enough.

Overall, I really enjoyed Paul. I take issue with the pacing as it does feel a little slack. Seth Rogen’s performance as Paul is delightful irreverent. His shtick could’ve gotten really old, really fast but Rogen gives enough charm and heart to this alien to make him a.) enjoyable and b.) believable. As much as this movie does feel like a summer movie, it was a good move by Universal to release it during the spring. I feel it might have gotten lost in the summer movie weekend battles and ultimately would have failed at the box office. The alien movie to see this spring is Paul and not Battle: Los Angeles.

Grade: C+

Battle: Los Angeles

2011-03-13T19:45:00.003-04:00

Alien invasion is not a new theme in storytelling. From H.G. Wells classic novel to Orson Welles re-telling on a radio broadcast to Steven Spielberg’s underrated film adaptation; and to 1997’s blockbuster hit Independence Day, the list goes on and on. Bringing something new to the table is key to keeping this theme alive and new. Battle: Los Angeles offers very little in this regard. Granted, a few very minimal ideas, unfortunately they are lost by, what I could conceive as, a committee of movie studio board members looking to broaden and dumb down those ideas for a mass audience. Is this so wrong? Not really, if you like mindless, loud, “machine-go-boom” action, then you might like Battle: Los Angeles. There’s nothing wrong with that. But when those elements get cloudy and lost with, what I can perceive, as a story with uninteresting, cliché characters, then I would say, yes, there’s something wrong with that.

Set in, you guessed it, Los Angeles, during what would be a day when mysterious meteors race towards the Earth, as a normal day for last-day-on-the-job (cliché #1) for U.S. Marine Staff Sargent Michael Nantz (Aaron Eckhart). But if you throw, in about-to-get-married Corporal (cliché #2), his tough-guy-from-New Jersey friend (cliché #3), Corporal angry-about-the-unjust-death-of-his-brother-during-combat (cliché #4), tough-girl-played-by-Michelle-Rodriguez (cliché #5) played by Michelle Rodriguez and a lieutenant leaving-his-very-pregnant-wife- for-his-first-mission-as-commander (cliché #6). It seemed as if the writer had a checklist of character archetypes next to them as they were writing this screenplay. Add in some trapped civilians for good measure (cliché #7) and intro the first act with a news report telling you (the audience) what is going on (cliché #8) with an anonymous scientist-type (cliché #9) when things need to get technical and you pretty much have the groundwork for this movie.

The film offers plenty of explosions and battle scenes, shot interestingly with an eye like Paul Greengrass. For the most part, I did enjoy these scenes. They were well done and effective. But what’s insulting is the filmmaker never gives the audience enough credit. If we can follow the intricate battle sequences then why are the story and its characters spoon-fed to us? We never get credit for following anything outside of these scenes. I wish the filmmaker took a stance on wanting to deliver this Paul Greengrass-esque world or not. This film is more like Skyline than Blackhawk Down or District 9 and more like “duh! 'splosions make happy” than “Wow! That was surprisingly engaging”.

I really wanted to like this film and I felt let down that it felt the need to pander to 14 year-old boys. Yes, this movie feels like a video game, but without the interaction or engagement of one, and it was just as fun as if I were watching a video game without having a controller in my hands and the person I’m watching playing the video game is just making the characters go around in circles without purpose or direction as they laugh, cheer and bellow out the occasional “woo-hoo”. I guess this was the right move, Battle: Los Angeles made $36 Million on its opening weekend. I guess, you win studio executives, 14 year-old boys are more important to filmmaking than storytelling, you win...

Grade: D+

Jane Eyre

2011-03-13T17:21:00.001-04:00

Since the beginning of the moving image there have been twenty-six iterations of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre on the big screen and on TV. Cary Joji Fukunaga’s Jane Eyre is the twenty-seventh. It would seem as if this was well-worn territory, so why would I want to watch this version of Jane Eyre. Well, there are a few good reasons to watch it, the eye of Fukunaga (Sin Hombre), the biting wit adapted by Moira Buffini (Tamara Drewe) and the performances of Mia Wasikoswska (Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland) and Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds, Fish Tank) are enough reasons to watch the latest version of Jane Eyre.

The classic story set in the 19th century of an orphan growing up to become a governess of a wealthy landowner, Wasikoswska plays the title role of Jane Eyre. Wasikoswska is striking as she proves she belongs in the upper crust of young Hollywood today. She plays Jane Eyre is poise and strong, sure of herself as she transcends her role to win the heart of her employer, Edward Rochester, becoming equals matched with minds and hearts. But looming in her soul, Wasikoswska offers sorrow and angst. This is a winning performance! Fassbender is equally matched with charm and a certain grace that few leading men in Hollywood have. He’s fearless, as Rochester not bound by duty and status but rebels against the status quo taking Jane Eyre as his wife.

The scope and eye of Fukunaga, Jane Eyre, lends itself to a gothic, almost horror tone. Complete with creaks and jumps offered in haunted houses and horror movies. But yet, Fukunaga manages to capture the lyrical beauty of this dark period. Channeling the best of Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven, Fukunaga is inspired to infusing these influences. Matched by the wit and punch of Moira Buffini script, easily not updating but marrying the conventions of the original novel but giving it a certain bite for modern audiences.

In clumsy hands, Jane Eyre could have been easily shadowed and played off popular genre-lit tones like Twilight or New Moon and even given in to trendy posh works like Catherine Hardwicke’s Red Riding Hood. Thankfully this Jane Eyre is not any of those things. It’s a strong entry into the cannon as well as a strong second entry of a budding filmmaker. This film is a display of emotion, performance, wit and beauty.

Grade: B+

Rango

2011-03-03T17:17:00.001-05:00

From the opening of “Rango”, I knew I was in for something special. Four little owls dressed as a classic mariachi band telling the tale and legend of Rango. Automatically, I had hints of a classic Italian Westerns, commonly known as Spaghetti Westerns. Even the title, in the context of the opening, was indicative of the genre, Rango to Django. Also following that hilarious opening, the journey of a mysterious gunslinger coming to a poor town, finds purpose and love while avenging the townspeople from evildoers.

The new film from director Gore Verbinski (The Ring and The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise) delivers an a-typical children’s movie about the adventures of an un-named lost chameleon while at the same time pays homage to Italian Westerns. Johnny Depp plays the title role of the chameleon that takes the name “Rango” to inspire fear in the townspeople. The journey starts when the over imaginative chameleon gets separated from his owners in the deserts of the southwest. His search for water leads him to meeting a mysterious armadillo (Alfred Molina), a strange salamander named Beans (Isla Fisher) and the poor people of the town called “Dirt”. Mistaken identity has forced the chameleon to take the persona of a wild gunslinger. Rango gains the affections of the townspeople and allows the Mayor (Ned Beatty) to give him the job of town’s sheriff.

The film is mostly about the search for water for this desert town. The one who controls the water, controls the town. The classic dilemma of most Italian Westerns, from “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” to “The Great Silence”, “Rango” serves this theme extremely well. Everything from a gun fight at high noon to a railroad being developed as the gateway to the west (in this case, it’s a highway but the metaphor is apt), to white hats and black hats, “Rango” does with the western genre as “Kung-Fu Panda” did with kung-fu flicks. It seems to be a Quentin Tarantino-esque take on genre movies.

Almost to that point, I don’t know if children will enjoy this movie as much as adults. The children in my audience during my screening seemed to enjoy the movie, satisfied with the animation and occasional fart joke but the themes of this film seem to be too dark for its potential audience. The film deals with suicide, death and justice like no other children’s film has in recent memory. It’s not bundled in a typical Pixar, blue skies, wide eyed and cuddly aesthetic, it dives into a dark and ugly world filled with extremely ugly characters. The film feels dry and muggy which lends itself to quest of the film.

What is interesting about this film is its questionable morality. Most children films have a clear-cut hero and villain but in “Rango” the heroes do bad things and, in turn, villains do good things. Actions are based on virtue and rewards for doing the right thing are skewed, “Rango” offers the most thought provoking ending in any children’s film, in recent memory, even “Toy Story 3”. This is the type of film that will be written about and examined throughout 2011.

Don’t expect a wild ride like you’ll get with most children movies; “Rango” is far more thoughtful than that, it injects themes and imagery of classic Italians Westerns while narratively like Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown” and mixed with questionable character morality. The film does take a bit to get started, the beginning feels a bit clunky but once it establishes its footing then the film takes charge. I don’t know how much children will enjoy this film but film geeks certainly will, which is a surprise coming from a kids studio in Nickelodeon. This is a smart film and it’s worth seeing.

Grade: B-

MTV’s Skins Is Surprisingly Not Awful

2011-02-08T15:32:00.004-05:00

There has been much to do about this American adaptation of the hit British series, with talks of sponsorship dropping off due to its “child pornography”-like nature and lukewarm reception from American audiences and critics, alike. And it’s true, this highly controversial TV series is not as good as the original but really, how could it be. American TV seems to be far stricter than British TV; nudity, heavy drug use and foul language seem to be fair game in the U.K.

The original series was notorious for bringing on very young actors and writers, making it extremely interesting. The experiences, storylines and teenage angst that were being examined on the series were coming from and portrayed by people close to the age of its young protagonists. This structure can deliver good episodes in the future due to the ever-changing dynamic the series has created. The American version has smartly followed suit, giving it an air of honesty. The new cast is charming and sexy enough to hold an audience’s attention, plus a new and young writing staff can provide interesting storylines. Overall, I’ll stick to my headline, MTV’s Skins is surprisingly not awful.

Uncle Kent

2011-01-24T13:31:00.002-05:00

I’m just going to put it out there, right now! It’s movie like this that make me excited about cinema! Whether it be the really big and visually stunning, James Cameron’s Avatar to the very small and minimal, Joe Swanberg’s Uncle Kent, to me, it’s absolutely amazing what cinema can do. And what is labeled as “mumblecore”, a genre of film that is small, improve and mostly about budding relationship between 20 or 30-somethings, often getting a bad wrap for it’s lack of filmmaking or scope, a movie like Uncle Kent is just so refreshing and charming.

Uncle Kent follows the life of Kent (Kent Osborne); a just turned 40-year-old cartoonists living in Los Angeles. His life is full of work and strange interaction with people on Chat Roulette. His life is changed when he meets Kate (the delightful, Jennifer Prediger) a journalist he met on the random social network. She’s in town for the weekend and needs a place to stay. Their interactions struggling with relationships, sex and uncertainty of life and careers is so intimate and refreshing to watch. At times playful and brutally honest in the capacity of life of under achievers.

What I get so excited about this the honesty and the direction of the film. Swanberg creates a tone of the uncertainty within this film so well. You can get a sense that anything can happen, at anytime. The actors feel like they are driving the story more so than the director, which is absolutely refreshing. Uncle Kent feels so organic and shows what this genre can do well.

There’s a turn in the movie that involves a planned meeting from Craig’s List with Josephine (Josephine Decker) and leads Kent and Kate an interesting scene of sexual exploration. Taking cues from each other, the scene plays out so genuine and exact. Making this one of the funniest scenes in the movie. Brilliantly staged, conceived and hilariously awkward, the introduction and playfulness of Josephine displays the overall interest in the dangers and thrills of the online social media/network world.

Joe Swanberg continues to develop into an interesting and exciting filmmaker and with Uncle Kent, he stretches his legs with what he can do with in the comedy genre. Fun and sexy, Uncle Kent will please you to no end. Absolutely clever and charming, I can’t recommend this movie enough.

Grade: B+

Jess+Moss

2011-01-24T12:10:00.002-05:00

NOTE: I did not get an opportunity to go to Sundance this year. My press credentials were confirmed by my pocket book was tight this year. Most of the Sundance films the CriterionCast will be screening were via screener discs or pre-Sundance screenings in New York City.

The balance between entertainment and art is a slippery slope. Most movies that strive for one or another usually peak with thrilling highs and emotional payoffs; the others strive for the latter are interesting and robotic. The film, Jess + Moss dives deep into more art house fare but be warned, the film deals more with the experimental and Avant-grade.

Jess + Moss is about the friendship on which the title suggest, Jess and Moss. Jess is a woman in her mid 20s caught in a sort of state of mind where she is reverting to her adolescent years. Her best friend is Moss, a friend of the family who is 12 years old. Their friendship play off like any two adolescent pre-teen friends, without a care in the world, underplaying the budding sexual feeing within. The film does not play in a linear fashion but rather told in weird snippets of audiotapes and slow motion scenes of jumping and running. Throughout the film we never get a full sense of either characters life before. We get hints of child abuse both physical and sexual but nothing is fully realized.

The film’s setting and tone feeling like the unofficial sequel to Harmony Kornine’s Gummo, a film that plays on the laughable images of rural white-trashness in the Midwest. I wasn’t sure if it was laughable in Jess + Moss. The backdrop seems to make the audience cringe in their seats but it had an opposite effect, the audience was leaving during the screening.

But in regards to the two lead, Jess played by Freak and Geeks alum, Sarah Hagan, who does a wonderful job underplaying the sexual desires of a young woman learning about her body. This should come off as creepy and disturbing but it does not. She guides Moss, played by newcomer Austin Vickers, into scenes full of imagination and playfulness. From first time filmmaker, Clay Jeter, his eye for diving in the awkward was interesting but not accessible. It seemed this film was more interesting in pushing the audience to its limits with its clumsy pacing and muddled narrative but lays consistent in mood and tone.

Overall, I do not see a movie like Jess + Moss playing at your local AMC Theater but if you did like a movie like Gummo then you might like Jess + Moss. Not as obnoxious but just as disturbing to watch. This film is full of experimental artistic value but never slips into entertainment.

Grade: C-

Barney's Version

2011-01-13T11:55:00.004-05:00

It’s not very often I recommend a movie that is a complete mess, but Barney’s Version is one of them. This movie is a mess, both tonally and thematically. It seems as though it does not know what type of movie it wants to be. Whether that be a comedy, a tragedy, a murder mystery or satire, Barney’s Version hits all of these marks but not so successfully. Even though the film is all over the map, I still recommend it and here’s why.

Barney’s Version is a film based on the novel by Mordecai Richler and follows a 30 year span of the life of Barney Panofsky (Paul Giamatti), a Canadian alcoholic and failed TV producer. It tells the strange story of his three wives going from his free spirit hippie first wife, Clara (Rachelle Lefevre) to his Jewish Canadian Princess, second wife, she has no name but goes by the 2nd Mrs. P (Minnie Driver), to his perfect partner, third wife, Miriam (Rosamund Pike). Really the strangeness comes from Barney’s meeting and pursuit of these women. Ostensibly, a romantic comedy, full of happenstance, luck and ambition; slowly the film turns darker and darker. Finding Barney the main suspect of a murder mystery to the later parts of his life dealing with Alzheimer's. Barney’s Version does not establish itself fully to continue down this road of tonal shifts and more importantly, it does not feel natural.

The big takeaway from this film are the performances, which are top-tier across the board. From Barney’s father Izzy (Dustin Hoffman), a loving and concerned father, really the only constant support in Barney’s life. But even his death, seems to go for this unnatural tonal shift, which completely bothered me, and continued to do so throughout the whole film. To Barney’s third wife, Miriam, played by the lovely Rosamund Pike. Altogether beautiful, strong and smart; she gives the film a much needed sense of emotion and weight. Barney is in fact a despicable character but seen through Miriam’s eyes, we see the good inside of him.

The greatest performance of all is, of course, Paul Giamatti as Barney. He plays this role with such gravitas and nuance, it’s hard to see why critics are not talking about his performance but would be more concerned with Mark Walhberg’s and Christian Bale’s in The Fighter. Paul Giamatti delivers a performance that will stay with you long after this mediocre movie will. His Barney is so crass, brutish and at times spiteful but at the same time, there is a hint of charm and poise, which is why we see so many characters gravitate towards him. Paul Giamatti elevate the film to a level it does not belong to.

Barney’s Version is a complete mess of a movie and it feels, as if, in better hands it could reach the level it was striving for. From director Richard J Lewis, whose last film was the “memorable” K-9: P.I., does not seem to have the wherewithal to handle a smart and sophisticated story like this. Which is a shame, it feels like there’s a better version of this movie somewhere out there, perhaps the one that lays with Barney Panofsky.

Grade: C

The Way Back

2011-01-10T17:30:00.002-05:00

The Oscar race is in full swing. Studios are pouring millions of dollars to advertise and showcase their films for members of The Academy. But an epic film like The Way Back seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle at the end of 2010. This saddens me because, honestly, The Way Back is one of the best films of 2010 and it seems like no other film critics, bloggers or pundits are talking about this magnificent film. The new film from Australian filmmaker, Peter Weir, is the most uplifting, compelling and joyous films I’ve seen in all of 2010.

The Way Back is based on the book “The Long Walk” by Slavomir Rawicz about the journey of escaped convicts from the wastelands of a Siberian prison camp during World War II to the non-Communist, India. Some of these men are war prisoners and some of them are the most ruthless men in all of Russia, but what ties them together is the human will to live and be free. Interestingly structured, The Way Back does not play like a typical prison break movie. It seems like Peter Weir is more interested in examining the relationship between men, self and nature.

The Way Back follows Janusz (Jim Sturgess), a Polish P.O.W. who is betrayed by his wife and sentenced to hard labor in a Siberian Gulags. There he meets Mr. Smith (Ed Harris) and together with a few other prisoners, including a menacing Russian gangster Valka (Colin Farrell) agree to plan and breakout of this icy hell. They plan for weeks, gathering food, trading for supplies and coordinating with the weather for the perfect time to hide their tracks, during a snow storm. As they escape from the prison camp, their goal is to survive in the harsh Russian wilderness and get to the Russian/Mongol border to a non-Communist country. During their hellish trek, they encounter a young country girl from Warsaw, Irena (Saoirse Ronan), who had her family and home torn apart by Communist Russia. She joins them in their search for freedom.

Interestingly, Peter Weir presents this horrendous escape in some the most beautiful cinematography and landscapes in any film in 2010. The setting and world created with Weir’s eye is so rich, lush and at times unbearable for this unlikely group. With a running time of 133 minutes, I felt this movie could have been longer because what is presented by Peter Weir is a feast. A large, textured and enticing cinematic feast for the eyes. I simply did not want this movie to end. The Way Back also offers top tier acting and performances from this very well assembled cast. Helmed by Ed Harris’ Mr. Smith, who brings a certain fatherliness to the group, marked with a hint of wisdom and sympathy. Only matched by Collin Farrell’s Valka, who gives this film some genuine comedy and levity that an audience is sure to enjoy. But heart break and pain is what this story strives for but ultimately reassured as their long walk to freedom is realized.

Spanning a journey of 4,000 miles by foot, The Way Back is simply one of the best movies of 2010. It’s a complete and uplifting journey that will warrant praise, recognition and pathos. The Way Back is a cinematic achievement and offers a keen look at a prison break movie without the tropes of the process of a prison break. A haunting tale of survival, endurance and the will of the human spirit.

Grade: A-

Exit Through The Gift Shop

2010-12-31T21:22:00.002-05:00

Banksy’s film about street art is probably the most thought provoking, widely entertaining and hilarious movie of 2010. It explores what the meaning of art, commerce and celebrity in the 21st century. What can possibly be perceived as a huge prank or a brilliant display of subversive art, this film tip-toes around fact and fiction almost to the point where it does not matter if it is or not. And to me, this is my #1 movie of 2010, without question.

This documentary follows Frenchman Thierry Guetta, a Los Angeles retailer hipster who has an addiction to his video camera and how far he can push his voyeuristic tendencies. We are introduced to him and his world through a camera lens in a very clever way, simply by showing him shooting everything and anything. He gets a fascination with a budding subculture revolution during the early 2000s, street art. This explores a few things including what street art has become and what it is turning into, the relationship between art and money, Banksy himself and how Thierry Guetta is involved with all three. This film balances each element so well without leaving the audience empty. Each section and bit of this film feels so rich and well thought out and masterfully constructed as it redefines what you can do with the documentary format while having fun.

This film successfully shows an insider’s view of two worlds, the world of street art and the world of art collectors, and how these worlds co-exist when, really, they are completely different. What is art? What is graffiti? In Exit Through The Gift Shop these questions are not really answered, but really it shows how these questions interact with each other. It says, what does it matter, just try to sell it.

This DVD set is worthy of any cinephile or hipster’s collection, not only for the content but the extras. I’m not talking about the DVD extras which are pretty good and include deleted scenes, a featurette called “B Movie” a short film about the career of Banksy and Thierry Guetta’s film about street art, “Life Remote Control The Movie”. And one of which, a feature called “A Star Is Born - MBW at Cans Festival” which involves Banksy inviting 40 well known street artist and Mr. Brainwash to do an art show in central London. This feature gives a certain “clue” to the key of Exit Through The Gift Shop’s structure and meaning. It’s very fun! But the goodies that come with the DVD packaging is the reason why it sticks out. It comes with two “limited edition” pieces of art from Banksy and Mr. Brainwash, two stickers and a pair of non-3D glasses with the inscription “Special 2D viewing glasses. For maximum viewing pleasure simply put on glasses, start DVD and look out the window.”

Exit Through The Gift Shop is endlessly conversational and endlessly re-watchable. It’s so smart, fun and clever it deserves to be appreciated like any piece of art. Worth watching!

Grade: A+

The Iron Giant

2010-12-24T00:28:00.002-05:00

As an adult, it’s not often that I feel a great sense of child-like wonderment when I go to the theater. But lucky for me, the Film Forum is screening Brad Bird’s first feature film, The Iron Giant. This film serves all parts of me that wants to go back to my childhood.

The story of a boy who is an outcast among his peers who meets an unlikely friend in a gigantic mechanic robot from outer space is was bright, clever and heartfelt as it was in 1999. Taking place in a small American coastal town appeals to adults as much as children. Full of interesting commentaries on military regimes, twisted patriotic pride and the constant fear of one’s enemy is so convincing on the screen that parts of me hopes no one would ever want to remake a live action version of this film. It’s perfect just as it is.

Seeing where Brad Bird started off with his first film is simply amazing. Now we know him as a member of the dynamic Pixar group. Film like The Incredibles and Ratatouille are so iconic and shaped what animation is and can do in the past decade. But seeing where it all stemmed from was an absolute pleasure, especially on the big screen. Today most animated film are computer generated or in 3D, so it’s very refreshing to see hand drawn, non-3D animation on the screen. With wonderful voice performances from Harry Connick Jr and Vin Diesel are just as strong as they ever were. Diesel gives the iron giant himself a sense of humanity and feeling, making this robotic creature so real and touching, I’d say more so than Pixar’s Wall-E.

The Iron Giant is so full of imagination, wonder and joy. Just to see a budding friendship grow from two unlikely beings is so special and touching. The Iron Giant is one not to be missed during this very limited engagement. It is a must see for children and adult of all ages. It’s one of those rare animated films that appeal to everyone, and surprisingly not from a studio like Disney, Pixar or even DreamWorks. A must see!

Grade: A

The Iron Giant will be playing at the Film Forum in New York City From December 22nd through the 28th.

True Grit

2010-12-21T11:46:00.002-05:00

The Coen Brothers never disappoint. Even in their failures (The Lady Killers, Intolerable Cruelty and Burn After Reading) are part in tone are interesting to the very least. All of their films are full of well fleshed out characters, witty dialogue and a pension for punishment and consequences. In their new film, True Grit, it is no different. It’s just as wonderful, sharp and intriguing as any of their past work and is a worthy entry into as well.

It’s hard to say, but sometimes an audience may take their work for granted. I know sometimes I do. Statements like “Was it as good as No Country For Old Men?” or “Nothing is better than Miller’s Crossing!” maybe unfair but for True Grit follows most of, if not all, the Coen Brothers themes of greed in a cruel world and how people deal with money is no different then what was explored in The Hudsucker Proxy, Barton Fink or A Serious Man. In True Grit it’s the old American western.

True Grit is the story of 14 year-old Mattie Ross (newcomer Hailey Steinfeld) and her hard nose pursuit of her father’s killer, Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). We are introduced to Mattie through her interactions with an undertaker and and soon after a horse stable owner. Using her sharp wit and high intelligence, Mattie makes short work of getting what she wants from these men. Treated as very comical moments, these scenes tell us everything we need to know about her character. She’s smarter than you! Smart enough to know that she doesn’t have the cunning and brute force to find her father’s killer. Mattie meets and hires Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to make short work of her dilemma. As she puts it, “a man with true grit”.

Not long after hiring Rooster as her bounty hunter, Texas Ranger LaBeouf (Matt Damon) is on the trail of this killer, for a separate crime all together, as well. The dynamic of both Jeff Bridges going toe to toe with Matt Damon is just simply delightful and extremely entertaining. Almost at different ends of the spectrum of bounty hunter, this pair is so lush and divine to watch. Full of witty banter and absurd situations, one of which involving a certain punishment of a little girl, is just so hilarious. But what is really on showcase are the words from the Coen Brothers.

The Coen Brothers consistently breathe life into all their characters through facial cues and short, introspective dialogue. Again, this is something to be taken for granted as the Coen Brothers are also so prolific in filmmaking. So much is said about their characters through just one simple sentence that most writers can’t do with an entire film. It is something I took out of the film the most was the sincerely, pathos and ambition of the characters in True Grit.

But at the end of the day, True Grit is a highly entertaining and thoroughly engaging film of 2010. I don’t know why I was so surprised, the Coen Brothers seem to do this every year and at the same time bring something new to the landscape of cinema, in general. All in all, True Grit is a western and does not shy away from this very violent tag. With scenes that seem so random and well executed, True Grit shows that sometimes life, on the screen, can be just full of happenstance and coincidence as life off the screen.

Grade: A-

My Top 10 Movies of 2010

2010-12-16T22:07:00.005-05:00

10. Lena Dunham's Tiny Furniture

Lena Dunham’s second feature was a breath of fresh air for me. The poignant and cleverly written film brings so much to independent cinema. Always smart, funny and never obnoxious, Tiny Furniture is a very exciting film from a new exciting voice. A touching film about being lost after graduating college. It’s like The Graduate for a new generation.

09. Matt Reeves' Let Me In

A quiet and slow horror film that elevates the genre to high art. Matt Reeves’ third film in 14 years is thrilling, suspenseful and more horrific than the original Swedish film. It’s very rare that a remake exceeds its predecessor, this is one of them.

08. Olivier Assayas' Carlos || Peter Weir's The Way Back (tie)

This is a bit of a cheat but I felt these films were warranted, somehow married in my mind.

Carlos - Olivier Assayas shows that he can make an epic picture with an extremely wide scoop but at the same time give it as much intimacy as most of his past work. Edgar Ramirez is brilliant as the terrorist known as The Jackal/Carlos.

The Way Back - Peter Weir’s latest proves a prison break movie doesn’t have to be about the process of the prison break. Far more interesting is this story of survival, commitment and war. With a running time of 133 minutes, Weir delivers a feast of cinema.

07. Gaspar Noé Enter The Void

This film has an unfair “controversial” tag attached to it when, to me, it successfully showcases the cycle of life on the screen. This is a film of ideas, ideas that are hard to wrap your head around. Gaspar Noé's camera work so so fluid, never excessive and effectively is thought provoking as its premise. Plus the opening title sequence alone is worth the price of admission.

06. Stephen Frears' Tamara Drewe

Stephen Frears’ comedy about life on the English countryside is endlessly funny, sexy and full of happenstance. With unforgettable characters dealing with the tragedy and absurdity of life and the idea of good and bad actions are often left unrewarded or unpunished.

05. Christopher Nolan's Inception

One of the very rare Hollywood blockbusters that convey an originality in execution and style. Christopher Nolan creates a dream world where the stakes are high and thrilling and does so with an art house sensibility and accessibility that everyone can enjoy.

04. Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

Edgar Wright does it again! This time he takes the genres of comic books, video games and movies and masterfully combines them into something I have never seen. He artfully balances characters, fun and fan service. The editing alone is reason enough to watch this movie.

03. David Fincher's The Social Network

It’s a rare case when a writer overshadows its director or film. Aaron Sorkin takes is signature rapid fire dialogue and infuses it with David Fincher’s cinematic eye to create a great film about loneliness in the digital age. Who would’ve thought a film about Facebook would be so compelling?

02. Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan

Darren Aronofsky’s masterpiece about a ballerina’s dissent into madness. Cinematically thrilling and beautiful, Black Swan isn’t afraid to push its characters and its audience into a frantic frenzy. Very bold and daring, it’s an interesting look into an obsession with perfection.

01. Banky's Exit Through The Gift Shop

Banky’s film about street art says more about art and commerce (I mean, c’mon, it’s in the title of the movie) than any other film I’ve seen all year. Every time I watch this movie, I find something new to add to this wonderful puzzle about truth and beauty. It tip-toes around fact and fiction, it refines, recreates and restructures the documentary format throughout the duration of the film. Endlessly conversational!

HONORABLE MENTION:

Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island
Lee Unkrich's Toy Story 3
Ben Affleck's The Town
Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman's Catfish
Danny Boyle's 127 Hours
Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonme Who Could Recall His Past Lives
Brillante Mendoza's Lola
Dean DeBlois & Chris Sanders' How To Train Your Dragon
David Michôd's Animal Kingdom
Adam Green's Frozen
Joel & Ethan Coen True Grit
Sylvain Chromet and Jacques Tati's The Illusionist

The Illusionist

2010-12-16T17:41:00.002-05:00

Anyone that knows me, knows I’m a huge Jacques Tati fan. There’s something about his filmmaking that evokes a sense of wonderment inside of me as an adult. No, I’m not talking about childhood nostalgia, I’m speaking more of the ability to gasp in awe and think to myself, “I didn’t think we could do stuff like that”. His timing, his curiocity and his ambitious visions should not be taken lightly or even for granted. I feel in the days of Michael Bay and Zack Snyder, film geeks and average moviegoers don’t seem to have a place or reverence for such an exquisite and exacting filmmaker and artist like Jacques Tati. But sadly, Jacques Tati has been dead since 1982 so any hope of a new film from this master of cinema were all but gone until animator Sylvain Chomet (Triplets of Belleville) unearthed a script from Tati and adapted that in his new film, The Illusionist.

The Illusionist is the story of a traveling magician going from town to town to perform his charming act to extremely small audiences. The title role of the illusionist has no name but one can easily be seen as an inspired by Jacques Tati’s iconic character, Monsieur Hulot, complete with his mannerisms, poise and demeanor. But when the illusionist meets a little girl named Alice, their lives are forever changed by each other’s company. Being somewhat this girl’s surrogate father is a touching and loving gesture. At times, Alice takes the illusionist love for granted as many people do as he is a truly dying breed of showman.

Going from town to town and performing comes with the cost of rejection and no pay so the illusionist has to do odd jobs around town to make ends meet. One of which involves a gag of the illusionist working as a parking attendant. One thing that I really find interesting about Tati’s work is his constant comment on technology and people transitioning from an old way of life to a new one. As one of the better gags that involve the illusionist waiting to go on stage to perform is act but is continuously stalled by the rock n’ roll band performing for numerous screaming teenyboppers.

So much of this film is so heartfelt with a poignancy that will absolutely have you in tears. When Chomet and Tati being the illusionist to a point in his life where has to decide to keep going or not. This speaks volumes to the changing landscape of craftsmen and artisans whose trade is slowing dying off. This is a remarkable film that will have you laughing, crying and thinking about your place in this world. Not bad for a film completely void of words but rather told with just glances and facial expressions. The Illusionist is truly magical!

Grade: A-

Sofia Coppola's Somewhere

2010-12-16T14:37:00.004-05:00

The journey of life is to find some sort of purpose, to either build a home, write a piece of music or just to simply build a life and become a parent. In the new film from Sofia Coppola, "Somewhere", she sets off to find purpose for her characters. Set almost entirely in the hallways, rooms and lobbies of the legendary Chateau Mormont in Hollywood, Sofia Coppola figures out the meaning of existence of the life of a superstar actor Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) and how exactly is 11 year old daughter, Cleo (Elle Fanning) fits into it.

The film is like a slow drink of whiskey, often sharp but goes down slowly. Most of Sofia Coppola’s films follow this fashion, not so much really about plot or even character, she seems more interested with mood than anything else. The film opens with Johnny Marco in his stylish black Ferrari circling a racetrack at breakneck speed over and over again. As the car speeds past the camera, we as the audience are left to slowly think about this image. Where is it going and why? Of course the car is going nowhere. As the car stops, Johnny Marco gets out of the car and looks around as if to warn the audience, I am here and I don't know where "here" is, then the film cuts to the title card, "Somewhere".

We are brought into the world of Johnny Marco, filled with impromptu parties that consist of alcohol, pills and rather loose women. The following scene involves Johnny Marco drunkenly falling down a flight of stairs, breaking his forearm as his brother Sammy (Chris Pontius), while surrounded my beautiful women, laughs on. "Somewhere" captures how mundane it is to have nothing to do even though you are rich, famous and young. Conflicted on my thoughts about the subject matter, why am I supposed to care. Would it be better if this was an introspective film about poor people? Shot interestingly, the character’s struggles to find something to do is easily short sighted but Coppola brings an interesting eye to this story. It strips down these worldly perceptions and things and boils it down to simply being about humanity.

Most everything changes when Johnny Marco’s daughter, Cleo, enters the picture. Johnny Marco’s transition between hapless douche bag to loving father is seamless. Suddenly there is life in Johnny Marco, always choosing his daughter above all else. Giving Johnny Marco this human quality makes his character more accessible and sympathetic. Their relationship through Sofia Coppola’s camera is simply too exhilarating to watch. A sweet smile from Elle during an Italian award show and an underwater tea party says so much about this film and general joy between a father and daughter. This is something you might find in a Yasujiro Ozu’s "Late Spring" or Alain Resnais’ "Last Year At Marienbad", Sofia Coppola takes these influences and give them a hip and American sensibility by infusing them with an American Apparel aesthetic and the music of The Strokes.

By the end of the film, the destination is just as fuzzy as when it started but to me, it gives it a sweet kiss that only Sofia Coppola can deliver in modern American Cinema. "Somewhere" is not for everyone but if you do enjoy small, mood driven films then I highly recommend this movie. Sofia Coppola won the Golden Lion Award at this year’s Venice Film Festival to much controversy. The critical response to this film was very mixed. This film is more about ideas and exploration and between those things we are left somewhere. A rather poignant title to this film.

Grade: B+

Tron: Legacy

2010-12-16T12:28:00.004-05:00

It’s been a long time since 1982 when the first Tron movie arrived in theaters. Back then using a computer to make a movie was a distant thought wherein now they are used all the time on practically every movie in one way or another. There has been much written, speculated and anticipated since the announcement of a sequel to Tron. Disney has been bringing Tron to San Diego Comic Con for the past 3 years to generate buzz and excitement for this 28 year old property. Does Tron: Legacy live up to the hype and even what the title suggest, legacy, of its inventive predecessor? Well, yes and no. I know that sounds like a wishy-washy answer but it’s going to have to do for now. But in saying that, Tron: Legacy is a terrible movie.

Tron: Legacy starts off with the blatant product placement advertisement with posters and toys of the original Tron. Something you might see in 1987’s The Wizard that displayed Nintendo as if it were a secondary character. From this moment all I’m thinking is this movie is for kids. A young Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) is telling his son, Sam, stories of his adventures in “the grid”. Then spends the next 10 minutes or so, in a somewhat clever and forgivable exposition alert, back story on the whereabouts of Kevin Flynn who has been missing for 21 years, done in the manner of a TV news report. We jump 21 years later, Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) is a reckless, self-righteous young man who feels his father’s company has turned to greed and not really interested in the betterment of man. In a convenient turn, Alan Bradley AKA Tron (Bruce Boxleitner), Kevin’s old friend, turns up to visit Sam telling him he received a message from his father. Sam goes to Flynn’s Arcade and finds his father’s old work space and somehow gets sucked into the world of the grid.

I generally like to stay positive when I start a review, even for terrible movies like Tron: Legacy, I would like to do the same. Visually speaking, Tron: Legacy is simply breathtaking. The world created inside of this computer world looks astounding and is definitely worth admission. But looks can be deceiving. The world of Tron: Legacy doesn’t seem to be working with any rules in place to make a world believable or livable. Starting off by taking our protagonist (I use that term ever so loosely) to “games” is a good call back to the original but wherein it worked in that movie, it does not necessarily work in this one. In the first movie, the world of Tron lived in a video game world so having competitions between programs was a good fit. That film started off with Kevin Flynn mastering video games. In Tron: Legacy, video games seem to be an afterthought. Never establishing anything video game related except going to an arcade, starting an audience to this gladiator-like spectacle called “games” seems fool hearted and base. Filled with dull, soulless action set pieces that convey no thrills, no joy and no excitement. I never thought a light cycle race could be so mundane, more like the painful pod racing scene in Star Wars: Episode 1 The Phantom Menace than the original Tron.

But when the film kicks into the story, about an hour into the movie, we get a glimpse of CLU (a CGI young Jeff Bridges) who has plans to go to the real world and destroy all that is imperfect. How a computer program can threaten mankind is beyond me and evidently to the filmmakers, this point is sort of glossed over in lieu of more “games”. Come to think of it, any time the movie got too story heavy (IE any story at all) the filmmakers throw in more joyless action sequences or “games”. Wasn’t that what the Romans did to keep its citizens distracted from the tyranny of their regimes? Full of character turns that come out of nowhere (“I fight for the users”) and nonsensical plot devices, Tron: Legacy doesn’t seem to care about the most simple aspects of storytelling... having a story to tell.

Complete with a lifeless lead in Garrett Hedlund whose performance is so stilted and wooden, it was as if he was a program in this computer world and with as much personality of one. And the forced love interest with Quorra (I’m a boy and you’re a girl, why not? - Olivia Wilde) was actually a highlight of the film. She had more spunk and charm as a computer program as our protagonist did as a user. With poor Jeff Bridges who does what he can to inject life into this dead movie, calling back to his iconic role as “the dude” in The Big Lebowski rather than his role as Kevin Flynn in, I don’t know, maybe... Tron?

Albeit, the highlight of the film is the magnificent score by Daft Punk and really, all the emotion (or lack thereof) of the movie comes from their score rather than their score heightening the emotion. Even that feels wasted in this terrible movie. I encourage anyone reading this review to buy the score instead of seeing the movie. Hell, it would be cheaper and more rewarding to do so. But alas, even Daft Punk’s score or cameo could save this beautiful mess.

Lately I’ve been reading Nathan Rabin’s “My Year In Flops” and James Robert Parish’s “Fiasco: A History of Hollywood’s Iconic Flops” (which I highly recommend) and as much as I would like to see Tron: Legacy in revisions or new editions of these books, sadly, it will not happen. This movie WILL make money. It may even make back it’s $200 million budget making this movie a success. No matter what I write or what film critics might say, this movie is critic proof. The hype generator has started far too soon for this movie not to be a financial success. I guess this is something we all have to live with. After a year that has brought us Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland and The Last Airbender, Tron: Legacy seems to be the next film with a low critical response but an extremely high box office return.

Some might say, “Rudie, aren’t you too harsh on Tron: Legacy? After all it is just a mindless action flick.” I would argue the mindless part as it not being so much as mindless as mind numbing and dulling and the action part as it being more thrill-less and limp. After all, there are so many better options at your local cinemaplex. If you want action, watch The Town. If you want thrills, watch Black Swan. If you want to see a movie from an established franchise, watch Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 1. If you want to see a good movie with Jeff Bridges, watch True Grit. If you want a family movie, watch Megamind or Tangled. There are so many better options out there. Tron: Legacy is not one of them and just simply put, it’s terrible.

Grade: D+

Community: Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas

2010-12-10T15:37:00.003-05:00

It seems like NBC’s quasi-hit TV show, Community, has done it again. Airing amazingly clever and funny episodes to very little fanfare. In the episode entitled “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas”, Abed has re-imagined as the gang as stop-motion animation clay figurines. It not only serves as a tribute to classic Rankin/Bass Productions of "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "The Little Drummer Boy" but also as another episode stepping into Abed’s psyche and character. Not often do comedies on major networks reach such heights, a move might be seen as too serious or as a “very special episode of...”, and considering the episode was actually funny, it stands to be one of the best episode of season 2 (so far).

In the episode, Abed is trying to find the true meaning of Christmas, all through the backdrop of stop-motion clay animation. The only caveat is Abed is the only one that sees this fantastical world. The group is concerned that he is loosing his grip (even more so) on reality that they bring him to the school’s psychiatrist. Giving into Abed indulgences, the group “goes along” with him through this rather hysterical journey. More so, Abed’s imagination turns his friends into “misfits” from the island of unwanted toys from the TV Special, "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer", from Jeff turning into a greasy hipster jack-n-the-box to Britta turning into a disco-dancing robot. As much as this episode was funny, it was just as thoughtful and poignant.

The episode seemed to be central to Abed’s family dynamic, as he tries to cope with his mother starting a new family with new Christmas traditions, which of which don’t contain him. As his friends help him discover the true meaning of Christmas, despite the efforts of the school’s psychiatrist, whom Abed turned into an evil Christmas wizard, as he tries to make Abed confront his scarred psyche. But in the end, the group dynamic has showed Abed the real meaning of Christmas. SPOILER ALERT: The meaning of Christmas is that Christmas has meaning (get it?). Huddled around a TV as a group has showed Abed that he has a new family with new traditions, making this “a very special episode” of Community.

The Fighter

2010-12-09T19:58:00.004-05:00

Sometimes the things that nurture and support you, are the same things that keep you down. Whether it be in your personal or professional life, these things serve to be a part of you. In the new film by David O. Russell, these things fester and loom as if it were slowly stalking you, ready at any moment to kill you. And trust me, there were times during this movie when I wish it did.

The Fighter is a “based on a true story” film that surrounds the unlikely comeback of an aged boxer, Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) and his drug addicted trainer, his brother Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale). And really, The Fighter does successfully serve as an “against all odds” sports movie and a compelling family drama. In Mickey’s family, the connection of family and boxing is a strong one. His brother is his trainer, his mother is his manager and his many sisters are his cheerleaders. But coming from a broken, dysfunctional family is just another average day for Mickey. But they all want what’s best for him, to someday win the world championship. But it won’t be easy, no matter how hard the film wants to let you believe it is. After all, Mickey is 31 years-old and that door is slowly closing behind him. He only has one chance to win it all.

Full of cliches and broad drama, The Fighter is just too standard of a film to get me excited. Maybe that’s its appeal or maybe that’s its burden. The Fighter feels like there’s a better movie in it but David O. Russell seems to want to cater to a wider audience (an audience that didn’t want I Heart Huckabees or Three Kings). Visually uninteresting and dramatically the best of The Lifetime Channel, The Fighter tries to out play its audience but ends up pandering to it. Even the element of Mickey’s inspirational love interest, Charlene (Amy Adams) seems to serve only as a check marks in a long list of “what it takes” to win an award in this award season of movies.

The problem isn’t that The Fighter is a bad movie, the problem is that it’s simply a mediocre one. Nothing in it is horribly bad or overly good. It just seems too standard to get excited about. Sure Christian Bale’s performance is wonderful as Mickey’s crack addicted brother, Dickey. But what’s interesting about him? He overcomes his addict and once he does he never struggles with it. He conquers his demons in a far too convenient manner, deciding to eat a "welcome back" cake instead of smoking crack with his old friends. And this is our resolution to addiction? Sure, the boxing sequences are well shot. David O. Russell goes for a certain grainy, videotape technique and displays them as if we were watching the fights on HBO. But why not take it one step further and shoot the whole movie this way. Give it a HBO documentary feel circa 1993. It would possibly make Christian Bale and Melissa Leo’s (Mickey’s mother, Alice, who also delivers a great performance) performances an added level of realism. But that would also alienate a broad audience it’s trying to appeal to.

You really can’t blame the story though because it is “based on a true story”. There’s only so much you can do with the source material. My question is why should we care? As intriguing as real life is, why are these type of films so glossy and convenient? I don’t know if any one’s life is that glossy or slick or simply, that's overly convenient. Although Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours, which is “based on a true story” gives far more interesting ideas on the human spirit and adversity. Maybe you should see that movie instead. That movie will surely be a “knock out”, unlike The Fighter which simply delivers a “draw”.

Grade: C+

Black Swan

2010-11-29T17:28:00.003-05:00

Much of what we see in art or performance art is the expression of one’s soul. But in such a display, to make it look effortless and easy is part of the charm and exhilaration of the piece. Behind this ease is countless hours spent perfecting every piece, movement and nuance of the artform. This is why it looks so easy. This obsession with perfection is something every artist struggles with, whether or not they achieve it is another story. When something comes easy to someone, it’s called talent and when talent comes easy to the talented, it’s called genius. In Darren Aronofsky’s latest film, Black Swan, is the latter. From the opening shot of this film, we get just a glimpse into the beauty, elegance and horror of the world of the competitive world of the New York City Ballet company.

Black Swan is the story of Nina (Natalie Portman), an ambitious young ballerina in a New York City company. She is eager to get the lead role of the swan queen in her company’s season opening performance of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. Nina’s dancing style and personality is exact, pointed and reveals a certain innocence and vulnerability which makes her perfect for one half of this role, the white swan. What Nina struggles with is the twin role of the swan queen, the black swan. Flirtatious, seductive and strong; Nina’s dancing style or personality doesn’t attribute these qualities as her rather sleazy director, Thomas (Vincent Cassell) keeps pointing out and continues to motivate her into being. In contrast, Nina’s direct rival, Lily (Mila Kunis) would be perfect for the black swan and tries to usurp Nina at every pass.

After long hours of practicing and obsessing with the role, Nina’s mind and body begins to take a graphic toll on her. Overworked and exhausted, she begins to have visions of her doppelgänger following her. Is Nina starting to go crazy or is this role too much for her? As much pressure Nina puts on herself, her mother Erica (Barbara Hershey) passive aggressively taunts Nina with notions of perfection and her own failed career as a ballerina.

Black Swan is a haunting vision of obsession and how the desire of perfection can lead to your own undoing. Darren Aronofsky seems to gravitate to film projects with entirely too human protagonist with a desire to make their dreams come true at almost any cost. Whether that be Max’s madness with understanding the numerical sequence in Pi, Harry and Sara Goldfarb’s craving for a happier life through disillusion and drugs in Requiem For A Dream or Randy "The Ram" Robinson’s hunger for his past glory and his daughter’s love in The Wrestler. So the themes are consistent with Darren Aronofsky which makes him an extremely exciting auteur filmmaker working today.

Wonderfully shot by longtime collaborator, Matthew Libatique, the camera work is just as effortless as Nina’s dancing. The camera is always following her creating this focus driven world that Nina creates and adds a bit a suspense which speaks highly of its subjects. The consistent motif of mirrors and mirror images reflects the mysteriousness of the film itself and Nina’s doppelgänger and creates an astounding mise en scène. It appears to be a glimpse into this strange world of competitive ballet. The dance sequences are absolutely mesmerizing, completely with this “behind the scenes” feel that most wouldn’t be privied to and adds to the pure shock of what happens behind closed doors and after hours.

At the very least, Black Swan is a platform for the beautiful Natalie Portman. Her performance as Nina will garner well deserved awards during this awards season. As Nina, Natalie Portman exudes tragedy, sorrow and beauty. There is a certain grace that comes along with Natalie Portman which makes her performance exquisite. Achieving what most actors can’t deliver is the transcendence of fiction into emotional truth. This is the very definition of art. This is illustrated with every piece of Natalie Portman’s performance. It is written clearly on her face, in her movements and in her eyes. This is where the nuance and her motivation lies, a performance so subtle that if you don’t pay attention, you could miss it. And when it needs to be broad, it’s huge and when it needs to be subtle, it’s small. Natalie Portman is absolutely beautiful as Nina pirouettes and prances across the screen and in the memories of her audience. She is lost in these wonderful movement’s as she seduces us.

Darren Aronofsky does something very interesting with tone. Not as much as a drama about ballerina rivals, more clearly deep in the realm of horror. Complete with well used jump scares, horrific body manipulation and “watch behind your fingers” moments from the likes of David Cronenberg, John Carpenter or Dario Argento. But to infuse these horror tropes with tones of something that is entirely lyrically beautiful is achieved with such brilliance, it appears to be so effortless that from the likes of Terrence Malick, Robert Altman or Stanley Kubrick. At times, Darren Aronofsky appears to borrow from Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue. Both films have like elements and a desire for perfection, all done with a certain air. Even their protagonist are linked by name (Mima and Nina) and profession (pop star and ballerina). Darren Aronofsky has created something beautiful and awe inspiring.

This is clearly the best film of 2010 and is an extremely strong effort from Darren Aronofsky. This is a great film to close out 2010, of what can be considered a disappointing year in movies. But with other such strong efforts from filmmakers like David Fincher, Edgar Wright and Christopher Nolan; going through the muck and muddiness of 2010 almost makes it worth it. Since Darren Aronofsky’s first film in 1998, Pi, he has been striving for such perfection, nuance and pathos. I can easily say that Black Swan is a work of genius, this is Darren Aronofsky’s masterpiece. Matching the tones and sentiment of our protagonist and a world and tension that crescendos to a magnificent finale. This is a must see! Black Swan mirrors everything in Nina’s ideal final line of film, “it was perfect”.

Grade: A+

Tangled

2010-11-25T13:31:00.002-05:00

The 50th animated film from Disney comes with a bit a pedigree and it also has a lot to live up to. First off, 50 is a milestone number and event. Secondly, with the past few releases from the studio, there’s a certain return to form in animation. And lastly, how does it “fit in” with other Disney animated films like Snow White, The Little Mermaid and Beauty and The Beast. Starting in 2008 with Bolt and followed up with last year’s The Princess and The Frog, Disney has shown that they can make quality animated features away from Pixar. In Tangled, Disney goes back to fairy tales in this adaptation of Rapunzel. An really, it feels more like a hearkening back to even the classic tale of Disney’s Beauty and The Beast in tone.

Like most traditional Disney animated features, Tangled starts off with an engaging prologue and uses that prologue to build the world of Rapunzel. The story of a magical sunflower that restores your life force, a grand kingdom with a sullen king and queen and a charming bandit looking for his own fortune, these elements built to entertain an audience of any age. This makes for a strong sense of fairy tale and storytelling.

Rapunzel (Mandy Moore) has magical, glowing hair which she obtained from a special sunflower from a magical drop of a pure sunbeam. Kidnapped as a baby by Mother Gothel (Donna Murphy), Rapunzel is raised to believe she is her mother and is confined to a hidden tower and kept as a secret. Until one day she is visited by a bandit, Flynn Rider (Zachary Levi) looking for refuge from the law. Their reluctant meeting soon turns into eventual love. The story is conventional but how it is told is not. Done with dizzying songs, heroic, swash buckling adventure and a sincerity, moving love story, Tangled is a delight.

Interestingly, Donna Murphy’s Mother Gothel’s performance is simply unforgettable. The most exciting and memorable Disney animated features usually involve horrific and truly evil villains. From the evil queen in Snow White to Scar in the Lion King, Mother Gothel is the most passive aggressive of any Disney villain. She uses psychological devices to keep our protagonist down. Mostly played as an overprotective and smothering figure, it feels more like how a parent would react to their child going away to college. This is a haunting trait and can be shown in the song “Mother Knows Best”.

Seemingly though, Tangled is a musical and is best severed as one. The songs are memorable and that of even the best musicals on Broadway. In saying that, I can easily see Disney doing a live action version of Tangled on the stage. If only they can figure out the logistics of Rapunzel’s long, flowing golden hair. With music by Alan Menken (Newsies, Aladdin and Enchanted), the Disney stamp is sealed and ready for enjoyment.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Tangled very much. Once the film started, there was a huge smile on my face that didn’t disappear until the closing credits rolled. An extremely enjoyable film for an audience of all ages. And really, isn’t that what you want out of a Disney animated film. Fun, excitement and a certain sincerity that belongs to the ages. Filled with beautiful moving animation and memorable classic songs and storytelling.

Grade: B+

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 1

2010-11-19T13:54:00.001-05:00

I’ve spent this past week catching up with the Harry Potter films. I thought it best to go in with a fresh take with the characters and the story. I’m sure much of the Internet felt that same way, judging from my twitter feed (@Rudie_Obias). There is a great sense of tone with all the film and each one brings something to the table. Whether that be pure wonderment with the first film, Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Store or if that be dabbling with sexual flirtations in the sixth film, Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince. Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 is no different at times feeling like a horror film wrapped into a film like the ones by Mike Leigh. But what is the stand alone tone of the film? To me, it offers a great sense of disappointment.

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 is the seventh film in the series and the first part screen adaptation of the seventh and final book. And in fact, feels like the first half of a movie rather than a stand alone film. So what should be my approach to covering this film? I’ve never read a single book in the widely popular series but I’ve seen all the movies to date. Should I go from an angle of being 100% objective? Well, at this point in the series it’s hard to be objective. You’re going to go in knowing everything about the rest of movies. I’m not sure how this film will interest anyone who hasn’t seen any of these films. So I guess my angle will be of one as the film critic. Does Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 work as a movie?

Director David Yates does do a good job with the overall tone of the film. It has this sense of horror mixed in with a somber, reflective mindset. In the story, Harry Potter is the most wanted person in the wizard world after the death of Dumbledore. The Ministry of Magic is under leadership and the wizard world is threatening to engulf and destroy the muggle world. Our heroes have to leave everything behind to hide Harry Potter and find and kill The Dark Lord, Voldemort. Most of the movie is spent with our heroes on this camping journey learning to discover what the deathly hallows are.

This is the third film David Yates has directed in the series and he has one more, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 2, and this film really does feel like more of the “Part 1” than The Deathly Hallows. With no emotional or narrative arch, what can be taken away from Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 outside of disappointment. The climax of the film comes and goes and continues on. The way the film ends feels like there should be a next scene rather than a cliffhanger. I know this film is the first part of a two part film but it just feels cheap. Why separate the film into two parts if not to make more money from the Harry Potter franchise? The overall film does not feel economic in the least. It feels more like catering to being overly faithful to the final book rather than wanting to be more cinematic.

But overall, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 isn’t a complete bust. There are numerous exciting and horrifying scenes that will please the fan base and the general movie going public. Everything our heroes have learned at Hogwarts is built in the moments and scenes in this film. Tonally, Harry Potter seems more reflective and poignant in The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 than any other film. This shown in the beautiful, well shot, picturesque settings of the British countryside. What I did enjoy in this film was the small character moments much in tune to a Mike Leigh film.

Lastly, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 fails to stand alone like the other films that precede it. Overly faithful to the source material and unsatisfying as a movie. Again, I haven’t read a single Harry Potter book but even I felt the film version to be an overly faithful adaptation and at the 146 minute running time, the promise of “Part 2” seems contentious and tedious to me.

Grade: C+

127 Hours

2010-11-04T20:42:00.003-04:00

How badly do you want to live? How much is your life worth to you? Is the human will strong enough to get you out of any horrific situation? These are some of the question asked in the new film by Danny Boyle (Trainspotting and Sunshine), 127 Hours based on Aron Ralston's book, "Between a Rock and a Hard Place".

127 Hours is about the real life situation of canyoneer, Aron Ralston (James Franco) who was trapped in a canyon, who’s right arm was pinned under a boulder for, you guessed it, 127 hours. The journey of a man coming to terms with his life’s decisions and ultimately coming to accept the fact that he might have to cut off his arm to free himself from certain tragedy. The premise is simple enough but what is conveyed in this film is far from simple.

The film opens with a fast pace commute of people all over the world from New York to Tokyo along side Soccer matches to show the joy of life. This follows along with Ralston as he packs for his weekend excursion into the unforgiving wilderness of the canyons of Utah. On his adventures, he meets two lost hikers Megan and Kristi (Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara). Ralston uses his charms to seduce the hikers into having an adventure together. This done in an exciting sequence involving a canyon and a small pool of water. Once they part ways, an accident with a boulder has Ralston trapped. This has got to be one of the longest opening title sequences I have ever seen. Highly effective to get an audience in the right mind set of what’s to come.

A majority of the film is spent in this claustrophobic canyon with Ralston. For the most part, it works. James Franco is a strong lead, playing an ultra fun, adrenaline junkie, in Aron Ralston. We as an audience feels every moment with his character. The agony of fear and the small pleasures of a bit of sunlight during a cold day is portrayed brilliantly by James Franco. At times funny and always sympathetic, James Franco is extremely convincing as a man on the brink of madness, engulfed with the fear of death and desperate for food and water.

But what I feel is as problematic about the picture is at times it feels like a commercial in terms of style and in product placement for brands like Sony and Gatorade. These moments felt obnoxious and took me out of the film and I feel overall hurt my viewing of it. It would seem forgivable but this occurrence happens time and time again. I’m not sure if Danny Boyle had a deal with these companies but their presence could be felt.

What is truly remarkable about this film is the final third when Ralston eventually cuts his arm off. I would assume that this isn’t a spoiler because it does happen in real life, a best selling book was written about this ordeal and it is teased in the trailer. But for those, spoiler free enthusiast, why are you even reading a review about this movie. Danny Boyle constructs these scene so masterfully that as a member of the audience you feel every bit of visceral agony as displayed on the screen. Even if you avert your eyes from this horrific action, you are still left with the sound design which makes this even more gut wrenching and highly effective. During my screening, someone had to excuse themselves from the screening room never to be seen again (by the audience).

Overall though, this film is classic Danny Boyle. A film full of a hyper reality matched with hyper editing to get you into the proper mindset of its characters. Interesting point-of-view shots of inanimate objects used by human beings and well conceived sequences and characters. The experience alone is worth watching and I would say is more effective than some of the sequences. But what this film says about the human condition is why it’s worth seeing. The desire to live and overcome any obstacle separates us from animals and makes life worth living. This is a thread that runs along Danny Boyle’s films whether it be in Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, Sunshine or Slumdog Millionaire; Boyle’s films seem to have this underlying theme of choosing life everything else. Hell, it’s even a direct line expressed by Mark Renton in Danny Boyle’s 1996 film, Trainspotting.

Grade: B

To Be Heard

2010-11-04T20:36:00.003-04:00

One of the things that makes us human is the idea of wanting to be heard. To make ourselves understood to others, to communicate and to make ourselves clear. It’s frustrating to make yourself understood if you don’t have the proper tools to do so, namely language. Not having the ability to use language as your ally can lead one to simply give up on being understood. To Be Heard is a documentary uses the power of language, words and poetry over the ones who can actually use it.

The film follows Karina, Pearl and Anthony: three inner city high school students from the Bronx in New York City and how they use poetry to have a better life. Their hopes and dreams are involve poetry and their struggles are consistently striving to this end. They called themselves “The Tripod”, all three support and nurture each other to make sure they all graduate from high school on time and to get into college through poetry. To many, this sounds like a simple enough task but to others, this dream is as far away as making a million dollars.

They are part of a radical poetry workshop called Power Writing that gives high schools the understanding of words and the power of poetry. Moreover, giving the student proper and well-guided mentorship that inside and outside of school. Karina, Pearl and Anthony’s success are hinged on these teacher’s guidance.

What is displayed in the films 84 minute running time is simply astounding. Structured in a way to give each subject their screen time and showing them as a unit. From Karina parental abuse to Pearl’s image issues, to the most heartbreaking, Anthony’s struggle with drugs and the law. These three students display so much talent and a great understanding of the written word that would put most street poets to shame. When the storylines of these students come together something wonderful is displayed on screen. What Hoop Dreams was to high school basketball, To Be Heard is to slam poetry. Both with the same ambition, pathos and sobering reality of its subjects.

The level of drama and twist and turns in life are displayed so well and is a tribute to the filmmakers, Roland Legiardi-Laura, Edwin Martinez, Deborah Shaffer and Amy Sulton. Collectively, much like the high school subjects, they have brought to the screen a revelation of drama, suspense and a heartwarming narrative. One part social commentary on the New York City education system and one part underdog film, To Be Heard is a must see from this year’s DOC NYC Documentary Film Festival. Both emotionally and intellectually stimulating, To Be Heard is powerful and exciting.

Grade: B+

Lost Bohemia

2010-11-04T20:32:00.003-04:00

Home is where the heart is, no matter where you find it, the concept of “home” is something everyone can relate to. So what happens when you’re home is threatened by an outside force and there is nothing you can do about it. No, this movie isn’t about a haunted house or ghost scaring homeowners to leave, but the subject matter is just as frightening. Lost Bohemia explores the residents living above Carnegie Hall in a community of artist and performers and the Carnegie Hall Corporation who threatens to evict them.

The film follows a series of residents who have lived in the legendary building for years, some almost over 50 years. Jumping from painters, to actors, to dancers, Lost Bohemia examines a cavalcade of talent, most living with the luxury of rent control and others who have been “squatting” for years. As sincere the sentiment of the filmmakers, the film offers a problematic structure. The film starts off with tiny vignettes of these artist but never comes off as clear of what the filmmaker wants to do with it. Lucky for the filmmaker, but sadly for the residents, real life drama has offered that conflict.

At times the film feels unfocused and at other times it feel muddled. The subject matter is interesting and tragic but the filmmakers never really show the weight of this eviction outside of a historical one. It is true, an era is over. Giving a place for artist to live, work and interact is an invaluable resource, but most of the artist living in above Carnegie Hall have long past their potential, most of the time it feels like a retirement home of forgotten dreams rather that a place of vibrant, energetic art. What is lost is an era and not a continuing lifestyle. Albeit, the subject matter does give some insight to the lives of others but the filmmaking is lacking in most areas.

Despite its shortcomings, Lost Bohemia does offer a look at a different New York City and does comment on this new New York City more concerned about money and commerce than the arts. The direction of a dying city is somewhat reflected in the studios of artist on top of Carnegie Hall. Moreover, the corporation side of Carnegie Hall made a business decision to evict these people and not a cultural one. The film emphasises the importance of art and culture in the city as it does make New York City a unique case for cities around the world.

This is a sad story of loss, art and the life blood that keeps us going but overall Lost Bohemia comes up short of being art itself. The film feels flat and dull considering the subject matter. Offering voice over of a mysterious resident over the phone adds nothing to the narrative and at times feels schlocky and chinsey. Lost Bohemia is lost in storytelling and gravitas.

Grade: C-

Windfall

2010-11-04T20:27:00.003-04:00

Most documentaries about the environment, namely on global warming, show the dark side of human activity. People unknowingly are responsible for the state of the environment is usually the stance of these films. Not many show how corporations use this fear to exploit people’s good intentions. In the film, Windfall, filmmaker Laura Israel shows the seedy underbelly of protecting the environment. In many ways, displaying the “slash and burn” techniques of some companies to make a quick buck and to prey off the fears of a global collapse.

Windfall is the story of the small town of Meredith in upstate New York. In this vast expanse, picturesque setting, companies want to use this land to build wind turbines to generate alternative energy. They come into town, talk up the townspeople and promise money, economic security and most importantly, the piece of mind that they will be doing the right thing to help the environment. So to speak, giving the town something they don’t want or didn’t ask for. Does this sound familiar?

Picture a time at the turn of the 20th century, replace wind turbines with oil rigs and you have a nightmare depicted by Upton St. Clair. Or set this story in the fictional town of Springfield from the animated TV series, The Simpsons and replace wind turbines with a monorail. In a case of “be careful what you wish for” or “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” and you have the story of Meredith, New York. Pitting neighbors against each other for the cause of goodwill or to line the pockets of wealthy land owners, the construction of these wind turbines are an eyesore and ruin these picturesque settings. They are loud, dizzying and sometimes poorly constructed. The argument of whether or not these 400 ft monstrosities actually help the environment is debatable and the use of the common good is specious at best.

Windfall is a well constructed film, full of opposing view points and a compelling story. Seeing a town divided over the issue of goodwill and global responsibility is best captured by these filmmakers. Making strides for a reasonable outcomes is long gone for this town when self-righteousness takes over. And an interesting view point is taken, what is the cost of protecting the environment and what will people put up with for the sake of the planet?

Grade: B