Movie Review Law Abiding Citizen

Law Abiding Citizen (2009) 

Directed by F. Gary Gray

Written by Kurt Wimmer

Starring Gerard Butler, Jamie Foxx, Bruce McGill, Colm Meaney, Regina Hall

Release Date October 16th, 2009 

Few genres turn out the kind of mind numbingly dull-witted tripe that the action thriller genre does. It's the most prominent genre among the direct to DVD market because it's easy to script and craft. Take one all knowing baddie. Give him an unending budget. Give him a flawed but honorable adversary with less means but as much wit. Then just add explosions and a predictable ending and you're done.

Director F. Gary Gray sticks close to the formula with Law Abiding Citizen, a film that would be prime for the direct to DVD market if Jamie Foxx hadn't won an Oscar and if Hollywood weren't determined to convince us all how much we love Gerard Butler.

Butler is the ostensible star of Law Abiding Citizen as Clyde Shelton. One night as Clyde is hanging out with his wife and daughter there is a knock at the door. When Clyde answers he's met with a baseball bat to the skull. Two men invade his home, tie him up, stab him and leave him to watch as they do the same and worse to his wife and as he passes into unconsciousness, his daughter is killed.

Months later, the home invaders are under arrest but one arrogant, conviction rate concerned, ADA, Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), decides that there isn't enough evidence to convict them both. He takes a deal that will send one man to the death chamber and the other to a stunningly brief sentence. Worst of all, the wrong one is going to his death.

Clyde is devastated and for the next ten years he dedicates himself to revenge. On the day that one of the attackers is to be executed, Clyde makes his move. Soon the other, nastier man, now out of prison, is also dead and Clyde isn't finished. Under arrest for murder, Clyde sets in motion revenge against Nick and anyone else who compromised justice.

There are effective moments in Law Abiding Citizen. One of those moments involves a deadly cellphone. Another is an unexpected use of a T-bone. Both moments are explosively violent, more in the vein of a horror film than your average action thriller. These violent moments are far more interesting than Clyde's exceptionally contrived gambits of revenge.

Let's just say don't piss off a gadget guy with unlimited funds and the muscled physique of Gerard Butler. Speaking of Mr. Butler, why do movies insist on having Butler speak with an American accent? He can't do it. He sounds ridiculous and having his natural accent would do nothing to change the character. If producers somehow think this mumbling American accent makes him more relatable, their very wrong. Indeed, it's quite off-putting.

Jamie Foxx is desperately miscast in Law Abiding Citizen. Restraining every comic instinct he has, Foxx deadens his natural charisma in favor of a stoic arrogance that damn near makes Butler's psycho look appealing in comparison. Much of the plot rides on Foxx's Nick being an egotistical idiotic who simply cannot admit when he's wrong. If that sounds thrilling to you, or at all compelling, maybe you'll like this movie.

I hated much of this movie. Aside from the brief, violent flourishes, Law Abiding Citizen is a slow witted, predictable action thriller that replaces nerve and guts with arrogance and psychosis. That may work for the direct to DVD market but I want more out of my theater ticket.

Documentary Review Good Hair

Good Hair (2009) 

Directed by Jeff Stilson

Written by Lance Crouther, Paul Marchand, Chris Rock, Chuck Sklar, Jeff Stilson

Starring Chris Rock

Release Date October 9th, 2009

Just what is good hair? Some might go with the simple answer that anything that looks good is good hair. However, among African Americans good hair describes hair that is relaxed and or extended. The process, the cost, and the origins, literally and historically, are explored by comedian Chris Rock in the terrific doc Good Hair.

Chris Rock has two daughters and they were the impetus behind Good Hair. Wondering whether or not he would advise his girls to straighten their hair or whether he should discourage them, Rock went out into the community and found something he might never have expected, an anthropological journey into a world of hair, products and styles; the beautiful and the bizarre.

The main setting for Good Hair is the hair salon and the barber shop. Hair for women is not merely a style, it is intricate to how they see themselves and how the feel about themselves. A multi-billion dollar industry has grown almost solely around the need for products related to a black woman's hair. At the Bronner Brothers hair show, a sort of comic-con for the hair obsessed, Rock finds a meeting of business and the bizarre that is something out of a Fellini film. 

At the hair show there is a competition among stylists that is kind of about styling hair and mostly about the fabulous ego-driven spectacles that are the stylists themselves. These scenes are as funny as or funnier than Rock's very funny convos with the denizens of his local salon and barber shops. The interaction with customers and cutters play as buffers between Rock and Director Jeff Stilson's three set pieces: The Bronner Brothers show, the science of hair care products, and the final, and most effecting set piece, a trip to the slums of India where hair is cut in a purifying ceremony and is then collected, sewn and sent to the US to be sold as hair extensions. The scenes in India have a sadness that is leavened well by Rock's sad, humorous commentary.

There are also interviews with famous men and women including Al Sharpton, Maya Angelou and R & B star Eve among others. There is insight and oddity found in these interviews that a more trained interviewer than Chris Rock might have missed. Rock has a way of putting his interview subjects at ease that allows for unexpected moments of humor and truth. If there is one thing missing from these scenes it is Rock breaking it to these women where their hair extensions came from?

If Good Hair lacks punch it is because Rock is trained to go for the laugh and not the jugular. There is an undercurrent of anger buried deep beneath Rock's good nature. He wonders why so many African Americans pay unseemly amounts of money essentially to placate white people. In the barber shop people joke about the product relaxer because it is relaxing to white people to see African Americans with straight hair. Rock is visibly irritated with this line of thinking. He understands it, but it still bothers him.

In moments when he examines the hair care products, exposing their dangers-relaxer can melt a coke can in just over an hour- Rock shakes his head with amused disgust. When he finds that the products are dangerous to make and a danger to the people administering and using them, he again shakes his head but doesn't push the issue.

In the end, Rock is entertaining and his subject is fascinating. The intent was never to be the Michael Moore of the hair care industry. He had an honest question. He explores it with his brand of good natured jabbing. The journey for the audience is fun and fascinating and judging the intent rather than the possibility of Good Hair, it's an easy doc to enjoy and recommend.

Movie Review Amelia

Amelia (2009) 

Directed by Mira Nair 

Written by Ronald Bass, Anna Hamilton Phelan

Starring Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston

Release Date October 23rd, 2009

For some the phrase 'old fashioned' has become a pejorative. Somehow it has evolved from a sensibility or way of thinking to be something to reject and rebel against. The biopic Amelia about the life of legendary flyer Amelia Earhart fully embraces being old fashioned and in doing so gains the grace and elegance of old Hollywood.

Hillary Swank takes the lead as Amelia Earhart the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. She didn't fly the plane; she was a passenger or in her words a sack of potatoes along for the ride. It was part of a publicity campaign in 1928 by celebrated showman and publisher George Putnam (Richard Gere).

Just after Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic solo Putnam was looking for ways to cash in after having made money publishing Lindbergh's book. He needed a new hook and found it with "Lady Lindy". All he needed was the right woman. He chose Earhart after interviews with several other women.

He wanted a woman pilot and he got one. Her first book was a hit but Amelia wanted to be more than a passenger. Soon she was planning her own Atlantic crossing minus the other pilots. In one magical night filled with stars and the occasional storm cloud, Amelia Earhart made her solo flight. While she was supposed to land in Paris and ended up in a field in Ireland, the flight was a major success.

George, and the need for publicity, pulled her away from the plane for a time but it wasn't long before Amelia was ready to fly again. And while she became the first woman to fly from Los Angeles to Hawaii and from Los Angeles to Mexico City, there was one goal she had in mind. Amelia Earhart wanted to be the first person to fly around the world.

Hillary Swank's performance in Amelia is a true delight. Her Amelia is infectious, unique, spirited and boyish. Like the characters she played in both of her Oscar winning turns in Boys Don't Cry and Million Dollar Baby, Amelia is almost asexual. Charming but not inviting in the typical ways of a woman.

It's no wonder then that of the three romances in Amelia the only one that truly resonates is with flying. Swank connects well with both Gere as George Putnam and Ewan McGregor as Gene Vidal, Amelia's flight instructor friend, future head of the FAA and father of Gore Vidal, but when she gets in a plane and looks out at the horizon there is an almost sexual atmosphere.

Director Mira Nair doesn't linger on that nearly orgasmic delight but merely introduces it and moves on. This is, after all, a classic, old fashioned biopic. Nothing too unseemly is welcome here. And that's okay. If you want salaciousness go watch a different movie. Amelia is a charming, engaging old school biopic that gets its juice from great actors delivering strong lines and building characters we come to care about.

There is no need for this film to plod through rumors about Amelia's sexuality. Her only real relationship is with the controls of her plane. The film hints at and wants you to believe that Amelia eventually loved George Putnam after his years of devotion to her. It would like us to believe there was passion in her dalliance with Gene Vidal and we can see the chemistry in each relationship, but watch Swank in the flying scenes and you see true devotion.

That is what makes Amelia Earhart's story so unique. Her love is something that you really cannot understand unless you share her passion for flying. She went for Gene Vidal because he was a flyer, they related on that level. She loved George Putnam because he indulged her flying and through money and publicity, made it all possible. 

That might seem strange or wrong to you but this movie understands it and presents it in a way that allows the audience to come around to it and eventually understand it as well. We all have passions that others may not understand. Amelia's passion was for flight. What a joyous notion that a movie could find a way to understand that so fully.

Movie Review Street Fighter The Legend of Chun Li

Street Fighter The Legend of Chun Li (2009) 

Directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak 

Written by Justin Marks 

Starring Kristin Kreuk, Chris Klein, Neil McDonough, Robin Shou, Michael Clark Duncan

Release Date February 27th, 2009. 

Published February 28th, 2009.

Well, we’ve all seen career meltdowns off screen but how about witnessing a meltdown on screen? Chris Klein, best known for American Pie and Election does just that in Street Fighter Legend of Chun Li. As an Interpol agent, Klein delivers a performance of such goofball determination that his mere presence invites a giggle fit. 

Klein combines vocal affectation and exaggerated gesture to evoke something akin to a soap opera actor crossed with a community theater wannabe on top of the jocky persona that has been his calling card in his biggest role. You’ll recall he played the meathead jock with a big heart in election and the meathead jock who goes soft in American Pie. 

In Street Fighter he’s still a meathead but now a meathead with dramatic flair and an action heroes' sense of flair. Were there still a Mystery Science Theater this performance could go down in history as one of the great unintentionally hilarious roles in movie history. 

As for the rest of Street Fighter, villain Neal McDonough, one of those character actors whose name escapes you but his face you’ve a few hundred times, earns a few of the same derisive laughs that Klein does. For McDonough it’s a bizarre accent, part Irish part Cantonese? Vietnamese? Something with an eastern flair that just doesn’t jive with the Irish brogue. 

Michael Clarke Duncan is a long way away from the days when he was Oscar nominated for The Green Mile. He has become the go to beefy guy for beating people up. I can’t really say if there was another way for his career to play out but being an on-screen thug, the rest of his life doesn’t seem like the ideal career unless getting paid is your only motivation. I hope it was a really, really good paycheck. 

And finally star Kristen Kreuk. I am not a regular viewer of TV’s Smallville, but I’m told it’s a well-acted, complex superhero story and Kreuk’s Lana Lang is integral to the plot. She’s been in every episode. She likely wishes she had stayed in Smallville. Street Fighter may have given her; her very first leading role but the movie makes her look like a 12-year-old girl on steroids. The hair and makeup choices really truly make her look far younger than her 26 years. She makes Dakota Fanning look like Liz Taylor. 

That’s not a complement. The character is supposed to be in her mid-twenties. The look is distracting and unfortunate. 

As for the plot, hey, if director Andrzej Bartkowiak doesn’t care about the plot, why should we? Check out that final act and tell me what the bad guy's motive is? It’s a futile search because the script doesn’t supply one. It’s not really needed because the final act is really about fight choreography and some of the dopiest looking low budget effects this side of 1984’s The Last Dragon. At least that movie had a cool soundtrack. 

Movie Review The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009) 

Directed by Niels Arden Oplev 

Written by Rasmus Heisterberg, Nikolaj Arcel 

Starring Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace, Ingvar Hirdwall 

Release Date October 9th, 2009 

Published October 9th, 2009

The character of Lisbeth Salander had, for a time, become the dominant pop cultural notion of an international ‘hacker.’ Or, at least she was until faceless Russian trolls became the top meme on that front during the 2016 election year. Before that though, leather, spikes and punk attitude, epitomized by Lisbeth as written by the late Stieg Larsson, was the dominant mode of our imagination of the hacker. 

That is because Larsson’s characterization of Lisbeth Salander as the ultimate, badass, rebel, outlaw of the internet was so incredibly juicy. Pansexual, androgynous, covered in leather and spikes with a photographic memory and an intuition to match. And, she can beat up just about any man put in her way? That’s a recipe for an irresistible pop culture heroine. Add to that, Noomi Rapace’s iconic Lisbeth in the 2009 film adaptation and it is no wonder that Larsson and Lisbeth have lived on long past the author himself and his Millennium franchise. 

With the latest, and the first under a new author, Millennium franchise story, The Girl in the Spider’s Web about to return Lisbeth Salander to our collective pop culture radar, now seemed like a good time to look back at the first big screen incarnation of the ultimate hacker icon, Noomi Rapace’s 2009 award winning performance in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo introduces us to Lisbeth Salander as she is investigating a crusading journalist, Mikael Blomqvist (Mikael Nyqvist) who is being set up to go to jail. Blomqvist got suckered into a big investigative story about a powerful Swedish businessman but once he completed his story, he found that all of his sources had disappeared and he could go to jail on Sweden’s harsh libel laws. 

This, however, is not why Lisbeth is investigating Blomqvist. Instead, she is working for another billionaire businessman who wants to hire Blomqvist to investigate a 40 year old disappearance. Blomqvist specifically has a connection to the woman who disappeared, Harriet Vanger, as she was his childhood babysitter. Henrik Vanger, Harriet’s uncle, is betting that the personal connection and Mikael’s desperate situation will make him the ideal person to find evidence that no one has found in the past 40 years. 

Lisbeth’s part of the story should end there but she is deeply fascinated by Blomqvist. Investigating his case she found him to be the rare case of someone who has nothing to hide, a genuinely good man, caught up in a scheme not of his making. When Blomqvist accepts Vanger’s invitation to investigate Harriet’s disappearance, Lisbeth invites herself into the investigation and becomes Blomqvist’s partner and lover. 

The mystery at the heart of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo oozes with intrigue including incest among Swedish elite, billion dollar fortunes, a serial killer and secret Nazis. It’s a whole lot of story for a whole lot of movies, the film, directed by Niels Arden Oplev, comes in at a fully packed 2 hours and 30 minutes. In that time, we also get to know some of Lisbeth’s frightful backstory as an abuse victim who has only begun to fight back. 

We learn a lot about Lisbeth’s resolve and strength in a violent subplot involving Lisbeth’s new guardian, played by Nils Bjurman. The film never explains why Lisbeth, who is clearly of an adult age, needs a guardian but the hint is that she is a recovering addict. Regardless, the brutal guardian exacts a toll on Lisbeth by taking over her finances and strangling the control she has over her life.

This subplot has received a great deal of controversial attention for having a brutal rape as its central conceit. Many have asked why this scene or even the subplot as a whole exists in the book and in the film. The answer is complicated, at least from my critical perspective. I can understand that the scene in question is brutal and could be fairly called exploitative. On the other hand, this subplot comes to play a larger role in the Millennium series as it goes on. 

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo introduces this complex, traumatic and problematic subplot and it can be fairly seen as extraneous in the stubborn context of just this movie. In the Millennium franchise however, this subplot has a much larger part to play and comes to be if not a central component of any of the other stories, it’s one that communicates a great deal about Lisbeth, her history and how she copes. 

That director Niels Arden Oplev has done little since The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in 2009 to distinguish his directorial career, does little to dim my opinion of the movie. This is one of the most riveting mysteries of this young century, a fascinating, twisty, and riveting work of suspense with an R-rated grit that makes it certainly not for everyone, especially those without a strong stomach. 

If you’re interested in the story of Lisbeth Salander ahead of the release, this weekend, of The Girl in the Spider’s Web, this 2009, Swedish language thriller, is the best possible introduction. Yes, even better than the American version of the story. That’s saying something as the 2011 version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo carries the distinguished reputation of director David Fincher. 

Nevertheless, consider 2009’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked a Hornet’s Nest as required reading for true fans of Stieg Larsson’s dark, gritty and yet deeply commercial, mystery franchise, before or after you see The Girl in the Spider’s Web.

Movie Review: 500 Days of Summer

500 Days of Summer (2009) 

Directed by Marc Webb

Written by Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber

Starring Joseph Gordon Levitt, Zooey Deschanel 

Release Date August 7th, 2009 

Published August 6th, 2009 

500 Days of Summer is going to hit a little too close to home for some audience members. Myself included. Many of you, I'm sure, have experienced a break up. It hurts but in the best of break ups, you know why it happened. There is comfort in knowing. It allows you to correct mistakes and look forward to a time when you can use your newfound awareness of your flaws in a different relationship.

Some break ups however don't end in such a tidy fashion. That is where 500 Days of Summer begins. Tom doesn't know why Summer rejected him. Sure, she's flighty and odd and says that she doesn't believe in love but surely, after all that they do together, relationship stuff, intimate stuff, she must feel something for him.

We flash back to their first meeting. Shy Tommy notices his boss's new secretary, Summer. He says nothing to her. A week passes and he doesn't say anything, just glances at her from his cubicle where he is a successful greeting card writer. Then, one day in the elevator Tom is alone with Summer and she has noticed in his headphones is The Smiths, one of her favorites.

They bond briefly and then go to another level at an office gathering at a karaoke bar. They begin dating and Tom quickly begins to fall in love. Flash forward and miserable Tom vows to try to win her back. Flashback to the night, seemingly out of the blue, when Summer decides that whatever their relationship is, it's over.

Marc Webb is a successful music video director making his feature debut with 500 Days of Summer which begins with a non-dedication dedication to someone we can only assume is Webb's very own Summer. The subtitle is ended with the word bitch and the movie dives quickly into the world of Tom and Summer.

Webb uses music, color and mood to create for 500 Days of Summer a tone and universe that is unique but familiar. Joseph Gordon Levitt plays Tom with an innocence and wounded pride that will hit home with any deeply insecure man who has ever thought he met the girl of his dreams.

Zooey Deschanel plays Summer with the unknowing arrogance of real beauty. She knows she's attractive even if she plays it off and her awareness of it only makes her more strangely appealing. She is a trainwreck that Tom, and I'm sure many others, willingly stands in the midst of.

Whether Tom and Summer work out their issues I will leave you to discover. The nature of the film is not necessarily love but loss, heartbreak and the way even the worst of relationships can be romanticized into great tragedy in the eye of the beholder.

The sad truth about memories is that they are much more dramatic, romantic, tragic or humorous in memory than they were in reality. Moreover, we only remember the things we want to remember and remember them as we want to remember them. The scene where Summer dumps Tom is open ended for Tom because in his memory it has never ended.

The fact is, that the relationship we had that ended so painfully ambiguous in our memory was likely over in ways that were quite final. We just simply choose not to remember it the way it happened. 500 Days of Summer is Tom's painful memory of his most significant relationship. We experience it with him and are on his side the whole way as if the memories were our own.

The wondrous part of the movie however is that nagging feeling in the back of the mind that indeed it is all one sided. Tom knows that and in our own relationships we are aware of it too. It's easier to romanticise or demonize former lovers. It's a way of coping that requires less self examination.

500 Days of Summer is smart and sweet and in the performance of Joseph Gordon Levit it has a beautiful, battered, beating heart. Levitt and director Webb play out his memories as embellished facts. The highs are extremely high and the lows are a little more in tune because the sadness is new and easier to recall correctly.

500 Days of Summer is a remarkably intelligent examination of one man's most significant relationship. The exaggerated highs and lows and how one comes to terms with the pain and sadness of losing something that meant so much to them. What a fabulous, fabulous movie.

Movie Review: Aliens in the Attic

Aliens in the Attic (2009) 

Directed by John Schultz

Written by Mark Bunon, Adam F. Goldberg

Starring Ashley Tisdale, Carter Jenkins, Austin Butler, Kevin Nealon

Release Date July 31st, 2009 

Published August 2nd, 2009

Idiot movies like Aliens in the Attic are why I discourage parents from seeing live action kids flicks. The fact is that 99% of live action kid flicks rot out loud. Aliens in the Attic simply proves the point, only take your kids to animated movies. Even then, wait for it to be a Pixar animated movie.

Aliens in the Attic is the dopey story of ugly green midgets come to earth to take over. Why they begin with a summer house in the middle of nowhere is likely a joke I missed while attempting to retrieve my ever rolling eyes. Standing in the way of the invasion are a group of mean little brats and one not so horrible one.

The not so bad kid is merely boring. He is Tom (Carter Pearson) and from moment one he is picked on by all around him. He is joined by his brainless sister Bethany (Ashley Tisdale), her disturbingly older and creepily leering boyfriend Ricky (Robbie Hoffman) and a group of smaller cousins who, like us, also think Tom is boring.

They are on vacation with a group of the most annoyingly clueless parents ever put to screen. Kevin Nealon and Andy Richter lend unneeded and entirely untapped comic credentials to Aliens in the Attic as the befuddled dads.

Worst of the adults however is poor Doris Roberts. The Emmy nominated mother from Everybody Loves Raymond is called upon to perform karate in some of the most painfully unfunny comic fight scenes put to film. One can only assume that the awful effects used to place Ms. Roberts in these fight scenes are intentionally bad but it's hard to tell when everything in the film is so poorly crafted.

There is not a single laugh or note of originality in one minute of this slapdash mess. Aliens in the Attic was cynically crafted to remove money from people's wallets and nothing more. Call me elitist if you like but I believe movies, especially those made for kids, should enrich the culture.

I believe that when a movie is made for an audience of children that the filmmakers have a duty to make a film of high quality that does more than merely asphyxiate a child for 90 minutes while mom and dad play sudoku on their iPhones. A movie made for kids should have a point and purpose and short of that should at the very least intrigue and involve the imagination.

Kids will get nothing of the sort from Aliens in the Attic a mindless piece of dreck that shutters the imagination in favor of cheap and easy gags and bad special effects. Ugh.

Movie Review: 16 to Life

16 to Life (2009) 

Directed by Becky Smith

Written by Becky Smith

Starring Hailee Hirsch, Mandy Musgrave, Shiloh Fernandez

Release Date September 19th, 2009

Published September 18th, 2009

It is Kate's (Hallee Hirsch) 16th birthday or as her doofy dad puts it "Sweet 16 and never been kissed." The never been kissed part is something Kate is painfully aware of as she wiles away the hours at a tiny food stand in McGregor Iowa, just off the Mississippi River.

"16 to Life" is about a day in the life of Kate as she hopes and prays to get that first kiss while dealing with a series of nitwits, friends, family members and perverts who frequent the tiny food stand that will be familiar to anyone who's ever lived in a town with fewer than a thousand people.

Working alongside Kate is her pal Darby (Mandy Musgrave) who rattles Kate by announcing that she plans to go all the way with her boyfriend after work on this day, in complete violation of a long time pact she and Kate had made to wait till they were truly in love before they 'did it.'

In the tiny kitchen around the corner is the near mute oddball Rene (Shiloh Fernandez). With his slightly ambiguous sexuality you get a sense right away that Rene will not be in the running to help Kate get her first kiss. Among the possibilities however, is polo wearing college boy Harley (Ryan Gourley) and sensitive, god fearing Carson (Will Rothhaar). Harley is exactly who you think he is from my brief description while Carson reveals a few more layers. It should become clear rather quickly which boy is most likely.

What "16 to Life" lacks in originality or surprises it makes up for with endless charm. Star Hallee Hirsch, whose most high profile role to date was as Anthony Edwards' troubled daughter on "E.R," is a winning personality with charm to spare. Hirsch's best quality in "16 to Life," aside from being drop dead cute, is never allowing her charm to lapse into being too clever. Her Kate is a Midwest teenager and not some hyper-smart TV creature.

The supporting cast is a terrific blend of young unknowns and one terrific veteran. Theresa Russell is a name that made a splashy debut over two decades ago in "The Last Tycoon" and "Razor's Edge" and has since settled into a comfortable niche as character actress. In "16 to Life" Russell is a steady presence balancing being the authoritative adult and the kind of adult who wants to be friends with teenagers.

Russell has a lovely sub-plot romance involving a not so blind date set up by Kate. There is history between Russell's Louise and Jaime Gomez's Ronald but it's nothing that writer-director Becky Smith needs to dwell upon, these two subtle performances tell us what we need to know about these lovely characters.

The focus of the film remains with Hallee Hirsch and that is where it should be. Hirsch is pitch perfect in the role of Kate matching her easygoing energy with the breezy, light hearted pace of Becky Smith's direction. "16 to Life" blows by like a cool breeze that kicks up once in awhile but is mostly just refreshing.

Movie Review: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Bad Lieutenant Port of Call New Orleans (2009) 

Directed by Werner Herzog 

Written by William M. Finkelstein

Starring Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Jennifer Coolidge, Val Kilmer

Release Date November 20th, 2009

Published November 20th, 2009 

As detective Terrence McDonagh surveys the bloody scene before him, three dead gangsters, a terror shoots through his drug addled mind: "Shoot him again" he shouts. "Why?" says one of his thug cohorts. "Because, his soul's still dancing." The camera pans the scene passing over the dead body of some fat Italian gangster and pausing on what only McDonagh can see, that same gangster's lithe, balletic soul spinning wildly in a break-dance before one final gunshot drops the soul to the floor.

This scene is indicative of what you will get in Werner Herzog's blazingly unconventional re-imagining of Abel Ferrara's darkly comic drama Bad Lieutenant. If this scene intrigues you wait till you see what else Herzog has up his sleeve. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is a head trip, dark, an ultra-violent comedy that features yet another comeback performance by Nicolas Cage.

Terence McDonagh wasn't a great cop before he got hooked on drugs. As we meet him, Terence and his partner Stevie (Val Kilmer) are two of the last guys out of the precinct as the waters of Katrina are rising. Finding one last prisoner trapped in a cell, Terence and Stevie begin making wagers on how long it will take for the prisoner to drown. Eventually, Terence decides to rescue the guy but not without consequence.

The rescue injured Terence's back leaving him slumped on one side of his body and in constant pain. Terence deals with the pain through a steady stream of hardcore drugs. Cocaine keeps him going but also fuels his dark side. Post accident, Terence patrols the dark corners of a New Orleans that, post-Katrina, is a sort of Sodom before the rapture place. In a scene of ugly humor turning to near horror, Terence rousts a couple coming out of a nightclub and, well, I will leave you to discover what happens next.

In his private life Terence is in love with a high class prostitute named Frankie (Eva Mendes). She is also hooked on cocaine and the two fuel each others addiction by turning drugs into the fuel of their sex life.

The plot of Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans kicks in with the murder of a drug dealing family from Africa in one of the most violent neighborhoods in New Orleans. The cops quickly figure out that the biggest dealer in town is the most likely killer but catching him will take Terence to even stranger and more drugged out places.

Director Werner Herzog is not so much concerned with the twists and turns of a murder plot as he is with giving Nicolas Cage a stage on which to exhibit the talent we all knew was there from his Oscar winning turn in Leaving Las Vegas. Detective McDonagh is the other side of the coin from Ben in Leaving Las Vegas, if the other side of the coin were dirtier and with an even more pronounced death wish.

Yes, the usual Cage histrionics are on display. His hyper-kinetic babbling, his wild haired, wild eyed look, but, this time, it works because the character and the context given by William Finkelstein's excellent script and Werner Herzog's director are the perfect fuel for Cage's antics.

Wildly violent, darkly humorous and directed with freewheeling relish and great skill, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans pays tribute to the disturbing original film while giving the material his own black comic spin. The film also returns Nicolas Cage to Oscar winning form and that is just part of what makes Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans brilliant.

Movie Review: A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol (2009) 

Directed by Robert Zemeckis

Written by Robert Zemeckis 

Starring Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Bob Hoskins, Robin Wright, Carey Elwes

Release Date November 6th, 2009 

Published November 5th, 2009

Words associated with Robert Zemeckis's endeavor into CGI, Motion Capture and Digital 3D: Groundbreaking, lifelike, extraordinary, creepy, scary, goofy, rubbery. Opinions have varied on the success of the now three films that Mr. Zemeckis has crafted with his unique technical skills and toys. The Polar Express was magical in story but creepy in rendering. Beowulf was masterful in many technical aspects and still skin-crawlingly awkward in others. Now comes A Christmas Carol and again opinions vary.

Charles Dickens' legendary tale of skinflint turned softy Ebenezer Scrooge is among the most famous holiday tales ever told. There are numerous adaptations featuring as varied a group of players as Kelsey Grammar, Bill Murray even the Muppets who have given life to Scrooge over the years since Dickens popularized the concept of karmic retribution for lack of being charitable. Disney turned him into a duck. Children, even today, can recite the basics of the story from memory.

On Christmas Day the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his late business partner Jakob Marley. He is told that he will be visited by three ghosts. Indeed, haunted he is by the ghosts Christmas past, present and future. Each offers a lesson to Scrooge that if he does not change his miserly ways he will not be mourned by anyone, he will die penniless and alone. Reformed by this experience, Scrooge buys a giant Christmas goose for his longtime, terribly put upon assistant, Bob Cratchit and pays the medical bills of Bob's son Tiny Tim. Scrooge also, finally, attends the Christmas of his loving, kind nephew Fred. 

Dickens' tale is brilliant in its simplicity. But, why bring A Christmas Carol back again? According to Director Zemeckis it was one of his favorite stories of all time. All well and good but does his love justify yet another take on this oft told tale? No, frankly. Especially since Zemeckis brings no new insights to the story. Jim Carrey's Scrooge is faithful to a fault and leaves one to wonder: who hires Jim Carrey and binds him to a character so thoroughly that no wacky schtick can escape?

There is hardly a whisper of whimsy or moment of mugging mirth. Why bother hooking Carrey's well known face up to all that mo-cap technology when you have restrained him so tightly to such a dark, draconian character. Even in Scrooge's happy turn in the end Carrey remains restrained, allowing only for a smile and a brief jig. No actor wants to be shackled to a persona but Jim Carrey is JIM CARREY, his persona overwhelms the notion that he can simply be plugged into a character and have audiences simply accept a straightforward, non Carrey-like performance. 

A Christmas Tale lacks life or any form of whimsy whatsoever and that is not something that works for an animated film the animated spirit is greatly lacking. The one thing it seems that Robert Zemeckis has brought to A Christmas Carol is a dark vision of Dickens' dark words. Dickens' imagery has always been of the nightmare variety, this version of A Christmas Carol captures that vision with frightful faith. I would warn against taking children younger than 13 to this film.

That makes this version of A Christmas Carol more of an adult feature and that would seem to defeat the purpose of the adaptation and animation. This should be a story for kids but parents who take young kids will only come away with frightened youngsters. Sure, their is the happy ending to salve the wounds but many parents and kids will not make it that far.

Far too scary for young children and too well worn for adults, this version of A Christmas Carol seems at a loss to justify its existence. Why another take on this story? Was it just an exercise of the technology? A chance to be faithful to the dark images of Dickens that many adaptations had softened? I cannot tell you and I wonder if Mr. Zemeckis could either.

Movie Review: Cirque Du Freak The Vampire's Assistant

Cirque Du Freak The Vampire's Assistant (2009) 

Directed by Paul Weitz

Written by Paul Weitz, Brian Helgeland 

Starring John C. Reilly Chris Massoglia, Josh Hutcherson, Ken Watanabe, Ray Stevenson

Release Date October 23rd, 2009 

Published October 22nd, 2009

Vampires are hot in Hollywood thanks to Twilight. That massive hit film will spawn a sequel later this year. directed by Chris Weitz, of American Pie fame. Twilight also likely played a part in the film adaptation of another lit based Vampire tale. Ironically this too has been directed by someone named Weitz. Paul Weitz brings Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant to the big screen ahead of his brother Chris's New Moon. It's fair to assume Chris will have a great deal more success than Paul has had with this abysmal mishmash of kid flick and vamp flick.

Chris Massoglia takes the lead in Cirque Du Freak as Darren. A spider obsessed power nerd, Darren is modestly popular at school but not exactly king of the school. His status is dragged down a bit by his hot headed best friend Steve (Josh Hutcherson) whose own obsession with vampires will soon land them both in hot water.

One afternoon as the boys are lamenting a lack of things to do in their small town they find a very intriguing flyer. It's an ad for something called Cirque Du Freak and it promises something well beyond either boy's previous experience. Taking in the show they witness a woman who can grow back her limbs, a man with two stomachs and finally a vampire magician named Crepsley (John C. Reilly).

When the Cirque is broken up early by an invading mob of angry townspeople Darren ends up stealing Crepsley's prized and dangerous spider. Steve meanwhile tries to become a vampire and is turned away by Crepsley. Soon, because of the spider and a deal with Crepsley it is Darren who ends up a vampire. Steve meanwhile turns to Crepsley's enemy for help.

There is a great deal more minutias in this plot but I just didn't care enough to detail it. Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant is an all out mess of plot strands, extranneous characters and a complete waste of time. The nature of the film is as the start of a franchise so going in you know their will be no resolution. What is surprising is how little you care whether the story resolves anything at all.

Paul Weitz is a talented writer and director with a strong wit and daring sensibility. His Amercan Idol parody American Dreamz was also a disaster but one you have to respect for taking big, daring risks. That film walked a tightrope and fell off but was brave in its failures.

There is nothing remotely brave or even daring about Cirque Du Freak. Piggybacking off the success of other vampire franchises and a successful book series, The Vampire's Assistant is just lame kiddie fare dressed up in halloween makeup and dumped onto the screen with a minimum of coherence.

It simply doesn't work. Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant knocks off a few boring vampire cliches, keeps the blood and death to a very bare minimum and fails in every way to find something interesting or vaguely entertaining to do with it's sprawling premise and characters.

Movie Review Cold Souls

Cold Souls (2009) 

Directed by Sophie Barthes

Written by Sophie Barthes

Starring Paul Giamatti, Emily Watson, David Straithairn

Release Date August 7th, 2009

Published January 10th, 2010 

As I watched the angsty existential flick Cold Souls, a movie about an actor for whom the weight of his soul is so heavy he agrees to have it removed and placed in storage, I could not keep my pop culture soaked brain from flashing to the brilliant episode of The Simpsons in which Bart sold his soul to Millhouse for 5 dollars and then suffered an existential crisis.

In a mere 22 minutes The Simpsons manages to do what Cold Souls fails in more than 100 minutes, be funny about something as complex and intellectual as the existence of the soul. Cold Souls knows how to refer to the complexity of other works on the weight of the soul but not so clever of its own accord.

Paul Giamatti plays an alternative universe version of actor Paul Giamatti in Cold Souls. This version of Paul lives in New York is married to Claire (Emily Watson) and is currently acting in a production of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya (note the namecheck of Chekhov). The role of Uncle Vanya has become a heavy burden for Paul, so heavy that it has soaked into his real life.

Weighed down by Vanya, Paul finds possible solace in an article in The New Yorker about a service that can remove your soul. Though some might assume this was a bit of literary whimsy, we quickly find that indeed this business does exist, on Roosevelt Island of all places, and that it's in the phonebook.

Paul investigates and after a brief, rather bizarre conversation with Dr. Flintstein (David Straithairn) Paul is being inserted into a machine and his surprisingly chickpea sized soul is extracted for storage. Returning to his life he finds he stinks as an actor with no soul likely would (hello Freddie Prinze Jr.) and is soon begging for his soul back.

What happens next I leave you to discover. Or not, I am not recommending Cold Souls. Where most critics have loved Cold Souls, 80% positive on Rottentomatoes.com, I was not blown away by the films Meta humor or simpleminded name checking of people and places associated with soul crushing pain.

Cold Souls is intellectualism for the poser intellect. If you are aware that Russia in winter is often associated with soul crushing oppression or that Chekhov is weighted with existential angst then you are just the right audience to find the posing of Cold Souls deep.

Not to critique my fellow critics but Cold Souls is just the kind of imitation of clever that we like to praise beyond it's worth. Cold Souls allows critics to show off that Philosophy Minor from college that we all wished was our major while keeping things on a level simple enough for those of a more average intelligence. It's the height of pretension without all of the hoity toity-ness of actually having to think.

The Simpsons episode was straightforward about being simple satire, the reference to Neruda being a brilliant shout out and not a statement of genius from the writers. Cold Souls wants to be considered brilliant by association. That feeling extends right down to the casting of Paul Giamatti who lends his preternaturally tortured mug along with his name to the proceedings. 

Giamatti brings credible angst and intellect to Cold Souls but he is trapped in writer-director Sophie Barthes attempt at high minded populism, a sort of pop philosophy, easy to follow for those who didn't spend there time with the works of Emmanuel Kant or Thomas Hillman. Anyone with a minor in pop culture can follow Cold Souls and while that accessibility isn't necessarily a bad thing it is highly pretentious and more than a little irritating. 

Cold Souls pretends toward existentialism while keeping things simple enough for the rabble to follow. Better works ask the audience to come up to their level. When The Simpsons referenced Pablo Neruda millions of Americans ran to their computers to check it out. Cold Souls sticks with the relatively well known marks of the weighted soul and fails to offer little more than the reference. 

Movie Review: All About Steve

All About Steve (2009) 

Directed by Phil Traill

Written by Kim Barker

Starring Sandra Bullock, Bradley Cooper, Thomas Haden Church, Ken Jeong

Release Date September 4th, 2009

Published September 4th, 2009

You don't watch a movie like All About Steve as much as witness it. Like a crime in progress or a car accident, you were there, you were slightly traumatized and later, in a daze of disbelief, you recounted your experience to authorities. All About Steve is such a remarkably bad movie that it may actually be an insult to a car wreck to make the comparison.

All About Steve began life as a drama about a mentally challenged woman whose syndrome involves an obsession with crossword puzzles. Through a pity blind date she meets a man who was unaware that he was going out with a handicapped person. After being accosted by her, he tries to reject her in a way that spares her feelings. Instead, he stokes her fire and she begins a cross country trek to show her love for him.

It was to be a dramatic journey of self discovery for this spunky mentally challenged gal and a role that would deliver to whomever played it; a chance to show real dramatic range. Somewhere along the line things were derailed in a fashion that even Amtrak could not imagine.

OK, I was lying about the film's origin as a drama. As far as I know, All About Steve is everything its creators intended it to be. It is a broad, boneheaded, nonsensical romantic comedy about one crazy person chasing a sad wretch across state lines aided by people of similar diminished mental capacities. What anyone saw in this remarkably misguided screenplay is truly baffling. 

Sandra Bullock stars as Mary. She somehow subsists as a crossword puzzle creator. We are told that this is her only job and that she only publishes in one paper, once a week. If there is a newspaper in this country paying a crossword puzzle maker a living wage for one days work then I think we know why the papers are going out of business.

Mary has no social life. So, her meddling parents set her up on a blind date. This poor, doomed soul is Steve played by Bradley Cooper. Subjected to 10 minutes with Mary, in which she says about a million words and attempts to have sex with him, before they have even pulled away from the curb of her parents' home.

Steve blows her off nicely but saying he has to work and 'wishes she could come' he unwittingly sets himself on a path to disaster. Soon, Mary is fired from her job for somehow publishing an all Steve crossword (How did it get in the paper? All she did was drop it off? Did they fire all the editors but keep the type setter and and the wacko crossword chick? Logical questions are not welcome here.), Mary hits the road to follow Steve to work.

Work for Steve is as a cameraman for a fictional cable news outlet. His reporter pal, Thomas Haden Church, thinks Mary the stalker is a funny prank and encourages her by repeatedly telling her where the crew is headed next. Mary follows to a protest involving a baby with three legs, a hurricane/tornado and finally to a sinkhole that somehow swallowed several deaf children.

The three legged baby, if you don't get the joke already, is one of a number of juvenile jokes in this blisteringly stupid movie. A baby with three legs is the subject of protesters who want to the leg cut off and those who don't who then get to chant 'save the third leg'. If you need the joke explained maybe you are the audience for this movie.

Wildly moronic, utterly inept and a just plain disaster, All About Steve is not merely one of the worst films of 2009, it's a candidate for worst of the last decade. Poor Bradley Cooper seems absolutely lost in the morass of this idiocy. Sandra Bullock on the other hand indulges every last moronic twist.

I could almost recommend this bizarrely horrendous movie just for the explanation that Bullock as Mary gives for her blindingly red boots. It's a brief bit of dialogue but it is so astoundingly doltish that you can't help but indulge a condescending, ear splitting, gut laugh, not quite what the movie intended for this moment.

If I see a movie as bad as All About Steve again this year, I may have to quit the critic biz. There is a limit to the mindblowingly awful that one person can endure. I think I am safe. All About Steve sets such a high bar of badness it would be remarkable if anything could approach it.

Movie Review: District 9

District 9 (2009) 

Directed by Neil Blomkamp

Written by Neil Blomkamp

Starring Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, David James 

Release Date August 14th, 2009 

Published August 14th, 2009 

On the surface Districyt 9 looks like it could be a reolutionary work of science fiction filmmaking. It's stylish with some extraordinary CGI. That's the surface. What is revealed upon actually seeing the movie is a relatively familiar chase movie that brushes over social commentary in favor of an garden variety action plot.

District 9 stars South African film and television star Sharlito Copley as Wikus Van De Merwe. Wikus is a flunky for a corporate military outfit who, because he is the boss's son in law, is placed in charge of a massive operation. It will be Wikus's job to oversee the eviction and safe transport of refugees from a camp known as District 9.

Oh, I failed to mention, the residents of district 9 happen to be aliens stranded on earth by busted space ship. More than 20 years these aliens, given the un-PC nickname prawns, came to earth and their ship settled over Johannesburg. A humanatarian effort found the aliens huddled on the ship dying of starvation and brought them down to the surface where they were given shelter and food.

All these years later district 9 is a ghetto filled with crime, violence and poverty. The aliens are treated badly by humans, hated by most, exploited by some including a group of Nigerians who first discovered the aliens addiction to cat food. Also taking advantage of the aliens is MNU, the company which employs our hero Wikus. Part of his job isn't merely moving the aliens it's discovering their weapons so that the company can figure out how to use and exploit them.

In the course of his job; Wikus is exposed to an alien virus and begins developing alien skin, eventually even a lobster like claw just like the prawns. Taken into custody by his employers, Wikus soon finds himself the subject of the same scientific exploitation as the aliens he has treated so badly. When he escapes there is only one place to go and there the movie kicks into an action mode that is where it  is most comfortable.

Don't be fooled into thinking District 9 is anything more than sci fi action of the highest calibur. There are those who take the easy shots this movie fires off as insight and social commentary but the fact is the very broad strokes are merely a backdrop for the film's real purpose, kick ass action movie chase scenes and fights.

Director Neil Blomkamp, who co-wrote the script for District 9 with Terry Tatchell, alludes to and obfuscates deeper points about racism and corporate greed but those really aren't what he is interested in. The potshots at a company vaguely like the real life KBR (formerly Halliburton) are easy and cheap. The racial stuff is a little offensive, drawing as they do comparisons between ugly, disgusting, savage aliens and real life mistreated humans.

That said, the action of District 9 is top notch. I particularly enjoyed allusions to The Defiant Ones as Wikus and an alien co-hort run from well armed commandos. Is it a little cheesy when Wikus tells the alien to go on without him ('Go, I'll hold'em off')? Sure, but the scene is such a well done homage and parody of similar, humans only, chase scenes, I willingly forgave the cliche.

When Wikus jumps inside a giant alien version of the War Monger vehicle from Iron Man, the action amps up another degree and District 9 becomes one kick ass action flick.

If you go into District 9 looking for something more than fantastic effects and butt kicking action you may be disappointed. District 9 is just posing as social commentary. Having a brain is just a pre-tense, a way to give the appearance of depth to something that is really just a visceral, epic, chase movie.

Taken just for what it is, District 9 is one of the best action movies of the year. If that is not enough for you I suggest you skip it.

Movie Review: Big Fan

Big Fan (2009)  

Directed by Robert D. Siegel

Written by Robert D. Siegel 

Starring Patton Oswalt, Kevin Corrigan, Michael Rappaport, Josh Trank

Release Date August 28th, 2009 

Published September 15th, 2009 

The rise of the man-child is one of the darkest moments of our culture. This basement dwelling cretin, personified by his lack of social grace, living with their mother and desperate clinging to childish things, has risen to prominence in just the last ten or so years and is becoming something of a force.

The movies are a haven for these overgrown children, as the career of Adam Sandler and his minions attests. In these movies the lifestyle of the man-child is critiqued but most often accepted and assimilated into the lives of exceptionally forgiving, stunningly attractive adult women in a tacit approval of the man-child life choice.

“Big Fan” is the rare film that takes the man-child to task for his childish proclivities. Directed by Robert Siegel, Oscar nominated screenwriter for “The Wrestler,” and starring comedian Patton Oswalt, “Big Fan” is a dark, ironic, parody of the man-child and his obsessions.

Paul Aufiero (Patton Oswalt) is obsessed with the New York Giants. He lives and dies with the team’s wins and losses. His nights at work, he's a parking attendant, are spent scribbling scripts for late night phone calls he places to a sports radio station. There he is Paul from Staten Island, a legend among other man-children for his passionate defenses of the Giants and attacks on their opponents. Paul even has a mortal enemy on the radio in Philadelphia Phil (Michael Rappaport). These witless battles of wit are at the center of Paul's being.

The plot of “Big Fan” kicks in when Paul and his man-child buddy Sal spot their favorite player, Quantrell Bishop (Jonathan Hamm) in their neighborhood. They choose to follow him and track QB back to Manhattan and a very pricey strip club. There, Paul gets up the nerve to approach his hero and wakes up several days later in the hospital.

Quantrell beat the holy hell out of Paul after he confessed that he and Sal had followed him. Now, as Paul awakes from a coma his only concern remains whether the Giants won or lost while he was out. When asked about the assault; Paul’s fan-boy nature kicks in and he develops amnesia. Will he turn in his hero or keep the secret to save his team?

The answer is not so much the subject of “Big Fan.” Rather, it’s something of a foregone conclusion by the time the answer arrives. “Big Fan” is not a mystery or a crime thriller but a darkly humorous, endlessly ironic observation of severe arrested development.

What Director Robert Siegel and star Patton Oswalt are after is a critique of man-child fan-boys whose obsessions have rendered them ill-equipped to deal with the fully formed adults around them. In movies like “Failure to Launch” starring Matt McConaughey or “Big Daddy” with Adam Sandler this childishness is played as charm. In “Big Fan” it is realistically pathetic.

Taking the critique further, director Siegel adds a disquieting homo-eroticism to Paul’s hero worship. Paul has a poster of Quantrell over his bed. He dreams about Quantrell, sweating and snarling, shirtless in his three point stance. Though Paul is too timid and immature to get it, he is a frustrated, closeted homosexual whose frustration is channeled into his love of sport.

Whether it’s Tom Brady or Han Solo this level of obsessive hero worship tinged with homo-erotic undertones is part of the culture of the man-child. Are all man-children closeted homosexuals? No, but frustrated sexuality and sexual identity are an aspect of the man-child most often unexplored.

Patton Oswalt is fearless in exploring these aspects of Paul Aufiero. Though he does well to keep Paul in the dark about his true self, Oswalt and director Robert Siegel are downright elegant in the ways they reveal and subtly ridicule Paul’s ignorance. In sending up Paul they send up those like Paul, the emotionally stunted, childishly obsessed man-child.

Darkly humorous, endlessly clever and revealing, “Big Fan” is a punch in the mouth to the growing man-child culture. Where so many movies let these overgrown children off the hook, “Big Fan” holds a mirror up to them and reveals them for who they truly are. It’s not a pretty picture.

Movie Review: Brothers

Brothers (2009) 

Directed by Jim Sheridan 

Written by David Benioff 

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Tobey Maguire, Natalie Portman, Sam Shepard, Clifton Collins Jr.

Release Date December 4th, 2009

Published January 10th, 2010

Streaming on Starz via Amazon Prime 

It's interesting how critics can disagree so thoroughly. When the movie Brothers was released in December of 2009 most critics praised the work of Tobey Maguire and touted him as an Oscar contender. When I considered the film I felt that Tobey Maguire's performance was the film's weakest link and that Jake Gyllenhaal was the standout.

Brothers arrives on DVD this week and you can weigh in on which actor you prefer or maybe you love them both. One thing is certain, while I have my reservations about Maguire's performance, this story of one brother thought lost in war and another finding himself in the company of family has moments of great power and deeply felt emotions.

Tommy Cahill (Jake Gyllenhaal) has long been the black sheep of his family. His father was a General (Sam Shepard) and his brother Sam (Tobey Maguire) has followed in dad's footsteps. While Tommy has bounced from job to job and finally a stint in prison, Sam joined the army, settled down with Grace (Natalie Portman) and had two beautiful daughters.

Despite their differences Tommy and Sam are close and Sam is there when Tommy gets out of prison. Soon after however he is off to war in Afghanistan leaving Tommy to try and reconnect with his family which because of strains with his dad is not easy and soon he is returning to some bad behaviors.

On a mission Sam's helicopter is shot down and he and another soldier are taken hostage. Grace is soon informed that her husband is dead. You likely know where this story is headed as Grace informs Tommy of his brothers seeming demise and the two begin to turn their mutual grief into a comforting romance that will become quite uncomfortable when Sam returns home.

Brothers was directed by the humanist director Jim Sheridan whose portraits of humanity In America and My Left Foot are filled such astonishing truth and beauty that it's no surprise they were mostly ignored by audiences though lauded by critics and awards givers. Sheridan's style focuses the action in the hearts and minds of tough, damaged characters and in Brothers that focus comes through in the remarkable work of Jake Gyllenhaal.

The actor once known as Bubble Boy continues to evolve into one of our finest actors and even when playing a role where he seems to have less range to play than his co-star he shines by so effortlessly bringing his inner turmoil to the surface with quiet dignity and not merely the grand gesture. 

Gyllenhaal's performance is illuminated next to the more showy and forceful performance of Tobey Maguire whose grandstanding shouting stand in for honest emotions and understanding. With far more range to play with from the trauma of war and perceived betrayal, Maguire fails to connect and simply falls back on scenery chewing. 

Natalie Portman is caught between the brothers and her performance is a little lost in the shuffle. Portman exudes pain and warmth in scenes with Gyllenhaal while cowering in fear in scenes with Maguire, Portman's performance struggles depending who she is sharing the screen with. 

Problems asides, Jim Sheridan's direction is masterful and the story evolves one powerful, emotional scene after another until it reaches exceptional climax. Gyllenhaal is MVP doing his best to ground the story in a believable emotional realm while Maguire overplays and Portman vacillates between the two extremes. 

Flawed but still moving, Brothers is worth renting for arguably the best performance in the career of Jake Gyllenhaal. Jake is making the big move to blockbusters in Prince of Persia this summer, here's hoping he brings the same strength he showed in Brothers to his first major blockbuster.

Movie Review: Armored

Armored (2009) 

Directed by Nimrod Antal

Written by James V. Simpson

Starring Matt Dillon, Columbus Short, Jean Reno, Laurence Fishburne, Skeet Ulrich

Release Date December 4th, 2009 

Published December 4th, 2009 

Streaming Rental via Amazon Prime 

Armored is the latest attempt by Hollywood to look engaged and aware of the current economic condition. At its center is a character making less than a living wage and about to lose his home and the desperate lengths he considers going to in order to save everything.

Columbus Short stars in Armored as Ty a former Iraq war veteran who returns home to a crumbling neighborhood and a teenage brother to take care of. The bank is looking to foreclose on Ty's house and the only job he can get is a part time gig as a guard working for an armored car company.

Ty's pal Mike (Matt Dillon) got him the job and does what he can to help him out. Mike has a plan, with the help of 4 other guards they will set up a robbery of their own trucks. 42 million dollars can go a long way toward solving Ty's problems but he only agrees to go along after a threat by child services to take his little brother away.

The plan comes off without a hitch, initially. Hiding the trucks in an abandoned industrial building the crew begins off-loading the cash when Baines (Laurence Fishburne) spots a homeless guy hiding in the building. He kills the guy and Ty realizes that things have gone too far. He locks himself in one of the trucks and sets off the alarm to try and draw attention. A cop (Milo Ventimiglia) does arrive and he too is shot. 

Ty makes an effort to save the cop and stop the bad guys and that is where Armored gets its juice. Directed by Nimrod Antal, Armored gets off to an exceptionally slow start but once it picks up some speed it gets pretty entertaining. Columbus Short is a likable actor who holds the screen well as well as our hero. Matt Dillon as the villain is backed up well  by Laurence Fishburne, Skeet Ulrich and Jean Reno.

As for how timely Armored is? The idea of a guy willing to rob an armored truck to save his house is more of a motivational conceit than a comment on our times. Armored isn't much related to our current economic conditions as it as a coincidence. This film has been made a few times before and could work just as well in a prosperous economy; there's always someone who’s struggling.

Armored is an old school action flick with good chase scenes, gunplay and a strong hero. Director Nimrod Antal takes a little while to get things going but the final act moves fast toward a satisfying action flick conclusion. If everything is tied up a little too neatly; call it a function of modern pop entertainment, modern audiences hate a down ending.

Movie Review: Avatar

Avatar (2009) 

Directed by James Cameron

Written by James Cameron

Starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez

Release Date December 18th, 2009 

Published December 18th, 2009 

Back in theaters September 23rd, 2022

Streaming Rental on Amazon Prime 

New generation tech in service of a Bush era mindset, W or HW, Avatar is James Cameron advancing film tech to a place no one has seen before while also a response to American imperialism as Cameron envisions it. The tech is phenomenal, the politics are so 2003. The story of Avatar begins just as James Cameron was crowning himself the King of the World. After his Titanic effort to bring an ocean set romance to screen, James Cameron surveyed the landscape of movies and saw that the form, as it was, could not capture his vision of his project.

So, the King of the World abdicated for several years, biding his time until movie technology caught up with his vision. After seeing Peter Jackson give life to Gollum in The Lord of the Rings Cameron finally saw something he could work with. Employing engineers and film geeks Cameron went to work advancing existing technology. That was 2006. Just about 3 years later, more than a decade after its conception, Avatar has arrived.

Sam Worthington stars in Avatar as Jake Sully a former Marine who was left in a wheelchair after a battle injury. Jake's troubles are increased with the death of his twin brother, a scientist who was to shove off for a very important mission. Since Jake has his brother's DNA he is capable of replacing him and does on a mission to a place called Pandora.

On Pandora Jake's new life will have him taking over an Avatar, a human hybrid of the planet's alien population called Na'vi. Jake's mind is transferred somehow into the body of a 10 foot, blue skinned, Na'vi warrior. He will use his Avatar to interact with the natives and convince them to move to another home, opening the way for an industrialist (Giovanni Ribisi) to move in and strip the area of a mineral called, I kind you not, Unobtainium. 

Jake's mission goes off course when he meets a sultry Na'vi princess named Neytiri (Zoe Saldana). She brings him into the Na'vi inner circle after a sign from her god tells her Jake has an important role in the destiny of the Na'vi. Indeed he does; Jake will become a true warrior and a leader after he gives up his militaristic loyalty to his human masters.

No points for guessing that Jake and Neytiri fall happily into cross-species love. The story is eerily similar to Dances with Wolves, minus Kevin Costner's ludicrous facial hair. A soldier in a strange land falls in with the natives and switches sides. I'm not spoiling anything unless you have managed to miss every trailer, commercial or review of Avatar.

Even if you have been living under a rock James Cameron's exceptionally weak script does nothing to hide its twists and turns. The script mindlessly telegraphs its every plot machination and character choice. However, as every other critic in the world reminds us, the plot is meaningless when such wondrous visuals are offered.

There is no doubt about it James Cameron's remarkable dedication to new film technology has rendered a mesmerizing digital landscape unlike any ever before on screen. The characters are stunningly realistic; the landscapes are marvelous and wait till you see the battles between flying gun ships and Na'vi on flying lizard-like creatures. Cameron has even rendered 3D in a way that isn't clunky and unnecessary.

For many the visual delights of Avatar will be more than enough to sell them on the idea of Avatar as a great movie. And, I must admit, the tech is phenomenal. I, however, needed something more.

The story told in Avatar is dopey, derivative and features dialogue so awful as to have Michael Bay look down his nose. Expository dialogue, sometimes necessary, is mind numbingly repeated throughout Avatar. Worse still are the awkward attempts at humor, most of which are dated to around the time Cameron conceived of Avatar.

Even worse still is Mr. Cameron’s preachy, dated subtext about war and natives, 9/11 and terrorism. Cameron is not the first, merely the latest, to exploit 9/11 imagery in order to manipulate the audience. The visual reference to 9/11 is part of Cameron's throwback to the Bush era politique.

It's a rather scattershot bit of commentary that regurgitates liberal complaints about a war for oil, in this case 'Unobtainium,' and an American policy of pre-emptive war that could fairly be called imperialism. All well and good except that these are the complaints of yesteryear.

Is it Cameron's fault that the zeitgeist passed him by? No, but he has to take the lumps for being unable to adapt. He's made a criticism of a President who is gone in an era when a new President looks forward to ending the policies of the past. Whining about a war for oil (Unobtainium) is exceptionally passé.

The soldier going native is even more dated. Dances With Wolves is over 20 years old now. The battle between the American government and American Indians has inspired far better and far less preachy defenses of a native people defending their way of life.

Returning, however, to the main point of Avatar, the technology, you will see this movie because the tech is far too fabulous to be ignored. You really must see Avatar just to say that you have seen what everyone will be talking about in film culture until the next time Cameron revolutionizes the medium. Just be prepared to ignore everything other than the visual splendor.

Movie Review Invictus

Invictus (2009) 

Directed by Clint Eastwood 

Written by Anthony Peckham

Starring Matt Damon, Morgan Freeman, Scott Eastwood 

Release Date December 11th, 2009 

Published December 10th, 2009

Streaming Rental on Amazon Prime 

In 1994 the world heralded the ascendancy of Nelson Mandela to the Presidency of South Africa, just three years after his release from Robben Island Prison where he was a political prisoner for nearly 30 years. Mandela and the man who freed him, then President F.W De Klerk were awarded jointly the Nobel Peace Prize as the political system called Apartheid was brought to an end.

Outsiders were aware that Mandela's election was not without strife but how close Mandela came to losing his country to racial, civil war is a story stirringly brought to light for the first time on the big screen in Clint Eastwood's “Invictus.” On the surface you might assume Invictus is a sports movie, rugby after all takes a major role, but the real story is about a leader, a politician and a legend.

The Rugby World Cup was less than a decade old when it came to South Africa for the first time. It wasn't really to be all that notable for the South African national team known as Springboks, the team wasn't supposed to go far. Then something extraordinary happened. One afternoon the captain of the team, Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon) received an invitation to tea with President Mandela.

It was at tea in the Presidential palace that Mandela asked for Pienaar's help in uniting the country. How could he do that? Win the Rugby World Cup. From there these two very different men were bound on a journey neither could have expected with Rugby becoming a unifying cause in a country on the verge of being torn apart forever.

Is that dramatic enough for you? Director Clint Eastwood's great achievement in “Invictus” is giving weight to Mandela's decision to make Rugby a political cause. In 1993-1994 Rugby remained a sport beloved only to whites. Mandela made the calculated decision to relate to the white population through Springboks, a decision not at all welcomed by black South Africans who had hoped the team and its green and yellow colors would be banished to history.

Pienaar's challenge is no less dramatic. Mandela made quite clear to Pienaar all that was at stake in this victory and what might happen if their gambit failed. Damon plays the conflict with humble determination. It's wonderfully subtle yet powerful work from the chameleonic Damon whose last role was a pudgy corn company executive.

As one might expect, Morgan Freeman perfectly embodies the man he has been destined to play, Nelson Mandela. As Roger Ebert and numerous others have pointed out, Freeman has been linked to a number of Mandela biopics over the years. Freeman has met and befriended Mandela and that pays off in “Invictus.” Freeman loses himself in Mandela's accent and manner from moment one, easily conveying the charm, savvy and cool of Mandela.

The real challenge for both Freeman and director Eastwood was not deifying Mandela. That has been the tendency of the handful of previous Mandela movies and they have mostly failed for it. Audiences generally agree with Mandela's greatness, his achievements speak for themselves, but the overly reverent approach puts audiences to sleep.

Freeman's take and Eastwood's direction focus on Mandela's humane charms. The soft voice, his frail health, Mandela suffered from exhaustion amongst other ailments from day one of his Presidency. These are not the outsized traits of a deity but the feel of a real, if exceptional, human being. Freeman's performance is so clever and charming that it may seem too small for some, especially those expecting something more sweeping and dramatic.

Sweeping, epic drama is not what you get in “Invictus.” This is not a film that pauses to marvel at its own dramatic importance. “Invictus” deepens and becomes important when we consider what Mandela and Pienaar accomplished. “Invictus” works by letting us weigh the historic importance while the movie focuses on the story at hand. It’s a remarkable work from a remarkable group of filmmakers and one of the best films of 2009.

Movie Review: Dance Flick

Dance Flick (2009) 

Directed by Damien Dante Wayans

Written by Keenan Ivory Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Craig Wayans 

Starring Shoshana Bush, Damon Wayans Jr, Essence Atkins, Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans 

Release Date May 22nd, 2009 

Published May 23rd, 2009

Streaming on Starz via Amazon Prime (Subscription) 

The spoof movie hasn't been funny since Airplane 2. Fact. You want to talk Naked Gun? It's not necessarily a spoof movie. A spoof movie is one that takes particular movies or genres and aims to send up their inherent ideas and conventions. Scary Movie, Meet the Spartans, Disaster Movie, Date Movie. There is not one laugh in any of these movies.

What we get instead are a series of thuddingly obvious jokes, vague impressions and head scratching vulgarity without any real aim. Dance Flick joins this laughless group.

Directed by Damian Dante Wayans, Dance Flick takes on the conventions of the dance movie starting with the premise of the 2000 drama Save The Last Dance and integrating it with riffs on You Got Served, Step Up and Stomp The Yard. It's not exactly timely. Save The Last Dance which gives Dance Flick its form and plot is nearly a decade old. Step Up 2 bombed last year and my memory of You Got Served and Stomp The Yard would have run together years ago were it not for IMDB.

Given the nature of our moderm media being timely while making movies is not easy. Movies take several months to make and by the time a movie like Dance Flick is completed and released the movies being riffed on are already well out of the cultural memory.

That hasn't stopped the Wayans Brothers in the past from desperately and vainly attempting to be of the moment and their spawn, the makers of Epic Movie, the Scary Movie sequels, Disaster Movie and the like from trying to be timely and failing miserably. In this way, Damian Dante Wayans is really a risk taker, he picks an older movie and sticks to it giving his movie a form that doesn't necessarily rely on timeliness.

Sure, some of the jokes feel a little past their sell by date but they are slightly less desperate than those of other similar movies. Unfortunately, they're just as unfunny. Dance Flick despite not sweating the times Dance Flick still fails to find the funny by crafting jokes so obvious, dumb and outright insulting that the audience spends more time predicting the next joke than laughing at it.

There is one laugh in the movie. It comes when Damian Wayans as the star of the film Thomas and Shoshanna Bush, riffing Julia Stiles luckless character from Save The Last Dance, are talking about her mother dying and Wayans goes off blaming her for her mother's death. It's mostly Wayans' manner that is funny and not necessarily any particular joke, but funny is funny. I laughed.

The biggest obstacle to the parody of Dance Flick is the fact that the targets themselves are so earnestly committed to their dancing premises that they really are send ups of themselves. Movies like Save The Last Dance or Step Up or You Got Served are so campy in their earnest attempts at making dance seem like the most important thing in the world that, in a way, that earnestness beoomes shield from the kind of mocking dealt out in Dance Flick. If something is already ridiculous how does one make it more ridiculous?

Dance Flick doesn't stink nearly as bad as Disaster Movie, Date Movie, Scary Movie or the like but that is a pretty low bar. As I said before there is one laugh in this movie and that's it. If one laugh is good enough for you then absolutely see Dance Flick. Why pay 7 to 11 dollars to see something like Dance Flick when movies it parodies like Save The Last Dance, Stomp The Yard, Step Up and You Got Served themselves have inherently humorous moments that nearly send up themselves.