Cinematic for the People

This month: Nick's picks for the best of the 00s

2009-12-01T12:58:00.001-08:00

After a long hiatus from blogging, I’ve decided to return with probably the most ambitious (and totally pigheaded) thing you’re ever likely to see here at good ol’ Cinematic for the People: a 50-film list of my picks for the best of the past decade.

Had I planned way ahead of time to put one of these together? Honestly, nope. Heck, it wasn’t even until I saw the first “Best of the 00s” list appear on a film review site a couple of months back that it dawned on me this decade was ending at all (what can I say, I’ve been pretty busy). Ten years used to seem like a pretty long time, but man, it feels like just yesterday that I was contemplating Y2K and telling anybody who’d listen how good Fight Club was. And now here we are, ten years into the millennium that Stanley Kubrick predicted would begin with humanity’s first contact with an alien intelligence (I’m still pretty bummed that that didn’t happen), and all I can think is…

… Damn, I’ve seen a lot of movies since 2000.

So, since everyone else seems to be throwing together lists of their favorite films of the “oughts” – check out a few here and here – I thought maybe I should take a stab at it, as well. Not only does it give me a chance to recall the movie moments that have wowed me over the last ten years, but it’s also a great opportunity to show some love for a lot of films that probably didn’t appear on a lot of other folks’ lists.

Let that second thing serve as a bit of a disclaimer: some of my picks are surely going to piss you off. If you’ve stopped by this blog before, you know that my taste in film is all over the place – I’m equally enamored with well-made Hollywood blockbusters as I am with stately foreign films and audacious indie efforts, and while I like a lot of the same filmmakers as the majority of critics do, I tend to gravitate toward the “underdog” movies of their respective careers (I can feel the hate already for the Paul Thomas Anderson and Steven Spielberg films that land highest on my list).

But, as I’ve said before, the best part about making lists like this – and, really, the only reason why I’d ever do one – is that inevitably get people thinking about what films they’ve appreciated and why they loved them. My opinion is my opinion, it’s no more valid than anyone else’s, and the only reason I’m putting it out there is that I hope it inspires some argument, some agreement, maybe some anger, and – fingers crossed – at least a little bit of discussion. Feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me (nscalia@nhregister.com) with your picks, your thoughts, or whatever else you want to say.

Check back in a couple of days for picks #50 through #41; I’ll be rolling out the rest over the next couple of weeks.

If this doesn't make your day...

2009-11-03T10:11:00.000-08:00

More substantial blogging to come, soon (I promise...). But this, I just had to share:

It's yet another bit of proof for Scalia's General Theory of Walken Relativity:

Anything + Christopher Walken = Awesome.

The VHS era lives on... Sort of.

2009-03-18T08:56:00.000-07:00

Well, this certainly brought back memories.

The site linked above, which I first came across thanks to indie film guru Bill Cunningham's excellent Pulp 2.0 blog, is a huge repository of VHS box art from the golden age of the now-extinct home video format. Having spent an inordinate amount of time trolling the shelves of video rental joints when I was a kid, I’ve seen – in real life – quite a few of the 2,600+ boxes that the site has on display. Of course, in most cases I can’t claim to have seen the actual movies these boxes once housed, but as was usually the case back then, the films could rarely live up to their awesome (or awesomely cheesy) cover art anyway.

I guess that’s what I miss most about the VHS era (because, hey, even I can’t make myself get all nostalgic about rewinding). Nowadays, anyone with even the most rudimentary Photoshop skills can slap together a pretty professional-looking piece of DVD box art; back when videotapes ruled the world, however, indie distributors had to work a whole lot harder to make their flicks stand out on store shelves amidst all the recognizable Hollywood fare. The box art was what sold the movie – and even if the movie was a 75-minute crapfest shot for 40 bucks in somebody’s backyard, an eye-catching hand-painted cover (or, at very least, one displaying some strategically placed cleavage) could make it seem just as appealing to potential viewers as the latest Schwarzenegger flick.*

Of course, if you peruse the site, you’ll see some truly atrocious attempts at artwork along with all the good stuff. But nevertheless I think today’s independent filmmakers and distributors can learn a lot from these relics of the “Be Kind, Rewind” days. Now that we can market our films online through a variety of channels, we need to take full advantage of the media at our disposal – a great-looking MySpace page, for example, packed with slick-looking graphic design and visual elements that grab the viewer from the get-go (even if that entails little more than strategically placed cleavage) will really help your self-produced bargain-basement epic reach viewers that might normally only go for the professionally marketed major-studio stuff. I’m not exactly suggesting that the internet is like one huge, globe-spanning video store – it’ll never be quite that much fun – but as a filmmaker trying to get your work seen by the masses, it still couldn’t hurt to think of it that way.

*Yes, kids, the governor of California was once an actor in the movies. How his incredible work in the searing crime drama Kindergarten Cop was not recognized by the Academy I’ll never know.

This exists...

2009-03-13T10:47:00.000-07:00

... And I'm not quite sure how I feel about it.

(I'll spare you the obligatory Richard Gere joke.)

A first look at QT's 'Inglourious Basterds'

2009-02-13T13:32:00.001-08:00

It’s no secret that I’m a huge admirer of Quentin Tarantino’s films, to the point where I generally avoid the subject in public – lest I come off as some kind of obsessive drooling fanboy who tosses aside all critical objectivity every time someone says word one about QT.

But, since the teaser trailer for Tarantino’s latest, the Dirty Dozen-style WWII adventure Inglourious Basterds, was released earlier this week, please allow me to toss aside all critical objectivity and come off as some kind of obsessive drooling fanboy for just a moment:

OMFG I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE THIS MOVIE!!!

Okay, rational Nick is back now. And rational Nick remembers that he found QT’s last film, the half of Grindhouse known as Death Proof, deeply disappointing on a whole lot of levels (not so Robert Rodriguez’s half, the delightfully disgusting zombie epic Planet Terror, which I loved). So even a guy like me has to take the hype for Inglourious Basterds with a grain of salt, despite how exciting this well-put-together teaser trailer may be. I’m not saying that QT has lost his mojo or anything – heck, a lot of folks really liked Death Proof – but the war-film genre is untested territory for him, and already there’s been a low rumble of complaining from fans on the web who aren’t quite buying Brad Pitt’s “I want my scalps” bit from the trailer.

But I’m confident that Tarantino will surprise us all once again with Basterds, just as he did with the Kill Bills – a pair of films I wasn’t entirely sold on when I first read about them, but have come to appreciate just as much as all his others.

A few assorted things about the trailer:

1. This flick looks violent. Like, seriously violent. I know over-the-top bloodletting has been a staple of QT’s cinema from the grue-spattered opening of Reservoir Dogs onward, but something in this trailer makes me think that Inglourious Basterds is going to significantly up the ante even for him. Aside from Pitt’s character’s “disemboweled, dismembered, and disfigured” speech – which elicits a sick little smile from co-star Eli Roth – we also get a baseball-bat-to-the-head bit that’s tough enough to watch even in TV-sanitized form, a character charging through a building with minigun blazing, a guy with a swastika carved into his forehead (yowch!), and so on. Some will argue that stylishly horrific violence is all QT had going for him in the first place, but I strongly disagree – and I hope that this film offsets its nastiness with humor, intelligence, and personality just as skillfully as his earlier films did.

2. The teaser trailer offers only a few quick glimpses of Melanie Laurent’s character, a Jewish girl who has fled from the Nazis, even though her role is supposedly a pretty big piece of the overall story. I’m really interested to see what Tarantino does with this character, since it seems as if she appeared rather late in Basterds’ very, very long development cycle. If anybody can successfully shoehorn a hard-boiled heroine into an otherwise testosterone-drenched Dirty Dozen/Magnificent Seven-type setup, it’s Tarantino, and his knack for crafting memorable female characters (The Bride, Jackie Brown, Mia Wallace, etc.) bodes well for Laurent’s contribution to the film.

3. That Hitler thing at the end is really, really corny. If that’s the payoff to something, I hope whatever it is is very well set up.

At long last, the Best Films of 2008...

2009-01-26T14:12:00.000-08:00

A month late and, as always, several dollars short, I humbly present to you my list of the best movies from a year that’s already beginning to feel like ancient history – you know, the kind of history that Indiana Jones used to be interested in before the day he blasted off in an enchanted nuke-proof refrigerator and crash-landed in a second-rate knockoff of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (actually, I liked Crystal Skull, but don’t be shocked that it didn’t make this list).

One caveat: I still, regrettably, have not seen one or two films that I may at some point need to retroactively add. One was Gran Torino, which I probably couldn’t be all that objective about anyway, bearing in mind how awesome I consider Clint Eastwood’s politics, his personality, and the way he says “Get off my lawn” in the trailer. Another is Rachel Getting Married, which looks like a terrific film that I nevertheless didn’t feel quite up to seeing since I attended way more than my usual quota of actual weddings in 2008 (all of which, unlike that movie, were thankfully drama-free aside from one poor groom’s minor wardrobe malfunction).

But anyway, without further ado, here are my picks for the ten movies I appreciated the most last year. Feel free to debate, dispute, agree with, or respond with a hearty “meh” to them, and in the meantime I’ll get an early start to seeing the best of 2009, so maybe you’ll have next year’s list in a much more timely fashion.

10. The Dark Knight

Though a bit more convoluted than any superhero movie (or crime drama) really needs to be, The Dark Knight still overwhelmingly succeeds in its ambition to ground larger-than-life comic book action in a psychologically complex and physically believable universe. With a morally troubled hero (best-ever Bruce Wayne Christian Bale), a mesmerizingly soulless villain (Heath Ledger’s Joker), and a series of inventive and hard-hitting setpieces fleshing out their inevitable collision course – the opening bank robbery, the furiously kinetic vehicle chase, the Joker’s interrogation, etc. – director Christopher Nolan delivers blockbuster thrills without compromising his dark, complex, and operatic vision of good and evil in Gotham City. Ledger can’t be given enough credit for his contribution; his Joker is set to join Norman Bates and Hannibal Lector as one of the most memorable screen villains of all time.

9. Revolutionary Road

Director Sam Mendes explored suburban malaise with more wit and warmth in his debut, American Beauty, but Revolutionary Road is an admirable film in its own right, a dark and tragic period piece about a likable 50s-era married couple (Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio) who come to realize just how badly they’ve lied to themselves and each other in their pursuit of the so-called American Dream. It’s a masterfully directed, photographed, and acted film about the breakdown of a marriage – not due to a lack of love, but rather because of a lack of choices and of the courage to make the right ones. Michael Shannon gives one of the year’s best supporting performances as an unhinged yet oddly perceptive neighbor; Mendes, meanwhile, suffuses the entire film with heartbreak and raw emotion, proving once again that Hollywood “prestige pics” need not be dry, bloodless affairs.

8. Burn After Reading

The Coen Brothers’ latest certainly wasn’t the haunting apocalyptic dirge that was last year’s Best Picture-winning No Country for Old Men, but it still managed to showcase the sibling moviemaking duo in near-perfect form. A low-stakes comedic spy thriller poking fun at the ineffectuality of D.C.’s “intelligence” community, Burn After Reading features a trademark twisty Coen plot, a handful of hapless characters in way over their heads (portrayed by an excellent and totally game cast that includes George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton, John Malkovich, and Coens regular Frances McDormand), and one big, bloody surprise that’ll leave you dumbstruck. Funny as hell, cleverly orchestrated, and unflinchingly cynical, Burn After Reading is not the “minor” Coens effort that it’s been made out to be – personally, I think these guys just keep getting better at what they do.

7. Let the Right One In

Horror films don’t get much better than this chilling Swedish import, which – like a great Gothic novel – is as concerned with love, longing, and loss as it is with terror and bloodshed. The simple but gut-wrenching story centers on a meek 12-year-old boy (Kare Hedebrant) who reaches out to the shy, strangely daylight-averse girl (Lina Leandersson) who lives next door. She, of course, turns out to be a vampire, which casts a decidedly dark shadow over the puppy-love developing between them; the film revels in contrasting the innocence of childhood romance with the gruesome goings-on that are this genre’s stock in trade. It’s a horror movie with a heart, both scary and sad, and director Tomas Alfredson conjures up some truly haunting and frightening images along the way – some of them on the level of The Exorcist or The Shining.

6. The Fall

Little-seen and nearly unreleased in America – at least until filmmakers David Fincher and Spike Jonze lobbied to get it distributed – The Fall is an unparalleled visual tour-de-force made even more incredible by the fact that its otherworldly vistas and eye-popping compositions were created without the use of CGI. Shot on locations spanning 18 different countries, director Tarsem Singh’s abstract fairy tale about a colorful band of heroes is boosted by an affecting frame story about the friendship between an ailing movie stuntman (Lee Pace) and an innocent, precocious little girl (newcomer Catinca Untaru). The film is a dazzling tribute to the human imagination, but no imagination shines brighter here than Singh’s – his arresting, dreamlike images, which combine stunning real-world settings with old-fashioned camera trickery, elaborate costumes, and painterly production design, are this year’s best argument for seeing films on the big screen.

5. Australia

Overblown? Certainly. Melodramatic? Absolutely. Entertaining? Thoroughly. Director Baz Luhrman, maybe the greatest cinematic showman of his generation, rediscovered the kind of sweeping crowd-pleaser that Hollywood has long forgotten how to make with this visually spectacular, action-packed, and unabashedly old-fashioned valentine to the Land of Oz. The unfortunately maligned film is Gone with the Wind meets Red River with a hearty helping of kangaroos, billabongs, and Aborigine mysticism thrown into the mix, with charismatic performances from authentic-Aussie leads Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman and enough widescreen spectacle for a dozen movies. Audiences may not have flocked to it – people don’t seem to enjoy being entertained at the movies anymore – but I savored every extravagant, sentimental, histrionic minute of (and it ran for an awful lot of minutes). One complaint: how come the bad guy is the only one wielding a boomerang?

4. Milk

Sean Penn’s incredible performance in the title role is just one of the elements that make director Gus Van Sant’s profile of gay rights crusader and eventual San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk such a powerful movie experience. Less a straight-up biopic than a ground-level view of democracy in action, Milk ranks with the best American political films ever made because it so effectively portrays Milk’s passionate fight to secure political representation for the gay community as a life-and-death struggle – which, in the days when openly gay people could be arrested simply for visiting a bar, is undoubtedly what it was. A terrific supporting cast, a wealth of period detail, and smart, heartfelt writing from rookie scribe Dustin Lance Black seal the deal. This is easily Van Sant’s best film since Good Will Hunting, and possibly his best, period.

3. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Earnest yet edgy, effects-driven but heart-tuggingly humane, Benjamin Button is a very unique tale exceedingly well-told by director David Fincher, writer Eric Roth, and star Brad Pitt, who gets the most fascinating acting workout of his entire career. As the title character, who was somehow born as an old man and is aging backward in time – growing younger as everyone around him grows old – Pitt lends believability and gravity to Ben, whose awkwardness blossoms into a wide-eyed lust for life even as he discovers that he can’t live or love quite like everybody else can. Cate Blanchett is radiant as the woman who becomes his childhood friend, his lover, and finally his caretaker; their romance is unlike any you’ve ever seen in a movie. Fincher’s rock-solid sense of visual craftsmanship is on display again, as well, aided by special effects so utterly convincing you’ll almost immediately stop noticing they’re effects at all.

2. In Bruges

Mis-marketed as a bullet-riddled black comedy in the vein of Quentin Tarantino or Guy Ritchie, the feature film debut of playwright Martin McDonagh is actually a weighty and surprisingly serious morality play about guilt, sin, and the possibility – or impossibility – of redemption. Not that there aren’t several hilarious exchanges between Colin Farrell’s foul-mouthed, wet-behind-the-ears contract killer, his good-natured mentor Brendan Gleeson, and the assorted tourists and townies they encounter while hiding out in the quaintly boring title city, but In Bruges still travels a dark road toward one of the most powerful endings in recent memory. Though a relative newcomer to the cinema with only one (albeit Oscar-nominated) short film under his belt, McDonagh has an obvious gift for pacing, and delivers emotional sucker-punches with great skill. Plus, in Farrell, Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes, and the great Peter Dinklage, he’s found a flawless ensemble to deliver all his whip-crack dialogue.

1. The Wrestler

The year’s best performance anchors its best film, a gritty and uncompromising underdog story about an “old broken down piece of meat” – Mickey Rourke’s far-past-his-prime professional wrestler Randy “The Ram” Robinson – making one last go at recapturing his fame, reconnecting with his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood), and romancing a sympathetic but untouchable stripper/single mom (Marisa Tomei). I hesitate to call any film “perfect”, but so many things are right about Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler that it’s an adjective I can’t help but trot out – the fly-on-the-wall handheld cinematography is perfect, the gruesome behind-the-scenes detail of the low-rent pro wrestling world is perfect, the spare and true-sounding dialogue is perfect, etc. And then, of course, there’s Rourke, who seems to channel every bit of pain and hunger and regret he’s ever felt – or maybe even just imagined – into his role as “The Ram”, a guy we don’t just care about but come to love, flaws and all, by the time the film reaches its beautifully understated final shot. It’s the performance of a lifetime, and the movie doesn’t let it down one bit.

And now, just for the hell of it, a few honorable mentions:

Iron Man
Sort of the anti-Dark Knight, this freewheeling and often laugh-out-loud funny Marvel comics adaptation entirely ditches doom and gloom in favor of relentless wisecracking and gee-whiz flying ‘n fighting sequences that really do feel as if they’ve been ripped from the pages of a comic book. It maybe could have used a bit more action, but Robert Downey, Jr. keeps things fresh and furiously entertaining throughout with his witty, energetic take on billionaire industrialist/iron-clad crimefighter Tony Stark.

Wall-E
Despite its persistent and heavy-handed satire of consumerism – which borders uncomfortably on sermonizing – Pixar’s much-praised tale of robots in love still managed to be the most endearingly romantic movie of 2008, and its nuts-and-bolts hero might be the most lovable character the studio has created to date. The usual Pixar ingenuity abounds in both the visuals and the storytelling; it’s pretty amazing that the two main characters can’t really speak, yet we understand and sympathize with them completely.

Synecdoche, New York
As with most viewers of mind-bending screenwriter Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut, I was deeply confounded by the existential puzzle that was Synecdoche, New York, but I really hope that some day it’ll all make perfect sense. Either way, its themes of aging, loneliness, and insecurity still resonated with me, and the film feels as if it will get better with every subsequent viewing – especially since the less you worry about figuring it all out, the more you can appreciate its unique visual style and the performances of the year’s best ensemble cast, from star Phillip Seymour Hoffman on down.

Tropic Thunder
The funniest movie of 2008: A broad and ballsy satire of Hollywood egos and my beloved action genre in particular. Robert Downey, Jr. may have stolen the show with his white-guy-playing-white-guy-playing-black-guy act, but Ben Stiller’s “Simple Jack”, Danny McBride’s mulleted pyrotechnics expert, and Jack Black as a junkie actor who’d do anything – anything – to score his next fix all generated more than their share of big laughs, as well.

Slumdog Millionaire
I think the critics were a bit too quick to heap praise on this Mumbai-set melodrama – its premise is a little hard to swallow, and its whiz-bang visual approach to life in the slums was used to much better effect in the now seven-year-old Brazilian film City of God. But still, Slumdog is endlessly energetic and entertaining, with winning performances all around and a poignant story of love and brotherhood hiding just beneath the surface of its occasionally too-contrived setup. Danny Boyle is surely one of the most eclectic and versatile directors working today.

Coming soon in 2009: My Best-of-2008 List

2009-01-06T13:21:00.000-08:00

Another year over, another few hundred movies sat through, and yet, still no definitive opinions from this blogger on which ones I’ll be most excited to see again. You might ask, what gives, Nick? Have you lost your desire to weigh in on what’s good and what sucks? Did you suddenly decide that year-end Top 10 lists are beneath you? Were you so overwhelmed by the warm and fuzzy glow of Slumdog Millionaire that all other movies ceased to have any meaning to you?

The answer to all those questions is no (and for the record, I thought Slumdog was entertaining but a little overrated). The simple reason I haven’t made a ten-best list yet is that I still haven’t been able to see a few films that I think have a good chance of making it – namely, Gran Torino, The Wrestler, and Revolutionary Road – and I’d hate to have to leave them out just so I could be on time with my list. And, trust me, folks, I certainly would have caught those movies already if not for the studios’ unfair and patently ridiculous awards-season “limited release” strategy explained in this New York Times story. But, rather than continue my complaining, I’m just going to look forward to seeing some new work from three of my favorite filmmakers as it finally makes its way to Connecticut theaters in the next few weeks.

And then, it’s time to make a list that few people want and nobody needs, but I’m going to have a freaking awesome time putting together. Looking forward to it already.

Sundance 2009: The Festival of "Meh"?

2008-12-05T10:21:00.000-08:00

We're a little more than a month away from the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, and after a few days of poring over this year's slate of selected films, I can't help but feel a little underwhelmed.

Now, don't get me wrong, I think there are going to be some really incredible movies playing at Park City this year, as there always are. But based on the vague and oddly nondescipt descriptions offered by the fest's organizers, I really can't tell at this point which are going to be world-changing and which are going to be as generic and yawn-inspiring as the one-sentence blurbs I've been reading about them. And since I unfortunately won't be attending Sundance (unless some kind soul would be generous enough to toss a press pass my way), I guess I'll have to wait until the early reviews come out to see what films might be worth the effort when they inevitably get bought and distributed.

In any case, here are a few of the ones that sound appealing to me:

Adventureland

The "official" description: "the story of a college grad who gets a job at an amusement park."

My take: Written and directed by Superbad's Greg Mottola, this raunchy, very retro-looking coming-of-age comedy is going to be one of the funniest films of 2009. You simply can't go wrong with Bill Hader, Kristin Wiig, and Ryan Reynolds playing supporting roles, and Mottola's obviously got the chops to do this kind of old-fashioned R-rated comedy right. Plus, you've got to factor in the nostalgia factor -- the film is semiautobiographical, based on Mottola's experiences working at a theme park as a teenager.

Moon

The "official" description: "about the adversity faced by an astronaut (Sam Rockwell) about to return to Earth after three years on the moon."

My take: Not much is known about this U.K.-produced sci-fi film from first-time feature director Duncan Jones, but with reliable Rockwell in the lead, you've got to expect something pretty interesting. Judging by the poster, Moon looks like the kind of cold, creepy sci-fi that I absolutely love - Danny Boyle's Sunshine is one of my favorite films of the last few years - and I'm fascinated by the idea of Kevin Spacey providing the voice for Rockwell's robot co-star. Jones's dad, by the way, is David Bowie - and while being the son of the guy who dreamed up Major Tom doesn't necessarily qualify someone to direct a movie about a spaced-out astronaut, it sure as hell couldn't hurt.

The Missing Person

The "official" description: "a detective genre piece about a private investigator tailing a man on a train who turns out to be someone presumed dead in the 9/11 attacks."

My take: Post-9/11 noir, eh? Sounds good to me. I'm not familiar with writer/director Noah Buschel (he's got one other indie feature under his belt), but The Missing Person's premise is intriguing and certainly promises more than just a run-of-the-mill P.I. tale. Michael Shannon, so great in William Friedkin's Bug, stars.

Black Dynamite

The "official" description: "a high-camp blaxploitation send-up about '70s 'legend' Black Dynamite taking on 'the Man.'"

My take: This trailer is awesome in more ways than I can count.

I'm with ya, Rog -- Ebert on 'Magnolia'

2008-12-01T10:55:00.000-08:00

I've had my differences of opinion with king-of-critics Roger Ebert lately, but somehow the big lug always manages find a way back into my heart. Ebert recently revisited one of my favorite films of all time, Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia, and his "Great Movies" review (major spoilers, BTW) not only neatly sums up everything I love about the epic ensemble movie, but also points out some of the dramatic threads that you might have overlooked on seeing it for the first time. Ebert was one of the notoriously divisive film's most ardent early supporters, and his appreciation seems to have grown since its release nearly ten years ago.

Myself, I've only seen Magnolia twice, believing that some movies are so good, they ought not to be worn out. But you know what? I'm thinking it's time to see this daring, heartfelt, beautifully constructed masterpiece again, and I have Ebert's passionate and eloquently written analysis to thank for that.

And, just for the hell of it, here's the film's theatrical trailer, in case you were wondering what the fuss was all about:

'The Wrestler' trailer: It'll put a half-nelson on your heart

2008-11-21T13:31:00.000-08:00

Darren Aronofsky is one of my favorite filmmakers in the world, but even I balked a year or so ago when I heard that his next film would be the story of an aging professional wrestler.

I mean, sure, Requiem For a Dream wasn’t really groundbreaking in terms of its subject matter, either, but the theme of drug addiction allowed Aronofsky to let loose with some truly striking and surreal visual ideas – and the film turned out to be a masterpiece. But how, I wondered, could the spandex ‘n suplex crowd possibly hold any appeal for such a visionary filmmaker, especially since his last movie (2006’s glorious metaphysical sci-fi drama The Fountain) was essentially a huge-scale meditation on the nature of human existence itself?

Well, whatever drove Aronofsky to make The Wrestler, the trailer is now out, and let me just say one thing: it looks great (you can view it in beautiful HD here at Apple.com). Yes, it’s a much less ambitious movie than The Fountain, and no, the visuals probably aren’t going to blow anyone out of their seats, but the drama, humor, and most importantly, humanity on display within the few short minutes of the trailer lead me to believe that all those glowing early reviews weren’t just hype – this might end up being the best film of 2008. I mean, heck, Aronofsky’s pulled off some pretty amazing cinematic feats before, but actually making notorious sleazeball Mickey Rourke seem like a sweet, warmhearted guy? That takes a filmmaker of very, very significant talent.

So when this film finally comes out next month, I’ll be there. And when Aronofsky announces that his next movie will be about an aging roller derby queen (played by Rourke’s ex, Carre Otis) who straps on her skates for one last bone-crushing ride around the rink, I’ll be looking forward to it from the get-go.

Rising from the grave, like a Romero zombie (but, you know, with slightly less hunger for human brains)

2008-11-18T10:34:00.000-08:00

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for a reboot.

Please forgive the tumbleweeds that have been blowing through this blog of late – as much as I love Sergio Leone, it’s not quite the ambience I was going for. The plan, when I started Cinematic for the People, was to keep it regularly updated, humming along like a finely tuned European sports car; the reality, at least recently, has been something more akin to a Ford Pinto propped up on cinderblocks in the backyard.

But, no longer – from here on out, I do solemnly swear to post whatever movie-related goodness I can scrounge up, and to be a deadbeat dad to this blog no more. What prompted this sudden and highly uncharacteristic bit of attentiveness on my part? Well, a few things, actually. One, I was getting tired of looking at the Hitman post that had enjoyed a privileged position at the top of this page for the better part of a month, and two… Well, as I’m sure you know by now, PLAY Magazine has closed up shop, and with it the Movie Match column that I used to write every week (excluding the weeks that always-understanding editor Jeff Petrin let me get away with being lazy). Sad as I am to not see the column in print anymore, the much bigger loss is PLAY itself, a publication I’m going to miss terribly – having spent two years of my life as part of the staff, and as a big-time appreciator of what the current staff was up to before the magazine folded (I raise a glass to Jeff, Nicole, and Craig, who kept New Haven entertained and informed week after week after week), it breaks my heart to see it go.

So I thought, rather than mourn PLAY, I’d do my very little part to keep its spirit alive, and this movie blog being the best place for me to do that, I’m going to make the effort to keep it fresh and worth reading. That’s how PLAY would have wanted it, I think.

So, enjoy the new and improved Cinematic for the People, and please feel free to light a fire under my ass should I let it go astray again.

Cheers.

MOVIE MATCH: 'Hitman' less painful than 'Payne'?

2008-10-14T13:09:00.000-07:00

As a lifelong appreciator of both film and video games, it breaks my heart to see just how godawful the results generally are when these two mediums attempt to cross-pollinate.
I’m feeling especially gloomy this week, as Max Payne – easily one of my favorite games of all time – makes the jump to the big screen, courtesy of director John Moore. If ever there was a game that had a shot at being a halfway decent movie, Payne was it – from its visuals and storyline, both heavily indebted to the film noir tradition, to its copious John Woo-inspired gunplay and its lineup of colorful supporting characters, it had all the elements in place to be an involving and stylish shoot-‘em-up a la Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City. Still, even though the film’s production designers seem to have nailed the game’s urban nightmare aesthetic and I do dig the casting of Mark Wahlberg in the title role, I can’t help but think that this regrettably PG-13-rated effort is going to be just another missed opportunity.
That will be a shame especially because cinematic video game adaptations seemed to finally be turning the corner, as evidenced by last fall’s surprisingly enjoyable action flick Hitman. Based on a series of games that invite the player to think like a well-trained international assassin and kill people in elaborate and methodical ways, the film (the English-language debut of French director Xavier Gens) instead goes the route of the typical globetrotting spy-on-the-run movie and actually ends up being more effective for doing so.
Our title character is a nameless contract killer raised in a monastery, rigorously trained in the deadly arts, and under the control of a top-secret organization called, um, The Organization, which the film informs us has ties to every government in the world. As ably portrayed by Deadwood’s Timothy Olyphant, Agent 47 – yes, he’s at least got a number, if not a name – is a stone-cold, cueball-headed death dealer with a flawless record of clockwork-like kills and immaculate escapes. Unfortunately, his perfect career begins to unravel when he somehow botches the assassination of a crooked Russian presidential candidate (Ulrich Thomsen) despite the fact that, as the heroic Interpol agent (Dougray Scott) on 47’s trail insists, the guy just simply “doesn’t miss.” Turns out there’s some shady business afoot involving the Russian secret police, and before long 47 is forced to go on the lam with a spunky St. Petersburg prostitute named Nika (Olga Kurylenko) as the bad guys, the authorities, and even the un-creatively named but decidedly well-organized Organization mobilize against them.
Yes, the storyline is pretty much rote – and much of it is poorly handled, to boot – but Hitman manages to stand head and shoulders over the usual video game adaptation in that it at least feels like an actual spy thriller, rather than just a silly, aimless spew of incoherent action sequences and winking references to the games. Those action sequences, in fact, are actually quite good – Gens, clearly inspired by the work of Luc Besson (La Femme Nikita, The Professional), does a fine job of showing off 47’s superhuman prowess in kinetic scenes that have him mowing down legions of bad guys with a gracefulness that the comparatively jumpy Jason Bourne would envy. There’s not much tension – except during a nicely done four-man, eight-blade swordfight sequence – but that’s not really the point here anyway; 47 is supposed to be the most efficient killing machine ever created, and the film gives us ample opportunity to see him doing what he does best.
What also works surprisingly well is the dynamic between 47 and Nika, which works toward fleshing out a character who, by design, has abandoned most of his more human feelings and flaws. While a guy like James Bond is apt to jump into bed with his female co-stars before the gunsmoke’s even cleared, Kurylenko (who’s also in Max Payne) spends almost the entire film throwing herself at the apparently asexual 47 to little avail – as if the desire for human contact, physical or otherwise, has been entirely eradicated by 47’s training. There are flashes of wit and humanity in they scenes they share, and these go a long way toward establishing a personality and a character arc for 47 – though, thankfully, there’s no sappy attempt to turn him into a caring individual, the downfall of many a movie about professional assassins.
Is Hitman at all faithful to the games that inspired it? Not being overly familiar with them, I can’t really say – and I can’t really say that I care. What’s important is that it works as a movie, and if all game adaptations can at least hold themselves to that easily reachable standard, this genre might someday stop giving off the whiff of suckiness that’s been attached to it for far too long.

MOVIE MATCH: Thriller fans, keep an 'Eye' out for 'The Salton Sea'

2008-09-25T08:49:00.001-07:00

If the name D.J. Caruso doesn’t make your film-geek sense tingle the way that, say, Ridley Scott or David Fincher does, at the moment that’s understandable.

But Caruso – a native of nearby Norwalk – seems to be making a strong bid to achieve the same level of recognition and fanboy credibility those guys enjoy, if this week’s big-budget techno-thriller Eagle Eye is any indication. While his filmography to date has mostly consisted of high-profile near-misses (Taking Lives, Two For the Money), Caruso scored big last year with the highly enjoyable Shia LaBeouf-starring thriller Disturbia, which smartly – if shamelessly – cribbed from Hitchcock’s Rear Window and displayed a real flair for slick, crowd-pleasing mainstream moviemaking. By reteaming with that film’s star – as well as its producer, Steven Spielberg – on Eagle Eye, chances are good that Caruso’s got another hit on his hands, even if his latest effort does seem to have a familiar, Enemy of the State-ish ring to it.

Myself, though, I’d have preferred that Caruso put all his newfound clout and obvious talent toward a project as strikingly original as his debut, 2002’s The Salton Sea. A drug-drenched, oddball neo-noir with no shortage of head-spinning twists and bizarro characters up its sleeve, Caruso’s first feature probably never had a chance with the general audience, but it took the kind of risks that – love the movie or hate it – at least kept it firmly out of “been there, done that” territory.

The film takes its name from a salt lake in the California desert, and stars Val Kilmer as a meth-addicted trumpet player who’s descended into a colorfully nightmarish underworld of “tweakers” and drug dealers after his wife (Chandra West) is murdered by two thugs who run a drug lab. Supposedly, he’s immersed himself in meth culture in order to track down her killers, but has instead become a full-blown tweaker himself, going on days-long benders with his loyal but equally messed-up buddy Jimmy the Finn (Peter Sarsgaard), snitching on dealers to a pair of very dirty cops (Anthony LaPaglia and Doug Hutchison), and just generally reveling in his own self-loathing.

Eventually, though, after an opening act that suggests a far less fun version of Trainspotting, Kilmer gets a clue, and the film’s flashback-filled plot gets going, drawing our hero – who’s a bit more complex a character than we’re initially led to believe – into an increasingly complex and deadly investigation that takes several satisfyingly unpredictable left turns along the way.

It’s true, The Salton Sea’s plot isn’t all that dissimilar to two other, better crime films released around the same time: Joe Carnahan’s Narc and Christopher Nolan’s Memento. Where this one makes it mark, however, is in its druggy, surreal atmosphere and a cast of supporting characters as memorably weird and creepy as any you’re likely to see in a movie not directed by David Lynch. Chief among them – and sorry I haven’t mentioned him until now – is an over-the-top villain named Pooh Bear, played with gleefully insane gusto by Vincent D’Onofrio. A desert-dwelling drug kingpin who wears a plastic prosthetic nose over the coke-ravaged face-hole where his natural one used to be, favors creatively disgusting ways (occasionally involving badgers) of punishing those who’ve ripped him off, and harbors a bizarre fascination with the Kennedy assassination, Pooh Bear is easily the weirdest and best thing in the movie, and is by himself worth seeing it for. Thankfully, though, Caruso is savvy enough to not let D’Onofrio entirely steal the show, and the rest of the cast – which includes Adam Goldberg, Deborah Kara Unger Meat Loaf, and Luis Guzman – does a fine job of keeping up with the movie’s unusual rhythms and gritty, grungy worldview. As for Kilmer, he dirties up awfully well for a former Top Gun pretty boy, and although Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’s Gay Perry will always be my favorite of his many roles, this one’s up there, too.

It’s a long way from this movie to the slicker but safer trappings of blockbusters like Disturbia, and you’ve got to admire Caruso’s ability to make the jump from low-budget oddity to Spielberg-produced mega-movie. But, after Eagle Eye makes a mint at the box office, I’d love to see him focus his energies on something as small and wonderfully weird as his first film. He could even keep Shia LeBeouf in the lead role – so long as he makes him wear a fake nose.

MOVIE MATCH: In the Company of Neil LaBute

2008-09-19T09:05:00.000-07:00

This week’s neighbor-from-hell yarn Lakeview Terrace, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Patrick Wilson, looks like your standard Hollywood domestic shocker – or, it would look that way if you didn’t notice that the director was one Neil LaBute.

LaBute, a filmmaker (and playwright) I’ve been following intently since I caught his stunning debut, In the Company of Men, in the early days of DVD, is one of cinema’s foremost chroniclers of men – and often, also women – behaving badly, his characters some of the most manipulative and cynical creatures ever put on screen. What makes them worth getting to know is that LaBute has a Mamet-like gift for brutal, darkly comedic dialogue, and although he’s since branched out into films that take a slightly less poisoned view of humanity, he’s at his best when working knee-deep in nastiness. Hopefully Lakeview Terrace will be able to capture at least a little bit of the edge that made most of his earlier films so great.

Before we get to it, though, here’s a quick look back at some of the films that put LaBute on the map. I’ve had to leave out a few, but for space reasons only – 2002’s romantic drama Possession, LaBute’s biggest departure to date, and 2004’s return-to-form adaptation The Shape of Things are both worth well checking out if you’ve enjoyed any of his other work.

In the Company of Men (1997)
Still possibly LaBute’s masterpiece, this lacerating, pitch-dark indie flick – supposedly made for a paltry $25,000 budget – is the kind of debut that makes you stand up and take notice. Icily satirizing testosterone-fueled corporate culture, the film follows a manipulative, misogynistic white-collar sleazebag (Aaron Eckhart) who coaxes a meek, gullible coworker (Matt Malloy) into playing along with a nasty little ruse he’s cooked up as a way of symbolically getting his revenge on the female gender. The target of their sick, vengeful “game”: an innocent deaf woman (Stacy Edwards) who’s never done anything wrong to either of them.
The film never completely transcends its stagebound origins (LaBute adapted his own play), but it’s a riveting cinematic experience nonetheless – the plot is consistently shocking, the dialogue is razor-sharp, and Eckhart’s performance will chill your bones.
Worth Watching For: Almost everything in it – this one’s pretty perfect.
Unforgettable Bit of Dialogue: “Women. Nice ones, the most frigid of the race, it doesn’t matter in the end. Inside they’re all the same meat and gristle and hatred just simmering.”

Your Friends and Neighbors (1998)
Intentionally one of the least fun, least sexy movies ever made on the subject of sex, Your Friends & Neighbors is an ensemble piece about several well-to-do yet severely unhappy and unstable urbanites and their various (and mostly miserable) hook-ups and break-ups. In the words of the great Roger Ebert, it’s “the kind of date movie that makes you want to go home alone.”
The cast includes Ben Stiller, Catherine Keener, Amy Brenneman, and – of course – Aaron Eckhart.
Worth Watching For: Some of the most skillful injections of humor into otherwise mortifying scenes that I’ve ever seen in a film.
Unforgettable Bit of Dialogue: “The best f--- I ever had? That would be your wife. That was the best f--- I ever had.”

Nurse Betty (2000)
An odd mix of romantic comedy, postmodern gangster movie, and offbeat character study, Nurse Betty was LaBute’s decidedly unconventional attempt to connect with a mainstream audience. Renee Zellweger stars as Betty, a sweet but delusional waitress who witnesses her husband’s drug-related murder and afterward, following her own whacked-out logic, decides to hightail it to Los Angeles to rendezvous with her beloved “ex-fiancé” – who’s actually just a character on a daytime soap opera played by actor Greg Kinnear. Following her are a pair of hitmen, Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock, the elder of which develops a crush on Betty even though they’ve been sent to snuff her out.
Darker and more violent than just about any rom-com you’ve ever seen – people get freakin’ scalped in this movie – yet somehow still endearing and surprisingly touching, Nurse Betty finds LaBute flirting with Hollywood conventions while keeping one foot firmly planted in indie quirkiness.
Worth Watching For: Its head-spinning mix of tones and genres. The genuine chemistry between Freeman and Rock is pretty impressive, too.
Unforgettable Bit of Dialogue: “Know what bugs me the most about these soaps? It’s people with no lives, watching other peoples’ fake lives.”

The Wicker Man (2006)
What to say about this ill-advised remake of a classic British chiller? A box office flop on its release, the film has earned cult-favorite status among fans of the “So Bad It’s Good” genre, and for good reason – it’s one of the most astoundingly wrongheaded pieces of cinema you may ever experience. Nicolas Cage overacts up a storm as a cop investigating a young girl’s disappearance on a Pacific Northwest island populated by creepy pagans, but while the setup is unchanged from the well-remembered 1973 original, this one takes a sharp turn toward silliness early on and plunges ever deeper as it goes along.
Having proven his wit and his talent with so many earlier films, you’ve got to wonder if La Bute wasn’t just having a laugh at the expense of the studio when he was making The Wicker Man – how else to explain the uber-ridiculous fight scenes, the sledgehammer symbolism, the clumsy attempts at shock moments, and, well, everything else on display?
Worth Watching For: The outright zaniness of it all – this movie is so insane, you won’t even bat an eye when Cage starts sucker-punching old ladies and running around in a bear suit (thankfully, you can see most of the really wild stuff on YouTube if you’re not up for watching the whole movie).
Unforgettable Bit of Dialogue: “Howditgetburned???!!!!! Howditgetburned????!!!!!!”

Take a look at ‘Humboldt County’

2008-08-29T08:57:00.000-07:00

One of the most promising-looking movies that you probably won’t get to see in theaters this fall is the indie dramedy Humboldt County, the feature debut of writing/directing duo Darren Grodsky and Danny Jacobs.

I checked out the trailer (here it is over at Apple.com) knowing little about the film, and was very impressed with what I saw – everything from the cinematography to the performances look to be pretty spot-on in this small-scale but seemingly heartfelt tale of a mentally burned-out med student (Jeremy Strong) who winds up in an off-the-grid California community of tightly-knit medicinal marijuana growers. Director Peter Bogdanovich, a guy I always love to see in front of the camera, plays Strong’s hard-nosed doctor father; the talented but not exactly name-brand supporting cast also includes Fairuza Balk, Frances Fisher, and Brad Dourif.

According to the directors’ blog, the film is slated for a select-cities release on September 26 that will probably bypass our area entirely, although it will be available to HDNet subscribers in “exclusive airings” starting on September 1.

Yes, Humboldt County does seem to have a familiar, Garden State-ish ring to it, but something about this movie – and, no, it’s not the pot-related plot – seems pretty special, and I hope it makes its way to our corner of the world before too long.

Here’s a low-res look at the trailer, though the HD version at Apple does the film’s gorgeous visuals a lot more justice:

MOVIE MATCH: Diesel-powered 'Babylon' far from director's finest work

2008-08-27T09:14:00.000-07:00

Well, now... I wrote this column last week before leaving for vacation, back when there was still some hope that Babylon A.D. would turn out to be a halfway decent slice of sci-fi cinema. Looking at the early reviews, apparently this is not the case -- even director Mathieu Kassovitz has gone on record saying the film is a piece of crap. It seems that once again the talented French filmmaker has been disrespected and pushed around by an American production company (if you believe his version of the story), and although I honestly believe he's got a lot more great movies in him, at this point I highly doubt they'll be made here in the U.S. It's our loss.

The flashy sci-fi pic Babylon A.D. may end up being little more than Children of Men for the Transformers set, but I’m holding out hope that the film is more ambitious than its underwhelming trailers have made it out to be.
That isn’t because I’ve been clamoring for Vin Diesel’s return to the big screen – though I did sort of enjoy his wisecracking mobster act in the surprisingly good Find Me Guilty – but rather because the film gives director Mathieu Kassovitz a chance to redeem himself after fumbling the ball somewhat with his Hollywood debut. Kassovitz is a great filmmaker who, like far too many young, talented world cinema whiz kids before him, made a splash in his home country (in his case, France) before departing for our shores only to lose some of his mojo in the American studio system. In 1995, he wowed the world with the gritty, black-and-white French youth gang drama La Haine; seven years later, he sat in the director’s chair for the unsuccessful, critically panned (but, still, not entirely terrible) Halle Berry horror flick Gothika.
Kassovitz hasn’t directed another film since (although he’s had some notable acting roles in projects like Spielberg’s Munich), and while I can think of better ways to re-invigorate a directorial career than by hitching your wagon to Vin Diesel’s star, I have a feeling that he might find some Stateside success yet, even if Babylon doesn’t connect. I say this because Kassovitz has basically already proven that he can make a slam-bang Hollywood movie, even if the film in question wasn’t made in Hollywood at all.
2000’s The Crimson Rivers, Kassovitz’s final film before his U.S. career reboot, is a tense, intriguing, extremely well-directed thriller cut from the same cloth as Se7en and the Hannibal Lector franchise. About as far removed from the insulting stereotypes regarding French cinema – boring, pretentious, plot-less, etc. – as a French film can get, Rivers holds its own against its American counterparts in the often tired serial-killer genre and proves without a doubt that Kassovitz has just as solid a handle on mainstream entertainment as he does on more radical filmmaking.
The film opens with two seemingly unrelated police investigations, one extremely gruesome and the other just slightly out of the ordinary. The former finds brooding veteran detective Pierre Niemans (played by the great Jean Reno) called to a creepily quiet university town high in the French Alps to investigate the ritualistic torture/murder of a college librarian; in a small town not far away, meanwhile, young and impulsive police lieutenant Kerkerian (Vincent Cassel) begins digging into a mundane-looking graveyard vandalism case involving some local skinheads that quickly turns into something far more disturbing. By the time these two very different cops’ paths have crossed – later in the film than you might expect – they’ve both begun to piece together a horrifying, decades-old conspiracy involving a little girl’s death, sinister genetics experiments, and an educational institution that’s gone a few steps too far in the pursuit of excellence.
Getting an awful lot of mileage out of his two highly capable stars and some stunning-looking snowbound locations, Kassovitz keeps the tension high and the scenes cranking along even as Rivers’ plot becomes impenetrably murky toward the end. A shade or two lighter in tone than, say, Se7en, the film nevertheless pulls off some truly skin-crawling setpieces – Kassovitz has a way with revealing dead bodies – and effectively maintains an atmosphere of pervasive, intangible evil throughout. The highly energetic, David Fincher-esque camerawork is a major asset, as are co-star Nadia Fares (who kind of reminds me of a French Rachel Weisz) the surprisingly plentiful chase scenes and an out-of-place but very lively fight sequence between Cassel and a couple of punks.
The film smacks of Hollywood, but not at all in a negative sense – it’s an unabashed crowd-pleaser with superior technical craftsmanship, a plot that doesn’t leave you hanging, and lots of action. I’m not at all surprised that American studio execs saw dollar signs all over it, and figured that Kassovitz could do well for himself here in the U.S. They certainly had the right idea – now all they need to do is throw him a project worthy of his talent.

MOVIE MATCH: Shaking Up Shakespeare

2008-08-20T08:41:00.000-07:00

In the buzzed-about comedy Hamlet 2, out in limited release this week, a frustrated drama teacher (played by Steve Coogan) motivates his students and shocks the censors by producing a politically incorrect musical “sequel” to Shakespeare’s Hamlet in which Hillary Clinton and Jesus Christ are both supporting characters.
Of course, Shakespeare having lived and died long before copyright law was established, his works certainly can be freely adapted by anybody willing to take a crack at them – and while some folks, like Orson Welles and Kenneth Branagh, have taken pride in staying true to the Bard’s vision in their adaptations, plenty of others have dared to take some gutsy and occasionally dazzling liberties with the plays everybody knows and loves. In honor of Hamlet 2’s not-quite-reverent approach to the greatest tragedy of all time, here are a few films that really pushed the envelope in bringing Shakespeare to the screen – being something of a nonconformist himself, I think he would have enjoyed them a lot.

O (2001)

Shakespeare’s Othello revolves around jealousy, prejudice and back-stabbing, and where can one possibly find more of that stuff than in high school? Still, while transferring the story to a modern teenage setting might have been a no-brainer, Tim Blake Nelson’s O goes the extra step to be a compelling drama rather than just another gimmicky modernization.
Mekhi Phifer – in one of his best performances to date – stars as basketball phenom Odin James, the only black student at a prestigious private school who’s driven by duplicitous teammate Hugo (Josh Hartnett) into suspecting his girlfriend Desi (Julia Stiles) is cheating on him. Things, of course, get tragic and violent from there.
A powerful and surprisingly unsparing adaptation – it was shelved for several years after the Columbine tragedy – O is a terrific reminder of how relevant many of Shakespeare’s themes still are, and of how effectively they can be spun into contemporary narratives in the right hands.

Tromeo & Juliet (1996)
Leave it to the lovable sleazeballs at Troma Studios to turn the most famous romantic tragedy ever written into an orgy of blood, boobs, and body piercing that makes the Leo DiCaprio version look as tame as children’s theater.
That’s not to say that Tromeo & Juliet, one of Troma’s most ambitious and well-received low-budget productions, completely throws the text out the window – characters actually speak in verse, though it’s liberally sprinkled with cuss words – but somehow I doubt that the Globe Theatre ever featured mutated cow creatures or softcore lesbian action on its stage. Narrated by Motorhead frontman Lemmy Kilmeister (an awesome touch), Tromeo and Juliet finds its lovestruck title characters (played by Will Keenan and Jane Jensen) caught in the midst of a war between rival porn-producing families in an urban crap-hole setting, soundtracked by the likes of Wesley Willis and the Ass Ponys.
The film launched the career of its writer, James Gunn, who’d go on to script the surprisingly decent Dawn of the Dead remake and his later directorial debut, the underappreciated horror/comedy masterpiece Slither.

Macbeth (1971)

Unlike the 2001 Sundance favorite Scotland, Pa., which stages Macbeth in a 1970s-era fast-food restaurant, or the John Turturro cult item Men of Respect, which translates it into a mafia movie, Roman Polanski’s take on one of the Bard’s best-known tragedies is actually pretty faithful to the source material. It nevertheless makes this list by being so bloody, gritty and atmospheric that it plays more like an artsy, big-budget grindhouse flick than a stately Shakespearian drama.
Wild-eyed British actor Jon Finch plays the title role in this U.S./U.K. coproduction, which contains a memorably sympathetic portrayal of Lady Macbeth (Francesca Annis) and an exceedingly bleak tone that many critics saw as Polanski’s reaction to the murder of his wife Sharon Tate by the Manson family. As dark and cold as its rocky Welsh settings, the film is one of the most “realistic” screen versions of the story I’ve ever seen, though it also contains some decidedly trippy sequences – particularly those involving the story’s infamous coven of witches. The sound effect that accompanies Macbeth’s hallucinations in the famous “is this a dagger I see before me” scene is worth the price of admission alone.

Titus (1999)

Broadway director Julie Taymor made her feature film debut with this visually stunning adaptation of Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare’s first and most notorious play – a charming tale of rape, murder, and torture that seems more like the work of the Hills Have Eyes folks than it does the guy who penned A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Rather than going for a straight-up retelling or modernization of the sensationalistic story, however, Taymor opts for a wildly stylistic, almost avant-garde approach to the material, creating a jaw-dropping hybrid of past and present, fantasy and reality in which motorcycles coexist with chariots, flashbacks are presented in music video-like style, and toy soldiers transform into actual Roman warriors. Anthony Hopkins, playing the title role, heads a terrific cast that also includes Jessica Lange, Alan Cumming, and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers; the ace production design, inspired by everything from ancient Rome to WWII Italy to Rat Pack-era Las Vegas, is handled by Fellini’s go-to guy Dante Ferretti.
This is a nearly three-hour movie, based on one of the most unpleasant stories ever written, but trust me – you won’t be able to take your eyes off of it for the duration.

MOVIE MATCH: Big Names, Bad Dudes -- The Best Movie Villains Played by Major Stars

2008-07-15T13:38:00.000-07:00

Well, the wait has been an excruciatingly long one, but this week it’s finally over – The Dark Knight, our long-awaited second installment in the head-and-shoulders best superhero franchise currently running, is here at last.

With it, of course, comes the most talked-about performance of the year: Heath Ledger, in one of his final film roles, as The Joker. From everything I’ve seen and heard thus far – and, man, has it been a lot – this is a performance that’s going to get talked about whenever people talk about the greatest bad guys in movie history, so this week I thought I’d take a look back at some other big-name actors who were at their best playing the worst of the worst.

Sir Laurence Olivier as Dr. Christian Szell, Marathon Man

Alright a knight, an Oscar-winner, and the best-known Shakespearean actor on the planet, the ever-dignified Olivier decided to add another title to his resume in 1977: scary-ass mofo. His ex-death camp doctor Christian Szell wasn’t even the main villain in William Goldman’s espionage thriller Marathon Man, but that didn’t stop him from handily stealing the show – the scene in which he tortures Dustin Hoffman’s in-over-his-head hero with a variety of cringe-inducing dental implements has become one of the best remembered squirm sequences in film history, and rightly so.
Olivier earned one of his many Academy Award nominations for the role, reportedly inspired by real-life Nazi torturer Josef Mengele, and also placed the innocent-seeming question, “Is it safe?” up there with the most terrifying lines ever uttered in the movies.

Henry Fonda as Frank, Once Upon a Time in the West

In the 30s, he played a fresh-faced Abe Lincoln. In the 40s, he played a lovestruck Wyatt Earp. In the 50s, he played the most levelheaded of the 12 Angry Men.
In the 60s, he played a dude who shot a little kid in the face, point-blank, then chuckled about it afterward.
Sergio Leone’s epic horse opera Once Upon a Time in the West conjures up one of the most dog-eat-dog western settings this side of Deadwood, and the baddest dog of them all is Henry Fonda’s sneering hired killer Frank – so evil, in fact, he apparently only needs a first name. What makes Frank such an icon of western villainy isn’t just his decidedly casual sadism – it’s also the fact that Fonda’s got such an fatherly, heroic-looking face, it makes the sight of him gunning down an entire family or violently having his way with co-star Claudia Cardinale that much more disturbing to witness. By the end of the nearly three-hour film, you’re clawing at the armrests waiting to see him get pumped full of hot lead.

Dennis Hopper as Frank Booth, Blue Velvet

Nobody ever accused Dennis Hopper of being a particularly grounded guy, but his zoned-out characters in films like Apocalypse Now and Easy Rider at least seemed harmless enough to share a doobie with.
No so Frank Booth, the wild-eyed, sex-crazed, Roy Orbison-loving psychotic that makes Norman Bates seem positively well-adjusted. Played with a mix of soft-spoken menace and full-volume hysterical mega-insanity – sorry, but they haven’t yet invented a word that can accurately describe Frank Booth in a fit of rage – this character is terrifying even by the high standards of David Lynch’s wonderfully warped filmography, and arguably represents the finest work of Hopper’s lengthy career. Whether he’s dazedly lip-synching along to "In Dreams" with a fellow weirdo played by Dean Stockwell, beating the crap out of aw-shucks small-town protagonist Kyle MacLachlan, or horrifically redefining the “S” in S&M, this is one film character that you pray doesn’t have a real-life counterpart.
And, yes, I know that Dennis Hopper is probably the least-famous actor on this list, but I had to include him simply because Frank Booth would eat all of these other villains for breakfast – with a basketful of kittens on the side and a tall glass of anthrax to wash it all down.

Jack Nicholson as The Joker, Batman

Ledger may go down in history as the best onscreen Joker ever, but Jack Nicholson’s hedonistic perma-sneer perfectly suited the tone of Tim Burton’s original Batman film.
Nicholson demanded top billing to appear as the villain in Burton’s dark-yet-campy interpretation of pointy-eared hero’s origin story, and as good as star Michael Keaton was in the title role, ol’ Jack earned his top-dog spot in the credits with a performance that didn’t humanize the Clown Prince of Crime but rather played up his most entertainingly comic book-y qualities. Backed by Prince’s throbbing funk soundtrack and killer production design that perfectly realizes a sort of trippy cartoon version of film noir, Nicholson’s Joker is the loudest and most colorful instrument in a symphony of cinematic excess – and his work is one of the big reasons why Burton’s Batman still has plenty of admirers despite the overwhelming fan support of Nolan’s deeper, grittier caped crusader saga.

Al Pacino as John Milton, The Devil’s Advocate

Satan’s a character that tends to chew scenery in just about anything he shows up in – see, for instance, The Bible – so it’s surprising that it took until 1997 to cast Al Pacino as a thinly veiled version of Christianity’s number-one supervillain.
Trading the usual cloven hooves for a pair of thousand-dollar wingtips, Pacino plays the prince of darkness as a multi-millionaire Manhattan lawyer named John Milton, who bedevils innocent legal hotshot Keanu Reeves into joining his Satanic law firm (now that’s a redundant phrase, har har har) and does his bidding from a ridiculously luxurious office that would make Gordon Gekko green with envy.
Pacino doesn’t get to do his requisite screaming flip-out thing until pretty late in director Taylor Hackford’s overlong but trashily fun combination of legal thriller and religious horror flick, but his performance is an insidiously great one because he’s just way too damn persuasive about why being evil is so awesome – it might have been Billy Joel who said the sinners have much more fun, but nobody argues the point quite as eloquently as this sharp-dressed S.O.B. does.

MOVIE MATCH: You shouldn't keep this one a 'Secret'

2008-06-18T16:13:00.000-07:00

To a young kid obsessed with everything 007-related, the late 60s spy spoof Get Smart – whose reruns once aired, conveniently, right before bedtime on Nick at Nite – was about the coolest thing on television at the time.

Sure, some of the gags were probably over my head, but all the goodhearted swipes at the Bond series were always appreciated, and even at that age I could recognize the late Don Adams’ innate and inimitable comedic genius – that man could pop off catchphrases with the best of them, and nobody’s ever gotten more comic mileage out of talking into a shoe.

With all that in mind, I have to say I’m a little wary of this week’s Hollywood remake of my beloved show. Yes, I think Steve Carell was the best possible choice to play Maxwell Smart, and he should be well matched by co-stars Anne Hathaway and Dwayne “Sorry, But I’m Still Going to Refer to You as ‘The Rock’” Johnson, but I enjoyed Bewitched and Scooby Doo on the small screen, too, and look what happened when they got made into big-budget summer movies. Get Smart had a madcap comedic energy that was all its own, and I can’t imagine that would be an easy thing to duplicate and/or update for modern moviegoers – though I’ll be the first one to sing the filmmakers’ praises if they actually get it right.

As big-screen spy spoofs go, however, fans of the old-school Get Smart series could do a lot worse than the 1984 comedy Top Secret!, featuring a pre-Iceman Val Kilmer in his first movie role. Written and directed by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker – the guys responsible for Airplane!, still probably the greatest spoof movie of all time – the cult favorite is wall-to-wall packed with clever visual gags, and makes today’s unfortunate glut of shoddily-constructed spoofs (which Abrahams and the Zuckers, sadly, are partially responsible for) seem even lamer than we already know they are.

Kilmer stars as an Elvis-like American rock-and-roll heartthrob named Nick Rivers who’s just hit the top of the charts with his hit song Skeet Surfin’ – a Beach Boys-esque tune about, well, surfing and shooting skeet (simultaneously, of course). In the film’s world, East Germany is run by some nefarious Nazis, who’ve invited Nick to perform at a concert that’s actually a smokescreen for a world-domination scheme involving the requisite kidnapped scientist, a magnet that attracts submarines, and a whole lot of cackling. Never mind the plot, however, since even the filmmakers admit that it’s just an excuse to string together gags that leaves no form of silliness unturned – from hilarious gibberish posing as German to an unexpected (and spot-on) parody of the 80s trash classic The Blue Lagoon to a ballet sequence that seemingly anticipates the arrival of Viagra more than a decade before it was invented. My personal favorite: a gag involving an industrial-size “marital aid,” the easy-to-miss punchline to which is the funniest line in the movie (it’s amazing what you could get away with in a PG-rated flick back then). A cameo by Pac-man ranks a close second.

Never as consistent or laugh-out-loud hilarious as Airplane!, Top Secret! is inventive and energetic throughout and showcases one of the most charismatic performances in Kilmer’s career – he even does all his own singing and dancing. The supporting cast is mostly game (and screen legend Omar Sharif has some very funny moments as an ill-fated secret agent) but the film’s appeal lies not so much in the performances but in the inspired goofiness of the sight gags and production design, both uncommonly good for a comedy of this type. You’ve just got to love a movie that includes the only underwater barroom brawl in film history, and in which East German stationery bears the slogan “Better Government Through Intimidation.”

Easily and pretty cheaply available on dvd, Top Secret! is exactly the kind of movie that Get Smart should be, and has rightly earned its status as a classic yukfest of the VHS era. They simply don’t make spoofs like this anymore, but they sure ought to.

MOVIE MATCH: Directors on the rebound

2008-06-10T11:57:00.000-07:00

I don’t get any pleasure out of saying so, but M. Night Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water is officially my least favorite movie of all time.

That’s not because it’s terrible – but, holy sweet crap is it terrible – but more because I just couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that Shyamalan, who’d seemed to be so in touch with his audience on films like The Sixth Sense and Signs, could be responsible for something so woefully misguided, self-indulgent, and unappealing on every conceivable level.

As bad a taste as that film left in my mouth, though, I’m still pretty psyched for his new film, the unexpectedly R-rated apocalyptic thriller The Happening, and – although it might just be wishful thinking – I believe it might be one of his best films thus far. Why? Because everybody makes mistakes, and many of my favorite filmmakers have rebounded from their biggest critical and popular disasters with some of their most highly regarded work. Just as Steven Spielberg followed up his ill-conceived and unappreciated 1941 with his now-legendary Raiders of the Lost Ark in the early 80s – and then, in the early 90s, bounced back from the one-two punch of mediocrity that was Always and Hook with the instant-classic Jurassic Park – I’m hoping that the embarrassing performance of Lady knocked some sense back into M. Night, and that’s why I’m dedicating this week’s Movie Match to great films made by great directors in the wake of their biggest disappointments.

John McTiernan’s Die Hard With a Vengeance

The Last Action Hero, a hopelessly inept combination of kiddie fantasy-fulfillment flick and crude satire of violent action movies, was a total snafu of a film, even with Arnold Schwarzenegger playing the lead and ace action director John McTiernan behind the camera. Although it very well could have derailed the director’s career, however, just two years later McTiernan delivered a crackling second sequel to his 1988 hit Die Hard, teaming Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson for an explosion-heavy romp around New York City that stands as one of the best summer blockbusters of the 90s. With its over-the-top but expertly choreographed action sequences – the tunnel chase, especially, is an absolute jaw-dropper – and the highly entertaining chemistry between its stars, Die Hard With a Vengeance quickly reestablished McTiernan as a force to be reckoned with in the shoot ‘em up genre… though he’s yet to recover from a more recent string of bombs that includes 2002’s dreadful Rollerball remake.

Tim Burton’s Big Fish

Some classics can’t be touched, as fanboy favorite Burton learned when he unsuccessfully tried “re-imagining” Planet of the Apes back in 2002. While cool-looking, his poorly received Apes flick just didn’t have much heart – though his follow-up, 2004’s Big Fish, had enough of that for a dozen movies. Maybe Burton’s most sensitive and sentimental film to date, Big Fish (adapted by scribe John August) is a modern fantasy about a charismatic young man named Edward Bloom (Ewan McGregor) whose life is one tall tale after another; it’s also a touching and keenly observed story about coming to understand – and appreciate – one’s family, as strange as they might be. Deftly mixing fairy tale elements and eye-popping storybook visuals with a streak of warmth and humanity that surpasses even his own masterpiece, Edward Scissorhands, Burton bounced back from his misfired monkey movie with a film that has quickly become one of my all-time favorites.

Kevin Smith’s Clerks 2

Smith’s filmography has its share of both obsessive fans and bile-spewing haters, and the latter camp was probably thrilled with his dopey 2003 dramedy Jersey Girl – the detractors couldn’t have asked for a better argument as to why Smith should quit filmmaking and head back to the convenience store where he got his start. And, actually, that’s exactly what Smith did with 2006’s Clerks 2, a 12-years-later sequel to the vulgar black-and-white comedy that gave him his big break. Returning to the Star Wars references and MPAA-baiting dialogue that had once earned him the adulation of myself and other teenage guys all over America – but, this time, with an added dose of thirtysomething cynicism and melancholy that really helped round out his cast of knockabout blue-collar characters – Smith played to his own strengths and gave the fans what they wanted, rather than taking another ill-advised detour into Lifetime-movie territory. The result was one of the funniest and best-written movies of his career.

Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center

I enjoyed Stone’s overblown historical epic Alexander more than most folks did, but the film remains an extremely high-profile megabomb – and a costly one, at that. In Alexander’s wake, though, came the most earnest and least self-indulgent movie the unpredictable director had ever made: 2006’s harrowing and fact-based 9/11 drama World Trade Center. Made – shockingly – without a political agenda, the well-directed and inspiring film wisely narrowed its scope to focus on one incredible story at the center of an unfathomable day of tragedy: that of Port Authority police officers John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno (played in the film by Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena), who struggled to stay alive underneath a horrific mass of rubble after getting caught under a collapsed tower during a rescue mission. One might have expected Stone to treat this subject matter with a lot more vitriol – his upcoming release, after all, is an incendiary George W. Bush biopic – but instead he crafted a well-meaning and refreshingly non-exploitative tribute to American heroism that silenced even some of his harshest critics.

Spike Lee’s Inside Man

Lee’s never been a filmmaker short on ideas, but he crammed so many into the loopy 2004 satire She Hate Me that the film quite literally collapsed under the weight; Roger Ebert, whose mediocre review was one of the only remotely positive ones the film earned, says it “contains enough for five movies, but has no idea which of those movies it wants to be.” Apparently, Lee learned a little bit about focus before returning to the big screen; his next effort, 2006’s Inside Man, was a tight, smart, highly entertaining heist flick that – while not amongst his most meaningful films – managed to score with one of his widest audiences yet. Solid central performances by Denzel Washington and Jodie Foster, as well as some especially nice work from co-stars Chiwetel Ejiofor and Clive Owen, round out an ingeniously plotted crime drama that leaves two confused cops (Washington and Ejiofor) scrambling to figure out just what the hell happened during one of the most enigmatic bank robberies in movie history. Who knew that, after proving himself as one of the most notable “serious” American filmmakers of his generation, Lee could also fire off a near-perfect genre pic without breaking a sweat?

MOVIE MATCH: Four unexpectedly decent Adam Sandler movies

2008-06-05T11:08:00.000-07:00

Well folks, the most eagerly anticipated movie of 2008 is finally upon us this week. Yes, that’s right, I’m talking about the Adam Sandler cinematic classic-to-be You Don’t Mess With the Zohan.

What, you’re not soiling yourself with excitement for Sandler’s turn as an Israeli Mossad agent who longs to be a hair stylist? Yeah, me either. It’s not any particular beef I’ve got with Sandler, but even with Judd Apatow listed as a co-writer and the great John Turturro showing up for yet another supporting role, Zohan looks to be one of this summer’s most misguided movies, vying for that dubious honor with Mike Myers’ The Love Guru.

Personally, I think Sandler’s big-screen comedic aptitude peaked with his first major movie, Billy Madison (yes, it’s an orgy of crude, juvenile slapstick hijinks, but hey, who doesn’t love an orgy?), and for years now I’ve been wishing he’d just scrap the juvenile stuff and do some more worthwhile film work – his 2002 collaboration with Paul Thomas Anderson, Punch-Drunk Love, is one of my favorite movies, and proved that Sandler has what it takes to transition to “serious” roles if he were willing to make the leap.

Until that day, though, I’ll leave you with four Sandler movies that ended up being a heck of a lot better than anybody could have predicted – in the hopes that Zohan might somehow manage to bring this list up to five.

Click

It’s a Wonderful Life it ain’t, but this potentially horrific (possibly unintentional) homage to Frank Capra actually ended up being one of the most bearable – and kinda-sorta lovable – Sandler comedies of the past decade. The plot, which wouldn’t have seemed out of place on The Twilight Zone, has workaholic architect Sandler purchasing an enchanted remote control from kooky scientist Christopher Walken that allows him to control time by simply clicking its buttons. As he uses it to fast-forward the “boring” parts of his daily existence – and occasionally ogle some jiggling cleavage in slo-mo – he begins to inadvertently skip over the important moments with his kids and his wife (Kate Beckinsale, clearly the kind of girl you want to pause, not fast-forward). Mostly sacrificing huge laughs in favor of sentimentality, Click is still markedly better than the average effects-driven big-budget comedy, thanks to its occasionally inventive script and a winning Sandler performance that has his character aging almost a half-century (aided by Oscar-nominated makeup effects) over the course of the film.

Reign Over Me

I’ve never cried during an Adam Sandler flick – thought I may have shed a tear or two after having wasted eight bucks seeing Mr. Deeds – but this 2007 film, from writer/director Mike Binder, came the closest to making that happen.
Sandler, in his riskiest role to date, plays an average family man who became a withdrawn eccentric after losing his wife and daughters in the 9/11 attacks; his old dental school roommate (Don Cheadle) bumps into him one day, and takes it upon himself to reconnect with his old friend and bring him out of the depressed, lonely stupor he’s been suffering through.
Binder has a knack for character-driven films with engaging little touches of comedy (a combination he nailed in his previous film, The Upside of Anger), and Reign Over Me gets a lot of dramatic mileage out of its Cheadle/Sandler pairing without crossing the line into exploitation – an impressive feat, considering the subject matter. Had the film been released in November instead of March last year, Sandler might have even landed an award nomination or two.

Airheads

Dated as this grunge-era comedy is becoming, it’s still got laughs to spare – and features the kind of once-in-a-lifetime cast that’ll make it worth seeing no matter how painful the hairstyles are.
Sandler plays the dimwitted drummer of headbanger Brendan Fraser’s terrible hard rock trio The Lone Rangers (which also includes a very scraggly Steve Buscemi), who resort to extreme measures to get their demo tape played on the radio: they break into the radio station with plastic Uzis and hold the staff and d-bag DJ Joe Mantegna hostage. Coming off like a lighthearted cross between Wayne’s World and Die Hard (it’s even shot in the same L.A. highrise they used for the Nakatomi Plaza), Airheads offered Sandler one of his first major movie roles and surrounded him with the funniest lineup of supporting players he’s had to date – including Chris Farley, Michael McKean, Judd Nelson, Harold Ramis, and, in a particularly entertaining turn, a pre-Seinfeld, pre-career suicide Michael Richards.

Spanglish

Though Sandler’s finest performance to date can still be found in Punch-Drunk Love, he’s no slouch in this overlong but endearing culture-clash dramedy, directed by small-screen legend James L. Brooks.
Sandler plays a successful celebrity chef whose high-strung wife (Tea Leoni) has been making life difficult for him and his two kids; into their affluent household comes Mexican-born, mostly Spanish-speaking maid Flor (Paz Vega) and her daughter (Shelbie Bruce), good-hearted immigrants who gradually begin to affect their employers’ unhappy lives in some unexpected ways.
Brooks’ film is a bit messy and chaotic – sort of like real life – and Leoni’s character can be tough to take, but Sandler shines in his scenes with Vega (making her American film debut), and Spanglish manages to find some moments of real resonance in its dysfunctional but thankfully not soap-operatic portrayal of upper-class misery.

MOVIE MATCH: Headed back to Narnia? Don't forget your 'Compass'

2008-05-13T10:13:00.000-07:00

You didn’t need a crystal ball to figure out that, once the Lord of the Rings flicks and the Harry Potter series started setting the box office on fire a few years back, Hollywood would start churning out fantasy flicks faster than you could say “Hufflepuff.”

And soon, sure as a Hobbit has hairy feet, the attempts to capitalize on those series’ success started to pile up. Unfortunately, most of them proved to be less than magical from a critical and commercial standpoint, with misfires like Eragon and The Seeker: The Dark is Rising threatening to send the genre back to the obscure realm of late night Dungeons and Dragons tournaments and the aisle at Barnes & Noble you’d be loath for your coffee date to catch you hanging out in. Still, one franchise did manage to make some bank in the wake of Harry and Frodo: the Disney co-produced Chronicles of Narnia series, whose bigger, badder, more epic-looking second installment, Prince Caspian, hits screens this week. Having never made it through more than a chapter or two of the C.S. Lewis books the Narnia movies are adapted from, I was surprised as how thoroughly I enjoyed the first film, The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe, and I’m happy to see the series – thinly-veiled Christian allegory or not – continuing to pick up speed.

As much as I’m looking forward to seeing Prince Caspian, though, the fact that the Narnia series is getting a second installment irritates me just a little because my personal favorite fantasy trilogy, after a disastrous box office showing last year, may never make it to a movie screen again. That’s a shame, because The Golden Compass – the little $180 million fantasy movie whose U.S. box-office failure essentially killed New Line Cinema – is actually a pretty awesome movie, even if few people in this country appreciated it (the film, at least, pulled in some decent bucks overseas).

Adapted from the first novel in Phillip Pullman’s controversial "His Dark Materials" trilogy, The Golden Compass is a triumph of production design and special effects that, although it can’t really elaborate on some of the more interesting ideas in the book, is still a compelling fantasy story, very interestingly told. Set in a fantasy version of Earth where religion and science are involved in a centuries-old slugfest and all humans have talking animal familiars (“daemons”) that follow them everywhere they go, Compass is a “chosen one” tale about a young girl named Lyra (played by newcomer Dakota Blue Richards) who’s entrusted by her adventurous Uncle Asriel (Daniel Craig) to protect a sought-after, future-predicting device called an “alethiometer” from the clutches of a villainous, supposedly divinely controlled world governing body called the Magisterium. Not even counting the daemons, the film’s world is richly populated with intriguing fantasy elements: a mysterious substance called “Dust” that may possibly allow passage to other universes (awesome), high-flying airships like the one piloted by sky cowboy Sam Elliott (really awesome), giant armored polar bears that battle each other to the death (really, really freakin’ awesome), etc.

The film, which careens between locations and introduces difficult-to-explain fantasy concepts at a way-too-rapid clip, is probably best enjoyed after digesting the novel on which it’s based, but there’s plenty to appreciate in the film version anyway – from Nicole Kidman’s deliciously icy performance as the Magesterium’s number-one villainess Mrs. Coulter (named after Ann, perhaps?) to the aforementioned polar bear battle royale to a creepy sequence set inside a lab where the baddies experiment on innocent children. Director Chris Weitz, who’d previously worked only on comedies both broad (American Pie) and more subtle (About a Boy), keeps the film flowing at a pretty good pace throughout, and shows some serious flair during the action sequences – the climactic sequence, in which humans, daemons, polar bears, and the kitchen sink scrap on an icy battlefield, is almost Lord of the Rings-quality.

In hindsight, I guess I’m not exactly shocked that The Golden Compass didn’t find its foothold with stateside audiences – it’s a lot to take in one sitting, it lacked the fanatical built-in fanbase that the Harry Potter series enjoys, and its subtle but still-there commentary on religion certainly didn’t make it an appealing prospect for the churchgoing audiences generally credited for boosting Narnia’s box-office take. Still, the film remains an uncommonly intelligent and inventive stab at the big-budget fantasy genre, and is nowhere near the failure that some critics made it out to be. And although we may never see the next two installments in the trilogy hit the big screen, what happens after the film’s cliffhanger ending can pretty easily be picked up in Pullman’s novels – and, hey, when’s the last time a Hollywood movie actually made you want to read something?

Tasteless or not, Kaufman's still a class act

2008-05-08T11:54:00.000-07:00

Lloyd Kaufman, the creator and head honcho of long-running indie film studio Troma Entertainment, is one of my favorite people in the entire movie industry. I wouldn't even consider myself a huge fan of his company's movies - which usually combine gleefully executed gore, T&A, and other assorted tastelessness with a tongue-in-cheek and often satirical sense of humor - but I admire him for the way he's built an entirely independent, highly successful studio without any help from the majors... and even if his empire is built mostly out of blood and boobs (and occasionally poop), it's still got more class and integrity than any of the big studios can claim.

Kauifman is also, I would assume, a pretty generous guy, as I've seen him show up for cameo roles in literally hundreds of no-budget movies just as a favor to the filmmakers - yet another way in which he sticks up for the little guys while simultaneously sticking it to The Man. And on top of all that, he's one hell of an interview subject, as this Onion AV Club piece certainly speaks to. Chatting with AV Club editor Sean O'Neil as his latest film, the zombie-chicken musical epic Poultrygeist, goes into limited theatrical release, Kaufman cracks jokes about Eric Rohmer, reminisces about his time as a Yale undergrad (I had no idea!), rags on Al Gore, and even offers a surprisingly incisive viewpoint on why movie piracy isn't such a bad thing for independent filmmakers.

It's a terrific read, and even if Poultrygeist isn't your particular cup of chicken doo-doo, you may very well find yourself feeling the same way about Kaufman that I do.

MOVIE MATCH: The Top 5 reasons to see 'Iron Man' again

2008-05-08T11:39:00.000-07:00

The live-action/CGI Speed Racer movie is out this Friday, which I thought would make for a good occasion to check out the Japanese sci-fi flick Casshern, another anime-inspired film that features real live actors interacting with surreal, hyper-detailed computer-generated sets.

Unfortunately, technology failed me as usual when I attempted to watch the film – after about 20 minutes of eye-popping coolness, the dvd did that awful, unfixable skip-‘n-stop thing that dvds sometimes do, leaving me wondering just what the hell a “Casshern” really was and, also, what I was going to write about for this week’s Movie Match.

And then it hit me. Technology may have crapped out on me this weekend, but there’s one guy who it worked out pretty damn well for: Robert Downey, Jr.’s fictional billionaire Tony Stark, whose superpowered Iron Man suit blasted him toward a $100 million-plus box-office payday last weekend that surpassed even the most generous predictions for the film’s success. I had high hopes for Iron Man, and was impressed by just how much the movie lived up to them – and so, in order to cover my ass this week, er, share my enthusiasm for this season’s first major blockbuster, I will devote the rest of this column to a few reasons why Iron Man is well worth catching in theaters a second time.

1. The first action sequence
Most fans will walk out of the theater raving about Tony Stark’s ass-kicking exploits in his trademark fire-engine red Iron Man suit (I could watch that scene with him and the tank about a hundred times in a row), but let’s not forget the first time we get to see him wreak some havoc in a mechanical suit of armor, as comparatively low-tech as his prototype Iron Man getup is. There’s a real sense of fun that underlines the carnage in the film’s initial action setpiece, which has Stark blasting his way out of a terrorist stronghold while still awkwardly learning the finer points of mechanized combat – thankfully, his inexperience doesn’t prevent him from chucking freedom-haters around like ragdolls or unleashing a pair of arm-mounted flamethrowers that may just be the must-have movie accessory of 2008. It’s the perfect lead-in to the sparing but spectacular superhero mayhem to follow.

2. The dialogue
Robert Downey, Jr. slings one-liners like nobody else in Hollywood, and the filmmakers behind Iron Man were smart to let him go full-throttle with them throughout the film – even if his sense of humor is a bit over the heads of the action-figure buying segment of the film’s audience. Whether cracking wise about MySpace pages or delivering awkward romantic come-ons a la Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (if I mention that movie enough in this column, will somebody please see it?), Downey’s Tony Stark is outfitted with a gift of gab that far surpasses any screen superhero we’ve seen so far. I’m not sure how much of the killer dialogue to credit to the film’s writers as opposed to Downey himself, but either way this is easily the wittiest movie this genre has produced to date.

3. Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts
Female characters tend to get sidelined in even the best comics-to-screen adaptations, but despite her limited screen time, Paltrow did a fine job carving out some space for herself as Tony Stark’s devoted assistant and schoolboy crush Pepper Potts in this one. Crafting a poised, down-to-earth character who’s the perfect foil for Downey’s wisecracking, big-kid persona, Paltrow was one of the big reasons that Iron Man seemed like a much classier, more grown-up superhero movie than we might have expected. Plus, if you’ll allow me to get my chauvinist on for a second, she also looked better in this flick than in anything she’s done since the late 90s.

4. The visuals
Matthew Libatique is one of my favorite cinematographers, having been responsible for the jaw-dropping camerawork in all three of director Darren Aronofsky’s films, so I expected great things from Iron Man in the visual department. For the most part, it was hard to be disappointed – from the dimly-lit caves where Tony Stark fashions his clunky original Iron Man suit to the futuristic Malibu mansion where he tinkers with servos and beds the occasional Vanity Fair reporter, the film’s settings and characters pop off the screen as vividly and stylishly as anything you’d see on the comics page.

5. The bit after the end credits
You probably need to be a bit more of a hardcore Marvel acolyte than I am to fully appreciate it, but the two-minute scene that ran after Iron Man’s end credits was pretty cool nevertheless -- it not only featured my favorite celebrity cameo of the year so far, but also dropped some really tantalizing clues as to where the next Iron Man movie, and the onscreen Marvel universe as a whole, will be headed in the near future. Based on this little teaser, we geeks have a lot to look forward to.

MOVIE MATCH: They don’t all have to be Caped Crusaders or Men of Steel….

2008-05-01T13:23:00.000-07:00

Normally here in Movie Match I’m all about looking back on films you might have missed, but this week – it being the unofficial start of summer movie season and all – I thought, just this once, it might be more fun to look forward.

I’ll tell you exactly what I’m looking forward to: the awesome-looking comic book adaptation Iron Man, which finally arrives in theaters tomorrow after tantalizing fanboys like myself for the better part of a year with its Robert Downey Jr. wisecracks and cooler-than-Transformers-looking robo-slugfest action scenes. Early reviews – even some of the more negative ones -- have pegged this film as a surefire start to a lucrative new franchise, and that’s probably a good thing for comics-to-screen fans. Why? Because Hollywood lately seems to have exhausted all the superheroes your mom might be familiar with (Spider-man, Batman, Hulk, that blue tights guy, et al) and is soon going to have to rely on lesser-known comics properties like Iron Man to keep butts in the seats. That may actually end up being a positive, since it frees filmmakers up from having to pay lip service to the well-worn origin stories and character traits of the heroes everybody already knows and allows them to cut loose with unique and original visions of less-famous characters, like Guillermo Del Toro did with his Hellboy series. I’m not saying all second-tier superhero flicks are necessarily worth catching (Elektra, anyone?), but here are just a few of the ones coming out in the next year or so that should give the genre a shot in the arm.

Wanted
This eye-popping adaptation of Mark Millar and J.G Jones’s comics miniseries is sure to be one of this summer’s hot tickets – if the film can live up to one of the coolest trailers I’ve seen in a while, that is. The story of an average office drone (James McAvoy) who discovers that his murdered father belonged to a super-secret, superpowered band of assassins who now want to recruit him, Wanted promises over-the-top action by the truckload, as energetically directed by Timur Bekmambetov – the guy behind the stylish (if not entirely coherent) Night Watch trilogy. The cast is a big asset here, with Angelina Jolie stepping into familiar bad-girl territory as the veteran hit-woman who shows McAvoy the ropes; co-stars Morgan Freeman, Common, and Terence Stamp should give the flick a big boost, too. You can catch it starting June 27 – if your local multiplex is willing to pull a few screens away from The Dark Knight, that is.

Punisher: War Zone
2004’s Punisher movie, starring Thomas Jane as vengeance-driven antihero Frank Castle, was not one of the better adaptations out there, but the film’s impressive dvd business and the character’s enduring popularity still paved the way for a sequel that’s set to drop this fall. Jane’s out as Castle this time – “creative differences,” so he’s said – so Ray Stevenson of TV’s Rome will be taking his place as the new Punisher, with 300’s Dominic West joining the franchise as disfigured villain Jigsaw. The film is reportedly darker, bloodier, and more in the spirit of the “adult” Punisher comics than the somewhat sanitized (but still pretty violent) 2004 film, and director Lexi Alexander’s rough and critically acclaimed soccer flick Green Street Hooligans proved that she’s definitely got a handle on this type of testosterone-soaked material. The tentative release date is December 5.

The Spirit
The solo directorial debut of comics guru Frank Miller, The Spirit takes a character created by late comics guru Will Eisner and throws him into a very cool-looking live-action/animation hybrid a la Robert Rodriguez’s Miller adaptation Sin City. Relative newcomer Gabriel Macht plays the title role, a dedicated cop who’s resurrected as a darkness-dwelling crimefighter who has a way with the ladies and a Batman-like bond with the city where he does his bidding. Samuel L. Jackson handles villain duties as The Octopus, while a rather amazing lineup of female costars – Scarlett Johansson, Eva Mendes, Jaime King, and Paz Vega – play the many women in The Spirit’s life, both good and evil. The film releases January of next year, but to whet your appetite you can check out the short but very promising teaser trailer at the film’s official site, http://www.mycityscreams.com/.

Billy Batson and the Legend of Shazam
This one’s still in the scripting stages, but actually, that has a lot to do with why I’m so excited about it. A take on the not-exactly-well-known Captain Marvel saga, this clunkily titled adaptation (expect that to get shortened by the time it’s actually done) comes to us from super-scribe John August, best known for working with Tim Burton on films like Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and my favorite, Big Fish. Since the Cap’s story is one of the cornier ones in the comics universe – Billy Batson is a teenager who becomes the superpowered Captain Marvel when he utters the magical word “Shazam!” – you can expect August to have some tongue-in-cheek fun with the adaptation; this sure as hell ain’t gonna be Batman Begins, but I think a more lighthearted, campy, self-aware kind of superhero movie could be a blast if done right. No word yet on when we’ll get to find out, but the film does already have a director (comedy guy Peter Segal) and a lead villain: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who’s agreed to play the Cap’s nemesis, Black Adam.

MOVIE MATCH: ‘Smiley Face’ a high-ly enjoyable stoner flick

2008-04-23T14:01:00.000-07:00

This week, everybody’s favorite multiethnic pothead duo – Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn) – returns to the big screen for another reefer-laced comedic adventure courtesy of creators Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg.

I’m very happy to see H&K get the sequel treatment, not only because I’m a huge fan of the original film, but also because – back when I was a full-time Play guy – I had a chance to chat with Hurwitz and Schlossberg, who even then were dreaming of following up their inventive, borderline absurdist stoner comedy with an even more ambitious Harold and Kumar movie. The writing partners not only got that sequel made, but they also got the chance to direct it – and being exceptionally nice, smart and funny guys (if I kiss enough ass, can I get a crack at scripting part three?) the opportunity seems extremely well-deserved. Here’s the thing, though: most early reviews of Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, while surprisingly positive, have praised the film for its incisive political humor, rather than its stoner tendencies. Personally, I think it’s terrific that Hurwitz and Schlossberg have seemingly moved past the pot-and-potty jokes of the original H&K for some slightly more culturally relevant gags, but I hope that those who enjoyed the first film for its wacked-out drug humor don’t get, uh, burnt out on part two.

If you do happen to be seeking out a stoner comedy more of the shut-your-brain-off type, however, I can recommend one that’s very entertaining even if, like me, you see it stone-cold sober. Smiley Face, which played Sundance last year and is now available on dvd, is a very funny, very lightweight item from cult filmmaker Gregg Araki that just might be the ultimate pothead comedy. Why? Because moreso than any of the Cheech and Chong flicks, Dude, Where’s My Car, or even H&K, this one is almost completely plot-less, more of a stoned meander through Southern California than an actual narrative – in fact, I’m tempted to call it the "Ulysses" of pot movies, at the risk of offending lit scholars, stoners, and stoned lit scholars. At any rate, the film is a heck of a lot of fun.

Anna Faris, an actress I love to see in anything that doesn’t have the words “Scary” or “Movie” in its title, stars as Jane, a sweet but rather un-ambitious aspiring actress who’s more interested in her bed and her bong than in, you know, working. The film catches up with her one fine morning when, after a few breakfast bong hits, she scarfs a bunch of cupcakes baked by her creepy sci-fi nerd roommate Steve (That 70s Show’s Danny Masterson) and discovers not long after that the delicious treats were full of weed. Now stoned out of her mind, and with an electric bill to pay, an audition to make it to, and a plateful of pot-laced cupcakes to replace before Steve gets home, poor Jane must venture out into the world and accomplish these few otherwise simple tasks made near-impossible by the ganj-induced haze she’s stumbled her way into.

Smiley Face is Faris’s movie from frame one, and she gets to show off a wide range of comedic skills despite the fact that her character is baked beyond human comprehension – in a lesser actress’s hands, the “I’m so stoned” act would get tiresome over 80 minutes, but Faris is both endearing and very convincing as the kind of girl that occasionally gets caught up staring at the ceiling for hours at a time. The supporting cast is full of familiar faces, each one popping in and out of Jane’s misadventures for a scene or two – there’s John Krasinski, a straight-laced friend of Steve’s who drags Jane along to his dentist’s appointment; Adam Brody as a dreadlocked dealer who discusses Reaganomics and threatens to repossess Jane’s beloved pillow-top mattress if she doesn’t pay up all her unpaid pot debts; Danny Trejo and John Cho (Harold himself!) as a couple of sausage-factory employees who discover Jane passed out in the back of their truck, and so on.

The film is never anything less than silly and inconsequential, and that’s a big part of its charm – any big ideas or major twists of plot would have just gotten in the way of its lazy, breezy vibe. The ending is a bit of a misfire (and actually sort of a downer) but otherwise Smiley Face definitely earns its place near the top of the stoner-movie canon, and could really catch on as a cult favorite if the right people on the right substances happen to catch it at the right time.

MOVIE MATCH: The Farrelly Brothers know how to do it right...

2008-04-21T12:20:00.000-07:00

Here's another late-posted Movie Match for you, this one written before Forgetting Sarah Marshall wound up getting beat at the box office by the forgettable-looking Forbidden Kingdom. If you haven't yet seen Sarah, I can't recommend it highly enough -- it definitely lives up to the hype, and will hopefully "have legs" at the box office like most of the other Judd Apatow-produced comedies have.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: producer Judd Apatow may be the current king of R-rated Hollywood comedy, but if New England’s own Peter and Bobby Farrelly hadn’t paved the way, then critically acclaimed, crowd-pleasing yukfests like Superbad, Knocked Up, and this week’s seemingly destined-for-greatness Forgetting Sarah Marshall probably never would have happened.

I’ve got no beef with Apatow or the stable of up-and-coming film comedians – like Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, and Sarah Marshall scribe/star Jason Segal – that have suddenly become mega-popular under his tutelage, but I’ll always have a soft spot for the Farrellys, whose first three films (Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin, and There’s Something About Mary), proved beyond any doubt that genuine, old-fashioned romance could share the screen with gags involving body fluids, functions, etc. Those movies, in this fan’s humble opinion, also outdo everything put out thus far by the Apatow camp in terms of sheer laughs – and this is coming from a guy who hovered dangerously close to incontinence from chuckling so hard at Superbad (if only more films could truly be called pee-your-pants funny…).

Anywho, Sarah Marshall is already netting the expected critical raves, and if it isn’t a big hit I’ll definitely be surprised. One thing, though – for some reason, every time I see the trailer for this movie, I can’t help but be reminded of last year’s misbegotten Farrellys effort The Heartbreak Kid, another sweet/gross romantic comedy set mostly (like Sarah) at a tropical vacation resort. And, unfortunately, thinking of The Heartbreak Kid makes me a little heartbroken myself, since the movie received so little love from, well, everyone.

I’m not saying that Heartbreak was perfect in any way, but the little-seen, very-little-respected film marked the Farrellys’ return to the go-for-broke adult humor that made them a household name, and even reunited them with Mary star Ben Stiller. I had high hopes for the flick, and although it promised a lot more than it delivered, I think it’s still worth catching for anyone who enjoyed their early work.

A remake of a 1972 rom-com that starred Cybill Shepherd and Charles Grodin, Heartbreak stars Ben Stiller as forty-year-old Eddie, a longtime commitment-phobe who’s never found a woman he’d be comfortable settling down with. As luck or contrivance would have it, he soon “meets cute” (to borrow a phrase from Roger Ebert) with an impossibly attractive and lovable environmental researcher named Lila (Malin Akerman) and, after a whirlwind courtship, ends up marrying her and heading off to Mexico to honeymoon.

Unfortunately for Eddie, overnight – or rather, in the course of the newlyweds’ drive down to Cabo – Lila turns from dream girl to nightmare; he discovers in short order that his new bride is a debt-ridden former raging cokehead with a deviated septum and a string of skeevy ex-boyfriends, is dangerous as a rabid animal in the sack, has some particularly unsavory flatulence issues, and perhaps worst of all, is a huge Spice Girls fan. After she contracts the nastiest sunburn in cinema history on their first day of wedded bliss, Eddie ventures off on his own at the resort – where he meets the lovely and unattached Miranda (Michelle Monaghan), who’d be a perfect woman for him to settle down with had he not already tied the knot less than 48 hours earlier.

That’s a great plot for a comedy right there, and a perfect framework on which to hang the kind of gross-out humor that has become the Farrelly trademark. Unfortunately, the film is only partially successful at mining its potential, rendering this a subpar Farrelly outing at best. Still, there’s plenty to laugh at here, from Eddie’s pervy septaugenarian father – played, of course, by Jerry Stiller – to an interlude in a pastoral Mexican village where Stiller and Monaghan pet some friendly rodents and enjoy a “Mexican Folklore Dance” that is far less culturally stimulating than it sounds.

Stiller essentially plays the same character he’s been riffing on since Mary and Flirting With Disaster, but his female co-stars really pick up the slack – Monaghan, as in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, pulls off the idealized dream-girl schtick pretty damn well, and Akerman deserves credit for being one of the most abrasive and unbearable characters I’ve ever seen in a comedy. I’m sure she’s a swell person in real life, and I look forward to seeing her in the long-awaited upcoming Watchmen movie, but based on her convincing work here I’ll bet the poor woman couldn’t get a date for months after the movie’s release (maybe in that respect it’s a good thing that this failed at the box office).

I can’t stand by this movie quite as enthusiastically as most of the others I’ve written about in this column, but with so many comedies lately seemingly getting by without a single well-executed gag, I can honestly say that The Heartbreak Kid made me laugh out loud enough times to win me over. It may not make you forget Sarah Marshall, but it’s definitely worth a look.

MOVIE MATCH: Filmmaker David Ayer Takes to the Streets in ‘Harsh Times’

2008-04-10T13:51:00.000-07:00

In less than ten years of making movies, writer/director David Ayer has done a bang-up job of staking out his thematic territory – if you’re looking for a gritty, hard-edged crime drama set on the mean streets of L.A., he’s your man.

Though the South Central, Los Angeles-raised Ayer got his first scripting credits on a WWII action pic (2000’s decent U-571) and an entertainingly cheeseball blockbuster (the original Fast and the Furious), he really came into his own with 2001’s Training Day, a tough-minded inversion of the usual buddy-cop flick clichés about a morally corrupt LAPD detective (Denzel Washington) and his hapless new partner (Ethan Hawke). Bolstered by Washington’s fearsome, Oscar-winning performance, that film (directed by Antoine Fuqua) set down the template for much of Ayer’s most recent work, and he’s been successfully riffing on the same subject matter ever since. This week, he steps behind the camera to direct Street Kings – another L.A.-set cop thriller, this one made from a screenplay co-written by James “L.A. Confidential” Ellroy. Keanu Reeves heads up the cast as a vice detective searching for his partner’s killers and uncovering some dirty business within his own department; Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie, and rappers Common and The Game co-star.

Street Kings is Ayer’s second directorial outing, and his first time working with a script that isn’t his own – but if his 2006 debut, Harsh Times, is any indication, he’s as dangerous in the director’s chair as he is with a MacBook.

Harsh Times, which Ayer actually wrote prior to Training Day, is a violent slice-of- life revolving around ex-Army Ranger Jim Davis (Christian Bale), who’s returned to his home turf of L.A. looking for a job in law enforcement. Though he shares his name with the decidedly unthreatening creator of Garfield, however, this Jim is no pussycat – in fact, he’s a total hard case, mentally unstable from his wartime experiences and prone to violent outbursts and criminal behavior. Hooking back up with his slightly more straight-laced buddy Mike (Freddy Rodriguez), Jim ends up blowing his LAPD interview and eventually resorts to petty crime in the old neighborhood; Mike’s career-minded girlfriend Sylvia (Eva Longoria), meanwhile, is immediately suspicious of Jim, and afraid of the influence he has over her already jobless and aimless (but decent) boyfriend. Violently set off by his rejection from the police department, Jim turns increasingly aggressive, lashing out at drug dealers and starting trouble with ex-girlfriends even as he considers a job offering from the Department of Homeland Security (who want to send him down to Columbia for some under-the-radar dirty work suiting his brutal skill set).

Less plot-driven than Training Day, Harsh Times is a more personal, character-centric effort for Ayer, and while it lacks the relentless intensity of the earlier film it mostly makes up for it with its sharply observed characterizations and sequences that simmer with nervous energy – he skillfully allows the lazy rhythms of Jim and Mike’s directionless trips around the city to flare up into violent confrontations throughout. Sure, you’ll know from frame one that the film will end up in bloody Taxi Driver-ish territory by the final reel, but there’s a realistic edge to the characters – especially Jim – that anchors Harsh Times in frightening believability.

Bale, as usual, is terrific in the lead role; he’s played his share of unhinged characters before (American Psycho, The Machinist, The Prestige, etc.), but Jim is an entirely different breed, lacking any kind of focus or clarity and taking out his aggressions sporadically at the slightest provocation. Also quite good is Rodriguez, whose ostensible “straight-man” role is more complex morally than Hawke’s rather Boy Scout-ish Training Day character. It’s pretty clear from the get-go that Jim is headed for trouble, but the film generates a lot of suspense as to just how far Mike is willing to follow him; Rodriguez does a terrific job of balancing his good-guy tendencies with his loyalty to his friend and capability to break the law as Jim does.

Altogether, the film offers a fascinating portrait of damaged characters in a burnt-out urban environment, one that Ayer knew firsthand and translates to the screen in ways that, at their best, bring to mind the work of Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee, the Hughes Brothers, et al. He’s yet to make a perfect film, but I think if he continues on this trajectory of urban crime dramas Ayer could at some point make the Taxi Driver or French Connection for our generation – though even if he gives up that particular tack after Street Kings, he’s displayed enough talent to make him a filmmaker worth following whatever he takes on.

MOVIE MATCH: Top five underrated Clooney flicks

2008-04-02T13:44:00.000-07:00

Every Hollywood career has had its share of both triumph and tragedy, but give George Clooney some credit – his has leaned pretty heavily toward the former.

Yes, he unfortunately is the guy who donned the be-nippled Bat-suit in the abysmal Batman & Robin, but aside from a few lesser duds here and there his filmography boasts a pretty high ratio of stellar projects – from last year’s terrific legal thriller Michael Clayton to late 90s masterpieces Three Kings and Out of Sight. Clooney’s track record behind the camera is even better – he actually netted a Best Director nomination for his second film, Good Night, and Good Luck – which bodes well for this week’s Clooney-helmed release Leatherheads: a rough-and-tumble period football flick that’s also a screwball romantic comedy.

For all of Clooney’s success, however, I’ve always felt like some of his films never connected with audiences or critics the way they should have. Here they are, in no particular order:

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)

Clooney can’t take all the credit for the awesomeness of his directorial debut – with a script by the great Charlie Kaufman (Adaptation., Being John Malkovich) and Sam Rockwell playing the lead, he was in pretty good shape from the get-go. Still, as first efforts go, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is a minor miracle, a whip-smart and highly offbeat black comedy about possibly deluded "Gong Show" creator Chuck Barris (Rockwell), who claimed to have led a double life as a covert operative for the CIA.

An energetic and visually rich film about a one-of-a-kind character, Confessions is a self-reflexive comedy, a bizarre spy thriller, and an oddly moving tale about self-image all at once, and provides enjoyable change-of-pace roles for Clooney, as Barris’s gruff CIA handler, Julia Roberts, as an alluring Company woman, and Drew Barrymore, as the television impresario/international superspy’s long-suffering girlfriend.

O Brother, Where Art Thou (2000)

This stupendously original Coen Brothers outing might be better known for its terrific vintage/modern bluegrass soundtrack than for the movie itself, but it’s actually become one of my favorites in their entire canon (and that’s saying a lot).

Kinda-sorta inspired by Homer’s Odyssey, O Brother is set in the Depression-era South and follows a charismatic ex-con named Ulysses (Clooney) who teams up with two other chain-gang escapees (Tim Blake Nelson and John Turturro, both great) to journey back to his wife and family and retrieve some buried treasure en route. Their comedic misadventures along the way – involving everything from a devious one-eyed Bible salesman (John Goodman) to the trio’s inadvertent brush with fame as a bluegrass group called The Soggy Bottom Boys – make for some of the most enjoyably silly Coen comedy since their early hit Raising Arizona, but the gorgeously photographed film somehow manages to live up to its epic inspiration by the end, too.

Ocean’s Thirteen (2007)

It’s true, this series is little more than a live-action GQ photo spread with a little sub-Guy Ritchie heist mayhem thrown in, but as pure popcorn cinema, you could do a lot worse than the Ocean’s flicks – especially the most recent one.

The most laid-back, low-stakes film in the series, Ocean’s Thirteen isn’t really even about a robbery; in this one, playboy Danny Ocean (Clooney) and his all-star lineup of cronies are out simply to ruin the opening of scumbag Vegas mogul Al Pacino’s luxury hotel-casino, after he screws over their ailing pal Reuben (Elliott Gould, still one of my favorite people in the movies).

Throwing plausibility and seriousness out the window, Ocean’s Thirteen is the snappiest and goofiest of the trilogy, with highlights including Matt Damon wearing a hilarious prosthetic nose and the bumbling twosome of Casey Affleck and Scott Caan inadvertently sparking a labor dispute in Mexico (while involved in a patently ridiculous scheme involving magnetized dice).

The Peacemaker (1997)

A pre-9/11 “serious” action movie about terrorists plotting on U.S. soil, The Peacemaker seems a little quaint these days, but the film – the first release from Dreamworks, actually – still packs a punch thanks to Mimi Leder’s tight, tense direction and the couldn’t-miss pairing of Clooney and Nicole Kidman. He plays a cocky Special Forces officer, she’s a buttoned-down government scientist, and they’re both on the trail of some nukes stolen from a former Soviet state, which – of course – eventually end up on American soil.

No, this isn’t the most original action movie you’ll ever see, but it’s a cut above Hollywood’s usual Tom Clancy ripoff, and suggests that Clooney could have been a credible action hero if that’s the direction he wanted his career to go in. And although some folks, like Roger Ebert, weren’t crazy about the film’s clichéd defusing-the-bomb finale, for my money the ol’ “red digital readout” sequence has rarely been executed as intensely as it is here.

The Perfect Storm (2000)

This one did decent box office and earned a few solid reviews, but I’ve always felt that it deserved a level of appreciation it somehow never got – it has tons more heart than your average “big summer movie.”

Based on Sebastian Junger’s nonfiction bestseller, the film concerns the crew of the Andrea Gail, a Gloucester-based swordfish boat that gets caught up in a cataclysmic Nor’easter while making a last-ditch expedition to the dangerous area of the Atlantic known as the Flemish Cap. Clooney plays the Andrea Gail’s dedicated captain, Billy Tyne; he’s joined by a terrific supporting cast that includes Diane Lane, Mark Wahlberg, John C. Reilly, and the ever-underappreciated John Hawkes.

The film’s storm sequences – handled expertly by Das Boot director Wolfgang Petersen – are visually spectacular and grippingly intense, but I think The Perfect Storm actually works best as a tribute to a particularly blue-collar brand of heroism; it’s the only summer blockbuster I’ve ever seen in which providing for one’s family and doing an honest days’ work are shown to be just as brave and courageous as, say, battling aliens or hunting for the Ark of the Covenant. Clooney’s monologue about the small joys of being a “swordboat” captain gets me all choked up every time.

A couple of overdue Movie Matches for ya...

2008-04-01T11:37:00.000-07:00

A bit of explanation: I am a truly lazy, unfocused, and irresponsible human being. Or, at least, I was over the past two weeks, when I completely neglected to upload any new 'Movie Match' columns to this here blog. For the sake of completeness, however, I have included both of them below, hilariously inaccurate critical/box-office predictions intact -- keep in mind that when I wrote and published these, I had no idea that, for example, 'Meet the Browns' would end up on the dreaded IMDB Bottom 100 list, or that 'Run, Fatboy, Run' would place a miserable ninth at the box office in its opening week. Stay tuned for next week's column, when I'll predict that by the time the new Indiana Jones flick rolls around, we'll all have flying cars (electric, of course) and Lindsey Lohan will have joined a convent.

MOVIE MATCH: Long before 'Drillbit Taylor,' this little movie sparked Wilson’s career

We got spoiled last fall with those few months of rock-em-sock-em great movies coming out almost nonstop; unfortunately, we’re paying for it now during the weaksauce box office season we’re enduring at the moment.

Yes, it’s truly been a pretty cruddy month at the movies, and if not for Horton Hears a Who or maybe Tyler Perry’s upcoming Meet the Browns – his flicks seem to be getting better every time around – the pickings would be pretty slim indeed. Still, I’m going to be very cautiously optimistic about this week’s release Drillbit Taylor, if only because I’m a pretty big fan of star Owen Wilson and I really like the idea of him as a washed-up mercenary protecting freshman nerds from high school bullies. Plus, the film boasts an original story by John Hughes (yes, that John Hughes) and a screenplay by comedy it-guy Seth Rogen and former Beavis and Butt-head scribe Kristofor Brown – meaning that even if the humor is crude, it ought to at least satisfy anyone who can appreciate a good pee-pee joke.

Of course, maybe I’m just being overly positive about Drillbit since I just recently caught up with Wilson’s big-screen debut, a fantastic little indie gem that launched not only his career, but also those of his brother Luke and – maybe most importantly – co-writer/director Wes Anderson. Anderson’s Bottle Rocket, co-written by none other than Owen Wilson, was made in the mid-90s and, as IMDB.com informs me, tested as negatively in early screenings as any Columbia Pictures film up to that point. Truth be told, I wasn’t entirely sold on the film when I first saw it way back when, but now I have to seriously question what those test-screening attendees missed – this flick is a riot, and a very well-made one at that.

Bottle Rocket, basically, has a setup similar to a few billion other post-Pulp Fiction 90s comedies; the difference here is that, while many other filmmakers were content to simply rip off Tarantino’s hard-to-duplicate combination of witty repartee and splattery violence, Anderson instead toned down the ugliness and upped the sentimentality, creating maybe the most heartfelt and charming movie about armed robbery ever made.

The story is about three aimless young men from Middle America who ill-fatedly attempt to start a life of crime – there’s Anthony (Luke Wilson), a former preppie college boy who suffered a nervous breakdown and just got out of a mental hospital; his knockabout buddy Dignan (Owen Wilson), who fancies himself the brains of the operation but has a lot more enthusiasm than he does actual brains; and Bob (Robert Musgrave), a meek rich kid who’s recruited to be the gang’s getaway driver because he’s the only one they know that owns a car. Their plan, which Dignan has mapped out in comically meticulous detail, is to practice on a few low-level heists in order to catch the attention of Mr. Henry (James Caan) who runs both a landscaping business and, so Dignan is convinced, a first-class heist crew.

The film moves at a pretty leisurely pace – a lot of it takes place at a rural motel where Anthony, Dignan, and Bob hide out after knocking off a bookstore – and, like Anderson’s later films, is filled with quirky little details (Bob’s last name, for example), moments of unexpected sweetness, and the kind of hilariously dysfunctional relationships that he’s still exploring in films like last year’s underrated Darjeeling Limited. That said, the filmmaking isn’t nearly as accomplished as his later work, but the seeds of greatness are definitely there; the camerawork is often inventive, the use of jangly guitar-pop on the soundtrack is perfect, and the “big robbery” finale is a hoot.

What really makes Bottle Rocket special, however, is the cast, and that’s all the more impressive since the Wilsons and Musgrave hadn’t done any film acting before – aside from the Anderson student short this film is based on. Owen is particularly impressive, fleshing out a particularly well-developed character; Dignan remains lovable even as we pity his almost infinite stupidity, and Wilson nails the dog-chasing-his-tail qualities that make him tick. Caan is also a lot of fun as a balding suburban mobster (this guy sure ain’t no Sonny Corleone), as are Lumi Cavazos, as Anthony’s non-English-speaking love interest, and future Anderson mainstay Kumar Pallana as a safecracker who looks as if he’d have trouble cracking open a soda can.

The film’s got a lot of depth for something so breezy, and also might be the most accessible thing Anderson has done to date. It’s definitely worth seeing again especially if you enjoy Wilson, or if you’re trying to remember why you used to.

MOVIE MATCH: Miss ‘The State’? Then you’ll love ‘The Ten’

Chances are, if you grew up during the 90s and watched MTV for more than just the Salt ‘N Pepa videos, you at some point caught the network’s unfortunately short-lived sketch comedy series The State.

The show was a cult favorite at best, but it offered plenty to satisfy its alternative comedy-craving fanbase – from its memorably subversive and side-splitting sketches (like "Eating Muppets" or "The Jew, the Italian, and the Red-Headed Gay") to the one semi-famous catchphrase – “I wanna dip my balls in it!” – that still, sadly, makes me laugh to this day.

The good news about The State’s long-ago demise is that the show’s alumni have gone on to some pretty impressive comedic careers. Take castmember Thomas Lennon, for instance, who splits his time between writing mega-successful Hollywood comedies like The Pacifier and Night at the Museum and appearing as Lt. Jim Dangle in the ongoing, very funny Comedy Central series Reno 911! (which co-stars his fellow Staties Kerri Kenney-Silver and Robert Ben Garant).

And then, of course, there’s Michael Ian Black, probably The State’s most recognizable graduate thanks to his ubiquitous presence on VH1’s I Love the 80s, I Love the 70s, and I Love the 90s series as well as his many commercial gigs. Like Lennon, Black has also embarked on a screenwriting career, which brings us to this week’s release Run Fatboy Run – a Black-penned tale of romance, rejection, and, um, running directed by David Schwimmer and starring Shaun of the Dead’s Simon Pegg (who co-wrote with Black). The film looks funny, and maybe even sweet, but definitely pretty mainstream considering where Black came from – and if you’re an old-school State fan like me, it’s probably not exactly what you’d hope for one of that show’s kookiest cast members to come up with.

Don’t worry, though, because I do still have a movie for you. The Ten, released last year, is probably the closest thing to an actual State movie we’ll ever see; it’s a sketch-comedy anthology film featuring ten interlinked vignettes, each of which takes on one of the Ten Commandments. Writer/director David Wain is yet another veteran of the show – he’s also the guy behind the cult-fave summer camp comedy Wet Hot American Summer – and the film’s cast is split between State alums (Black, Kenney-Silver, and Ken Marino, for starters) and surprisingly big-name actors like Live Schrieber, Gretchen Mol, Wynona Ryder, and Adam Brody.

Like just about all sketch-comedy movies, The Ten is hit-and-miss, but the comedy is pretty bizarre and clever throughout, even when it’s not laugh-out-loud funny. Skits include a foreign-film parody about an American librarian (Mol) who has a very unusual sexual and spiritual awakening while vacationing in Mexico; a rather creepy tale about a newlywed (Winona Ryder) who falls head over heels for a ventriloquist’s dummy; a “false idol” story about a skydiving accident survivor (Brody) who becomes a national celebrity; and even a raunchy animated segment about an untrustworthy rhino and some deviant wiener dogs. The segments are linked by a framing story in which Paul Rudd introduces all the various commandments, though he gets increasingly tripped up by falling in and out of love with Famke Janssen and Jessica Alba (Moses never had it so tough).

As is probably obvious, Wain’s sense of humor hasn’t really changed much since his television days, and while The Ten isn’t too over-the-top in its outrageousness, the freedom of the R rating gives him the chance to get away with some things that even MTV would have balked at (i.e. the dummy sex scene). It’s a lot of fun seeing performers like Ryder and Schreiber let their guard down to embrace the film’s State-style absurdity, and there are at least three or four sketches on display here that rank with the show’s best material – the final one, involving the commandment about keeping the Sabbath day holy, is an absolute riot.

If nothing else, The Ten ought to tide State fans over until MTV finally releases the full-series DVD set they’ve been promising for years. It was a comedy series that, like its contemporaries Mr. Show and The Ben Stiller Show, never got the appreciation it deserved, but did at least launch the careers of some very funny people – and I, for one, am happy to see them working to keep the show’s spirit alive.

Black's coming back, and I can't wait...

2008-03-17T13:59:00.000-07:00

I'll admit, there's probably at least one movie-related news item per day -- and usually quite a few more than one -- that gets my film-geek blood racing, but every once in a while one little scrap stands out that really floats my proverbial boat.

Today, it's the news -- via JoBlo.com and Collider -- that Shane Black has a new film in the works, his first since 2005's Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. I wouldn't hesitate to put Kiss Kiss up there with some of my favorite films of all time, and unlike most of the other flicks on that list (say, Taxi Driver or LoTR: Fellowship of the Ring), it's one that's not too depressing and/or long to watch multiple times in the same week, night, or whatever. The film, if you haven't yet seen it, is a comedic neo-noir that plants its feet firmly on the comedy side of things, paying loving tribute to "serious" private eye movies throughout -- and also, to a lesser but no less amusing extent, skewering the ever-loving crap out of Hollywood phoniness (which Black surely knew first-hand as the young, in-demand screenwriter of such action classics as Lethal Weapon and The Long Kiss Goodnight). Black's dialogue is some of the sharpest and funniest I've ever heard in a movie, and Robert Downey, Jr. is perfectly cast as the thief-turned-actor-turned-detective who carries us along through Black's self-reflexive, endlessly witty string of twists, double-crosses, and, uh, severed finger gags.

So, um, where were we? Oh right, Black's new movie. Well, actually, there isn't much to report on it as of yet, but what I do know is this: it's going to be called The Nice Guys, it'll be produced by long-time Black supporter Joel Silver, and -- best of all -- it's reportedly going to be another "detective story." I know lightning doesn't always strike twice with these things, but hey... it seems like Black has all his ducks in a row so far. Personally, I'm extremely happy that he's even getting the chance to give this genre another shot, since Kiss Kiss absolutely (and quite undeservingly) tanked at the box office. Here's hoping moviegoers will catch on this time around.
And, because I just couldn't end this post without it, here is just one of my favorite scenes from Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, featuring Downey and Michelle Monaghan. Did I mention I freakin' love this movie?

MOVIE MATCH: Director Neil Marshall does genre flicks right

2008-03-14T17:17:00.000-07:00

While some filmmakers aren’t satisfied unless they’re creating genres all their own – Darren Aronofsky, Richard Kelly, Wes Anderson, et al – others make their mark simply by injecting some new blood into existing ones.

British newcomer Neil Marshall fits into that second category, and though he’s got only a few films under his belt at this point, he’s already established himself as a genre director worth keeping an eye on. Marshall emerged on the scene in 2002 with the unique creature feature Dog Soldiers, a tense and visceral werewolf movie with a Predator-like setup; this week he returns with Doomsday, a post-apocalyptic combo of biological horror and over-the-top comic book-style action. Judging from the film’s trailer, Doomsday treads some very well-worn cinematic ground (it’s tough to watch the previews and not be reminded of 28 Days Later, The Road Warrior, Escape From New York, et cetera), but I have a feeling that in Marshall’s hands it won’t end up being a more-of-the-same kind of movie.

That’s especially true since Marshall’s last movie, also built upon a familiar-sounding premise and with a virtual unknown cast in the lead, ended up being one of the finest horror films of the new century.

I’m talking, of course, about The Descent, Marshall’s successful 2005 film (released the following year in the U.S.) about a group of female cave explorers being terrorized by some truly creepy subterranean beasties. The film wears its influences right on its blood-stained sleeves – essentially, it’s an underground version of Ridley Scott’s Alien – but is so exceptionally well-made that it feels like a true original anyway.

Opening with a horrific sequence that has nothing whatsoever to do with caving (but does, thankfully, have actual bearing on the plot later on), The Descent quickly falls into a compellingly tense groove, as an all-woman group of outdoor thrill-seekers get together for a self-guided caving expedition in the Appalachians. These ladies, refreshingly, aren’t your usual horror-flick airheads, but rather a nicely fleshed-out set of characters; the one we associate with first is Sarah (Shauna Macdonald), who’s recovering from the death of her husband and daughter and is still struggling to keep it together. The film’s first act creates an impressive amount of dread and sets up plenty of conflicts within the group to play out later on – I hate to sound so clinical, but having taken my share of screenwriting classes, it’s awfully nice to see a movie actually do some of the things it’s supposed to.

At any rate, things turn seriously scary soon after the ladies descend into the abyss, when a cave-in blocks the only exit from the dank, dark, deep-underground series of caverns they’ve unwisely chosen to spelunk in. After a few internal squabbles – and a terrifyingly claustrophobic crawling-through-a-tunnel sequence that makes me shiver just thinking about it – an even more immediate threat emerges: sightless, cannibalistic, frighteningly humanoid creatures who proceed to pick off and devour our heroines one-by-one.

Marshall delivers the jolts fast and furious as the film progresses, deftly combining the intense psychological terror of being trapped alone in the dark with the expected (but well-executed) creature-flick bloodletting. The monsters themselves are particularly effective, since Marshall creepily keeps them in the dark for most of the film, revealing them in all their gruesome glory only at the exact right moments.

The most surprising element of The Descent, however, is the film’s worthwhile attempt at psychological depth, an area in which it actually surpasses many of the films that inspired it. By giving us a hero who’s battling her inner demons as well as flesh-and-blood ones – and also setting up a juicy conflict between her and headstrong group leader Juno (Natalie Mendoza) – this movie resonates the way horror films way too seldom do, especially in the beautifully bleak ending of the film’s original British version (which you can catch on the unrated U.S. dvd).

Certainly not for the squeamish, claustrophobic, or weak of stomach – no, the gorehounds won’t be disappointed here, either – The Descent makes the most of its stripped-down setup and innovates not because it’s drastically different from a hundred other horror films you’ve seen, but because it’s clear that the filmmakers here simply tried harder to make it memorable. It bodes extremely well for Marshall’s future as a reliably entertaining genre director (could he be the next John Carpenter?) and sets the bar pretty high for filmmakers looking to follow the same path.

Tiny Budget, Huge Entertainment – Yes, It’s Possible

2008-03-11T12:50:00.000-07:00

By now, it’s pretty clichéd to say that digital video technology has made it easier than ever for just about anybody to go out and make their own movie.

That doesn’t make the statement any less true, however, and it doesn’t take much digging – a few clicks here and there on the Netflix site, say – to find dozens upon dozens of wannabe George Romeros and Woody Allens and David Lynches who’ve maxed out a credit card or two in pursuit of that glorious dream that I myself share: to produce a feature film and get it out into the world.

Now, look, before we go any further, let’s get one thing out of the way: yes, it’s easier than ever to make a movie nowadays, but making a good movie remains just as difficult as ever. And, I promise, this post isn’t going to be some rah-rah pep talk about how everyone should go try to make Blade Runner in their backyard. The truth is, although I can definitely muster up some degree of respect for anyone who’s ever actually completed a feature, the majority of no-budget films are pretty terrible, and don’t really deserve to be seen by anyone outside of their directors’ immediate families.

That may sound harsh, but what I’m getting at is that solid storytelling, competent technical skill, and attention to detail don’t cost anything, so there’s no reason why a movie made for the price of a chicken-fried steak dinner can’t engage its viewers on the same level – or, maybe, an even deeper one – than one produced by a studio. To me, if you’re dedicated enough to sacrifice your time, money, effort, and probably sanity to make your own movie, you may as well at least do it right. And for an example of how to do exactly that, you could do a lot worse than Christopher Sharpe’s ultra-low-budget indie effort Sex Machine.

Made for around $8,000 with an entirely volunteer cast and crew in the not-exactly-Hollywood locale of Oklahoma City, Sex Machine succeeds where most other films in its price range fail – it’s entertaining, compelling, and competently made throughout, and feels like an actual movie rather than just 90 minutes of footage slapped together just for the sake of seeming like one. I’d been reading about the film for months on a few of my favorite indie-film websites – Microcinema Scene, where Sharpe is a regular poster on the message boards, and Pulp 2.0, a blog run by Sex Machine producers’ rep Bill Cunningham – and I’m happy to have finally gotten the chance to see it.

Anchored by stylish visuals soaked in fluorescent reds, greens, and blues, the film is part Frankenstein, part El Mariachi, and a little bit Big Lebowski; it combines sci-fi, horror, film noir, comedy, and even a surprising amount of romance into a package that’s a little overstuffed but rarely boring. The story revolves around a guy named Frank (John Howell) who wakes up in the middle of a bloody shootout with no memory of how he got there. Worse, he quickly discovers that his body parts didn’t all originally belong to him – he’s seemingly been stitched together out of discarded pieces of other people, including one arm that bears a “Sex Machine” tattoo and another that used to belong to an African American man. His face bandaged up like the Invisible Man, Frank wolfs down painkillers, tries to make sense of fragmented (and extremely gory) memories that begin to surface, and occasionally wastes one of the sunglass-wearing assassins that for some reason are hunting him down. Eventually, he tracks down his former girlfriend Claire (Jessica Alfrey) and his bowling alley-owner buddy Owen (Sheridan Marquardt), both of whom assumed Frank died months earlier in a car accident; turns out, that’s not far off from the truth, and the reason why Frank has been granted his bizarre new lease on life is very closely tied into the reason why mysterious people are trying to, uh, re-kill him.

There isn’t an excessive amount of action or bloodshed in Sex Machine, despite its pulpy genre trappings, but what’s there looks pretty decent – though obviously done on a budget, the makeup effects are particularly convincing at times (especially in a cringe-inducing early scene involving an implanted tracking device). The visuals impress on a regular basis, almost completely avoiding the static and indifferently composed framings that mar most ultra-indie productions, and squeezing a lot of color and detail out of the mini-DV that Sharpe and his cinematographer Shogo shot on. And while the plot has a few holes that aren’t so easily overlooked, you’ve got to credit Sharpe and co-writer John Oak Dalton for keeping the mystery engrossing throughout and also making a valiant effort toward developing their characters; a lot of the film is actually devoted to the subplot about Frank and Claire’s relationship, which likely would have been overlooked if this were an average-budgeted mainstream action flick.

What resonates throughout Sex Machine is the thought and effort Sharpe and his cast and crew put into making the film something that audiences would actually enjoy experiencing. It’s clear that their interest wasn’t simply in seeing their names on a DVD sleeve, but in telling a worthwhile story, showcasing their talents, and connecting with the kind of hardcore genre fans that would appreciate, say, the Bullitt poster hanging on a character’s wall in one scene or the (unintentional?) Tarantino homages that pop up throughout (dig that gimp mask!).

As I’ve said, though, I wouldn’t recommend Sex Machine solely to folks who just love a good B-movie. As an aspiring/studying/working filmmaker myself, I learned a ton from this flick, and I think anyone else with an interest in making their own movies will, too.

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Incidentally, I’d like to continue focusing on low- and no-budget movies here on the blog, so if you’ve made one or know of any I ought to see, hit me up at nscalia@nhregister.com.

MOVIE MATCH: Statham works another bank job in caper flick ‘Chaos’

2008-03-05T13:05:00.000-08:00

If you think about it, Jason Statham isn’t really doing anything in his signature brand of amped-up action movies that once-popular cinematic ass-kickers like Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal weren’t doing in their flicks fifteen years ago.

So why is it, then, that Statham seems about a million times cooler than those guys were?

Maybe it’s his alignment with directors who really know how to use him, like Guy Ritchie or The Transporter series’ Louis Leterrier. Maybe it’s his superior fashion sense or the instantly class-boosting British accent. Maybe – and most likely – it’s because he can crack skulls, crack jokes, and crash cars with more style than just about anybody else doing it today.

At any rate, Statham has managed to carve out a pretty solid following among action fans on both sides of the Atlantic, starring in a string of mostly entertaining movies and even pulling off the unlikely feat of making a receding hairline seem pretty cool (I can’t thank him enough for that one). This week, those adrenaline aficionados can catch him in The Bank Job, a British caper flick based on an actual robbery that took place in swinging London in 1971. Early reviews are pegging the fact-based film as one of Statham’s most entertaining and well-made efforts yet, and it’s nice to see that they’re at least making an effort to get it out into American theaters.

You might be surprised, however, that another Statham caper flick you haven’t yet seen landed on dvd shelves just a couple of weeks back. Chaos, completed in 2005 and released direct-to-DVD with essentially no promotion whatsoever, pairs Statham up with Ryan Phillippe as a couple of mismatched Seattle cops trying to wrap their heads around a bank robbery with a motive that might not be entirely financial. Though ordinarily, a movie with stars that recognizable – plus Wesley Snipes, in a smaller role – would almost certainly have to be a clunker if it bypassed theaters for a no-frills dvd release, Chaos, surprisingly, isn’t half bad.

Quite obviously inspired by Michael Mann’s cops-and-robbers classic Heat, writer/director Tony Giglio’s film doesn’t earn many points for originality, though the action sequences are well put-together and the plot has enough kinks to keep it out of yawner territory. Statham stars as Detective Quentin Conners, a hard-nosed cop who’s been on suspension after a botched hostage situation that cost a young civilian her life and Conners’ partner his job. He’s reluctantly called back to active duty (of course) when a slick, well-coordinated gang of thieves led by the enigmatic “Lorenz” (Snipes) seizes a busy downtown bank, taking dozens of hostages and demanding that Conners be the top cop on the scene. As the film’s title suggests, however, things take a turn for the chaotic when the robbers set off a bomb inside the bank, providing a smokescreen for them to escape amongst the fleeing (and mostly unharmed) hostages. The complicated part of the whole deal? Apparently, the crooks didn’t actually steal anything while they were there.

It’s up to Conners and his new partner, the straight-laced, book-smart Det. Shane Dekker (Phillippe) to figure out just what the hell took place inside the bank; complicating matters are Lorenz, who keeps making taunting phone calls to the cops, and Conners’ temperamental former boss Jenkins (Henry Czerny), who still holds a grudge – especially since Conners used to be romantically involved with the fellow detective (Justine Waddell) that he’s currently putting the moves on.

Giglio lets the twists pile up by the truckload, and while the film is occasionally hard to follow, it’s energetic enough that it doesn’t become frustrating – and, actually, it’s probably more enjoyable the less thought you put into it. Among Chaos’s entertaining distractions are several tense (if ultimately pretty repetitive) shootout sequences, an over-the-top motorcycle chase a la the Transporter movies, and slick cinematography that somehow manages to make gloomy Seattle seem almost as cool as Mann’s much-fetishized Los Angeles. Statham’s performance isn’t one of is best, but it’s bolstered by strong work from Phillippe (who played a somewhat similar role in last year’s excellent Breach) and Snipes, who drops his usual badass stoicism for a more dynamic and “fun” villain role.

While Chaos can’t really roll with the big boys of the heist genre – and it’s unfortunately pretty similar to Spike Lee’s Inside Man, though it actually completed production first – it’s still an efficient and decently put-together B-flick that deserved more attention than it got. I don’t think Statham fans will be disappointed, and anybody who grew up on generic 80s cop movies like I did should have an especially good time with this one.

MOVIE MATCH: Ferrell's 'Kicking and Screaming' is semi-awesome

2008-02-27T12:45:00.000-08:00

Let me quickly put one thing out there, and you can feel free to agree or disagree: Will Ferrell is an incredibly funny guy.

I know, he has his detractors. But, if you think about it, all the great screen comedians – the Marx Brothers, Jerry Lewis, Chevy Chase, uh, Rob Schneider – had ‘em, too, and that didn’t stop any of them (well, maybe Schneider) from still doing everything in their power to make people laugh, even if some folks just simply refused to ever find them funny. There’s an art to what guys like Ferrell do, and of everyone working in comedy today, he’s one of the most charismatic and naturally talented guys out there.

Of course, that’s just my opinion, but it’s one that I stand behind without hesitation – the still-funny SNL “cowbell” sketch and the entire movie Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy have made me laugh as hard as anything I’ve ever seen. And this week, I’m very much looking forward to catching Ferrell in Semi-Pro, which is looking more and more like an R-rated throwback to the great raunchy sports comedies of yore – a Slap Shot or Longest Yard for our generation, but with more bear-wrestling and orgy gags. Chances are it won’t live up to those classics, but if the raunchy-sports-comedy genre has taught me anything over the years, it’s that a beer-guzzling underachiever like me can dream, at least, can’t he?

One thing the film has in its favor is that Ferrell is a sports-comedy veteran by now, having taken on everything from NASCAR racing to figure skating in the last couple of years. My favorite Ferrell sports comedy, however, is a movie that had no business being as entertaining as it was: the formulaic and derivative, yet somehow still hilarious, PG soccer comedy Kicking and Screaming.

Executive produced by Judd Apatow – before he was quite the movie-comedy wunderkind he’s become – the movie wraps a pile of bad news kiddie sports comedy clichés around some choice Ferrell bits aimed squarely at his adult audience. It’s ostensibly a family film, and there is plenty in it for the elementary school set to enjoy, but its sense of humor is ruder and more in line with Ferrell’s SNL/Funny or Die-type material than you’d ever expect. And, hey, it’s got Mike Ditka in a supporting role – you can’t not love that.

Ferrell stars as a pushover family man whose father (Robert Duvall, enjoyably slumming it) is one of those hardass, uber-competitive guys who’s made life a living hell for his never-good-enough son. Ferrell’s own young son Sam (Dylan McLaughlin) warms the bench on the undefeated peewee soccer team his grandpa coaches; tired of seeing his boy suffer the same athletic humiliations his father inflicted on him, Ferrell ends up coaching Sam when he’s traded to a ragtag, last-place team.

The tykes on the team are cute enough, and cover all the usual kiddie sports flick clichés (you know, the fat kid, the diminutive Asian kid, etc.), but Kicking and Screaming is savvy in the way it shifts its focus to Ferrell, who starts out as one of those “winning isn’t everything” kind of guys, then gets nastier and more competitive as the film goes on – at one point, he even flips out on Ditka (playing himself, as Ferrell’s celebrity assistant coach) in a rant about juiceboxes that’s easily the highlight of the movie.

The plot grunts and strains under the weight of its well-worn premise – you just know Ferrell’s team and Duvall’s are going to meet up for the “big game” in act three – but it’s the unexpected edges (like the caffeine addiction Ferrell’s character develops after Ditka buys him his first-ever cup of coffee) that make it a lot more fun than it should be. I’ve got to give Duvall some props, too, since he rarely appears in anything this frivolous – unlike his Godfather co-star James Caan – but seems to have a blast playing a pompous jerk that makes his browbeating character from The Great Santini seem like a pretty easygoing guy.

If, essentially, Kicking and Screaming is nothing but a Bad News Bears remake with a wackier star and a touch more political correctness, then so be it – again, it’s funnier than it has any right to be, and works best as a vehicle for Ferrell to explore his various forms of inspired goofiness.

If you hate the guy, this isn’t the movie that’s going to warm you up to him (try Stranger Than Fiction for that), but if you feel the same way I do, the laughs are definitely there.

DVD Review: 'American Gangster'

2008-02-25T11:27:00.000-08:00

More of a rough-edged, 70s-style cop flick than the gangster epic it was promoted as, Ridley Scott’s American Gangster is a consistently entertaining – occasionally stunning – movie built around two fine performances and a handful of scenes as electric as anything you’d see in an urban drama by Scorsese or Sidney Lumet.

The only problem is, it takes a little longer than it should to give up the goods.

Marred by a slow, shaky and narratively muddled first act – which certainly isn’t helped by the additional 18 minutes of footage included in the DVD’s “Extended Unrated Edition” – the film eventually establishes a compelling, energetic groove in its parallel stories of Harlem heroin kingpin Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) and downtrodden cop Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe).

Washington is spot-on, as usual, as Lucas, who’s expectedly ruthless and calculating but also possesses a highly developed business sense, values loyalty and integrity, and sees himself as something of a man of the people. Inspired by his mentor, Harlem gangster “Bumpy” Johnson (Clarence Williams III), Frank goes to dangerous lengths to set up an unprecedented heroin-importing operation, buying uncut product from Southeast Asia’s opium-rich Golden Triangle during the Vietnam War and shrewdly using his military connections to ship it home. Determined to run his own business on his own terms, he begins seriously undercutting his rivals – selling better dope at better prices – and thereby secures his place at the top of New York’s criminal underworld.

Roberts, meanwhile, ends up shunned by his mostly-corrupt department when he refuses to keep nearly a million dollars in illicitly obtained cash; his personal life also in a shambles, he throws himself into a last-ditch gig heading up a ragtag (but honest) drug-enforcement squad tasked with locating the source of the ultra-pure “Blue Magic” heroin that’s begun flooding the streets.

Both of these stories provide enough juice to keep the film cranking along, but Scott and writer Steven Zaillian frustratingly take their time in getting things rolling and, worse, don’t really let us inside Frank’s head until after he’s returned from the Golden Triangle with his plans already in place. Once American Gangster finds its focus, however, it’s riveting almost through to the end, covering everything from Frank’s relationship with his devout mother (Oscar-nominated Ruby Dee) to Richie’s run-ins with a brutal unit of on-the-take cops (led by an especially surly Josh Brolin) while never losing sight of the escalating violence and disloyalty that put Frank and Richie on an unavoidable collision course with each other.

Their meeting comes fairly late, and those expecting Crowe and Washington to share a ton of screen time will likely be disappointed. But American Gangster does a better job than most films of bouncing back-and-forth between both sides of the law, as absorbing in its scenes of Frank’s rise to dominance of the Harlem drug trade as it is in those of Richie and his team’s ill-supported attempts to find out who’s running it. The sequences taking a Scorsese-like approach to the day-to-day operations of Frank’s business are particularly well-done and realistic; a late-in-the-game raid on a dingy New Jersey drug lab is as tense and well-directed an action scene as anything in Scott’s canon. Scott and Zaillian also conjure up some unexpectedly powerful scenes from Frank and Richie’s personal lives, revealing both as fleshed-out, flawed characters with well-defined codes of honor but imperfect consciences backing them up.

Crowe again impresses in a damaged, gritty, blue-collar kind of role, and the film features an excellent and appealing roster of supporting actors, including the great Chiwetel Ejiofor (Washington’s police partner from Spike Lee’s Inside Man), Cuba Gooding, Jr., Ted Levine, Common, John Hawkes, Armand Assante, RZA, and Joe Morton. They’re complimented by some very strong cinematography and production design that effectively recreates 70s Harlem from the glamour of the historic Muhammad Ali/Joe Frazier fight to the gut-wrenching squalor of drug-soaked slums.

For all it does right, though, American Gangster doesn’t quite have the scope or the visceral impact – not to mention the completely satisfying resolution – to put it on the level of its genre’s well-known classics. It’s a notch below Serpico and The French Connection, and at least two below Goodfellas, but those are big shoes to fill, and this is still a better American crime epic than anyone has made in a while. The film went through a number of stars and directors before ending up in Washington, Crowe, and Scott’s hands, but it ended up being a successful and enjoyable showcase for all three of them.

ON DVD: American Gangster makes its debut on disc in a couple of nicely rounded-out sets, both of which include the original theatrical version (running two hours and 38 minutes) and the “Extended Unrated Edition” (running two hours and 57 minutes) – myself, I’d stick with the shorter version, but it is pretty cool to have both. The two-disc special edition also includes two additional deleted scenes, a five-part behind-the-scenes documentary, and a three-part “Case Files” documentary discussing the film’s nods to realism in its drug-bust sequences; the three-disc Collector’s Edition also throws in two music videos, a featurette focusing on the several hip hop artists that have roles in the film, two music videos, TV segments from BET and NBC on the making of the film, and a digital copy of the Extended Unrated Edition.

MOVIE MATCH: Mos and Gondry rock the 'Block'

2008-02-20T13:22:00.000-08:00

Ever since I first saw his Goldilocks-inspired music video for Bjork’s "Human Behavior," I knew that Michel Gondry was a filmmaker I had to keep an eye on.

I'm happy to say that, in the fifteen (!) years since he unleashed that visually daring, ingeniously funny, and just-a-touch creepy five-minute clip on an unsuspecting public, Gondry hasn’t disappointed me once. His feature films – and you knew right away that he’d eventually earn the status to be able to make some – are some of the most inventive comedies I’ve ever seen, from the zany and way too little-seen Human Nature to the more emotionally powerful (though still pretty damn funny) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep.

So I can forgive the guy if he seems to be regressing a bit with this week’s Be Kind Rewind, maybe his most mainstream movie to date – especially since it stars the ever-reliable Jack Black and Mos Def, and features a premise so totally, ridiculously goofy that you’ve just got to appreciate it (it involves Black and Mos making half-assed low-budget versions of all the blockbusters at Mos’s video store, after Black accidentally becomes magnetized and erases all his tapes).

Both a paean to the fondly remembered VHS era (isn’t it sad that our kids will never know the joyful torture of rewinding a two-hour-plus tape or “adjusting the tracking” on the VCR) and an excuse for Gondry to gently lampoon some of our favorite movies, it ought to be a blast. What’s also pretty cool about the film is that it reunites Gondry with rapper/actor Mos Def, who previously appeared in the director’s concert documentary Dave Chappelle’s Block Party.

Made at the height of Chappelle’s popularity in 2004, Block Party was intended not only as a hip-hop concert doc – featuring acts like The Roots, Kanye West, Erykah Badu, Talib Kweli, and the briefly reunited Fugees – but also as the comedian’s attempt to reconnect with the regular folks after two tv seasons of being uncomfortably super-famous. Being that it was a free concert for everyone who attended – and that Chappelle, who pops in for comedy bits here and there, seems like he’s having the time of his life throughout – he seems to have been pretty successful on both fronts.

As a film, Block Party is a little bit scattershot, but fun and energetic nonetheless. Along with performance footage from the Block Party, we get to see Dave inviting some clueless Ohioans to join him in Brooklyn Bed-Stuy neighborhood for the show; some relaxed backstage moments where he talks and jokes and even plays some music with the assembled performers; even a tour of the reclaimed warehouse adjacent to the concert site, owned by a pair of friendly, highly eccentric old hippies who are happy to show Chappelle around (though we never do get to meet the pet cheetah they claim to have in there).

The actual performance footage is top-notch, though Gondry cuts away from the stage more than some hardcore fans might like him to. Still, there are some pretty powerful musical moments here – from Kanye West performing "Jesus Walks" with a college marching band backing him up to a politically charged bout of wordplay from the underappreciated Dead Prez – and they’re all capped off with Lauryn Hill’s breathtaking rendition of the Fugees’ signature cover "Killing Me Softly" (maybe worth seeing the movie for in itself).

One of the things Gondry really nails is capturing Chappelle’s personality – though the comedian’s goofy side always shines through (dude sure can tell a yo’ momma joke), you really get the sense after seeing Block Party that he’s a true man of the people; late in the film, he calls the concert the best day of his career, and it’s hard not to believe him. Block Party, of course, was made before Chappelle famously abandoned his Comedy Central series and fled to Africa to get out of the limelight, and it’s a further reminder of how talented he was before he essentially retreated from the public eye for good – though I still hold out hope for another sketch comedy series somewhere down the line.

At any rate, Block Party is a great little concert movie, and it’s also proof that Gondry’s got a lot more up his sleeve than quirky, visually dazzling comedies. As always, I can’t want to see what he does next.

MOVIE MATCH: 'Definitely' Catch Reynolds in 'The Nines'

2008-02-13T12:18:00.000-08:00

Every Valentine’s Day needs a killer date movie at the box office, and this year the seriocomic romance Definitely, Maybe looks to be the flick for the job.

That makes me happy for two reasons: one, the movie is shaping up to be a lot better than mediocre past V-Day hits like Hitch and The Wedding Singer; and two, since it stars Ryan Reynolds, it gives me a chance in this column to highlight his last movie, which I haven’t been able to get out of my head since I saw it a few weeks back.

That film, The Nines, has Reynolds playing three roles, and is the directorial debut of screenwriter John August – a guy who not only has penned some really terrific movies (Big Fish, which he adapted from a Daniel Wallace novel, is one of my all-time favorites), but also maintains possibly the best screenwriting blog in existence, at http://www.johnaugust.com/. As is probably glaringly obvious, I’m a pretty big fan, but even I was sort of taken aback by just how original and ambitious – and, definitely, divisive – his first effort behind the camera ended up being.

Let me get the standard disclaimer out of the way first: The Nines is definitely a love-it-or-hate-it kind of movie, and its final twist is either going to leave you breathlessly in awe or so angry you’ll be chucking things at your TV. I fell pretty squarely into the former camp, though, and I think for anyone willing to accept the film’s unconventional style, puzzling narrative, and surprisingly insistent spiritual and psychological undercurrents, it’s bound to leave a lasting impression. Oh, and don’t worry – it’s also about as entertaining as a metaphysical head-scratcher could ever possibly be.

To be as vague as possible (and, trust me, with this one you’ll want me to be), The Nines encompasses a trio of stories bound together by connections that aren’t fully revealed until the end. In the first, Reynolds plays the burnt-out star of a CSI-like TV crime drama, who suffers a drug-fueled breakdown and ends up confined – under strictly enforced house arrest – to a rented mansion where he must contend with his uber-cheery but take-no-prisoners publicist (Melissa McCarthy), a flirtatious neighbor (Hope Davis), and a growing feeling that either the house is haunted or he’s completely losing his mind.

The second story, framed as a faux reality show, casts Reynolds as a thinly-veiled version of August, a young, gay, in-demand Hollywood writer struggling to bring a television pilot to the screen while a camera crew follows him around, documenting his efforts for a behind-the-scenes reality series.

In the final segment, he’s the designer of an exceedingly popular World of Warcraft-like massively multiplayer video game, who gets stranded in the woods while vacationing with his family and meets a mysterious – maybe dangerous – woman while trying to call for help.

McCarthy, Davis, and a handful of other actors – like The Office’s David Denman – show up playing different characters in all three segments, and in each August drops tantalizing clues as to what, exactly, the film’s title refers to (it’s along the lines of an old Pixies lyric you might remember, but that’s as much as I’ll say). The final explanation, when The Nines finally arrives at it, is beautifully handled, less a Usual Suspects-esque pulling out of the rug than a poignant revelation that perfectly ties together the film’s recurring themes of creation and self-identity.

Again, though, it’s to August’s credit that the film remains fun, intriguing, and amusing even though it’s clearly got some really big ideas on its mind; he’s got a way with sharp dialogue and keep-you-guessing plotting, and even when the captivating weirdness subsides for long stretches of screen time, you still care about what’s happening to the characters. The supporting cast is superb – especially McCarthy, a friend of August’s who plays herself in segment two – but, really, it’s Reynolds who carries the whole enterprise; if you’ve only seen him in silly comedies like his breakthrough film, National Lampoon’s Van Wilder, you’ll surely be impressed with the range and depth he displays here.

Despite Reynolds’ growing popularity, though, I’m not surprised that The Nines wasn’t released to a lot of fanfare – even August himself said he expected it to find its audience on dvd. I think that’s definitely true, and that this is exactly the kind of movie that’s eventually going to win over an enthusiastic cult of appreciators and join that esteemed group of cinematic head trips (Pi, Primer, Donnie Darko, etc.) set to fuel heated film-geek discussions for years to come.

MOVIE MATCH: The Template for Romantic Action Movies is Set in 'Stone'

2008-02-07T11:05:00.001-08:00

A quick note: This column went to press before the abysmal reviews for 'Fool's Gold' started showing up... if what the critics are saying is true, you'll definitely want to stick with the older flick this time around.

They say you can’t please everybody, but if you’re Hollywood, sometimes it pays to try.

Take this week’s release Fool’s Gold, for instance. The movie, which stars Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson, is half romantic comedy, half treasure-hunt action/adventure – think of it as the cinematic equivalent of those chocolate-covered potato chips you can buy at the candy store in the mall (though ingesting a print of Fool’s Gold would probably be a little less damaging to your arteries and digestive system).

It’s not an easy combination of genres to pull off, but it has been done before; and when things align just right – a skilled director, a fun but not brain-dead script, a solid star pairing, etc. – the results can be both hugely entertaining and highly profitable. After all, what other kind of movie can satisfy both the sappy types and the adrenaline junkies in the audience at the same time?

We’ll see if Fool’s Gold has that special something, and if McConaughey can generate the sparks with Hudson that he didn’t with his Sahara co-star Penelope Cruz. If so, the movie might end up being a worthy update of its obvious inspiration: Robert Zemeckis’s 1984 action/rom-com Romancing the Stone.

Less dated than you might think, the Kathleen Turner/Michael Douglas blockbuster – like Zemeckis’s subsequent film, Back to the Future – is a classic of the VHS era, a high-concept crowd-pleaser that prioritizes pure entertainment value over pretty much everything else. It’s a movie that promises romance, action, and comedy, and actually delivers on all fronts without ever seeming like it’s laboring too hard to do so.

Turner, far removed from her sexy star-making performance in Body Heat, plays mousy romance novelist Joan Wilder, highly successful writer of racy adventure stories that presumably set old ladies’ hearts all aflutter. Her own personal life is far less steamy and dramatic, aside from some concerns about her sister (Mary Ellen Trainor), who’s gotten caught up in some intrigue in Columbia. Things finally turn exciting for Joan when she receives a treasure map in the mail from her recently murdered brother-in-law – and is then contacted by kidnappers claiming they’ll kill her sister if she doesn’t fly down to Columbia and return the map to them (don’t ask me why she couldn’t just stick it back in the mail).

Down in Columbia, Joan ends up stranded in the jungle thanks to some unfriendly locals and the machinations of two distinct sets of bad guys: the bumbling American kidnappers (Zack Norman and Danny DeVito) and a villainous local named Zolo (Manuel Ojeda) who commands a private army of henchmen. What’s a rich, uptight girl from Manhattan to do? Why, be rescued by a brave and dashing hero, of course – though instead she ends up with stubbly mercenary-type Jack T. Colton (Michael Douglas), a swaggering smuggler who demands she pay him to take her to safety. Of course, he eventually transforms into a pretty decent guy, Joan learns to kick a little ass of her own, and the two fall in love while seeking out the treasure and foiling kidnappers, drug runners, corrupt cops, etc.

If the plot sounds ridiculous, that’s sort of the point – the movie is quite clearly supposed to resemble one of Joan’s overblown novels come to life. What makes it work, and work well, are strong characterizations, a generous helping of zippy action scenes, and a winning sense of humor that draws from classic Hollywood romantic comedies without feeling old-fashioned. Turner and Douglas, both of whom have aged a lot since this film’s release, are a terrific screen couple, cute and charismatic and even convincing enough during shoot-outs and jeep chases and the obligatory “over the waterfall” sequence. DeVito makes a pretty entertaining third wheel, as well.

Zemeckis shows his characteristic flair for fast-moving, visually spectacular setpieces, but also gives Turner and Douglas plenty of room for playful romantic squabbling – he’s smart to recall classic screwball comedy as much as he does the Indiana Jones franchise.
Neither he nor debuting screenwriter Diane Thomas (who, sadly, passed away shortly after this film script was produced) had a hand in the quickly-produced sequel, Jewel of the Nile, and it’s inferior in almost every way.

While definitely starting to show its age a little, though, Romancing the Stone remains a pleasing and altogether harmless throwback to a simpler era when a PG-rated movie could include a visible nipple in its opening scene and a crocodile biting off a man’s arm in its finale.

It’s also a very rare example of a movie that aimed to please two very different audiences and didn’t disappoint either of them.

DVD review: 'Elizabeth: The Golden Age'

2008-02-05T10:22:00.000-08:00

Elizabeth: The Golden Age, for both better and worse, is not your run-of-the-mill costume drama.

Not that it doesn’t feature plenty of fancy period garb – costume designer Alexandra Byrne clearly worked some overtime here, and her Academy Award nomination is well-deserved – but the film, rather than being a stuffy, literate affair, is instead a fast-paced, flashy, sweeping period piece that mostly foregoes both long-winded discourse and historical precision. As such, it’s a lot more fun than your average cinematic dip into British history, though sticklers for detail (and, for the most part, dialogue) will almost surely be disappointed.Cate Blanchett, an Oscar hopeful herself, easily jumps back into the royal role she originated in 1998’s Elizabeth, though the Queen here is an older, much more practiced ruler than we saw before. It’s a good thing, too, since The Golden Age catches up with her during a particularly trying time; as Spain’s Catholic King Phillip II (Jordi Mollá) plots against her – with her imprisoned cousin Mary Queen of Scots (Samantha Morton) a key part of his cunning strategy to invade England – she also finds herself desperate to find a proper suitor and produce an heir. One possible solution to the problems posed by the looming Spanish Armada and to Elizabeth’s own biological clock is represented by the dashing seafarer Sir Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen), who shows up to appeal to the Queen’s repressed sense of adventure in order to secure funding for a colony in the New World. Of course, Elizabeth can’t actually settle down with the handsome, non-royal Raleigh (though they surely spend a lot more “cuddle time” together in the film than they did in real life) but he does prove to be a fine man to have around when the greatest fleet of ships ever assembled shows up at Britain’s back door, cannons a-blazing.

That climactic sequence, and many scenes that come before it, speak to the film’s rich visual splendor; there isn’t a corner cut or a detail overlooked in the fussed-over shot compositions, the meticulous production design, or the previously mentioned costuming. Blanchett is pretty radiant, too, and still lends the role the gravity it deserves – except for an immature outburst or two that seems forced and out-of-character. But, again, that might be more the fault of the filmmakers, who are confident to let The Golden Age play out as operatic melodrama rather than serious historical filmmaking. Only a few elements – like a sniveling Catholic conspirator played by Rhys Ifans – come off as way over-the-top, but in all its bluster the film really does miss a lot of opportunities for small, engaging moments (Geoffrey Rush, as Elizabeth’s military mastermind Francis Walsingham, feels especially neglected).

Overall, though, Elizabeth: The Golden Age succeeds where many other period pieces fail: it’s actually entertaining. That’s not a small accomplishment, and this film does have a lot to offer to the more accepting audience.

DVD features include the behind-the-scenes documentary The Reign Continues, an in-depth look at the creation of the climactic ship battle scenes, featurettes on the film’s locations and production design, nine minutes of deleted scenes, and commentary with director Shekhar Kapur.

MOVIE MATCH: Zahn's a 'Safe' Bet for a Lowbrow Laugh

2008-01-29T09:40:00.000-08:00

As much an appreciator of “serious” filmmaking as I am, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with movies that are silly just for silly’s sake – and I really respect actors that aren’t so self-important that they refuse to appear in those kinds of things.

So, this week, I raise my popcorn to Mr. Steve Zahn, a truly talented performer who has never seemed to mind being one of the best comic relief guys in the business. Though Zahn did have a more serious role last year in Werner Herzog’s Rescue Dawn – and he deserved it – I’m looking forward to seeing him this Friday in Strange Wilderness, a wildlife-themed stoner comedy from the entertainingly juvenile folks at Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions. The film, a raunchy, R-rated effort about a low-rent nature show host and his crew’s last-ditch attempt to capture a real-life Sasquatch, is probably going to get savaged by the critics, but fans of pure, unadulterated silliness should find plenty to enjoy.

The same could also be said of 1998’s Safe Men, a silly-with-a-capital-S heist comedy in which Zahn starred alongside Sam Rockwell – another fine actor who isn’t afraid to make an ass out of himself onscreen every once in a while. The film was instrumental in launching the career of writer/director John Hamburg (who went on to co-script both of the insanely profitable Meet the Parents movies), but mostly it’s just a good-natured goof that breezes by, earns a few big laughs, and quickly goes on its merry way – and, honestly, I find something very refreshing about that.

Zahn and Rockwell are Eddie and Sam, a comically terrible lounge act playing humiliating gigs for unappreciative audiences of all kinds. Sam is convinced that the duo is destined to be their generation’s Simon and Garfunkel; meanwhile, Eddie – whose estranged father, we learn, was a career criminal – is getting more and more discouraged by their increasingly pathetic attempt at having a musical career (Sam, he complains, can’t even be bothered to learn the lyrics to their songs).

Enter Veal Chop (Giamatti), a tackily dressed underling for “Big Fat” Bernie Gayle (Michael Lerner), one of the two Jewish crime bosses in Providence (and don’t think we won’t eventually get to meet the other one). “Da Chop,” as he calls himself, mistakes Sam and Eddie for the pair of professional safecrackers (Mark Ruffalo and Josh Pais) his boss is looking to hire for some robberies he’s planning, and soon the boys find themselves forced to put their song-and-dance routine on hold while they unsuccessfully pose as crooks.

Eventually, they cross paths with Goodstuff Leo (Harvey Fierstein), Big Fat Bernie’s arch-nemesis; Sam falls for Leo’s daughter (Christina Kirk), whom he embarrassingly bumps into while he and Eddie try to rob her house; and, finally, the whole ridiculous affair draws to a close at Big Fat Bernie Jr.’s bar mitzvah.

Safe Men’s charm is in its lighthearted, self-consciously wacky sense of humor; this is the kind of movie that assumes things like Casio keytars, Zubaz pants, and sledgehammer-wielding little people will automatically be funny, and for the most part is correct. And although the plot might sound perfect for a Coen Brothers-style black comedy, but there’s nothing remotely dark about this one – if the movie is to be believed, then Jewish gangsters from Providence are some of the nicest folks you’ll ever meet.

The gags, though hardly elaborate, come fast and furious, and connect surprisingly often – there’s a running joke involving the diminutive size of Rockwell’s ass, and the all-too-conspicuous padding he wears to bulk it up; Fierstein spends a good five minutes of screen time delivering a (hilarious) monologue about flammable women’s slacks; and even Ruffalo, who’d go on to be a fine dramatic actor, gets to take part in a super-obvious but still pretty damn funny spoof of Say Anything.

Zahn fans might be a little disappointed that he plays straight man to Rockwell (whose character seems to be borrowing Jim Carrey’s mop-top from Dumb and Dumber), but he’s still a lot of fun – as is Giamatti, another respected dramatic actor whose whitebread thug character steals nearly every scene he’s in.

Overall, if there’s anything to be learned from Safe Men, it’s that most movie comedies take themselves way too seriously, trying to advance feel-good messages or photograph their stars in the most attractive light possible while forgetting that their main reason for existing is to make people laugh. This movie doesn’t have a single other thing on its mind, and for that, you’ve got to give it credit.

How to start and end a movie, as helpfully explained by There Will Be Blood

2008-01-25T09:56:00.000-08:00

I finally had a chance to see There Will Be Blood this week, and now all I want to do is talk about it, see it again, spend way too much time analyzing every cut and camera angle and acting nuance until my eyes bug out.

Relax, I’m not gonna go all Howard Hughes and lock myself up in a screening room with a copy of the film and a steady supply of empty milk bottles, though I guess if somebody wanted to obsess over a movie while slowly losing their grip on reality, this would be as good a film as any to do it with.

I’m not quite that obsessed – truth be told, it’s not my favorite movie of the year, or even my favorite Paul Thomas Anderson movie – but I did walk out of the theater pretty overwhelmed, and certain that I’d seen something that will be talked about long after its (probably inevitable) Oscar victories are old news.

Rather than bore you with the ten million or so questions I’d love to ask Anderson and Daniel Day-Lewis if I happened to run into them at Starbuck’s, however, I’ll just spend a minute here focusing on one small, bite-sized chunk of what makes the film the incredible experience it is: it’s got, hands down, the most memorable opening and closing scenes I’ve seen in a movie all year.

Smart filmmakers never underestimate the importance of beginning and ending their films on the perfect notes – if you can grab your audience by their collective jugular within the first minute and send them out two hours later with a line or image that will bang around their heads for the next month, you’re golden. Everybody loves a great ending, of course, but beginnings are equally important, and most of the time don’t get the attention they deserve (except over at Jim Emerson’s blog Scanners, with its ongoing and awesome Opening Shots Project).

Anderson is particularly skillful at both beginnings and endings, so I sort of figured he’d do something impressive with his latest. Who could forget the tracking shots that open Punch-Drunk Love and Boogie Nights, introducing and drawing us in to two very distinct film worlds right from the get-go? Or the spellbinding Ricky Jay-narrated bit about coincidences that kicks off Magnolia? Or that famous shot that closes Boogie Nights, where porn king Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg) finally takes a good look at, er, himself in the mirror?

So, right, There Will Be Blood. Consider this a spoiler warning – I’m not going to reveal anything that doesn’t happen in the first five or so minutes, but it’s still better to go in cold and just experience it for yourself.

The film opens with one of its many arresting landscape shots, then provides us our first glimpse of Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) – the man we’ll get to know in frightening detail over the next two-and-a-half hours – as he descends into a subterranean silver mine that’s more foreboding and otherworldly than any of the fantastical underground hellholes in the Lord of the Rings movies. The opening sequence, like the rest of the movie, plays out with deliberate intensity; between the creepily slow camera movements and Jonny Greenwood’s nerve-jangling score, it’s unsettling on levels both palpable and subconscious. By the time the scene is over, we know several things: one, that no risk or sacrifice or rationality can stand in the way of Daniel Plainview getting what he wants; two, he’s as hard and unforgiving as the rocky, barren country where he does his bidding; and three, most importantly, that the movie to follow is going to take us to places darker and scarier than that hole in the ground could ever hope to be, and – like Daniel – we’re going to be too fixated to even consider looking away.

Spoiler warning or not, I’m not going to reveal what happens in the closing scene, since I couldn’t hope to do it justice. Suffice it to say that it takes place in a mansion as eerie-looking as the silver mine in the opening scene, it reunites two characters that we absolutely needed to see together one last time, and contains a dramatic speech that will twist your guts in knots. It’s an exclamation point of an ending, the kind of thing that even viewers who didn’t appreciate the rest of the film will have trouble dismissing. It’s also the best few minutes of screen time in Day-Lewis’s already amazing career.

It’s true, these are only two scenes in a very lengthy movie, but they do so much to elevate everything that falls between them that they deserve to be singled out.

Alright, that’s enough out of me for now. I’ve got to go track down a screener copy of There Will Be Blood and a few dozen milk bottles… so, see you when I see you, I guess.

Heath Ledger, 1979-2008

2008-01-23T08:23:00.000-08:00

By now, the untimely passing of Heath Ledger yesterday has been widely reported everywhere; all that’s left at this point is for the details about his death to emerge, to cast a negative light on an actor who – I thought, at least – had done a better job than most in-demand young stars at keeping his off-screen private life private.

Whatever happened to cut his life so tragically short, though, the fact remains that Ledger did some amazing work in what ended up being an unfortunately brief career. Comfortable playing both charismatic action heroes (A Knight’s Tale, The Patriot) and fraught, conflicted dramatic characters (Brokeback Mountain, Monster’s Ball), Ledger lent appeal and gravity to even his less successful projects. I’ll admit I was pretty skeptical when he was unexpectedly chosen to play The Joker in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming The Dark Knight, but from everything I’ve seen so far, even that iconic and challenging role – one of the only villains Ledger ever played – seemed to be well within his range. It’s a performance I’m still very much looking forward to seeing, although now the surefire summer blockbuster will be emotionally affecting in ways the filmmakers definitely didn’t intend.

I’d like to think Ledger’s death might be some kind of wake-up call to other talented performers with great careers still ahead of them, but somehow I doubt it will be – so all I can say, pretty much, is what a shame.

MOVIE MATCH: Old Action Heroes Shed No 'Tears'

2008-01-22T09:22:00.000-08:00

A little bit of explanation: ‘Movie Match’ is a column I started back in fall 2006 in PLAY Magazine, where every week I pick a new release that’s looking good at the box office – or one that, at least, looks like it’s going to be a decent-sized hit – and match it up with another film available on DVD. The older movie might be from the same star or director, or it could just have a similar plot, style, perspective, or whatever; either way, the idea is to shed a little light on movies either a few years old or unjustly under-exposed that are still worth a look. Back when I was developing my taste in music, I discovered a lot of bands based on the “recommended if you like” concept (and still do, all the time), so I thought it might be interesting to apply it to movies, too. Generally, I try not to write about anything so obscure that it can’t be picked up at your local brick-and-mortar rental place, but as a recent convert to online rentals, I will say that those outfits won’t ever let you down in terms of selection.

If all continues to go according to plan, you’ll see another entry like this one right here every Tuesday.

If you had asked me two years ago which pre-1990s movie franchises had absolutely, positively zero chance of returning to the big screen, I think the Rambo series would have been right up there with Teen Wolf and Police Academy.

But then, of course, Rocky Balboa happened, and now Sylvester Stallone has seen fit bring back his other heroic – if sort of inarticulate – Reagan-era action icon, in a new film that sends Rambo on a mission to Burma (presumably without an accompanying soundtrack by Mission of Burma) to rescue some kidnapped aid workers and, oh yeah, kill people by the mega-crapload.

And you know what? I’m totally okay with all that.

I mean, sure, John Rambo is a relic, but after years of seeing super-slick, well-spoken, GQ heroes like Jason Bourne battling equally sophisticated villains onscreen, I think the time may be right to bring back the down ‘n dirty, meat-and-potatoes kind of action the Rambo series was all about. Especially since, you might remember, the last time Hollywood pulled an aging action star off the bench for a little rumble in the jungle, the results were actually pretty good.

Bruce Willis was the guy, and the Nigeria-set Tears of the Sun was the movie. And although it didn’t reap the same kind of blockbuster success as the Rambo franchise, the film proved that a fiftysomething star could blow stuff up just as convincingly as all the young bucks.

Willis stars as Navy SEAL A.K. Waters (we never do learn what those assault rifle-esque initials actually stand for), leader of a crack seven-man squad renowned for its ability to carry out orders with ruthless efficiency. Their latest assignment has them deployed to horrifically war-torn Nigeria to extract an American-affiliated doctor (Monica Bellucci) before a rebel death squad – whose associates have just murdered the president’s entire family – can descend on the remote Catholic hospital where she’s been working.

Things go awry not because the rebels arrive before Willis’s men do, but because Bellucci insists she won’t leave without bringing the hospital’s several dozen patients along with her. Willis, despite being such a hardass that he speaks mostly in imperative sentences of two words or less, finally caves to her demands – though his C.O. (Tom Skerritt), aboard an aircraft carrier off the African coast, refuses to send helicopters to pick the refugees up.

The majority of the movie plays out as a somber, scary game of cat-and-mouse, with Willis and his team leading the wounded and slow-moving refugees through the rainforest to the safety of the Cameroonian border, with the murderously rebels constantly breathing down their necks. It’s an uncomplicated but solid setup, and action vet Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, The Replacement Killers) does a bang-up job at making the jungle seem bristling with unseen dangers; the film’s first half is deliberately paced and impressively suspenseful, eschewing firefights for tense hide-and-seek sequences and none-too-subtle indications that the mission is going to end up dangerously FUBAR.

If you’re guessing that over the course of the film Willis gradually transforms from a hardened, duty-bound career soldier into a more sensitive, caring – but still ass-kicking – dude, well, you’re right. But while the film never quite delivers the mix of social consciousness and hard-hitting action it promises – it’s much more successful on the latter front – it does come off as a touch deeper than the average Hollywood shoot-‘em-up, and manages to avoid at least as many clichés as it includes (thankfully, Willis and Bellucci don’t end up making kissy-face in the midst of all the genocide).

The script, by Alex Lasker and Patrick Cirillo, could have used a touch more detail about the real-world conflict that the film is based around, but on the other hand it’s actually pretty compelling to be along for the ride almost exclusively with Willis and his team, who – initially, at least – are only interested in completing the mission and not getting shot to pieces. It’s true, the film occasionally borders on the exploitative with its brutal imagery of innocents being butchered by the rebels, way beyond what you’d expect in your average action movie. Still, Tears of the Sun is nothing if not well-intentioned, a film that – like Black Hawk Down and last year’s The Kingdom – at least attempts to advance a humanitarian message while still providing the kind of bloodshed that keeps action fans’ asses in the seats.

As for Willis, he acclimates himself nicely to a character that doesn’t get to throw out wisecracks every time he waxes a bad guy, and his age is never a distraction; this is the movie that proved to me that a fourth Die Hard, which we eventually got last summer, was a viable idea.

If the Rambo trailers are any indication, Stallone shouldn’t have much trouble following suit – and here’s hoping that the more recent crop of action-flick ass-kickers, Jason Statham and Gerard Butler and all the rest, can age as well as these guys did.

Take a peek at 'Doomsday'

2008-01-17T08:30:00.000-08:00

Post-apocalyptic action movies may not be as trendy now as they were in the 80s — I guess that's one of the downsides of the Cold War being over — but every once in a while a filmmaker comes along and reminds us of how cool Mad Max and all its many imitators could be.

This time around, it's Neil Marshall, director of The Descent, who'll be unleashing his end-of-civilization thiller Doomsday on March 14. The trailer is up now at Yahoo! Movies — you can check it out here — and, from the looks of it, this one's taking a decidedly old-school approach to the post-apoc genre, tattooed psycho-punks and all.

I have faith that Marshall, who whipped up some very well-orchestrated scares in The Descent, will knock this one out of the park. Still, the trailer seems a little scattered thematically, recalling both the grim, super-serious, politically inclined approach of most recent post-apoc movies (Children of Men, 28 Weeks Later) and the comic book thrills offered by Escape From New York, the Resident Evil series, etc. If Marshall can successfully combine the two angles, as George Miller did so successfully in The Road Warrior (also an obvious influence here), then Doomsday could very well end up being a genre classic.

Plus, Bob Hoskins and Malcolm McDowell — you just can't go wrong with those guys.

"So, here we go..."

2008-01-15T14:02:00.000-08:00

A first blog post is sort of like a first kiss – sure, it’s very exciting and all, but it’s also pretty clear to all parties involved that you don’t have a clue what you’re doing.

So let’s just keep it simple, shall we? The aim of this blog, Cinematic for the People, is to share some information, discussion, and opinions (and yes, I am aware of what certain unsavory body part that opinions are like) about anything and everything involving the movies. I’ll be touching on all the big-deal Hollywood blockbusters, of course, but also as many independent, foreign, classic, or otherwise obscure films as I have time and space for. My goals is to have something to offer to both the casual cinema-goer who catches a flick or two per month as well as the hardcore movie-geek who owns every Criterion Collection DVD or scours the internet hourly for the latest tidbit about what material Spider-man’s eyeholes will be constructed out of in the series’ next installment.

My taste in movies is all over the map – Nosferatu, Singin’ In the Rain, Oldboy, and, uh, Half-Baked all comfortably share space on my DVD shelves at home – so I hope to cover as wide a range here as possible, and not to trash anything that isn’t actually trash (though I certainly believe there's a distinction between “good trash” and “bad trash”).

I do have a particular affinity for the great “underdog” films that, for whatever reason, didn’t connect with the majority of critics or moviegoers – like Punch-Drunk Love, whose incredible closing scene supplied the title of this post – and also for movies made by scrappy, resourceful filmmakers who didn’t let their lack of money, access, or support get in the way of them getting their vision to the screen.

What’s to come? Well, we’ll see – 2007 was a particularly terrific year for movies, so here’s hoping that this year will give us lots more memorable films to talk about in the coming weeks and months. Feel free to drop me a line here at the Register at nscalia@nhregister.com, and check back every few days for updates of all shapes and sizes.

Until then, try to have yourself a transcendent experience in a darkened room surrounded by loud noises and complete strangers. Trust me, you’ll love it.