Movie Review: Charlie St Cloud

Charlie St. Cloud (2010) 

Directed by Burr Steers

Written by Craig Pearce, Lewis Colick 

Starring Zac Efron, Amanda Crew, Donal Logue, Charlie Tahan, Ray Liotta, Kim Basinger 

Release Date July 30th, 2010 

Published July 30th, 2010 

“Charlie St. Cloud” is baffling in the most unique way. A supernatural drama that combines soft focus goofiness of a Nicholas Sparks romance with the 'I see dead people' conceit of “The Sixth Sense,” “Charlie St. Cloud” in the end leaves one wondering just which characters were alive and which were dead. How many films can claim to be this strangely flabbergasting?

Zac Efron stars as Charlie St. Cloud, class valedictorian of a small northwestern town where sailing is the sport of choice. Charlie and his little brother Sammy (Charlie Tahan) are first glimpsed pulling off a dangerous move to win a local sailing contest and Charlie is said to be heading off to Stanford in the fall on a partial sailing scholarship.

Charlie's plans are destroyed one fateful night when, while he was supposed to watch his brother, he sneaks out to go to a party. Sammy catches him before he can leave and insists on coming with. On the drive they are hit from behind by a drunk driver and sideswiped by an oncoming truck. Sammy is killed almost instantly; Charlie is brought back miraculously thanks to the efforts of a paramedic played by Ray Liotta.

Flash ahead five years and Charlie hasn't left for Stanford. Instead he works as a caretaker at the cemetery where his brother is buried. A vision of Sammy after his funeral convinced Charlie that his little brother is still around and the two meet at sunset in the forest each day for a game of catch.

Enter Tess (Amanda Crew) a fellow sailor who attended high school with Charlie though he doesn't remember her. She is about to leave on an around the world sailing trek but not before the two bond a little over a mutual love of boats. The two spend more time together just before she leaves for her trip but the more time Charlie spends with Tess the more complacent he becomes about Sammy until he is forced to choose between the girl of his dreams and his dead little brother.

At least that is kind of what I think was happening in Charlie St. Cloud. I am honestly unsure what the hell was going with this film's bizarre supernatural plot and confusing screenplay. By the end I could not tell which characters were alive and which were dead.

SPOILER:

Director Burr Steers throws a lot of bizarre complications into this story including a love scene in the cemetery that grows creepy even beyond the setting once the story adds some unique details about Tess that make Charlie look really bizarre and creepy unless Charlie is dead, which he may be. I would call that a spoiler maybe but I honestly don't know if any of the characters in this film were alive or dead, in limbo, in memory or a dream. “Charlie St. Cloud” makes “Inception” look like the picture of narrative clarity.

Adding to the troubled story is the soft focus cinematography of Enrique Chediak who paints everything like a Hallmark Hall of Fame low budget TV production. Long soft focus close-ups of Charlie brooding in a bar, Charlie brooding over coffee, Charlie brooding on the ledge of a lighthouse are dropped in repeatedly throughout the film lending a bland sameness to the look of the film.

Zac Efron does what he can with his goofy role, playing Charlie as a lonely, angst-ridden weirdo who happens to look like Zac Efron. Having to deal with multiple dead or seemingly dead characters that no one else can see, Efron not only must brood alone, he has numerous scenes played just talking aloud to himself and occasionally talking to ducks. As I said, the film is very confusing.

Bizarre to the point of utter bafflement, “Charlie St. Cloud” combines the worst elements of a Nicholas Sparks adaptation with M. Night Shyamalan at his most self involved and aloof. Burr Steers is a once promising director now floundering in his attempt to bring his indie film cred to mainstream features. In “Charlie St. Cloud” Steers attempts to subvert convention by sheer oddity and fails to deliver either quirky indie-ness or mainstream accessibility.

I could almost recommend “Charlie St. Cloud” for its sheer oddity. I’m not going to but I could. The film is so weird and confusing and just plain bad in such a unique way that I can almost appreciate it on an ironic, sort of camp level. If you like movies you can make fun of with your friends, ala “Mystery Science Theater,” you may be just the audience for “Charlie St. Cloud.”

Movie Review: 8 Mile

8 Mile (2002) 

Directed by Curtis Hanson 

Written by Scott Silver

Starring Eminem, Mekhi Phifer, Brittany Murphy, Kim Basinger

Release Date November 8th, 2002 

Published November 7th, 2002 

Once, Detroit was the center of the automotive boom. Flush with jobs the area was a boomtown until a sea change in the 60's when riots and recession began to reshape the city. By the 1980’s, the automotive boom was over. General Motors, amongst other car companies, began closing plants and laying off workers. The economic strife led many, mostly white people to move away from Detroit. The racial divide which has always been unspoken became more pronounced as one city street became a geographical dividing line between black and white. 

That street was 8 Mile, and it was on this street lined with run down buildings that a community of underground musicians began to rise, particularly a rap scene that was on the verge of changing the music scene. The movie 8 Mile dramatizes the underground Detroit rap scene, focusing on the white kid who would shock everyone by becoming it's breakout star. 8 Mile is not technically a biography of rapper Eminem, but the story of Eminem's 8 Mile character closely parallels the real life of the Real Slim Shady.

Eminem stars as Jimmy Smith Jr., known to his friends as Rabbit. As we join the story Rabbit is about to take the stage for a verbal war. Rappers get on stage dissing each other to the delight of the crowd, who ever delivers the stronger rap, wins. The battle of the MC's is presided over by Rabbit's close friend Future, effectively embodied by Mekhi Phifer. Future has had to beg and plead with Rabbit to jump on stage and show the skills that he and the crew known as the 313, for the Detroit area code, have seen. It is the skill we in the audience know he has, because he's Eminem. 

In the film however a frightened Rabbit first pukes his guts out backstage then get on stage and freezes, walking off stage without a word. Whether it was the hostile all black crowd, or his opponent Popa Doc's savage raps, we aren't sure. However, to see the man who in real life is known for his fast and fearless style run off stage without a word is an intriguing introduction the semi autobiographical story. 

Rabbit can be forgiven his lack of focus on stage as off stage he has real problems. He and his girlfriend have broken up after she revealed she is pregnant. Rabbit just lost his job delivering pizza's and now works at an automotive parts plant, a job no one wants. Worst of all Rabbit must go back to his mother’s trailer where his alcoholic mother is living with her equally alcoholic boyfriend, who is merely 2 years older than Rabbit himself. 

Future has big plans for himself and Rabbit, he wants to record a demo but most of all he holds out hope that someone important will hear Rabbit onstage and offer to produce them. Unfortunately, Future has been talking like this for years while another friend, a hustler named Wink (Eugene Bird) is actually making some things happen at a local radio station, though his tactics may be less than ethical. Wink also represents the 313's rivals, a group that includes Popa Doc (Anthony Mack) and rapper Xzibit as the group’s leader Hassan. 

With battles at home and on the streets, Rabbit turns to his friends for shelter then meets a girl that could be his oasis from all the trouble. Brittany Murphy plays Em's love interest, Alex, a wannabe model with a connection to Wink who she says is helping her get a modeling contract. The relationship develops quickly with Rabbit jumping in quickly even while Alex's motives are obviously unseemly. Alex's ulterior motives, as apparent as they are to the audience, give depth to the character that is necessary to leaven Murphy's bubbly exterior. When Alex's duplicitousness is shown to Rabbit the scene is very effective and gives her presence throughout the remainder of the film a kick. From there, the story is a very conventional overcoming the odds story that will obviously culminate with Rabbit onstage. 

The main question everyone wants answered is, can Eminem act? The answer is an honest 'I don't know.' Yes he does have an effective presence but the fact that he is playing a version of himself makes the comfort he shows in front of the camera a little too easy. Rabbit never transcends Eminem to become a separate entity. You can't separate Eminem from the character, a quality necessary when judging the performance. 

The thrust of the film comes from the stage. The rap battles are as exciting as any boxing match, with words landing like body blows and the audience cheering like the hordes at the roman coliseum every time a sword lands a blow. It is in these scenes that Em truly shines, showing his remarkable self-deprecating wit and savage wordplay. Nevertheless, once again, this does blur the line between character and actor.

The main problem with 8 Mile isn't Eminem, it is director Curtis Hanson. Best known for being an actor’s director, Hanson has never been short on intelligent word play and he isn't in 8 Mile. What is lacking is style. Hanson's Detroit is a depressed bombed out city that looks more at home in the former Czechoslovakia than Michigan. Yes, economic hardship has taken its toll on the city over the years but Hanson's vision of Detroit is at times so bleak that it's distracting. We see that Rabbit has a lot to overcome with his mother, played by Kim Basinger, an ex-girlfriend and soon to be mother of his child played by Bridget Moynihan, and with his would-be career in Hip-Hop. Is it necessary that he also overcome his physical surroundings, which seem to swallow him at times in a depressive gray hue. 

The little light there is comes from Rabbit's interaction with his crew, Future, Cheddar Bob (Evan Jones), D.J Iz (De Angelo Wilson) and Sol George (Omar Benson Miller). The easy fun interaction between the friends provide the few light moments 8 Mile provides.

8 Mile isn't a bad film, it's just too conventional at times. It's as if Curtis Hanson simplified his style to make an easier environment for his first time star. The film needs a more risk-taking style and less genre safety. The film plays too straight, it needs maybe some handheld camera style, and more close-ups or deep focus shots. Something different from the point and shoot style of every other film.  I liked 8 Mile, especially the on stage verbal warfare, but there is something wholly unsatisfying about it. I recommend 8 Mile but it's not as good as many of us had hoped.

Movie Review: The Sentinel

The Sentinel (2006) 

Directed by Clark Johnson 

Written by George Nolfi 

Starring Michael Douglas, Eva Longoria, Kiefer Sutherland, Kim Basinger 

Release Date April 21st, 2006 

Published April 20th, 2006

Michael Douglas projects an image of class. At sixty his stately handsomeness has an air of wisdom and strength. And yet, in his films Douglas rarely plays any character of true wisdom or class. In fact the word crass is a far better signifier of Douglas's characters than class. Look at his resume. From Fatal Attraction to Wall Street to Basic Instinct to Disclosure to his best film Wonder Boys and now his latest effort the action thriller, The Sentinel, Douglas has a penchant for characters whose penis functions ahead of his brain. It's a pattern that only grows creepier with age. When do Douglas characters start thinking with their heads instead of their pants, the guy is 60 for crying out loud.

In The Sentinel Douglas stars as Secret Service Agent Pete Garrison who once took a bullet for President Reagan. Pete has lived off this fading glory for years although it has done him little good in rising through the ranks of the service where he currently resides on the detail of the First Lady (Kim Basinger). Actually it's not a bad gig for Pete who happens to be boffing the first lady behind the Prez's back. Yeah! In a plot that makes Murder At 1600 look like Shakespeare, Douglas's secret service agent finds his affair with the first lady about to be exposed unless he can track down a terrorist group planning to assassinate the President (David Rasche).

Pete is being framed for the assassination plot by a mastermind so obvious that if you haven't identified him simply from the cast list you are not paying close enough attention. Here's a hint, it's not Kiefer Sutherland. He plays Secret Service Investigator Dave Breckinridge who is assigned to apprehend Pete Garrison after he is implicated in the assassination plot. Pete and Dave have history, Pete may or may not have been sleeping with Dave's wife. Thankfully Breckinridge is the extremely by the book type who does not allow such personal details to cloud his judgement. He also has the help of a new rookie partner, Jill Marin (Eva Longoria), who happens to have trained under Garrison.

Part Murder at 1600, part The Fugitive, and all ugh!!! The Sentinel is a creepy mess of crass commercial filmmaking from a director whose career is marked by some terrific work on the small screen and just awful work on the big screen. Clark Johnson started as an actor on TV's Homicide before moving behind the camera on that show and then on The West Wing, The Shield and Soul Food. His first big screen credit was the TV adaptation SWAT which was, at best, mainstream commercial schlock and at worst yet another dimwitted attempt to create a profitable franchise based on perceived nostalgia .

Johnson's work on The Sentinel is just utter nonsense. Johnson seems completely unaware of just how predictable his mystery is and just plows ahead with one lame action set piece after another on his way to a happy ending. Kiefer Sutherland, in his first major big screen role since he started on TV's best thriller 24, delivers a surprisingly strong performance given the circumstances. It helps that Breckinridge is not far removed from his Jack Bauer. That commanding presence and slight hint of crazy behind the eyes marks both Bauer and Breckinridge and who knows, may just be part of Kiefer the man.

As for Douglas, this aging lothario whose penis constantly leads him into trouble act is getting stale and creepy. How much longer are we to believe that every woman he has sex with is going to get him in serious trouble. He has an Oscar, lead actor in Wall Street, but unlike his father, Kirk Douglas, whose shadow has proven inescapable no matter how much money Michael makes, he's never had a "Lust For Life", a "Spartacus" or a "Bad and The Beautiful". Michael has never made an undeniable screen classic that will be remembered forever.

Would anyone really want to be remembered for Basic Instinct? And even that Oscar for Wall Street was more than a little shaky, it's not the lead performance in that movie and hindsight unkindly reflects how this was as much a win for the performance as for industry people liking Michael Douglas. Michael Douglas has many more films to make and plenty of time to find that timeless classic performance but until he does he is going to be the creepy old guy whose dick does all of his thinking for him. Not a great legacy.