Movie Review Piranha 3D

Piranha 3D (2010) 

Directed by Alexandre Aja 

Written by Peter Goldfinger, Josh Stolberg 

Starring Elisabeth Shue, Ving Rhames, Adam Scott, Jessica Szohr, Jerry O'Connell 

Release Date August 20th, 2010 

Published August 20th, 2010 

I don't understand the appeal of a 3D penis destroyed by flesh chomping fish. Call me a buzzkill if you wish but I cannot understand why this is funny. As for it being frightening, it's certainly frighteningly poor taste but not frightening as presented in “Piranha 3D” which is, I'm assuming, supposed to be some kind of comic send up.

I assume this is comedy because the audience I watched it with were laughing far more than they were covering their eyes or ducking their heads to the shoulder of their dates. This audience cackled at the penis eating scene and roared approval during the underwater, nude, lesbian synchronized swimming scene. They roared again during the centerpiece gore-athon in the lake when the Piranha's swarmed the spring breakers leaving behind boney carcasses. I was left perplexed and a little depressed.

A lake that is home to a Sodom and Gomorrah of Spring Break debauchery is hit with a massive earthquake just before the partygoers arrive. The quake opens a crevasse that had been sealed for millions of years. Inside is a fully evolved and deadly species of Piranha seeking to quench a million years worth of bloodlust.

On land Sheriff Julie Forrester (Elisabeth Shue) and her top deputy Fallon (Ving Rhames) are readying for the arrival of drunken revelers when they get a call about a missing fisherman (Richard Dreyfuss). As we have seen in the film's opening minutes, the fisherman was the first victim of the piranhas and when the cops find him well, they catch on quicker than your usual movie cops.

Opting to try and close the lake, they also call in a team of scientists lead by Novak (Adam Scott). The scientists are the ones who find the piranhas, but not before two of them are turned into piranha food. The closing of the lake meanwhile isn't happening as the tiny police force are no match for the drunken partiers about to become Piranha meat.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Julie's son Jake (Steven R. McQueen) takes a job as an assistant to Derrick Jones (Jerry O'Connell) the creator of Wild Wild Girls. Derrick plans on filming girls taking their tops off and even tries to recruit Jake's crush Kelly (Jessica Szohr) to star alongside his protégé Danni (Kelly Brook) in his latest video, much to Jake's consternation. Naturally, all will end up face to face with piranhas, who survives and who has their penis torn off I will leave you to discover.

It's supposed to be camp right? Kitschy, over the top, Herschel Gordon Lewis, Roger Corman stuff right? I get that, I do. But, as directed by Alexandre Aja with a surprising amount of skill and directorial touch, I found “Piranha 3D” more in poor taste than campy and fun. I know, it's supposed to be in poor taste and I understand that appeals to some but I have a hard time enjoying this type of bad taste.

There is something nihilistic about the approach to the gore of “Piranha 3D.” Directors like Alexandre Aja and his protégé Eli Roth, who has a cameo in “Piranha 3D” as a wet T-shirt contest host, enjoy their violence and gore so much that the humans lose their value. Aja has the wrong kind of rooting interest at heart in each of his films. Rather than placing a good person in peril and asking the audience to root for their survival, Aja crafts awful human beings for the purpose of watching them be comically destroyed. It's ugly and brutal and I fear for those who find this kind of thing appeal. 

This is an ugly, inhuman perspective that I find impossible to get behind. I find the approach depressing and the enjoyment that so many seem to take in the destruction of their fellow man, no matter how fake or outsized it may be, just makes me sad. Say what you will about the quality of movies like “Halloween” or the original “Nightmare on Elm Street,” the characters mattered in each of those films, especially those played by Jamie Lee Curtis and Heather Langenkamp who always had our sympathies and were held above the evil they faced. 

When those films became hits and “Friday the 13th” started showing off Jason, things began to turn. When Freddy, Michael Myers and Jason became the stars, horror began to change and the rooting interests turned ugly. That leads us to where we are today with people cheering for human suffering, rooting for the gore and delighting in the degradation.

Yes, it's just an over the top horror film. Yes, it's not at all realistic. If that’s enough excuse for you to delight in watching people shredded limb from limb then enjoy. Just don’t ask me to join you. I’m going to find a movie where characters are held above their use as gory props and sex toys. By the way, if this is your kind of movie, I don’t think you and I should hang out. Just saying.

Movie Review: Halloween Resurrection

Halloween Resurrection (2002) 

Directed by Rick Rosenthal 

Written by Sean Hood, Larry Brand 

Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Busta Rhymes, Tyra Banks, Sean Patrick Thomas, Thomas Ian Nicholas 

Release Date July 12th, 2002 

Published July 12th, 2002 

Earlier this year horror fans were pummeled by the horrendous Jason X, the 10th film in the Friday the 13th franchise. Now another horror franchise returns to the big screen, the 8th installment of the Michael Myers lead Halloween franchise. Halloween Resurrection is everything Jason X wasn't, funny, exciting and hopelessly inept…in a good way.

Rapper Busta Rhymes is perfectly cast as Freddie, a fast talking Internet producer who on Halloween arranges a webcast from the home of legendary mass murderer Michael Myers. The reality show webcast features cute college kids attempting to survive a night in the house where Myers' killing spree began over 30 years ago. Amongst our group of Internet victims are a couple of familiar faces, Sean Patrick Thomas from Save The Last Dance and Thomas Ian Nicholas from the American Pie movies. 

The casting of these two semi well-known actors, rising stars, is exactly what might have spiced up Jason X instead of the community theatre troupe they went with. Also in the cast of Halloween Resurrection is a girl named Sara played by Bianca Kajtich. Sara is our heroine, the one with the most screen time, and the one most likely to return for the next sequel. The film also features the return of Jamie Lee Curtis in what looks to be her final installment of the series her lungs made famous.

This film is the exact opposite of Jason X, it's exciting and funny-ironic without trying to be clever. There is no winking at the audience, no “look how self aware we are.” Just straight ahead classic gore. Michael Myers is in fine form cutting off heads, nailing people to walls, and murdering the overly sexed. For a serial killer, he's quite a prude. The film is at times outright hysterical; Busta Rhymes especially tears into his role with multiple well-timed one-liners, and not to mention his karate skills.

I admit I have a twisted sense of humor. Watching someone stuck to a wall by a pair of kitchen knives, or watching a girl's head roll down steps like some messed up slinky makes me laugh. It's funny because it's cartoonishly surreal, much like the Itchy and Scratchy cartoons on The Simpsons. Director Rick Rosenthal, who also directed the first Halloween sequel, knows he's not filming Shakespeare. His special effects and makeup are cheesy and he doesn't care. If the effects weren't cheesy and he tried to make it more realistic, the film wouldn't work.

It's interesting that this film opens the same weekend as Road To Perdition. The two films have nothing in common but are a counterpoint to each other. Perdition portrays realistic violence with consequence. Resurrection portrays obviously fake violence to shock and desensitize the audience and does so effectively. Violence in Halloween is of no consequence, thus realism never enters into the equation.

The fact of the matter is that Halloween Resurrection, much like it's predecessor H20, is an exciting, funny, campy riot that’s definitely worth the price of admission. 

Movie Review: Transporter 2

Transporter 2 (2005) 

Directed by Louis Letterier

Written by Luc Besson, Robert Mark Kamen 

Starring Jason Statham, Amber Valletta, Keith David, Matthew Modine, Jason Flemying 

Release Date September 2nd, 2005 

Published September 2nd, 2005 

The first Transporter movie was a rather innocuous exercise in combining American style action movies with Asian style violence and European locales. Memorable only for its rising star Jason Statham, The Transporter made little box office noise before being shuffled off to DVD. It is in this fast growing market that a small cult formed. For some reason people started buying the DVD and an underground of Frank Martin fans managed to turn the DVD into a big enough hit that a sequel was necessary. Four years after the original made its minor box office impact, Transporter 2 hits the screen with a fury that box office hits are made of.

Jason Statham returns as Frank Martin, a character he created for a stylish car commercial some four years ago. That lead to The Transporter in which ace getaway driver Frank Martin is hired to deliver a package that he finds out is actually a human being, a really sexy Asian woman to be precise. Violating his rules of non-involvement in his clients' business Frank set about releasing the girl and protecting her from his thug clients.

Four years later, the sexy Asian woman is a memory as is Frank's dangerous past. Now living in Florida, Frank has taken a gig as driver and bodyguard for the 8 year old son of a high profile government executive named Billings (Matthew Modine). Frank was hired at the behest of Mrs. Billings (Amber Valleta) who was concerned that her son might be the target of kidnappers because of her husband's high profile job.

Oh how right she was. On a routine trip to a doctor's office Frank and the boy are attacked by a group of thugs lead by the super sexy and psychotic Lola (model, Kate Nauta). After a massive action sequence culminating as they often do in this film with a giant fireball, the boy is eventually taken and only Frank Martin can save him.

The plot is far more complicated then that however.  Eventually it involves a hired hitman played by Alessandro Gassman, and a deadly virus spread through breathing that has only a limited amount of antidote. The plot is dopey and convoluted but who cares.  The action surrounding the goofy plot is what makes Transporter 2 the kind of enjoyable action junk not seen since the heyday of Jean Claude Van Damme.

Jason Statham, auditioning for the James Bond gig, has his stone-faced intensity and agile fighting stance in full effect in Transporter 2. Even in the film's most outrageous contrivances Statham's taciturn charisma and dangerous demeanor draws you in and helps you forget about the number of times he outruns giant, physics defying fireballs and survives ridiculous explosions, car wrecks and a plane crash.

Even more durable than Statham is his 2006 Lexus which is scratch proof, bullet proof and nearly bomb proof. The driving stunts are, as they were in the first film, exciting and well executed but really nothing more than a commercial for the car itself. In fairness, it's a gorgeous vehicle and the makers of Transporter 2 do a wonderful job of showing it off. It's basically Statham's top supporting cast member and as silly as that sounds, it works for this ultimately silly action movie. 

Director Louis Leterrier is no stranger to popcorn action junk. Earlier this year he delivered the awesomely entertaining actioner Unleashed with Jet Li. In Transporter 2 he brings that same sense of action and fun. Fight scenes choreographed by Cory Yuen, who performed the same task in the first film, have the feel of Jackie Chan's comedic approach to combat, combined with Jet Li's power. Watch out for a scene in which Frank employs a fire hose ala Jackie Chan and an awesomely coordinated scene with a pair of handcuffs similar to a scene in Jet Li's The One.

That is not to say that Transporter 2 is derivative but that it's a movie with keen awareness of its influences. Leterrier, a French Director and protégée of Luc Besson (who wrote both Transporter films), is developing a reputation for his love for and emulation of Asian style action and acrobatics. His love for this material showed greatly in Unleashed and continues remarkably well here.

Another well-acknowledged influence is American style action junk ala Van Damme or Seagal. Transporter 2 lifts heavily from the conventions and clichés of 80's and 90's action movies but with a slightly more stylish execution and a sly knowing wink to break the spell of earnestness that makes so many of those oh-so -serious action vehicles so campy in retrospect.

Transporter 2 is just wall to wall goofiness grounded, somewhat, by the sly but serious performance of star Jason Statham. Regardless of how outlandish the film's stunts and plot are you cannot help but enjoy watching Statham walk through it all with stoic dignity. This is the kind of movie star presence that made Mel Gibson a superstar in Lethal Weapon or at the very least made Steven Seagal a lot of money in a short period of time.

Whether this will be enough to land Statham his dream role as 007 is questionable but the producers would be smart to take a long look at both Statham and director Louis Leterrier, both of whom could bring some lively action to the moribund spy series.

Movie Review: The Spy Next Door

The Spy Next Door (2010) 

Directed by Brian Levant 

Written by Jonathan Bernstein, James Greer, Gregory Poirier 

Starring Jackie Chan, Amber Valletta, Madeline Carroll, George Lopez

Release Date January 15th, 2010 

Published January 14th, 2010 

It is far too easy to rip a movie like The Spy Next Door. The plot is dimwitted and derivative, star Jackie Chan has far too little mastery of the English language to be given this many lines, and the supporting cast is a minefield of overacting and over-arching cuteness. Way too easy. The harder thing to do is admit that despite all the garbage in The Spy Next Door, there are a few modest pleasures and even a couple of smiles to be had.

The Spy Next Door is an accidental re-imagining of Vin Diesel's Disney flick The Pacifier. Take the world's greatest super-spy and leave him in charge of some precocious pre-teens and wait for wacky stuff to happen. The only difference is where Diesel seems terribly uncomfortable; Jackie Chan seems right at home playing with the kids.

Chan is secret agent Bob Ho, a spy on loan to the CIA from Chinese Intelligence. Bob is tracking a Russian bad guy named Poldark (Magnus Scheving) and his evil gal Friday, Creel (Katherine Boecher) as they seek to destroy the world supply of oil. Helping Bob are a pair of CIA agents, Glaze (George Lopez) and Colton (Billy Ray Cyrus).

Meanwhile, Bob is looking to wrap up his spy career so that he can marry his next door neighbor Gillian (Amber Valletta) who does not know that Bob is really a spy. Even bigger than that obstacle however is getting in good with Gillian's three kids. Farren (Madeline Carroll) is a severely moody oldest daughter who nastily calls her mom Gillian. Ian (Will Shadley) is the middle child and a power nerd who, though only 9, reads physics for fun. And finally 4 year Nora (Alina Foley) who is convinced that Bob is what Ian calls a ‘cyborg.’ Together the siblings look to get rid of boring Bob before he can marry mommy.

Yes, the plot is exceedingly dopey and condescendingly simple. But, you know that when you buy the ticket. Given that knowledge going in makes it easier to appreciate the few charms that The Spy Next Door has. Jackie Chan is now 50 years old and years of daring stunt work have taken their toll. Nevertheless, Chan gives it a go in The Spy Next Door and his brand of martial arts crossed with Buster Keaton style slapstick hasn't been this much fun in a while.

The kids in kid’s movies can be terribly irritating, either too precious or too grating. They are at times both in The Spy Next Door. That said each of the child actors has a good moment or two, especially young Alina Foley. It's cheating to have a sweet little four year old whisper 'I love you bob' as he sings her to sleep with a Chinese lullaby, but it's hard to deny how cute the scene is.

The Spy Next Door is not 'cinema.' This is not a great movie but it never pretends to be. The Spy Next Door is briskly paced, breezy, goofy and, best of all, over before you really tire of its idiot plot. By the lowered standards of kid’s entertainment this qualifies as something I can recommend. Kids won't be harmed by it and mom and dad may actually stay awake during most of it. What more can you ask of low rent kids entertainment. 

Movie Review Grandma's Boy

Grandma's Boy (2006) 

Directed by Nicolaus Goosan 

Written by Barry Wernick, Alan Covert, Nick Swardson

Starring Alan Covert, Linda Cardelini, Kevin Nealon, Shirley Knight, Shirley Jones, Doris Roberts 

Release Date January 6th, 2006

Published January 6th, 2006 

Just how powerful is Adam Sandler in Hollywood? Apparently, in the wake of the release of the comedy Grandma's Boy, he can pick guys off the street and by attaching his name to them, get them on the big screen behind and in front of the camera.. The new stoner comedy Grandma's Boy is directed by former Adam Sandler gofer--okay, "production assistant"--Nicholaus Goosan and stars Sandler's entourage of worshipful friends, led by the charisma vacuum, Alan Covert. Grandma’s Boy  is a stunning example of both the continuing devolution of the modern comedy  genre and the star power of the only superstar ever created by SNL.

The Adam Sandler cult of personality--including Allen Covert, Peter Dante, Nick Swardson and former SNL chums Kevin Nealon, Rob Schneider and David Spade--come together to make Grandma's Boy, a fatally dull exercise in Sandler-style humor that fails to rise to even the low standards of one of Sandler's own films.

Allen Covert stars in Grandma's Boy as Alex, a 36-year-old stoner and video game tester who gave up the yoke of an accounting gig for life spent playing XBox with teenagers. When his stoner roommate gets him kicked out of his apartment, Alex is forced to move in with his grandmother Lilli (Doris Roberts, Everybody Loves Raymond) and her two roommates, doddering pill popper Bea (Shirley Knight) and foul mouthed, sex-obsessed Grace (Partridge Family star Shirley Jones).

At work, Alex and his even more arrested-development pal Jeff (Nick Swardson), a 20-something, footy pajama wearing mama's boy who sleeps in a race car bed, are testing the latest alien shoot-em-up videogame for a company called Brainasium. Kevin Nealon plays their stoner, vegan, boss who hires the super hot Sam (a slumming Linda Cardellini) to be Alex and Jeff's supervisor.

Alex has a rival at work, a game creator named J.P. (Joel Moore, Dodgeball) who, like Alex, develops a quick crush on Sam.  J.P, however, is no threat, as his proclivity for dressing like Neo from the Matrix and speaking in the voice of a robot when nervous or angry prevents him from much of any social interaction. The plot, such as it is, kicks in with Alex having created his own video game but being a shiftless, pothead layabout he does nothing about it until his idea is stolen. Then, in a requirement of the film's plot and title, only his grandma can step in to save him.

That is the story (or at least what passes for a story) that propels Grandma's Boy toward an ending. However, this is not a movie that is concerned with plot. Rather, drop the 'l' and you get what the real subject of Grandma's Boy, getting super high. I have no problem with that, but don’t make a movie if your only idea is to get high and play video games. Just stay home and do that. As a ‘movie’ Grandma's Boy is a stoner movie with all of the stoner cliches of munchies, morons, and a monkey. The monkey is actually a carryover from Adam Sandler’s movies as he requires a funny animal bit in all of his movies, regardless of whether it's funny or not. 

The actors in Grandma's Boy are  obviously Adam Sandler's comic B-team and I imagine behind the scenes, this group of friends are a riot. On screen, I am at a loss to see why they are appealing. Covert and the rest of this cast have little to nothing original or funny to say or do. It’s as if Sandler owed a friend with a screenplay a favor and then realized that even he had a standard he could not drop below. Instead, he handed the script to Covert and tricked a studio into letting his buddies make a movie. 

Poor Shirley Jones. The former mama Partridge humiliates herself in the role of a slutty older woman who claims to have slept with Charlie Chaplin and Don Knotts on different occasions. In Grandma's Boy, Jones thinks she is in on the joke of her character being a sex mad older woman but in fact she is the subject of the joke in which she seduces Nick Swardson's manchild Jeff. Grandma’s Boy is a movie made by people who think that just the idea of a person over 60 having sex is somehow funny. 

The only actor to survive the carnage of Grandma's Boy is the lovely Linda Cardellini. Far more skilled than the "actors" she has chosen to work with, Cardellini gamely throws herself into the stoner fun of Grandma's Boy. However, when it comes down to it, you can tell Cardellini is not inhaling the fumes. Cardellini picks up her paycheck and escapes the fray of Grandma's Boy by affecting an above-it-all air.

That Grandma's Boy did not go directly to the video store is a testament to Adam Sandler's clout and nothing more. That he does not even deign to cameo in Grandma's Boy and still manages to overshadow every aspect of the film. It says something, not anything good, about Sandler’s connection to his audience--the audience for Grandma's Boy likely loved Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison--and how his entourage of pals pretending to be actors are linked to him. Grandma’s Boy doesn’t exist without Sandler wielding his star power to get it made. 

Fans of pot humor, old people having sex, and monkeys may find something to enjoy in Grandma's Boy, but for the other 98% of the movie going public there is nothing to enjoy about this Adam Sandler-less Adam Sandler flick.

Movie Review Gran Torino

Gran Torino (2008) 

Directed by Clint Eastwood 

Written by Nick Schenk 

Starring Clint Eastwood, Ahney Herr, Christopher Carley, Bee Vang 

Release Date December 12th, 2008 

Published December 11th, 2008 

Clint Eastwood is a national treasure. Over his five decades in Hollywood he has created indelible characters, images, and phrases that will live long beyond himself. That iconography brings us to his latest film Gran Torino which combines the modern Eastwood image as a filmmaking auteur and the classic Eastwood icon of a tough guy, man's man. The combination gives life to an odd but engaging drama.

In Gran Torino Clint Eastwood is Walt Kowalski. Walt's wife has just died and the last thing tying him to life outside of the four walls of his decrepit house has disappeared. Walt doesn't appear suicidal but he is certainly unmoored as observed by the young priest (Christopher Carley) who presides over his wife's funeral and who, at the wife's behest, drops in on Walt from time to time.

More than anything, Walt just wants to be left alone. Even his grown sons do nothing but irritate him, one of them by trying to get him to move to an old folks home. Further irritating Walt is the change in his neighborhood. Hmong refugees began moving in more than a decade ago and they now dominate the local populace, much to Walt's dismay.\

As the story progresses, Walt is forced into the lives of his Hmong neighbors when their teenage son, Thao (Bee Vang), accepts a gang initiation that has him attempting to steal Walt's prized Gran Torino. Walt catches him in the act but doesn't call police. When confronted by gang members about his failure, Thao tells them that he won’t try to steal the car again and Walt ends up having to rescue Thao, brandishing a trusty shotgun at the wannabe gangsters. 

This leads to more involvement with his neighbors and eventually a begrudging respect begins to form, mostly thanks to Thao's outgoing sister Sue (Ahney Her) who befriends the old man with beer and really great Hmong food. If you guessed that the gang thing comes back and plays a major role in the movie's finish, points for you. How it plays out however, you won't see it coming. Eastwood is a master of misdirection as both Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby have shown. Eastwood takes pleasure in rarely doing what the audience expects.

There is an odd quality to Gran Torino and it comes in the film's strange sense of humor. Though the movie carries the heavy air of drama there are moments when Walt is dealing with his neighbors, and especially when dealing with his two beefy, lunkheaded sons, where laughs are mined that wouldn't be out of place in a sitcom. I'm not complaining, I laughed. The laughter however is awkward when considering how oppressively serious the rest of the movie is. Then again, there goes Clint, once again confounding our expectations.

Movie Review Gothika

Gothika (2003) 

Directed by Mathieu Kassovitz 

Written by Sebastian Gutierrez

Starring Halle Berry, Robert Downey Jr, Natasha Lyonne, Charles S Dutton, Penelope Cruz 

Release Date November 21st, 2003 

Published November 21st, 2003 

The title Gothika seems curious even after you've seen the movie. Only after looking up the film’s website and consulting my dictionary for the definition of the word 'Gothic' does the film's choice of a title become clear. It relates in fiction writing as a horror mystery and in architecture as dark imposing stone structures, buttresses, arches and high ceilings. The title has a double meaning related to the film’s story and its choice of locations, but mostly it just sounds cool. In fact, everything about Gothika from it's super hot star to it's indie credible director sounds cool. Sadly the film never meets its cool potential.

Halle Berry stars in Gothika as criminal psychologist Miranda Grey. Dr. Grey works in a prison for the criminally insane treating female patients under the watchful eye of her husband Dr. Douglas Grey (Charles S. Dutton), the hospital's administrator, and alongside her good friend Dr. Peter Graham (Robert Downey Jr.). Dr. Graham seems to be harboring a rather obvious crush on Miranda.

After working late on a dark and rainy night, Dr. Grey is driving home when she swerves off the road to avoid a young woman standing in the middle of the road. When Miranda goes to help the girl, played by an almost unrecognizable Natascha Lyonne, the girl bursts into flames but not before touching Miranda's face. The next thing Miranda knows, she is locked up in her own hospital being treated by her own staff and her husband is dead.

What else can Miranda do in this situation other than break out of the hospital and investigate the situation herself in hope of finding out whether she actually did kill her husband and why she's being haunted by this ghostly girl? Mostly though, Miranda wants to know for herself if she really is crazy. There is also mystery surrounding her connection to one of her patients, Chloe (Penelope Cruz), who is also being haunted by a dark spirit that may be more real than Miranda's ghost.

Halle Berry is a terrific choice for Miranda because she quickly earns our sympathy and her understated performance early on perfectly sets the stage for her brief meltdown and finally for her more rational approach to accepting her situation and solving her problem. She plays her intelligence on her face with her eyes and her perfectly controlled emotions. Even as the film goes off the rails around her, you never question Ms. Berry's commitment to the role, she damn near saves the movie.

Sadly, no one in the supporting cast has much of an opportunity to make an impression. Robert Downey Jr. continues to be a welcome presence even in an underwritten role. I wished Downey Jr. had more to do in the plot. Mostly, he’s concerned about his friend and nurses his unrequited crush. He has a brief hero moment but the role is otherwise far too bland for someone as talented and charismatic as Robert Downey Jr. 

A big failure of Gothika is how director Matthieu Kassovitz and writer Sebastian Guttierrez never establish the rules for the film. Obviously a film with ghosts isn't playing straight with logic but in a horror film, the filmmakers must establish film logic, a set of rules that govern the film’s created universe. In A Nightmare On Elm Street, Freddy could only come out of a dream if Nancy held onto him and woke up. 

In the recent horror flick, Darkness Falls, you were only a target of the killer if you looked at her. That film repeatedly violated its own rules and thus failed. Gothika doesn't establish its own logic and without it, the story never feels grounded. Why, if the ghost can open doors and manipulate objects, does it need to possess a body? Why use Dr. Grey to begin with? Was it just because hers was the car that happened by at that moment? There are many more questions but they are spoilers. See the movie and see if you can answer those questions. A game might make the movie more interesting. 

There is one moment in Gothika where I was willing to forgive the film’s lack of story logic. It comes when Dr. Grey herself questions the necessity of logic. It's a very funny line of dialogue because it’s a haphazard comment on this moment in the movie and about the movie itself. It’s not an intentional joke, but it is one moment when the need for story logic didn’t matter and I didn’t mind being subjected to Gothika, an oasis of unintentional charm in a desert of horror atmosphere and murky motivation. 

Director Kassovitz does have the other important elements of filmmaking in place. He is terrific at manipulating the camera. The way he keeps the camera moving is hypnotic and unlike David Fincher in Panic Room, the camera moves never seem flashy. In the few moments when the camera isn't moving, Kassovitz finds interesting angles and visually interesting backgrounds.

Gothika makes excellent use of its gothic location though I would hope a prison for the criminally insane doesn’t look so frightening, the people inside are frightening enough.

Gothika has been compared with The Sixth Sense and The Ring but I found it had most in common with the Kevin Bacon ghost thriller Stir Of Echoes. Both films are about normal people driven to mental breakdown by ghosts. Both are about the mystery surrounding the deaths of the ghostly characters. The difference between the two movies is that Stir Of Echoes has the established film logic that Gothika lacked as well as stronger supporting characters. In addition, Stir Of Echoes has the Rolling Stones’ Paint It Black in a prominent role in the film. Gothika, on the other hand, features an awful cover of The Who's Behind Blue Eyes by Limp Bizkit. Ugh! 

Then, as the movie was mercifully coming to an end, they teased a sequel. As if what came before wasn’t misguided enough, this nakedly commercial, ‘just in case this movie makes money,’ sequel tease is a rotten cherry on the rancid sundae that is Gothika. 

 

Movie Review Good Luck Chuck

Good Luck Chuck (2007) 

Directed by Mark Helfrich 

Written by Josh Stolberg 

Starring Dane Cook, Jessica Alba, Dan Fogler 

Release Date September 21st, 2007 

Published September 20th, 2007 

The appeal of comedian Dane Cook has eluded me. I have nothing against the wildly popular comic, I just don't see what's so funny. His stand up repertoire seems to consist of wild, Jim Carrey like gesticulations used to sell underwhelming, punchless punchlines. His physicality is entertaining insofar as mimes trapped in that glass box are entertaining; but for my money, his act isn't all that funny. That's not even considering accusations that the unfunny jokes he tells are stolen from other comics. 

As for Cook's movie career, thus far, it's not quite as funny as his stand up career. His debut, in a starring role, in last fall's Employee Of The Month, was a bland, forgettable romantic comedy with the acting challenged Cook playing off the even more challenged Jessica Simpson. Now, for Cook's latest starring effort, after he tanked in a dramatic role opposite Kevin Costner in Mr. Brooks this past summer, Cook upgrades his romantic partner and still delivers a bland and forgettable effort. Starring opposite the endlessly appealing Jessica Alba, the appeal of Dane Cook continues to baffle the mind in Good Luck Chuck.

Charlie (Dane Cook) has never had trouble meeting women. Staying in a relationship however, has been mission impossible. The odd thing about the end of Charlie's relationships? His ex's always seem to marry the next guy they meet. It happens every time and women are beginning to take notice. A posting on the internet about Charlie the good luck charm turns the serially single Charlie into the most sought after stud in his area code.

Is this newfound appeal a blessing or a curse? Charlie's lecherous pal Stu (Dan Fogler) thinks it's the greatest thing ever. Charlie however, finds it to be a burden, especially when he meets Cam (Jessica Alba) who proves to be the girl of his dreams. Unfortunately, if the curse is real and he sleeps with her he could lose her forever; should she meet someone else.

That is a clean description of a plot that is in reality quite ugly and at times even mean spirited. Mark Helfrich, in his directorial debut, attempts to pull off what Judd Apatow and his creative team did with The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. What is lacking is just about everything that made those two films so ingenious, daring and lovable.

Both Virgin and Knocked Up featured outlandish low humor that some might find off putting. Each film overcame that obstacle by giving the characters equal amounts of heart and humor to offset the raunch. Good Luck Chuck is mostly heartless with only one character we really give a damn about, Alba's Cam is an oasis in a desert of bad. Charlie, or Chuck from the title, isn't exactly detestable but there is very little appealing about him as he launches into a series of heartless sexual escapades to prove or disprove his curse.

The attempt to justify Chuck/Charlie's behavior by giving it the noble purpose of helping lonely girls take advantage of the curse to then meet their true love fails due to the film's vanity. All but two of Charlie's partners are models whose appearance in the film are not meant to propel this plot. Rather, they are used for the prurient purpose of having them get naked and keep the guys in the audience from nodding off.

The two other women, the ones who don't generally meet societal standards of beauty, are used as comic fodder in mean-spirited jokes at their expense. Only a movie as heartless as Good Luck Chuck could think that mocking these poor desperate characters could be a source of humor. An attempt to keep one of the encounters from being completely heartless and mean fails miserably and comes off not only mean but fake and insulting of both the character in question and those of us in the audience.

Dan Fogler is a Tony Award winning actor. I mention this because it kind of blows my mind. How can an actor be so successful in one medium and so remarkably unappealing and unfunny in a different medium. On stage, Fogler is a comic dynamo beloved by audiences. In movies, Fogler is an embarrassment, a remarkably unfunny presence. In his first starring role, the ping pong comedy, Balls of Fury, Fogler was utterly repellent. In good Luck Chuck, in a smaller, supporting role, he manages to somehow be even less appealing. 

As Stu, Charlie's misogynist best friend, Fogler is a breast obsessed plastic surgeon whose hobbies include masturbating into a grapefruit and worshiping the breast implants of Pamela Anderson which he purchased on Ebay. Why anyone thought this character was funny is beyond me. Jonah Hill portrayed a raunchy over the top character in Knocked Up but Hill did it with a charming and vulnerable quality that revealed how that character used vulgarity as a cover for insecurity. There is zero nuance in Fogler's performance in Good Luck Chuck, he's just a creep. 

Even as I was drifting out of Good Luck Chuck, when I wasn't actively being repulsed by it, I did see some moments where this story or this plot might have worked. Cut back on the prurience, strengthen the characters, and give more time to Jessica Alba's Cam, the only truly likable character in the film, and maybe you could rescue this movie from the garbage. That ship has sailed however and what we are left with is a mess of ugly misogyny, disturbing fetishes, and a lame and completely unbelievable  romance. 

Good Luck Chuck makes Adam Sandler's style of humor look good by comparison. 

Movie Review Going the Distance

Going the Distance (2010) 

Directed by Nanette Burstein 

Written by Geoff La Tulippe 

Starring Justin Long, Drew Barrymore, Charlie Day, Christina Applegate, Jason Sudeikis

Release Date September 3rd, 2010 

Published September 2nd, 2010 

The trailers and commercials for “Going the Distance” do not promise much. It's fair to predict, upon seeing the film's cutesy promos, that you are getting a trite and predictable romantic comedy. The actual movie however, though it is a romantic comedy, is something more than a series of rom-com clichés. In Going the Distance, stars Drew Barrymore and Justin Long display stunning romantic chemistry that brings life to the story of two people attempting a long distance relationship. These two terrific actors, once a real life couple, have each other’s vibe down and they bring a real feeling and romantic vitality to the conversations that these two characters have.

Garrett (Justin Long) has just bombed badly on his girlfriend's birthday; he didn't get her a gift. Dumped because he thought she meant it when she said not to get her anything, Garrett finds himself downing beers with his pals Dan (Charlie Day, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) and Box (Jason Sudeikis) when he spots Erin (Barrymore), a hard drinking, foul mouthed, one of the boys who happens to be tragically pretty and utterly irresistible.

Unfortunately, Erin is not in New York for long, only six weeks before she has to move back to San Francisco to finish school. The two agree to keep things casual and spend the next 6 weeks attached at the lips. When the day comes for Erin to go home, Garrett pitches a long distance relationship and “Going the Distance” eases comfortably into the expectations of a romantic comedy but with just enough surprises to keep things lively and fun.

Nanette Burstein is best known for the unconventional documentary “The Kid Stays in the Picture,” based on the life of Hollywood legend Robert Evans. In that film Burstein steered around the limitations of typical documentary filmmaking by toying with the form and allowing the pompous yet fascinating Evans narrate his own life as if he were sitting on the couch next to you recounting his life story while images flashed all around as if in 3D broadcast from his mind.

Experimenting with the form of a romantic comedy seems, to me, to be an even greater challenge but one that Ms. Burstein was up for and though “Going the Distance” is no radical rejiggering of the form, her more modest innovations liven things up. For instance, when Garrett and Erin go on their first date Burstein switches from conventional film stock to handheld digital. The movie is briefly wrenching but it does increase the intimacy of this romantic moment by taking advantage of natural light and seemingly un-choreographed street scenery. She sticks with the device for the following few scenes, a montage of the six weeks of getting to know you time and that works as well.

The other innovation is the use of four letter words. Yes, we have heard cursing in movies to the point of being completely jaded but there is something in the way Drew Barrymore says the F-word, something so delightfully naughty and unexpected that it plays kind of sexy in a strange way. Co-star Jason Sudeikis also makes clever and unexpected use of obscenity that, because of years of SNL censoring, has a jarring yet hilarious effect. Sudeikis has never seemed more natural and appealing on screen as he does in “Going the Distance” describing the challenge of a long distance relationship and dreaming up what Erin might be doing in California in filthy/funny detail.

Finally and even rarer still, the trailer material for “Going the Distance” has the rare quality of being the least interesting and least funny bits from the film. So often we have complained about movies using the best gags for the trailers and commercials but in “Going the Distance” the weakest and most conventional gags are used in the promos while the best stuff is in the movie. A surprisingly R-rated and unconventional romantic comedy, “Going the Distance” thrives on the exceptional chemistry of Drew Barrymore and Justin Long and the daring if not boundary breaking direction of Nanette Burstein. 

Going the Distance is a wonderful and welcome surprise. 

Movie Review Godsend

Godsend (2004) 

Directed by Nick Hamm 

Written by Mark Bomback 

Starring Greg Kinnear, Rebecca Romijn Stamos, Robert DeNiro, Cameron Bright 

Release Date April 30th, 2004

Published April 29th, 2004

The moral and ethical debate over cloning is fervent ground for drama. That drama was well explored in the little-seen 1997 sci-fi film Gattaca with Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke. That film was set in a universe, years in the future, where cloning was more than a reality, it was a way of life that had replaced nature with science. The latest examination of the thorny issue of cloning takes place in a modern context, a time when cloning is almost a reality. Godsend however, is not as much interested in the science or  morality of cloning as much as it is interested in atmospherics and melodrama.

Adam Duncan (Cameron Bright) has just celebrated his eighth birthday. His mother Jessie (Rebecca Romijn) and father Paul (Greg Kinnear) are happily married living in New York City but they are contemplating a move to the suburbs to find a safer place to raise their son. Their idyllic family life is shattered when a tragic car accident kills Adam as his mother watches helplessly.

At Adam's funeral, the couple meets Dr. Richard Wells (Robert De Niro) who has a strange offer for them. Wells is an expert geneticist and he claims to have perfected a way to clone a human being. Wells' offer is to use some of Adam’s cells, which are useful only for 72 hours after his death, to clone the child back to life. The child can then be genetically replicated and placed in his mother’s womb. Just like in-vitro fertilization, the child could be carried to term and re-born as Adam Duncan down to the last hair on his head.

There are some rules that the couple must agree to first.  One is that the couple must move to Massachusetts to be near Dr. Wells' Godsend research clinic. They must then sever all ties with friends and family. Finally, Dr. Wells must be the only doctor Adam ever sees. Aside from that, the doctor sets the couple up with a beautiful house and a teaching job for Paul. The couple can raise Adam as if he had never died, starting over from his birth. The only question is what will happen to Adam when he crosses the age at which he died.

That last part is where the film draws most of it's drama but it's also the most dubious of the contrivances of the film. There is never any kind of scientific or theoretical reason given for why anything in Adam would change when he turned eight years old, the age he was when he died the first time. It's not like the kid can have all of the experiences he had from his first life again. He's going to meet all new people, spend time with Dr. Wells, go to a different school, his parents are different people than they were before his original death. 

I realize that I am asking questions that the makers of Godsend would rather avoid but these are the questions that this plot raises and it is a fatal flaw for this movie that they can't answer those questions. That could be as easy as making Dr. Wells the real villain, a man trying to turn this boy into an Omen, Damien style villain but that doesn't happen. Robert DeNiro is far too checked out and obviously bored to try and be part of this plot anyway. 

First-time director Nick Hamm does a good job creating a creepy horror atmosphere. Even in the film’s dream sequences, Hamm never resorts to CGI trickery, preferring to create his atmosphere naturally. A challenge he more than meets with the help of cinematographer Kramer Morganthau. Nick Hamm's other achievement is making this cute kid Cameron Bright a viably dangerous presence right up until the end when the film’s second big contrivance kicks in and snuffs out what was good about the film. As the director told Sci Fi Wire, they shot five different endings. Unfortunately, they chose the wrong one.

Greg Kinnear is such a reliable dramatic presence that he is able to ground the film in some kind of reality. Kinnear makes both Rebecca Romijn and Cameron Bright better for having worked with him.

If only Robert De Niro had paid a little more attention to his understated co-star. Lapsing into Jeremy Irons like self-parody, De Niro over-emotes, eats the scemery and generally throws dirt on his legend that grows more tarnished by each subsequent late-career performance.

Godsend isn't as bad as I am making it seem. The director Nick Hamm is very talented and Greg Kinnear is giving it his all to sell this deeply flawed premise. Sadly, with DeNiro lapsing into parodyh out of seeming boredom, and the logical failures of the script and premise, there was no overcoming the flaws in Godsend. Creepy visuals and strong sense of atmosphere are great but when your audience is busy deconstructing your plot flaws instead of being impressed with the look and feel of your movie, it's just not working. 

As muich as I have issues with the movie, I will say that if want to see Godsend, see it for Greg Kinnear genuinely good performance and for the low-tech horror atmosphere created by talented director Nick  that works without any CGI trickery, something most films can't resist.

Movie Review: The Tourist

The Tourist (2010)

Directed by Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck 

Written by Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck 

Starring Johnny Depp, Angelia Jolie, Paul Bettany, Timothy Dalton, Rufus Sewell 

Release December 10th, 2010 

Published December 9th, 2010 

The novelty of placing pop culture icons Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp in the same movie is nearly too much of a burden to bear for the slight, off-beat, spy comedy "The Tourist." Director Florian Von Donnersmark, in his English language directorial debut, takes on the Herculean task of capturing these two supernova stars in the same shot and not having the camera overload from all of the star power.

"The Tourist" stars Johnny Depp as Frank a mild mannered Wisconsin school teacher who finds himself whipped into a world of intrigue, adventure and danger when he is approached by an unbelievably beautiful woman on a train ride from Paris to Venice. Her name is Elise and her extraordinary calm while picking up this odd stranger on a train is quite unsettling.

Upon arriving in Venice Elise absconds with Frank's bags thus forcing him to join her at her high dollar hotel, not that he really needed to be kidnapped. Frank will be Elise's date for the evening while she awaits the arrival of her loutish, criminal lover who, unknown to Frank, urged her to find a tourist who looks a little like him and frame that tourist while he and Elise make their escape.

The only thing that Elise could not count on is falling for the doofusy math teacher. Meanwhile, as Elise is pretending to seduce Frank, and accidentally falling for him, the duo is being tailed by Interpol agents lead by Inspector Acheson (Paul Bettany) and by an evil Russian gangster (Steven Berkoff) who believes Elise knows where his stolen money is.

The plot of "The Tourist" is meant to combine a touch of Alfred Hitchcock with a dash of Cary Grant at his most fleet footed and charming and while it conjures some of those memories, "The Tourist" is far more interested in the modern, tabloid-esque notion of Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie making goo goo eyes at each other.

During production of "The Tourist" Johnny Depp insisted on never being alone with Angelina Jolie where paparazzi could get a picture and create a story. In the movie itself, director Von Donnersmarck goes for a similar paparazzi voyeurism in scenes where the camera just observes Depp and Jolie smoldering at one another.

Depp and Jolie's beauty as a couple is the true appeal of "The Tourist," so much so that the plot becomes an impediment as it too our ogling of the stars. Yes, there is plenty of daring do and mixed up identities, even a chase scene that is unlike most other chase scenes (it involves a pair of boats tied together and a slow speed ride through the stunning canals of Venice) but none of it registers beyond the pull of these two stars.

What stands out in "The Tourist" are scenes like those set on the train ride as Depp and Jolie feel each other out with lustful glances and hushed conversation. Later, Depp and Jolie send sparks flying as they gaze at one another over dinner in a gorgeous café with candlelight and the moon glimmering off the canal in the background. Cinematographer John Seale's imagery here will make you want to live in this scene.

The adventure stuff, the spy stuff is treated with a light heart and good humor in "The Tourist" but it's beside the point. "The Tourist" is about two unbelievably attractive people being unbelievably attractive together against Parisian and Venetian backgrounds that can almost compete with the actors in radiance. This may not have been the overall intent of the makers of "The Tourist" but it works and I can recommend "The Tourist" because I can recommend ogling these megastars.

Movie Review: Tideland

Tideland (2006) 

Directed by Terry Gilliam 

Written by Tony Grisoni, Terry Gilliam

Starring Jodelle Ferland, Brendan Fletcher, Janet McTeer, Jennifer Tilly, Jeff Bridges

Release Date October 27th, 2006

Published November 17th, 2006 

Writer-director Terry Gilliam has always directed his fantasies. Be they weird or myopic or paranoid, Gilliam directs entirely from his imagination, practical concerns be damned. His latest dream-scape is a perfect example. As Gilliam is forced to admit, in a bizarre opening behind the scenes prologue, Tideland is his own fantasy of what life would be like if he were a pre-teen girl. Based on a novel Mitch Cullen, Terry Gilliam's take on life as a tween girl is even more disturbing and bizarre than even his most ardent fans may expect.

Jeliza Rose (Jodelle Ferland), the daughter of a pair of serious heroin addicts, watches first her mom (Jennifer Tilly) and then her dad (Jeff Bridges), die of drug overdoses. The heroin prepared for mom and dad by Jeliza herself, causes her to recede into her self created fantasy world where a witch named Dell (Janet McTeer) and her mentally challenged henchman (Brenden Fletcher) become her pseudo family and the doll heads she wears as finger puppets carry on long, imaginative conversations with her.

Terry Gilliam isn't kidding when he claims this is what his life would be like were he a pre-teen girl. Wild, imaginative, perverse visions of love, death, sex and parenthood are all themes that Gilliam has tackled before. However, Tideland takes Gilliam's extreme fantasies to a whole new level of perversion. Perhaps Terry Gilliam has finally tweaked a puritan part of my brain but I find there to be something very wrong about presenting a Terry Gilliam fantasy through the eyes of this little girl. 

This is a fantasy that includes not just the drug overdose deaths of two parents from heroin doses administered by their own daughter but also the subsequent gutting, embalming, and slow decomposition of the father as the child continues chatting away as if dad were just napping. Then there is the creepy pseudo-romance. The pre-teen girl has a childish dalliance with the mentally challenged guy. In scenes that are both creepy and strangely sweet these two people who have no idea what intimacy is engage in the kind of childish exploration that would be cute if the mentally challenged guy weren't in his mid-twenties and quite insane.

There is, at the very least, some exceptional visual artwork in Tideland. Cinematographer Nicola Pecorini does some fine work giving vivid life to each of Terry Gilliam's most twisted ideas. For better or worse, the look of Tideland is as impressive as the story is disturbing and horrifying. And yet, Gilliam doesn't treat the horror as horror, there is a distinct sense of dreamlike fantasy, not light-hearted really, but Gilliam is not leaning into the horror that is very much present in this story and while some find that dichotomy compelling, I found it repellent. 

Every experience Terry Gilliam's pre-teen protagonist has, from watching both parents die, to the creepy mentally challenged 'boyfriend,' to the presence of the witch in her fantasies, are all played to such a low key whimsy that they barely register. You may watch in horror as scenes of degradation and dark humor play out, but you will also likely find your mind wandering as Gilliam underplays the horror of the scene in favor of  playing off a more goofball dispassionate response from this deeply troubled and traumatized young girl.

Terry Gilliam has demonstrated the genius of his myopic, selfish approach to film-making in movies as varied as 12 Monkeys, Brazil, and Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas. In Tideland however, he takes that weird personal vision to its navel-gazing nadir. This is a movie made by Terry Gilliam for Terry Gilliam and while I admire any filmmaker who doesn't bow to audience concerns about what the majority of people want to see, that doesn't make a movie like Tideland fun to watch.

Movie Review: Crazy Heart

Crazy Heart (2009) 

Directed by Scott Cooper

Written by Scott Cooper

Starring Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Robert Duvall 

Release Date December 16th, 2009 

Published by December 15th, 2009 

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

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

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

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

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

Movie Review Intolerable Cruelty

Intolerable Cruelty (2003) 

Directed by The Coen Brothers 

Written by Robert Ramsey, Matthew Stone, The Coen Brothers 

Starring George Clooney, Catherine Zeta Jones, Geoffrey Rush, Billy Bob Thornton, Cedric the Entertainer

Release date October 10th, 2003 

Published October 10th, 2003 

There are two unique qualities that mark Joel and Ethan Coen when working in comedy. The first is their writing, smart, funny, and slightly off-kilter surrealism tempered with sweet natured humor. The other is the look of their films, established with the help of cinematographer Roger Deakins. Consistent color patterns that have the same surreal quality of the stories they are background to. These two things are once again on display in Intolerable Cruelty, the Coen's skewed take on the modern romantic comedy.

George Clooney stars in Intolerable Cruelty as divorce lawyer extraordinaire Miles Massey, author of a prenuptial agreement so tough it's never been broken and is the subject of its own course at Harvard law. Miles' specialty is “impossible to win” divorce cases. Miles chooses cases specifically for the challenge of winning the ones no one expects anyone to win. Miles' latest case is that of Rex Rexroth (Edward Herrmann), a real estate millionaire who was caught dead-to-rights cheating on his wife Marilyn (Catherine Zeta Jones).

Marilyn, you see, hired a private investigator named Gus Petch (Cedric The Entertainer) to follow her husband and Gus now has videotape of Rex's infidelity. Obviously Rex is caught but with Miles as his lawyer, he somehow walks out of court on the good side of the settlement. In fact, Rex's now ex-wife got nothing. Nothing that is, except for the admiration of her husband’s lawyer.

Despite all of Miles' instincts about marriage and divorce, he is totally smitten with Marilyn and her shady search for gullible rich husbands. Even after she has married yet another rich dupe, a Texas oilman played by Billy Bob Thornton, Miles still can't help but fall for Marilyn. She, of course, has a few more surprises for Miles to come throughout this comedic story.

Intolerable Cruelty is a surprisingly conventional piece from the usually more off-kilter Coen Brothers. It is, in most respects, a romantic comedy and contains a number of the perfunctory touches of that genre. The coincidences and luck that are hallmarks of most romantic comedies also show up in Intolerable Cruelty, only slightly skewed by the Coen's snappy dialogue and bright colorful production design. The production design of the film is far better than most other films of the genre.

George Clooney and Catherine Zeta Jones spark some terrific chemistry but some of the film’s third reel twists undermine that chemistry with a little more detachment and cruelty than you want from a romantic comedy. Nevertheless this is still the Coen Brothers and the dialogue is smart and snappy and the two leads are more than equal to it. The good definitely outweighs the bad in Intolerable Cruelty. I'll take their version of the romantic comedy over any of the most recent releases in that genre.

Movie Review Ocean's 13

Ocean's 13 (2007) 

Directed by Steven Soderbergh 

Written by Brian Koppelman, David Levien 

Starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Don Cheadle, Al Pacino, Ellen Barkin 

Release Date June 8th, 2007 

Published June 7th, 2007 

The breezy filmed cocktail party atmosphere of the first two Ocean's pictures continues to charm in Ocean's 13. However, even as the stars remain witty and charismatic and director Steven Soderbergh's direction becomes more confident and experimental, there is a fatigued quality setting in. Like a party beginning to wind down, Julia Roberts and Catherine Zeta Jones have already left, Ocean's 13 has drifted late into the night and it's time to lock the doors and send everyone home. But, hey, we did have a good time.

Al Pacino sets the plot of Ocean's 13 in motion as a jerky hotel financier named Willy Bank. Having entered into a deal with our old friend Reuben (Elliott Gould) to open the biggest new resort on the strip, Willy has decided to renege on the deal. Reuben is out, his steak of several million dollars is gone, but mostly he has lost his pride. Not long after Willy rips him off, Reuben has a heart attack that leads to severe depression and a nearly comatose state.

Enter Reuben's old pals Danny (George Clooney) Rusty (Brad Pitt) and Linus (Matt Damon) seeking vengeance. Reuben was a surrogate father to Rusty and Danny and after helping the Ocean's crew in each of their largest ventures, Reuben is family and so the plan is set in motion to ruin the casino and find a way for Reuben to get his cash back.

The plot set in motion is... complicated. It involves kidnapping a group of high roller gamblers, putting down a workers revolt in Mexico, and generating an Earthquake in Nevada. If that isn't complicated enough, how about throwing in Super Dave Osbourne as an FBI agent ready to throw the whole scheme into uproar, seeming to trip his way into Danny and Rusty's deeply complicated con. 

Director Steven Soderbergh is one of the busiest, most involved directors in the game. Even in the slick trifle that is Ocean's 13; Soderbergh not only directs, he slaps the camera on his shoulder and shoots the picture (the credits say Peter Andrews but that is just Steven Soderbergh's alias). Soderbergh is also the executive producer on the film and is seemingly involved in every aspect of the film down to the dice chosen for a pivotal scene.

It is Soderbergh's attention to detail that keeps this bloated cast party from becoming just a star vehicle. Don't get me wrong, this is still predominantly a star vehicle, but Soderbergh's herculean efforts lend the production a little artistic credibility.The film doesn't need it but it doesn't hurt to have it. Soderbergh crafts a dynamic look for Ocean's 13 that is perfectly fitting of the Vegas setting. It's what he's done throughout this franchise but it remains a notably positive element. 

Ocean's 13 is a charm factory. The glint in the eyes of this group of actors is why we turn out and why we have such a good time. When Clooney, Pitt, Damon and the gang are obviously having a great time the vibe is infectious and it radiates from the screen. Whether it's Pitt and Clooney's clowning on one another or the way Matt Damon is very much the little brother of the three, we can't help but feel like we are being let into the inner circle of our favorite stars, even for just a moment.

It's unfortunate that neither Julia Roberts or Catherine Zeta Jones could not stick around for the end of the extended cocktail party that are the Ocean's movies. Those knockout stars are replaced in Ocean's 13 by Ellen Barkin, a beautiful actress whose career has languished in B-movie leads the last few years. Reunited with her Sea Of Love co-star Al Pacino, Barkin's role is sadly underwritten and she plays things overly broad to cover.

As for Mr. Pacino; he seems invigorated by this role. He gets into the spirit right away with good humor and quick wit. If only his casino owner character were a more formidable foe for Danny and company. Despite what we are told is the most sophisticated security system in the world, Willy Bank's casino gets knocked over by the most outlandish scheme imaginable. It reduces Pacino's villain to merely a plot hanger, a reason why things happen and little more. 

Keep in mind however, dear reader, the scheme is not the point of Ocean's 13. Rather, the heist just provides the setting for the charm assault of this exceptional group of actors. Whether it's Casey Affleck and Scott Caan leading a worker revolt in Mexico or Bernie Mac flashing that sneaky bright white smile undercover as a domino dealer, every actor in the Ocean's crew has at least a moment where they delight the audience. And then there is David Paymer as a Hotel critic who gets wrapped up in the Ocean's 13 scheme. Keep an eye on him because his few moments of sad sack humor are priceless. Paymer is a small but welcome addition to the Ocean's canon. 

Ocean's 13 is yet another superfluous, throwaway blockbuster; entertaining in exactly the ways that all throwaway blockbusters are. Perfectly aware of its charm and good looks, Ocean's 13 proceeds from one scene to the next with supreme confidence and great humor. The good vibes are infectious and while you are unlikely to remember much of what you saw later, you will be entertained in the moment and with this kind of blockbuster, that's all you can ask.

Movie Review Solaris

Solaris (2002) 

Directed by Steven Soderbergh 

Written Steven Soderbergh 

Starring George Clooney, Natascha McElhone, Jeremy Davies, Viola Davis, 

Release Date November 27th, 2002 

Published November 27th, 2002 

The teaming of Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney is one of the most promising in Hollywood. Already the team has delivered the sly entertaining popcorn movie Ocean's Eleven. They produced the well-reviewed drama Far From Heaven. Finally, they have in the pipeline the highly buzzed about Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind, Clooney's directing debut. The biggest challenge to the team opens this weekend, the tough sell sci-fi romance Solaris. “Challenging” and “experimental” don't often lead to much in the way of box office but I'm happy to say that at least artistically. Solaris is a hit.

George Clooney stars in Solaris as Chris Kelvin, a psychologist who is asked by the government to go to a far-off space station orbiting an unusual planet called Solaris. Once on the space station Chris should investigate the strange behavior of the station’s crew. Upon his arrival at the station, named Prometheus, he finds a good friend dead and is informed by one of the remaining crew members that the friend committed suicide. The two remaining crew members are Snow (Jeremy Davies) and Gordon (Viola Davis), and both of them are exhibiting odd behavior. 

Gordon refuses to leave her quarters and Snow rambles vaguely about the odd phenomena that befell the crew. Snow warns Kelvin about going to sleep, because when he awakens he will understand everything. Upon awakening Kelvin finds himself in bed with his wife. This would not be unusual except Kelvin's belovd wife has been dead for a number of years. Natascha McElhone plays Rheya Kelvin, or at least that's who the character thinks she is. Logically she can't be but she feels physically real to Chris.

Only a master craftsman like Steven Soderbergh could manage to make a woman as beautiful as McElhone seem so creepy. The scene where Rheya is revealed is a dizzying ride of camera spins and out of focus shots that draws the audience into Chris's nightmare, or fever dream, or whatever it is that is happening to him. From there Solaris spins into the realm of existential crisis, religion and human nature. It's like the best episode of Star Trek: Next Generation ever.

George Clooney is sensational and his chemistry with McElhone is electric. As the couple’s back-story unfolds and we learn what happened to Rheya and the nature of Solaris, Soderbergh toys with the audience, offering innumerable explanations that will have people talking long after the film is over. The film is daring and intelligent in toying with questions of what counts as existence, what approximates experience, if something feels real isn't it then real? 

Solaris is a great film with an intelligent script and a truly magnificent performance by Clooney. That Steven Soderbergh also includes numerous visual and storytelling homage to Kubrick's 2001 and , of course, Tarkovsky's original Solaris from 1972, only deepen the film’s message and help make the film a transcendent sci-fi experience.

Movie Review The Good German

The Good German (2006) 

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

Written by Paul Attanasio 

Starring George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Tobey Maguire 

Release Date December 15th, 2006 

Published September 10th, 2007

Before Tarentino and Rodriguez put the clicks, pops, scratches and cigarette burns back into film in Grindhouse, Steven Soderbergh had already used technology to revive the look of another Hollywood era. In The Good German, Soderbergh crafted a wartime noir love triangle but it was his attention to period detail, and the way he recreates the way movies looked in the 40's and 50's that makes The Good German notable and modestly watchable.

In The Good German George Clooney stars as an investigative reporter for the New Republic and an ex-soldier who returns to Germany for the first time since the end of the war and the beginning of the reconstruction of two different Germany's. Upon his return Clooney's Jake Geismer seeks and finds trouble in the form of his ex mistress Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchett) who had been his stringer before the reconstruction forced her into prostitution to pay the bills.

When Jake and Lena reunite it's not a warm moment. Lena is now involved with another American, a motor pool con man named Patrick Tully (Tobey Maguire). Tully is no stranger to Jake, when he arrived in the country for this assignment, Tully was made his driver. How did the current boyfriend of Jake's former flame end up his driver upon his return to Germany? Jake is not a believer in coincidences and his reporter's instincts lead him to a dangerous conspiracy.

Steven Soderbergh's painstaking detail in making The Good German resemble the films of the 40's and 50's is admirable and intriguing. Unfortunately, all of that fascination with technique and style left the story of The Good German in neglect. The story plays out in three acts from three different perspectives and plays like rough character sketches that were only integrated at the final moment.

The script by Paul Attansio, the talented writer and creator of TV's Homicide and Oz, plays second fiddle to the technology on display to recreate the era. It's quite clear that Soderbergh is more interested in his black and white toys than he is in this script. As evidence, the script highlights anachronisms that undermine the period detail Soderbergh is going for. The Good German is R - rated for nudity and naughty language; two things that would never have made it into a film made in the period Soderbergh is attempting to recreate.

A more bold and clever play, in a script the director cared about, would have been to make The Good German meet the standards of the Hays code, the ratings system of the day that was essentially institutional censorship. Not to say that the Hays Code was good, it wasn't, but how clever might this movie have been had they explored the boundaries of the period and employed the kind of subtext and layers that directors like Michael Curtiz made such wonderful use of during the Hays Code period. But then that would have taken far more work than what went into this rough draft of a script.

If the biggest draw of The Good German is the period evoking technology , the biggest issues may be the actors on camera. Though few actors can evoke golden age leading men as well as George Clooney, he seems ill-suited for the role of a putzy patsy taken for a ride by a nitwit like that played by Tobey Maguire. Maguire may be Spiderman but take away the web slinging and the costume and he is no match for the star wattage of Clooney.

As the alleged mastermind of this plot, Maguire is tremendously over-matched. With his high pitched voice and slight frame, Maguire is the least believable tough guy ever to start a bar fight in a German grog hall. Opposite Cate Blanchett in romantic scenes early in the film, scenes in which he is supposed to be intimidating, Maguire looks as if Blanchett could break him in half if she had to. Blanchett is more of a mother figure to Maguire than a lover and I don't believe that was the film's intention.

As for Ms. Blanchett, hampered by an ugly German accent, and despite her remarkable talent, she is at a loss to make this underwritten character work. As she attempts to evoke Ingrid Bergman, Blanchett at times crosses the line from serious drama to melodramatic parody. As the character is written, as a classic femme fatale, Blanchett is all grandiloquent gesture and emotional projection. Sometimes it works, other times she seems something out of Ed Wood.

The technique is the star of The Good German. Credit director Steven Soderbergh for his bold ideas and loving homage. What a shame that the same care was not taken in crafting a plot to match the technique in depth and complexity. As it is, The Good German is a notable failure. A wonderful experiment in the possibilities of film technology but not a movie that will be remembered for anything other than its technique.

Movie Review Leatherheads

Leatherheads (2008) 

Directed by George Clooney 

Written by Duncan Brantley, Rick Reilly 

Starring George Clooney, Renee Zellweger, John Krasinski, Jonathan Pryce 

Release Date April 4th, 2008 

Published April 3rd, 2008 

George Clooney is a big fan of old Hollywood. At his best Clooney throws back to the stars of the 40’s 50 and 60’s with flair and relish. Evoking the look of Clark Gable, the charisma of Cary Grant, and the cocktail hour suavity of Frank Sinatra, Clooney is a throwback in modern times. You can see this in his film resume. Movies like Intolerable Cruelty which threw back to the classic 50’s and 60’s style romantic comedy, The Good German, shot in black and white no less evoked Bogart in mystery mode with a dash of Spencer Tracey. And, of course, there are the Ocean’s movies; which modernize the 60’s cool of Sinatra’s rat pack.

No wonder then that Clooney is so at home in his latest role, a period comedy with period clothes and a period romance. Leatherheads stars George Clooney as Dodge Connelly the leader of a ragtag group of pro footballers watching their league slowly collapse around them. Set in the mid 1920’s Clooney could not be more at home with style, grace, and rapid fire banter that filmmakers of the day like Preston Sturges and Howard Hawks made legendary.

In 1925 College Football was America’s game and its stars were the stars of American sports. Pro football on the other hand was played on fields, literally, corn fields, wheat fields, anyplace with a fair patch of grass and enough room for a few rickety bleachers. Better known for its ugly cheating and brawling. Pro football of the time was an outlaw sport and Dodge Connelly and his Duluth Bulldogs were the Oakland Raiders of their day. The Raiders have a reputation for being tough and bending the rules. 

Unfortunately for Dodge, his beloved Bulldogs and their fellow barnstorming pros in Milwaukee, Decatur and even Cleveland are struggling financially and folding up at an alarming rate. Eventually, even Duluth can’t afford to keep playing and the Bulldogs are out of a job, forced to return to the mines and other menial work. The team and their pro league is sunk until Dodge gets a great idea. 

Traveling to Chicago, Dodge meets with the top college football star of the day, a kid nicknamed The Bullet, Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski), Princeton University football captain and a bona fide war hero. If Dodge can convince The Bullet, and his smarmy agent C.C (Jonathan Pryce), to come to Duluth and play for the Bulldogs, Dodge believes that he can save his team and likely the sport of pro football.

Following the story of the football star/war hero is a crafty reporter named Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellweger). Posing as a sports reporter, Lexie is chasing a scoop about The Bullet’s war hero story being a big fake. Her task is to convince The Bullet to confess but after meeting Dodge, it’s all Lexie can do to avoid a scandal of her own.

Like Clooney, Renee Zellweger is a star out of time. Her work in Chicago and the little seen gem Down With Love showcase a talent that would have been perfectly at home with Howard Hawks, Preston Sturges or opposite Gable, Bogey or Grant. Zellweger banters like Rosalind Russell and paired with Clooney she smolders like Bacall.

The chemistry of Clooney and Zellweger nearly overwhelms the lightweight football comedy and definitely puts co-star John Krasinski at a disadvantage. The breakout star of TV’s The Office is an affable young actor with a bright future but his burgeoning talent is no match for the veteran Clooney and the experienced Zellweger.

Krasinski simply cannot sell the love triangle aspect of Leatherheads and fades through the background when Clooney and Zellweger are on screen. I don’t mean to demean Mr. Krasinski, not many actors could match the kind of fizzy chemistry of Clooney and Zellweger. It’s just a shame that so much of the movie rides on us buying The Bullet as a viable alternative to Clooney’s mantastic Dodge Connelly.

Quick witted if a bit dawdling at times, Leatherheads is a pithy, sweet romantic comedy that happens to feature sports. A throwback to a completely different era of movie history, George Clooney directs Leatherheads with the verve of Howard Hawks if not the complete skill set of that film legend. Charming and funny with a pair of great lead romantic partners, check out Leatherheads for Clooney and Zellweger and wish John Krasinsky well on the future of his career.

Movie Review Lions for Lambs

Lions for Lambs (2007)

Directed by Robert Redford 

Written by Matthew Michael Carnahan 

Starring Robert Redford, Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, Michael Pena, Andrew Garfield 

Release Date November 9th, 2007

Published November 8th, 2007 

A valuable dialogue on the most important topics of our times is well engaged in Robert Redford's Lions For Lambs. Inter-cutting three different stories, unfolding simultaneously, and one important flashback, Lions For Lambs fails in structure but succeeds for its intentions. The inescapable issue is how tremendously un-cinematic Lions For Lambs is. Maybe I'm grasping, but a movie needs to be more than the sum of its windy pretenses. Even as someone who agrees wholeheartedly with the message, the message fails in the milieu and good intentions bog down for lack of a more compelling cinematic arc.

Robert Redford directs and stars in Lions For Lambs as a political science professor, everyone just calls him doc. This morning Doc is early to chat with Todd (Andrew Garfield) , a student with a sharp mind who refuses to apply himself and often just doesn't show up. The war and the government has so disillusioned young Todd that apathy has set in. For the next hour Doc attempts to awaken the engaged mind of this student with so much potential.

As that is happening in California, a journalist (Meryl Streep) has arrived in the office of a young Senator (Tom Cruise) who, years earlier, she had proclaimed the 'future of the Republican party.' The senator took the hyperbolic headline to heart and now wishes to repay her unintentional compliment with a real important scoop. As the two chat, a military operation that the senator helped plan is getting underway. He hopes that telling the journalist this story will help him with another front page headline to add to his presidential resume.

Meanwhile, the soldiers assigned to carry out the new strategy have left the comfort of the American base in Bagram on their way to a remote, hilly region of Afghanistan, dangerously close to the Iran border and covered in snow. A gun battle causes PFC's Finch (Derek Luke) and Rodriguez (Michael Pena) to fall out of a transport copter into an enemy nest. Surrounded, they must conserve their ammo, nurse their wounds, and deal with the cold as they await a rescue.

Each of these three storylines, written by the very talented Matthew Michael Carnahan, dovetails off of the other with modest detail. Using Mark Isham's quietly compelling score to link one scene to the next, Redford makes no pretense about what his point is. Lions For Lambs is about excoriating cowards who make decisions in Washington while our lions are sent off to die to protect these lambs. It's a heavy handed point but a well made one, especially if it already speaks to your beliefs as this film does mine.

I've opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning and listening to Robert Redford and Meryl Streep make the points that I have already made myself, in various arguments over Iraq, is quite affecting for me. However, it may mean nothing to you. If you are for the war, a supporter of the President and his policies, you won't like much of Lions For Lamb. The film is unabashedly, unashamedly liberal and that, at the very least, is bold especially just a mere three years after the Dixie Chicks were threatened with death and the end of their careers for speaking out.

Times change quickly and now a spate of Hollywood heavyweights have taken on the war to varying results. In The Valley of Elah, The Kingdom, Redacted, Rendition and a number of documentaries have taken on the war to varying degrees of success. Robert Redford delivers, arguably, the most thoughtful film of the bunch but also the least cinematic. Sorry, but we need more than just actors speechifying for over an hour. The film lacks dynamism and feels stultifying by being limited to a one speech after another structure. 

There is little to no visual accomplishment to Lions For Lambs. Don't get me wrong, it is professionally shot, but only a few scenes, those set in the mountains of Afghanistan, manage to be visually compelling. The rest is just a series of conversations shot almost statically in two shots broken up by the occasional showy camera move or tight close up.

Tom Cruise has the most difficult role in the film, that of the conservative voice, a strawman for the liberal messaging of the movie. His ambitious Senator may look like John Edwards but he talks like Dick Cheney. Jousting with Streep's skeptical journalist, Cruise more than holds his own. His character being a natural villain, a congressman and snake oil salesman, he is doomed to be outwitted but he doesn't go down without a fight.

Watch how Cruise regulates that star charm, holding back on that natural glint in his eye. It's an extraordinary effort because the man is effortlessly charismatic. He literally has to dial it down to play a charismatic congressman. In Lions For Lambs Cruise brings just the perfect mixture of political savvy, ugly ambition and earnest passion. He's the kind of villain who doesn't see himself as the villain and those are the best kinds of villains. 

Lions For Lambs ends with a poignant offering of why Redford chose this title. I won't spoil it for you but I will say that anyone who questions Redford's patriotism and commitment to our troops will have not seen these final gut wrenching scenes. In the end, Lions For Lambs should be far better than it is. The subject matter deserves a more compelling direction. It needs more than just a series of soapbox declarations and condemnations. Valuable subject matter is rendered inert due to a lack of style that keeps Lions for Lambs from transcending its polemical intentions.