Movie Review Stranger Than Fiction

Stranger Than Fiction (2006) 

Directed by Marc Forster 

Written Zach Helm 

Starring Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Queen Latifah, Emma Thompson

Release Date November 10th, 2006

Published November 8th, 2006 

Director Marc Forster is an exceptionally underrated director. In four features he has yet to make a less than brilliant movie, how many directors can say that. The resume is extraordinary. Monster's Ball, which won an Oscar for Halle Berry, a feat that looks more and more amazing with each ensuing performance from Ms. Berry. Finding Neverland, the J.M Barrie bio with the equally brilliant Johnny Depp, was a deserving Best Picture nominee.

Then there is the curious sci fi thriller Stay. This ingenious, marvelously directed film divided critics and met with complete audience indifference. For me Stay was a revelation and one of the best films of 2005.

Forster's latest is another movie that is dividing critics and only catching a modest audience. Stranger Than Fiction, starring Will Ferrell and Emma Thompson, couldn't be any more different from Stay. This wonderfully wordy, literate, deadpan comedy has a complicated premise that is executed with breezy ease and light hearted intelligence. It's just simply a terrific little movie.

Will Ferrell stars in Stranger Than Fiction as Harold Crick. Harold is an IRS agent with a penchant for counting everything from steps to the strokes of his toothbrush. Harold's life is regimented, scheduled and timed to the minute. Timing becomes a crucial aspect of Harold's life as his unique wrist watch begins mixing up his life. Of course if a wacky wrist watch were Harold's only problem, he'd be happy.

Along with the wacky watch Harold has begun hearing a voice. Not voices, mind you, but a single voice that happens to be narrating his every move. Harold does what comes naturally in a situation like this, he consults a psychiatrist who immediately diagnoses him a schizophrenic. Unconvinced, Harold pleads for help in a more literary fashion to explain why his life is being narrated.

Enter professor Jules Hibbert (Dustin Hoffman) , a literary professor with a keen insight into narration and the art of the novel. Hibbert also believes that Harold is crazy until he hears the words ``Little did he know '',  a literary device that professor Hibbert has written volumes on. The phrase leads Hibbert to help Harold find his narrator and devine whether Harold is trapped within a comedy or a tragedy.

Parallel to Harold's story is that of novelist Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson). A long respected writer, Ms. Eiffel is dealing with a case of writer's block so severe that her publisher has assigned an assistant (Queen Latifah) to keep her on track. Karen happens to be the narrator that Harold is looking for and her writer's block is a function of her inability to decide how to kill Harold Crick.

Writer Zak Helm came up with this wonderfully quirky story but it is director Marc Forster who gives it a visual life. Using various visual devices to lay out Harold's quirks and Karen's fantasies, Forster takes an exceptionally literary story and gives it texture and its own very unique reality. The story of Stranger Than Fiction is a bit of a mindbender at times but Forster manages to make it accessible, even comfortable and easy to follow for those willing to follow the movie's unique brand of logic.

Will Ferrell is terrific as the downbeat, average Joe Harold. Known more for his wildside, Ferrell indulges his rarely seen mild side to craft Harold as a believable character in an unbelievable situation. When Harold does come out of his shell and expresses his exasperation in more typically Will Ferrell ways, he manages to remain true to the character while delivering a few of the kinds of laughs we expect from a Will Ferrell character.

Maggie Gyllenhaal shows up in Stranger Than Fiction as Ana, the unlikely love interest for Harold. The romance in Stranger Than Fiction unfolds in the most wondrous of ways. Harold, unable or unwilling to approach Ana, has this crush thrust upon him by the narrator who leads him into the romance and then leaves him to cultivate it on his own. Harold is far from a natural romantic and the relationship develops strangely but in the most lovely of ways.

What I loved about Stranger Than Fiction is how smart it is about literature and literary conceits. The way Dustin Hoffman, as the literary professor Harold speaks to his narrator, speaks of the phrase 'little did he know', how he could write reams of papers about that phrase and its role in literature, its various meanings and interpretations. Part of the wonder is the way Hoffman delivers this line, with impish gleam in his eyes and boundless enthusiasm, but a bigger part is the truth of why he and we find it such a wondrous phrase.

Director Marc Forster's approach to Stranger Than Fiction was to create unusual characters and a universe in which those characters can exist in their own reality. A reality similar to our own but with its own unique beat. Compare Forster's approach to the one note approach of director Ryan Murphy in the film Running With Scissors, a film that wants a similar note of eccentricity but ends up just crafting weird characters being weird without regard to the world that formed them. 

Movie Review: 30 Days of Night

30 Days of Night (2002) 

Directed by Michael Lehmann 

Written by Robert Perez 

Starring Josh Hartnett, Shannyn Sossamon, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Vinessa Shaw, Griffin Dunne, Paulo Costanzo 

Release Date March 1st, 2002 

Published March 1st, 2002 

I'm really beginning to dislike the horror genre. Though regular readers and horror fans might argue that I have always hated horror movies, that is not true. I loved Freddy and Jason as a kid. As an adult, I find the Saw films to be utterly ingenious. My issue with modern horror films is the growing, ugly nihilism of the genre. More and more this genre that once exposed our humanity and capacity for bravery and compassion, now comes to exploit our humanity and compassion.

The latest film to trade on our humanity, depicting violent death with style, wit and impoverished morals is the vampire movie 30 Days of Night. Josh Hartnett stars in 30 Days of Night as Eban Oleson the sheriff of Barrow Alaska. Settled on the uppermost point of the United States, Barrow is home to only the most hardy winter lovers. For 30 days of every year Barrow goes into darkness. Many citizens cannot handle the lack of sun and take off. The 150 or so people who stay behind find something they never could have imagined.

A stranger (Ben Foster) arrives in town. He murders all the sled dogs. He steals and burns all of the cell phones. After he is caught by sheriff Oleson, he warns that 'they' are coming. Who are they? The stranger won't say but once citizens begin getting their heads ripped from their bodies, it's clear that 'they' have indeed arrived. Now, the sheriff with his ex-wife Stella (Melissa George) and a ragtag band of survivors must find a way to survive for 30 days when the sun returns and 'they' go back from where they came.

Based on the 2004 graphic novel by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith, 30 Days of Night is stylish, darkly humorous and undeniably cool. And therein lies the problem. Like much of modern horror 30 Days of Night exploits our humanity and compassion to get us to invest in these characters and then destroys them in the most eye catching and gory fashion.

I am conflicted about this because I cannot deny the artistry with which director David Slade delivers this carnage. However, the style, the cool, dehumanizes the characters and takes pleasure in their misery. This brings an ugliness, a pseudo-nihilism to the proceedings that frankly makes me ill. I've grown weary of the stylish presentation of the destruction of humanity.

I get that it's a vampire movie and realism is not a question. And yes; you can argue that the style employed only serves to further distance the characters from reality. My point is however, that the danger that these characters find is meant to earn our sympathy and care and thanks to the talented performances of Josh Hartnett and Melissa George, they do.

We are invested emotionally, engaged by these characters. When these characters, not necessarily Hartnett or George, are violently dissected by vampires, the fillmmakers are taking advantage of that sympathy, exploiting it. For what purpose? Why are our sympathies engaged and then violently and bloodily turned against us?

In the Saw films, James Wan, Leigh Whannell and Darren Lynn Bousman engage us similarly but with a point and a purpose. There is a philosophy behind the carnage, a lesson to be imparted about the gift that is life, the gift that is forgiveness and the possibility of redemption. What lesson do we learn from 30 Days of Night other than fake blood looks cool when splashed on white snow.

Josh Hartnett is one of my very favorite actors. Wearing his vulnerabilty on his sleeve and his wit as well, Hartnett has a talent for characters that win us over from the moment we meet them. His sheriff in 30 Days of Night wins us over from his first scene as he stares into the horizon, an undeclared sadness plagues him as the last sunset for 30 days begins to fall.

Melissa George matches Hartnett in her appeal to our sympathies. Also carrying the burden of memory her Stella just wanted to get in and out of town without Eben knowing she was there. The sadness they share over the end of their marriage is never openly discussed but it is written in their every glance and gesture toward and away from one another. In another movie, one with a depth of feeling for these characters beyond finding unique ways for them to kill vampires or to die violently, Hartnett and George could really make something lasting and beautiful. That is something that the creators of 30 Days of Night are incapable of providing.

What is the point of 30 Days of Night. What are we supposed to take away from it? What is it that we find so exhilarating or exciting about the destruction of humanity. There is no subtext, there are no lessons imparted, this film is merely an exercise in the stylish presentation of hardcore violence. Maybe it's because I'm getting older but I just don't get it anymore.

Movie Review: Crazy Heart

Crazy Heart (2009) 

Directed by Scott Cooper

Written by Scott Cooper

Starring Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Robert Duvall 

Release Date December 16th, 2009 

Published by December 15th, 2009 

Very often the Oscars turn into the Hollywood Lifetime Achievement Awards. That will likely be the case with the Oscars this year as one of Hollywood's most beloved actors, Jeff Bridges,is the front-runner for one of Hollywood's biggest prizes, Best Actor in a Leading Role. Now, to be clear, I love Jeff Bridges. “The Big Lebowski” is my favorite film of all time. However, Jeff Bridges' work in “Crazy Heart” is solid but not spectacular and certainly not the Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role. 

For one thing, George Clooney delivers a far more complex, thoughtful and engaging performance in Jason Reitman's wonderful drama, “Up in the Air.” For another example Jeremy Renner's intensity and focus in The Hurt Locker would be a winner in any other year. Bridges' performance is authentically battered, broken, and genial but there is little depth to his drunken country singer, Bad Blake, in “Crazy Heart.”

Bad Blake was once a pretty big star in the world of Country Music but alcohol and a lack of a good accountant have laid him low. These days ol' Bad can be found playing rundown taverns and in an early scene, a bowling alley. There is still hope for Bad but he will have to clean up and swallow his pride a little. Bad's former back up band member Tommy (Colin Farrell) is now a huge star and he's willing to give Bad a break if he'll take it.

While Bad's busy fending off Tommy and his second chance, a trip to New Mexico brings Blake into the life of Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a wannabe music journalist. Jean wants and gets an interview with Bad Blake that she believes could be her big break. Bad, meanwhile is quickly smitten with the much younger and very beautiful writer. His music charms her into his bed and soon Bad is bonding with her very young son.

Where the story goes from there is for you to discover. Jeff Bridges makes all the minor melodramatic turns affable and helps avoid most cliches of this kind of redemption drama but there is nothing particularly special about Crazy Heart. Director Scott Cooper doesn't reinvent the wheel with his dusty, slightly battered shooting style that, though it does well to match Bad Blake's boozy and beat up lifestyle. it lacks insight and the drama is relatively inert in its predictability. 

Movie Review: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) 

Directed by George Clooney 

Written by Charlie Kaufman 

Starring Sam Rockwell, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Drew Barrymore, Rutger Hauer

Release Date December 31st, 2002 

Published January 5th, 2002 

You wanna know what my favorite part of the Gong Show was? Keep in mind I was too young to see the show when it originally aired. I watched reruns of the show on cable as a kid. I loved watching these B-list celebrities like Jamie Farr or Joanne Worley stare incredulously at some backwater hick blowing on comb to the tune of Oh Susanna. Then as the humorousness of how surreal the act was began to fade and they slowly raised from their seats reared back their drumsticks and banged that Gong. They would always take their time, they would look at each other to decide who was going to gong the act first before finally relieving the pain of the audience by banging away as hard as they could on that big metal gong.

At this point, Chuck Barris would stumble in from stage left and ask derisively why they would gong such an incredible act. Other than his ridiculous hats and sometimes witty one liners, I never gave Chuck Barris much thought. After seeing the film of his supposed life story, Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind, I wish I would have looked at a little closer at those reruns for a hint of the guy whose life, at least as it is in this film, was so fascinating.

Sam Rockwell, best known for his bad guy role in the Charlie's Angels movie, plays Chuck Barris as a a real creep who's idea of dating is trying to kiss a girl in a movie theater while showing her his dick. A real charmer. The main interests of a young Chuck Barris were blowjobs and bar fights but eventually he settles for a career in television. Beginning in New York City as an NBC page, Barris decides to apply for a management-training course so he can impress a fellow page that he wants to score with. And he does. However neither the relationship or the job at NBC last very long.

Barris moves on to Philadelphia where he takes a job as assistant producer on Dick Clark's "American Bandstand." It's Barris' job to keep an eye on Clark to make sure he isn't accepting money to play certain records, a crime known as payola. Of course Barris could care less what Clark is doing, he just wants to get laid. Eventually he falls into bed with another Clark staffer played in cameo by Maggie Gyllenhaal. It is then that Barris meets his future wife, Honey played by Drew Barrymore. The relationship isn't much more than sex at first but it is Honey that inspires Barris' first endeavor into the game show arena with "The Dating Game."

Meanwhile, as Barris is breaking into television, he also has another life as a hired assassin for the CIA. Recruited by a man named Bird (George Clooney), Barris was sought by the CIA because he supposedly fit the profile of a killer. Barris had a penchant for random violence and was a loner with few real attachments, traits apparently prized by the CIA. As the film progresses, we see Barris reinvent afternoon television with "The Dating Game" and then "The Newlywed Game," we also see him use those shows as cover to fly around the world killing people. With the help of a sexy vixen and fellow assassin played by Julia Roberts and quasi-insane German played by Rutger Hauer, Barris claims that he killed 33 people.

I don't believe that at all.

None of Barris' fantastical stories, as adapted for the screen by the brilliant Charlie Kaufman, has a ring of truth. Each of his supposed escapades have the tawdriness of a guy who has always been able to tell a good lie. Don't get me wrong, these are some very entertaining stores, but they have a mythical feel. Watching Confessions and knowing Charlie Kaufman adapted the screenplay, I flashed back to Kaufman's script for Adaptation which was also a fantastic piece of mythology. Both films are a unique mixture of reality and fiction and the blurred lines in Confessions are just tantalizing enough to make you change your perception of Chuck Barris from weirdo creep game show host to hip Elmore Leonard-esque character.

George Clooney, making his debut behind the camera, shows just the right mixture of sure handed technician and experimental newbie. He never shows the nerves of a first time director. Clooney appears to have a clear vision of what he wanted to film and then toyed with the processes along the way. Mixing actual interviews with Barris' friends and colleagues with different film stocks and unique camera placements, Clooney directs like a kid with a new toy to play with and his excitement comes through the screen.

Confessions of A Dangerous Mind is an exciting, flashy and funny film. It's an excellent debut for Clooney behind the camera, and a mindbender for those of us who only knew Chuck Barris as the guy in the funny hats. It's unlikely to convince you that the host of The Gong Show was also an assassin for the CIA but it's not really trying to convince you of that. Rather, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is about a director and a writer each toying with the idea of how to tell a story. From that perspective, it's a pretty terrific movie. 

Movie Review: Secretary

Secretary (2002) 

Directed by Steven Shainberg 

Written by Erin Cressida Wilson 

Starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, James Spader, Jeremy Davies, Leslie Ann Warren 

Release Date September 20th, 2002 

Published September 19th, 2002 

Recently, I have come to hate even the idea of a romantic comedy. The genre's many conventions and classic elements have overwhelmed any film tagged with the romantic comedy label. Take for instance the Resse Witherspoon romantic comedy Sweet Home Alabama, which seems as if it were assembled in a romantic comedy factory. Every element of that film was clipped from previous films in the genre and pasted together under a new title with a big star's name attached to the poster. However, just when I have lost all faith in movie romance comes a most unlikely romantic comedy called Secretary. This is by no means a traditional romantic comedy, but it does have both comedy and a very unique romance.

In Secretary Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Lee Holloway, a troubled young woman just out of the hospital after what was believed to be a suicide attempt. Lee is looking for a way out from under her dysfunctional family which includes an alcoholic father (Stephen McHattie) and her overprotective mother (Leslie Ann Warren). Lee has taken to cutting herself with knives and needles as a way of dealing with her parents' constant arguing; the apparent suicide attempt may not actually have been suicide but rather an accident while cutting. Lee is still trying to figure herself out but she seems to take pleasure from hurting herself.

One way for Lee to get away from her parents may be to marry an ex-high school friend named Peter (Jeremy Davies) or she could get a job and make her own way. Lee decides to get a job and, using her amazingly fast typing skills, Lee lands a job as a secretary for a lawyer named E. Edward Grey (James Spader). It doesn't take long before Lee figures out that there is something unusual about her new boss who seems quite particular about the order of the office. When Edward catches Lee cutting herself, he orders her never to do it again and his forcefulness begins a strange sort of courting that includes sado-masochistic punishments for mistakes--which Lee makes a lot of once she realizes how much she enjoys it.

Secretary is so unique and funny that you laugh at things you once may have thought shocking or even appalling. The performances by Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader are pitch perfect which helps the audience to accept the weird behavior. Though Spader has been criticized for too often trading on his creepy persona that he has cultivated throughout his career, I found it interesting to see him make that creepiness a likable trait for once.

Director Steve Shainberg does an excellent job of combining likable performances with difficult material. It's likely that if Secretary were made without the amazing lead performances of Gyllenhaal and Spader it wouldn't have worked. Even when the film seems to fly off the rails in the last 20 minutes, the actors save it with their endlessly likable performances and fiery chemistry. In a year light on good comedy, Secretary is a standout. The material might not appeal to all audiences, but the actors will--if you give them the chance.

Movie Review The Kindergarten Teacher

The Kindergarten Teacher (2018) 

Directed by Sara Colangelo 

Written by Sara Colangelo 

Starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, Parker Sevak, Anna Baryshnikov, Rosa Salazar, Gael Garcia Bernal 

Release Date October 12th, 2018 

Published November 17th, 2018 

Due to a dire lack of new releases to talk about I decided to continue the theme of Netflix movies from this past year. Another movie I missed out on when it premiered on Netflix in 2018 was The Kindergarten Teacher starring Maggie Gyllenhaal. This is one of the most distinctive movies of the last year. The premise is eye catching and the way the story plays out is bold and necessary and surprisingly unexpected. 

The Kindergarten Teacher stars Maggie Gyllenhaal as Lisa, the Kindergarten teacher of the title. Lisa is married to Grant (Michael Chernus) with whom she has two High School age children. Her hobby is poetry and she attends an adult education class where she shares her honestly banal talent. Her teacher, Simon (Gael Garcia Bernal), is a dreamboat college professor who is rightly not impressed with her work. 

The plot kicks in when Lisa hears a kid in her class, Jimmy (Parker Sevak) randomly begin to spout poetry. It’s quite good poetry, well beyond the talent of a 5 year old. Lisa is mesmerized by the beauty of Jimmy’s poetry so much that she writes it down and then presents it to her class as her own. When her teacher is clearly excited by her new work she begins hounding the kid for more poems which he delivers on. 

This sounds like the premise of a bad 90’s comedy where she will have to reveal who really wrote the poems at the end while simultaneously delivering a monologue about the lesson she’s learned from her terrible mistake in stealing from this child. That, however, is not this movie. The Kindergarten Teacher, directed by relative newcomer Sara Colangelo, goes in a completely different and disturbing direction. 

This is a very brave and bold performance from Maggie Gyllenhaal. Her Lisa is more comparable to Salieri from Amadeus than she is with any traditional type of character. She is genuinely excited by Jimmy’s incredible talent but behind her eyes you can sense a disturbing sort of jealousy that takes on a whole other level of creepy when you remember that she is jealous of and dedicated to a 5 year old child. 

What made the movie that much more interesting for me is that people react to Lisa’s obsession with this kid’s poetry in a perfectly appropriate fashion. Her teaching assistant clocks it when Lisa continuously takes Jimmy out of class during naptime, Jimmy’s nanny is clearly uncomfortable with the odd and obsessive way Lisa talks about Jimmy’s talent and how it needs to be nurtured and though he eventually hires Lisa to watch Jimmy after school, Jimmy’s dad catches on after Lisa takes Jimmy to a poetry reading at night in the city. 

Where the film goes from there is for you to discover. It’s both predictable and unpredictable. I found it unpredictable because most mainstream films don’t have the bravery that The Kindergarten Teacher has. Writer-Director Sara Colangelo takes the film to places that are natural progressions and rarely settles for what we expect from lesser films. We’ve been trained to look for the easy ways out and I can say that The Kindergarten Teacher rarely takes the easy way out. 

The Kindergarten Teacher is streaming now on Netflix. It’s Rated R, for some nudity and sexuality but that doesn’t have anything to do with the main plot. The film is kind of creepy but not that creepy.