Movie Review LBJ

LBJ (2017) 

Directed by Rob Reiner 

Written by Joey Hartstone 

Starring Woody Harrelson, Richard Jenkins, Bill Pullman, Jeffrey Donovan, Jennifer Jason Leigh

Release Date November 3rd, 2017 

I don’t understand racism. It’s strange to write that down but it’s no less true, racism doesn’t make any sense. Why does skin color matter? What is it about skin color that bothers people? What could possibly cause a person to believe that their skin makes them superior? It baffles me. Life is hard enough, why carry such an unnecessary and bizarre hatred on top of that? I find that in my life I need as many friends as I can make. The world makes more sense when you connect with people. To rule out connecting with someone over something like the color of their skin is just not something I can make any sense of.

I’m not seeking to understand racists; I know that they are just wrong in their hatred, but I can’t understand the conviction that drives them. Is it some sort of misguided notion of maleness? Tribalism that has yet to be evolved out of the species. What drives people to hate someone for a reason such as skin color? Hatred of any kind is hard on the soul. I am certainly not without hate, I hate racists, I hate those who hate the LGBTQ Community, I hate those who would seek to oppress others. Carrying that hate is the biggest burden of my life but I do it because I can’t not do it. My hatred makes sense because I hate on behalf of others. The hatred that comes from the racist simply makes no sense.

This is a longwinded way of getting around to reviewing the new Rob Reiner movie LBJ which hinges on the debate over the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The brilliant actor Richard Jenkins portrays a Senator Russell from Georgia whose hatred of black people has lost him to history to the point where I cannot recall his first name and would not be aware of his existence without this movie. That’s fair, he doesn’t deserve to be remembered. Nor do any of the Senators who opposed civil rights. Remembering that they opposed something as fundamental as civil rights for all people is enough of an awful legacy for these men.

LBJ paints a complex portrait of President Lyndon Baines Johnson. It is a heroic portrait but one that doesn’t shy away from the less heroic aspects of Lyndon Johnson who, before he became Vice President had consistently opposed civil rights legislation. President Johnson's change of heart wasn’t him being ‘woke’ to use the modern parlance, it was born of pragmatism, at once coldly calculated and genuinely felt. President Johnson could see the direction the country was moving in and was determined to remain relevant and, he had become friendly with his cook, a black woman who could not travel safely and comfortably from Washington D.C to Texas despite working for the Vice President of the United States.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review Cabin in the Woods (With guest Reviewer Faith Rogers)

Cabin in the Woods (2012) 

Directed by Drew Goddard 

Written by Joss Whedon, Drew Goddard 

Starring Chris Hemsworth, Kristen Connolly, Anna Hutchinson, Jesse Williams, Sigourney Weaver, Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford 

Release Date April 13th, 2012 

Published April 20th, 2012 

Sean: This week, in the very first installment of Faith Hates Critics we watched director Drew Goddard’s comic horror deconstruction “Cabin in the Woods,” one of my favorite movies of 2012 and one, Faith, I assumed you would love. As an admitted fan of horror movies you have likely seen the plot of ‘Cabin’ a few dozen times. Four college aged supermodels and their stoner buddy make their way to a secluded cabin, are warned away by a creepy gas station owner and proceed to die horribly accept for the virgin required for the sequel. It’s practically a song that gets covered and cracks the top 10 repeatedly.

“Cabin in the Woods” takes this plot for a spin and deconstructs it wonderfully by introducing a pair of controllers played by Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins who act as comic relief and as jaded, cynical, stand ins for the dozens of horror movie directors who’ve run through this same premise over and over for years. The humor of “Cabin in the Woods” is savagely meta-textual and unrelenting as one horror trope is trotted out, poked fun at and dispatched with enough surprise and gore to satisfy the horror audience, and people like myself who can’t stand the same-ness of most modern horror movies. For me, “Cabin in the Woods” is a refreshing, “Scream-esque” rebuke of the bad horror films that came before it.

Faith: I do love a horror movie they are possible my favorite genre of film.  However, I found “Cabin int the Woods” absolutely ridiculous.  It started off intriguing enough with four kids heading off into the woods, a great set up for your average gore-fest.  Throw in the “controllers” and that was an interesting enough twist.  But Sigourney Weaver where in the F*** did she come from.

My real disappointment comes from the cluster that is “Cabin” if you are going to have a scary movie with a plot then get to it at the beginning of the movie.  Don’t throw it in bits and pieces as the movie goes along and then hit you with what is really going on in the last 10 minutes of the film.  Otherwise, make is what it is frightening, bloody, mindless entertainment.

Sean: Admittedly, Sigourney Weaver was a bit random and unnecessary but she’s such a fun choice that I didn’t mind it. For me, by the end, as Dana, the ‘Virgin,’ and Marty, the stoner, were making their way toward Sigourney Weaver things had grown so outlandish and over the top that I didn’t mind the complete goofball choice to have the whole thing be predicated on monstrous Gods of the old Earth who will rise if they don’t get exactly the kind of sacrifice they desire. If there is puzzlement for me in “Cabin in the Woods” why do they have to build such an elaborate premise just to kill four college kids? Why not just kidnap them and put a bullet in them? That’s a big plot hole; one that’s briefly explained away by the controllers as an attempt to make the sacrifice more entertaining for some unknown audience, but I would have liked the movie more if they had further implied, via the Japan sub-plot, that many modern horror movies are actually real life sacrifices to these Gods and are made as movies as a way of covering up the murders and paying the bills for keeping the Gods fed. That might have made the movie even better for me, even as I love the movie as it is.

Faith: Sigourney Weaver just shows up out of nowhere and there is no explanation for her character.  Who is she?  Where did she come from?  Why show up in the last 10 minutes?  Oh right, so she could explain the plot and beg the virgin and stoner to die…no bueno!  For a horror movie just on its own it wasn’t very good.  There weren’t any memorable moments that made me jump or made my chest tight.  The blood bath at the end with the “gods” was just ridiculous but not in the least bit frightening.  If I am going to sit through two hours of any movie I want to be entertained and if it’s scary I want to be scared.  This movie just didn’t do any of that for me.  I have to ask though would you watch two hours of a movie about 4 kids getting kidnapped and having a bullet put in them?  That seems even less exciting than “Cabin” turned out to be.

Sean: Of course not, that movie likely would not last two hours. Your right about the final battle being ridiculous but, for me, that was part of the film’s charm. Once the movie lets loose with an ocean of blood and guts the movie completely spins out of control. The craziness just keeps ramping up from zombies to a mer-man to a murderous unicorn, it’s all so gloriously goofy. This is needed to get to the big reveal at the end of the hand of one of the Gods reaching out from beneath the surface of the Earth and crushing the cabin, thus beginning the implied end of all humanity. This is such an outlandish and unexpected ending that, for me, it seemed the only possible ending for a movie this out of control. I loved that CGI hand because it was bad CGI, it was played for laughs like the entire movie was played for laughs. After the film has exhausted all other ways out of this scenario, it turns to the kind of bad CGI that the SyFy channel has made famous to end it; hammering home the final cliché of the kind of horror movie ‘Cabin’ was made to destroy.

Faith: Maybe we have blurred the lines a little bit here.  When we sat down to watch a horror movie that’s what I thought we were watching.  Not a silly little movie that was less than scary and absurd.  Maybe my problem is not so much with the silliness of the movie and how over the top it was but with the marketing of the movie.  If you imply you are a horror movie then you need to scare me otherwise, you are not and you misrepresented the entire movie.  Maybe if I had gone into it with a clear perspective I wouldn’t have been so disappointed.  Let me know the movie is on par with “Army of Darkness” and I am glad to watch it that way.  Make me believe the movie is going to scare me then I am going to be disappointed when it turns out silly and awkward. Which I think are the two best words to sum up “Cabin in the Woods” silly and awkward.

Sean: That’s a fair point. The creators of “Cabin in the Woods” were quite cagey about the marketing of the film because they didn’t want the secret to get out. They allowed the film to be marketed as a horror movie so that no one would reveal the movie’s secrets. That likely led a lot of people, like you, to feel misled about the kind of movie they were seeing. I had read enough of the pre-release hype that I was a little more prepared for the kind of movie “Cabin in the Woods” turned out to be. I’m also a big fan of Joss Whedon who co-wrote the script and produced the film. His reputation was built on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and the deft deconstruction of both horror cliches and the cliches of modern teen culture and the teen soap opera genre. With Whedon involved I knew to expect far more than just a slasher movie. You make a very fair point however; as there is no question that many people were given the impression of a straight horror movie and wound up in an absurdist send-up of a straight horror movie.

Faith: I very much enjoyed “Buffy” and the fun behind that series.  However, regardless of who had a hand in “Cabin” I would never watch it again and I would never recommend it.  I don’t want to be sold a lie when I see a film trailer and as that is the case with “Cabin” I really can’t get behind it as a good or even average movie.

Sean: And so we begin with a respectful disagreement. I love “Cabin in the Woods” for what it is and you, quite fairly, dislike it for what it pretended to be. In the future, I will expect far more vitriol Faith but for a first outing, Thanks for not punching me.

Movie Review The Core

The Core (2003) 

Directed by Jon Amiel

Written by Cooper Layne, John Rogers

Starring Hilary Swank, Aaron Eckhart, Delroy Lindo, Bruce Greenwood, Richard Jenkins

Release Date March 28th, 2003

Published March 29th, 2003

It's not often when screenwriters make the news. When John Rogers, the co-writer of The Core, wrote in to Ain't It Cool News to dispute a review that questioned the film’s science, more than a few of us took notice and had a little laugh at his expense.

Granted, no one wants their work made fun of, but when you make a movie as unabashedly out there as The Core, you can't expect it to be welcomed as if it were written by Carl Sagan. Sci-fi films have a horrible track record of including actual science in them and the aspiration to put real science in a movie like The Core is like asking Beverly Hills Cop to include real police procedures. No one goes to disaster movies for a science lesson, they go to watch landmarks explode. The Core blows up Rome and San Francisco, mission accomplished.

Aaron Eckhart heads up an ensemble cast as Dr. Josh Keyes, a physics professor at some anonymous college. In the midst of a lecture on the layers of the Earth, Dr. Keyes is called out of class by a pair of humorless G-men. Taken on a jet to Washington D.C, he reunites with a fellow scientist and friend Sergei Levesque (Tcheky Karyo, in a rare non-villain role). The two are asked by an army General (Six Feet Under dead guy, Richard Jenkins) to theorize what environmental factors could cause a group of people with pacemakers to simply drop dead without warning.

The answer, after much lucky guessing by Dr. Keyes, is that the Earth's core has stopped spinning causing it's electromagnetic field to go haywire. Not only has it caused pacemakers to stop, but also birds have lost navigating ability and are falling from the sky. Also falling is the space shuttle which has flown off course and nearly crashes in L.A, saved only by the wits of its plucky navigator Major Rebecca Childs.

So now that we know what's wrong, there are two questions remaining. Number one, how did this happen? And number two, how do we stop it? Thankfully, the film’s trailer has already told us both of those things. A weapon that causes earthquakes has gone too far thanks to the miscalculations of its inventor Dr. Zimsky (Stanley Tucci). Conversely, crazy scientist Dr. "Braz" Brazzleton has a vehicle with the ability to tunnel all the way to the core. Once there, nuclear weapons can be dropped to kickstart the core. Apparently, no one had jumper cables.

To the science issue, I have no idea and really don't care if the science is real. What matters is if the film is any good. Some geologist writing somewhere said that the film has as many accuracies as inaccuracies and that the inaccuracies are those that are necessary for dramatic purposes. WHATEVER!

Let's get to the important stuff, how cool are the explosions. Well let me tell you in the words of the late John Candy in an old SCTV sketch, stuff blow'd up, blow'd up real good. The special effects aren't spectacular but they are entertaining in a modern day Ed Wood sort of way. The Golden Gate Bridge explosion is a cheesy treat and when Rome blows up, watching the reactions of the extras running from the Coliseum is priceless.

The Core is a bad movie but in the camp sense it's genius. Whether intentional or not The Core is full of laughs from the effects to the characters. I especially liked Stanley Tucci who seemed to be channeling Dr. Smith from Lost In Space with his whiny smugness. And kudos to Delroy Lindo for assuaging his usual calm cool persona for a geekier frazzled genius demeanor that you don't expect from him.

The Core is just plain goofy and in that sense it's a lot of fun. Though it needs to be greatly pared down from its two-hour plus runtime, it nevertheless delivers a fun little distraction.

Movie Review: Eat Pray Love

Eat Pray Love (2010) 

Directed by Ryan Murphy 

Written by Ryan Murphy, Jennifer Salt

Starring Julia Roberts, Billy Crudup, Viola Davis, Richard Jenkins, Javier Bardem

Release Date August 13th, 2010 

Published August 13th, 2010

“Eat Pray Love” has one perfect scene. Julia Roberts is staying at an Ashram in India and seeking peace from the love life that has been her obsession, preventing her from finding clarity. Needing to forgive herself for leaving her loving but forgetful husband played by Billy Crudup, Julia as writer Liz Gilbert flashes back to her wedding and imagines an alternate history where instead of the comic dance he'd done at their wedding, the song they intended to dance to, Neil Young's extraordinary "Harvest Moon," plays. T

he Liz of now takes the place of the younger more frightened Liz and tells her husband all that he will not let her say in real life. The moment moves elegantly between New York and India and the song captures the scene beautifully.

It's a rare moment in what is an otherwise pedestrian film but it's so good that it brought me peace with the film and allows me to tell you now that, despite a wave of my fellow critics trashing “Eat Pray Love,” this is not a bad movie. It's no masterpiece but in its mellow, adult contemporary way, “Eat Pray Love” brings an easy smile, a few laughs and that one perfect moment.

”Eat Pray Love” is director Ryan Murphy's adaptation of the Elizabeth Gilbert's real life bestseller. As played by Ms. Roberts, Liz Gilbert left behind a sad marriage to Stephen (Crudup), a bad timing boyfriend named David who she met and moved in with during her divorce and everything else that made her life miserable yet simple in New York.

The plan is to travel, first to Italy, for the food, then to India to live and pray at an ashram and finally a return trip to Bali where at the beginning of the film she met a medicine man who predicted much of how her life would turn out.

Along the way, of course, Liz meets a cast of colorful new friends, finds peace and self discovery and as the title spoils, she finds love. Whether that love can be balanced with newfound peace of spirit is a surprisingly well played and rather unique romantic obstacle. No doubt the best of Liz's new friends is Richard played by Oscar nominee Richard Jenkins. 

Liz and Richard meet in India and he glosses her with a rather precious nickname that sticks only because Richard Jenkins truly believes in how clever it is. Jenkins sells the Pray portion of Eat Pray Love like no other actor could and even saddled with a back-story monologue that strangle many other actors, he makes it work and the movie loses something important when he leaves. 

The last portion of the film is centered on Oscar winner Javier Bardem as Felipe and Liz's willingness to believe in love again. It sounds trite, it is rather trite but you will have to try hard not to like Bardem's big broad smile and his quirky, sweet way of expressing his love. Bardem has rarely been this free and easy on screen and it suits him surprisingly well. 

I don't see why men cannot be comfortable talking about love as a concept and a feeling. Why does this frighten us so much? I will boldly state here and now, I believe in love and while I have had my heart broken more than once, I wouldn't want to live in a world where the possibility of love is not right around the corner. Films made for women, like “Eat Pray Love,” are perfectly comfortable with this subject and part of the pleasure of the film is the ease and grace with which these ideas are assessed, mulled and demonstrated. 

”Eat Pray Love” comes up short as anything more than a minor pleasure. Though Eat Pray Love seeks answers to big questions the answers too often are general and easy on the palette, few hard truths here. “Eat Pray Love” doesn’t challenge the audience, it is neither bold nor aggressive about it's ideals, aside from the love of a great Italian past. 

That said, fans of the book should be satisfied and those who have not read the book can bask in the glow of Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem's beaming smiles and Richard Jenkins' exceptional wit and depth. And don't forget that perfect moment I mentioned. Neil Young fans especially will find themselves bursting with emotions and inspirations, thoughts of lost love. It's one of the best scenes in any movie so far in 2010.

Movie Review Let Me In

Let Me In (2010)

Directed by Matt Reeves

Written by Matt Reeves

Starring Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloe Grace Moretz, Elias Koteas, Richard Jenkins

Release Date October 1st, 2010

Published October 1st, 2010

As I watched the American re-imagining of the Swedish vampire movie “Let The Right One In,” re-titled “Let Me In,” a pair of troglodytic morons giggled at things that frankly should not have elicited such school girl glee. They giggled when Chloe Moretz as the 12 year old starving vampire leapt upon her pray. They giggled when her non-vamp caretaker Richard Jenkins committed murder on her behalf. And, most disturbingly, they giggled during a touching scene of innocence, kindness and tender pre-teen romance.

Were they right? Was I wrong for taking it all too seriously? I found director Matt Reeves take on stark Swedish horror to be at once moving and terrifying. The young stars Chloe Moretz and Kodi Smit McPhee lured me in with their innocence and devastated me with their kindness, strength and for Moretz her stunning tendency for great violence, the same tendency that ironically played perfectly for giggles in the action flick “Kick Ass.”

”Let Me In” stars Kodi Smit McPhee as Owen, the son of an alcoholic mother and an absent father. Owen is picked on repeatedly at school and has no friends. His only comfort seems to come from stealing money from his mother to buy candy, specifically Now & Laters. He is alone until a strange girl named Abby (Moretz) moves in next door.

Abby first tells Owen that they cannot be friends. Soon, however, she is spending time with him and they develop a system of talking to each other through the walls of their neighboring apartments. Strangely, Abby is only seen at night. She walks in the snow with no shoes and does not get cold. The man who Owen believes is Abby's father (Richard Jenkins) keeps odd hours and odd habits. All of these traits add up to an undeniable truth but Owen keeps that far from his mind as he basks in the attention he cannot get from parents or school.

What begins as a modest friendship develops into a touching pre-teen romance and as Owen covets Abby's attention and she is caring. She recognizes Owen's pain and aims to protect him. The scenes laying out this unique and fascinating relationship unfold with care and calm juxtaposed against scenes in which 'the father' attempts to acquire Abby's needed sustenance, scenes filled with chaos and fear.

Remakes are as a rule a bad idea but writer-director Matt Reeves (Cloverfield) cleverly works around the perils of the remake by casting Moretz and McPhee whose work nearly made me forget the excellent work of the young Swedish stars of Let the Right One In. Moretz and McPhee have a magical chemistry that mixes innocence and intelligence, fear and mistrust with wanting and a desire to connect. It's a remarkable thing for two so young to be both worldly and guileless.

The casting is the key in “Let Me In” and Moretz and McPhee are matched perfectly by veteran supporting actors Richard Jenkins and Elias Koteas who plays a police inspector on the trail of 'the father' and on the verge of finding Abby and her terrifying secret. Koteas is brilliant in a minimalist performance that could be mistaken for being one note with how calm he remains but is in fact the pulsing heart of the film, especially as he gets closer to discovering Abby.

Let Me In is stunningly violent at times and shockingly calm and observant at others. It is a wonder of strong direction and killer performances that will frighten, amuse and move a willing audience. It may be arrogant on my part but those two giggling fools were wrong, this film deserves a serious audience, one that pays it the proper attention. Those that do will be rewarded with one of the finest dramatic, gothic horror films of the past decade.

Movie Review: Dear John

Dear John (2010) 

Directed by Lasse Hallstrom

Written by Jamie Linden 

Starring Channing Tatum, Amanda Seyfried, Henry Thomas, Richard Jenkins 

Release Date February 5th, 2010

Published February 4th, 2010 

Dear John is a romance starring actor Channing Tatum's abs and actress Amanda Seyfried's eyes. As he takes his shirt off to reveal his ripples her wide, deep eyes travel the lengths of his musculature and boom you have a movie. This will be enough to satisfy the depraved teenage girls whose eyes will also travel the full length of Mr. Tatum's tummy again and again.

For the rest of us however, those not inclined to stare longingly at Mr. Tatum's Playgirl centerfold audition, Dear John is a dreary bore of romantic cliché and moony mawkishness.

I already described the plot, he takes his shirt off, she stares, the end, but I am sure some of you would like a little more detail. After all, Dear John did not begin life as an adaptation of Jergen De Mey's bestseller The Action Hero Body but rather as an adaptation of one of Nicholas Sparks's astonishing series of simpleminded romance hits.

Dear John tells the story of John, how inventive right. John is a soldier who while home on leave in early 2001 meets cute with Savannah (Seyfried) when she loses her purse in the ocean and he dives in to save it. She's with a boy when this happens but he has a shirt on, John doesn't and his glistening, rippling self is all it takes for that guy to go away, hell I can't even remember who he was.

John joins Savannah for a party at her home and an introduction to the special needs child she spends time with seals their fate as lifetime lovers. The love birds spend the summer together, her appreciating his repeated shirtlessness, he staring longingly if emptily into her wide pool-like eyes. Things are said but nothing is more important than their respective beauty.

Then John has to ship out and since this story is set in 2001 there is a pretty big twist coming up, wink wink. Yes, 9/11 is a plot point in this dopey romance and as the film manages to make sex, romance, mental illness, war and death trivial even the deadliest terror attack in American history can be rendered inferior when compared to the romance of two extraordinarily self important beautiful people.

What is supposed to be dramatic and romantic is captured by director Lasse Hallstrom in his typically vacant, pretty postcard style. It's a style that is relatively well placed in a film about two pretty people being pretty and for those who watch with the sound off, the style may enhance the experience. This is not an option of course for most theatergoers who will have to endure dialogue so benign and simple you can hear the breeze emanating in the characters ears as they speak. Cheesy platitudes meet at the intersection exposition and bland pop music scoring to create a mind numbing throb of vapidity. 

An ode to the ab workout, Dear John succeeds in providing fantasy material for those inclined toward Channing Tatum's rippling-ness. Otherwise, the film is one massive bore that manages to trivialize war, sex, autism and yes even 9/11. It's really rather remarkable that a film could be so offensive in such a forgettable fashion. Dear John is so dull that I can hardly muster the bile to be offended by it.

Movie Review Killing Them Softly

Killing Them Softly (2012) 

Directed by Andrew Dominik 

Written by Andrew Dominik 

Starring Brad Pitt, Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn, Richard Jenkins, James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta 

Release Date November 30th, 2012 

Published November 29th, 2012 

There is a good movie somewhere in the bones of "Killing them Softly." Sadly, what finally arrives on the big screen is only mildly interesting. This Brad Pitt starring mob drama about a hitman assigned to exact revenge on minor thieves who've stolen mob money has moments that are transcendent but also feel as if they belong in a different and more interesting movie.

'Indecisive and bureaucratic'

"Killing them Softly" stars Pitt as mob hit-man Jackie. Hired by the mob in New Orleans when their regular killer, Sam Shepard in a cameo, falls ill, Jackie is a philosophical killer eager to discuss plans for murder but growing weary of a mob that has become shockingly indecisive and bureaucratic.

Writer-director Andrew Domenik spends a great deal of effort to draw parallels between the mob and the modern American government, an ineffectual, gridlocked bureaucracy incapable of taking decisive action even in the face of overwhelming evidence. Every decision is work-shopped in committee and related via functionaries' Ala Richard Jenkins' mob lawyer.

Obama, McCain and Tony Soprano

The parallels between the mob and the government are thickly brewed and ladled on quite heavy as every scene seems to be scored by scenes from the 2008 economic crisis; the film is set in 2008 amid the Obama-McCain election. That said, the parallels are darkly amusing as are Pitt's exasperated expository conversations with Jenkins.

Also good are the talk heavy scenes between Pitt and a fellow mob hitman played by 'Sopranos' star James Gandolfini. There is a fascinating "My Dinner with Andre" style movie to be made with these two killers talking about the strange twists and turns of their lives and at times "Killing them Softly" almost becomes that movie.

Not enough star-power

The weakest moments of "Killing them Softly" and the reason why the film fails to become great, are the far too many moments when Pitt is off-screen. Scoot McNary and Ben Mandelsohn play the small-time crooks that Pitt takes aim at and we spend a shocking amount of time with these characters who never earn our interest and leave viewers wondering where Brad Pitt is.

"Killing them Softly" is a fascinating failure. Pitt, Jenkins and Gandolfini are very good but when they aren't onscreen, the film becomes far less compelling.

Movie Review Step Brothers

Step Brothers (2008) 

Directed by Adam McKay

Written by Adam McKay, Will Ferrell

Starring Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Richard Jenkins, Mary Steenburgen, Adam Scott, Kathryn Hahn

Release Date July 25th, 2008 

Published July 24th, 2008 

My sister and I have a long running disagreement about the comedy of the absurd. She loves the strange, the bizarre and the out of context. I prefer a comedy with some structure, comedy with an idea behind it, a strong sense of character. That said, even with my sisters great tolerance for absurdity, even she will have a hard time enjoy the depths of absurdity plumbed in Step Brothers, the latest dumb guy comedy from the Will Ferrell factory.

Brennen (Will Ferrell) and Dale (John C. Reilly) are two 40 year old virgins who barely left the womb, let alone their respective parents' homes. Brennen's mom Nancy (Mary Steenbergen) happens to have met and fallen in love at first sight with Dale's dad Robert (Richard Jenkins). Now Brennen and Dale are step brothers and they are none to happy about it.

Setting about destroying each other, Brennen and Dale engage in an ugly and occasionally funny, escalation of nasty pranks all of which seem to reveal how much more they have in common than against one another. When Brennen's successful younger brother Derek (Adam Scott) shows up and Dale ends up punching, the step brothers finally realize all they have in common. Unfortunately, Dale and Brennen's hijinks as enemies and friends drive their parents to divorce. Now they must try and grow up or lose their family.

My description of the plot is much more conventional than the actual plot of Step Brothers which amounts more to throwing a series of gags at audiences than much of anything you might consider a plot. Director Adam McKay, who co-wrote the script with Ferrell, attempts from time to time to bring some structure to Step Brothers but the urge for non-sequitur gaga becomes too much to resist. Some of the gags are funny, some are embarrassing; for both actor and audience, and others just leave one to ponder other things they could be doing with their time, like watching The Dark Knight again.

So what is funny about Step Brothers? Mary Steenbergen's brief cursing fit gets a good laugh as does Richard Jenkins' ever increasing frustrations. Ana Gasteyer's astonishing dirty talk will stun and still get a good laugh and a dog belonging to a blind neighbor gets a laugh as well. Otherwise, Ferrell and O'Reilly's antics as Brennen and Dale are more awkward than funny, more mean spirited than good natured.

Is the idea of children beating up Ferrell and O'Reilly kind of funny? Yes. In execution however the scene simply isn't funny. When the scene is reprised later you know what will happen and again it's not very funny. These scenes are like most in Step Brothers, random, flailing attempts at jokes that miss far more than they hit.

Much of Step Brothers plays as if Ferrell, Reilly and McKay sat down and started throwing around gags, regardless of context and decided to just throw everything in and hope something would work. Because these are very talented guys, some of it does make you laugh. Just as much however makes you cringe or merely embarrassed for yourself and the performers.

Movie Review Eye of God

Eye of God (1997) 

Directed by Tim Blake Nelson

Written by Tim Blake Nelson

Starring Nick Stahl, Martha Plimpton, Kevin Anderson, Hal Holbrook, Richard Jenkins, Margo Martindale 

Release Date October 17th, 1997 

Published July 13th, 2003 

In his relatively short career as a director, Tim Blake Nelson has shown a fascination with tragedy. In The Grey Zone it was the horror of the Holocaust. In ”O” it was teen violence by way of Shakespeare. And in Nelson's very first feature, Eye of God, it was a town in Oklahoma that seemed bathed in tragedy from economic depression to domestic abuse to suicide. Made with the help of Robert Redford's Sundance Institute in 1997, Eye of God was the first indication that the actor had the eye of a director.

Set sometime in the 1980's Eye of God centers on the small town of Kingfish, Oklahoma. A town suffering though a major economic downturn that has people moving away at the rate of a family a week. Into this tragic situation comes a former convict, Jack Stillings (Kevin Anderson). He has come to Kingfish to meet his prison pen pal, a young waitress named Ainsley Dupree (Martha Plimpton). At first Ainsley has cold feet and thinks of leaving but Jack convinces her to stay and that night they have their first date.

Running parallel to Jack and Ainsley's story is that of Tom Spencer (Nick Stahl) who's mother committed suicide, leaving him with his overbearing Aunt and with thoughts of taking his own life. When Tom is found wandering along the side of the road covered in blood, it's obvious he has been involved in something awful. Unfortunately, a shell-shocked Tom is unable to speak and can't tell anyone what happened.

As we learn from a voiceover provided by Hal Holbrook, who also plays the sheriff of Kingfish, Jack and Ainsley's story is being recounted in flashback, while Tom's story takes place in the present. The film shifts backwards and forwards much like Brian Singer's Usual Suspects. The time shifts in Eye of God are signaled by overlapping sounds and static camera shots. The camera pans slowly away from the characters to some various image as another begins to speak or a phone rings or a door slams. It's not a new approach but for a first time director it was a challenging choice and one that Nelson carries off very well.

The script, also written by Nelson, is part mystery, part character study. Unfortunately, the mystery unravels well before the film is over. It becomes clear which character is guilty and that takes some of the punch out of the film’s ending. What the ending does have though is well-acted tragedy that Martha Plimpton and Nick Stahl really hit home. Stahl's final scene is a real heartbreaker and shows the potential that he is finally beginning to live up to some six years later. It's a wonder we don't see more of Martha Plimpton, who has always turns in an effective performance in whatever she is in, even the God awful 100 Cigarettes.

The film’s only real problem is it's leading man Kevin Anderson. A true straight to video legend, Anderson evinces an east coast attitude even as he's supposed to be playing a down home Midwesterner. His portrayal done with a hint of bad Midwest accent turn Jack into a redneck caricature, a hypocritical bible thumper who never for a moment fools the audience into sympathizing with him.

As artful as Eye of God is, it's not entertaining. It's just sad. I loved the performances by Stahl and Plimpton and Tim Blake Nelson's risky directing style. However, the film’s sadness is overwhelming. When the mystery falls apart just past the half way point, the audience is left with nothing but the tragedy. That and Anderson's performance keep Eye Of God from rising to the level of Nelson's follow up features “O” and The Grey Zone, but that is to be expected from a first feature.

Movie Review: Cheaper by the Dozen

Cheaper by the Dozen (2003) 

Directed by Shawn Levy 

Written by Sam Harper, Joel Cohen, Alec Sokolow 

Starring Steve Martin, Paula Marshall, Richard Jenkins, Bonnie Hunt, Tom Welling, Hillary Duff

Release Date December 25th, 2003 

Published December 21st, 2003

I should have seen this coming. The warning signs were there. A preview screening nearly a month before the film’s release. A script adaptation credited to eight--yes, I said eight--writers. And a director who aspires to mediocrity because mediocre would be an improvement over what he's done before. Nevertheless, I still happily attended the screening of Cheaper By The Dozen because I thought Steve Martin can't possibly make a film that bad. I could not have been more wrong.

The plot description for this film is somewhat difficult because it's essentially a series of sub-sitcom level moments of family comedy. Martin stars as a football coach in a small Illinois town. He and his wife, played by Bonnie Hunt (also one of the eight credited writers), are unique because they were high school sweethearts who have been married for 22 years, and they have 12 children. Their family farm house is an absolute mess of toys and small animals and sporting equipment. Meanwhile, each of the kids have a handy little quirk to help us tell them apart. The archetypes are classic ABC TGIF kids: the tomboy, the prissy one, the really smart one, the fat kid and so on and so forth. It saves the time of having to write 12 individual characters.

The plot, such as it is, has Martin's character accepting a new job at a big college. So, the family packs up and moves to a Chicago suburb where they meet their neighbors, played by Alan Ruck and Paula Marshall. (Poor Marshall has the thankless task of playing the only-in-the-movies type of bitch character that says horribly insensitive things and will get her comeuppance by the end of the film.) However Marshall isn't nearly as abused as poor Richard Jenkins. Slumming from his role as the coolest dead guy on TV on HBO's Six Feet Under, Jenkins play Martin's best friend and new boss who is required to be inhumanly stupid. It is poor Mr. Jenkins’ character who forces Martin to choose between his job and his 12 kids. Well golly, what do you think he will choose?

Hunt's character writes a book about her family that lands on the bestseller list, forcing her to leave the family for a few days for a book tour. Golly, do you think dad can handle taking care of all of those kids by himself? I don't know about you, but I think we’re in for hijinks here. The kids trash a neighbor’s birthday party by accidentally releasing a snake in the house. Again it's poor Marshall who takes the brunt of that beating.

Oh it gets worse.

Teen stars Hillary Duff and Tom Welling play the family's two older children. In adjusting to their new high school, these two actors who look like fashion models are required by the script to be outcasts at their new school. It reminded me of the movie She's All That where Rachel Leigh Cook was considered a nerd because she wore glasses and baggy clothes, except that Welling and Duff never look like anything but the Gap models they are in real life.

Martin stretches and strains all over the screen trying to make this forced, stupid material work and the strain shows in every moment of the film. If you thought his Bringing Down The House character was forced, you will be shocked that this character is actually worse.

Director Shawn Levy cut his teeth on Nickelodeon and Disney Channel TV series’ until getting his big break directing 2003's very first worst movie of the year, Just Married. So how fitting that he should bookend 2003 with its final worst movie of the year. Cheaper By The Dozen is an awful movie. A sub-Brady Bunch sitcom, full of forced jokes and cheap contrived melodrama.

In the words of my hero, Roger Ebert, who used this phrase to sum up his feelings about the film North, "I HATED, HATED, HATED, HATED, HATED THIS MOVIE".

Movie Review North Country

North Country (2005) 

Directed by Niki Caro 

Written by Michael Seitzman

Starring Charlize Theron, Woody Harrelson, Frances McDormand, Sean Bean, Richard Jenkins

Release Date October 21st, 2005 

Published October 19th, 2005 

Director Niki Caro made a huge splash with her debut film Whale Rider. That sweet, smart coming of age flick not only brought an Oscar nomination to the amazing young actress Keisha Castle Hughes, it also established Caro as a director who could write her own ticket for whatever project she wanted to make. Her choice was to work with another Oscar nominated actress, Charlize Theron, on what is, by virtue of both of their involvement, a serious prestige picture about a difficult and dramatic subject, the very first sexual harrassment class action suit in US history.

With the weight of expectations on North Country Niki Caro had a lot to live up to. That the film nearly meets those lofty expectations is a sign of her talent and the strength of the story she wished to tell.

Charlize Theron stars in North Country as Josie Aimes, a single mother returning to her tiny hometown in Minnesota after escaping her abusive husband. To say that her homecoming is not exactly welcome is a slight understatement. Though Josie's parents, Hank (Richard Jenkins) and Alice (Sissy Spacek), love her deeply, her life choices up until now have been a grave disappointment. Pregnant at sixteen, Josie claimed to not know who the child's father was. Running away with the baby soon after, Josie found herself in a series of bad relationships, and pregnant again.

Now back home and fighting with her father over having left her marriage (despite the husband's abuse, her father cannot abide a divorce and even wonders if she brought the abuse on herself) Josie needs a job and a new place to live. An old friend, Glory, played by the wonderful Frances McDormand, puts Josie on to a job working in the mine that is the town's only source of stable employment. Unfortunately it's also where Josie's father works, yet another source of father-daughter tension.

If her father was the greatest of the resistance Josie faced working in the mines she would be lucky. Sadly, the male workers of the mine have made quite clear ever since women have been allowed to work there that they are not welcome. The sexual, emotional and occasionally physical intimidation of women is an everyday reality for Glory who has weathered it well enough to become a union leader. For Josie, however, the abuse is shocking and terrifying and likely compounded by some very dark secrets from her past.

Eventually all of the abuse and frustrating put-offs from management force Josie to take a bold step. With the help of a local lawyer, Bill White (Woody Harrelson), Josie aims to sue the mine and stop the abuse and if at all possible make the mine a safe place for the women who work there after her.

North Country is an exceptionally well-told story both in terms of scripting and filmmaking. Director Niki Caro showed her adeptness for compelling visual storytelling in Whale Rider and continues to mature in North Country. With Cinematographer Gustavo Santaolalla, Caro washes out the scenery to capture the often grim and gritty feel of the Minnesota winter. The visuals are so strong that the bitter cold of the north country chills the theater.

The script by Michael Seitzman, based on the book Class Action by Clara Bingham, creates a fictional character in Josie Aimes-- a composite of a number of different woman, including Lois Jenson, who was the first and most heroic plaintiff in this historic case. Especially compelling is the backstory that Seitzman and Niki Caro craft for Josie and the way that backstory informs the rest of the movie. Her experiences in the past are something that many women can sadly relate to, though to detail those experiences would reveal far too much I think.

The backstory is weaved into the movie's main story in a way that builds to an emotional flourish that lifts the film's otherwise weak courtroom scenes. If there is a flaw in North Country it is the by-the-numbers battle in the courtroom. Caro does as much as she can visually-- the court scenes are brightly lit but no less cold than the outdoor scenes-- but the scenes never rise above typical courtroom cliches. My opinion of this aspect of the film may be colored slightly by my opinion of the film's ending, which takes place in the courtroom and is a major letdown.

Of course Josie would not be the extraordinary character she is without the exemplary performance of Charlize Theron. At the head of an amazing cast that includes Oscar winners Sissy Spacek and Frances McDormand, as well as Woody Harrelson, Richard Jenkins and Sean Bean, Theron never let's you forget this is her movie. In North Country Charlize Theron essays a tough but vulnerable performance with depth and meaning. It's a performance worthy of such weighty subject matter as the very first and most difficult battle in the fight against sexual harassment.

The improvement of Charlize Theron as an actress in just the last three years is remarkable. Just four years ago seeing the name Charlize Theron on a movie poster was a stomach turning moment. Her shrill, unlikable, over-the-top performances in The Astronauts Wife, Devils Advocate and Sweet November are now a very distant memory. Monster changed everything and now North Country affirms that Charlize Theron is a true actress and a star, not just another pretty face.

North Country is the kind of heart rending cathartic drama people go to the movies to experience. A film that earns all of its emotional involvement and audience participation in the experience. North Country is also the rare modern movie that combines that emotional journey with a visual one that is its equal. Niki Caro and her team evoke not only the freezing cold of the north but the feel of a town caught in a time warp. The men are Neanderthals, the women are repressed and longing, and the whole thing is disturbing for people who lived through similar circumstances and people, like myself, who cannot fully relate to the struggles women have faced in the workplace.

North Country is an education, a history lesson about how far woman have come in establishing themselves in the workplace. It's a lesson that needs to be taught and retaught because as the old adage goes; those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Our current laws on sexual harassment may at times seem ridiculous or overblown but they stem from a place of necessity because the type of abuse demonstrated in North Country should never be allowed to take place.

For Oscar watchers like myself North Country is a must see. Niki Caro's direction, Michael Seitzman's script, Gustavo Santaolalla's photography and the supporting performances of Frances McDormand and Richard Jenkins are all worthy of nominations. However, it is the performance of Charlize Theron that will have Oscar fans buzzing all the way to the big night. Theron has a very good chance of becoming the seventh actress in academy history to win two lead actress Oscars.

Had the ending of North Country been a little stronger I think a best picture nomination would be assured for North Country. Still, despite my minor misgivings, this is one terrific drama. A moving crowd pleaser with an important message and filled to overflowing with terrific performances. North Country is a must see for the new season.

Movie Review The Core

The Core (2003) 

Directed by Jon Amiel 

Written by John Rogers 

Starring Aaron Eckhardt, Hilary Swank, Delroy Lindo, Stanley Tucci, D.J Qualls, Richard Jenkins

Release Date March 28th, 2003 

Published March 27th, 2003 

It's not often when screenwriters make the news. When John Rogers, the co-writer of The Core, wrote in to Aint It Cool News to dispute a review that questioned the film’s science, more than a few of us took notice and had a little laugh at his expense. Granted, no one wants their work made fun of, but when you make a movie as unabashedly out there as The Core, you can't expect it to be welcomed as if it were written by Carl Sagan. 

Sci-fi films have a horrible track record of including actual science in them and the aspiration to put real science in a movie like The Core is like asking Beverly Hills Cop to include real police procedures. No one goes to disaster movies for a science lesson, they go to watch landmarks explode. The Core blows up Rome and San Francisco, mission accomplished.

Aaron Eckhart heads up an ensemble cast as Dr. Josh Keyes, a physics professor at some anonymous college. In the midst of a lecture on the layers of the Earth, Dr. Keyes is called out of class by a pair of humorless G-men. Taken on a jet to Washington D.C, he reunites with a fellow scientist and friend Sergei Levesque (Tcheky Karyo, in a rare non-villain role). The two are asked by an army General (Six Feet Under dead guy, Richard Jenkins) to theorize what environmental factors could cause a group of people with pacemakers to simply drop dead without warning.

The answer, after much lucky guessing by Dr. Keyes, is that the Earth's core has stopped spinning causing it's electromagnetic field to go haywire. Not only has it caused pacemakers to stop, but also birds have lost navigating ability and are falling from the sky. Also falling is the space shuttle which has flown off course and nearly crashes in L.A, saved only by the wits of it's plucky navigator Major Rebecca Childs.

So now that we know what's wrong, there are two questions remaining. Number one, how did this happen? And number two, how do we stop it? Thankfully, the film’s trailer has already told us both of those things. A weapon that causes earthquakes has gone too far thanks to the miscalculations of it's inventor Dr. Zimsky (Stanley Tucci). Conversely, crazy scientist Dr. "Braz" Brazzleton has a vehicle with the ability to tunnel all the way to the core. Once there, nuclear weapons can be dropped to kickstart the core. Apparently, no one had jumper cables.

To the science issue, I have no idea and really don't care if the science is real. What matters is if the film is any good. Some geologist writing somewhere said that the film has as many accurate notions as inaccuracies and that the inaccuracies are those that are necessary for dramatic purposes. WHATEVER!

Let's get to the important stuff, how cool are the explosions. Well let me tell you in the words of the late John Candy in an old SCTV sketch, stuff blow'd up, blow'd up real good. The special effects aren't spectacular but they are entertaining in a modern day Ed Wood sort of way. The Golden Gate Bridge explosion is a cheesy treat and when Rome blows up, watching the reactions of the extras running from the Coliseum is priceless.

The Core is a bad movie but in the camp sense it's genius. Whether intentional or not The Core is full of laughs from the effects to the characters. I especially liked Stanley Tucci who seemed to be channeling Dr. Smith from Lost In Space with his whiny smugness. And kudos to Delroy Lindo for assuaging his usual calm cool persona for a geekier frazzled genius demeanor that you don't expect from him.

The Core is just plain goofy and in that sense it's a lot of fun. Though it needs to be greatly pared down from it's two-hour plus runtime, it nevertheless delivers a fun little distraction.

Movie Review Stealing Harvard

Stealing Harvard (2002) 

Directed by Bruce McCulloch

Written by Peter Tolan

Starring Jason Lee, Tom Green, Leslie Mann, Dennis Farina, Megan Mullally, Richard Jenkins, John C. McGinley

Release Date September 13th, 2002 

Published September 12th, 2002 

In Freddy Got Fingered, Tom Green broke every rule of good filmmaking. In doing so, he created one of the more inept films in history. On the other hand, Green should be commended for one of the boldest attempts at comedy we've ever seen. To his credit, he put himself on the line, and though he failed spectacularly, the attempt was brave and bold. If only his new film Stealing Harvard had taken some of the risks that Green did in Freddy Got Fingered, rather than churning out yet another market-tested demographically- safe comedy.

Stealing Harvard stars View Askew legend Jason Lee as John Plummer, a soon-to-be-married medical supply salesman. Years ago, John made a promise to his niece that if she got into college, he would pay for it. In the meantime, John met and fell in love with Elaine (Leslie Mann). They were engaged and agreed to get married when they accumulated enough money to buy a house. It is no surprise then that as soon as John has enough money to get married, he finds out his niece has been accepted to Harvard and needs money.

From here, the film tweaks one of my movie pet peeves. A character can easily dispel a difficult situation by simply telling the truth, but doesn't because of the plot. There is absolutely no reason for John not to tell Elaine about his problem, except that if he does there wouldn't be a movie. I can't stand this trope, it's a plague inflicted by lazy, hack screenwriters of the world.

Therefore, instead of simply telling the truth, John enlists his buddy Duff (Green) who suggests they steal the money. After a series of outlandish robbery attempts and bids to cut deals with lowlifes, John finally comes clean with Elaine, who has the brilliant idea to steal from her father (who is also John's hateful boss (Dennis Farina). She could just ask her dad for the money, and he would likely give it to her ,despite his hatred of her fiancée, but if she did that we wouldn't have the ridiculous climax and tacked on a happy ending.

Director Bruce Mcculloch, formerly of Kids In The Hall, may not have much of an eye for story, but he does manage a light quick tone and a few solid laughs. Lee is solid though some of the material is beneath his talent. Green, once again playing himself, draws some of the biggest laughs. He has an amazing talent for physical humor, and because he is so unpredictable, the comic potential of his character is attention grabbing.

Stealing Harvard never had a chance to be a good film. Coming from the big studio system, this film was engineered with demographics ahead of script. Screenwriter Peter Tolan writes as if he was creating the marketing campaign as he was creating the story. It is truly a shame, with the talent there was a very funny movie to be made. Stealing Harvard just wasn't it.

Movie Review Hall Pass

Hall Pass (2011) 

Directed by Peter and Bobby Farrelly 

Written by Peter and Bobby Farrelly, Pete Jones, Kevn Barnett 

Starring Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis, Jenna Fischer, Christina Applegate, Richard Jenkins

Release Date February 25th, 2011 

Published February 24th, 2011

Peter and Bobby Farelly haven't been relevant since they rode the public's brief fascination with Jack Black in the early 2000's to a hit with “Shallow Hal.” Since then the brothers have floundered half focused on new material and half obsessed with making a movie about the Three Stooges. The Stooges movie has been gestating since the late 90's with a variety of acting combinations dropping in and out with nothing to show for it.

Finally, the guys who started the man-child comedy revolution with movies like “There's Something About Mary” are back at full strength and making the kind of movie that was their forte. “Hall Pass” is a small miracle of outrageously raunchy humor with a good heart that made ``Mary,’ “Kingpin” and “Shallow Hal” hits.

Owen Wilson stars in “Hall Pass” as Rick, an early 40's father of three happily married for more than 15 years to Maggie (Jenna Fischer). Three kids have taken the spark out of the marriage lately and more and more Maggie is catching Rick lusting after other women like a horny old teenager.

More troubled are Rick and Maggie's best friends Fred (Jason Sudeikis) and Grace (Christina Applegate). They have no kids and no spark; leaving Fred to masturbate in the front seat of their minivan lest she catch him. (If you're wondering how that bit of information pays off, see the movie.) Rick and Fred commiserate over their troubled love lives at a local coffee shop while lusting after an Aussie barista named Leigh (Nicky Whelan) whose nubile-ness represents everything they fantasize about.

After speaking to a mutual friend “The View's Joy Behar in an unshowy cameo) Maggie and Grace come up with the idea of a Hall Pass. The concept is simple, one week off from marriage to do whatever the guys want, guilt free. Either they will spend the week striking out or they will get whatever cheating they were going to do anyway out of their systems.

This is the kind of simple, straight forward set up that Ron Howard and Vince Vaughn botched in “The Dilemma.” The Farrelly Brothers demonstrate that it takes more than just the idea to make the movie; you need characters and big gags that pay off to really make it work.

Owen Wilson shows a heretofore untapped talent for playing a middle aged dork. Usually cast as the life of the party guy, Wilson slips effortlessly into the role of Rick like one in the long line of 80's rock 'n roll t-shirts Rick thinks is cool. What Rick and Fred think is cool goes a long way for laughs in “Hall Pass.”

Jason Sudeikis is a real scene stealer in “Hall Pass;” offering the same kind of randy, goofy, raunch-ridden asides that he brought to his equally funny supporting role in last year's “Going the Distance” with Drew Barrymore and Justin Long. Sudeikis plays a great douchebag but when the role calls for him to morph into a good guy you believe it fully.

The gags in “Hall Pass” range from the classically Farrelly bathroom jokes, including some truly explosive diarrhea, to more self aware stuff reflecting the ways in which guys really talk. A scene taking place in the home of a mutual friend that neither Rick or Fred really like demonstrates that guys can be as catty as women are about the people they envy, they just have a more blunt and colorful way of being catty.

”Hall Pass” is uproariously funny with big gags mixing with strong characters and in the end a believable amount of heart minus the treacle that most other, similar films pack on when they don't have the goods to really earn audience sympathies. The Farrelly Brothers haven't been this funny in over a decade. See “Hall Pass” and rejoice and who knows, maybe that Stooges movie will actually come out someday.

Movie Review: Burn After Reading

Burn After Reading (2008) 

Directed by The Coen Brothers 

Written by The Coen Brothers 

Starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins 

Release Date September 12th, 2008 

Published September 11th, 2008 

As a way of cleaning the fictional blood off their hands, Joel and Ethan Coen followed their Oscar nominated, blood-soaked masterpiece Fargo with the brilliant, offbeat comedy The Big Lebowski, a movie so wonderfully fun and gentle it could heal even the darkest mind. This same pattern plays out for the Coen's again with the back to back, triumph of opposites, No Country For Old Men and Burn After Reading. After going dark and broody, for an Oscar win, the Coen's did another 180 and deliver arguably their silliest, giddiest effort to date.

In Washington D.C a CIA analyst, Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich), has just been fired. In a fit of pique he tells his wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) he wasn't fired he quit. Osbourne plans on writing his memoirs, though his wife wonders, to his face, who would want to read that? Naturally, the wife is cheating on him. She is cheating with someone sunnier and far less complicated, a doofus federal marshal named Harry (George Clooney) who likes to jog after sex.

On a different planet yet somehow the same movie are Linda (Frances McDormand) and Chad (Brad Pitt). Best friends and employees of the same cookie cutter franchise gym, Linda is desperate for plastic surgery that is beyond both her means and necessity and Chad is basically along for the ride, his good nature being all that bonds him to the story.

Banging these two universes together is the discovery of a computer disc at the gym that contains Osbourne's memoirs filled with CIA secrets that Linda and Chad believe will be worth money to Cox and if not Cox maybe the Russians. Watching everything in permanent apoplexy are the CIA brass played by David Rasche and J.K Simmons who manages to bring his dad from Juno and his Spider-Man newspaper boss together for another brilliant supporting turn.

The bonds of these characters deepen in ways that are entirely contrived but who cares when we are all having such a good time. Joel and Ethan Coen establish a tone of such wonderful goofball whimsy in Burn After Reading that one forgets to fact check the movie as it goes along to make sure everything makes sense.

I have a theory about the Coen Brothers and George Clooney. After three movies together in which Clooney has become more and more of a doofus, it's clear the Coen's enjoy taking one of the world's handsomest actors and making him a fool. Like the kids picked on in High School taking their psychic revenge on the most popular kid in school, the Coen's appear to revel in making Clooney the fool and he appears to be having a ball doing it. 

The Coens make similar magic with Brad Pitt, taking another of People Magazine's Sexiest Men Alive and turning him into a himbo doofus to wonderful comic effect. Brad Pitt is hilarious as an airhead who has no awareness of his own ludicrous attractiveness. There is a subtext to the way the Coen's use both Clooney and Pitt, cleverly twisting the cool, charismatic personas of both actors into something wild, strange and hilarious all at once. 

Burn After Reading is a good natured, if occasionally dark and violent, little comedy. The Coen's can't seem to escape a slight body count and yet they still manage to keep things on a ludicrously, deliriously bright and funny tone. Burn After Reading has some faulty bits of logic and a couple of plot holes and contrivances that would come to light under more scrutiny but who cares. The point of Burn After Reading is just being hilarious. 

The Coen Brothers do such a terrific job of distracting us with goofiness and good nature that we forget the plot, the motivations, even the surprising amount of violence. The film is R-rated for violence and for something that Clooney's character builds that will either make you gasp or laugh uncontrollably. Either way, that scene alone with a smiling Clooney and a curious McDormand is worth the price of admission. 

Movie Review Fun with Dick and Jane

Fun with Dick and Jane (2005) 

Directed by Dean Parisot

Written by Judd Apatow, Nicholas Stoller 

Starring Jim Carrey, Tea Leoni, Alec Baldwin, Richard Jenkins 

Release Date December 21st, 2005 

Published December 20th, 2005 

Remakes are an inherently lazy project. No matter how well made and recreated they are, remakes are  still telling someone else's story and making a profit on it. Laziness is the hallmark of the remake of 1977's Fun With Dick and Jane. With a talented cast including Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni and a script polish by the very funny Judd Apatow, Fun With Dick and Jane is an all the more depressing effort for the talent involved.

Dick Harper (Jim Carrey) has a great job working in corporate communications for a massive corporation called Globodyne. Things are just about to get even better for Dick when the company CEO, slimily portrayed by Alec Baldwin, decides to promote Dick to vice president and put him on TV to talk up Globodyne's latest financial numbers on a Moneyline-esque cable show. Unfortunately as Dick is putting a smiling face on the numbers the stock tanks live on the air. Dick, as the new face of the company, is completely screwed. The CEO has bankrupted the company, including all the severance and pension funds, and is in the wind, leaving Dick and the company's chief finance officer (Richard Jenkins) to take all of the heat.

This could not be worse timing for the Harper family because Dick's wife Jane (Tea Leoni) has just quit her job as a travel agent to spend more time with their son who is being raised by the nanny (the kid had even adopted the nanny's own broken English accent, in an ugly, awful gag).  Now with both Dick and Jane out of work, and Dick a virtual pariah in his chosen field, the family faces losing all of their accumulated wealth and their home.

After unfortunate attempts by both Dick and Jane to work at new jobs, Dick at a Wal-mart clone and then as a day laborer, in yet another awful gag, and Jane as an aerobics instructor and product tester, the frustrated couple turn to armed robbery to solve their money troubles. Using their son's toy weapon and the rationalization that they were screwed by the system, the couple sets about robbing convenience stores, coffee shops and eventually even an attempted bank heist before finally turning to revenge against the CEO that put them in this predicament.

Fun With Dick and Jane fails because director Dean Parisot and writers Judd Apatow, Nicolas Stoller and Peter Tollin fail to establish whether they are attempting broad slapstick or dark satire. Most of the film plays to star Jim Carrey's strength, broad physical comedy. However, the story of a family losing everything and turning to desperate measures to keep their home is not a story that lends itself to big slapsticky laughs. Thus, the film fishes around searching for laughs in broad set pieces unable to reconcile those with the film's dark subject.

The filmmakers try everything from funny costumes (the couple dressed as Sonny and Cher with Carrey as Cher) to movie parody (Dick and Jane driving a stolen car into a storefront dressed as the Blues Brothers), to irreverent racial humor, but nothing connects with anything more than mild amusement. And, the racial humor is downright offensive. Watching it you don't laugh as much as you squirm in discomfort. 

Director Dean Parisot was the talented director of 2000'sGalaxy Quest, a good natured ribbing of the Star Trek series. There is nothing groundbreaking about that little movie but it hits its target well with good-natured parody. Parisot may be the wrong director for the much darker Dick and Jane in which he irritatingly attempts to force broad comedy out of narrow material. Parisot never finds the right angle on the film's corporate satire and fails miserably in establishing why Dick and Jane must turn to crime in order to survive.

The corporate scandal that costs Dick his job is merely a quick way to get him out of a job so we can get to the supposedly funny attempts at crime. There are a couple of unconvincing scenes of both Dick and Jane trying to work low paying jobs and failing miserably but these scenes fail to help us understand why they must turn to crime. We can feel the plot forcing them toward crime because the crimes are where the supposed comedy is and the filmmakers show their desperation to get through a few setup scenes so they can get the stars into their funny costumes.

Because Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni are such terrifically talented comic actors there are a number of solid laughs in Fun With Dick and Jane. A scene where the couple commit a home invasion robbery dressed in black ninja gear and voice disguisers is funny for the way the couple are like children playing with new toys. Another scene where Dick and Jane ponder their situation while sitting in the unfinished hole where their new hot tub was to be shows each actor's ability to connect with us on a sympathetic level.

Dick and Jane by the standards of decent society aren't good people. They commit serious crimes that are humorously treated by director Dean Parisot but we are never allowed scenes that might help us forgive them their crimes. Simply saying 'it's just a comedy' does not excuse the fact that our protagonists are unpunished criminals. The 1977 version of Fun With Dick and Jane, I'm told, established its heroes as Robin Hood outlaws whose crimes have an undercurrent of social conscience. Yes they were robbers, but when they knocked over banks they also attempted to burn the debt records of other troubled families so that maybe they to could be debt free.

No such moralizing in the new version where the motivation is solely material and selfish. The modern Dick and Jane are concerned about maintaining their social status and regaining their material wealth. A scene where Dick and Jane retrieve their LCD big screen television using some of their ill-gotten gains is played as a moment of triumph with their young son celebrating wildly. I guess, like the nanny, that television was another parent to the kid, which is yet another bit of sardonic humor the film fails to capitalize on.

Spoiler warning!

When at the end our heroes target Baldwin's corporate criminal and end up turning Robin Hood and stealing his money and giving it back to the employees he screwed, we are supposed to admire them. But you can see the plot gears turning as the filmmakers try to redeem these lost characters with one act of deus ex machina, the hand of god, putting everything right with the world in less than 10 minutes screen time.

Fun With Dick and Jane ends with a dedication to the corporations like Enron that have been subjects of the biggest financial swindles in history. Unfortunately, what was intemded to play as an ironic thumb in the eye of these corporations comes off as more of an honest thank you for inspiring this film's failed ideas.  Fun With Dick and Jane never develops into any kind of satire of corporate scandals. The corporate crimes in the movie are a mere backdrop for the flailing slapstick physical comedy. 

Fun With Dick and Jane is yet another sad, lazy Hollywood remake. The work of slacking geniuses picking up paychecks rather than actually making a funny movie.

Movie Review The Kingdom

The Kingdom (2007) 

Directed by Peter Berg 

Written by Matthew Michael Carnahan 

Starring Jennifer Garner, Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper, Jason Bateman, Jeremy Piven, Richard Jenkins

Release Date September 28th, 2007

Published September 27th, 2007 

The trailer for Peter Berg's The Kingdom promises much more than the film delivers. Watching the trailer you expect big action, political intrigue and some mystery. What you really get in The Kingdom is CSI: Saudi Arabia. The first two acts of The Kingdom play out with the precision of your average episode of Jerry Bruckheimer's cop science show. The last third of The Kingdom however becomes something close to what was promised. The third act of this foreign set thriller becomes such a rousing action piece that I can forgive much of the dull imitation of a TV cop show that is the first two acts.

In Riyadh Saudi Arabia there is a strip of land where hundreds of American oil workers have recreated America on Saudi soil. It is here that that the terrorsts of the new thriller The Kingdom strike and kill more than 100 Americans and several of their Saudi protectors. Also killed in this attack are a pair of American FBI agents.

After some political maneuvering the FBI's Evidence Response Team leader Ronald Fleury gets his team, including Janet Mayes (Jennifer Garner), Adam Leavitt (Jason Bateman) and Grant Sykes (Chris Cooper), on the ground in the kingdom, as Saudi Arabia is called in private. They are not welcome as their Saudi Arabian police bodyguard Col. Al Ghazi (Ashraf Barhom) explains and American diplomat Jim Schmidt (Jeremy Piven) underlnes.

The teams goal is to find the weapons used in the attack, link them to a specific terrorist and kill him. That it plays out quite that simply is both a virtue and a curse for this interesting but not entirely satisfying thriller. Directed by Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights, The Rundown), The Kingdom attempts to be a mystery, a forensic thriller and an action movie and only succeeds at one, and then only in the final act of the movie.

The last third of the film is an extended action sequence involving the capture and near beheading of one of our heroes and his friends' desperate, violent attempts to rescue him. These scenes are expertly captured by Berg's handheld, whip pan camera and in Matthew Michael Carnahan's hard boiled, tight lipped dialogue.

The striking moment, and the films most true, comes as Foxx's Fleury and his Saudi counterpart kick down the door of a potential terrorist. Just before the action kicks in, Foxx asks casually but with some urgent good humor, which side of the door Allah was on. The Saudi's matter of fact response "We'll see" feels real, it sounds like a part of a story that someone might tell over beers after surviving it. It's the most authentic moment in the movie.

Solemn with bursts of awkward wit, the script by Matthew Michael Carnahan fails to give weight to the picture beyond the obvious dangers of the mission. Attempts at politics are fumbled miserably as scenes involving Richard Jenkins as the head of the FBI and Danny Huston as the Attorney General happen without context or consequence. Two fine actors are wasted in a subplot that never develops, in an attempt to bring political weight where none exists.

So just what is the political perspective of The Kingdom? There really isnt any. The film makes passing references to 9/11, Osama Bin Laden, and the war in Iraq. However, the politicians of The Kingdom are fictional as is the films terrorist attack which is loosely based on the 1997 Khobar Towers bombing and the struggles of the FBI in conflict with the Saudis and our own government, but it takes place in a modern context.

The films allusions of depth come not from politics or a subtext of war criticism or the futility of terrorism but rather more facile references to how Americans and Saudis and even terrorists are all just people with families to protect and care for. Thus why we have a few uncomfortable scenes where Jamie Foxx is established as a loving doting dad, scenes where his Saudi counterpart Col. Al Ghazi is seen caring for his two sons and even a scene of a terrorist comforting and teaching his young son about Jihad and American imperialism.

The family scenes feel like a fratboy's attempt at being deep and meaningful and Berg has always carried that fratboy air about him. Writer Matthew Michael Carnahan too has that air of fratboy toughness without thought, sensitivity only in the broadest strokes. In the end it is that fratboy sensibility that makes them terrific with crafting visceral action scenes but at a loss to tell us what it all means or give us anything deeper than 'everyone has a daddy'.

The Kingdom is a deeply flawed action picture that succeeds because its creators are skilled in the art of action and at holding a surface of professionalism. The film always looks good, keeps a good pace, even at 2 hours plus, and it certainly feels like it should be important. Unfortunately, there isn't much beneath the surface of The Kingdom.

A kickass third act is what recommends The Kingdom. If you go in with lowered expectations, lower than the Oscar nominatable expectations I had from that killer trailer, and you may find yourself enjoying The Kingdom.