Movie Review: Elizabethtown (Original Review)

Elizabethtown (2005) 

Directed by Cameron Crowe 

Written by Cameron Crowe 

Starring Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, Judy Greer, Susan Sarandon, Paul Schneider

Release Date October 14th, 2005 

Published October 13th, 2005

For me, a new Cameron Crowe film is like the release of Lord Of The Rings. I will line up days in advance, I will play the soundtracks of his previous films at obscene volumes and I will pore over the texts of the script as if they held the answer to life itself. Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous, Say Anything and Singles are not just any other movies.  To me they are masterpieces.

So I have been anticipating the release of Elizabethtown ever since the final credits on Vanilla Sky rolled off the screen in 2001. To say I am a little disappointed in Elizabethtown is one of the hardest things I have ever written. By the standards of an average movie Elizabethtown is great. By the standards of Cameron Crowe, however, Elizabethtown is a step backwards.

Orlando Bloom plays Drew Baylor, who looks like a man on his way to his own execution. Drew is a shoe designer for a Nike-esque company in Oregon and his first creation, a shoe called 'Spasmodica', has just failed so spectacularly that the company stands to lose nearly a billion dollars on it's recall. As Drew's boss (Alec Baldwin in a minor cameo) explains, the shoe was so poorly received by the public that one industry observer was quoted as saying the shoe could cause millions of people to return to bare feet.

Fired from the only job he has ever known, Drew returns home with dark intentions. He plans to kill himself and begins fashioning a very unique suicide device involving a kitchen knife and some workout equipment.  It must be seen to be believed. Drew's attempt is foiled by his cell phone's unending musical ring which he cannot resist answering.

The call is from his younger sister Heather (Judy Greer).  Their father has died. On a trip back to his hometown, the tiny Kentucky hamlet Elizabethtown, Dad had a heart attack. At his mother Hollie's (Susan Surandon) request Drew must go to Elizabethtown and retrieve the body for cremation in Oregon and represent the family in whatever tribute the Elizabethtown Baylor's have planned. The two sides of the family have rarely had contact.

On his flight from Oregon to Kentucky Drew meets Claire, a chirpy stewardess who takes a special interest in making sure he knows where he is going. Claire is obviously attracted to Drew despite, or maybe because, of his morose attitude. She gives him directions to get to Elizabethtown and her phone number in case he gets lost and it seemingly could have ended right there.

When Drew finally arrives in Elizabethtown the culture shock and his newfound family are so overwhelming that he needs to talk to someone and Claire is his choice. The two talk an entire night and get together to watch the sun come up. They agree to be friends but it's clear both are fighting fate.  They are meant for each other.

That is the very bare bones of Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown, yet another very personal and deeply felt story for Crowe but also one he can't quite get a handle on. There are three important plots in Elizabethtown. First is Drew's failure at work.  Second, the family drama including his father's death and meeting his extended family.  And third is his romance with Claire. To make this movie work Crowe needed to coalesce each of these three plots into one story. Unfortunately it just never happens.

I enjoyed both lead performances by Bloom and Dunst but the relationship is so far unrelated from the family drama and Drew's work drama that it feels almost like a separate movie. Dunst delivers a character that is very unique.  Some might say that she is more fantasy than anything, but I believed that this character would do the things she does. She is quirky and forgiving and troubled in her own ways.  It's a complex part that has great potential but there are scenes missing, important scenes and dialogue that might better have integrated her into the rest of the story.

Bloom's performance is complicated for different reasons. He was not the first  choice for the role.  Initially Ashton Kutcher was cast as Drew. Bloom was the better choice of the two but because Cameron Crowe's male protagonists are so well remembered Bloom is competing with the ghosts of the past and he pales in comparison to the likes of Tom Cruise, John Cusack, Campbell Scott and even young Patrick Fugit from Almost Famous.

Cameron Crowe does not do Bloom any favors in his scripting or direction. Much of Elizabethtown plays like Cameron Crowe's greatest hits. Dunst's character is a mixture of Renee Zellweger's needy but lovable single mom in Jerry Magure and Kate Hudson's ethereal groupie from Almost Famous. Drew's wacky extended family in Elizabethtown are older versions of the wacky neighbors from Singles or the inebriated party goers from Say Anything. And Drew himself carries the DNA of both Jerry Maguire and Lloyd Dobler.

Even the film score, once again lovingly crafted by Crowe's wife Nancy Wilson, feels as if it were lifted from Almost Famous. Check out the scene just after Susan Surandon's exceptional speech at the memorial. Drew and Claire meet in the hallway and the acoustic guitar score comes in just a little too loud. The scene is a poignant moment where Drew tries once again to explain that he and Claire cannot be together. The music in the scene is lovely but sounds almost identical to music used in a scene in Almost Famous where William tells Penny she has been sold out by the band and won't continue with the tour. This may be just the anal retentive Crowe fan in me coming out but it bothers me to hear Crowe simply repeat himself.

Thankfully, the same cannot be said of the film's pop soundtrack. Once again Cameron Crowe brings together an eclectic mix of classic hits and forgotten or overlooked favorites that compliment the story and occasionally comment on it. In the film's climactic scenes in which Drew drives his fathers ashes cross country back to his home in Oregon he is accompanied by an amazing soundtrack that Claire made for him as a sort of musical map of America. The reasoning is contrived but the emotion these scenes and songs evoke are real and very moving. No director mixes pop music, storytelling, and imagery as effectively as Cameron Crowe.

Cameron Crowe movies are known for romance, smart characters, and great music. Elizabethtown overflows with each of those elements but, unfortunately, Crowe cannot corral them all into one story. Each of the individual characters from Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst in the leads to Susan Surandon, Paul Schneider and Loudon Wainwright in supporting roles are all interesting characters but they are all parts of different movies. Bloom shares scenes with each of them and yet seemingly never at the same time.

The romance of Elizabethtown works in individual scenes such as Drew and Claire's all night phone session and the first night they make love and the aftermath the following morning. You definitely root for them to be together. But the movie is as much about this romance as it is about Drew's family, which is in a whole other film.

The family drama is a strong plot. Susan Surandon is exceptional in her one big scene at the memorial in which she does standup comedy, tap dances and reconnects with her extended family by opening up about how much she and they all loved her husband. Crowe does an excellent job of establishing the late Mitch Baylor as another member of the cast. Lovely sepia toned flashbacks of Drew with his father, perfectly aged photos and even the actor laying in the coffin with just the slightest hint of a smile that Drew dubs whimsical all serve to help the audience feel the loss.

The extended family and friends are an interesting collection. I really enjoyed Paul Schneider as Drew's cousin, a failed rock star with an out of control son and a difficult relationship with his father played by Loudon Wainwright. There was some lovingly detailed work in crafting Schneider and Wainwright's characters that are hinted at but the film does not have time to get too into that.

The film would work better if Claire had been as much a part of the family drama in Elizabethtown as she is the romance plot. Crowe never connects her to the family drama, which could have been done simply by making her a family friend from Elizabethtown and not some random stewardess. Put Claire in Elizabethtown, connect her to the family and maybe you can connect the two separate stories. Because she is outside of it the movie is disjointed and it never comes together.

For me, writing even a slightly negative review of a Cameron Crowe movie is torture, but it's undeniable. Aside from the awesome soundtrack, Elton John's "My Father's Gun" is my new favorite song by the way, Elizabethtown only works as a sketch of a good Cameron Crowe movie. A number of good scenes and good characters  great music but not a great movie. Fans of Cameron Crowe will find a lot of specific things to love in Elizabethtown: scenes, characters, music. I would recommend it for them with the warning that they may be disappointed by the film as a whole.

Movie Review Batman Begins (2012)

Batman Begins (2005) 

Directed by Christopher Nolan 

Written by Christopher Nolan 

Starring Christian Bale, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes 

Release Date 

Published 2012 

Henri Ducard: Are you ready to begin?

Bruce Wayne: I-I can barely stand...

Henri Ducard: [kicks him] Death does not wait for you to be ready! Death is not considerate, or fair! And make no mistake: here, you face Death.

And that is how Bruce Wayne began his journey some seven years ago in writer-director Christopher Nolan’s first Bat-masterpiece, “Batman Begins.” It’s appropriate that Bruce Wayne, the man who would be Batman, would be trained as a ninja; the nerd culture that deified the caped crusader are of the same ilk who’ve turned the Asian legend of the ninja warrior into an outsized caricature.

It’s that knowing of what the audience wanted combined with his own particular, peculiar interests that have made Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy both crowd-pleasing and deeply personal. We will see in “The Dark Knight Rises,” Nolan’s Batman thesis statement, just how well the director combines his ability to dazzle the masses with his deep seeded philosophical aims.

“Batman Begins” is certainly a remarkable opening statement. In retrospect it’s much easier to see in the film how Nolan wanted to use this iconic character not merely to entertain but to critique and enlighten. From the opening moments when Bruce Wayne loses his parents to crime informed by poverty to the attempt by Ra’s Al Ghul to raze Gotham City by rotting it from within the philosophical aims of Nolan and his co-writer and brother Jonathan Nolan are vague but emerging.

We will get to the philosophy in a moment; let’s dig in to the surface story first. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) lost his parents to a horrendous murder in a back alley. With years of guilt and anger boiling within Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham City from a failed stint in college with the intention of purging himself by killing his parents killer. When the man is murdered by a Mob Boss, Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson), Bruce needs a new path and winds up somewhere in Asia.

In Asia Bruce meets and becomes a student of a man calling himself Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson). He’s allegedly a minion of a man known as Ra’s Al Ghul but we will come to know that Ducard is Ra’s and he has plans for his new pupil that involve the destruction of Gotham City. Ra’s Al Ghul is the head of a secret society that has for years restored the balance of the world by laying waste to areas of the world that have grown decadent and out of control and Gotham City is set to join Rome, Sodom & Gomorrah and others on the ash heap of history.

When Bruce leans of Ra’s Al Ghul’s plans the compassion instilled in him by his late father compels him to hope for Gotham City and soon defend it. Bruce’s decision sets the stage for what will be a clash of will and philosophy that will carry audiences through “The Dark Knight Rises;” Ra’s Al Ghul’s cynical belief in the cleansing fire and Batman’s scarred optimism that good can somehow triumph over even the worst evil.

Is it really as simple as a glass half empty versus a glass half full? Of course not, though Ra’s Al Ghul’s nefarious plot to poison and weaponize Gotham’s water supply has a certain ironic quality in my thesis. The deeper meaning of “Batman Begins” and what carried forward through “The Dark Knight” and comes to fruition, allegedly, in “The Dark Knight Rises” is a belief in hope against great odds; the belief that a once great city or country can be great again but only after a great struggle.

Surely, Christopher Nolan’s vision of America in Gotham City is one on the road to complete ruin. It’s a vision that is littered with the bodies of the brave and beleaguered, the good and the evil, but is still a vision of hope. Is not America’s past stained with the same blood? Are we not hopeful that from the horrors of the past greatness can be recovered?

Hope, dear reader, is at the heart of Batman and “Batman Begins” is a far more hopeful movie than many are willing to give it credit for. Just check that hopeful happy ending as Bruce Wayne and his best friend Alfred ponder a future where the ruins of Wayne Manor are restored to an even greater and more effective glory.

Not having seen “The Dark Knight Rises” my theory of hope among the darkness of the Batman series may be completely disproved but I don’t think so. Christopher Nolan may have dark visions of a rotting society but he’s far too savvy to give into the cynicism that is the true enemy of his vision. Batman/Bruce Wayne himself may not be so lucky, but Gotham City will survive and a new hope will be born from the ruins with Batman, man or legend, as its symbol of hope.

Movie Review: Eros

Eros (2004) 

Directed by Steven Soderbergh, Michaelangelo Antonioni, Wong Kar Wai

Written by Wong Kar Wai, Steven Soderbergh, Torino Guerra

Starring Gong Li, Chang Chen, Alan Arkin, Robert Downey Jr, Regina Nemni 

Release Date April 8th, 2005 

Published August 18th, 2005 

Three brilliant directors come together for a series of short films under the title Eros. Wong Kar Wai, Steven Soderbergh and Michaelangelo Antonioni contribute short films to a trilogy that via the title Eros are about sex... or are they.

The Hand, Mr. Wong's contribution, is sexual in subtext but seems more about an unusual and somewhat disfunctional connection between two strangers. Chang Chen plays a tailor, a mere apprentice when we first meet him, who is assigned to make a dress for a high class prostitute, Ms. Hua played by Gong Li. In their first meeting Li's prostitute sexually humiliates the tailor. She claims it will make him a better tailor and she's right.

Soon he is inspired and continues for a number of years crafting beautiful outfits for the prostitute. The nature of the relationship is mostly business but as time passes and the prostitute falls on hard times she finds that the tailor, though he has never touched her, is the only man who has ever really known her body. The two have an erotic connection through the clothing that is more powerful than other relationship either has ever had.

I love the way Wong Kar Wai uses slow motion. By simply slowing the frames by a fraction and showing his actors moving at just slightly slower rate of speed he gives the impression of a montage without edits. The slow motion marks the slow passage of time. The film covers this relationship over a number of years and they pass in dreamlike fashion.

The Hand is unquestionably the best of the three films in Eros.

Steven Soderbergh's contribution to Eros is called Equilibrium and it stars Robert Downey Jr. as an ad executive and Alan Arkin as his shrink. Shot mostly in black and white the film has the look of a noir detective story with rascotro lighting, Downey wearing the traditional private dick garb, the fedora and trenchcoat and there is a mystery albeit one from a dream.

In the dream there is a beautiful naked stranger, a nondescript hotel room and a ringing phone. Dream analysts I'm sure could have a field day with this scenario however neither we nor Mr. Soderbergh is as interested in the dream as we are in the bizarre behavior of Arkin as the shrink. While Downey lays on the couch with his back turned and his eyes closed, Arkin is frantically trying to get the attention of someone outside his office window. What was the point of this film? I have no idea. I know it's exceptionally well shot. The look is beautiful and every angle Soderbergh chooses is very eye catching, often distracting from the somewhat meandering plot.

Equilibrium is an interesting exercise in filmmaking technique and maybe if you are more observant than me you can glean some hidden meaning from it. On that basis I recommend checking it out.

You however might as well skip Michaelangelo Antonioni's contribution to Eros, an Italian exercise in softcore porn called  The Dangerous Thread. The film is a pointless and painfully protracted exercise in female exploitation. As a couple argues about the end of their relationship, they pass a beautiful woman in a restaurant. The man asks if his soon to be ex knows the woman and she does. The woman lives in a castle just a few miles away. The man visits this beautiful stranger and with a few words they are in bed. Then the beautiful woman and the ex girlfriend each go for a walk on the beach in the nude. They meet somewhere in the middle and simply regard each other for a moment and the film ends.

I must say that Mr. Antonioni is a legend. I have seen his L'Avventurra and was blown away by its beauty. But now at more than 90 years old the master has become nothing more than an ogling old man. That is fine in private but on film it's rather tedious.

Movie Review: Bad News Bears

Bad News Bears (2005) 

Directed by Richard Linklater

Written by Glenn Ficarra, John Requa 

Starring Billy Bob Thornton, Greg Kinnear, Marcia Gay Harden

Release Date July 22nd, 2005 

Published July 22nd, 2005 

Director Richard Linklater has cultivated the persona of a Director who can bounce between brilliant, artful indie films (Before Sunrise, Dazed and Confused) and mainstream stuff without compromising his vision. 2003's School Of Rock was a big studio comedy with a rising star, Jack Black, that studio execs were eager to exploit. Linklater delivered a film that was mainstream funny with just enough of a nod to his roots to keep it grounded in his vision as a Director.

School Of Rock allowed Linklater to make the far smaller film, Before Sunset, the sequel to his wonderful romance Before Sunrise , and the template for his career seemed set. In the indie parlance, Linklater was going to make one for them and one for himself. That seems to be the case with his latest studio film Bad News Bears which will be followed quickly by the experimental animated film A Scanner Darkly.

Unfortunately something got lost along the way and Linklater's nod to studio execs turned out messy and compromised. Bad News Bears is simply bad news for it's rising star Director.

Billy Bob Thornton, coming off his tour de force comic turn in Bad Santa, stars in the lead role essayed by Walter Matthau in the 1976 original, Morris Buttermaker. A former major leaguer, Morris is now a pathetic drunk working for beer money as an exterminator. His only connection to the sport he once loved is picking up a paycheck coaching a group of little league misfits.

The Bears, as they are eventually called, are only allowed into the league after the mother of one of the players, Liz (Marcia Gay Harden), sued to get them in. Other little league coach's like hotshot sports dad Roy Bullock (Greg Kinnear) had wanted the kids out of the league, mostly because none of the kids are any good. But, it's little league and everyone gets to play and it's up to Buttermaker to field a team that includes a kid in a wheelchair and two kids who can't speak English.

Not much has been changed from the original film which operates from nearly the same screenplay by Bill Lancaster as the one Lancaster wrote himself in 1976. Just like the original their is little Tanner (Timmy Deters) all blonde mop and anger, their is Ahmad the meek black kid, and Lupus the one who would rather pick grass than play ball. Each player virtually untouched from the original. The minor updates include an Indian kid, Prem (Aman Johal) who takes over for the original films Ogilvie as the teams stat geek and the aforementioned wheel chair bound kid Hooper (Troy Gentile).

Also in place from the original are the girl pitcher, Amanda (Sammi Kraft) and the wrong side of the tracks bad boy with the big bat, Kelly Leak (Jeff Davies). Gone from their relationship is the subversive sexual undertones, replaced with a more PG-13 puppy love. In fact, of the few changes to the original film are touches to make the film PG-13 where the original was a PG film that today may have been R-rated today.

The lack of anything new in the script reflects an overall laziness that permeates the entire film. Remakes are lazy enough by nature but Richard Linklater brings little to nothing new to Bad News Bears. Linklater seems quite content to translate the script to the screen with only a minimal amount of work on his part. That is not to say the material is not funny, the original film was plenty funny and remains so. This remake resembles the original so much you can't help but find something funny in it.

Also recycled in Bad News Bears is Billy Bob Thornton's Bad Santa bad boy. Thornton's Buttermaker is not exactly as bad as his Santa, but in his hard drinking, thoughtless, careless way he is certainly a close cousin to that far funnier character. Thornton still manages a few laughs from this retread character, a sign of his strong talent and charisma.

The less said about the child actors in Bad News Bears the better. Where in School Of Rock Linklater coaxed wonderful performances from his young cast to counterpoint Jack Black's comic tour de force, in Bad News Bears Linklater makes his child actors more functionary place holders for Thornton's comic lead. Needless to say, there is no Tatum O'Neal in this Bad News cast.

Bad News Bears is a shockingly lazy and sloppy film for someone of Richard Linklater's talent. No director of his caliber can get away with such a slipshod effort. The direction is not merely lackluster, it's lazy. Richard Linklater should be ashamed that he wasted his time slapping together such a waste of talent and celluloid. Remakes are a big enough waste on their own, when combined with a complete lack of effort on the part of those doing the remaking, they are an all out disaster.

Movie Review: Everything is Illuminated

Everything is Illuminated (2005) 

Directed by Liev Schreiber 

Written by Liev Schreiber

Starring Eugene Hutz, Elijah Wood, Boris Leskin. Laryssa Lauret

Release Date September 16th, 2005 

Published November 12th, 2005 

Everything is illuminated in the light of history. So says Alex the narrator of the delightful film Everything Is Illuminated, the directorial debut of actor Liev Schreiber. Undeniably, the sentence is over complicated. It is also, easily the cleanest, clearest English Alex speaks in the entire film.

Alex (Eugene Hutz) is a Ukrainian youth who works for his parents tour company as a translator. The company provides tours of the country to jewish visitors in search of their family history. The company's newest client is Jonathon (Elijah Wood), a goggle eyed American whose pasttime is collecting small artifacts of his family history in plastic bags and tacking the bags to the walls of his home.

Jonathon hopes the trip to Ukraine will lead him to the woman who helped his grandfather Safran escape the Nazis. Her name was Augustine and she was from a small village called Trachinbad. The little village has a great deal of meaning to Alex's grandfather, also named Alex, who is the tour company's driver despite the fact that he believes he is blind and will not travel without his crazed dog, or seeing eye bitch as he refers to her, Sammy Davis Jr Jr.

And the quirks they keep on coming in this often Fellini-esque configuration. Liev Schreiber is a little distinguished actor, he has a tendency to fade into the background as an actor. As a director however, Schreiber shows a vibrant imagination and attention to detail. His visuals, with the aid of cinematographer Matthew Libatique, are crisp and lovely in ways Eastern European locales are not often shown.

Schreiber adapted the screenplay himself from the especially quirky book by Jonathon Safron Foer and has managed to make a film of equal idiosyncrasy. And yet as odd as both the film and the book are there is an emotional undercurrent that rises at the end to really catch you off guard.

All along we are aware that the history being chased is part of the holocaust and World War 2 but we are distracted by the unending quirks of the characters until the end of the journey and the introduction of Lista (Laryssa Lauret). Lista is linked to both Jonathon's search and Alex's Sr's past but I will leave you to watch the film to see just how.

The film is not without problems. Most dire is the fact that it the story hinges on the rather large coincidence that Jonathon would hire Alex's family to be his guide and that Alex's grandfather's past would be so entwined with Jonathon's. That is a pretty big contrivance but one I was willing to forgive because so much of Everything Is Illuminated is delightful,

Liev Schreiber is a director to watch. His talent for eye catching visuals and his slightly askew take on normal character arcs are a refreshing change from the norm. No cookie cutter characters, no simple over coming the odds story, nothing you might see in a typical Hollywood creation. Schreiber's off kilter direction of Everything Is Illuminated is a breath of fresh air.

Documentary Review: Enron The Smartest Guys in the Room

Enron The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)

Directed by Alex Gibney

Written by Documentary

Starring Jefffrey Skilling, Ken Lay, Andrew Fastow

Release Date April 22nd, 2005

Published May 25th, 2005

Ask yourself this question: Where is Jeffrey Skilling right now? The former CEO of Enron, Skilling guided what he called "the number one company in the world" directly into the biggest corporate scandal of all time as he and his boss, Ken Lay, and any number of subordinates ripped off the country for billions of dollars. Where is Jeffrey Skilling now? He is not in jail, not yet anyway.  He goes to trial in January of 2006.

No doubt Jeffrey Skilling is currently occupying space in some upscale gated community as his lawyers pull every trick in the book to save his ass from federal prison. Despite being indicted and obviously having screwed millions of people, employees and shareholders alike, Jeffrey Skillings has yet to see the inside of a prison and no one seems to care.

One guy who does care is Director Alex Gibney who's extraordinary documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room details every crime committed by Skilling and his associates. It's a documentary so thorough and so damning that if it were shown to jurors they would convict Skilling and Lay without a shadow of a doubt.

The crimes of Enron all revolve around one clever scheme.  And what a scheme it was. Essentially this mostly unethical maneuver took Enron from merely being an energy creator to being energy traders. They converted to a new form of economics, sanctioned by goverment agencies, that allowed them to project profits where none existed. They would complete a business deal or stock transaction, claim the amount that could theoretically be made from this deal as profit and even if the deal went bad and no money was made the fake profit was still considered profit and was plowed into future product.

Much of the fake profit, such as money from Enron's failed bid to get into Broadband internet sales, was converted to Enron stock which could then be cashed by Executives even though, and this is the most important thing, their was no real profit to convert. The Enron executive in charge of the failed Broadband biz cashed out of the company with some 350 million dollars despite never getting the business out of the planning stages.

Enron Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow, who some say is being scapegoated by Lay and Skilling, was the architect of a plan that converted Enron debt to stock through a complicated set of fake companies that took on Enron debt for stock. Since Fastow was technically the head of these fake companies he skimmed off the Enron dollars from both sides of the table. It's again difficult to explain, and Mr. Gibney's film is at times a little unclear, but despite witnesses who say Fastow is a patsy, it was clear to me at least that he's as much of a weasel as Skilling and Lay.

That is just a skim off the top of the damning evidence in this astonishing documentary, much of which is based on the book of the same name by Business Week writers Bethany McClean and Peter Elkind who both appear in the film. They, along with whistleblower Sherron Watkins provide the most damning evidence. Watkins is particularly brave because she will be testifying in both Lay and Skilling's trials.

Director Alex Gibney, whose previous work includes the superfluous AFI's 100 Years 100 Movies, shows a journalist's care for facts and story structure and combines that with a dark sense of humor that is expressed in title cards about the companies slogan "Ask Why" and in his soundtrack of pop tunes which pop up in perfectly pitched moments and provide a running commentary alongside actor Peter Coyote's  occasionally mocking narration.

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is an absolute must see. Required viewing for business schools which could use a shot of the ethical cleansing this film delivers. Required viewing also for anyone thinking of getting into the stock market. After watching this film and seeing how easily and complicitly the major banks of the world and the stock market analysts that everyone looks to for guidance went along with Skilling, Lay and Fastow, some to the point where they too were sent to jail, one must wonder just how safe the stock market truly is.

nron: The Smartest Guys in the Room shines a very bright light on some very startling information about the flaws inherent in our Corporate based America and does some powerful, yet entertaining and informative finger-pointing.  See this film and you might not be able to sleep thinking about your future in the hands of the next Andrew Fastow.

Movie Review: Flightplan

Flightplan (2005) 

Directed by Robert Schwentke

Written by Peter A. Dowling, Billy Ray

Starring Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgard, Erika Christensen, Kate Beahan, Greta Scacchi, Sean Bean, Matt Bomer

Release Date September 23rd, 2005

Published September 23rd, 2005

Jodie Foster is an actress of particular tastes. Since her Oscar win in 1991 for Silence of The Lambs, Foster has been very particular about what films she makes, what directors she works with and what actors she co-stars. Few stars are known to be as demanding as Jodie Foster when it comes to even the minor details of her work.

Knowing this makes her latest film Flightplan so surprising and yet not puzzling. It's a surprise that Flightplan is so astonishingly bad but not puzzling as to why it's so bad.

Kyle Pratt (Foster) has lost her husband in what she believes was a tragic accident. Now returning his body to their home in New York from their temporary home in Germany, Kyle and her daughter Julia (Brent Sexton) have a 12 hour flight ahead of them. This, however, will not be a typically uncomfortable flight. Instead, at 25,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean, Julia Pratt is going to go missing.

After catching a few minutes sleep in some empty seats near the back of the plane, Kyle wakes up and cannot find her daughter. Enlisting the help of the crew she exhaustively searched the plane and finds nothing. Soon Kyle is demanding to speak to the captain (Sean Bean) and catching the attention of Air Marshall Carson (Peter Sarsgaard).

Some digging by the crew reveals that no one saw Kyle and Julia get on the plane. Once on board none of the crew members or passengers can remember seeing Julia either. Even a check of the flight manifest reveals that Julia was never processed for boarding and there was no boarding pass in her name. Can it be that Julia died along with her father in that tragic accident and Julia has only imagined her daughter alive and well on the plane?

That is an intriguing setup, but in execution Flightplan, pardon the pun, fails to take off. Director Robert Schwentke, working in his first American feature, has the beats and rhythm of the thriller genre down but the script from Billy Ray and Peter Dowling hinges on one of the single worst screenwriting tricks and hackneyed cliches in the genre.

In attempting to build tension Schwentke makes every other character aside from Foster shifty-eyed and suspicious. Everyone is a suspect, fellow passengers, crew members and such but no one other than Foster's character is portrayed as remotely sympathetic. If it weren't for the goofy thriller music and the shifty-eyed acting everyone on the film other than Foster might come off as rational compared to Foster's wacked mommy.

The super suspicious supporting cast is meant to create isolation which in turn creates more drama, especially considering the already confining location. However, to make such a method work the film needed Jodie Foster to deliver a character the audience feels for and wants to follow. As great an actress as Foster is, her Kyle Pratt is too much of a nut and a flake for anyone to really feel for her.

In her return to the American big screen (she appeared in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A Very Long Engagement a year or so ago) after a three year hiatus, exascerbated by production delays on her directorial effort Flora Plum, Jodie Foster struggles with a shrill portrayal of a mother on the edge. Foster's Kyle Pratt can be forgiven for becoming unhinged after the death of her husband and disapppearance of her daughter but the character reaches a level of unreasonable behavior that would have had any other passenger sedated and chained to their seat.

Flightplan reminded me in a weird way of the 2000 Harrison Ford-Michele Pfeiffer film What Lies Beneath. Both films were thrillers with big important twists at the end and both films failed in delivering climaxes that matched the intriguing set ups. In What Lies Beneath Michele Pfeiffer delivers half of a great performance before being undone by series of poorly executed twists. Jodie Foster is similarly undone in Flightplan by twists that defy both logic and taste. Unlike Ms. Pfeiffer, however, the problems with Flightplan have as much to do with the scripting as with Jodie Foster's performance.

The most damnable sin Foster commits is simply not being likable. She never connects with the child playing her daughter and without a sympathetic supporting character as backup the audience is always outside the character watching her as if we were one of her highly annoyed fellow passengers.

After some terrific buzz for his performances in Shattered Glass and Garden State  Peter Sarsgaard has failed in attempts at crossing over to more mainstream fare. His dreary performance in the Kate Hudson thriller Skeleton Key and yet another creepy performance in Flightplan have Sarsgaard on the road to some real bad typecasting. Sean Bean as the captain of the plane and Erika Christenson as one of the flight attendants come off a little better than Sarsgard but not by much. Everytime either one of them looks like they might break from the constrictions of the plot and become sympathetic they are shuffled off screen.

It's a classic Hitchcockian thriller setup-- missing person, confined space, suspicious characters all around-- but the plot of Flightplan never congeals into the kind of crowd pleasing tension-fest that Hitch excelled at. Rather, Flightplan is almost laughably inept in creating tension; that shifty-eyed supporting cast for one is a real hoot as they really do seem to all have the same pair of nervous, wandering eyes with evil intent in every glare regardless of whether they actually are evil.

The film is very well shot; watch out for some really terrific maneuvering through the limited cabin space of the plane that will leave you wondering how they managed to do that.  Schwentke makes great use of his setting and the camerawork at times is able to create the tension the script fails to provide. Great camerawork however is not the kind of rousing crowd pleaser that us movie lovers would like to believe and in the end there is very little in Flightplan that would draw anyone in.

There is now a protest in the works against Flightplan that raises an interesting and disturbing point. The protest gives away an important plot point so if you don't want to know about it, skip ahead.....

The union representing flight attendants is objecting to the portrayal of flight crew and air marshals being portrayed in the film as terrorists. This raises an interesting question; in the post 9/11 world is it appropriate to portray flight crew as terrorists or is it simply irresponsible. Certainly no one profession is immune to being portrayed negatively but there's something unseemly about it. I don't necessarily side with the flight attendant's protest, it is just a movie after all, but I certainly see their point.

All controversies aside Flightplan is a disappointment for fans of Jodie Foster, many of whom felt Panic Room suffered from a similarly overwrought performance. There is a pattern of isolation forming in Jodie Foster's work, and I'm not just talking about settings-- panic rooms, airplanes and such. I mean isolation in the sense that she has cut herself off more and more from her co-stars, specifically her male co-stars. The men of Panic Room and now Flightplan are all bad guys or highly suspsicious and only she can protect that which she loves from these evil men.

I'm not pleading sexism against  Jodie Foster but she has played a large role in shaping her characters with a specific rule about love interests, specifically that there are none in her films. This lack of strong support from male or even female characters, aside from children who are more victim than character, is isolating Jodie Foster from the audience. If no one in the film likes her why should we?

Movie Review: Two for the Money

Two for the Money (2005) 

Directed by D.J Caruso 

Written by Dan Gilroy

Starring Al Pacino, Matthew McConaughey, Rene Russo, Armand Assante, Jeremy Piven

Release Date October 7th, 2005

Published October 7th, 2005 

Director D.J. Caruso may have peaked too soon. His feature directing debut The Salton Sea is a gritty noir masterpiece that overcomes simplistic comparisons to Tarantino by out Quentin-ing Quentin. The combination of grit and style is perfect and everything comes together with the career redefining performance of Val Kilmer.

So what happened? Caruso moved up to studio pictures with the thriller Taking Lives and delivered a stylish piece of mainstream formulaic garbage. Now with yet another slick mainstream disappointment, albeit much improved, it is definitely time to return to the indies. The sports gambling melodrama Two For The Money is fast paced and stylish but compared to Salton Sea, it's simply not up to snuff when coming from a former indie auteur.

Two For The Money stars Matthew McConaughey as Brandon Long, a failed college quarterback who, after blowing out his knee in a big game, keeps his NFL dreams alive with failed tryouts in the arena league. While he awaits his return to the field he works as a wage slave at nine hundred number recording service.

Brandon's life-changing moment comes when the guy who records the NFL picks gets sick and Brandon takes his place. His ability to pick winners is Rainman-esqe and earns him the attention of gambling guru, Walter Abrams (Al Pacino). Abrams' sports advisors are a fly by night operation that skirts the anti-sports gambling laws by "advising" gamblers in exchange for a piece of their winnings.

Abrams transplants Brandon from his mother's house to a penthouse in New York City. Soon Brandon Lang is gone and John Anthony 'The Million Dollar Man' is in. Again Brandon's winning streak is uncanny and millions begin pouring in. However, as Jeremy Piven's fellow prognosticator points out; the sports gambling gods are fickle and soon Brandon/John Anthony's win streak is over.

Two For The Money moves at a quick clip and is a slickly organized character piece that falls prey to sports movie cliches even while only on the outskirts of the actual sport. What Fast and The Furious did for fast cars Two For The Money does for sports gambling, capturing the pulse pounding excitement, the visceral high of winning and the cost of losing.

What the film does best is capture the character of a true addict. Pacino essays a performance here with elements of his satanic character in Devils Advocate and his beleaguered publicist in the underappreciated People I Know and crafts one of his best performances of the past ten years. Pacino has not been this on key since Donnie Brasco and while it's not an Oscar worthy return to form-- the film itself is too flawed for that-- watching Pacino on his game is a real delight.

Matthew McConaughey still has a way to go to shed the lightweight image he has earned for onscreen fare like How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days and The Wedding Planner and offscreen for his much publicized love life and bongo playing. Breezy plot free actioners like Sahara have not helped either. In Two For The Money McConaughey strikes beefcake poses and makes goo goo eyes at Rene Russo, as Pacino's wife, but fails to deliver anything below the surface.

A feature narrative at its most basic level follows a character through a life changing experience that should make them wiser in the end. Essentially the lead character needs to learn a lesson. In Two For The Money Brandon begins one way and ends up just the same way. You never get the sense that he learns anything other than you can't trust a man like Walter Abrams. What lesson does Brandon really learn? How is he changed forever? Is he just never going to work for Walter again? Not much of a lesson really.

Pacino's character has a similarly flat arc. In the beginning Walter is reformed from every possible vice. As Russo's character puts it, if there is a meeting for it he goes. Once he takes on Brandon, cleans him up, and starts living vicariously through his winning, he succumbs to his demons and soon is the devil he once was. But was he ever really reformed? The film dangles a number of loose ends as to Walter's many vices and never ties them up.

Despite the troubled plot there is still alot to enjoy about Two For The Money, especially in D.J. Caruso's lightning fast pace and stylish big city setting. Caruso keeps the movie running at a rate that seems impossible to sustain and keeps it going all the way to the finish. The fast pace is probably there to cover up the thin narrative but it also serves to amp up the visceral excitement of winning and losing that pervades every scene. What Two For The Money lacks in depth it nearly makes up for in excitement.

But the best part about Two For The Money is the old school Pacino in rare form. Watch a scene where Pacino and McConaughey attend a gamblers anonymous meeting. Pacino's soliloquy on the gamblers love of losing is a four minute masterpiece of delivery and actorly flair. It's so good he really should have taken a curtain call.

The film captures the high that winning and even losing gamblers feel when in the thick of a big score. With a quick pace and polished look you barely notice that the film is all shiny surface. The filmmaking is so strong I can recommend it simply for the panache and composition alone. I cannot makes heads or tales of a betting line but the mechanics of sports betting are not the subject of Two For The Money but rather a vehicle for creating tension and excitement.

The betting line can make even the lamest sunday NFL contest a tense nail biter. Your team not only has to win the game they have to win by a particular number of points. Sometimes your team does not have to win the game for you to cash in.  They merely must lose by a particular number of points. You can even wager on how many points both teams will score in the game or which team will score first.  All very complicated for someone not in the know like myself.

Two For The Money is not for the recovering gambler, safe to say. The film makes sports betting look incredibly exciting and kinetic and will entice more than a few moviegoers into placing a few bets of their own. If the plot had come together a little better maybe the film itself would be as exciting as its betting lines. As it is Two For The Money is a flawed but always interesting movie that at the very least reinvigorates the moribund career of Al Pacino. For that alone Two For The Money is worth betting the price of a movie ticket.

Movie Review The Family Stone

The Family Stone (2005) 

Directed by Thomas Bezucha 

Written by Thomas Bezucha 

Starring Diane Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Dermot Mulroney, Craig T. Nelson, Sarah Jessica Parker

Release Date December 16th, 2005

Published December 16th, 2005 

Streaming on Starz via Amazon Prime 

The amazing Diane Keaton has become an icon of grace and sensibility. Her Oscar nominated roles in Reds , Annie Hall and Something's Gotta Give are marvelous examples of her range and exceptional talent. Even lesser works like The First Wives Club are elevated by her presence. Casting Diane Keaton is like buying insurance against a bad script. Even a script as weak as the one for Keaton's latest film The Family Stone, looks a lot better for having her in it.

It doesn't hurt that Keaton's involvement helped entice an A-list of actors to play her children, Rachel McAdams, Dermot Mulroney and Luke Wilson, in this tepid holiday dramedy. Proof that a great cast can make the bitter pill of cliche go down like eggnog.

Diane Keaton stars in The Family Stone, as Sybil the matriarch of a large brood of grown children. With her college professor hubby, Kelly (Craig T. Nelson), Sybil is welcoming her five kids, and their various tagalongs, home for christmas. This year the Stone's are playing host to one particularly interesting guest. Her name is Meredith and if all goes according to plans she will soon be the oldest Stone son Everett's (Dermot Mulroney) fiancee.

Unfortunately for Everett, Meredith's stick in the mud, buttoned up personality has already rubbed his family the wrong way. Everett's youngest sister Amy (Rachel McAdams) has met Meredith and decided she hates her. Amy has busily poisoned the family well, including older sister Susannah (Elizabeth Reaser), middle child Thad (Tyrone Giordano) and his partner, Patrick (Brian J. White). Dad and his other son Ben (Luke Wilson) at least attempt to be open to Meredith.

The Family Stone breaks down to a sort of red state-blue state conflict. The Stones are liberal, ivy leaguers with a gay son who is also deaf and dating a black guy and Meredith represents the uptight, conservative business-minded red staters. The conflict is a battle for Everett's soul. Will he return to his old liberal open-minded self or marry Meredith and become a Bush voter?

Supposedly helping Meredith fight this battle is her sister Julie (Claire Danes) but unfortunately her late arrival only serves to make things worse.

The Family Stone attempts to mix screwball family comedy and heartfelt family drama with subplots including a dramatic disease and a chase scene to stop a character from leaving town forever. It's a difficult and well-worn mixture and one the film bears only because of the expert cast. There is nothing new or innovative about writer-director Andrew Bezucha's approach to this commonplace material, so he relies on this likable group of pro actors to carry it off and, to a certain degree, it works.

Sarah Jessica Parker delivers the film's best performance. Her Meredith is sympathetic as the outsider in a group of overbearing tightly knit liberals. In the hole from the moment she arrives, she has our sympathies.  However, Meredith is never merely a victim. Her lack of social graces and occasions of running at the mouth when she shouldn't combined with a complete lack of a sense of humor make some of the family's negativity toward her understandable. Parker plays the conflicts well, especially playing against her natural likeability.

Parker is let down on more than one occasion by the script that forces in nearly every well-worn trope of this genre. There is the aforementioned chase scene, a comically inept fight scene and of course plenty of spilled food for characters to roll around in. That we forgive many of these cliches is a function of the lovable qualities of this terrific cast.

The Family Stone is a cousin to a number of memorable family Christmas comedies like Home For The Holidays starring Holly Hunter, the romance and family drama from Love Actually and the movie-of-the-week style tragedy of Meryl Streep's One True Thing. Andrew Bezucha does not lift elements from these films as much as mimic them with his own twist. These are well known tropes that each of these films use to push dramatic buttons and The Family Stone is merely the latest film to engage them.

The cast of The Family Stone makes the familiarity work for them. Like watching old friends gather at a holiday party you can't help but enjoy the way the cast bonds, bickers and eventually falls in food. A more pessimistic viewer might expect more from this excellent cast but that is reviewing the film that The Family Stone is not. Remarking on the film it is, The Family Stone is not to be taken seriously and likely not to be remembered by this time next year.  It is just an average good natured holiday comedy.

Not for the cynical, The Family Stone is an overly familiar holiday family movie that pushes all of the same emotional buttons as is the norm of the genre. That it manages to be quite often funny and occasionally heartfelt is due to a cast of real pros. Like the revival of a favorite play, you know what is going to happen next because you have seen it so many times before, you watch to see this new group of actors give new life to the material. The Family Stone makes familiarity work by dressing it in a whole lot of star power.

Movie Review: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) 

Directed by Tim Burton

Written by John August

Starring Johnny Depp, Freddie Highmore, David Kelly, Helena Bonham Carter, Noah Taylor, Christopher Lee

Release Date July 15th, 2005 

Published July 15th, 2005 

Streaming on HBO Max

The first time Roald Dahl's childhood dreamscape Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was brought to the big screen, under the title Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the film became a beloved children's classic based on the gentle whimsy of Gene Wilder's cyanide-laced wit as Willy. However, writer Roald Dahl was never a fan of this adaptation.

The legendary writer passed on before another adaptation could be taken up. According to his wife Liccy, the latest adaptation, with the original book title, by director Tim Burton, is a version that Mr. Dahl himself would have embraced. We will never know for sure. What we do know is that Mr. Burton's version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a visionary and astonishing work of art from the set design to the music and the amazing work of one of our finest actors, Johnny Depp.

Willy Wonka's (Johnny Depp) chocolate factory in the center of London has been a source of mystery and wonder ever since Wonka fired all of his employees some years ago and shuttered the factory. When one day it reopened without hiring any new employees the mystery deepened. Now finally after years of being a shut in, Wonka has decided to allow five children to visit his factory. By finding a golden ticket inside a Wonka chocolate bar, five kids will have the adventure of a lifetime inside the legendary candy factory.

One of the children who prays for the opportunity to go to the factory is one Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore). Charlie lives in a ramshackle flat with an unintentional skylight above his bed. His bedridden grandparents (David Kelly, Liz Smith, David Morris, and Eileen Essell) take up most of the living room and we are never quite sure where Charlie's mom and dad (Helena Bonham Carter and Noah Taylor) sleep. Still the family is quite chipper given the circumstances.

Charlie, however, seems the least likely child to get the chance to capture a golden ticket. Charlie gets one chocolate bar a year on his birthday, essentially a one in a million chance. Things look especially hopeless after the first four tickets are discovered across the globe by over-privileged little brats who buy in bulk or crack the system for the chance at a ticket.

There is Veruca Salt (Julia Winter), a terribly spoiled little girl whose father (James Fox) gets her whatever she demands no matter what the price. Violet Beauregard (Annasophia Robb) is a vainglorious little brat whose mother also buys in bulk to get her daughter a ticket, despite the fact that neither actually eats chocolate. Augustus Gloop (Philip Weirgatz) is a plump little German boy who stumbled on his ticket only after taking a bite out of it. Finally we have a venal, little twit named Mike Teavee who discovers his ticket via the internet and his hacking abilities, one of many subtle updates of the source material.

Well of course Charlie Bucket does get his golden ticket and he and his Grandpa Joe (Kelly) are off to the mysterious factory where Joe once worked when it had employees. Inside is a magical world of wondrous candied delights. Mr. Wonka is a bit of a nutball-- an effete dilettante who, despite his child friendly products and his invitation to children to visit, doesn't seem to like children at all.

As the tour commences, the strange surroundings evolve into even stranger situations as one child after another falls victim to their excesses, each child disappearing with a Greek chorus of Wonka's new employees playing them off. These oddball new workers who have helped Willy restore the factory are Oompa Loompas, a tribe of identical individuals all played by the astonishingly deadpan actor Deep Roy.

The child actors are very well cast, especially young Freddie Highmore as Charlie. Highmore caught Mr. Depp's eye as one of the child cast of his Finding Neverland. Highmore was Oscar-worthy as the youngest of the children that inspired the writing of the children's classic Peter Pan in Finding Neverland. In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, his bright, crooked smile and boundless enthusiasm is the perfect complement to Depp's weirdness and the loving and beautiful performance of David Kelly as Grandpa Joe.

Then there is the ethereal Deep Roy as all of the Oompa Loompas. A wonderful change from the creepy looking green elves of the 1971 film, Roy has a detached air that seems perfectly at home in the weird universe of Willy Wonka. The curious little song and dance routines of the Oompa Loompas that somehow match perfectly with the actions of what just occurred to their child subjects in the story are wildly entertaining and yet just a little creepy. Oscar nominated composer Danny Elfman wrote and sings each of the songs but it is Roy's dry, deadpan dance numbers that raise the music to hilarious comic levels.

Director Tim Burton disappointed slightly with his melodramatic fantasy Big Fish, but returns to artistic form with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a visual masterpiece like nothing Burton has ever created. It seems that having a good story to start with allowed Burton to focus all of his energies on creating a brand new universe for this well known story. His accomplishment is breathtaking in every detail and production designer Alex McDowell can begin prepping his acceptance speech.

Never having read Mr. Dahl's book I cannot speak to the faithfulness of Mr. Burton's film, though as I said earlier, Mr. Dahl's wife, Liccy, who is credited as producer on the film, claims he would have been pleased. We do know that Mr. Burton and screenwriter John August (Big Fish, Go) did add one subplot that may become an essential part of the Wonka lore.

Burton and August create a backstory for Willy Wonka, a glimpse of his childhood and what led a seemingly normal kid to build a strange and very unique candy paradise. The backstory includes a stellar cameo by the legendary Christopher Lee and deepens the character of Willy Wonka, taking us beyond his simple weirdness.

The essential element of making the character of Willy Wonka work is not on the page. Johnny Depp, in a performance that is as winning as his Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Carribean, creates a Willy Wonka that is earnest, deeply sincere and a little disturbed, but also quite savvy. His reasons for finally opening the factory to visitors are reasonable and intelligent with just a hint of overreaction. He has a sharp wit combined with the defensiveness of a small child. It is a multi-layered and wonderfully crafted performance.

While many critics lazily point out things they believe are inspired by the weirdness of Michael Jackson, a more active viewer will sense something far more original and brilliant. Completely at odds with the glib wittiness of Gene Wilder's take on the character, Mr. Depp takes the character in a direction that has more connection to his own Edward Scissorhands than with MJ or Mr. Wilder.

Charlie and The Chocolate Factory is a joy for children of all ages. Even diehard fans of 1971's Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory will not be able to deny the wonderful artistry of this re-imagining. There is talk of Burton adapting the Charlie sequel Charlie and The Great Glass Elevator. I'm normally not one to encourage a sequel but if it can be promised to be as brilliant as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory I will line up for my golden ticket right now.

Movie Review: A History of Violence Starring Viggo Mortensen

A History of Violence (2005) 

Directed by David Cronenberg 

Written by Josh Olson

Starring Viggo Mortenson, Maria Bello, Ed Harris

Release Date September 23rd, 2005 

Published September 23rd, 2005 

Streaming Rental through Amazon 

One unique trend in modern film is the connection between sex and violence. In thrillers and horror films these two disparate acts are often found at a crossroad. In horror; sex is punished, often with a bloody violent death, see Friday The 13th. In thrillers like Sin City sex and violence are married through characters. The prostitutes of Sin City are righteously violent vixens who mete out biblical justice when they aren't serving the few righteous citizens who prove worthy of their services.

In David Cronenberg's A History of Violence the sex-violence link is a little more murky. The sex is hardcore and the violence is bloody and excessive. There is no open link between sex and violence except that extreme forms of both are in the film. What in Cronenberg's mind links the two could be a philosophical circle of life, a birth and death connection. Or it could be that few things are more cinematically attention grabbing than sex and violence.

Whatever the reasoning, Cronenberg's A History Of Violence links sex and violence inside a thriller that never fails to titivate and fascinate.

Tom Stall (Viggo Mortenson) has achieved the American dream. Living in a small town in Indiana, Tom own's a diner, his wife Edie is a successful lawyer and their two kids, 16 year old Jack (Ashton Holmes) and 6 year old Sarah (Heidi Hayes) are healthy and thriving. The Stall family is the perfect Norman Rockwell idea of homey goodness.

Lurking beneath the surface of this small town paradise are some violent and dangerous secrets that come to life when two thugs show up in Tom's diner. We have seen these thugs in the opening of the film callously murder the operators of a small motel, now they have arrived at Tom's diner at closing time with the same ill intentions. In a scene that is stunningly violent and graphic, Tom manages to stop the thugs from robbing the diner and murdering his customers.

The violent nature of Tom's turning back these bad guys is overlooked by residents who are just thankful for Tom's heroism. However, when Tom's bravery makes the paper his violent acts and recognizable face draw the attention of people Tom may have been trying to forget. On the heels of Tom's heroic act, three more thuggish types arrive in town and at Tom's diner.

The leader of this group of bad guys is Carl Fogerty (Ed Harris) who claims to recognize Tom as a man named Joey who some years earlier disappeared from Philadelphia after having taken Fogerty's eye out with barbed wire. Tom incredulously explains that he doesn't know who Joey is and is eventually forced to call in the local sheriff (Peter MacNeill) to run Fogerty out of town. That doesn't work and eventually Tom is forced to face Fogerty at his home in front of his whole family.

While all of this drama with Fogerty is going on, tensions at home have amped up over Jack's sudden bursts of arrogance and violence. Being bullied at school, Jack finally retaliated and badly hurt one of the boys who had been harassing him. There is also tension between husband and wife over Fogerty's accusations and holes in Tom's past that he refuses or simply can't resolve. Fogerty confronting Edie in a shopping mall plants seeds of doubt in her mind that eventually leads Edie to believe her husband may not be who she thinks he is.

A History of Violence is a mystery and a thriller. Cronenberg deftly walks the line in teasing the identity of Tom and Joey, allowing for intriguing speculation and cathartic revelation. It's a difficult tightrope to walk and since this mystery plot isn't even Cronenberg's real subject, his skilled handling of it is that much more impressive.

In A History of Violence, David Cronenberg asks; is violence inevitable? Uncontrollable? Is it simply part of human nature? Cronenberg even wonders if violence is hereditary. Is it possible that because Tom is capable of so much violence that he has passed this genetic trait for violence to Jack? Geneticists have debated a violence gene but most feel it is often more nurture than nature. Man is inherently predisposed to certain forms of violence through evolution, the survival of the fittest, but the trait for a violent nature is not passed from one generation to the next through the genes.

Evolution and the survival of the fittest have been a favored subject of David Cronenberg for years. A History of Violence is yet another example of his fascination with the subject. The film displays a kill or be killed example of characters who show themselves to simply be superior in knowing how to survive. One character specifically demonstrates that he is the fittest of all.

Then there is the sex and violence I mentioned in my opening paragraphs. The sex and violence in A History of Violence are graphic and closely examined by Cronenberg's camera. The film opens with offscreen violence which we witness the aftermath of, large pools of blood and a pair of battered bodies, and a shocking finale that also takes place just offscreen, though is no less stunning for not having been seen.

The first sex scene between Tom and Edie begins right away with a bit of kink as Edie dresses the part of a cheerleader and Tom the captain of the football team waiting to take her virginity. The scene progresses to sex that is not often portrayed in a mainstream movie. The scene is not graphic per se, but it is surprisingly frank and revealing.

The violence once again erupts at Tom's diner when the thugs attempt the robbery. Tom defends himself and his customers with serious violence. First shooting one thug in the head, a scene in which Cronenberg captures this mans head exploding from the bullet impact in a vividly realistic flash cut. Tom then kills the other guy with a shot to heart that sends the thug flying through a window.

More scenes of violence proceed the films final sex scene which is completely opposite the tender, loving lovemaking of the first scene. After a major argument in which Edie wonders if Tom may really be Joey, Tom violently takes Edie on the stairs of the family home. The scene begins as a rape but soon an excited and very into it Edie begins to enjoy the violence. This is a highly controversial moment that Cronenberg couches as not being a comment on women and violence but as a comment on Edie's character and her own attraction to danger and the unknown. That's debatable, it's fair to say, many women will justifiably find this scene of violent sex hard to watch so be prepared.

What I really liked about A History of Violence is Cronenberg's depth and curiosity and his bravery in examining so many subjects inside one story. The film considers evolution, violence, sex, and genetics in a frank and intelligent manner. Cronenberg does not hold back at all. His violence is shocking, his sex is no holds barred and his mind is open to exploring; through these characters a wide variety of interesting topics.

There is also in A History Of Violence a smart mystery thriller plot. Is Tom really a mob thug named Joey? Does Edie know the truth? Who is this man Fogerty and who is this guy he works for who claims to be Joey/Tom's brother, played by Oscar nominee William Hurt? This thriller plot combined with Cronenberg's lively mind make a formidable movie.

A History of Violence can be written off as exploitative, but that is only if you look at the surface of the picture. Beneath the surface is a smart and always curious film in search of truths about human nature and our propensity for violence. Inside A History of Violence is a clever dissertation on the modern survival of the fittest.

We rarely acknowledge and certainly do not examine modern examples of the survival of the fittest and the various ways one human thrives ahead another. David Cronenberg is the rare person who is quite taken with this subject. A History of Violence, I believe, is just one of many examples of how Cronenberg has and will continue examining this fascinating and disturbing subject.

Movie Review: The Weather Man

The Weather Man (2005) 

Directed by Gore Verbinski 

Written by Steve Conrad 

Starring Nicolas Cage, Michael Caine, Hope Davis, Michael Rispoli 

Release Date October 28th, 2005 

Published October 28th, 2005 

It is only very recently that I have become a big Nicolas Cage fan. I loved his Oscar winning work in Leaving Las Vegas but his subsequent descent into action stardom was marred by some seriously awful work in Con Air, The Rock, 8mm and Gone In 60 Seconds. He won me back a little with his extraordinary work in Scorsese's Bringing Out The Dead but that was almost forgotten in the midst of Cage's weepy period with City of Angels, Family Man and Captain Corelli's Mandolin.

Right now, however, Cage has hit a stride that is remarkable. Pushing aside the subpar blockbuster National Treasure, Cage's run of Adaptation, Matchstick Men, Lord of War and now The Weather Man is one of the greatest series of performances by one actor in movie history. Forget the bad box office, when Cage is teamed with great people and great material there may not be a better actor working today.

Dave Spritz (Nicolas Cage) is Chicago's number one weather man. His 'Spritz nipper' has fans across the windy city stopping him on the street to ask him which will be the chilliest day of the week. Of course not everyone is a fan of Dave's. On more than one occasion Dave has found himself on the wrong side of some flying food items including a shake, a box of McNuggets, even a burrito.

Dave attributes the food throwing to the fact that he is paid a lot of money to do a job that is not that difficult. He is paid high six figures plus appearance fees, works two hours a day and did not even have to get a degree in meteorology. The food items are essentially karmic payback for a way too easy path through life, and, more to the point, a reaction to how often Dave simply gets it wrong weatherwise.

Dave is a serious case of arrested development. He has never really accomplished anything. His father, Robert (Michael Caine), on the other hand, is a Pulitzer prize winning novelist and a wonderful father to boot despite the fact that his son is a very obvious disappointment. Dave also wrote a novel although, like most everything else in his life, he never followed through with it.

Most disappointing about Dave is his family situation. Dave is divorced from his wife, Noreen (Hope Davis), and cannot seem to connect with his two children, sixteen year-old Mike (Nicholas Hoult) and eleven year-old daugter Shelly (Gemmenne de la Pena). Mike has recently been busted for smoking pot and Shelly has taken up cigarrettes. 

Dave is convinced he can turn the whole thing around with a new job on a national morning television show in New York. He had better act quickly, however, because his father is dying and his wife is preparing to marry another man. His kids' problems are even more disturbing but best left to your discovery in watching the movie.

If Dave Spritz's life sounds depressing, well that's because it really is depressing. The Weather Man, directed by Gore Verbinski, makes no pretense about the level of sadness in its story. Dave is a pathetic character, a wretched failure as a husband and father and a son. He is a narcissus cloaked in his own misery. Still, as played by Cage, Dave Spritz is fascinating to watch.

Cage's chameleonesque ability to melt into his characters is perfectly on display in The Weather Man. Even minor touches like his ease in front of a green screen doing the weather are really convincing. His near meltdowns are a tour de force of wonderfully acted inner turmoil. Dave's plastic surface seems ready to melt from the heat of his inner conflict and that is Nicolas Cage at his absolute best.

Gore Verbinski intrigues me. While I found both Mousehunt and The Mexican to be underwhelming, The Ring was visually accomplished and Pirates of The Carribean showed the potential of a mainstream movie to exceed the limitations of its genre and be both entertaining and artistically crafted.

The Weather Man is yet another step forward in Gore Verbinski's evolution into maybe becoming a very rare kind of director, a mainstream 'auteur'. Watch the way in which his camera observes Dave without engaging him. The audience, like rubberneckers at a crash site, seem to watch Dave's sad life unfold in a slow motion drive by and we cannot turn away. Here's hoping Verbinski does not get too caught up in the Pirates sequels and forgets to make more films as engrossing as The Weather Man.

The film's trailer might give people the impression that The Weather Man is a drama with comedy. There are laughs in the film but they come from a very dark place. They come from failure, humiliation and pain, and the sorrowful ways that Cage's character deals with what happens to him and around him. Dave Spritz is a sad sack character who invites indignity and cannot seem to escape it.

So if the film is as dark as I describe, it begs the question; why did I like it so much? Because it sets out to create a portrait of a particular character and no matter how dark things get the film stays true to that character and tells his story in a most compelling fashion. I liked it because Nicolas Cage is so amazing, to simplify things.

Cage deserves an Oscar nomination for his extraordinary work in The Weather Man. That, however, does not mean that the film is typically entertaining. Some people will have to change the way they look at movies to find pleasure in this film. The movie is challengingly dark and uncompromising in its grim gray look and attitude.

For fans of complicated, interesting movies that ask you to invest yourself heavily in one character The Weather Man is what you are looking for. For the average moviegoer this may not be your cup of tea. The Weather Man is not an easy film to like but, if you are up for it, you will be rewarded with yet another performance by Nicolas Cage that establishes him as arguably the most uniquely talented actor working today.

Movie Review: Undiscovered

Undiscovered (2005) 

Directed by Meiert Avis 

Written by John Galt 

Starring Pell James, Steven Strait, Kip Pardue, Shannyn Sossamon, Carrie Fisher

Release Date August 25th, 2005 

Published August 26th, 2005 

I have a theory about this ridiculous slump business at the box office. It is not merely that Hollywood is not making films that people want to see. Rather it is Hollywood releasing films so unwatchable that they poison the theaters that show them with a toxin that drives audiences to their homes in fear of ever returning to a movie theater.

Consider the evidence; Are We There Yet?, The Pacifier, Deuce Bigelow 2. Just typing those titles raised the bile from my stomach. Now in theaters is a film that is far worse than any of the films I mentioned. An abysmal teen rock romance called Undiscovered that should have remained Un-released.

Steven Strait's earnest pronouncements of love and heartbreak are so pathetic that realistically he would be more inclined toward a restraining order than for true love. The one-two punch of Mr. Strait's uninspired delivery and the script's stultifying dialogue is just brutal. I am told that  Strait performed all of his own music in the film and given our current music culture, his music will fit in nicely next to all of the atrocious examples of mainstream pop rock that overflows from most top 40 radio stations.

A music critic friend told me recently that modern rockers have started to go away from writing complex lyrics. Supposedly they want the focus on musicianship, but as the recent MTV Video Music Awards show, it's about projecting rock star image more than having anything to genuinely do with music. By that standard Mr. Strait, a former model, should fit right in. How unfortunate, however, that as his character is written, he's supposed to be a great songwriter. Yeah... not quite.

For her part Ms. James is-- cute. That is honestly the kindest thing I can say about her performance.  James may actually be the victim of having to carry Mr. Strait's D.O.A performance. As the more experienced of the pair she carries most of the dramatic weight, were that there was any to carry in such an airheaded film. Pell James is also saddled with carrying the supporting performance of pop star Ashlee Simpson who at the very least is more interesting to watch than our main character.

Steven Strait stars in Undiscovered as, I kid you not, Luke Falcon. Luke is a wannabe rocker on his way to L.A to make it to the big time. As he is getting off the subway with his brother Euan (Kip Pardue), on his last day in New York City, Luke has a cute encounter with Breier (Pell James). He drops his glove on the train and instead of retrieving it he tossed Breier the other glove just before the train doors closed. Remarking that he met the girl of his dreams on his last day in the city, Luke hops his flight for Los Angeles. What are the odds that Breier will soon be there as well?  It's no long shot, I assure you.

Breier is a model with dreams of becoming an actress, a confession she makes to her modeling agent played by the desperately slumming Carrie Fisher. Soon Breier is off to LA and the cutthroat world of "model slash actresses". It is through her acting class that she meets Clea (Ashlee Simpson) who happens to know Luke (He lets her sing with him at a dive bar). Luke and Breier meet cute once again but Breier cannot hook up as she has a rock star boyfriend who she knows is a cheating, lying bastard.... but she loves him. Ahh true love.

Luke and Breier stay friends and eventually she and Clea help Luke get a following at the club and the attention of a slimy record exec played by the oily Fisher Stevens. Soon Luke has his own model girlfriend played by Shannyn Sossamon, but the life of a rock star is too much for the earnest Luke who longs for the solitude of the songwriter.

No points for guessing that despite all of these roadblocks, Breier and Luke are meant for each other. This is, afterall, a teen romance. What is shocking, though, is how woefully inept the film is even from the limited expectations of its genre. Strait and James are embarrassingly hard to watch as they fumble the film's central romance like teenagers in a first time groping session.

The regrettable script, credited to first time writer John Galt is a meandering, overlong mess of typical romantic roadblocks and dialogue that would make the kids on TV's "One Tree Hill" roll their eyes. If you can somehow fight your way through the longest 93 minutes of your filmgoing life you will see the film end with the kind of Deus Ex Machina that even the lamest of screenwriting books make fun of. The ending involves a cameo by former RoboCop star Peter Weller that sounds as if he were channeling Christopher Walken, only a far less entertaining version of the man.

How serious was Lions Gate about making a real hit movie out of Undiscovered? The producers actually rewrote the picture and retitled the film for a pop song by Ms. Simpson that is naturally on the film's soundtrack. Ms. Simpson's father is credited as a producer on the film and there are two scenes with Simpson onstage that seem to stretch into eternity.

Much of the film is in fact filled out by musical performances from Strait and Simpson. Cut back on the music and Undiscovered might clock in closer to 70 minutes. That is still way too long, though, believe me. The fact is that Undiscovered is the kind of film that usually goes directly to video stores and yet somehow ended up on the big screen as a ninety three minute commercial for its abysmal soundtrack. For anyone who thought Lions Gate's template for success was Miramax, well it's actually something closer to MTV Films.

In what is clearly one of the worst years for cinema in recent history in term of film quality, the box office is doing just fine despite the slump talk.  Undiscovered ranks right near the top of the list of the worst films of the year. As Mr. Ebert famously said in the title of his book about bad movies, I hated, hated, hated, hated, hated, hated, this movie.

Movie Review The Exorcism of Emily Rose

The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)

Directed by Scott Derrickson 

Written by Scott Derrickson, Paul Harris Boardman 

Starring Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson, Campbell Scott, Colm Feore, Jennifer Carpenter

Release Date September 9th, 2005 

Published September 10th, 2005

The saying 'based on a true story' is an oft abused term in Hollywood. Case in point the new horror film/courtroom drama The Exorcism Of Emily Rose. The film is based on a true story however the story told in the film is not the true story. The film's creators, however, include a title card that claims the story is true. But the story told in the movie only vaguely resembles the true story that was its inspiration. Make sense?

Not much of this cross breed of TV's "Law & Order '' and the horror classic The Exorcist makes sense anyway so it's fitting that its origins should be so muddled. A shame though because with such a terrific cast The Exorcism of Emily Rose had the potential to be very good.

Oscar nominee Tom Wilkinson stars in Exorcism as Father Thomas Moore. Father Moore is on trial for the negligent homicide of a nineteen year old college student Emily Rose (Jennifer Carpenter), one of his parishioners. The story of how Emily came to be in Father Moore's care is part of an elaborate series of events that leads to one extraordinary trial.

Laura Linney is Erin Bruner, Father Moore's lawyer. An agnostic, Erin is on the lookout for a promotion at her big money law firm and takes on Father Moore's case with the hopes of a partnership. Erin is coming off another high profile case where she got a guy everyone thought was guilty off on a charge of murder. Now struggling with her conscience she finds herself defending Father Moore from charges that he allowed Emily Rose to die while he was in charge of her well being.

So how did Emily Rose die? There are two competing theories in the film. The first and most logical and rational is that Emily developed epilepsy that led to psychosis that caused her to have nightmarish visions and episodes of extreme behavior that included self-mutilation and violence towards her family and friends. Emily stopped eating and eventually starved to death.

However, according to Father Moore, Emily was not sick. Rather Emily was suffering from demonic possession. Satan and various other demons entered Emily's body, fought off the Father's attempt to exercise them and prevented Emily from eating. Campbell Scott plays the prosecuting attorney, Ethan Thomas who quickly makes a farce of the defense's case with simple logical questions and scientific medical testimony.

The trial aspect of Emily Rose is the film's biggest problem. The script saddles the beleaguered Laura Linney with a defense that is so patently ridiculous that she never had a chance of winning any audience member with an ounce of critical thinking ability. I don't want to give away what the defense is, one of the joys of the film is the derisive laugh one has at the expense of the poor lawyer who might think it could work. I will say that it would not have lasted two minutes on an episode of "Perry Mason" or even the light headed "L.A Law".

Campbell Scott as the prosecutor is terrific at presenting his side not merely with a dismissive cast of his eyes skyward while the defense presents its case, though that might have been all it would take to win over the audience. No, Scott also brings eloquence and cold hard reason to the role and looks very much like a real prosecutor. There is a moment during one of the defense witness testimonies where the prosecutor objects to a question and when asked what his objection is he replies "Oh I don't know, silliness", as if he were speaking for the audience.

For her part Laura Linney, one of my all time favorite actresses, can do very little with a role so poorly conceived. Given the defense as it is written in the script has absolutely no hope of convincing anyone and Linney is left to present it with as much dignity as possible and in that respect she made it work. She never allows herself to look as foolish as the script might make her seem.

The script is written by Paul Harris Boardman and director Scott Derrickson and is fascinating for how inept the courtroom scenes are and for how effective the flashbacks to the exorcism are. In the execution of the horror part of the film, Derrickson's direction is very strong as are the characters of Father Moore and Emily.

It's like watching two different movies at once.

The flashbacks to Emily in college where her strange visions and behavior begins are surprisingly strong. Never merely imitating The Exorcist, Director Scott Derrickson shows a great flair and style and brings some old school scares to this otherwise dreary flick. A scene late in the film set inside a barn in a heavy rainstorm is very effective in building tension, and is followed by another effective scene, a dream sequence, in which Emily is visited by the Virgin Mary.

Scenes of faces melting into demonic menace, black cloaked demons and  blood dripping walls are all used to very cool effect and show that Derrickson knows how to direct a good horror movie. But when the scene shifts to the courtroom the film becomes laughable. The worst part is that there were many feasible opportunities to fix this aspect of the film with some simple courtroom logic. Any first year law student could have made a very strong case in Father Moore's favor. Instead the script opts for a defense that no one in their right mind would buy.

The courtroom drama is farce as are the non-flashback scenes outside the court as when Father Moore advises Erin to 'beware of the dark forces surrounding the case'.  Oooh scary. There is also a supremely lame bit where Erin, like Emily and like Father Moore, continuously wakes up at 3:00 AM. This same clock bit was lame when it was used in the remake of Amityville Horror this past spring and in the Bob De Niro flick Hide and Seek back in January.

The film is based on a true story. In Germany in the late sixties a teenage girl became violently, mentally ill. Rather than treat her medically, which would have meant commitment to a mental hospital, the girl's family turned her over to the church which received permission from the Vatican to perform an exorcism. The girl died from starvation and the priests involved and the girl's parents were all tried for manslaughter.

That is a great basis for drama and horror and a logical examination of faith and the limits of science, something I'm sure The Exorcism Of Emily Rose was striving to convey. However, in executing this idea something was lost in the translation. We have half of a good movie and half of a ludicrous episode of Ally McBeal, only with fewer intentional laughs.