Movie Review: Dream House

Dream House (2011) 

Directed by Jim Sheridan

Written by David Loucka

Starring Daniel Craig, Naomi Watts, Rachel Weisz, Martin Csokas, Elias Koteas 

Release Date September 30th, 2011

Published September 30th, 2011

You cannot separate a movie from its marketing campaign. A movie marketing campaign defines what a movie is before audiences get a chance to see it. Dream House, starring Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz has been established as a haunted house thriller via marketing but the problem is, Dream House isn’t really a haunted house movie at all.

The film stars Daniel Craig as a man investigating a murder that he may have committed. The apparitions that Craig’s character sees aren’t ghosts but rather projections of his damaged psyche. The marketing campaign trades the twist about Craig’s character having been in a mental hospital and not being the man he thought he was, so that it can sell Dream House as a ghost movie. This leaves Dream House to limp through 45 minutes of runtime to a reveal that has already been revealed in commercials and trailers.

Daniel Craig is Will Atenton, a successful book editor who is quitting his job to become an author. Will is headed home to his beautiful wife Libby (Rachel Weisz) and their two adorable daughters who are now living in their new home in the Connecticut suburbs. Unfortunately, the realtor has failed to mention that a man named Peter Ward may have murdered his family in this house or that tourists and teenagers like to drop by and look in the windows.

This takes us to about 45 minutes into Dream House. The marketing campaign has spoiled the fact that Daniel Craig’s Will is really Peter Ward and that he may have killed his family. The movie however, treats this as a shocking twist, giving this plot turn a Hitchcockian reveal.

Why spoil the twist? Why ruin what the director clearly believed was important enough to frame as a shocking surprise? The choice to spoil Craig’s identity in the marketing campaign may explain why the cast of Dream House refused to promote the film. Then again, it could also have to do with how everything after the big twist is a clumsy mess.

The resolution of Dream House finds Will/Peter investigating the murder of his family even as he can see his wife and kids as if they were still alive. Will/Peter’s neighbor Ann (Naomi Watts) is among those with important details about the murders as is Ann’s angry ex-husband Jack (Martin Csokas) and a drifter named Boyce (Elias Koteas).

The ending of Dream House is stunningly inept given all of the talent on display. Daniel Craig is compellingly sad yet determined as Peter while Naomi Watts and Rachel Weisz do variations on attractive vulnerability. Director Jim Sheridan builds a few strong individual scenes but the ending is too convoluted to be believed or enjoyed.

Could Dream House have been a better movie had the twist not been spoiled by the marketing campaign? Probably not given the bad ending but then again, we’ll will never know. As it is though, Dream House dragged on for 45 minutes to a reveal that I was already aware of before ending in the inept fashion of your average B-movie.

Movie Review The Constant Gardener

The Constant Gardener (2005) 

Directed by Fernando Meirelles

Written by Jeffrey Caine

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

Release Date August 31st, 2005

Published September 15th, 2005 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Movie Review The Favourite

The Favourite (2018) 

Directed by Yorgos  Lanthimos

Written by Deborah Davis, Tony McNamara 

Starring Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone, Olivia Coleman

Release Date November 23rd, 2018 

Published November 20th, 2018 

The Favourite stars Rachel Weisz as Lady Marlborough, aka Sara Churchill, the best friend of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman). Lady Marlborough was Queen Anne’s right hand during her reign until the two had a falling out over Lady Marlborough’s cousin, Abigail (Emma Stone), who arrived in the kingdom penniless and insinuates herself into the Queen’s good graces. Lady Marlborough is initially kind but wary of Abigail but soon the rivalry grows into a mutual disdain. 

What director Yorgos Lanthimos does brilliantly with this story is not merely allow his characters to be catty or stereotypical. Lady Marlborough appears especially intelligent and politically adept. Abigail is conniving and cunning but it comes from a well-honed instinct for survival and not some simplified notion of how women act toward other women. Abigail has known no other way of life than survival, having grown up with a father who once lost her in a card game. 

Tiny little nasty details punctuate numerous scenes in The Favourite and the delight with which these brilliant actresses deliver these points, such as the card game anecdote, is glorious. Stone and Weisz relish the nastiness they share with one another as they battle for the Queen’s affections, quite literally, as both women find their way into the salacious Queen’s bed, one because she genuinely cares and the other because it is advantageous. You can watch and find out which. 

Nicholas Hoult rounds out the main cast as Robert Harley the 1st Earl of Oxford. He’s in a war of wits with Lady Marlborough over the ongoing war with France and how his landed gentry are paying for the war while the city-dwelling shopkeepers benefit from providing supplies via contract. There is a touch of modern politics to the power plays between Marlborough and Hartley and Weisz and Hoult have tremendous fun biting back and forth. 

Olivia Colman portrays Queen Anne as a very sad and often ill woman. Her affinity for rabbits has a sad backstory that informs the film’s stunning ending, one of the most fascinating endings of the year undoubtedly. Throughout the film Colman’s Anne is a powerfully weak presence, pushed hither and yon by whichever powerful personality is leading the way at that moment. She seeks only pleasure until even her greatest pleasures lack any authentic joy. 

For director Yorgos Lanthimos, The Favourite is the most mainstream movie he’s made in his relatively young career. His American features, The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer have been so deliberately esoteric that it is some kind of wonder that he was allowed to make them. The Lobster is literally about a man’s journey toward potentially being turned into a lobster if he can’t find love. As for The Killing of a Sacred Deer, as much as I found it riveting, it’s more of an exercise in style than it is the kind of thriller a movie studio would want you to believe it to be. 

The Favourite is therefore easily more mainstream just by virtue of not being deliberately off-putting. That plus who doesn’t love a good bit of palace intrigue. The Favourite follows in the footsteps of films like Elizabeth or Marie Antoinette or any other movie to do with the inner sanctum of royalty. America may have left the Queen behind but we’ve remained fascinated by the history, mystery and especially the dysfunction behind the scenes of royalty since the day we left the monarchy behind. 

The Favourite has all sorts of juicy, gossipy, details delivered with nasty glee by actresses who know just how to bite off a good insult or connive their way to another deliberate obfuscation of their rival. We love to hate characters like these while secretly delighting in their bad behavior because it’s so wonderfully entertaining. Weisz especially is playing a character of remarkable charisma who always speaks her mind and is always the smartest person in the room, until she gets a little too smart. 

The Favourite is one of the smartest and most devilishly, darkly clever movies of the year. Right up until that ending I mentioned earlier which will divide audiences between those who admire how daring and artful it is and those who won’t quite know how to feel. The Favourite leaves you with a great deal to think about and not much of it is pleasant. It worked on me as a bleak grace note for a story with no winners, only survivors. 

Movie Review: Fred Claus

Fred Claus (2007) 

Directed by David Dobkin

Written by Dan Fogelman

Starring Vince Vaughn, Paul Giamatti, Rachel Weisz, Miranda Richardson, Elizabeth Banks

Release Date November 9th, 2007 

Published November 9th, 2007

Holiday movies are low art to begin with. Hacky, cheap to produce garbage rendered as cash machines by hungry cable networks desperate for products to plaster on the screen throughout the month of December. The latest holiday film to chum the water is Fred Claus starring Vince Vaughn and Paul Giamatti. The story of Santa's bitter, misanthropic older brother, Fred Claus actually had some potential.

That potential was undone, as so often happens in Hollywood, by commercial concerns. A vain attempt to attract the family audience to what was an edgy Bad Santa-esque comedy, turned out a rather dull PG comedy that manages only minor laughs from its irrepressible star.

Sometime in the 1700's Fred Claus watched from the rafters as his little brother Nick was born. Though Fred vowed to be the best big brother ever things changed as they grew up. Nick's unending generosity and the constant adoration the little guy received turned Fred bitter and jealous. When Nick became the patron saint of gift giving, a divination that offered the whole family spouses included life without death, things became even more strained.

While Nick went off to the North Pole, Fred moved to Chicago. While Nick gave gifts, Fred became a repo-man and began taking things. Christmas became the happiest time of the year because of Nick, and Fred came to hate the season. Despite his overall bitterness, Fred still had a girlfriend (Rachel Weisz) and in order to keep her he needs to finally come through on a get rich quick scheme. Needing money, Fred calls Nick and a trip to the north pole is arranged.

If you guessed that all sorts of wackiness ensues when Fred arrives in Santa's village then congratulations you have basic cognitive abilities. If wackiness did not ensue that would be surprising. Fred hates being in the north pole, especially having to work for the money his brother is loaning him and that leads to Fred disrupting toy production, upsetting his visiting parents, and even drawing Saint Nick into a fight, an actual fight.

Is any of this all that funny? No, not really. The situations are rote and predictable. There are a few laughs in these scenes because Vince Vaughn is far too talented not to trip over a laugh here and there. Most of his humor however comes from rye observation and not from anything relating the undercooked plot of Fred Claus.

The major failing of Fred Claus is the many changes in tone that were necessary to make this a PG rated family flick. Raging beneath the family safe dialogue and slapstick is a story and a group of characters desperate to be the kind of adults that made Bad Santa such a gem. The moments wear Vince Vaughn looks to break out of the family flick constraints are edited painfully to avoid the fun we know he and the movie wants to have.

As a fan of Wedding Crashers and the work of director David Dobkin in that classic comedy, I know that what is on the screen in Fred Claus is not the movie he intended to make. I sense an honest attempt to make a different kind of holiday film, one that could straddle the line between families and older teens with smart, edgy humor.

Sadly, they came too close to the edge and when the studio saw that the film might not play it safe enough for the limp family audience, the clippers came out and much of the good stuff, the truth to these characters' stuff was lost. Maybe I'm giving David Dobkin to much credit, but watching the movie you really sense those missing scenes and the many unfinished ideas that seem like they must have existed in another edit of this movie.

I'm not saying that Fred Claus is some kind of holiday movie version of Blade Runner. Rather, I strongly feel that this talented group of performers had a different and far better film in mind when they started this. Maybe that is just my glass half full side.

Why do I feel that Vince Vaughn, David Dobkin and Paul Giamatti, amongst other talented performers and craftsmen in and around Fred Claus have more integrity than so many others who have used the holiday picture to line their pockets with residuals? Because, I saw the movie and I truly sensed a more interesting idea that was lingering somewhere in the editing.

I can't point specifically to one place in the film that proves my theory but I know it's there. Of course, that is reviewing the film that Fred Claus is not. The film that is actually on the screen is a trite, predictable little movie that will haunt these performers and creators for years to come thanks to the holiday setting.

Movie Review The Fountain

The Fountain (2006) 

Directed by Darren Aronofsky

Written by Darren Aronofsky 

Starring Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz

Release Date November 22nd, 2006 

Published November 22nd 2006 

With its gorgeous sci-fi visuals and promise of a grand love story, I expected The Fountain to be an epic of film technology and a grand love story. Maybe I was expecting too much. The visuals are there, lushly beautiful sci-fi vistas, mind blowing uses of color and light and technology. However, the love story is simply tedious.

A mopey, dopey Hugh Jackman wanders through this eye popping sci-fi set piece weeping and falling over and just generally ruining what might otherwise be the closest anyone has come to evoking the genius of Kubrick's 2001, or at the very least the minor pleasure of Roger Corman's The Trip.

Izzie Creo (Rachel Weisz) is dying. She has an inoperable brain tumor but that has not stopped her research scientist husband Tommy (Hugh Jackman) from spending every waking moment trying to find a cure. So driven by his quest that he has begun neglecting what little time he and Izzy have left, a point well made by his boss  Dr. Guzzetti (Ellen Burstyn), who visits Izzy while Tommy continues working.

Tommy and Izzy have a connection that seems to have lasted through time. In a story written by Izzie, the two are cast as Spanish conquistador and Queen in the search for the fountain of youth. And in a future that we see but Tommy and Izzie are seemingly unaware of, another version of Tommy has for thousands of years traveled the universe with what we can only assume is Izzy's body buried within the bark of an ancient tree. His quest is for a dying star that may be able to restore Izzy's life and allow them both to live for eternity together.

It's a grand idea but in execution The Fountain is a somewhat sappy take on eternal love with a performance by Hugh Jackman that leaves one to wonder whether this really was the guy who played the tough guy Wolverine in the X-Men movies. Clearly this teary eyed , mumblemouth can't be the same man who brought life to one of the comics' manliest superheroes.

Jackman's performance notwithstanding, there are a number of stunningly beautiful images in The Fountain that make me wish I liked this movie more than I did. Darren Aronofsky and cinematographer Matthew Libatique craft some awesomely psychedelic visions that will dazzle your eyes even as your brain rebels against the lame love story.

I could watch Rachel Weisz make a sandwich, she is that interesting as an actress. Her Oscar winning role in The Constant Gardener was tiny compared to star Ralph Fiennes and yet she steals the entire picture with her wounded toughness and vulnerability. Even her roles in mainstream fluff like The Mummy, Constantine or Runaway Jury are given weight by her appearance.

In The Fountain, Rachel Weisz plays second to Hugh Jackman and is too often left on the sidelines. Though I find it easy to imagine a man wanting to follow Rachel Weisz through lifetimes, and attempt to conquer death on her behalf, her character here is too thin to provide the dramatic motivation needed to justify all of Hugh Jackman's weepy determination.

Much has been made of The Fountain and its appeal to the stoner crowd and though I have never used psychedelic drugs I would like to imagine the experience to be something akin to watching The Fountain. Not an entirely satisfying experience but one of mind melting visual excesses that might inspire great art and great thought. The film is so wonderfully visual that it may have been a masterpiece had there been as much care given to the story as to the trippy visuals.

I was reminded throughout The Fountain of the Robin Williams movie What Dreams May Come another visually stunning film that dies on the vine of melodrama. Both films are about men who attempt to conquer death by crying uncontrollably and both films are gorgeous boundary pushing exercises in visual virtuosity. If you were a fan of What Dreams May Come you may find similar pleasure in The Fountain.

Darren Aronofsky is a visionary with an uncompromising will to tell this story. Unfortunately he seems to have become dazed by his own visuals and lost in the morass of the lovely sci-fi landscapes of The Fountain. He gets little help from star Hugh Jackman who delivers a weak kneed, weepy performance, more suited to a daytime soap opera actor than to the man who was Wolverine.

The Fountain is a lovely example of the visual aspects of filmmaking. As a story however, it's a teary and bleary chick flick dressed in sci-fi clothes.

Movie Review: Envy

Envy (2004) 

Directed by Barry Levinson

Written by Steve Adams 

Starring Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Rachel Weisz, Amy Poehler, Christopher Walken

Release Date April 30th, 2004

Published April 30th, 2004 

Imagine a Hollywood pitch meeting where a producer first tells you that he has Barry Levinson attached to direct the film being pitched. Then the producer tells you that Mr. Levinson has drawn the interest of both Jack Black and Ben Stiller. This is a can't-lose pitch and you don't even know what the movie is about. The result of this can't-miss pitch is Envy, a comedy about best friends, one of whom becomes a millionaire while the other remains an everyman schlub. Somehow, despite its can't-miss pitch, it misses badly.

Ben Stiller is Tim Dingman and Jack Black is Nick Vanderpark. Tim and Nick have been best friends and neighbors for years. Their wives are friends, their kids are friends and the guys even work together at a sandpaper factory. Tim is a dedicated worker but Nick is more of a dreamer with a tendency to nod off at times. Nick spends most of his time dreaming up wacky get rich quick schemes and his latest is a doozy.

After seeing some guy on the street cleaning up dog-doo with a rubber glove and a baggy, Nick is struck with an idea. It's a spray that would make dog-doo disappear. Well it's not an invention yet, as Tim is quick to point out, all Nick has is an idea with a name, Va-Poo-Rize. Regardless of Tim's discouragement, Nick offers Tim the chance to be his fifty-fifty partner for a minimal investment. Tim, not surprisingly turns him down but ends up kicking himself when Nick's idea becomes a reality and he becomes filthy rich.

Despite his riches, Nick remains in the neighborhood. He buys out most of the neighbors surrounding his and Tim's homes and builds a mansion that fills an entire city block directly in front of Tim's house. While Tim has to get up every morning and trudge to the sandpaper factory, Nick is riding his great white horse everywhere, making sure to wave to Tim every morning as he leaves.

Tim has trouble at home, where his wife Debbie (Rachel Weisz) has left him, she can't forget how Tim turned down Nick's partnership idea. Tim is fired from the sandpaper factory after blowing up at his boss and soon he is hanging out with a bum called the J Man (Christopher Walken) at a dive bar. As the bum buys him drinks, Tim becomes increasingly angry at Nick and when he gets home, he intends on letting Nick know it. Instead, he accidentally kills Nick's horse, which kicks the plot into an entirely different and strange direction.

This is a typical Ben Stiller character prone to humiliation, fits of uncontrollable rage and self-deprecating physical comedy. Stiller is funny in this familiar comic persona though it would be nice to see him try something different.

This however, is not a typical Jack Black character and that is where the film goes wrong. In Envy, the comic whirling dervish that is Jack Black is slowed to the point of normalcy. Black's character has all sorts of wacky outfits and a Jim Carrey circa Ace Ventura haircut but his character is a neutered version of the manic over the top comic we have enjoyed in School Of Rock and High Fidelity. It doesn't help that Black's character is often shoved well into the background as the plot spins out of control around the horse and the bum.

Christopher Walken is a welcome presence playing yet another classic Walken character with one or two of those way out there monologues that only he could deliver. However, his character is a distraction from the center of the film, which should be Stiller and Black.

Subplots are added and discarded as director Barry Levinson spins wildly from one comic idea to the next, looking for a purpose. The horse thing takes up too much of the film, while a more intriguing idea hangs just off screen as a controversy erupts over where the dog-doo goes when the spray makes it disappear. It's gross but it's a funnier idea than anything that happens with the horse. The dog-doo idea is introduced and discarded and then brought back without explanation and then left unresolved as if it were a comic idea that they thought worked but did not and the filmmakers were forced to edit around it.

The whole film feels like it was assembled in the editing room without a clear purpose of what the filmmakers had filmed. Thus, there are some funny moments in the film but no cohesiveness to the plot. It's a series of ideas with no central purpose. The ending is especially slapdash and unsatisfying. There may have been a good film in there somewhere but what ended up in the final cut is basically all potential and no payoff.

Movie Review: Definitely, Maybe

Definitely, Maybe (2008) 

Directed by Adam Brooks

Written by Adam Brooks 

Starring Ryan Reynolds, Elizabeth Banks, Rachel Weisz, Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin, Derek Luke, Kevin Kline

Release Date February 14th, 2008 

Published February 13th, 2008 

In his first mature leading man performance Ryan Reynolds becomes a star before our eyes in the terrific romance Definitely, Maybe. Call it his Sleepless In Seattle moment, Reynolds becomes the new millennium answer to Tom Hanks as he establishes his romantic leading man street cred opposite not a single Meg Ryan but three tremendous young actresses on three completely different star tracks.

There is the capital A actress Rachel Weisz, already a hairs breath away from Oscar. Elizabeth Banks, the comic character actress. And then there is Isla Fisher, who is still too young to know where her career is headed. Reynolds sparks with each and makes you believe that indeed one man could get that lucky in his life.

Definitely, Maybe stars Reynolds as Will Hayes an ad exec who has just received his divorce papers. He's been headed for divorce for awhile it seems. Will see's his daughter Maya (Abigail Breslin) on Wednesdays and Fridays and is on his way to pick her up as the opening credits wrap. On this particular Friday Maya's school is abuzz. Today the kids took a surprise sex education course and all are bursting with questions. All of this talk of sex has Maya wondering where she came from, not necessarily the technical details, she learned all too much of that, rather about how mom and dad met and how they are where they are today.

Dad is not so hot on telling the tale and thus devises the story as a romantic mystery, leaving Maya to guess which of three women from his past is her mother. There is Emily (Elizabeth Banks) not her real name, who was his college sweetheart. They split up when he went to New York. It's more complicated and messy than that but that comes later. Then there is the copy girl aka April (Isla Fisher). She makes copies for a living in the Bill Clinton for President campaign office where Will has come all the way from Wisconsin to work. Politics of the early to late 90's play a big part in Definitely, Maybe.

And finally there is Summer Heartley (Rachel Weisz), a woman from Emily's past who Will meets when he delivers a present to her from Emily. What that present is has all sorts of surprises attached. Summer is an aspiring journalist sleeping with her esteemed professor (Kevin Kline) when she meets Will. They bounce around each other a little before the girly crush on the professor passes and Summer wants to get serious. She and Will share a relationship with many twists and moments you will not see coming.

So which girl is really mommy? Which girl is also the ex? That is the mystery and the secret charm of Definitely, Maybe.

Writer-director Allan Brooks isn't teasing the audience or screwing with us just to keep us off track. What he devises, structurally and with these terrifically charming and smart characters, is a romantic mystery that in-trances and enchants.This seemingly typical romantic comedy defies convention by mixing three different romances and allowing us to guess, take sides, and hope for our favorite to win out. Leading the guessing game is 12 year old Oscar nominee Abigail Breslin. In yet another devastatingly cute performance, Breslin charms us into a romantic journey that would be lonely and a little dreary without her hopeful, doe eyed presence.

The humor of Definitely, Maybe is warm and comfortable. It emanates naturally from these characters without the force of set ups and punchlines. The skill of Brooks' script may not occur to you until much later when you realize just how invested you are in the outcome of this mystery. Listen for the subtle ways Brooks uses politics as an undercurrent of Will's emotional state. His optimistic investment in President Clinton's promise of hope in 1992 juxtaposed against his disillusionment with his love life and the scandal that engulfs Clinton's presidency. This sets up a final moment in the movie so subtle; blink and you'll miss it. It's a minor scene but it means so much if you follow the context of the film as a whole.

Definitely, Maybe doesn't necessarily break the mold of the traditional romantic comedy. Rather, like the best of the gentrified genre lot, it takes the typical and improves upon it. The formula is familiar, it's just better performed, filmed and crafted in Definitely, Maybe. Rather than limiting himself to what is expected of the romance genre, Adam Brooks goes in slightly off kilter directions. He tweaks the formula, changes the expectations and, by creating wonderful characters with just the right actors, he changes the dynamics of the formula romantic comedy, bends it to the will of his story and creates something special.

Indeed, Definitely, Maybe is something special in the romantic comedy genre.

Movie Review Runaway Jury

Runaway Jury (2003) 

Directed by Gary Fleder

Written by Brian Koppelman, David Levien, Matthew Chapman

Starring John Cusack, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, Rachel Weisz, Jeremy Piven, Bruce McGill

Release Date October October 17th, 2003 

Published October 16th, 2003

John Grisham novels and the movies made from them are a guilty pleasure for millions. I say guilty pleasure because the work is often merely melodramatic potboilers that adopt legal and political stances that the author bends to his melodramatic will. Indeed, the law in a Grisham novel is often specious and more often than not inaccurate, but necessarily inaccurate to fit the story.

That said, the novels are also tightly plotted and populated by colorful Southern characters and terrific dialogue. It's easy for the non-lawyer crowd to forgive Grisham of his factual indiscretions because his work is just so damn entertaining. The latest of Grisham's work easily transplanted to the screen is Runaway Jury, a look at a trial from the jury's perspective.

John Cusack stars as Nick Easter, a seemingly normal video game store clerk. When Nick is called for jury duty, he reacts like most Americans, utter contempt and annoyance. However, that is merely a cover. Nick has been trying for jury duty and the opportunity to sit in on a huge lawsuit against gun manufacturers. Nick, along with his girlfriend Marlee (Rachel Weisz), are rigging the jury in a scam to soak either side to pay them $10 million dollars.

On one side is the noble Southern gentlemen Wendell Rohr (Dustin Hoffman), representing the wife of a stockbroker who was killed in an office shooting by a disgruntled employee with an illegally purchased semi-automatic weapon. It is Rohr's contention that gun manufacturers were aware of and rewarding the illegal sales of their guns by company owned gun stores.

On the opposing side, representing the gun manufacturers is Durrwood Cable (Bruce Davison). He however is merely the legal mouthpiece for a shady jury consultant named Rankin Fitch (Gene Hackman). Fitch is the gun manufacturer’s hired gun for rigging a favorable jury by any means necessary. With the help of his team of investigators, Finch compiles blackmail information against potential jurors.

That sets the tables for a number of clever twists and turns, but not so clever that they wink at the audience. Clever in the sense that they play directly to audience expectations. The twists don't surprise the audience, but they aren't insultingly predictable. Screenwriter Brian Koppelman does a great job of adapting Grisham's tight pacing and colorful characters, even as he is forced to change the trial from Grisham's tobacco companies to gun companies. I say forced to change because lawsuits against tobacco companies aren't exactly a fresh topic.

My favorite part of Runaway Jury however is the film’s unquestionably liberal politics. Where so many films shy away from taking a stand on an issue, Runaway Jury is clearly sympathetic to the liberal cause of gun control. The gun manufacturers are the most thinly drawn characters and their smoke-filled private meetings in which all the major gun companies discuss their conspiracy is so blatantly conspiratorial you marvel at the filmmaker’s brazenly malevolent portrayal.

Director Gary Fleder is the perfect director for Grisham. His last directorial outing was the non-Grisham Grisham movie High Crimes. Both films have a mere gloss of real law and are heavy on the melodrama. Both films cleverly cast their films with actors whose audience cache get us past minor plot holes and specious legal wrangling. Fleder has the same talent for pacing as Grisham and while the story is somewhat unwieldy with a number of small supporting characters that get lost occasionally, Runaway Jury is still a very entertaining legal thriller.

Movie Review: The Shape of Things

The Shape of Things (2003) 

Directed by Neil LaBute

Written by Neil LaBute 

Starring Paul Rudd, Gretchen Mol, Frederick Weller, Rachel Weisz 

Release Date May 9th, 2003 

Published May 8th, 2003 

Writer/Director Neil LaBute could teach a master’s class in cruelty. In his first film, In The Company Of Men, LaBute had two male characters inflict all sorts of emotional torture on a blind woman until one of the men destroyed the other. Then in Your Friends and Neighbors, he poured all of his sadistic rage into one character, Jason Patric's fearsome Cary, and wielded the character as a tool to inflict cruelty on the rest of the cast. After a brief respite in mainstream filmmaking, LaBute returned to his roots for The Shape of Things, a caustic lesson in male-female relationships in stark contrast to the usual romantic observations of conventional Hollywood.

Paul Rudd stars as Adam, a timid, nerdy museum worker who while finishing his shift one day encounters a woman who has crawled over the velvet rope surrounding an almost nude statue. Her name is Evelyn (Rachel Weisz), her intent is to deface the statue with spray paint, and she dares Adam to stop her. At the same time, she is flirting heavily, keeping the painfully shy Adam off balance to the point that he walks away allowing her to finish the job on the statue.

Evelyn was nice enough to give Adam her number and the two begin dating. Shoot ahead a few weeks and Adam and Evelyn are attending a play where she will meet his two closest friends, Jen (Gretchen Mol) and Phillip (Frederick Weller), a soon to be married couple. She is meeting them for the first time and she hopes they will notice how she has changed him. Adam has lost weight and is acting very different from the shy nerd the couple has always known.

There are more changes, Adam is dressing better, his hair is styled and eventually he goes so far as to get a nose job. He's also acting different as when he and Jen share a stolen kiss in the park. All of it aided and abetted by Evelyn's manipulations until an emotional finish that is shocking and devastating in ways you could never predict.

This is familiar ground for Neil LaBute yet he still manages to surprise and shock. Like David Mamet, John Sayles or Kevin Smith, LaBute is the rare screenwriter with his own very distinctive voice. Labute's dialogue is wrapped in the same barbed wire as Mamet but without having to serve any sort of conventional plot. Words fall like blows from LaBute’s characters and the emotional warfare is as devastating as any bullet.

LaBute also has a terrific ear for music, employing the brilliant Elvis Costello for both score and storytelling device. Fans of Costello should take note of each song they recognize and where it is placed in the film. This is especially attention grabbing on a second viewing when you know what is to come next.

The main problems of the film stem from lead Paul Rudd who overplays some of Adam's nerd tendencies. Watch in the park scene with Gretchen Mol his Urkel-esque acting style that plays throughout most of the film. By the end he comes around enough to contribute to the film’s painful finale but his performance early on stands out as the film’s weakest point.

Some might find the film’s ending to be far fetched but if you give in to the characters and invest yourself in LaBute’s dialogue, you should be able to forgive him his over the top demonstrations. The Shape Of Things is an astounding observation of the kind cruelty that only intimacy can reap. Only someone who you invest your emotions in fully can hurt you this bad. The film may take that last point to an extreme but it's a mighty powerful and shocking extreme that does not come easy.

Movie Review Confidence

Confidence (2003) 

Directed by James Foley 

Written by Doug Jung 

Starring Edward Burns, Rachel Weisz, Andy Garcia, Paul Giamatti, Donal Logue, Dustin Hoffman 

Release Date April 25th, 2003

Published April 25th, 2003 

It's all been done.

That is the problem with modern Hollywood filmmaking, the perception that there is nothing new that can be done. That every story is a familiar concoction of similar films. It's a product of Hollywood's adherence to genre and demographic marketing that certain elements are put into films where they don't belong in order to appeal to mass audiences. Take for example the con man movie Confidence starring Edward Burns, a familiar story of cons and con men that doesn't simply lack originality but feels so familiar that it becomes predictable.

Burns stars as Jake Vig, if that ain't the name of a movie con man, I've never heard one. Jake and his crew including Gordo (Paul Giamatti) and Miles (Brian Van Holt), specialize in petty scams involving thousands of dollars and moving quickly from place to place. However, the crew's latest con has found them sticking around longer than they are used to, and playing with larger sums of money than before. Not only is the con bigger than usual so is the man being conned, though they don't realize it at first.

In possession of 100 grand after scamming some small time bag man, Jake and his crew find that the money is that of a sadistic mobster known as the King (Dustin Hoffman). Rather than being upset with Jake, the King is impressed with his skills. Nevertheless, he wants his money back. So Jake hatches a new con, a fleece on one of the King's rivals that will not only get the King's money back but net everyone around five million bucks.

Jake and his crew can't pull this con off alone so Jake recruits a skillful pickpocket named Lily (Rachel Weisz). Lilly’s part is to seduce a low level VP in a stock scandal that includes Swiss banks, the Cayman islands and various other familiar con movie locales. The mark is a mob lawyer and money launderer played by Robert Forster, and the dupe VP is well played by “Drew Carey” vet John Carroll Lynch.

The film is told in flashback in a noir tribute to the thirties con man movies. It begins with Burns on the ground and in voiceover explaining he is dead. The device is effective and set's the film in motion but the noir feel doesn't hold up long. After the opening moments the film takes on a more modern look and feel and abandons noir all together.

Edward Burns in recent interviews has stated that he was far more committed to acting in Confidence. He broke his old pattern of working on one film while writing another, which helped him to be more focused than he has been previously. The change is noticeable, this is the most lively Burns has been in any role since She's The One. Unfortunately, on his best day as an actor he's still reminds of Ben Affleck minus the charisma.

Director James Foley skillfully directs this con game and it's Mametesque script, which is no surprise. Foley was the man who successfully wrestled Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross to the screen. Confidence isn't as brilliant as that film but the script has it's moments especially those handled by Hoffman who once again shows what a true pro he is.

I neglected to mention that Andy Garcia turns up as an FBI agent on the trail of the con men. Watching Garcia makes you wish he and Burns could have switched roles. Shave the shaggy beard, blacken the hair and throw on a nice suit and Garcia could do the role with his eyes shut. Nothing against Ed Burns, he gets better as an actor each time out, but Confidence demands a pro and Garcia could have been that pro.

Movie Review My Blueberry Nights

My Blueberry Nights (2008) 

Directed by Wong Kar Wai 

Written by Wong Kar Wai, Lawrence Block 

Starring Norah Jones, Jude Law, David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman 

Release Date April 4th, 2008 

Published April 4th, 2008 

Wong Kar Wai is a wonderful artist whose 2046 is a masterwork of sex and cinema. Few people saw that subtitled, Cannes festival honoree mostly because it was subtitled and a hit at Cannes. The fact is, most Americans are turned off by foreign films. Can you name the last foreign film to hit at the American box office? Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? Sure. Can you name another?

Didn't think so.

With popularity in America as his goal, Wong Kar Wai has now brought his ethereal style to our shores and despite the change in geography, once again no one noticed. My Blueberry Nights has a cast featuring Jude Law, Natalie Portman and pop star Norah Jones and even that can't bring in audiences.

Pop sensation Norah Jones is the central character in the odd, slightly charming, My Blueberry Nights. As Lizzie, Jones plays a disillusioned romantic who drops her boyfriend's keys off at his favorite pie shop. This is a popular idea as the owner, Jeremy (Jude Law) has a bucket full of keys, each with their own story of love gone wrong.

Lizzie returns to the pie shop night after night to see if the ex has picked up his keys and to hear stories of lost love from Jeremy who remembers the story of each set of keys. However, before you get the idea that this is about the keys, Lizzie is off on her own adventures leaving Jeremy to his sad little blueberry pies that only she ever ate.

First Lizzie goes down south where she works at a bar. One of her regulars is Arnie (David Straithairn), a cop whose wife has left him. He drinks almost non-stop and the bar owner (Frankie Faison) lets him run a tab that seems to have stretched for years. The ex-wife, Sue (Rachel Wiesz), isn't entirely out of the picture. Parading her new, younger man around the bar and showing up at random moments, she is undoubtedly the source of his drinking. I'll leave you to discover what happens here.

Soon Lizzie is back on the road and arriving in Reno. There she hooks up with a troubled young gambler named Leslie (Natalie Portman). Lizzie loans Leslie all of her money and when she loses everything, she gives Lizzie her car in exchange for a ride to Vegas. There Lizzie is drawn into Leslie's drama with her gambler father. Meanwhile back in New York, Jeremy has been calling all over the south trying to find Lizzie. In their short time together he has fallen in love with her and he desperately hopes to reconnect.

My Blueberry Nights is filmed by Wong Kar Wai through this filter of ethereal dust. Every scene glows with a dreamlike sheen. This would be interesting if it affected the way you perceived Lizzie's journey. However, since Lizzie's journey is so inconsequential the film style doesn't really matter. Indeed Lizzie's journey's have little more to them that what I described.

It all looks really unique but who cares.

It's difficult for me to be so harsh about a movie from Wong Kar Wai but really, WTF? Lizzie travels from place to place, little happens and she is off to the next journey. The stories are ostensibly about love and loss but watching Lizzie react to these happenings is like staring at a brick wall. In her acting debut, Norah Jones shows a talent for being beautiful and little else.

Her Lizzie is our conduit for these stories of love and loss and yet she never really seems to learn any lessons along the way. Here you have a movie with Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman, two actresses who could have knocked out this role in their sleep and left you weeping, and Wong Kar Wai chooses Jones who's inscrutable expression seems to never change even as the world around her is shouting out its message.

Despite the troubles of lead Norah Jones, My Blueberry Nights has a charm and sweetness to it that is undeniable. Wong Kar Wai is far too talented for this film to become an outright trainwreck. It's just a shame that with a pair of actresses like Ms. Portman and Ms. Weisz at his disposal, Wong Kar Wai chose an overwhelmed first time actress. The role of Lizzie needed the skill and finesse of a veteran to teach it's valuable, if quite familiar lesson, about living for the romantic moment.

Movie Review: The Lovely Bones

The Lovely Bones (2009) 

Directed by Peter Jackson

Written by Peter Jackson, Phillippa Boyens, Fran Walsh (Based on the novel by Alice Sebold)

Starring Saorise Ronan, Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon 

Release Date December 11th, 2009 

Published December 8th, 2009 

I have a general detachment from emotion. It's a guard against a young child version of me who was too invested in his emotions and was known to burst into tears at unfortunate moments. Other kids' reactions to my outbursts drove me inward to the man I am today. I am not cold-hearted, just well controlled, guarded. Peter Jackson's “The Lovely Bones” is the rare film that broke through my guards and tapped the well of that emotional young man I was.

The story of Susie Salmon (Oscar nominee Saorise Ronan, “Atonement”) begins with her narration explaining that her name is Salmon, like the fish communicating her innocence and her eager to please nature answering a question no one asked. She then stops you in your tracks with a matter of fact statement: "I was 14 years old when I was murdered on December 6th 1973.

From that moment on “The Lovely Bones” unfolds a story of murder, sadness and heartbreaking purity. After revealing her murderer as a neighbor named George Harvey (Stanley Tucci) Susie narrates her story from a place called The In-Between, a place between heaven and earth constructed from Susie's imagination.

Peter Jackson animates Susie's heaven with artistry absent from even his “Lord of the Rings” movies. For the first time in his career Jackson makes use of film tech to deepen his subject, not merely to animate it. The stunning landscapes of Susie's In-Between are eye popping and reveal aspects of her nature, her innocence, her longings and unfulfilled desires. A crumbling gazebo holds a particular emotional attachment that I will leave you to discover.

From her In-Between Susie watches how her death impacts her family. Her father Jack becomes so consumed with catching her killer that he barely notices his wife Abigail (Rachel Weisz) is drifting away. It's not until her cab leaves for the airport that Jack realizes she is gone. Susie also watches her killer, George Harvey. He has a past filled with other murders but for some reason Susie's murder has a particular hold on his conscience. He spends hours alone seeming to re-live each moment, moments thankfully unseen by us in the audience. The choice to leave the cruel details to our imagination is a controversial one; the book by Alice Sebold went into obsessive detail.

For me, leaving Susie's suffering to the imagination was the right call; I doubt that I could have endured watching the effervescent Ms. Ronan suffering as described in the book. We are given enough detail to construct the horror for ourselves and that is more than enough. Transformed by make-up Stanley Tucci crafts a killer of remarkable repugnance. Today, George Harvey would be the poster boy for creepy. He looks like the picture of someone who murders children. A mumbling, ill at-ease creep, George Harvey sets off alarm bells for his simple lack of social skills. In the 1973 of the film however, he's just a slightly off shut-in, on the surface.

Once he becomes suspect number one, for Jack and daughter Lindsey (Rose McIver), who joins her dad's obsessive crusade, the film takes on a pseudo murder mystery feel that enlivens the middle portion of the film. We know he did it, they think he did it and we become desperately involved in trying to will the characters to the clues we know are there. This clever bit of populist narrative is just one of Peter Jackson's wise choices. Jackson has made an art film, crossed it with a thriller and topped it all with a deeply emotional story of coming of age. It's almost too much for one film to hold, changing scenes as this does from Susie's gorgeous art-scape to George Harvey's dark chambers to the Salmon house consumed by grief and the urgent search for justice.

Only a director as bold and daring as Peter Jackson could pull off such a trick. His experience with the “Lord of the Rings” informs a good deal of “The Lovely Bones.” In LOTR Jackson used technology as a construction device. In “The Lovely Bones” that construction device becomes a painter's brush and the technology melts into the subconscious aiding as much in storytelling as in craftsmanship. Unlike George Lucas or James Cameron for whom CGI remains a carpenter’s tool, Jackson sees technology in “The Lovely Bones” as something to be woven into the fabric of storytelling. Susie's In-Between is never merely a place; it's the state of her soul where her imagination and desires take a physical hold.

Technology, story and character unite in “The Lovely Bones” to create a deeply emotional experience that transports you into the sadness of a little girl gone before her time. An examination of grief, unfulfilled desires, love and death, “The Lovely Bones” is one of the most daring and original works in years and one of the best films of the last year.