Movie Review: Wallace and Gromit

Wallace and Gromit The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)

Directed by Nick Park, Steve Box

Written by Steve Box, Nick Park, Mark Burton, Bob Baker

Starring Peter Sallis, Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter, Peter Kay

Release Date October 7th, 2005

Published October 8th, 2005 

Recently Aardman studios, home to the famous stop motion animation duo Wallace and Gromit and their plasticine cousins from the 1999 hit  Chicken Run, burned to the ground. The building and everything inside was lost. On the bright side however W & G creator Nick Park, while out on a worldwide promotional tour for the pair's first feature length film Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of The Were-Rabbit, had with him one of the many clay models of Wallace and Gromit used in the movie.

This guarantees that Wallace and Gromit, despite the tragic loss of their home, will be back again. This is wonderful news considering that their feature debut is a wildly entertaining kiddie flick with a great heart and a nice lesson wrapped up in a technological marvel of filmmaking technique.

The tiny English village home to the beloved duo of Wallace and Gromit is abuzz over the big vegetable festival. When I say big vegetable festival I mean BIG vegetable festival. All of the villagers are engaged in growing the largest veggies ever seen for Lady Tottington (voiceed by Helena Bonham Carter) and her family's 518th annual vegetable festival.

Unfortunately, the town has a bit of a rabbit problem. The cute and fuzzy bunnies of the world have converged on the town and only Wallace and Gromit and their pest control service, the cleverly monikered Anti-Pesto, can protect the town's giant veggies by employing Wallace's latest invention, the Bun-Vac, a vacuum powered device that allows W & G to collect all of the rabbits in a way that does not harm them.

Lady Tottington, hosting the festival at her massive estate also has a rabbit problem that requires Anti-Pesto's attention. Wallace and Gromit show up to take care of it and Wallace is immediately smitten. Lady Tottington has another suitor in the scheming jerk Victor Quartermaine (voiced by Ralph Fiennes), a hunting enthusiast with a mean dog.

The plot kicks in with yet another new invention of Wallace's, a mind control device that he hopes will change the minds of the rabbits from veggie-lovers to cheeseheads. Things naturally go awry and soon a very large rabbit, still very much a veggie lover, is terrorizing the countryside threatening to cancel the big festival. Can Wallace and Gromit track down this giant rabbit and save the festival or will Victor Quartermaine and his big game hunting get him first?

This lovingly crafted tale of friendship, vegetables and PETA friendly animal control is wonderfully realized with a fillmmaking technology that is truly astonishing. In a five year process the animators manipulated the characters movements frame by frame. On a good day three seconds of usable footage was a major accomplishment.

Augmenting the process with CGI effects Wallace and Gromit and their terrific supporting cast inhabit a magically realistic environment. So wonderfully crafted are the characters and sets in Curse of The Were-Rabbit that even the fingerprints occasionally found on the Plasticine characters are charming.

In his Oscar winning Wallace and Gromit short features, The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave, director Nick Park developed a style of simple storytelling that is safe for kids without being condescending. Wallace and Gromit are lovable, fun characters that you want to watch and hope succeed in whatever adventure they take up.

The duo's feature debut is the perfect culmination of that simple style of storytelling combined with innovative technology and just plain hard work. Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of The Were-Rabbit is an extraordinary little film. The team at Aardman Studios is rivaled only by the computer magicians at Pixar in their combination of craftsmanship and storytelling.

For kids of all ages Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit ranks right up there with Finding Nemo, Shrek and Monsters Inc. as a modern animation classic. Not just for kids, however, because it is so well accomplished, so detailed and so wonderfully optimistic. When the Oscar for best animated feature is announced in March 2006, don't be surprised when Nick Park and co-director Steve Box make their way to the podium to collect yet another Oscar.

Movie Review Into the Blue

Into the Blue (2005) 

Directed by John Stockwell 

Written by Matt Johnson 

Starring Jessica Alba, Paul Walker, Scott Caan, Ashley Scott 

Release Date September 30th, 2005

Published September 30th, 2005 

1977's The Deep was a crowd pleasing beach thriller that evoked enough of the Jaws vibe from one year earlier to become a hit in its own right. With of-the-moment stars Nick Nolte and Jaqueline Bisset, the film captured the temporary zeitgeist of its time. Into The Blue remakes The Deep with an equally hot star, Jessica Alba, but none of the culture-capturing zeitgeist of the original, unless you count the uncomfortable evocations of the Natalee Holloway case.

Leaving out such unintentional issues, Into The Blue is a surprisingly pleasing babes-in-bikinis thriller.

While it's clear that Jessica Alba is the real draw of Into The Blue, the star according to billing and screen time is Paul 'Sleep' Sleepwalker.  I like to call Paul that for his amazing ability to sleepwalk through any role given to him, no matter how action-packed. 'Sleep' plays Jared, a part time scuba instructor with ambitions to get into the salvage business. Living in Jamaica with his girlfriend Sam (Alba), Jared searches fruitlessly for buried wrecks that could be worth millions.

Arriving just in time to help Jared and Sam with a particularly big score is Jared's little brother Bryce (Scott Caan) and his girlfriend of about five minutes, Amanda (Ashley Scott). The four set out in a borrowed boat and discover a wreck that may be the remains of a famous ship called the Zephyr that was believed to have sank carrying millions in gold bars. All our crew has to do is set the claim, identify the wreck and the salvage is theirs. If only it were that easy.

Unfortunately, just less than 100 feet away is the wreck of an airplane filled with millions of dollars worth of cocaine. If they call the cops it's guaranteed to cost them their wreck site. The only option is to try to claim the salvage before the cops, or worse, the drug dealers searching for their lost product, find the missing plane.

My description is slightly more straightforward than what is actually in the film. Director John Stockwell and writer Matt Johnston convolute the whole thing with characters making seriously stupid mistakes that are necessary to introduce the thriller aspect of the story. If these characters had a lick of sense we would have a nice looking movie about underwater salvaging.  That said, there must be a way to bring the bad guys and the thriller aspects into the film without making the lead characters out to be complete dolts.

Director John Stockwell has a talent for working with women in bikinis, as he showed in 2002's Blue Crush and 2001's Crazy/Beautiful, and he shows that talent again in Into The Blue. Jessica Alba is electric even as she plays the put-upon girlfriend forced to carry 'Sleep''s performance. Much of the focus on her work is on her amazing physical assets, but you cannot deny that she can act as well as fill out a bikini.

'Sleep' does not exactly set the screen on fire with his charisma, but his frat boy charms are a good fit for the goofy plot. Walker and Scott Caan work well together in the way two good buddies on a fishing trip work together. The brotherly connection is unforced and easygoing, but both performances stretch credulity when the plot requires a melodramatic confrontation. Neither actor is likely to get an oscar nomination anytime soon but in this doofus plot they are right at home.

The most impressive thing about Into The Blue may be the gorgeous underwater photography. The cool blue Jamaican waters are inviting even with the large number of sharks swimming by. Peter Zuccharini handled the underwater shooting in Into The Blue and he does some astonishing work. Some of the underwater shots are so pristine, especially the loving underwater closeups of Jessica Alba, that you can forget about the ridiculousness of the plot.

From the standard of a solid action-thriller, Into The Blue is way too happy to be taken seriously. However there is much to enjoy here if you are willing to let a few things slide. Into The Blue delights in its own ridiculousness.  From the buried treasure to the cliched drug dealers and the over-the-top heavy performance of Josh Brolin as a rival treasure hunter, the film has a "so bad it's good" vibe.

As I stated before, the film is beautiful to look at, and I'm not just talking about Jessica Alba. I'm talking Jessica Alba in a bikini..... oh and the locations are great too I guess to accompany the phenomenal underwater photography. Another critic, I believe it was James Berardinelli, said if you could turn the sound down and simply observe Into The Blue it would be a far better experience.  He's not entirely wrong.

From the looks of his resume one might wonder if director John Stockwell directs simply for the vacation he receives during shooting. Consider his Crazy/Beautiful, shot and set in Malibu, and Blue Crush in Hawaii. Now Stockwell relaxes in Jamaica with Into The Blue and his next picture due in 2006, Turistas, is currently scouting locations in the rainforests of Brazil. Apparently this directing gig is pretty sweet.

So just who is the audience for Into The Blue?  Teenage boys, to be sure, and anyone who enjoys watching beautiful people frolic in crystal blue waters thousands of miles away. It's not, however, for movie fans of a more discerning taste. The film is not particularly smart and its rote plot grates on the intellect. If you can turn down the sound in your own mind and shut off your brain for ninety minutes, though, you may just find a kitschy thrill in Into The Blue.

Movie Review High Tension

High Tension (2005) 

Directed by Alexandre Aja

Written by Alexandre Aja, Gregory Levasseur

Starring Cecile De France, Maiween, Phillippe Nahon

Release Date June 10th, 2005

Published June 10th, 2005 

I must say I was quite impressed with Lions Gate Films' commitment to High Tension. Often, when a studio acquires a foreign picture, it's treated like a low-budget product--rolled out slowly and oftentimes drops onto video before anyone outside of New York or Los Angeles even knows it exists. So for that, I give LGF credit; they have shown a great deal of courage pushing High Tension as a major release.

However, I must question, why this film? Why did this little French horror pic earn the faith of the studio when superior products have, in the past, languished? (Anyone remember the brilliant May?) The fact is that while LGF has shown great faith in this flick, it's not really worthy of that faith. A B-movie exploitation flick at best, High Tension is of the rare breed of bad foreign films. Rare because, usually, bad foreign films don't even make it to the U.S.

College friends Marie (Cécile De France) and Alex (Maiwenn La Besco) are spending the summer at Alex's parents' newly-purchased French farm, somewhere in the middle of nowhere. The place is kind of creepy, surrounded on all sides by cornfields and with no unnatural light anywhere. It's the perfect place for an insane killer to wreak unpoliced havoc.

And wouldn't you know it, there happens to be a nutcase patrolling the area in search of new victims. Phillippe Nahon plays the stalking killer whose method is pretty straightforward: invade a home; and kill, kill, kill. His violence is more brutal than your average American movie killer. Much more blood and gore than we've seen from the recently neutered genre that, in America, has succumbed to the monetary menace of the PG-13 rating.

Marie manages to hide herself away as her friends' family is brutalized and Alex herself is held till last and finally taken prisoner. This is where things begin to get goofy, with one of the all-time most nonsensical twists ever put to film. I have been debating whether or not to delve into spoilers here, as I think they could be quite constructive to reviewing the film. However, I will not, mostly because I just can't figure out what the spoilers are.

The film tips its hand with about forty minutes left, but then persists with scenes that fly in the face of that very twist. When the twist does come, it's predictable but incomprehensible--as if the film were directed two different ways and then combined in a blender.

Director Alexandre Aja has a flair for horrific violence and disturbing imagery. Watch for the killer's introduction, as it's one of the few memorable moments in the film. Aja, unfortunately, doesn't seem as interested in directing a horror film so much as an exploitation film of the Joe Bob Briggs, late-night-theater variety. A good example is Maria's masturbation scene intercut with the violence of the killer's arrival. Good scene for an exploitation film; however, Aja is not fully committed to exploitation either.

The film is bereft of the cheap thrills that make exploitation sickly entertaining. The masturbation scene is fully clothed and there is only a brief bit of nudity. The film was rumored to have been cut extensively to get down to the more audience-friendly R-Rating from the box office kiss-of-death that is NC-17. On the bright side, that could mean a heck of a Director's Cut DVD.

One might wonder if the cutting room floor is the resting place for the footage that helps High Tension make any sense at all. Maybe the scenes that tie together the utterly incomprehensible twist are all so disgustingly lascivious, they had to be cut. Whatever the explanation, High Tension remains a dopey, nonsensical horror film with violent potential unrealized by poor editing and a ludicrous story.

Movie Review: Duane Hopwood

Duane Hopwood (2005) 

Directed by Matt Mulhern

Written by Matt Mulhern 

Starring David Schwimmer, Janeane Garofalo, Judah Friedlander, John Krasinski 

Release Date November 11th, 2005

Published May 22nd, 2006 

My friends know quite well that I don't drink. That in my lifetime I have had exactly one gulp of alcohol and never touched the stuff again. I may not have drinking experience but even I can recognize the problem drinker. The sad, misguided soul whose everyday is a quest to quiet his inner demons with drink. I have seen it in real life, in real time and it's very sad. No film I have ever seen has ever really captured the true drunk experience. Movies like Barfly and Clean and Sober featured powerhouse, emotional performances from Mickey Rourke and Michael Keaton respectively but both were to extreme to be the true drunk experience.

The new to DVD film Duane Hopwood starring David Schwimmer comes closer than ever to capturing the sad, desperate drunk at his lowest point. A point that many may not recognize as low, he has a job, friends, is from time to time still a quite caring father, but a severe low it is.

Written and directed by Matt Mulhern, whose acting history is surprisingly colorful, he was Teddy Beckersted in One Crazy Summer, Duane Hopwood is a glum but desperately affecting drama about alcoholism at it's most mundane and realistic.

David Schwimmer plays Duane a lower middle class schlub who works as a pit boss in an Atlantic City Casino. He is divorced from his wife Linda (Janeane Garofalo) and a DUI arrest threatens to keep him from ever seeing his two daughters again.

The arrest is a first offense and we learn that though Duane clearly has a problem, bad enough that it ended his marriage, this is the first time he has ever been considered dangerous. Duane's life aside from this has gone on sadly but relatively quiet. He makes it to work on time every night, he has loyal friends and neighbors willing to help him and take care of him and even his ex-wife hasn't given up on him as a father though she has moved on with a new boyfriend.

The extraordinary thing about the movie Duane Hopwood is how real it all feels. Unlike other movies about the alcoholic experience there are no grand dramatic revelations, there is little or no catharisis and the ending is even somewhat vague about Duane's possibility for redemption. The film captures the realistic day to day activities of the functioning alcoholic, a person many of us have known and begrudgingly accepted for many years.

Many people watching David Schwimmer will feel they cannot seperate him from Ross on Friends but give Duane Hopwood a few minutes and Ross disappears and this character becomes Schwimmer's new reality. This is some terrific acting from the actor most often underrated amongst the flashy cast of Friends.

Janeane Garofalo too has often been underrated. Her comedy chops have always been respected and her work on television's The West Wing is Emmy worthy. However it's a performance like this that shows truly what Janeane is capable of. Brushing aside her usually brusque sarcastic nature, Garofalo shows a strength and sensitivity that is new to her acting.

And in what is the films most entertaining role comic Judah Friedlander steals scenes as  Anthony a forty year old security guard with dreams of being a stand-up comic and making it out of his mom's basement. He pushes Duane to let him be his roommate and though both seem aware of the sad state of two heterosexual forty year old men living together they form a strong bond that survives even Duane's lowest moments of self destruction. Friedlander is pitch perfect as comic relief from the films admittedly dour main story but he's also part of the films core tenderness that is necessary to making the film watchable. Like Garofalo's Linda, Anthony is not in Duane's life to save him  but just to be his friend and help him out when he can.

The film never made it much past the press rows at Sundance in 2005 but now it's on DVD and waiting to be seen, Duane Hopwood is an exceptional film.

Movie Review Kids in America

Kids in America (2005) 

Directed by Josh Stolberg 

Written by Josh Stolberg, Andrew Shaffer 

Starring Gregory Smith, George Wendt, Adam Arkin, Malik Yoba, Julie Bowen

Release Date October 21st, 2005

Published October 26th, 2005 

Teens in movies always fall into particular stereotypes. Nerds, jocks, cheerleaders, slackers and pervs. It is the rare teen movie that breaks these well worn types. Kids In America does not completely break the mold but in its ambitious story and passionate advocacy the film breaks more than a few of the conventions of the teen movie.

Gregory Smith from the television drama "Everwood" stars in Kids In America as Holden, a rebel with a cause. Inspired by his film class teacher Mr. Drucker (Malik Yoba), Holden begins a crusade against the schools officious principle, Mrs. Weller (Julie Bowen) after she suspends a student for wearing condoms on her dress to promote safe sex.

That is just one of many injustices that have piled up at the school. There is also censorship at the school newspaper, where Holden's fellow film class student, Charlotte (Stephanie Sherrin), has been butting heads with the teacher Mr. Mumsford (Alan Arkin). Holden and Charlotte Bond over the mutual cause of censorship and fighting injustice and develop a fun little romance.

Holden and Charlotte are joined by fellow free speech warriors Chuck (Chris Morris), Katie (Caitlin Wachs), Emily (Emy Coligado), Walanda (Crystal Celeste Grant) and Lawrence (Alex Anfanger) in a quest that will fight back against censorship and hopefully prevent the principle from being elected state school superintendent.

Each of these kids does fall into a character type. Lawrence is flamboyantly homosexual, Walanda is a black militant, Katie is a cheerleader. Still the young actors are likable enough to overcome their pigeonholes and the story gives them a mission and uniting purpose that helps them at least rise slightly above the typical natures of their characters.

Directed by first timer Josh Stolberg, Kids In America struggles in its structure and plotting. The film plays a little too loose and could use a steadier hand behind the camera. A director with a strong visual sense and a feel for the flow of a narrative might have corralled the film's many ideas into a slightly more coherent and true film structure.

Case in point in terms of problems with the structure of Kids In America is a very good idea that misses in its execution. In developing the romance between Holden and Charlotte the kids act out their favorite movie kisses. The kisses, including reenactments from Say Anything, Sixteen Candles and Fast Times At Ridgemont High, happen in a quickly executed four minute series of scenes and is then disposed of. A more veteran writer and director likely would have developed this idea better and rather than make it a throwaway gag, return to it a few times in developing the relationship between Holden and Charlotte.

That said, what Stolberg and his co-writer and producer Josh Shaiffer lack in narrative chops they make up for it with a strong dedication to the story they are telling and the ambition to take on a number of hot button issues and still have a good time with it all. The issues in Kids In America --free speech, safe sex, privacy, homosexuality-- are treated seriously but the characters remain fun loving teenagers with raging hormones and energy to burn.

Kids In America is a call to arms to teens who have seemingly grown more apathetic and uninvolved every year. In high school I was suspended for a day for wearing a Beavis and Butthead t-shirt. This did not exactly turn into a major demonstration but a few of us did take over the school radio station in protest and won the sympathy of many students, if not the teachers and administrators who suspended me a second time.

In this day and age, however, with far more serious issues, like the growing number of gay students coming out in high school and the continuing erosions of privacy and freedom that have stemmed from the Columbine high school shootings in 1999, students should have something more on their minds than t-shirts. It seems however that kids today-- oh God I feel old just writing that-- kids today seem less and less involved.

At least that is what I initially thought. After discovering Kids In America is based on a collective of true stories (none of the characters are real but the issues and events are), my opinion of this generation and its leaders has changed somewhat and I see there may be hope yet for a new generation of activists and believers. The film's credits feature testimonials from real kids who are working to change the way things are done in their schools and neighborhoods. The film's website also features links to many teen blog sites where activist teens are telling their stories and meeting other activists that could someday become a powerful network of people of passion.

This tiny movie may not be accomplished enough artistically to deserve the kind of dramatic weight that these real life issues give it, but given the lack of ambition of most Hollywood movies, I can't fault a film that has such passion. In a year dominated by awful mainstream entertainment that is melting the minds of many teens, a movie like Kids In America is a welcome respite from the mindlessness.

Movie Review Lord of War

Lord of War (2005) 

Directed by Andrew Niccol

Written by Andrew Niccol

Starring Nicolas Cage, Jared Leto, Ian Holm, Bridget Moynahan

Release Date September 16th, 2005

Published September 15th, 2005 

Writer-Director Andrew Niccol is a filmmaker of great ambition. His resume as a director is short but both Gattaca and Simone are projects of great imagination and aspiration. Gattaca succeeds far better in its story of genetic engineering than Simone did in its examination of fame and technology but both are films of big ideas and grand ambition.

For his latest effort, the dark gun running drama Lord Of War, Andrew Niccol may have his most ambitious subject yet. An in depth examination of the worldwide trade in weapons that takes a microscope to the life of real life gun runners while turning a large spotlight on an issue most Americans refuse to examine.

Nicolas Cage stars as Yuri Orlav, a Russian born immigrant living in the Little Odessa section of New York City. His life track looks laid out in advance: manage his father's restaurant 'til the old man passes then run it until he himself passes. That all changes when Yuri witnesses a mob hit in his neighborhood. The Russian made hardware used in the hit is inspiring and, using some of his father's connections through a Jewish synagogue, Yuri gets into the gun trade.

Soon he is the top distributor in his neighborhood and is ready to go global. With the help of his little brother, Vitaly (Jared Leto), Yuri attempts to break into the international gun trade. In one of the film's most memorable scenes Yuri and Vitali confront Simeon Wiese (Ian Holm), an old school distributor with ties to the CIA, at one of the strangest conventions you will ever see. Women in bikinis selling tanks and armored personnel carriers and worldwide enemies rubbing shoulders as they purchase the weapons they will soon use to kill each other.

Yuri and Vitaly fail to make it in with Wiese but world events soon occur to level the playing field. With the fall of communism in Russia and the end of the cold war, Wiese and his old guard, with their concern for geo-politics and scruples about only selling to countries with top secret ties to the US, are finished and apolitical types like Yuri, who has no qualms about selling to any and everyone regardless of doctrine, are in.

The rise of Yuri is transposed by the fall of Vitaly. Unable to cope with the violence that results from his brother's projects (he witnessed a teenager executed with one of Yuri's guns), Vitaly begins taking drugs and disappearing for long periods. The far more unscrupulous Yuri on the other hand is as casual about his own drug use as he is about his product and soon lands the life of his dreams with the girl of his dreams played by Bridget Moynahan.

In a story such as this, the audience is trained to wait for Yuri to get his comeuppance. Evil is almost always punished in movies and, while Yuri may be charming, he is clearly evil. Andrew Niccol however keeps you guessing all the way to the end as to whether Yuri will pay the price for his evil deeds. Niccol's scripting is as efficient and cold blooded as his lead character and his direction almost as cool.

Be sure to arrive on time so as not to miss the films opening credits which follow a bullet from production to distribution to execution, literally. It's an extraordinary sequence shot from the bullet's point of view and set appropriately to Buffalo Springfield's classic "For What It's Worth". The credits combined with Nick Cage's extra chilled voiceover narration perfectly set the tone for this brilliantly dark satire.

The odd thing about Lord of War is that while I recommend it as a movie people should definitely see, I don't find the film entertaining by typical Hollywood standards. The film is far more disturbing than entertaining and yet that worked for me. If you don't walk out of Lord of War with a lot of heavy issues on your mind then clearly you were not paying attention. This is one of the smartest  and disquieting political satires since 1999's Wag The Dog or 1962's original Manchurian Candidate.

I know sometimes people go to the movies just looking for simple or even mindless entertainment and if that is the case for you right now then Lord of War is not the movie for you today. If, however, you're out to enjoy a smart movie that deals in big issues and big ideas then Lord of War is a must see. In the intellectual sense Lord of War is highly entertaining.

The one thing you can take away from Lord of War that you could call entertaining by any standard is the performance of Nicolas Cage whose strange career track takes yet another fascinating turn. His last film, the brainless PG adventure National Treasure, showed Cage at his laziest and least thought provoking. In Lord of War it's back to that weird kind of charisma that brought him to fame in his Oscar winning performance in Leaving Las Vegas.

Andrew Niccol has directed sparingly in his career in Hollywood, preferring to write for others. His exceptional script for The Truman Show was everything his own directing effort in Simone wasn't in terms of its satire of celebrity. But one thing that all of Niccol's writing and directing work shows is an aim toward grandiose ideas, incomparable ambition, and a social conscience. Niccol is the rare director in the era of the blockbuster who is interested in telling large, involved stories about American culture, politics and even science.

This consciousness separates him from most other Hollywood directors who seem to prefer telling small stories with smaller characters with nowhere near the ambition of Niccol. It is this quality that will lead Andrew Niccol to create a true masterpiece someday. Lord of War is not that masterpiece but it shows he is on the right track.

Movie Review The Devil's Rejects

The Devil's Rejects (2005)

Directed by Rob Zombie 

Written by Rob Zombie 

Starring Sid Haig, Sheri Moon Zombie, Bill Mosely, Diamond Dallas Page, Danny Trejo

Release Date July 22nd, 2005

Published July 23rd, 2005

Rob Zombie is a talented artist and musician and a very interesting personality. However, in his short career as a filmmaker he has not acquitted himself well. Zombie's House of a Thousand Corpses was about as skillfully directed as a twelve-year-old shooting a Mountain Dew commercial with a handy cam, and his latest effort, the nihilistic serial killer film The Devil's Rejects, shows no improvement. Once again Zombie has committed to film his dark Id, and while there may be something disturbingly fascinating in there, it takes a far more skillful filmmaker than himself to find that and bring it to light.

The Devil's Rejects is not exactly a sequel to House of a Thousand Corpses. Sid Haig, who played the crazed clown Captain Spaulding in House, returns to that role in The Devil's Rejects. Spaulding, with his children Otis (Bill Mosely) and Baby (Sheri Moon), are serial killers who have for years abducted, tortured, and murdered innumerable teenage girls and one dedicated cop. 

That dead cop happens to have been the brother of sheriff Wydell, played by the always sadistic William Forsythe. Not surprisingly, capturing the captain and his clan is a crusade for Sheriff Wydell, who will do anything inside or outside the law to get them. His methods include hiring a pair of sick, twisted, biker bounty hunters (Danny Trejo and Diamond Dallas Page) to hunt the family down and kill anyone who gets in the way of their capture.

The above description amounts to a semblance of a plot but it's not what The Devil's Rejects is about. Rather, the film is about just how twisted and disturbing Zombie can be in presenting violence and gore. In what could have been an interesting break in form, The Devil's Rejects never bothers to establish a connection with the audience through a heroic character. Instead, the audience is forced to witness everything from the perspective of these deplorable murderers. This could be an interesting challenge but it is a failure in execution.

There has to have been a central idea to The Devil's Rejects, something Zombie was attempting to say or demonstrate with these characters but I could not find it. In the end, The Devil's Rejects is pointless, like watching Rob Zombie's twisted imagination come to life. It's an insight into his mind that leaves you feeling that he should seek counseling rather than committing his disturbing fantasies to film for the whole world to see.

In the horror genre you can get away with a lot of sick and twisted stuff in an attempt to frighten audiences. But there is a limit to what even the most forgiving horror fan can take. The Devil's Rejects surpasses that limit by not merely being sadistic but by glorifying sadism. The film is a love letter to the murderous behavior of its sick characters.

A scene where a group of touring musicians is taken hostage in a motel room is used as an opportunity for Zombie to lovingly capture the near naked form of his wife, Sherry Moon, as she goes through the titillating motions of humiliating a female captive. The slow deaths of each of the musicians is a pointless exercise in gore for the sake of gore. This is not typical horror movie gore, with a wink and a nod. No, Zombie takes a nearly verite approach to the violence of these scenes and seeks to tap the twisted excitement someone might find in a snuff film.

Zombie revels in these characters' violent sexual assaults and cruel murders as if they were poetic misunderstood outlaws just out for a good time. The influence of Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers can be felt throughout, but where Stone was at least experimenting in form while exercising his sick and twisted side, Zombie lacks the talent and imagination to mix his horror with artful filmmaking. That is not to forgive Natural Born Killers which I also did not care for, but it's certainly better than the mess that is The Devil's Rejects.

The Devil's Rejects is experimental in that it has no point beyond its graphic violence, but it's an experiment with no real results. What should we take away from this film other than the idea that Rob Zombie lives in a very dark place?

Movie Review The Constant Gardener

The Constant Gardener (2005) 

Directed by Fernando Meirelles

Written by Jeffrey Caine

Starring Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Danny Huston, Bill Nighy

Release Date August 31st, 2005

Published September 15th, 2005 

Fernando Meirelles's City Of God was an astonishing announcement of a talent truly coming into his own. Meirelles had made movies in his home country of Brazil before but nothing with the visceral visual punch of City Of God. With such success a move to feature directing closer to the heart of the business in Hollywood was inevitable. With The Constant Gardener, a British independent production distributed by Focus Features, Meirelles has gone about as Hollywood as he is capable of. A political thriller from the great John Le Carre that aspires beyond mere thrills to something far more important.

Don't be misled into thinking that Gardener is a ponderous thumping of liberal guilt towards Africa; it's also a love story about an emotionally walled-off man and a beautiful, idealistic free spirit thrust into the political whirlwind of Africa.

Ralph Fiennes stars in Constant Gardener as Justin Quayle, an assistant British diplomat who has likely reached the peak of his employability. Quayle seems to have little interest in his bureaucratic position in Kenya where he spends most of his time tending his garden while his superiors handle the heavy diplomatic lifting.

Even after meeting the beautiful idealist Tessa (Rachel Weisz) while on assignment in Britain and falling quickly in love, Quayle remains detached from his African surroundings. Upon moving to Africa with Justin, Tessa jumps immediately into the streets and slums of Africa taking on the cause of healthcare with the help of a local doctor, Arnold (Hubert Kounde).

With AIDS ravaging the country, pharmaceuticals are a hot button. When Tessa discovers that the goodwill of British pharmaceutical companies who donate much of the AIDS medication in the country comes with the danger of product testing for drugs that are not safe and in fact are quite deadly to some, she and Albert set out to expose the danger. All the while Justin remains respectful of his wife's passion but continues to tend his garden oblivious to the rising intrigue of his wife's activities.

When Tessa is found murdered Justin finally begins to see beyond the walls of his bureaucratic office. Setting out to discover why his wife was killed, Justin places himself in harm's way to expose the corruption his wife died to bring to light. Thus begins a world leaping journey from Africa to England and across Europe and a love story that even he had forgotten about.

The plot is as simple as my description, however Director Fernando Meirelles is not content to direct The Constant Gardener as a typical thriller. Interrupting the timeline, the film begins with Tessa's death and flashes back and forth from Justin and Tessa's first meeting to the beginning of Justin's search for meaning in her death and back to what exactly Tessa was attempting to expose.

The timeline shifts work, they give the film more intrigue than a straight telling might have. When combined with the handheld photography and hot hazy visuals of Africa, the film was actually shot in the streets of Kenya, it gives the film a real dramatic jolt. Like City of God, The Constant Gardener has Meirelles signature documentary look and feel.

The acting in The Constant Gardener is first rate. Ralph Fiennes is likely the most consistently fascinating actor working today. His reputation is that of the mercurial ACTOR in every sense of the word and yet the talent on display in The Constant Gardener is astonishingly subtle and affecting. It is Fiennes who really sells the romantic aspects of the plot and makes you believe that even as disconnected as Justin was from his wife's passions he loved and respected everything about her. 

I cannot praise Mr. Fiennes' work any more.  It's likely that awards season will heap all of the necessary praise on this extraordinary performance. This is Mr. Fiennes best work since his Oscar nominated role as a German guard in Schindler's List, his breakout performance. Since that role Fiennes has done fine work in obscurity. Aside from that other Oscar nominated piece The English Patient, his work in movies like Oscar and Lucinda, Spider and Onegin has been beloved by critics and ignored by audiences. His profile is likely to grow this fall with an appearance in the next Harry Potter film.

After wasting her talent in popcorn flicks like The Mummy, The Mummy Returns and Constantine, Rachel Weisz shows the breadth of her talents in The Constant Gardener.  A career best for Weisz as an actress, Tessa is naive and idealistic but with a steely side that comes out when she needs it. Her passion can be seen as foolish by some, as in the way she so gleefully engages in her worst behavior, but the cause is a worthy one. Wearing a pregnancy belly while walking through 100 plus degree heat amongst the impoverished throngs of Kenya is the kind of method acting few actresses could pull off.

Weisz, Fiennes and the supporting performance of the great character actor Danny Huston are all likely to be remembered at the Oscars in March. For Mr. Huston however I would recommend finding a good guy role soon, the ultra-creepy heavies that Huston plays in nearly every film are becoming cliche. Still his work here, while extra creepy at times, is memorable and necessary.

If there is one issue I have with The Constant Gardener it is with the international intrigue and murder for hire subplots. Maybe I'm just burned out on the conventions of the thriller genre but I wasn't interested in seeing every extra painted as a potential threat. There is a scene in the London airport that is typical of the good guy on the run style thriller where everyone in the airport is shown to be a potential spy ready to report Justin's whereabouts to the bad guys. The scene feels out of place in such a serious minded movie.

It is a fact that many corporations do many awful things, but corporations in movies always seem to want to kill anyone who threatens the stock price. In The Constant Gardener Justin is chased all over Africa, Britain and Europe by the shady thugs of a drug company trying to keep him from disclosing their nefariousness. The type of issues raised in The Constant Gardener about the shocking treatment of Africans treated as guinea pigs deserves a more serious look, the thriller plot cheapens the issue.

African poverty and healthcare is a black mark on the conscience of every American. In a country as rich as ours, for us to be so negligent of the issues in Africa is shameful. We rationalize that our government is dealing with it, and indeed our economic aid to Africa is substantial, but industries like the pharmaceutical industry in America and England are doing the kinds of things dramatized in The Constant Gardener and there is no public outcry. Shamefully there are 100 times the number of news stories about Brangelina as there are about the issue those two stars have given so much of their own time to in Africa.

The thriller aspects of The Constant Gardener are remnants of John Le Carre's book and while they likely work in print the conventions are exhausted in film. Besides that, it is the romantic plot that is the real audience hook in The Constant Gardener. Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz have amazing chemistry even as the plot requires them to be pulled apart most of the time. The romantic longing that leads Justin to investigate Tessa's death is very compellingly played by Fiennes.

The film probably would have worked just as well, and even better, without the thriller plot. There was plenty of drama mined from Tessa's secrets and the non-violent machinations of the drug companies to make a compelling story. The minor gunplay and spy vs spy shenanigans feel out of place and unnecessary. Still though, they are a minor detraction.

For Fernando Meirelles working for the first time in a relatively big budget movie, the first film of his career he did not write and develop on his own, The Constant Gardener is a great accomplishment. Even through material not of his own creation his vision wins out over everything. The Constant Gardener is not quite the triumph that City Of God was, but topping that remarkable film may take a lifetime. As it is, The Constant Gardener is yet another example of his rising talent and profile. Mr. Meirelles' work will now likely be as anticipated by film fans as that of Pedro Almodovar or Martin Scorsese.

The film serves another more important purpose as well. It is a reminder of the horrors taking place in Africa and the desperate need for more worldwide attention and involvement. The film is not preachy about these problems but merely throws an important light upon them and in that sense it is more important than a mere movie.

Movie Review Just Like Heaven

Just Like Heaven (2005)

Directed by Mark Waters

Written by Peter Tolan, Leslie Dixon

Starring Reese Witherspoon, Mark Ruffalo, Jon Heder

Release Date September 16th, 2005

Published September 16th, 2005 

A romantic comedy that marries elements of the music of the Cure with the romance of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir has far more ambition than anything that genre has seen in a long while. Throw in that it's directed by the director of Mean Girls and Freaky Friday and stars Reese Witherspoon and you have an absolutely can't miss formula.

Just Like Heaven is very much a formula picture but it's the best version of that classic romantic comedy formula than anyone has made since Tom and Meg last embraced.

Reese Witherspoon stars in Just Like Heaven as Dr. Elizabeth Masterson, a resident at a San Francisco hospital with zero social life. 24 to 36 hour shifts are nothing new to Elizabeth, nor is falling asleep in her lunch. But despite her dedication one cannot help but notice the twinge of loneliness in her eyes as her  co-workers discuss family and friends. Not that Elizabeth does not have them.  She simply has no time to spend with them.

Finally, after getting a much sought after promotion, Elizabeth gets a night off. She is on her way to her sister Abby's (Dina Spybey), for dinner with her family and a blind date. Unfortunately, Elizabeth never makes it to dinner that night. After assuring Abby she was on her way, Elizabeth crosses the path of an oncoming truck and suffers a major accident.

Cut to three months later and the story shifts to David Abbott (Mark Ruffalo) a widower searching for a new apartment. Fate leads David to choose the apartment that once belonged to Elizabeth and, to David's frightened surprise, is still her spirit's home. At first it's an occasional run in here and there that David thinks could be just a misunderstanding or voices in his head as he has been drinking a lot recently.

Soon it's clear that this is all for real and David and Elizabeth set out to find out just what happened to her and in the process they fall madly in love. There's more to the plot than my description states but I don't want to spoil the fun. If you've read a number of reviews already you probably know the twists and turns but I'm still not going to spoil them myself.

Living man falls in love with a ghostly girl is not an original plot but I doubt it's ever been as wonderfully entertaining as it is in Just Like Heaven. Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo have chemistry to burn as the man and his ghost and director Mark Waters have just the right touch of classic romantic comedy and modern movie magic. Waters is quickly becoming a master of light hearted material mined for big laughs and a tug at the heartstrings.

Waters is absolutely blessed in the casting of Just Like Heaven, not only with his terrific stars but in the supporting cast, which features Donal Logue, Dina Spybey (who happens to be the director's wife), and the brilliant Jon Heder who combines just enough of his iconic Napoleon Dynamite with a relatively normal looking character to deliver some of the film's best moments.

The script by Peter Tolan and Leslie Dixon is based on a novel by Marc Levy called "If Only It Were True" which was actually optioned by producers even before it was published. With the paucity of new and different ways for romantic comedy couples to meet, it is rather cute finding one where a live guy falls for a seemingly dead girl.  At the very least it is refreshing.

As put in play by Mark Waters and his excellent team, including Tolan and Dixon, cinematographer Daryn Okada and production designer Cary White, this concept comes magically and romantically to life. The characters are smart and wonderfully likable and the San Francisco locations, including screenwriter Dixon's own apartment standing in as Elizabeth and David's apartment, are gorgeous. The filmmakers could cut back on the fake smoke and soft lighting that creeps in a few too many times but overall the attention to detail is lovely.

I absolutely must praise the film's soundtrack headed up by Composer Rolfe Kent and Cure singer Robert Smith. The soundtrack features The Cure's original "Just Like Heaven" and a lovely cover by Kate Melua. I've never been a big fan of cover tunes but the soundtrack overflows with good ones from the title track to Kelis covering the Pretenders' "Brass In Pocket" to Bowling For Soup's very funny take on "Ghostbusters".

The soundtrack also features Beck, Pete Yorn and original recordings from Composer Rolfe Kent, who was nominated for a Golden Globe last year for his work on the Sideways soundtrack.

Despite the live boy/ghost girl approach, Just Like Heaven is still a traditional romantic comedy and as tired as that genre is this film has none of the lethargy or stagnation that most recent romantic comedies suffer from. That has everything to do with this exemplary cast. Reese Witherspoon is back after dipping into the Oscar bait in Vanity Fair. She has fully inherited the romantic comedy crown from Julia Roberts and has become the rare actress to receive bigger billing than her male co-stars.

Mark Ruffalo continues to show astonishing range by choosing unique material. He was last seen as a gritty cop chasing Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx in Collateral. Before that he made another bubbly effusive romantic comedy, the candycoated 13 Going On 30. That film was not as smart or well made as Just Like Heaven, but both showcase Mark Ruffalo's quirky approach to the genre. Ruffalo treats even the lightest material with an actor's eye toward motivation and logic. He has a natural approach to the material that refuses to be manipulated by the plot.

Napoleon Dynamite's Jon Heder has been hyped prominently in the film's marketing and though his role is not as big as it may seem from the commercials and trailers, Heder nevertheless makes a great impression. Playing an oddball bookstore employee with empathic powers, he can sense the presence and feelings of ghosts.  Heder does not so much shed his Napoleon-ism as play to it and then away from it. This character is smarter and more stylish but retains the endearing oddness of Napoleon.

There are plot holes in Just Like Heaven as there are in any typical genre picture. The key to overcoming those holes is to create characters who can see audiences past any illogic simply with their appeal. Witherspoon, Ruffalo and the amazing supporting cast with their easy rapport and synergy completely gloss over any logic problems or editing missteps, allowing the audience to rejoice in the magic realism and the sheer joy of romance.

I despise the term chick flick! The simpleminded anti-feminism of the phrase grates me. It's a term people use to simply dismiss a film that they have not seen. What a shame because films as funny and well crafted as Just Like Heaven deserve the widest possible audiences they can get. With so few good movies made every year, to dismiss a movie simply for its surface is such a waste.

Movie Review The Cave

The Cave (2005) 

Directed by Bruce Hunt

Written by Michael Steinberg, Tegan West

Starring Cole Hauser, Morris Chestnut, Eddie Cibrian, Lena Headey, Piper Perabo

Release Date August 26th, 2005

Published August 27th, 2005

Did you know that Cave Diver is a legitimate profession?

I had no idea! To me it sounded more like the title to some long lost "Mystery Science Theater 3000" feature than any legit money making venture. That perception was only enforced by the goofy goings-on in the new creature feature The Cave in which a group of cave divers line up to become lunch for some alien knockoff.

Cole Hauser leads a multicultural cast to their doom as the head of a cave diving team brought to some third world European locale to investigate a massive series of caves uncovered during an archaeological dig. Hey wouldn't you know it, these caves are the cursed remains of a once destroyed church.  They almost always are. Once inside, our intrepid divers are picked off one by one as if the plot had been written by an efficiency expert.

Director Bruce Hunt has little time for developing characters, what with all of this cool cave diving equipment to show off and all of the cool underwater photography to play with. Instead Hunt, with screenwriters Michael Steinberg and Tegan West, opts for multi-cultural placeholders who stand in line and wait for their turn to be monster food. Naturally such a simplistic story has attracted Morris Chestnut who just made this same movie last year with a giant snake, Anaconda 2: The Search For The Blood Orchid. Chestnutt is not a bad actor but has been a magnet for bad scripts (Like Mike, Half Past Dead) and parts well below his talent (Confidence, Under Siege 2) ever since his terrific debut in John Singleton's Boyz In The Hood.

Cole Hauser's rise to above the title star continues to puzzle me. Last year he top lined Paparazzi, a film that never should have seen light outside the video store. Now he leads The Cave which at least has the budget required of a big screen feature but little else. Don't most actors have to prove they can open a movie before they are given two starring roles in a row. Whoever decided Cole Hauser was a star may need to rethink that after The Cave. I would not speak so ill of Hauser, who wasn't bad as one of those nameless character actors with a recognizable face in films like White Oleander and Pitch Black, if he had just stayed with those types of roles.

Almost unrecognizable in this B-list cast is Coyote Ugly star Piper Perabo. Oh how the once promising star has fallen. Ms. Perabo really did look like a star in the overheated Jerry Bruckheimer dramedy Coyote Ugly but she is far from that shining promise here in The Cave where she is only the second most prominent female character in the movie behind Brothers Grimm star Lena Headey. Ouch! If you don't know how good Ms. Perabo is, forget Coyote Ugly, avoid The Cave, and check out the tiny Canadian independent Lost & Delirious. Her earnest romantic tragedy in that film is at times trite but more often moving and lovable.

With all apologies to my mother who always liked to drop that classic mom-ism, 'If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all',  there is simply nothing nice to say about the acting of former underwear model turned TV actor turned movie blackhole Eddie Cibrian. The guy is like a placeholder waiting for a real actor to step in. His blank stare and thudding delivery makes one wonder if he was simply there to block the lighting and then the real actor never showed up.  That is the only way I can make sense of his being here.

Cibrian plays Tyler and Morris Chestnut plays Tom Buchanan. However, whether it was due to bad editing or simple oversight, the actors appear to switch character names throughout the film. In an early scene where the team is plotting its cave descent both characters are referred to as Tyler at least once. That is slightly better than poor Daniel Dae Kim ("Lost") who may as well have been called That Asian Guy because he just doesn't seem to have a name throughout the film.

There were actually some things I liked about The Cave. The underwater photography, for example, is very cool. The crisp, clear blue water is beautifully shot, credited to Cinematographer Ross Emory, although second unit Director Wes Skiles is credited as the Underwater Unit Director. The scuba equipment, so lovingly dissected by the expositional dialogue, I'm told is top of the line stuff by a friend who dives for a living. My friend was also quite impressed with the underwater scenes for what that's worth. He does that professionally as well.

That is about it for the niceties unfortunately. Out of the water, The Cave is a knockoff of the two Anaconda films, Deep Rising, Mimic, Deep Blue Sea and any number of creature features in which an ensemble of B-listers comprise a buffet for some computer generated baddies. All of those films are mere retreads of the ultimate Sci-Fi ensemble flick Alien, which is also the only film to get that formula right, not once but twice if you count its excellent first sequel.

It's a given that particular plots are going to be rehashed, especially when they have been financially successful in the past. In the case of a film with a plot such as this you have to grade on a curve. The key to taking a cliched plot like that of The Cave and making an entertaining movie of it is to dress it up with lighting, with sets, with great dialogue, and with at least a few interesting premises. The Cave has some nice underwater locations that are very well photographed and some cool looking scuba gear but not much else.

Movies like The Cave make me long for the long lost wit and sarcasm of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" in all its movie-bashing glory. Just imagining the fun that Crow, Mike Nelson and Tom Servo could have had slicing up The Cave is more entertaining than anything in the film's 90 some odd minute runtime. Naturally the Alien plot will continue to have knock-offs produced again and again and again as years go by but perhaps they'll die out once we stop throwing our hard-earned money at them. 

Movie Review Rebound

Rebound (2005)

Directed by Steve Carr

Written by Jon Lucas, Scott Moore

Starring Martin Lawrence

Release Date July 1st, 2005 

Published July 2nd, 2005 

Director Steve Carr has a resume only a mother could love. From the dregs of Eddie Murphy's career, Dr. Doolittle 2 and Daddy Day Care, to the Chris Tucker free, as well as laugh free, Next Friday. For his latest flick, Rebound, Carr finally found a family movie Eddie Murphy could turn down. Call on the B team, Murphy's apparent new understudy Martin Lawrence. Desperate for a hit, Lawrence has turned to the genre to which Eddie sold his soul, the mildly offensive utterly forgettable family film.

Worse yet Rebound is a formula sports film with the requisite team of misfits who overcame odds to be champions. Ugh!

In Rebound Martin Lawrence plays coach Roy McCormick, a hotshot in either college or the pro's, the scripting is so poor we are not sure where Coach Roy is from. What we do know is that his ego is out of control. Coach Roy misses games for magazine photo shoots and his out of control temper, think Bobby Knight edited for a PG rating, have gotten him thrown out of the league.

There was an incident with a bird but the less said about that the better.

Lucky for Roy his agent; Tim Fink (Breckin Meyer), get it FINK (that joke would have killed on Happy Days), has found him a loophole. If Coach Roy can find another job and show himself to be a model citizen he can get back in the league. Enter the Smelters; a ragtag bunch of middle school ballers who are so bad they have not scored a point in a game, forget winning one.

The kids are somehow able to fax an offer directly to Roy's agent and he immediately accepts the job. The kids happen to attend Roy's old school where he first fell in love with the game. Golly; maybe Roy can find his love of basketball again and learn a valuable lesson about teamwork. And wouldn't you know it, one of the baby ballers happens to have a sexy single mom (Wendy Raquel Robinson) who has been assigned to keep an eye on Roy by the school's lackadaisical principle (Megan Mullally, far too talented for this).

If this sounds almost exactly like Mighty Ducks or 2001's long forgotten Hardball with Keanu Reeves or even the original Bad News Bears well; I gather it's supposed to. There is apparently someone in Hollywood in charge of recycling this plot every couple years when a down on his luck star needs a paycheck fast or when a young hack Director needs a product to pad his resume.

Director Steve Carr has the visual imagination of a blind squirrel. I take that back, a blind squirrel might get lucky and find something interesting to film once in a while, I hear they occasionally find a nut. Carr does have a handle on this genre's newest innovation, bathroom humor. In his Dr.Dolittle 2 it was animal noises, Daddy Care Care poo poo jokes and in Rebound we have a child who vomits under pressure.

Children apparently enjoy these jokes but a long term study of the effects of this type of humor on children finds our kids getting dumber and dumber every year. Something must be done damn it!

I am certain that Martin Lawrence was once funny. I remember laughing at something he did. It's just been a long while since Martin has done anything entertaining. His last few films are so abysmal that just listing them raises the bile in my throat. What's The Worst That Could Happen, Black Knight and National Security are cinematic flotsam that mark one of the worst career trainwrecks in Hollywood history.

That Rebound somehow manages to be even worse than what has come before in Lawrence's career is a stunning result. However, indeed it is worse and blindingly so. There is just nothing of any redeeming value in Rebound right down to the poor child actors. Not one of these supposed cute kids makes an impression beyond a vague sympathy for the fact that each will carry this pock mark on their resume the rest of their careers.

Formula filmmaking at its most insidious, Rebound makes me sad to be a film fan. If this is how Hollywood repays the loyal filmgoer it is no wonder that ticket sales are lower than expected. Forget cell phones, ticket prices, or people who talk during movies, the reason fewer people are going to the movies is garbage like Rebound that takes up space in so many multiplexes.

Movie Review: Wolf Creek

Wolf Creek (2005) 

Directed by Greg McLean

Written by Greg McLean

Starring John Jarratt, Nathan Phillips, Cassandra McGrath 

Release Date December 25th, 2005

Published December 31st, 2005 

Are there any words, in relation to movies, anymore full of shit than 'Based on a true story'. Take the term 'based on'. It's a term that means the instances depicted here on are free of the strictures of what really happened. The words state that what really happened is not as important as how the filmmakers are going to present it.

The term 'based on' could be applied to nearly any film. Deuce Bigelow could be based on a true story. After all there is such a thing as a male prostitute. That is all you need to base a story on. In terms of the horror film Wolf Creek the 'based on a true story' tag is part of the films charmng little ad campaign that attempts to portray the film as a new kind of horror film. A more brutal and realistic brand of horror free of the comic nature that overtook much of the genre in the era of Freddy and Jason and further free of the ironic, knowing humor of, what I call, the Kevin Williamson era, the Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer era.

The marketing campaign however, like most marketing campaigns, is a complete lie. Wolf Creek brings nothing new to to the genre. Despite its supposed basis on a true story, Wolf Creek relies on the common attributes of the genre. The film is about the re-creation and presentation of uncommonly brutal violence, sadism and death. Thus, it is no different from Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers or the masked man in Scream.

The stars of Wolf Creek are three previously unknown actors. Nathan Phillips is Ben, Kestie Morassi is Kristy and Cassandra McGrath is Liz. They are three party hardy pals taking a roadtrip through the outback to check out a famed tourist destination called Wolf Ceek crater.

In the midst of the desolate, dry, climes of the outback a meteorite hit and left what is said to be the largest crater known to man. The impact, is said by Ben, to have been equal to several nuclear blasts. It is an impressive sight as are a number of the gorgeous outback vistas and mountainsides in the film. The scenery is at times so lovely as to be nearly hypnotic.

After visiting the crater the trio find that their car will not start. After a few hours they are lucky to meet an outback dweller named Mick who offers to fix the car for free back at his camp. Unfortunately for our trusting trio, Mick happens to be a sadistic murdering psychopath and they are about to be subjected to some stomach turning brutality.

Written and directed by aussie Greg McLean, Wolf Creek wants to be an edgy new brand of horror that plays on peoples real life fear of being lost with no help in a vast possibly metaphoric wasteland. But in the presentation of its brutal violence Wolf Creek shows itself to be no different than any other horror film.

Most horror films are not about characters, storytelling or skilled filmmaking, they are about the ways in which violence is presented. Some films revel in the creative ways they can present a violent death (Final Destination, Saw 1 & 2), some are about the comic ironic ways of violent death (Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday The 13th et al) and some are about sheer brutality (Last House on The Left).

Wolf Creek falls into the last category and is nothing special in that right. The violence in Wolf Creek is no more shocking or horrifying than anything in Hostel or Last House on The Left. It is in fact lesser than either of those two films because its characters aren't as deep or interesting. Not that I am a fan of anything in either Hostel or Last House on the Left, but atleast neither of those films bored me the way Wolf Creek does.

The characters in Wolf Creek are the typical stick figure representations of real human beings that are typical of the genre. Just because the director is following these characters with a handheld digital camera does not make them any different from the camp counselors who line up to be shredded by Jason Vorhees.

This is where the based on a true story tag, I gather, is supposed to make the difference between Wolf Creek and typical horror films. By convincing us that what happens in this film may have happened to someone in reality, we are supposed to be more horrified. However, because violence and sadism is presented in the typically broad fashion of the genre its never believable as a reality.

It is factual that people have disappeared and are presumed dead, even murdered, in the vast wasteland of the Australian outback. The deaths however are likely no more elaborate than the average murder. The creators of Wolf Creek are not interested in presenting a realistic scenario of murder in the outback, i.e someone killed in the commission of a hold-up, a robbery or a car-jacking. A realistic scenario is not elaborate enough. So director McClean and his collaborators amp up the sadism and brutality as a cinematic convenience. A tacit admittance that Wolf Creek is merely a genre excercise and not an expression of true fears.

In being solely about the presentation of shocking (or not so shocking) violence Wolf Creek is merely typical of its genre.

Movie Review: Four Brothers

Four Brothers (2005) 

Directed by John Singleton 

Written by David Elliott, Paul Lovett

Starring Mark Wahlberg, Tyrese, Andre Benjamin, Garrett Hedlund, Terrence Howard 

Release Date July 1st, 2005 

Published July 1st, 2005 

The amazing John Singleton has, according to some, never lived up to the potential shown in his debut feature Boyz N The Hood. This perception is not shared by this critic. I have enjoyed all of Mr. Singleton's films, save his Shaft remake out of fealty to the original as much as a negative opinion of the filmmaking. His Baby Boy and Rosewood are extraordinarily underrated and even his most commercial effort, the car porn 2 Fast 2 Furious was at the very least high camp popcorn entertainment.

Mr. Singleton's latest effort, the revenge drama Four Brothers, combines elements of Mr. Singleton's artistry and commercialism better than any of his previous films. This ostensible modern remake of the John Wayne western The Sons Of Katie Elder, is stylish in its homage to classic westerns and the ouvre of Charles Bronson and brilliant in its sense of compelling violence and family drama.

Mark Wahlberg stars as Bobby Mercer, the oldest of four troubled adopted sons of the saintly Evelyn Mercer (Fionnula Flanigan). When Evelyn is killed in the midst of a convenience store robbery Bobby comes home to reunite with his brothers, Jeremiah (Andre 3000 of the rap duo, Outkast), Jack (Garrett Hedlund) and Angel (Tyrese Gibson). Soon after the reunion Bobby rallies his brothers to find the guys who killed their mother.

According to the cops, the friendly detective Green (Terrence Howard) and the shady detective Fowler (Josh Charles), Mrs. Mercer was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, soon after launching their far more extensive and violent investigation, the Mercer boys uncover a dangerous conspiracy that leads to the halls of Detroit's City Council and naturally to the city's top thug, Victor Sweet (Chiwetel Ejiofor).

Each of the four brothers is a fully fleshed character with backstories that include multiple stays in prison, the military and a litter of failed relationships. For Angel, returning to Detroit means rekindling a dangerous romance with Sofi (Sophia Vergara) that, while not the film's strongest plot, does provide much of the film's humor. Vergara is very sexy but underserved by a role that simply asks her to be needy and screechy when she is not needed to simply provide eye candy.

Hustle and Flow's Taraji P. Henson shows up in Four Brothers as Jerimiah's wife. Her role is limited to being constantly worried and put off by her husband's brothers and the trouble that seems to follow them, but Ms. Henson is a welcome presence for what little screen time she has.

Surprisingly there is no attempt to give Bobby a love interest, a choice that breaks the mold of typical screenwriting that always calls for the star to be paired with someone. That someone, more often than not in films so heavily infused with testosterone, is a functionary role, a mere plot point and not a character.  So it is a welcome relief that the filmmakers refrained from employing that tired device.

While some complain that a career as a genre filmmaker was not what they had hoped for in John Singleton, I think it suits him. Moreover it suits the genre film to have such a talented artist bringing such talent to bear on what is essentially B-movie material. It would be nice to see Singleton deliver another powerful drama like Boyz N The Hood or Rosewood, but I for one will follow Mr. Singleton's work wherever it takes him.

Movie Review: Deuce Bigelow European Gigolo

Deuce Bigelow European Gigolo (2005) 

Directed by Mike Bigelow 

Written by Harris Goldberg, Rob Schneider

Starring Rob Schneider, Eddie Griffin 

Release Date August 12th, 2005

Published August 15th, 2005 

It's good to have friends in Hollywood. Look at Rob Schneider.  This talentless ex-SNL star has managed to land lead roles in mainstream Hollywood comedies thanks almost entirely to his close friend Adam Sandler. It was Mr. Sandler's clout that helped launch Schneider's first ode to bad taste Deuce Bigelow: Male Gigolo and then The Hot Chick, both films also featuring Sandler in cameos. Now with the release of Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo, Mr. Sandler has once again somehow duped another major Hollywood studio into bankrolling his buddie's career.

Deuce Bigelow (Schneider) was once a mild mannered aquarium cleaner with dreams of being a marine biologist. However, after an encounter with a gigolo (Oded Fehr of The Mummy series slumming outside the action genre), Deuce met T.J (Eddie Griffin) a pimp who convinced Deuce to become, in his terminology, a man-whore. From there the film wallowed in low humor and earnest sentimentalism before shuffling off to DVD with way more box office revenue than it deserved.

With the sequel Deuce has given up the gigolo life to once again work the aquarium biz, however after a bizarre encounter at the beach Deuce accepts an invitation from T.J to go to Amsterdam where the latter has become an even more successful pimp. Naturally the permissive atmosphere of Amsterdam is quite conducive to T.J's lifestyle, prostitution not only being legal but apparently a respected trade.

Unfortunately someone has taken to murdering T.J's stable of man-whores and T.J himself has become a suspect. Only Deuce can prove T.J's innocence, but to do so he must once again become a gigolo. Along the way he meets Eva (Hanna Verboom) and wouldn't you know it, she has a weird connection to the crimes at the center of the plot. Well I don't know if plot is the right word, this movie stretches the idea of a movie 'plot' to a breaking point. 

If I may make an odd comparison, Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo reminded me, in its sort of nihilistic approach to bad taste, to Rob Zombie's horror flick The Devil's Rejects. Both films are pointless and inane in ways that leave the viewer more indifferent than offended or sickly entertained. Both films play as filmed masturbation: kinky, desperate expressions of the creators' id. Both Rob Zombie and Rob Schneider seem as if they really enjoy their films with very little regard to whether anyone else would enjoy them.

Trashing Deuce Bigelow for its incoherence, its crudity or its ineptitude would be too easy.  Those failings are a given when one buys the ticket. A critic could write that review without having watched the film as far as I'm concerned. I'm left with my own fascination as to who is supposed to enjoy Deuce Bigelow and why. What type of twisted sense of humor do you have to possess to find a laugh in such desperate inanity? 

There is a kind of trainwreck fascination to the film that I can understand but I think that would be giving Rob Schneider's core of fans way too much credit. For some reason there are people who find this brand of comedy funny and for the life of me, I cannot understand it. 

Movie Review The Dukes of Hazzard

Dukes of Hazzard (2005) 

Directed by Jay Chandrasekhar

Written by Gy Waldron, John O'Brien 

Starring Johnny Knoxville, Seann William Scott, Jessica Simpson 

Release Date August 5th, 2005 

Published August 5th, 2005 

Critics like myself are a pretentious lot. However when the majority of critics write a negative review of a TV remake like the Dukes of Hazzard it is not out of artistic pretension. Indeed the film in the classic critical sense is not very good. However there is something about Dukes that even this jaded and pretentious critic found very entertaining. Maybe it's nostalgia, I was a fan of the show as a kid, or maybe it's the enthusiasm of its creators and actors that comes off the screen in waves. Whatever it is, I liked Dukes of Hazzard.

Bo and Luke Duke (Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott) are good ol' boy cousins tearing around Hazzard County, Georgia in their bright orange '69 Charger, The General Lee. Whether they are running moonshine (do southerners still make moonshine?) for their Uncle Jesse (Willie Nelson), or defending the honor of their cousin Daisy (Jessica Simpson) in a bar fight, the Duke boys always seem to be getting in trouble.

The latest bit of trouble the boys are in once again involves their nemesis Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane (M.C Gainey) and his boss, County Commissioner, Boss Hogg (Burt Reynolds). In a plot that feels directly lifted from the TV series, Boss Hogg is stealing the land of Hazzard County farmers, including the Duke's farm, so he can strip mine for coal buried beneath it. Only the Duke boys can stop Boss Hogg by winning a dirt track car race and generally creating havoc throughout the land in the General Lee.

Director Jay Chandrasekhar (Super Troopers, Club Dread) is really not much of a director in the classic sense. He has no distinctive directorial style, no real sense of rhythm in his storytelling and, in the case of this film, leaves much of the real direction to the stunt coordinators who filmed the car chases that compose some 90 percent of the film.

That said, Chandrasekhar does have a talent for creating a good time atmosphere. For all of his lack of artistry Chandrasekhar in his previous films with his comedy team Broken Lizard created atmospheres that made obvious just how much fun both cast and crew had making the movies. That same enthusiasm radiates from Dukes of Hazzard in the joyous performances of stars Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott as well as the supporting cast that includes David Koechner from Anchorman and Broken Lizard member Kevin Heffernan.

Maybe the most important element of why I enjoyed Dukes of Hazzard is the nostalgia factor. Mr. Chandrasekhar's fealty to the TV show is astonishing. Where TV remakes like The Honeymooners and Bewitched ditched the source material, Dukes Of Hazzard embraces it's TV parentage with zeal. The plot is seemingly a direct lift from the show and Mr. Chandrasekhar's Hazzard County almost perfectly mimics the Hazard of memory. This won't do anything for non-fans but if you loved the show like I did as a kid you can't help but get caught up in the nostalgic vibe.

If I have one major issue with the film it is the casting of Jessica Simpson as Daisy Duke. There is an insidiousness to her casting and the way she is used in the film. Ms. Simpson seems taken advantage of, something that may just be my perception based on her well-cultivated dim bulb persona. Ms. Simpson simply cannot act-- not that a film that is ninety percent car chases requires acting-- but I really felt that she did not know what she had gotten herself into. The script and direction never ask her to perform anything close to acting, rather she is simply paraded in front of the camera in skimpy outfits as if she were there as an advertisement for a strip club rather than an actual member of the cast.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed ogling Ms. Simpson as much as anyone but the exploitation left me with a sickening feeling. Nevertheless, when Dukes of Hazzard is working its good time vibe as opposed to its exploitative one, it's a whole lot of fun. The car chases are spectacular and most of all the car itself is spectacular. Dukes of Hazzard is not a great movie, but as a nostalgic waste of a Friday night, it works.

Movie Review Roll Bounce

Roll Bounce (2005) 

Directed by Malcolm D. Lee 

Written by Norman Vance Jr. 

Starring Bow Wow, Chi McBride, Mike Epps, Meagan Good, Nick Cannon

Release Date September 23rd, 2005

Published September 23rd, 2005

In preparing my review of the new roller-disco flick Roll Bounce I came across an article in the New York Post about roller skating movies of the past and it mentioned a true forgotten classic, Skatetown U.S.A. This 70's gem starred Scott Baio, Patrick Swayze, Ron Palillo (Horshack from "Welcome Back Kotter") and former Brady Bunch star Maureen McCormick. The film is about rival roller disco gangs competing in a skating tournament set to disco rhythms. I thought I only dreamed of this movie.

Maybe someday someone will look back on Roll Bounce and be as nostalgic, or sarcastic take your pick, as I am for Skatetown U.S.A but without the perspective of time, Roll Bounce is a relatively relatively unmemorable 70's throwback that needed more of a sense of humor about its subject as opposed to trying to ring actual tension out of a movie about roller skating.

Rapper Bow Wow stars in Roll Bounce as Xavier or X to his crew of rolling skating friends including Junior (Brandon T. Jackson), Boo (Marcus T. Paulk), Naps (Rick Gonzalez) and Mixed Mike (Khleo Thomas). Together the boys spend every summer at the roller rink where they perform choreographed routines for fun. The fun stops, however, when the local rink is closed down and the boys are forced to go to the upscale rink on the other side of town where skating is a competition not a pastime.

The boys are harassed by the locals as they attempt their routines and get shown up pretty fierce in their first visit. However, you just know that when the time comes, as in the 500 hundred dollar cash prize skating competition, the guys will be more than ready.

Parallel to the skating story is the story of X's home life where he and his sister and his father (Chi McBride) are coping with the loss of their mother. Not only that but dad has also just lost his high paying gig as an airplane designer and has not told his son. The family drama is a tad bit cheesy in a movie as gregarious and loose as Roll Bounce and the father son tension only serves to weigh the film down when it should roll with the skating.

Roller skating is a goofy subject for a movie and the last thing any movie should try and do is take it seriously. Yet that is what director Malcolm D. Lee and writer Norman Vance Jr. try to do. They try to make you care about the outcome of this superfluous, overblown and rather ridiculous competition. Don't get me wrong, the action on skates is impressive but it's also quite goofy.

Juxtapose the roller disco of Roll Bounce with the disco of Saturday Night Fever and they may look similar in their weightlessness. However, where Fever earned its melodramatic side by delivering a complex and fascinating lead character, Roll Bounce never establishes X as either fascinating or complex. X is a nice, kind of goofy kid who's a great dancer on skates. The detail of X attempting to cope with his mother's death seems tacked on to give him a dramatic weight and works only to take us away from the more genial and fun story of the roller disco.

Malcolm Lee is a terrific director as he showed in the friendly comedy The Best Man and the awesomely funny 70's send up Undercover Brother. One is left to wonder where that sense of humor is in Roll Bounce. There are occasional funny moments but the film goes for very long stretches without laughs. Lee and writer Norman Vance too often get bogged down in trying to create a family drama and trying to make you care about roller skating that they forget that their real subjects are fun and nostalgia.

Both Lee and Vance could use a refresher in how to write female characters. None of the women in Roll Bounce are anything more than minor characters. Jurnee Smollett, Meagan Goode and "The Bernie Mac Show"'s Kellita Smith each play a different variation of a love interest for the main characters and they are defined by being the love interest and nothing more. None of the women take part in the skating and are left in another typically female role as a cheerleader.

When Roll Bounce is in its retro groove with its killer soundtrack of seventies classics, Bee Gees, Chic, Kool and The Gang and such, it's an enjoyable little throwback. However, when Malcolm Lee attempts to shoehorn in the family drama the movie becomes bogged down and the good time vibe comes to a complete halt.

Roll Bounce does manage to find entertaining moments that showcase these young actors' talent for having a good time. The skating is pure kitsch and when the actors are allowed to take part in that kitsch spirit the film comes alive. That spirit is captured by Nick Cannon's cameo as a seventies style ladies man and Wesley Johnson as the skating rink superstar called Sweetness who enters the rink with his own 70's style theme music and two female valets on his arms like some roller skating pimp.

The retro good time vibe is there in spirit in Roll Bounce but it is too often undermined by forced melodramatics. Still if you were a fan of great disco, roller skating, or high camp you may find something to really enjoy in this inoffensive retro retread.

Me? I'm going on Ebay to find a copy of Skatetown, USA.

Movie Review: 'Bee Season'

Bee Season (2005) 

Directed by Scott McGehee, David Siegel 

Written by Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal

Starring Richard Gere, Juliette Binoche 

Release Date November 11th, 2005

Published November 11th, 2005 

The narrative balancing act between explaining too much and not enough is quite a metaphorical tightrope for a filmmaker. Critics like myself tend to jump on a film that over-explains its plot through dialogue or image or excoriate a film for being too obtuse and inaccessible. In the case of the movie Bee Season, starring Richard Gere, the latter is the problem. The film, based on a novel by Myla Goldberg, is so inside itself in terms of characters internalizing their motivations that following what seems like a simple narrative about family strife becomes a herculean task of assumption on top of assumption.

Saul Naumann (Richard Gere) is a professor of Jewish studies and an avid follower of kabbalah. He is also a loving father to his son Aaron (Max Minghella) and daughter Eliza (Flora Cross) and a caring husband to his wife Miriam (Juliette Binoche), at least on the surface. Underneath it all Saul is driven zealot who has made his son's religious education an all consuming quest.

Aaron is a prodigy of religious studies who can recite passages of the Torah from memory. He flourishes under his father's attention even if it can be suffocating at times. The father-son bond is put to the test when younger sister Eliza shows an aptitude for spelling. Being a follower of kabbalah, Saul believes words are the keys to the universe, a path that leads directly to god. He see's Eliza's gift with words as an opportunity to reach the religious transcendence that neither he nor Aaron have achieved.

Aaron, seeing the attentions of his father taken away, rebels by following a beautiful woman named Chali (Kate Bosworth) into the beliefs of the Hare Krishna. Meanwhile Miriam withdraws from the family into a secret life of kleptomania that see's her breaking into strangers homes and stealing shiny objects.

Each of these plots evolve individually around Gere's character. Saul is an often overbearing presence who's religious obsessions tend to overwhelm good judgement. However, he is not nearly the bad guy the plot seems to want him or needs him to be. Saul is shown to be a very caring father who showers love and praise on his children and his wife, makes dinner for the family every night and wants only for everyone to be happy. For the plot to work Saul has to be more of a problem than he really is.

The script for Bee Season, adapted by by Naomi Foner-Gyllenhaal, seems to want us to believe that Saul's lavishing attention on Eliza is too much for the whole family to take. Unfortunately the film never bothers to demonstrate why this is such a big problem. Neither Aaron or Miriam object to Saul's treatment of his daughter, probably because Eliza is a willing accomplice avidly accepting her father's indulgence.  So what is the problem that causes Aaron and Miriam to rebel?

Aaron's subplot about joining the Hare Krishna is played as both an earnest interest in achieving religious transcendence and as a teenager rebelling against his father. But there are scenes missing that might clarify just which is the more significant motivation. Aaron is alternately a true believer seeking religious enlightenment and an impulsive teenager who follows a hot girl into a cult like behavior that he knows will really irk his devout father. The film is far too vague about Aaron's true motives for us to care why he does what he does.

As for Miriam, the film never thoroughly examines how she is affected by her daughter's success and her husband's subsequent obsession. Though we are often diverted to scenes of Miriam sneaking into strangers homes and stealing shiny trinkets the movie never bothers to explain how this behavior relates to the rest of the film. Is it a cry for help or attention? Is it mental illness? How is Miriam's troubled behavior related to Saul's obsession with helping his daughter win the spelling bee?

Though the plot of Bee Season flows from Saul's actions, the focus of the film is Eliza and her unusual gift with words. Eliza does not so much spell the words given to her as experience them in her mind . In the spelling bee scenes Eliza closes her eyes and the words begin to materialize around her in special effects renditions of the words themselves. Given the word origami, Eliza imagines a paper bird alighting upon the individual letters which she repeats aloud. I suppose this is an indication of some kind of divine intervention but how do you explain how she had this gift before she began studying kabbalah with her father.

In Myla Goldberg's novel it is Eliza's narration that binds these various plot strands together. Her first person perspective guides us through the motivations of the other characters and clarifies the narrative. In the film however, co-directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel begin with Eliza's narration then quickly abandon it. Bee Season is the rare film that could benefit from narration which often is a screenwriting crutch and in the wrong hands a hack device. The plot of Bee Season is so convoluted and obtuse that only narration could bring together these diverging stories.

12 year-old Flora Cross delivers an extraordinary performance in Bee Season. Her halting voice always just above a whisper and her often downturned gaze hide a spark of ingenuity that provide the few remarkable moments in this otherwise unremarkable film. Cross is riveting in a calm and assured veteran performance from a 12 year-old girl in her first starring role.

If only the rest of the film had been as focused and engaging as Cross. Unfortunately Bee Season can't pull itself together. The script introduces one plot then abandons it to begin another one only to abandon that shortly after. Plots like Miriam's kleptomania are introduced, forgotten, returned to and yet never connected to the rest of the film. Aaron's flirtation with the Hare Krishna is dropped in on but by the end of the movie is all but forgotten.

And somehow through it all, despite his not being a bad guy, all of the family's troubles are heaped on Saul whose sin seems to be that he is too loving and too attentive. Saul could be a little more benevolent in giving attention to each of his children equally and not just when one child meets his various obsessions but for the most part he is shown as a great guy and a caring dad. Gere gives a strong performance but as written the character is basically untenable.

For Bee Season to work Saul has to be a sort of villain. Not exactly a menacing presence but distant, overly driven, a little selfish. Character traits that could help us understand why his family, save Eliza, resents him so much. Without some sharper edges on Saul it's hard to believe the family would fall apart as they do.

It is fair to wonder if the novel Bee Season was simply unadaptable. So much of the family troubles are internalized which is well translated in the written word. But translating inner monologue to outward action is not simple. Movies require a level of explanation that can be difficult to define. How much is too much or too little explanation is impossible to calculate. In the end Bee Season comes up short and it's a shame because the performance of Flora Cross is so good I really wanted to like and recommend this film. But I can't.