Movie Review Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom

Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom (2023) 

Directed by James Wan 

Written by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, Will Beall

Starring Jason Mamoa, Patrick Wilson, Nicole Kidman, Amber Heard, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II 

Release Date December 21st, 2023 

Published December 29th, 2023 

Wow! Aquaman 2 The Lost Kingdom is quite bad. I truly did not care for this DCEU sequel to what wasn't a bad first film. The sequel is lazy and dimwitted, ponderous and often quite ugly to look at. It's everything we've come to dislike about modern comic book blockbusters. The worst element is the CGI, a rubbery mess of indecipherable visuals and some of the worst fight scenes since Michael Bay assaulted our senses in the Transformers franchise. The biggest disappointment, however, is director James Wan, a supremely talented director who appears to be on complete autopilot in this lazy sequel. 

The film begins with a hacky sitcom monologue which sets up the new dynamic of the Aquaman movie universe. Aquaman, AKA, Arthur Curry (Jason Samoa), delivers a monologue that appears to break the fourth wall except that it is couched as a dialogue with his new baby, Arthur Jr. He's bringing the baby up to speed on where we stand now with Arthur as the King of Atlantis, hating the restrictions of being King and finding ways to be the Arthur of old, a superhero who fights evil and protects the good. His wife, Hera (Amber Heard), is also around... somewhere. 

Much of the early portion of the film is Arthur with his baby and sharing beers with his dad, Tom (Temeura Morrison). That is until, David Kane, AKA, Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) makes his presence felt. He's somewhere in Antarctica searching for The Lost Kingdom. With the aid of a genius scientist, Dr. Stephen Shin (Randall Park), and the effects of Global Warming, he does find something, an ancient weapon called The Black Trident. The possessed weapon begins to infect Black Manta's mind, using his hatred for Aquaman to drive him to free the Lost Kingdom from a centuries long curse. 

In order to find Black Manta, Arthur must do the unthinkable, break his brother, Orm (Patrick Wilson), out of a desert prison where he's been held since the end of the last movie. Thanks to the power of lazy screenwriting, Orm knows where to find Black Manta, or the Star Wars cantina where someone else knows where Manta is. It is one of the most boring prison breaks in movie history. It's remarkably by the numbers, hampered by bad CGI, and wildly underwhelming villains guarding Orm. Same can be said for the visit to a pirate bar featuring rejected Star Wars aliens. 

Click here for my full length review. 

Movie Review: The Upside

The Upside (2019) 

Directed by Neil Burger 

Written by John Hartmere 

Starring Kevin Hart, Bryan Cranston, Nicole Kidman 

Release Date January 11th, 2019

Published January 10th, 2019

The Upside stars Bryan Cranston as Phillip, a billionaire who suffered a tragic accident that left him paralyzed below the neck. The bigger tragedy for Phillip though, was the loss of his wife who died from cancer not long after Phillip’s accident. Phillip’s top executive, Yvonne (Nicole Kidman) has just retrieved him from the hospital after he nearly died from what was implied as an attempt to end his life. 

Coming home, Phillip needs a ‘life auxillary,’ someone to feed him, bathe him, change his catheter, and drive him around. He doesn’t want the help but Yvonne insists. In the process of interviewing qualified candidates, Phillip meets Del (Kevin Hart) who has come to the interview just to get a signature on a form to show his parole officer that he’s been looking for a job. Del is the first applicant to treat Phillip like a human being, even if it just means that Del is rude to him. 

Over Yvonne’s stern objections, Phillip insists on hiring Del despite his complete lack of experience. This is a dark and grave decision as the implication is that Phillip hired him in hopes of Del’s incompetence and lack of care will end Phillip’s life. Del even goes as far as verbalizing this very point in a moment that actually really connected me with the movie. The honesty of this moment breaks the potential mawkishness of the film. 

The Upside could be an overwrought melodrama about overcoming the odds and a magical person who enters the life of someone in need and saves them. That’s still part of the narrative but it is rendered novel and entertaining by the dynamic between the characters and between the leads, Kevin Hart and Bryan Cranston. Hart and Cranston are terrific together as mismatched friends with Cranston seeming genuinely delighted by Hart and Hart dedicated to being Cranston’s friend. 

Director Neil Burger hasn’t had much luck in the feature film arena. His most well known movie, The Illusionist starring Edward Norton, was completely overshadowed the year it was released by Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige. Both were films about magicians. His other claim to big screen fame was part of the flailing and failing Divergent franchise. That said, he’s always shown glimmers of talent and The Upside indicates he has a talent for character pieces. 

The embattled Kevin Hart doesn’t do himself any favors with the level of gay panic he brings to The Upside. The gay panic gags that caused an uproar on twitter and caused him to leave the gig as Oscar host, gets a big set piece in the film when Del has to change Phillip’s catheter and can’t get over having to touch Phillip’s privates. It’s not a particularly funny gag and I’m not sure why it had to be in the film. That said, the audience I watched with found this set-piece hilarious. 

One unnecessary scene however, doesn’t dampen my enjoyment of the movie. Do I wish Kevin Hart would grow up a little? Yes, it would help this movie a little for him to improve himself and grow up but as for Del in The Upside, it’s a solid performance. The dynamic between Cranston and Hart is one I cannot deny. The film is quite funny at times even as the gags are very familiar. Smoking weed, hitting on women, prostitutes, cliches but Cranston and Hart’s genuine delight in each other is enough for me to put that stuff aside. 

I am most assuredly going easy on The Upside. The film likely doesn’t deserve my kindness but it gets it because I did have fun. The film has its heart in the right place. It has uplift and laughs and pathos. I may have been too familiar with the comic premises but I never stopped smiling because Hart and Cranston are so very good with each other. These two characters, based on a real life pair from France who were previously brought to the screen in the similarly feel-good, The Intouchables, are just really good characters. 

Hart and Cranston have a huge emotional and comedic field to play from dark humor to lighthearted fun. Director Burger then grounds the story with Kidman’s more serious performance and with Del’s redemption story from criminal deadbeat to a guy on the right path. Sure, he won the equivalent of a life lottery but I bought it. I bought Del and I bought Phillip and I cared about them. I laughed with them and that’s just enough for me to recommend The Upside. 

Movie Review Lion

Lion (2016) 

Directed by Garth Davis 

Written by Luke Davies

Starring Dev Patel, Sunny Pawar, Nicole Kidman, Rooney Mara, David Wenham 

Release Date November 25th, 2016

Published November 24th, 2016 

Themes of identity, race, time and family are raised in the new drama “Lion” starring Dev Patel and Sunny Pawar as two versions of the same character, a boy and a man named Saroo. Based on a true story and a bestselling novel, “Lion” warmly and intelligently tackles large themes in a satisfyingly dramatic fashion that is at times too conventional but with enough emotional weight to make it work.

“Lion” tells the story of Saroo, who, at 5 years old, was separated from his older brother Guddu at a train station, ends up on a train, falls asleep and wakes up hundreds of miles away from his village. Now in Bengal, Saroo does not know the name of his village or his mother’s real name and has no way to get home. After a series of near misses with some very scary people, and a couple of lovely moments with some generous souls, Saroo finds himself in an English run orphanage where he is soon to be adopted by a couple from Australia.

The couple, John and Sue Brierly, (David Wenham and Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman) adopt Saroo and take him back to their home in Tasmania where he will grow up and eventually seem to forget his time in India. Soon Saroo has an adopted brother, another Indian boy named Mantosh, for whom the transition from India to Tasmania is much, much more difficult. The brothers never really connect with each other and their boiling resentment provides yet another metaphor for Saroo’s relationship to his past.

Some 20 years after Saroo’s adoption he is a college graduate and is beginning to pursue a career in Hotel management. It is here when Saroo meets Lucy (Rooney Mara) who will become his wife but not before a chance encounter with fellow Indian students convinces Saroo to try to find his family back in India.  Using some amateur detective skills, research, and math, Saroo hopes to find the train station where he was first lost and use that information to find his family.

“Lion” is based on a true story so I am not sure if discussing the ending of the film would be considered a “spoiler.” I am choosing to leave the ending for you to discover but even for those who know the story it does contain quite an emotional wallop. Dev Patel plays the grownup Saroo and the final scenes of “Lion” are some of the best work of his relatively young career.

 “Lion” was directed by Garth Davis who is best known in America for his work on the excellent mini-series “Top of the Lake.” Here Davis does a fine job of contrasting the grit and grime and danger of India with the crisp, clean, even sterile, setting of Tasmania and using this juxtaposition to underline the film’s themes of disconnection, longing, family and identity. Saroo feels resentment toward his family for maybe not looking hard enough for him but he also feels guilt about having enjoyed life in Tasmania while having left behind his family in poverty.

Saroo’s task in locating his family is incredibly daunting and the strain it puts on his relationship with his mother and his girlfriend is a strong driver of the second and third act of the film. I was very moved by Saroo’s scenes with his adoptive mother who attempts to hide her jealousy and hurt feelings over Saroo’s search but soon comes to terms with it out of love for her son. Lucy and Saroo meanwhile almost completely lose touch as his obsession with train speeds and stations grows and it is a strong testament to the performances of Patel and Mara that the strain feels real and threatening.

“Lion” is a tad too conventional but the performances and the emotional weight of the story make the simplicity of the plot easier to accept. Dev Patel has never been better and it is great to see good work from Nicole Kidman again as it feels like ages since she was turning in Oscar caliber work. Director Garth Davis needs to work more before we can begin passing judgment on his style and where he fits in the directorial landscape but from his work here, he has me excited to see what he does next.

Movie Review: Australia

Australia (2008) 

Directed by Baz Luhrmann

Written by Baz Luhrmann 

Starring Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, David Wenham, Bryan Brown 

Release Date November 26th, 2008

Published November 25th, 2008 

The modern audience is often accused of having a short attention span. It's undeniable of course that with half hour television and now bite size internet videos, the modern audience has shown a taste for constant stimulation. But that fact does not mean that a movie of a good length cannot succeed. I point you to Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia which floats through 3 hours without ever loosing its grip on the audience.

If you have seen a double feature of Tarentino's Kill Bill, which clocks in at nearly 4 hours you know the power a great movie has to glue you to your seat. The modern attention span isn't the issue, it's the modern epic. The fact is, too often, these 'epics' are not lengthy with a purpose but lengthy due to directorial indulgence. That is most certainly the case with Baz Luhrmann's 'epic' Australia. An at times exceptional display of visual craftsmanship. Australia overstays its welcome with 3 different endings and dangling subplots.

Australia stars Nicole Kidman as Lady Sarah Ashley, a British aristocrat who comes to Australia to retrieve her husband who moved down under months earlier to make money in the cattle business. Convinced he has taken up with another woman, Lady Ashley plans on selling the cattle interest and taking her husband back to England.

Sadly, upon arriving at the ranch, called Faraway Downs, she finds her husband murdered, allegedly by an aboriginal mystic named King George. On the other hand she finds that the cattle biz is for real and with an evil land Barron named King Karney looking to steal her land for a quarter of what its worth, Lady Ashley decides to stay on and garner the profit herself.

To do so she will have to drive the cattle to the coastal town of Darwin. Thus she hires the rough and tumble Drover (Hugh Jackman) to lead the way. He needs help and doesn't have it. Aside from two aboriginal friends, there is a drunk accountant, two maids and Lady Ashley herself whose experience riding show horses is her only qualification.

Then there is Nullah. Half white, half black, 11 year old Nullah (Brandon Walters) lives in constant danger. The state has a policy of rounding up mixed race children so that they can 'breed the black out of them' and train them to be servants. Nullah has lived at Faraway Downs in secret for years after being born to a maid and a ranch hand named Fletcher (David Wenham).

Fletcher works for King Carney and cannot afford to have anyone know he fathered a mixed race child. All of this melodrama unfolds in the foreground as World War 2 emerges in the background. In newsreels and conversations we overhear Germany's march, Hitler's call for Japan to join the war and the attack on Pearl Harbor that will soon lead to attacks on the Australian mainland where Americans begin arriving for an assault on Japan.

It's a sprawling, ambitious story that director Baz Luhrmann no doubt loves. It's also a flabby, unkempt mess of competing plots that amount to three different movies forced together. The first movie, playing out as act 1, is a tribute to old Hollywood, just after the introduction of color. Luhrmann uses CGI to give Australia the coloring of a movie made in the 1930's. The effort may dazzle lovers of classic film. But, modern audiences are likely to mistake the look for bad CGI.

At the death of Lady Ashley's husband Australia becomes a gripping western. The cattle drive scenes are the movies best moments with Jackman looking quite the hero, Brandon Walters delivering the compelling drama and Kidman holding her own in the saddle. Had Australia stuck with the western aspect, with a tighter narrative focus, we could be talking about a pretty good movie.

Unfortunately, the western is merely the second act. The third act brings World War 2 and Australia's disturbing racial politics into to the forefront and begins to drift. Trained moviegoers know that the 3rd act requires the lovers to separate and for good to turn to bad so that it can be righted in the end and Australia delivers it all in rote, mind numbing fashion.

Oh, did I mention that the film ends THREE TIMES! There are two false endings. Two spots where director Luhrmann could have ended the movie with a minimum of consternation. But no. Two endings stall and start and stall again only to drive one to the point of walking out by starting up one more time. I get what the director was going for but by the second ending I was almost to the door of the theater.

Australia is likely a case of too many cooks in the kitchen. Four screenwriters contribute to a movie that feels like three movies in both length and structure. It is rumored that Luhrmann only completed the final edit of Australia 2 weeks prior to worldwide release. That might explain the rushed necessity of a 2 hour 45 minute cut of a story that can only sustain maybe 2 hours, at most.

Tedious, overlong, flabby, Australia has the look of an epic and the feeling of a butt numbing disaster.

Movie Review: Destroyer

Destroyer (2018) 

Directed by Karyn Kusama 

Written by Phil Hay, Matt Manfredi 

Starring Nicole Kidman, Sebastian Stan, Toby Kebbell, Tatiana Maslany, Bradley Whitford 

Release Date December 25th, 2018 

Published December 22nd, 2018

Destroyer stars Nicole Kidman as Erin Bell, a former undercover cop turned burned out homicide detective. We get two sides of Erin Bell, her life when she was promoted from a Sheriff’s Deputy to being an undercover operative embedded in a bank robbery gang, to today when Erin looks as if life has her thoroughly defeated. Oftentimes simply being de-glammed is enough to make us take notice of a performance but Kidman brings a genuine edge that goes beyond her looks and manner in Destroyer.  

We meet Detective Bell when she arrives in bad shape at a crime scene. At the scene, a body is laid out and Bell indicates she recognizes the corpse. Other detectives give us a strong sense of how Detective Bell is viewed by the rest of her department, they want her to leave the crime scene and let them handle it. That's likely because she looks as if she hasn’t slept in days and is in no shape to work. They have no idea how right they are. 

Destroyer was directed by the ingenious Karyn Kusama who is best known for her debut feature, Girlfight, about a female boxer. That film was notable in a similar way to Destroyer in that Michelle Rodriguez took a traditionally male character and invested it with a uniquely feminine toughness. Kusama is also known for the horror movie Jennifer’s Body which in recent months has been getting another look from critics who’ve taken note of the strong feminist themes that run throughout Kusama’s work.

This is notable in Destroyer in how Kidman is playing the kind of hard bitten, cynical character usually reserved for male protagonists. Detective Bell has faults that we’ve seen before in male characters but that get flipped around with it coming from a female perspective and it does freshen up the cliche a great deal. Kidman doesn’t play up any mannish qualities, it’s just that the specific traits of this character are usually assigned to men. 

It’s a fascinating performance and while I have focused too much on Kidman’s looks, I am doing so because her looks, the features, the worn, lived in, well-earned wrinkles and generally dishevelled look is an important part of this character. She's unvarnished for a reason, she’s given up on the basic comforts of life. Something so traumatic has happened that she’s turned most of her life over to either her job or to the hard drinking that helps to cope with the job and her memories, fears and shame. 

She’s also neglected her daughter, Shelby (Jade Pettyjohn) who appears to be headed down a wrong path, one all too similar to Erin’s. The relationship between Erin and her daughter has always been strained; Erin found out she was pregnant on the same day that Shelby’s father was killed in a gun battle. I won’t spoil the role that this played in Erin’s undercover work or the dark secret she’s hiding throughout the film but all of it coalesces into Erin’s dark story in devastating fashion. 

Toby Kebbell plays the main antagonist in Destroyer, a figure from Erin’s past whose return triggers a series of violent outbursts and leads to several bodies piling up. It’s a battle of wills with greed and revenge at the heart. Kebbell is a rather minimal presence physically in the film but his legend and his crimes hang over the entire story to the point where his appearances come to feel as if he is literally haunting Erin. 

It’s an exceptional and unique way to tell a revenge story. Destroyer is minimalist in story presentation with dialogue building Kebbell’s villain into a monster and Kidman delivering on making Bell desperate and feral like a cornered animal as she pursues him. The way the story plays out is a shocker and a real clever one. Pay close attention or you might miss a couple key details that play into the ending. I can tell you, it’s both satisfying and bleak. 

Destroyer is not a fun movie, it’s not an easy sit. The film is combative and pushy but Kidman’s performance makes it highly compelling. Kidman is Oscar-worthy not for her deglamorized look but for the grit that she brings to this character which combines vulnerability and street toughness into one of the most unique and yet familiar characters I’ve ever seen. It’s not just the novelty of a woman getting to portray characteristics typically assigned to male characters, Kidman makes Bell a uniquely fascinating figure, and for that, I recommend Destroyer. 

Movie Review: Aquaman

Aquaman (2018) 

Directed by James Wan 

Written by David Leslie Johnson, Will Beal

Starring Jason Mamoa, Patrick Wilson, Amber Heard, Willem Dafoe, Dolph Lundgren, Yahya Abdul Mateen, Nicole Kidman

Release Date December 21st, 2018 

Published December 20th, 2018 

Aquaman stars Jason Mamoa as Arthur Curry, the one true King of Atlantis, though he doesn’t see it that way. Having been born to Queen Atlanna of Atlantis and a lighthouse keeper named Thomas (Temeura Morrison), Arthur doesn’t feel fully at home on either land or at sea. Despite having grown up under the tutelage of Vulko Willem Dafoe), his mother’s top advisor, and trained for royal combat, Arthur’s human side keeps him from embracing his Atlantean heritage. 

Arthur, known to many as Aquaman following the events of Justice League, will soon have to make a decision about Atlantis, whether to become its King or unwilling subject. Arthur’s brother, Ohrm (Patrick Wilson) has risen to the throne in the absence of Atlanna and he has plans to bring destruction to land-dwellers for the pollution and violence that human beings have brought to the oceans around Atlantis. 

To do this however, Ohrm must convince the seven kingdoms of the sea to get behind him as the Ocean Master, and allow him to take their armies into battle. All that stands in his way is Arthur who is guided by Mera (Amber Heard), the object of Ohrm’s affections and the daughter of one of the kings of the sea, King Nereus (Dolph Lundgren). Mera wants to prevent a war and believes that Arthur ascending to the throne is the only way to prevent it. 

It is Mera who drives the plot, convincing Arthur to seek the legendary Trident of Atlan, the weapon belonging to the very first King of Atlantis. The journey takes them from the deserts of the Sahara to the oceans around Sicily and eventually to the very center of the Earth where deadly combat awaits around every corner. All the while, Ohrm is raising an army and plotting to destroy all life on land unless Aquaman can stop him. 

Writing all of that out comes off even goofier than watching it unfold did. That said, it’s a good kind of goofy. Aquaman is a completely unpretentious comic book adventure that is both comic book nerdy and action movie macho. The film threads the needle of being just geeky enough and just enough of a macho action flick to satisfy audiences of both kinds. Jason Mamoa is the key to that tone. He’s a clever actor who gets the role he’s playing and does well to under-play the silliness to make room for his muscles. 

Director James Wan, though best known for the gruesome Saw franchise and the spooky The Conjuring universe, is proving to be a director who can do just about anything. It helps that he transitioned from horror movies to The Fast and the Furious franchise to Aquaman. Aquaman takes the self-seriousness of Wan’s horror work and combines it with the whacked out nonsense of the Furious franchise to create something that is incredibly silly but seriously well made. 

It’s a tricky tone that Aquaman has to pull off in order to not be laughed off the screen and James Wan nails it. Aquaman is silly in the way the Fast and Furious franchise is but it has the competence and chops of Wan's lower budget horror work. It’s a rather masterful piece of direction which manages to make great use of monstrous CGI without losing sight of the compelling characters at the heart of the story. 

Aquaman is not anything to be taken seriously but Wan is not careless, he takes pains to create a believable, dramatic world for Aquaman to exist within. This lends a context of believability to Aquaman, I believe in the universe that Aquaman exists in. It has a lived-in quality even as it is at times slick and stylized to an almost ludicrous degree. Mamoa’s earthy approach to Arthur, that includes some genuine vulnerability and humor, keeps Aquaman, the character and the movie, human and sympathetic. 

Mamoa isn’t going to win an Oscar anytime soon but he’s shown remarkable growth from Justice League to here with Aquaman. The all swaggering macho nonsense of Justice League is here shattered in favor of a lovable lug persona who happens to have super-strength, speed, agility and will. I was concerned that Mamoa would be the weakest part of Aquaman, given his lackluster and limited filmic track record but he’s far better than what I imagined.  

For Mamoa and for James Wan’s remarkable direction that manages to keep this unwieldy, untidy monstrosity in a human and relatable place, I feel comfortable recommending Aquaman to anyone who has been curious about this character. If you liked Jason Mamoa from Game of Thrones or Justice League, you will very much enjoy him in Aquaman where he delivers a superstar performance filled with good humor, charisma and machismo. 

Movie Review Margot at the Wedding

Margot at the Wedding (2007) 

Directed by Noah Baumbach

Written by Noah Baumbach

Starring Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jack Black, John Turturro 

Release Date November 16th, 2007 

Published November 30th, 2007 

Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is getting married and her sister Margot (Nicole Kidman) has relented to come in Noah Baumbach's latest ponderous wade into the world of the over-educated and under-socialized Margot At the Wedding. This oddball little movie about horrible people torturing each other over their shared ugly pasts is one of the more unpleasant movies I've seen in a while, and I've seen two Martin Lawrence comedies in recent weeks. It's not that Baumbach is not talented. Rather it's his use of his gift with words for evil. By evil I mean his characters are constantly manipulative, backbiting. Their whiney self involvement and their constant state of fucked upness.

As he did with his debut picture The Squid and The Whale Baumbach abuses another teenager, young Lane Pais plays Claude the son of the evil Margot and throughout Margot at the Wedding he is treated to abuse after abuse from his mother to a strange neighbor boy to having to hear far too much of Pauline and her fiance Malcolm's (Jack Black) business. This is the kind of mother-son relationship from which serial killers are born. It's a shame because Pais' performance has great potential. That potential is stifled unfortunately by Baumbach's fascination with Kidman's Margot.

Margot and Pauline were abused by their father, abuse that their unseen sister Becky never recovered from allegedly and thus still lives with their unseen mother. Naturally, Margot and Pauline delight in their sisters' misery. Then again, they seem to delight in each other's misery just as much. Margot doesn't just delight in hearing of misery however, she likes to instigate it and watch it unfold. With her own marriage faltering, John Turturro appears briefly as her masochist husband, Margot immediately sets to finding fault with Pauline's soon to be husband.

There is plenty to find fault with. Malcolm is a manchild, quick to bursts of impotent rage. He has no job, music is now his hobby we are told, he's a painter now. Malcolm has zero social skills and tells embarrassing stories. It's actually quite well played by Jack Black who rages in various directions, we assume looking to make us laugh, and occasionally finds a truly funny moment. These moments are rare, squeezed as they are between the palace intrigue of two sisters trying to emotionally decapitate one another. Then you have the poor children thrust into the middle of all of this. Pauline has a younger daughter named Ingrid who somehow manages to remain on the periphery of all of the evil.

There are laughs in Margot at the Wedding and even what passes for insight among these disturbing characters. Unfortunately, the whole thing is so damn repugnant to those who have the will to search for the good in it. Noah Baumbach is a talented writer who has gone over to the dark side. He simply doesn't like people and demonstrates that by crafting characters that reflect how awful he thinks they are. He uses children in his films to reflect that evil and how it is passed on generation to generation. There may be a valuable lesson to be learned there but I can't stand his characters long enough to figure out what that lesson is.

Movie Review The Golden Compass

The Golden Compass (2007) 

Directed by Chris Weitz 

Written by Chris Weitz 

Starring Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Sam Elliott, Eva Green, Ian McKellen, Dakota Blue Richards 

Release Date December 7th, 2007 

Published December 6th, 2007

It is the most perfect irony that church organizations are planning to boycott a movie about a Vatican-esque organization that tries to silence those who think differently from them. Church folk are livid over the new movie The Golden Compass from director Chris Weitz. The film is based on the first novel in the "His Dark Materials" series from author Philip Pullman.

Pullman has been accused and has done little to deny that his book series is anti-church with a specifically atheistic bent.  The movie however, is far from strident. The Golden Compass as a movie is not a religious or anti-religious tract. Rather, as a movie this is a family friendly adventure epic with terrific special effects, a compelling story and a star-making lead performance from young actress Dakota Blue Richards.

Lyra Belaqua (Richards) seems like a normal kid, running and playing with the other children like a classic tomboy. Spunky, smart with a rebellious streak, she lives a privileged but not spoiled existence at Jordan College where her uncle Asriel (Daniel Craig) is a welcome but controversial presence. His investigations of parallel universes and a magical dust that connects these universes together have many in power quite nervous.

An organization called the Magisterium feels that what Asriel does in his research is heresy. They go as far as trying to kill him. It is Lyra who saves his life and soon he is off for the north for further investigation. Meanwhile, Lyra is visited by Mrs. Coulter. Not often impressed with the adults around her, Lyra is surprisingly taken with Mrs. Coulter and is taken on as her guest with promises of a trip to the north to see her uncle.

Before she leaves, Lyra is given a gift, a golden compass that allows her to see into the future. Only she can interpret its symbols and make it work and she must keep it from Mrs. Coulter at all costs, Mrs. Coulter is a member of the magisterium. When Mrs. Coulter demands to see the compass Lyra runs away and thus begins an adventure north with the aid of an ancient seafaring race, a flying ace called an aeronaut (Sam Elliott) and a warrior race of polar bears.

The Golden Compass was adapted and directed by Chris Weitz, an ambitious young director with one masterpiece (About A Boy) and one disaster (American Dreamz) under his belt in his short career. A family action adventure fantasy would not seem like material right up his alley but Chris Weitz really pulls it off. This is a terrifically eye catching adventure that combines visual splendor with terrific storytelling to create a rousing adventure.

Though Weitz has never worked with major effects before in his career you wouldn't know it from The Golden Compass. From the awesome polar bears in full combat gear and olde english accents to the icy landscapes of the north country, The Golden Compass is as visually accomplished and daring as anything in The Chronicles of Narnia or even The Lord of the Rings and with a more human voice than either of those impressive epics.

The reality of The Golden Compass controversy is this, if someone walks into this movie searching for an agenda they will likely find it. That can be said about any number of movies but applies particularly here. Those who want the film to have an anti--church agenda will find one, they will have to employ some intellectual dishonesty to get there but they will get there.

The Golden Compass as a stand alone movie however, is no tract but rather an exciting, innovative family action adventure that takes the best of the Narnia and Rings franchises and humanizes them with deeper storytelling and equal visual splendor.

Young Dakota Blue Richards is entirely unaffected by any dark agendas. Her performance is pure joy and excitement. This pre-teen British actress is a stunner in a lead role that would overwhelm most actresses her age. Her spunk and pluck are so convincing and so winning you may forget just how young she is, then her vulnerability is displayed and you are won over all over again.

Even with the stunning special effects, with an icy beautiful Nicole Kidman, even with James Bond himself Daniel Craig on screen, Dakota Blue Richards is without doubt the most impressive performer in the whole of The Golden Compass.

I urge anyone who believes that The Golden Compass is some strident anti-religious tract to see the movie. Unless you really, really force it you will not find this agenda you are searching for. My bet is that half way into this well told, visually garish epic you will have forgotten your agenda and be absorbed by this wondrous story that Chris Weitz has so well brought to the screen.

Movie Review Nine

Nine (2009) 

Directed by Rob Marshall

Written by Michael Tollin, Anthony Minghella 

Starring Daniel Day Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson

Release Date December 18th, 2009

Published December 17th, 2009 

The musical “Nine” starring Antonio Banderas is a middling attempt to bring Federico Fellini to the masses. Italy's legendary surrealist director has, since his turn to surrealism after successfully defining Italian cinema and culture in the 1950's, been a mystery to most. Creative types have always felt that they understood what the Italian master was after and Maury Yeston, who wrote the music for the Broadway production, was apparently one of those creative types; so much so that he felt the need to water down Fellini with tired song and dance and a three act structure.

Now, Yeston's watered down work becomes a slightly more sophisticated but still wrongheaded movie musical. Oscar winner Rob Marshall is the latest to see the need to explain Fellini's genius to the great unwashed and like Yeston, he is a fabulous failure.

The story of “Nine” surrounds Italian director Guido Contini (Daniel Day Lewis), our substitute Fellini,  who, pushed by his producer, is about to begin production of his latest film “Italia.” This is despite the fact that he hasn't written a word of the script. Guido has lost his inspiration and calls upon the many muses of his past to bring a story to mind.

These muses include his wife Luisa (Marion Cotillard), his mistress Carla (Penelope Cruz), his late mother (Sophia Loren), his long time star, Claudia (Nicole Kidman) and a sex worker (pop princess Fergie) who taught him and his friends a little of the birds and bees decades ago. Meanwhile, he seeks advice from his best friend and costume designer Lilli (Judi Dench) and a little ego stroke, among other things, from a journalist named Stephanie (Kate Hudson).

Each of these women offer Guido a song or two, belting out their inner monologues, mostly about what a genius he is, save Luisa who calls him out for the bastard philanderer he truly is. If you have always held the impression that directors are self involved egotists, these songs, this film, will do little to disabuse you of that notion.

“Nine” is a shambling disaster for most of its run time. We are informed from the first moment that Guido is a genius but he is never required to demonstrate any kind of genius. When Lewis gives him voice for the first time he might explain a little about Guido but it's hard to hear over the gales of laughter elicited when his Italian accented singing is compared, not so favorably, to Jason Segal's singing Dracula puppet in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.”

The rest of the cast is far stronger in singing with Cotillard, naturally, the stand-out. The actress who won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Edith Piaf in “La Vien Rose” proves once again to be a natural and charismatic singer. Meanwhile, Kate Hudson is the surprise of the singers. Hudson has the film's one original song, “Cinema Italiano,” and it is the one really lively moment in the film, if not the most coherent or necessary.

Rob Marshall dismisses narrative coherence for a series of Guido's masturbatory fantasies, interrupted from time to time by his wife and a little Catholic guilt. Every woman in the film is asked to bow to his brilliance and their bowing is treated as evidence of his genius. Yet, never once does Guido have to prove his brilliance. This might not be a problem if Daniel Day Lewis gave Guido any dimension beyond a tortured libido.

Speaking of tortured, for a movie about Fellini, whose fanciful work included clowns, strolling musicians and endless parades, “Nine” tends toward a dirge. From Day Lewis's tortured “Guido's Song” opener to the feature tune “Be Italian,” sung by Fergie, the songs of “Nine” are a slog. “Be Italian” sounded rather brilliant in the film's exceptional trailer but in the film it becomes not a celebration of Italian culture but a command from a taskmistress.

“Be Italian” is a major misstep from Director Marshall who fumbles not just the song, staged a little too much like something from his far better musical “Chicago,” but the back story. Fergie's sex worker character is a turning point in the life of Guido Contini, a moment that shaped the way he treated women the rest of his life. Yet, do we see Fergie getting sexy and giving young Guido a truly formative memory? No, instead we cut from Marshall’s lame staged song to scenes of Fergie cavorting with child Guido and pals like a slightly creepy babysitter.

What could have possessed anyone to want to bring a Fellini type to the big screen in such a conventional and old fashioned manner? It's typical of the arrogant audience to talk down to the masses but how is this spoon-feeding of Fellini supposed to entice anyone to want to see 8 1/2 or Satirycon or even Fellini's more conventional films such as La Strada or Nights of Cabiria? Trust me dear reader when I tell you that Nine will not be able to prepare you for the wondrous surrealist brilliance of Federico Fellini. Nor will it prepare you for his brilliant use of subtlety and sadness. 

Nine is like Fellini for Dummies minus any actually helpful information. On top of failing as a tribute to Fellini, Nine simply fails as a movie. Take the inspiration away and all that is left is this boorish, tin-eared mess of a movie made by people who think dumbing down art to the lowest common denominator is the only way to promote great art to the masses. How dreadful is that? 

Movie Review Happy Feet

Happy Feet (2006) 

Directed by George Miller 

Written by George Miller

Starring Elijah Wood, Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Robin Williams, Brittany Murphy, Hugo Weaving 

Release Date November 17th, 2006 

Published November 18th, 2006

The trailers for Happy Feet have been in theaters for more than a year ahead of the release of the film. The trailers promise a big, brassy, pop musical with a cast of celebrity singers with impressive range. Now that the film has arrived the promise has not been delivered. Happy Feet has music but is no musical. Rather, Happy Feet is a sweet, well intention-ed, environmental parable about over-fishing in the world's oceans that will have little kids fidgeting in their seats and mom and dad struggling to stay awake.

Mumble (Elijah Wood) is the only penguin among thousands who doesn't have a heart song. He simply cannot sing, a terrible embarrassment to his mother (Nicole Kidman) and father (Hugh Jackman) who met through a beautifully sung medley. Mumble however, does have a unique talent, he can dance. Unfortunately his Happy Feet are not something the older penguins appreciate.

The penguins are in trouble. As we join the story; there are less and less fish in the ocean and the situation is getting desperate. Mumble has heard from a bird that aliens have been stealing most of the fish, leading some birds to even attack penguins, a fate that Mumble just barely escapes. On his first fishing trip, Mumble separates himself from the group to search for the aliens. He wants to reason with them and get them to share the fish.

Joining Mumble on his quest are a group of latin infused penguins lead by the hot blooded Ramon (Robin Williams). Also coming along is a penguin shaman named Lovelace (also voiced by Robin Williams). Together this ragtag band braves the coldest portions of Antarctica and the dangerous sea lions out to make them into lunch, to get to the alien encampment where Mumble's dancing skills might just make all the difference.

Directed by George Miller, who made the Oscar nominated kids flick Babe, Happy Feet is gorgeously animated but extraordinarily dull. The trailers promised music but aside from an opening mash-up of Prince's Kiss and Elvis's Heartbreak Hotel sung by Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman and Brittany Murphy crooning a lovely rendition of Queen's Somebody To Love, the music is scant throughout Happy Feet.

The real thrust of the film is an environmental parable about how humans are overfishing the oceans and how it's affecting wildlife. That is a relevant environmental issue well suited to documentary filmmaking. Happy Feet is obviously not a documentary but an animated movie aimed at small children. Now, environmental responsibility is a lesson I wish more kids were taught but if Happy Feet is the vehicle; most kids won't remember the message.

The message is delivered in such a slow moving, serious minded fashion that the message is likely to go over the heads of the target audience of Happy Feet who are more likely to spend their time climbing on the theater seats or trying to keep mom and dad from dozing off. As forgettable as they are, the Ice Age pictures deliver an environmental lesson far more effectively and entertainingly than does Happy Feet.

The animation of Happy Feet is exceptional. It really is a work of art in some moments. If the story weren't so trudgingly dull, Happy Feet might have been a masterpiece. I loved George Miller's lovely watercolor landscapes and the animated dancing penguins is a real dazzler. If you love great animation, from a technical perspective, you might find something to love about Happy Feet.

The soundtrack to Happy Feet is also tremendous, if only there had been more of it. Prince contributes a brand new song, "Song Of The Heart", that plays over the closing credits. The soundtrack CD features Pink, covering Rufus and Chaka Khan's "Tell Me Something Good", The Beach Boys and the long forgotten but much loved Brand New Heavies. Songs sung, all too briefly, by the cast are also included on the CD.

If this were a music review it would be a rave.

Great animation, great music, and yet a sleeping pill of a film, Happy Feet is one of the more disappointing films of the year. The trailer promised a pop musical, the movie is a lesson in overfishing around Antarctica, even an environmentalist like myself found it difficult to keep my eyes from rolling. If you want to send an environmental message to little kids at least dress it up with some great pop tunes, Happy Feet tried that and abandoned it far too quickly in favor of dull preaching.

Movie Review: The Stepford Wives

The Stepford Wives (2004) 

Directed by Frank Oz 

Written by Paul Rudnick 

Starring Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, Bette Midler, Roger Bart, Glenn Close, Christopher Walken

Release Date June 11th, 2004

Published June 12th, 2004 

The troubles of a troubled movie project tend to go public long before the movie itself. Such is the case with the remake of the 1975 domestic horror movie The Stepford Wives. The signs of trouble began with gossip about onset bickering between the stars and director Frank Oz. Then, when the film ballooned from a three-month shoot to a six-month shoot, the gossip turned to outright fact. Finally, there was the kiss of death, the announcement of reshoots to change the ending.

Whatever chance the film had of reaching blockbuster status went out the window when the reshoots were announced. Now the best that the producers can hope for is that the editing, which when added to the time spent shooting brought the project to more than a year's worth of work, could salvage something salable, or even moderately watchable. That they did a little better than that is a miracle.

Nicole Kidman and Matthew Broderick star as Joanna and Walter, a married couple who also work together at a television network. Well, Joanna works, she's the head of the network, Walter works for her. However after an incident with a crazed reality show contestant, Joanna is fired and Walter quits out of sympathy. After Joanna recovers from a minor nervous breakdown, the couple take their kids and move to a gated community in Connecticut called Stepford.

Right off the bat, the place is weird. It's too neat, too orderly, too...clean. Not just clean but frighteningly clean. There is more weirdness as the family meets the Stepford welcoming committee in the form of Mrs. Claire Wellington (Glenn Close). Picture Martha Stewart on a serious caffeine bender. While Walter is shuttled off to the Stepford men's club, Joanna joins Claire at the Stepford day spa where the women of Stepford work out, though not in a way any normal woman works out.

Though her husband takes quickly to Stepford's ‘50s country club feel, Joanna is not completely alone in her alienation. Also new to the neighborhood are another pair of transplanted New Yorkers, Bobbie (Bette Midler) a cynical, slovenly, Jewish writer and Roger (Roger Bart) an outré fashion conscious gay man and well-known architect. Bobbie came to Stepford with her schlubby househusband Dave (Jon Lovitz) and Roger with his barely out of the closet lawyer Jerry (David Marshall Grant).

Being the only three normal people in all of Stepford, they commiserate over the oddity of the woman in Stepford. They all dress like housewives from 50's TV ads. They bake like it were their only job in the world. And strangest of all, these gorgeous woman are all having amazing sex with their doughy, dopey husbands, as the three accidentally witness on an uninvited visit.

Things only grow weirder though when both Roger and Bobbie disappear and then reappear in the Stepford mold with all of their personality sucked out. All of this oddness has something to do with the Stepford men's club and especially it's founder Mike Wellington (Christopher Walken), also Claire's husband. Though most of you know the film’s secret, I don't want to ruin it for the uninitiated. Needless to say, the film comes down to a battle between Joanna, the men's club, and indeed her own husband.

The biggest surprise about this film is not it's twist ending but rather how good the film is until that twist. There are a number of funny moments in Stepford Wives and most come from Kidman, Midler and Roger Bart whose biting comments about the woman of Stepford are very funny. The best scene in the film is when the three attend the Stepford woman's book club where the book of the week is all about Christmas ornaments.

Glenn Close turns in a performance that rivals her turn in Fatal Attraction for it's over the top lunacy. It almost goes without saying that Christopher Walken is good. Yet again, Walken has another of those speeches that only he could deliver. It's not as good as his tooth fairy bit in The Rundown or his masterpiece of death speech in Man on Fire, but for sheer Walken inspired lunacy it's a real highlight.

So what went wrong? Up until maybe the last 15 to 20 minutes Stepford Wives was a pretty funny comedy and then it flew completely off the rails. In his effort to distance this film from the original director Frank Oz makes a decision that is such a complete departure from the original film it's mind-blowing. The twist ending of the original film was what made it so memorable, it's why the film existed, for that one moment of shock. Obviously, that shock isn't going to be as good a second time, but the change made is so radical and so obviously tacked on that it ruins the entire picture.

Nothing of the first 50 or so minutes of the film’s run time makes any sense at all once the twist is introduced. This is a horribly misconceived change that I can't tell you how bad it is, you really have to see it for yourself to see what a garish and obvious mistake it is. So bad you wonder how a major studio and a professional director could make such a mistake.

The original Stepford Wives is a pretty good horror film. It's also very of its time. It's a social satire that drew from the burgeoning women's rights movement and the societal changes that were happening so quickly in the 1970's. When you look back on it this is not a film that should inspire a remake. The new Stepford Wives is not just filled with mistakes in its creation and final product. The idea to make it was probably the biggest mistake of them all.

Movie Review: Dogville

Dogville (2004) 

Directed by Lars Von Trier

Written by Lars Von Trier

Starring Nicole Kidman, Stellan Skarsgard, Lauren Bacall, Paul Bettany, Chloe Sevigny, Patricia Clarkson

Release Date April 23rd, 2004

Published March 25th, 2004 

Director Lars Von Trier received a lot of positive notice for his film Dancer in the Dark, but what really stuck with him was the negative notice. Specifically, Von Trier bristled at criticism that he did not understand America well enough to set his film there. In response, Von Trier began work on what he calls his America trilogy. The first of the trilogy is called Dogville, which observes America's morals and values from a European perspective. A powerful, if not entirely accurate, indictment of American moral hypocrisy.

Nicole Kidman stars as Grace, a woman on the run from gangsters and the law who finds herself in the tiny hamlet of Dogville somewhere in the Rocky mountains. With the help of a local named Thomas Edison Jr. (Paul Bettany) Grace avoids the gangsters by hiding in a mine shaft. Tom diverts the gangsters but he has ulterior motives for helping this stranger.

Thomas is Dogville's self appointed philosopher and teacher. He holds monthly meetings at the town’s church where he pontificates to the town’s 15 residents on morals and ethics. When Grace arrives Tom sees an opportunity to put his teachings to the test and see if the townspeople live up to the ideals he has attempted to instill. Grace is unaware of Tom's motives and sees only his kindness; the two form an immediate bond. Despite his underlying intentions, Tom's feelings for Grace are real and for a time we think there could be a happy ending for the two.

Tom's plan for Grace and the town is for Grace to hide out under the town's protection. In exchange, Grace will work for each of the town’s residents one hour of each day. For Grace, it's a hideout. For Tom, it's a social experiment--a test of the town's kindness and caring. It begins as Tom would hope, with the town taking to Grace. (It helps that Grace is, in turn, a hard worker.) However, as Grace's predicament is slowly revealed the town slowly turns and Tom's experiment takes a sad and dangerous turn.

Oscar nominees Chloe Sevigny, Lauren Bacall and Patricia Clarkson head up the supporting cast with Philip Baker Hall and Jeremy Davies. The soul of the film however is the noble but badly damaged Chuck played by Stellan Skarsgard. Chuck stands in for all of America's failed dreams, stuck in a loveless marriage and a job that is more of an obligation Chuck takes his rage out on whoever is nearest to him. When that rage is turned on Grace it begins the films ugly turn. Skarsgard is invaluable; his pained expression conveys the broken back of the American working class of the depression era.

Von Trier's first of three American allegories is a searing look at the morals and values that this country was built upon, and the level of hypocritical betrayal of those values on the part of many Americans. It's a cynical point of view, but one that is shared by a number of Mr. Von Trier's European brethren. As a patriot and a partisan, I find some of what Von Trier has to say about American values a little unfair but take it with a grain of salt because, in Europe, Von Trier's views may not be a minority opinion.

Stylistically speaking, Dogville is an amazing break from conventional filmmaking; an experiment on par with Von Trier's invention of Dogme filmmaking back in 1995. The set standing in for the Rocky Mountain hamlet is merely a barren soundstage with chalk outlines where homes should be. The only sets are an elevated stage that serves as Grace's home, a small storefront window, and a bell tower that hangs from the ceiling.

Von Trier cribbed the visual style from the filmed plays he grew up watching in his native Denmark. Like a great stage play, the action is in the words. This is a terrific screenplay with powerful, intellectual ideas. Ideas about morality, values, religious hypocrisy, and old world justice. It's the best thing Von Trier has written since Breaking The Waves. At nearly three hours, the film clips by at a surprisingly strong pace. The script is so powerful that you barely notice the passage of time.

This a rare and unique film. A challenging look at how a foreigner has viewed our country's cultural history. A film that holds a funhouse mirror up to our past, our politics and our culture, it's not an entirely accurate or fair vision but is valid in its own way as an opposing view. If the two remaining films in Von Trier's America trilogy, Manderlay and Washington, are as powerful as Dogvilleis, then we are really in for something amazing.

Movie Review The Human Stain

The Human Stain (2003) 

Directed by Robert Benton 

Written by Nicholas Meyer 

Starring Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris, Gary Sinise 

Release Date October 31st, 2003 

Published November 4th, 2003 

This is truly one of the worst titles you've ever seen. It's made worse by the fact that it is only part metaphor and does in fact refer to the gutter-minded definition your so ashamed to ascribe it. In his 2000 novel The Human Stain, writer Phillip Roth makes it clear that his title refers to that infamous blue dress owned by Monica Lewinsky. Yes there is a deeper metaphorical meaning to the title for the books characters but it's the Monica definition that people come away with and in so doing, forget that there is a rather compelling drama behind that title.

For the film adaptation of Roth's novel, director Robert Benton may have been better off without the literal title. The film is all about the metaphor with little mention of Roth's contempt for the Clinton impeachment and to his book’s first act plot point. You shouldn't judge a book (or movie) by it's title but in this case it's hard not to. So many people will avoid seeing this film because of that title that it renders the whole thing meaningless.

Coleman Silk (Sir Anthony Hopkins) has, in his time as Dean of Classics at Berkshire College, turned the sleepy small town institution into the shadow of an Ivy League University. In so doing he has made many friends and many more enemies. Therefore, it's not surprising then that when he makes one seemingly minor mistake on the eve of his retirement that his enemies seize upon it to get rid of him early.

Coleman's mistake was referring to a pair of students who never showed up in his class as "spooks.” Coleman's reference was to the ghostly definition of the word but because the missing students were African-Americans a complaint was filed and some people seized on the other definition of the word spooks as a racial epithet. And so it is that the very people Coleman himself hired at the college that shove him out the door.

The controversy is ironic because Coleman himself is African-American though you would not know it to look at him. He has for most of his 71 years passed himself off as Jewish and because of his light skin has never had to admit to anyone he is black. Coleman never told his wife of more than 40 years or his colleagues at the college or his closest friend a writer, Nathan Zuckerman (Gary Sinise), who after Coleman's death must piece his life together from the scraps of lies and half truths he left behind.

Coleman's death is another great source of controversy. After quitting his job, losing his wife to an embolism and becoming a pariah in his small town, Coleman takes up a scandalous affair with Faunia Farley (Nicole Kidman) a woman half his age, divorced and working as a janitor at the college. Faunia's ex-husband Les (Ed Harris) is a Vietnam veteran and highly unstable.

The situation that Coleman has placed himself in is one that is obviously dangerous. It's a situation that someone of his dignity and intelligence should never find himself in, as his friends including Nathan and his Lawyer Nelson Primus (Clark Gregg) remind him constantly. However as Faunia tells him when they first meet, action is the enemy of thought. Coleman acts without thinking allowing lust to overcome logic. Whether or not Coleman and Faunia can achieve something beyond lust is one of the film’s central questions.

Parallel to the main love story is Coleman's history. Flashbacks take us back 50 years to when Coleman (played in the past by newcomer Wentworth Miller) first decided his life would be easier if lived as a white Jew. While attending school in New York City, Coleman meets a beautiful Midwestern blonde named Steena Paulson (Jacinda Barrett). Steena has no idea that Coleman is African-American, she assumes he is Jewish which explains his ethnic looks. It seems like true love but when Coleman brings Steena home to meet his mother, he gets his first lesson in why his life might be easier if he pretended he was someone else.

The backstory is actually far more interesting than the central love story. Wentworth Miller and Jacinda Barrett light up the screen with a fiery chemistry. Ms. Barrett is particularly surprising as she pulls off the wide-eyed innocence of a mid twentieth century Midwesterner. Until now she has been cast as sexpots, typecast from her time as a one the over-sexed simpletons on MTV's The Real World (she was in the London cast).

Of course, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman make strong impressions, they are terrific actors. Their plot however is astoundingly dreary. Any momentary light that shines in their relationship is punished and it's only in the flashbacks to Coleman and Steena, before she dumped him, that we get any reprieve from the constant onslaught of misery.

Director Robert Benton has a knack for capturing older male characters preparing to conquer their old age. It was Benton who directed Paul Newman to his best late years performance in Nobody's Fool. Here he does well by Sir Anthony Hopkins by giving the legendary actor his first romantic lead role. Unfortunately, as great as Mr. Hopkins is, I never believed he and Wentworth Miller were playing the same character. After leaving his job at the college Coleman's connection to his past is left only as an ironic passage in his life. The film shifts it's focus to his relationship with Faunia which has nothing to do with race. It's an entirely different plot.

As for the allusion to the Lewinsky scandal, that was far more the book’s concern than the films. It is referred on more than one occasion and as in the book it is brought up as an example of political correctness run amok. It runs parallel to the ridiculousness of Coleman's own persecution for his racist remark that wasn't racist. Clinton's indiscretion was bad but not impeachable. 

The novel used Coleman and Faunia's many problems to magnify why Clinton-Lewinsky was such a meaningless endeavor, the movie makes the same reference and both seem heavy-handed to those of us who already realize what a bunch of trumped up ridiculousness Clinton-Lewinsky was. Of course issues of race, and death and family are more important than whether or not Bill Clinton got a BJ in the Oval Office. We know that! Thankfully the film doesn't linger on the point.

I would have liked to see more about Coleman growing up. Pretending to be white while coming of age in the 50's and 60’s with the rise of the Civil Rights movement, that has more inherent drama than any semi-controversial small town May-December romance ever could. Someday someone should revisit Roth's novel and extrapolate on the ideas put forth about Coleman's youth. That sounds like a movie I would like to see.

Movie Review: Birthday Girl

Birthday Girl (2002) 

Directed by Jez Butterworth

Written by Tom Butterworth 

Starring Nicole Kidman, Ben Chaplin, Vincent Cassel, Matthieu Kassovitz 

Release Date February 1st, 2002 

Published February 2nd, 2002 

I just read Roy's column about movies that are guaranteed to suck. In it, Roy asks how some movies get made. I have wondered that myself quite often. Not when it comes to Miramax films though. I know that if Miramax puts out an obvious piece of crap with a star in it, it is because said star probably owed Harvey a favor.

That is the only way to explain Nicole Kidman's starring in the dreadful English thriller Birthday Girl. As a Russian mail order bride named Nadia, Kidman acts as if she has a figurative gun to her head. Her every expression screams "let's get this over with quickly."

Ben Chaplin is John, Nadia's through the mail hubby. John is a shy, loser bank teller in a small English town. He explains in voiceover that because the town is small there are few eligible women. So rather than looking outside his own zip code, John jumps online and orders a mail order bride from Russia. (You know you can get anything on Ebay these days.)

Anyway let's try to forget that the likelihood of John's mail-order bride looking anything like Nicole Kidman; obviously she is more likely to look like someone named Nick than Nicole. Putting that aside, let's talk plot. Nadia speaks no English and she smokes like a chimney, two qualities John explicitly said he didn't want. But wouldn't you know it, he forgot to get a receipt so they won't take her back. (Always, always get a receipt.)

Oh right the plot. After trying to send her back she convinces him to keep her by taking off her clothes. She can't speak English but she is a hell of a negotiator. Soon it's her birthday and out-of-town relatives show up. Nadia's cousins Alexai (Vincent Cassel) and Yuri (Matthieu Kassovitz. He made this before Amelie so we forgive him.)

Well it turns out the cousins are actually partners in crime, con men who convince John to rob his bank branch in broad daylight by holding Nadia hostage. Now we must understand that John doesn't know Nadia is working with the con men. Still, in the robbery scene, his opportunities to put an end to the whole thing are numerous. One word to a coworker or any of a number of cops, or during the get away (or not ordering a Russian mail-order bride in the first place) would have enabled him to escape.

Birthday Girl is yet another film where one intelligent decision by either lead character would end the film in the first 30 minutes.

Would someone please wake Ben Chaplin before filming him please? Honestly, every film he has been in I've wanted to check his pulse, maybe hold a mirror under his nose to see if he's breathing. This guy makes Al Gore look like Carrot Top. What a surprise that Birthday Girl has been gathering dust since it's completion in mid 2000. It might have stayed on the shelf had Kidman not had the best year of her career in 2001 with two hit films and a best actress Oscar (which she won a mere five days before Birthday Girl opened.) One of those quirks in timing I'm sure. 

Movie Review Cold Mountain

Cold Mountain (2003) 

Directed by Anthony Minghella 

Written by Anthony Minghella 

Starring Nicole Kidman, Renee Zellweger, Jude Law, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Natalie Portman 

Release Date December 25th, 2003 

Published December 24th, 2003 

In 1997, Author Charles Frazier set out to tell a story that had been passed through his family for years. It was the story of his great uncle H.P Inman and his arduous trek home to North Carolina after deserting the Southern army near the end of the Civil War. In translating the story to the page, Frazier created an epic love story combined it with a Homeric odyssey and bathed it in Southern gentility.

Now in the hands of Director Anthony Minghella, Cold Mountain is a portentous, pompous, epic scale film and a sure bet Best Picture candidate.

Jude Law stars as Inman, a day laborer helping to build a brand new chapel for the people of Cold Mountain who are welcoming the arrival of a new Minister, Reverend Monroe (Donald Sutherland). With Reverend Monroe is his daughter Ada (Nicole Kidman), a well-educated, Charlotte-bred woman who has never done a days work in her life. Ada is a trained pianist, a writer and lives to serve her father. The attraction between Ada and Inman is immediate though inexplicable. The timing couldn’t be worse as Inman is leaving to join the Southern army to fight in the Civil War. They exchange photographs and a single passionate kiss. They promise to write and Inman promises to come back.

At war, Inman is witness to one of the bloodiest battles of the war, the battle at Petersburg, Virginia. The battle is legendary for the massive mistake made by the northern army who, after setting off a huge explosion underneath the southern lines, charged ahead into the crater they created. Once trapped inside the remaining Southern soldiers are able to pick them off one by one as they attempted to climb out of the crater. Inman watches most of the carnage until forced to jump in and save a friend who fell into the crater.

Afterwards, Inman is injured in a raid meant to kill the remaining Northerners trapped in the crater. While recovering, he receives a letter from Ada detailing her struggles since he left and asking him to come home. Inman immediately deserts and begins a very long walk home.

In the meantime, Ada is in grave danger of her own. With all of the able bodied men of Cold Mountain off to war and her father having passed away, Ada is left to tend the farm which she can't do. With only the kindness of an old couple played by Kathy Baker and James Gammon is Ada able to survive. At the old couple’s urging Ada takes in a woman named Ruby (Renee Zellweger), a force of nature personality who's as spunky as Ada is helpless. Ruby moves in and teaches Ada how to survive.

Zellweger's Ruby is at once the film’s most interesting and most problematic performance. On the one hand, it brings the film some much-needed lightness to balance the dreariness of the austere landscape and doomed love story. On the other hand, Zellweger continues to draw laughs even as she is supposed to be drawing sympathy. Credit Renee Zellweger for her ability to keep Ruby from going over the top but the adapted screenplay does her little favor with it's cornpone wisdom and forced passages that play up the character’s lack of education. The role was initially intended for an African American actress, the change is a wise one because as written the role would have been clearly racist.

As Inman makes his trek back to Cold Mountain he also meets some colorful characters, including a lecherous priest played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman and a nasty little redneck played by Giovanni Ribisi. Then there is the odd cameo by Natalie Portman as a war widow trying to protect her sick infant and fend off the Union army creeping up on her doorstep. She takes in Inman during a heavy rainstorm and the two have an odd encounter that is chastely romantic but unnecessary. Portman's scenes drag out the runtime of the film and serve no purpose on Inman's journey other than showing what great chemistry Law and Portman could have together given more time.

Much has been said of the chemistry between Law and Kidman, including rumors of onset romance. However, in the film they share so few scenes that the chemistry is never really an issue. Ada and Inman don't fall in love with one another but rather the idea of each other. Inman headed off to war and the strong possibility of death and appears to grab on to the image of Ada, the most beautiful woman he has ever seen, as a reason to fight and a reason to keep living in the face of great tragedy. 

As for Ada, Inman is at first simply an intriguing romance but in the course of losing her father and suffering on the farm, before Ruby arrives to help her, Inman is a savior. Inman is a knight in shining armor coming to her rescue. It is the idea of one another that matters, not the person themselves. It’s that idea which makes the film’s ending all the more poetic and fascinating.

I'm not going to give away anything, Director Anthony Minghella certainly never gives anything away. For most of the entire nearly three hour runtime of Cold Mountain, the audience has a preconceived notion of what will happen and Minghella alternately delivers it and subverts it. Switching perspectives from Ada to Inman, shifting the timeline from when Inman and Ada met to the current moment of their journey. The film is at once conventional and out of sorts and I dig that about it.

That said there is another element of Cold Mountain that I didn't like. Call it the Miramax effect or maybe just something about Minghella's affected filmmaking, but everything about Cold Mountain screams out at you to appreciate it whether you want to or not. There is an arrogance to it that says the film doesn't have to be entertaining because it's above that. It's like an obnoxious person who simply assumes that you like them regardless of how you really feel. Cold Mountain seems full of itself and arrives with an air that says “Award me.”

Is Cold Mountain a well-crafted film? Absolutely. Is it among the best films of 2003? No. Does it demand that you think it is? Definitely.

Movie Review The Invasion

The Invasion (2007) 

Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel 

Written by David Kajganich 

Starring Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Jeremy Northam, Jeffrey Wright

Release Date August 17th, 2007

Published August 16th, 2007 

The latest incarnation of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, that legendary cold war parable based on the novel by Jack Finney, is one those mythically troubled Hollywood productions. Not quite the historic Hollywood disaster of Bonfire of the Vanities or Ishtar, but with more than a little in common with the recent disastrous Exorcist prequel(s), The Invasion was once directed by an up and coming director, Oliver Hirschbiegel, before being almost entirely reshot by V For Vendetta helmer James McTiegue, with guidance from his producing partners Lana and Lilly Wachowski, The Invasion is a bizarre hybrid of failed ideas and pieces that just don't fit. 

Now, this compromised, reshot version of Hirschbiegel's take on the Body Snatchers legend is finally on the big screen and the result is, as predicted, an utter disaster. The Invasion is a nonsense movie comprised of half baked political ideas and lame, over the top action set pieces. The last time Nicole Kidman starred in a big budget remake the result was the dreary, nonsensical recreation of The Stepford Wives. Working on that highly troubled production should have taught the Oscar winner a lesson yet here she is in The Invasion starring as psychiatrist Carol Bennell. This mother of one son, Oliver (Jackson Bond), is a dedicated mother and doctor

Dad, Tucker (Jeremy Northam) is a scientist for the Centers for Disease Control and when the space shuttle Patriot crashes leaving debris spread across several states he is surprised to be called to the scene. It seems the ship is coated in some sort of alien ooze. When Tucker is accidentally cut by a piece of debris he is soon changed and an alien virus is set loose on the planet. Beginning as what many feel is a flu epidemic, Tucker uses his position at the CDC and his access to the President of the United States, to spread the alien virus and his first target is his son.

It will soon be up to mom and her scientist boyfriend Ben (Daniel Craig) and another scientist, Dr. Galleon (Jeffrey Wright) to discover the virus, uncover the conspiracy and stay uninfected long enough to discover a cure. There are germs of many ideas in The Invasion and a good deal of high minded ambition as well. Unfortunately, not even two talented directors, Oliver Hirschbiegel (Downfall) or pinch hitter James McTiegue (V For Vendetta), and a script overhaul by the Matrix team can seem to wrangle these ideas or ambitions into a cohesive story.

It's clear that the makers of The Invasion desperately wanted the film to be relevant, even political. However, lacking any idea of what metaphor it wants to represent or political philosophy it supports, The Invasion flails in many different directions with no real target to aim at. Allusions are made to the genocide in Darfur, the roiling conflict between Israel and Palestine, and to the war in Iraq but the film doesn't really have a discernible opinion about any of these issues. Rather, each is used as an unsettling plot point in a truly confusing final act that will have some wondering if the aliens are really the bad guys. Yes, the film is so bad, you may just root for the destruction of humanity.

Even through the morass of a thoroughly confused plot, the talented cast of The Invasion manages to make the movie rather gripping. Nicole Kidman is an actress of tremendous strength and fortitude and she sells the tension of the alien invasion extraordinarily well. Though she is a little too convincing as an icy, emotionless, zombie, Ms. Kidman's tenacity and the well calibrated action of The Invasion do manage, from time to time, to move you to the edge of your seat.

Is this really the film that Daniel Craig meant to follow up James Bond with? Not really, actually he was given the role of 007 during shooting of The Invasion. It was only after he completed work on Casino Royale that Craig was called back to reshoot scenes for The Invasion that would hold the film until after Casino Royale. A bummer for Craig who I'm sure wishes he could have had a stronger follow up for Bond than playing second fiddle in a tragic sci fi misfire like The Invasion.

On a more disturbing note, whose awful idea was it to bring the alien virus to earth on a crashing NASA space shuttle? A crash that is not merely reminiscent of the 2003 crash of the space shuttle Columbia but so obviously modeled on the details of that tragedy that a lawsuit would not be out of the question. The crash in The Invasion is spread predominantly over Texas with debris that spread over several southern states. This was the near exact fate of Columbia.

Shame on the producers of The Invasion and the studio for including something of such poor taste and utter disregard for the brave men and women of Columbia and their families. They deserve far better than to have their tragedy be a plot device in some B-movie sci fi schlock-fest. Will we ever see director Oliver Hirschbiegel's original cut of The Invasion? Maybe, maybe not. No one expected to see Paul Schrader's Exorcist prequel or Ridley Scott's Blade Runner but both are now widely available. Hirschbiegel's version no doubt still exists somewhere and will likely be sought after by many a curious sci fi fan due to how uproariously terrible the reshoots clearly are.

Let us keep in mind however, that there is nothing in what is left of The Invasion that holds much promise for a better version to exist in the shadows. The whole misguided enterprise looks more simply like a case of a movie in search of an idea that never really found one. Covering the holes and the cracks with skillful car chases and  well staged gunplay, the Wachowski's and director James McTiegue likely did all that they could with the materials on hand.

Don't hold out too much hope sci fi fans. Let's try and put this Invasion behind us.

Movie Review: Rabbit Hole

Rabbit Hole (2010)

Directed by John Cameron Mitchell 

Written by David Lindsay Abaire 

Starring Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhardt, Dianne Wiest, Sandra Oh, Miles Teller

Release Date December 17th, 2010 

Published December 16th, 2010 

Grief is an individual thing, no two people, no matter how connected they are, react the same way to a catastrophic loss. Some will talk about the Kubler-Ross Theory, the five stages of grief, but Kubler-Ross is far too simple. No two people experience grief in the same way, attempting to simplify people’s reactions to trauma is a fool’s errand. 

The movie “Rabbit Hole” explores the different ways people experience grief, that individual experience, and how people recover or not from the most devastating of losses. Based on a play by David Lindsey-Abaire, who adapted his own script for this screenplay, and directed by John Cameron Mitchell, “Rabbit Hole” is a deeply humane drama filled with anguish and heartache but also with a longing hopefulness at its core.

Nicole Kidman stars in “Rabbit Hole” as Becca a stay at home mom whose 4 year old son Danny chased his dog into the street one day and was struck and killed by a car. 8 months later Becca and her husband, Howie (Aaron Eckhardt), are struggling with the different ways each is dealing with the loss of their son.

For Becca, comfort cannot be found in a grief counseling group where, in one of the films most remarkable scenes, Kidman says what is on the minds of so many of us though most would not have the nerve or seeming lack of compassion to say it. She does find something soothing in removing memories of David from she and Howie’s home beginning with the family dog that was the reason Danny ran into the street, and continuing with the removal of David's clothes, his pictures on the refrigerator and eventually a suggestion to sell their lovely suburban house.

Howie on the other hand does find comfort in the grief group and in the friendship of a veteran group member Gabby (Sandra Oh). Will this friendship offer him the comfort that Becca cannot? Meanwhile, Becca finds a much unexpected comfort visiting with the teenage driver of the vehicle that killed her son. Miles Teller plays Jason a mild, artistic, thoughtful kid who bears physical and emotional scars from the accident and despite the circumstances elicits deep sympathy from Becca.

Becca's relationship with Jason and Howie's friendship with Gabby are on an emotional collision course that unfolds in unexpected ways in the final act of “Rabbit Hole.” Director James Cameron Mitchell is best remembered for his outlandish musical “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and his lesser known oddity “Shortbus” which earned an NC-17 for its explicit sex. In “Rabbit Hole” Mitchell subverts expectations by playing it straight, delivering in essence a highly conventional drama.

The distinct lack of oddity in “Rabbit Hole” stands out only for those unfamiliar with Mitchell's work. For the uninitiated, this stock approach to dramatic storytelling won't register in the same way. Both camps should find “Rabbit Hole” moving but only those who know Mitchell's work will be struck by the lack of playfulness, the standard approach and unfortunate lack of surprises.

Putting my expectations aside for a moment, “Rabbit Hole” contains scenes of heart-rending sadness and deeply moving emotion. A scene involving a video on Howie's phone that he believes Becca intentionally deleted is a powerful, gutty moment, exceptionally well played by Eckhardt and Kidman. The scene in which Howie discovers Becca's friendship with Jason is another agonizing scene filled with deep, passionate feeling.

I may have expected something else from director John Cameron Mitchell but what he delivers is quite strong even in its distinct lack of jaw dropping moments of surprise, the hallmarks of each of Mitchell’s previous films. “Rabbit Hole” has a strong sense of how individual the experience of grief is and it effectively shows the way two people as close as they could possibly be; experience the same trauma in different ways.

A strong cast that also includes Oscar winner Dianne Wiest as Kidman’s mother, playing her own grief storyline, and Tony Award winner Tammy Blanchard as Kidman’s newly pregnant sister, tackle a tough, perfervid story filled with inherent sadness and give it an uplifting and enlightening feel without losing that sadness that will never lift no matter how much time passes and healing takes place.

Resilience is at the heart of recovering from trauma and like grief, resilience is an individual endeavor. Some people will seem to bounce right back as if pretending nothing happened. Others will be consumed by grief and never emerge from the darkness. Only you know how you resilient you will be and likely not until you are forced to confront serious trauma.

The strength of “Rabbit Hole” is in knowing this, playing to it and delivering a drama filled with the understanding necessary to create resilience between the two devastated souls at its center. There are no simple answers for understanding grief and in that way “Rabbit Hole” is instructive and wonderfully understanding. Like the most resonant of dramas “Rabbit Hole” is going to help some who see it and likely move all who see it.