Movie Review Hoodwinked

Hoodwinked (2006) 

Directed by Cory Edwards 

Written by Cory Edwards, Todd Edwards, Tony Leech

Starring Glenn Close, Xzibit, David Ogden Stiers, Anne Hathaway, James Belushi 

Release Date January 13th, 2006 

Published January 14th, 2006

The idea is pretty clever. Take a well known fairy tale, in this case Little Red Riding Hood, cross it with references to The Usual Suspects, Rashomon and Law & Order and make it a CGI-animated cartoon. Well not all good concepts make good movies. Hoodwinked, the result of this ingenious premise, is a hackneyed sub-Nickelodeon channel animated film that fails to deliver on its attractive premise.

Four characters, four different versions of the same event. A wolf (voiced by Patrick Warburton), a woodsman (James Belushi), a delivery girl named Red (Anne Hathaway), and Red's grandmother (Glenn Close) all arrive at grandma's house at the same time through a series of misunderstandings, miscommunications, and a major crime in which each is somehow a suspect.

The film unfolds as four separate flashbacks under a police interrogation by detective Nicky Flippers (David Ogden Stiers) and the chief of the forest, police chief Grizzly (Xzibit). The two were investigating the continuing disappearances of recipe books throughout the forest by a criminal called the "Goody Bandit." Each of the four principle characters has made themself a suspect, and their stories somehow have led them all to grandma's house.

I cannot say enough how intriguing the setup of Hoodwinked is. It's so intriguing that it's not surprising that creators Cory and Todd Edwards screw it up. The execution of the film's premise plays out in a fashion that is simpleminded and predictable. Granted this is a kids movie and thus cannot be made too difficult to follow, for fear of losing the core audience, but the simplicity undermines the interesting premise. This could be forgiven if the jokes in the movie were funny enough to justify the predictable setups, but hackneyed gags about grandma playing extreme sports fall desperately flat.

Maybe more egregious than screwing up the rich premise of Hoodwinked are the awful pop songs included to fill out the film's 82-minute runtime. Even with an interesting idea for a plot, Cory and Todd Edwards have little idea what to do with it. So in between the unfunny and predictable flashbacks they sandwich in awful original pop tunes that serve as inner monologues for the characters. The songs are more simpleminded than the rest of the script and are a trial to listen to.

It's tough to screw up a computer animated movie. Because the technology is often so impressive, many audiences will tend to forgive a bad CGI cartoon. However, as the technology has aged that impression seems to be wearing off and like the equally insipid Shark Tale, Hoodwinked cannot skate on its technology, which is even less inspired than that wretched godfather underwater cartoon.

The animation of Hoodwinked is similar to Nickelodeon's Jimmy Neutron, only more lifeless. The characters are bulbous and oddly rendered and look more like a really dull videogame and not a big screen movie. The animation reminded me of a videogame circa 1997, something played on Super Nintendo. This may be a function of the film's budget which was admirably small and independently financed. Nevertheless, the movie is unimpressive to look at.

Hoodwinked is a brutal trial of a kids' movie with all of the worst traits of the genre. Hackneyed simpleminded jokes, unimpressive animation, even the voice acting is underwhelming save for Warburton as the wolf whose sarcasm drips from every word even when he is attempting sincerity. Warburton's occasional presence is not nearly enough to rescue this slapped together mess of cheap animation. It's an inspired idea that goes nowhere and fast.

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 Reign Over Me

Reign Over Me (2007) 

Directed by Mike Binder

Written by Mike Binder

Starring Adam Sandler, Don Cheadle, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Liv Tyler, Saffron Burrows, Donald Sutherland

Release Date March 23rd, 2007

Published March 22nd, 2007

I've never been a fan of Adam Sandler's big screen work. If Will Ferrell's work sometimes feels like a series of SNL skits, Sandler's work is like Mad TV in comparison. Jokes so obvious that the audience chuckles before the punchline, dirty sight gags that only Sandler and his team hangers on find funny, and story's so blindingly dumb that you lose IQ points watching them unfold, Sandler is the ultimate in movie flotsam, for the most part.

However, after his turn in P.T Anderson's wonderfully quirky Punch Drunk Love, I was forced to admit that, when he is directed, Sandler has some real talent. Now with his turn as a 9/11 widowed husband in Reign Over Me; I am forced to once again reconsider Sandler and his talent. As the only good thing in an otherwise shallow wasteland of male midlife whining, Sandler manages to steal the show from none other than Oscar nominee Don Cheadle. Impressive, if you're also an award winning actor, mind blowing if you are Mr. Sandler.

Allen Johnson's (Don Cheadle) life has grown stagnant. Every night is spent at home with his loving wife Janeane (Jada Pinkett Smith) and everyday spent in the office of his quiet dental practice which, though he started it, has begun to treat him as just another employee. Allen's boring life gets a charge of excitement from two very strange sources.

Driving down the street one day Allen sees his old college roommate Charlie Fineman (Adam Sandler). Though Charlie is so scattered that he seems not to remember Allen the two decide to get some coffee and soon they are spending a lot of time together. Charlie was once just like Allen, only happier. He had a beautiful wife and 3 daughters. Sadly, Charlie's family died in one of the planes that hit the world trade center. Since then Charlie has receded into a childish fantasy world of rock music and video games.

The other source of chaos in Allen's life is a wacky dental patient named Donna (Saffron Burrows). She arrives in his office asking about a cosmetic procedure though there is nothing wrong with her teeth. Soon she is offering Allen no strings attached oral sex. When Allen rebuffs her advances, she sues him and yet still wants him as her dentist. If you guessed that she and Charlie will eventually cross paths, well you are not as psychic as you are a student of plot mechanics.

Reign Over Me is the latest aimless, masturbatory exercise in arrested development from writer-director Mike Binder whose scattershot resume includes the exceptional drama The Upside of Anger and the brutal TV series The Mind of the Married Man. Binder is funny and sometimes very insightful. He's also full of shit, navel-gazing, meathead who can't seem to grow up.

Reign Over Me falls somewhere in the middle of Binder's oeuvre. It's at times quite full of shit and at times; honest and insightful. The most truth comes in the pain etched in the performance of Adam Sandler who doesn't so much shed his well worn comic fratboy persona as temper that persona with deep sadness and desperation.

Sandler makes the material work and pulls the character of Charlie away from the grandstanding grief monster written by Binder and into truer, more thoughtful territory. Sandler's own history with arrested development, perpetual child types actually serves him well in giving depth to Charlie. When we see the ways in which Charlie has regressed, with video games and his obsession with the music of his youth, it's very easy to follow Sandler into this territory.

Where the full of shit aspects of Reign Over Me come into play are in any scenes featuring women. Binder does a poor job of writing realistic women and though Liv Tyler and Jada Pinkett Smith struggle to try and give depth to their poorly written characters, they are undone by Binder and his boys club mentality. That ludicrous Binder mentality is especially on display in the character of Donna played by model and actress Saffron Burrows.

Burrows plays a mentally unstable woman who expresses her insecurity and instability by offering oral sex to Cheadle's Allen. She then irrationally sues him but wishes to retain his dental services and again offers sex. Why does this character exist? What does she bring to Allen's journey in the film? These questions are unanswerable, though the explanation could be Binder's inability to avoid shoehorning sex jokes into a film that is lacking them.

What's good about Reign Over Me is Adam Sandler's nuanced and affecting performance. Sandler hasn't been this good since his quirky, oddball performance in Punch Drunk Love, a film that grows more maligned by every Sandler performance. Punch Drunk Sandler and Reign's Sandler have a great deal in common. They are socially inept, damaged souls seeking something bigger than themselves but emotionally stunted to their very soul.

Reign Over Me Sandler is edgy and daring, willing to risk audience sympathies with his rash, childish outbursts and more daringly by allowing the film to use this character to exploit the sadness of 9/11. This is where Sandler truly shines. In a lesser performance writer-director Mike Binder's grandstanding would seem shallow and callous. Sandler makes it work by establishing the grandiose, over the top sadness of this character that carries over the terrific scene where he breaks down.

The rest of Reign Over Me is just another full of shit episode of Binder's former TV show with Don Cheadle dulling his skills to play to Binder's level of myopic male arrested development. The way the character of Allen is written, it is as if he doesn't need a reason to be unhappy and seeking release, he's a dude and dudes need to get out of the house and away from their wives sometimes. That is; literally, the level of Binder's insight into this character.

Reign Over Me is two different movies. One is a shallow exercise in male pattern selfishness. The other is a dark tale of sadness and loss featuring a shockingly good performance from an unexpected actor. If I told you that Don Cheadles was starring alongside Adam Sandler and that Sandler was the one delivering the knockout performance, would you believe me? Well that is what I am telling you and, trust me; I'm more shocked than you are.

Movie Review Semi Pro

Semi-Pro (2008) 

Directed by Kent Alterman

Written by Scot Armstrong

Starring Will Ferrell, Woody Harrelson, Maura Tierney, Andre Benjamin 

Release Date February 9th, 2008

Published 

Will Ferrell is quite a sports fan. Now on his third sports comedy in three years, following 2006's Talledegha Nights and 2007's Blades of Glory, Ferrel shows no signs of sports fatigue in Semi-Pro a basketball comedy set in the seventies with all of the non-sequiter goodness of Talledegha Nights without the gay bashing of Blades of Glory. It's not the perfect synthesis of Ferrell's good natured physicality and out of context freestyle banter, but it will make you laugh. Set in the 1970's of Ferrell's Anchorman imagination, Semi-Pro once again indulges the era of jive turkey, high heeled boots, and lots and lots of disco.

It's 1976 and Jackie Moon (Will Ferrell) is riding high on the success of his one hit wonder chart topper 'Love Me Sexy'. With the money he's made from his disco hit, Jackie bought an American Basketball Association franchise and brought it to his hometown of Flint Michigan. The Flint Tropics are the worst team in the ABA but as owner, coach, promoter and starting power forward, Jackie Moon seems oblivious to the team's disrepair. Unfortunately for Jackie the league is about to fold. Four of the teams, the best in the league, are being folded into the NBA at the end of the season and the Tropics will not be one of them.

Appealing to the other folding franchises, Jackie bargains that the top four teams in the ABA standings be the ones to go to the NBA. Now he needs to turn the team around and start winning if he wants to save his beloved Tropics. To help out he trades the team washing machine for a former NBA benchwarmer named Monix (Woody Harrelson) who came to Flint not to play basketball but to win back his ex-girlfriend Lynn (Maura Tierney). As he clashes with the Tropics star player Coffee Black (Andre Benjamin), Monix once again finds his game and begins teaching the Tropics real basketball.

Now can the team win enough games to finish in fourth place? Can Jackie draw enough fans to keep the franchise afloat and can Monix win back Lynn?

These aren't exactly points of great drama but they are enough of a semblance of a plot to be more than what was offered in the disappointing Blades of Glory. Ferrell here, teamed with director Kent Alterman, here at least attempts to tell a story in between the non-sequiturs. Harrelson and Tierney's characters may be underdeveloped but they are welcome enough actors that we root for them on the periphery of the story. In the meantime Ferrell sings, wrestles bears, roller skates and pukes, the anything for a laugh ethos that has made him a beloved comic presence.

Semi-Pro fails to reach the comic heights of Anchorman or Old School, Ferrell truly at his best, but it is funny, at times uproariously funny. Ferrell and his cast of some of the funniest character actors in the business, including Andy Richter, Will Arnett, David Koechner, Will Corddry and SNL alum Tim Meadows, can't help but be funny even in the most outlandish, out of context and over the top scenes. Scenes that would not work with average actors, work here because of these skilled comedians. The jokes have no relation to the movie but you are laughing and that is really all you can ask.

Movie Review Pride and Glory

Pride and Glory (2008) 

Directed by Gavin O'Connor

Written by Gavin O'Connor 

Starring Edward Norton, Colin Farrell, Noah Emmerich, John Voight Jennifer Ehle

Release Date October 24th, 2008 

Published October 24th, 2008

The tortured history of Pride and Glory extends all the way back to 2001 when Mark Wahlberg and Hugh Jackman were attached to the script with director Joe Carnahan. The attacks of September 11th and the subsequent stories of NYPD heroism caused the project to be shelved. Revived and rejiggered by New Line Pictures and director Gavin O'Connor, Pride and Glory got the go ahead in 2006 with Edward Norton and Colin Ferrell in the leads.

And then things get murky. Whether Edward Norton went all Edward Norton on the movie or New Line had a disagreement with director O'Connor, Pride Glory completely found itself on the shelf. Two years later the film arrives and it may have been better off on the shelf.

Ray Tierney (Edward Norton) gave up on being a detective years ago. An incident involving his family, fellow cops and a cover up turned on Ray so badly that although he was never caught lying, he couldn't live with the guilt and hid out in a new assignment in missing persons. Now however, a case of four dead cops in his brother Francis' (Noah Emmerich) unit draws Ray back to being a detective.

The four dead cops it seems walked into an ambush as they staked out a seemingly low level drug dealer. The cops went for the bust and the dealer knew they were coming. Someone in the department tipped him off and four cops died. The case is a major headache for Francis as well as his Commander father Francis Sr. (Jon Voight) and thus why they turn to Ray for help.

Things grow much, much worse when a witness links the dealer to Jimmy Egan (Colin Ferrell) , a cop in Francis Jr's unit and Ray and company's brother-in -law. Jimmy married little sister Megan (Lake Bell) a few years back and now he is the main suspect in a corruption investigation that could bring not just the family but the reputation of the NYPD crashing down.

It's a familiar story: corrupt cops, NYPD, family of detectives, blah blah blah. What director Gavin O'Connor does is take these familiar elements and rearrange them into a slightly different form. He has good pieces to work with. Edward Norton  is a tremendous actor who can make the most of even the lamest material. Colin Ferrell has a more limited range than Norton but makes up for a lot with charisma.

These two actors make the most of what is given them but Pride and Glory remains a failure despite their best efforts. The script is just too familiar and Gavin O'Connor's attempts to reform those elements into a new story only serve to find further faults. Worse however, is the repeated moments of what is referred to rhetorically as Deus Ex Machina, the hand of god.

When a screenwriter is stuck he will often let slide a coincidence or two or three. These coincidences work to allow characters to be placed at just the perfect time. They allow characters to hold off on motivations or hunches or memories until just the moment they are needed as if the hand of god were delivering the character to the place they are needed or reminding them of just the right memory at just the moment it's needed.

These plot conveniences in Pride and Glory are groan-inducing to the point of modest chuckles for savvy audience members who recognize them.

What is a real shame about Pride and Glory is that it wastes an Oscar worthy effort by longtime character actor Noah Emmerich. As the conflicted captain of a corrupt unit. Emmerich walks a tightrope between drama and caricature and makes the right dramatic decision almost each time. On top of being the boss and dealing with all of this corruption, Francis has a wife at home, played by Jennifer Ehle, who is dying of cancer.

Many actors would be overwhelmed with so much sorrow to play but Emmerich handles it all exceptionally well. If the movie weren't such a dog overall Emmerich could have been a strong contender for best supporting actor. Thankfully, based on his work in Pride and Glory I have no doubt something like that is still in his future.

If your plot is too familiar you have to do more than just rearrange the elements slightly. Play with the tone, grim sadness and gritty gray skied backgrounds are so done. Play with the characters, make one a woman, give one an unusual quirk, work in some dark humor. Do something to keep the audience from sitting in the dark wondering where they've seen all of this before.

Also, if your script so often needs the hand of god to deliver characters to need locations or revelations, maybe you shouldn't make the movie at all.

Movie Review Ondine

Ondine (2010) 

Directed by Neil Jordan 

Written by Neil Jordan

Starring Colin Farrell, Stephen Rea

Release Date June 4th, 2010

Published June 12th, 2010

Lethargy in a movie tends to be a bad thing and yet the lethargic feelings induced by Neil Jordan's fable Ondine feels just right. Lingering on the details of a fairy tale while seducing us with the beauty of the Irish coast and unknown star Alicja Bachleda's supple calves, Ondine is a stroll where most other movies are a sprint. Sure, by the time the film's climax arrives, with some attendant threat, we have been relaxed to a near coma state, but who cares when it's all so very pretty.

Colin Ferrell plays Syracuse, a former town drunk now 2 years sober. Unfortunately for Syracuse his drunken antics are so memorable that no one will let him forget it, lashing him permanently to the nickname Circus for his clownish behavior. Syracuse isn't exactly miserable but he is less than content when his life is changed forever.

Casting his fishing net with little plans on catching much, Syracuse pulls up the shivering body of a beautiful young woman. He saves her life but she refuses medical attention or any attention at all to save him. She begs to be hidden and he happens to have just the place, a seaside cottage that once belonged to his late mother.

Thus begins a very unique love story made even more peculiar by Syracuse's 9 year old daughter Annie (Alison Barry. After hearing her dad tell the story of the woman pulled from the water as a fairy tale, she comes to believe that the woman, soon called Ondine or woman from the sea, may be a mythical creature known as the selkie.

A selkie is a half human half sea which sheds its seal coat once out of the water. To stay on land the selkie must fall in love with a landsman and bury its seal coat. It's a wonderful fairy tale and as the romance blossoms you can't help but be drawn to the mysterious Ondine and believe that she is some kind of mythic creature.

Director Neil Jordan has a great eye for quirks that are endearing rather than just odd. Where other writers and directors often merely assign a behavior to a character in order to give them something to do, the veteran Jordan allows the actors to find the quirk along the way and play it almost unconsciously. For Ms. Bachleda the quirks are numerous and charming and never merely for effect. Not bad for an actress better known for being her co-star's arm candy.

Indeed, Mr. Ferrell and Ms. Bachleda were a couple when she got this gig but credit Neil Jordan and Ms. Bachleda for showing this what not merely a favor to a big star but just the right bit of casting. The casting of Ms. Bachleda may be the reason why Mr. Ferrell seems so relaxed and pliable in Ondine. Almost non-existent is any star posing, even with his model ready mane of black hair.

Farrell melts into the role of an outcast quite well considering he never stops looking like Colin Farrell. His discomfort and sadness is tapped so perfectly that you actually believe that women would avoid him and even a town this small would ostracize him, even if he is the best looking man in town. Farrell's soulfulness, in the hands of the wrong director could become dreary. In the hands of a master of grief, loss and sadness, like Neil Jordan, the soulful qualities are something to cling to amidst the sadness. 

Nevermind what little inconsistencies exist in Ondine. This is a film about tone and beauty. Neil Jordan establishes a tone that ambles from one pretty scene to the next while the story drifts into the heart of the audience almost subconsciously until all are smiling and waiting patiently for a hoped for happy ending for this beautiful couple and the clever young towheaded daughter.

I am sure many will find Ondine boring but that’s their loss. The modern blockbuster has caused many to lose the ability to be patient and get lost in a story. If things aren’t moving a mile a minute they give up and start checking for text messages. Ondine is not for the impatient. It’s for the romantic, the indulgent, those who love a good director leading them on a strange wonderful journey. If that’s not you, skip Ondine.

Movie Review Inhale

Inhale (2010) 

Directed by Baltasar Kormakur

Written by Baltasar Kormakur 

Starring Dermot Mulroney, Diane Kruger, Sam Shepard

Release Date October 22nd, 2010 

November 5th, 2010 

“Inhale” is a gloomy B-movie melodrama from Icelandic director Baltasar Kormakur who made a strong US debut back in 2005 with the underground hit “A Little Trip to Heaven” starring future Oscar nominees Forest Whitaker and Jeremy Renner. This time, with a far less flashy cast, Kormakur is telling a story that, like “A Little Trip to Heaven,” is about money and the root of all evil.

“Inhale” stars Dermot Mulroney as upstanding New Mexico District Attorney Paul Stanton. Paul and his wife Diane (Inglourious Basterds sire Diane Kruger) have a daughter (Mia Stallard) who is dying from a rare lung disorder. She needs a lung transplant but she is far too low on a long list of people waiting for a transplant.

Desperate, Paul uses a tip from his doctor (Rosanna Arquette) to blackmail a powerful friend (Sam Shepard) who used some low connections in Mexico to get an illicit heart transplant. Soon, Paul is in Juarez, Mexico, knocking on doors and getting the holy hell beat of him in his pursuit of a group of American doctors performing transplants for those with the cash to pay to move to the front of the line.

Dermot Mulroney is an actor who was always handsome enough to become a crossover mainstream star but it just never happened. Whether it was just his choice of roles or a conscious attempt to avoid the trappings of becoming a star, Mulroney has always toiled on the edges of fame in the uncanny valley between direct to video and made for cable.

In “Inhale” Mulroney finds a meaty role and plays it with a stalwart bullheaded determination that is invigorating to an otherwise shoddy narrative. There is a good deal of stalling going on in “Inhale.” Director Komakur uses an unnecessary device, shifting between the present and past, as a way of padding out the story to a feature length.

Yes, the flashbacks lay the groundwork for Paul’s motivation but there were more efficient ways of delivering the same information. A scene involving two anonymous characters, a young boy and his mother, and a violent car wreck feels exploitatively violent even as the aftermath helps set the odds that Paul is facing in getting a legal transplant for his daughter.

Later, in scenes set in Juarez, Komakur makes yet another exploitative choice in setting Paul up for blackmail by the men from whom he is seeking a black market transplant. Certainly, there had to be a more elegant form of blackmail than this scene involving Paul and a transvestite hooker. The wreck and the transvestite are both unnecessary and ugly additions that serve only to make an already grim story grimmer while padding out a story that barely has the juice for a feature length.

The violent car wreck, Paul’s repeated beatings and the transvestite distract and detract from a fine performance by Mulroney who nearly fights through it all to deliver the final blow in a surprising and unconventional finale. Sadly, as much as I enjoyed Mulroney’s performance and the underlying notion of the way rich people can treat the poor as commodities, right down to their organs, there is too much of Komakur’s absurd tendency toward B-Movie exploitation for me to recommend “Inhale.”

Movie Review Stranger Than Fiction

Stranger Than Fiction (2006) 

Directed by Marc Forster 

Written Zach Helm 

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

Release Date November 10th, 2006

Published November 8th, 2006 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Movie Review The Chronicles of Narnia The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

The Chronicles of Narnia Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)

Directed by Michael Apted

Written by Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, Michael Petroni

Starring Georgie Henley, Will Poulter, Skandar Keynes, Ben Barnes, Tilda Swinton

Release Date December 10th, 2010 

Published December 9th, 2010

The struggle to bring “The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” based on the 3rd book in C.S Lewis’s popular series, has been troubled not by poor creative effort but by the perils of Hollywood business. After “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe” debuted in 2005 to terrific reviews and boffo box office, “The Chronicles of Narnia” was seen by Disney and Walden Media, a Harry Potter-esque cash cow.

Then, the struggles of “Prince Caspian” began. Though the film sailed into production with writer-director Andrew Adamson having completed the screenplay while filming Lion, upon release Caspian was seen as a box office failure with a mere 141 million dollars at the North American box office.

Caspian was not helped by critics who lambasted the film as a shallow follow-up to the well liked first film in the series. Prospects for “Voyage of the Dawn Treader” ever reaching the screen seemed dim after Disney chose not to move ahead on the project in 2008. Then, miraculously, 20th Century Fox snapped the series up and set out to re-energize the franchise. Whether the effort works at the box office we will see but the artistic rebirth is accomplished as ‘Dawn Treader’ returns the magic of The “Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”

It’s been three years since Lucy (Georgie Henley) and Edmund (Skandor Keynes) have been to Narnia, the magical realm of the regal Lion Aslan (Liam Neeson), with their brother Peter and sister Susan. The oldest of the Pevensie children have moved on (actors William Mosley and Anna Popplewell do make cameos here) while Lucy and Edmund remain in England, living with the family of their irksome cousin Eustace (Will Poulter).

While they await word of when they can rejoin their family, Lucy and Edmund also patiently await a return to Narnia where they but not their siblings can return only once more. That chance comes when a magical painting begins moving and a ship somehow appears on the horizon. Soon, the painting begins to come to life and when Eustace attempts to pull it off the wall, all three children find themselves engulfed and emerging in Narnia.

Waiting for Lucy, Edmund and Tagalong Eustace is the Dawn Treader, the first ship in the Narnian army and the current home of King Caspian (Ben Barnes). Caspian welcomes the kids aboard and an adventure begins to retrieve the Seven Lords whose magic swords will lift a curse that has plunged part of Narnia into darkness.

Alongside the main plot is also a quest to find the Utter East, the land of Aslan. Reepicheep (voice of Simon Pegg) the valiant mouse warrior hopes to voyage to Aslan’s land as his final adventure while Caspian believes he may find his father there.

Director Michael Apted, who picked up the reigns from Andrew Adamson, now an executive producer, brings a clear focus to the story of ‘Dawn Treader.” Where “Prince Caspian'' was weighed down by a great deal of exposition; so much that the film never picked up speed and prodded to a dull conclusion, “Dawn Treader” begins with a brief character reset and quickly we are aboard the glorious ship and away for adventure.

“Voyage of the Dawn Treader'' bounces swiftly from set piece to set piece with a clear eyed purpose, and is aided greatly by the best effects work of the series courtesy of Moving Picture Company and Framestore CFC, with an assist from the legendary WETA Workshop (LOTR). Michael Apted takes command of this franchise, gives it an epic scope, a sharp, dynamic look and even a surprisingly light heart.

The humor of “Voyage of the Dawn Treader” is a direct rebuke to the bullish self seriousness of the dreary “Prince Caspian.” “Son of Rambow” star Will Poulter does much of the comic heavy lifting as the nettlesome cousin Eustace. In his first Narnian outing, and possibly not his last, Poulter deftly plays Eustace’s refusal to believe what is happening around him for great laughs while setting us up for a terrific character turn with a surprisingly poignant pay off.

Much of “Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader” comes as a surprise. No, the makers have not managed to make Ben Barnes any less wooden as Caspian or made the religious overtones any less burdensome but what Michael Apted does is lessen the issues by making all around them better. Better effects, better story, better pace; just about everything in Dawn Treader is better, even than “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.”

Yes, it is a rare occurrence but this, the third Narnia movie, is the best of the series. Top notch action and effects and a director fully in control of all the aspects of epic, popcorn moviemaking have resurrected a dying franchise. The box office will make the final decision but from an artistic perspective “The Chronicles of Narnia” have begun again and the newly in charge Mr. Apted has me anticipating another adventure in “The Silver Chair.”

Movie Review Take the Lead

Take the Lead (2006) 

Directed by Liz Friedlander 

Written by Dianne Huston 

Starring Antonio Banderas, Rob Brown, Alfre Woodard 

Release Date April 7th, 2006

Published April 7th, 2006

The real life of Pierre Dulaine is one that should be honored with some variation of the nobel prize. While on the surface that may seem outrageous, Pierre Dulaine is merely a ballroom dance instructor. However, a closer examination shows that Mr. Dulaine's ballroom dance classes introduced to inner city New York classrooms returned more positively reinforced children and improved classmates than any after school activity in the history of New York schools.

His fight to bring culture to the classroom was ridiculed as frivolous and a waste of what limited resources schools had for their often troubled inner city students. Mr. Dulaine turned that around by demonstrating a unique ability to bring even the worst lost causes back to school on a daily basis. His care and hard work helped many kids discover a love for learning they never knew they had.

There may not be a Nobel prize for Pierre Dulaine but at the very least Hollywood has a loving treatment of his life in the new drama Take The Lead. Yes, this is a creaky little old school overcoming the odds drama but if anyone deserves a sickly sweet love letter its Pierre Dulaine.

In the inner city high schools of New York City teachers fight to save the kids they feel they can save and just hope the rest don't get killed. Years of underfunding, lack of security and just plain hopelessness will lead to the kind of defeatist attitudes that pervade these schools.

Thankfully Pierre Dulaine (Antonio Banderas) was never exposed to this systemic hopelessness. Pierre Dulaine is a ballroom dance instructor with his own high end studio and upper crust clientele. One night, while riding his bike home, Pierre comes in contact with Rock (Rob Brown) , a troubled kid who has just vandalized his Principal's car.

The principal is played by the terrific Alfre Woodard who skeptically receives a visit from Pierre Dulaine the following morning. Pierre is not here to rat out the student who destroyed her car. Rather, he wishes to offer his services as an instructor to any student willing to learn to dance.

The principal is ready to laugh Pierre out of her office before she remembers that she has no instructor for her detention. What harm can it do for her to let Pierre try and teach some of the school's most lost causes how to cha cha cha. Heck he probably won't last the afternoon.

Known as the school's rejects, the detention kids are a mixed group of street thugs, latch key kids and lost souls who have been told all their lives that they have no chance of escaping their surroundings. Ramos (Dante Basco), Lahrette (Yaya DaCosta), Monster (Brandon Andrews), Easy (Lyriq Bent) and Tina (Laura Benanti) are just a few of the kids the rest of the teachers have given up on.

Also in Mr. Dulaine's detention class is Rock who does not believe Pierre's appearance is a coincidence. Convinced Pierre is going to turn him in for his vandalism refuses to participate even as the rest of the class begins to come around to Pierre's passionate demonstrations.

Antonio Banderas is the linchpin of Take The Lead. His performance sells what is essentially a predictable, almost farcical inner city melodrama. With his usual smolder at a mere simmer, Banderas crafts a starring performance that is unlike anything he has delivered before.

Humble yet strong, charismatic without trying Banderas pays near perfect tribute to Pierre Dulaine.

The rest of the cast is good if undistinguished. As tends to happen with such large casts of young actors, names and faces get lost in the crowd. I can tell you that each dances incredibly well but beyond that, only the enigmatic Rob Brown really stands out.

I have been a fan of Rob Brown since his exceptional debut alongside Sean Connery in the underrated drama Finding Forrester. Brown needs to break the mold of the High School roles that have been his forte since Forrester, including another terrific performance in 2005's Coach Carter. One of these days Rob Brown will take a role that is not another High School coming of age story and he will become a major star.

Take The Lead was directed by rookie director Liz Friedlander, a music video veteran. The music video experience likely explains why only the dance scenes really jump off the screen while much of the drama is clumsy. Friedlander and screenwriter Dianne Houston fumble Pierre's introduction which is supposed to deliver his motivation for teaching these kids. 

This forces some fancy footwork, pun intended, by Banderas to make the character work. It is a tribute to Banderas that he rescues much of the film from a number of similar mistakes. Mistakes that include a thinly drawn villain character, a fellow teacher, whose reasons for hating Mr. Dulaine and his dance classes are merely the contrivance of the plot.

I'm not saying that Take The Lead is a very good movie, actually it's just barely a good movie. I am saying that because of Antonio Banderas, Rob Brown and the real life Pierre Dulaine, there is a great deal about Take The Lead that works.

As a tribute to a man who deserves a tribute, see Take The Lead and be inspired by the spirit of Pierre Dulaine.

Step Up 3D

Step Up 3D (2010)

Directed by Jon M. Chu 

Written by Amy Anderson, Emily Meyer 

Starring Rick Malambri, Adam G. Savani, Sharni Vinson, Alyson Stoner

Release Date August 6th, 2010 

Published August 12th, 2010

‘You're just jealous because you can't dance’ was one of many angry emails I received after I panned the first “Step Up” movie. I was out sick and missed out on the “Step Up 2: The Streets” assignment though colleagues have told me it was as riveting as the first. Now comes “Step Up 3D” and instead of being sick before the movie I became sick during and after this one. “Step Up 3D” teams some very talented dancers, some exceptionally dull club music and the awfulness that is 3D technology to create a force of sheer tedium.

Rick Malambri is the 3D abs of steel at the center of “Step Up 3D.” As Luke, Malambri plays kind Fagin to a group of urchin dancers with no place to live. Seven or ten different teenage dancers live on top of one another in the space above the nightclub left to Luke by his late parents.

The latest to join this crew that calls themselves the Pirates, no real reason why so just don't bother asking, is Moose (Adam G. Sevani) who, I'm told, was one of the stars of “Step Up 2: the Streets.” If Moose is from the ‘Streets' we must be talking Sesame Street or maybe Klickitat Street where the wonderful Ramona & Beezus hail from and where dancing in the streets would be quite welcome.

Moose has just arrived in New York to attend NYU and put street dancing behind him. Unfortunately, on his first day in the big city, Moose stumbles into a dance battle with a crew known as the Samurais and manages to beat one of the leaders of their crew. How a win in dancing is determined is your call but apparently it involves showing up your opponent through the clever employment of balloons, bubbles and other such props.

Luke rescues Moose from what I am sure was another highly volatile dance showdown and invites him to join the Pirates. Joining Moose on the team is Natalie (Sharni Vinson) , a girl that Luke meets in the club who happens to be a great dancer looking for a place to live. She has a secret that pays off later in the movie but I will leave you to discover this SHOCKING revelation. All caps used here to infer mockery.

I have filled in much of the context of “Step Up 3D” and if you see it you will have to do so as well. The makers of “Step Up 3D” were not tasked with much on the story front; they are here to film and choreograph dance routines. One might ask: Why not make a documentary about real dancers and film their amazing performances instead of subjecting us to more than 90 minutes of blithering expository dialogue that interrupts the dancing? This question remains unanswered by the movie. 

There was a terrific 2005 documentary called “Rize” that did just what I was talking about before. The film chronicled the dance movement happening in South Central Los Angeles and featured astonishing scenes of dance that likely inspired the Fox dance competition “So You Think You Can Dance” and many of the dance movies that have come since. 

”Rize” told the stories of the dancers as they danced and conveyed the depth of their love for dance in ways that the “Step Up” movies can only dream of. For the makers of “Step Up,” movies are merely a vehicle for commerciality. Dance movies are an opportunity for pretty young people to be sexy without threatening anything actually sexual. In the first film, Channing Tatum could smolder sans shirt and needed no other context than dance to do so. It was his Othello, his, Henry the 8th, his Michael Corleone.

”Step Up 3D” falls to Tatum clone Rick Malambri who, like a great understudy, carries the same blank stare and chiseled tummy as Mr. Tatum. He understands, like Mr. Tatum, that his job is to embody sexual desire as a means of selling a movie without any actual sex and like a perfectly smooth Ken Doll, he nails it. Sex without sex is the unspoken heart of the “Step Up” movies, the two that I've seen. 

That sex sells has never been in question, what it sells in “Step Up 3D” are movie tickets, Nike special edition dance shoes and various other products placed within reach of the characters. Each available space in “Step Up 3D” is covered with some kind of salable brand that no doubt spent a pretty penny to place its product in front of a captive audience of young moviegoers. 

Commercial concerns aside, “Step Up 3D” and indeed each of the “Step Up” movies, have the potential to be earnest, 'let's put on a show,' old Hollywood throwbacks where feisty young characters throw caution to the wind and seek nothing but truth, justice and a good time. Sadly, those old Hollywood movies had stars like Gene Kelly or Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. “Step Up 3D” has not one performer with that level of charisma or appeal. 

To be fair, if the cast of “Step Up 3D” had an unending fount of charisma and charm we wouldn't likely know about it. What these young dancers are called upon to do is look good and dance. Punching their way through a thicket of expository dialogue robs each of any opportunity to be anything more than a pretty face or an ad for a good trainer. 

Should we even bother talking about 3D? It's a gimmick, we know that. The gimmick here is no different than any other 3D movie; it's meant to extract a couple extra bucks from the willing moviegoer. The technology adds not one iota to the experience of “Step Up 3D.” Indeed, if you feel you need 3D to improve on the dancing in a dance movie, maybe the movie should not be made. 

One of my critic colleagues made the excellent point that if you want to enjoy team dancing like that displayed in “Step Up 3D,” watch Randy Jackson's America's Best Dance Crew on MTV.com. It's the same experience for free and instead of mind meltingly awful snippets of dialogue you have some boring host banter and 30 seconds of commercials here and there.

Plus, no headache inducing, eye strain causing 3D. Sure you miss out on the smoldering Mr. Malambri and the lithesome Ms. Vinson but you can get everything you need from a “Step Up 3D” movie poster.

Movie Review: BlackKKlansman

BlacKKKlansman (2018) 

Directed by Spike Lee

Written by Spike Lee 

Starring John David Washington, Adam Driver, Topher Grace, Laura Harrier Ryan Eggold 

Release Date August 10th, 2018

Published August 9th, 2018

BlacKKKlansman is one of the most ambitious and daring movies to come down the pike in quite some time. This story about a real-life Colorado Springs, Colorado cop who decided to take on the Ku Klux Klan is bold, audacious, funny and deeply compelling. That is is also a biting satire of our current political climate also serves to remind us why Spike Lee remains one of the most vital and necessary filmmakers.

BlacKKKlansman stars John David Washington, Denzel’s son, as Ron Stallworth, a man fresh out of college and eager to become a police detective. His ambition brings him to Colorado Springs, Colorado where he seizes his opportunity to quickly move up the ranks by volunteering for undercover work. Whether intentional or not, Ron takes advantage of the racism of the department as they need someone young and black to go undercover at meetings of so-called black radicals.

After succeeding in his first undercover gig, Ron is fully promoted to detective in the Intelligence division. It is here where the story of BlacKKKlansman kicks into gear. Seeing an ad in the paper for the Ku Klux Klan recruitment drive, Ron decides to pick up the phone and find out how the Klan recruits. Ron quickly ingratiates himself to the local Klan leader, Walter (Ryan Eggold) who invites him to a meeting.

Naturally, Ron himself can’t go undercover at the meeting, so, he’s partnered with Flip (Adam Driver). Together they will catfish the Klan into believing that Ron Stallworth is a former Vietnam veteran eager for the chance to be part of the coming race war on the side of ‘The Organization’ as they call themselves when in public so as not to arouse suspicion and maintain the anonymity that comes with their traditional hood and shroud.

Where the story goes from there you will need to see for yourself. I will tell you that the scope of the story includes the longtime Grand Wizard of the KKK, David Duke, here played by Topher Grace in a performance that truly takes the piss out of Duke and his self-righteous attempts at mainstreaming his hateful rhetoric. Grace is terrific at being the butt of the film’s best gags, especially the final payoff laugh which sends the crowd home happy.

This is however, J.D Washington’s show and boy is this kid ready for stardom. Yes, you can definitely hear some of his dad’s voice, his unique inflection, coming from J.D but he demonstrates here, with the help of Spike Lee, that he is fully his own man. This is a breakout, charismatic, a star is born, kind of leading man performance. Washington is funny, confident, bold and sympathetic and yet far from perfect, still wet behind the ears but eager to learn in charming fashion.

Adam Driver as well is fantastic in BlacKKKlansman. Driver’s choice of roles is so smart, always seeming to choose roles that play to his unique strengths. Many of BlacKKKlansman’s best scenes are played in Driver’s eyes, with the thinly veiled control he has over the contempt he feels for the Klan he’s pretending to be part of and for himself for having to spout the racist nonsense back at these redneck losers. It’s a performance of measured cool and Driver is phenomenal.

Spike Lee hasn’t felt this much like the Spike Lee of old since 2002’s 25th Hour. This is Spike once again on an epic scale. This is Spike indulging his style once again rather than pushing his instincts aside to make something mainstream ala 2006’s Inside Man, a fine movie, but not a Spike Lee movie, and 2013’s Oldboy, a film idea doomed at conception. BlacKKKlansman takes us back to when Spike Lee was more than just a director, he was a creative life force.

BlacKKKlansman is vital and angry, funny and dangerous. The film engages and repels audiences, it challenges you and ingratiates you. If you are uncomfortable with political movies, BlacKKKlansman is not for you as it is a film that challenges you with parallels to today’s politics and the dangerous attempts too many people in the political realm have made to equate the hate of bigots and racists with the anger of people suffering from the hate of bigots and racists.

BlacKKKlansman is bold and fearless filmmaking filled with style and humor, fiery polemical rhetoric and damn good storytelling. BlacKKKlansman is a Spike Lee Joint as vital and exciting as anything he’s made since Do the Right Thing, arguably his one true masterpiece. BlacKKKlansman is also simply one of the finest movies of 2018.

Movie Review King Arthur

King Arthur (2004) 

Directed by Antoine Fuqua 

Written by David Pranzoni 

Starring Clive Owen, Keira Knightley, Stellan Skarsgard, Hugh Dancy, Til Schweiger, Ioan Gruffaud 

Release Date July 7th, 2004 

Published July 5th, 2004

Jerry Bruckheimer’s slavish devotion to commerce may satisfy capitalistic business plans, but as for making enjoyable films, those have been few and far between. Okay, I can’t deny that Pirates Of The Caribbean was a slick, exciting bit of entertainment fluff but I cannot forget the nightmare that was Kangaroo Jack or the most dreadful blockbuster in history, Armageddon.

Bruckheimer’s latest film, King Arthur, combines the commercial slickness of Pirates with the dreary sadness of most of the films that carry his name. King Arthur is an attempt at an authentic historical epic, the so-called “real” story behind the legend of King Arthur and his Knights of The Roundtable. However, the film has no answer to the question “Why would anyone want a history lesson from the man who brought us Con-Air?”

Clive Owen stars as the legendary British/Roman King, Arthur, the greatest warrior in all of the land. Arthur’s legend has grown as he and his loyal band have helped to secure Roman rule in Britain. However with the slow decline of the empire and the encroachment of a warrior horde called the Saxons, the Romans have decided to pull out of Britain. Though Arthur and his knight were to have completed their service, they are asked for one more battle while Rome runs for the hills.

Arthur’s knights include his loyal second Lancelot (Ioan Gruffudd), Tristan the lookout (Mads Mikkelson), childish Galahad (Hugh Dancy), brave Daganet (Ray Stevenson) and tough guy Boers (Ray Winstone). Together they have never lost a battle but this mission is more dangerous than ever before. The final mission, saving a family whose son may be the next Pope, takes them not only toward the vicious Saxons but also into the midst of Merlin and the Britons whom the Romans had been fighting for control of the country.

Once they reach the family they are to save, Arthur finds these religious people may not be as pious as they seem. As the Saxons quickly advance, Arthur and his men rescue a number of abused slaves and captive Britons, including the lovely Briton warrior Guinivere (Keira Knightley). With the slaves and the family in tow, they must outrun the Saxons and eventually form a tenuous pact with the Britons to fight the common enemy.

Jerry Bruckheimer and director Antoine Fuqua have a number of surprises in store in King Arthur but few of them are welcome. Most shocking is the outright overt hatred of religion, specifically Christians. Every religious authority in the film is corrupt to a disturbing degree. The Knights despise religion and as for Arthur, he considers himself loyal to the Pope but also follows a man who is considered a heretic.

When his religious superiors are exposed as bad people, Arthur doesn’t just question his faith; he abandons it with little inner turmoil. As an atheist, I am sympathetic to the film’s looking down at religion but this blatant hatred of religion will turn off a number of everyday filmgoers, and worse, it’s entirely unnecessary.

Another controversial element of King Arthur is its PG 13 rating. Jerry Bruckheimer, the commercial whore that he is, somehow wrangled a PG-13 from the geniuses at the MPAA for a film filled with R-rated violence. Just because there is very little blood actually seen doesn’t make the film less violent. Those are still piles of bodies lying on the ground, those are still guys catching flaming arrows in their chests.

I’m no prude, in fact I wish the film had been more blatantly violent, the punches pulled are purely commercial in nature. The film would have been helped by some honest bloody violence instead of trying to pretend no one really got hurt. Families who go to see King Arthur thinking it’s appropriate for 13 year olds will get a disturbing surprise.

Director Antoine Fuqua is a competent technical director who films action with a professional flair. His actors, especially Clive Owen, Ioan Gruffudd, and Ray Winstone, are pros that easily sell you on their character’s heroism and toughness. It's a shame that they are given a script by writer David Franzoni that is amazingly scattershot.

The script ricochets from staid drama, to well-conceived violence then tosses in cheesy dialogue bits and the unnecessary religion bashing. Director Fuqua and his actors actually hold the film together pretty well. Well enough to give the film the conventional blockbuster look that is portrayed in the film’s advertising. Watching the film however, you will be surprised at how unconventional, or if you’re so inclined, offensive, the film is.

This is definitely not your father’s King Arthur. Forget what you know of the mythic Knights. This is a grittier, more realistic telling of the legendary story. Obviously liberties are taken, I doubt Guinivere was really the kind of girl-power heroine she is portrayed as here. As played by the gorgeous Keira Knightley, Guinivere is the kind of post-feminist heroine that is badass, politically correct and easily marketable.

Of course anyone relying on the producer of Kangaroo Jack for a history lesson gets what they pay for. Bruckheimer’s approach is all about the Benjamins, which probably means that history occasionally took a backseat. Of course Bruckheimer’s commercial approach makes the film all the more curious considering how non-commercial much of the film’s content is. Did he read this script or just commission the poster?

Movie Review: White Chicks

White Chicks (2004) 

Directed by Keenan Ivory Wayans 

Written by Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans 

Starring Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Terry Crews, Frankie Faizon 

Release Date June 23rd, 2004

Published June 23rd, 2004 

This may be an unpopular admission, but I like Shawn and Marlon Wayans.

After their disastrous hosting job on the MTV Movie Awards a couple years back, the boys were savaged by many. The second film in the Scary Movie franchise did little to help their reputation. Still in their short lived TV series, the first Scary Movie and in countless interviews, the brothers have come off as likable, intelligent and funny. So I like them. Which makes White Chicks a difficult film to review because the brothers are far less than likable in this dreadful cross-dressing comedy.

Shawn and Marlon play brothers and undercover FBI agents Kevin and Marcus Copeland. When we meet them they are undercover in a grocery store where a drug deal is supposed to go down. Too bad the guys grab the wrong guys and the real bad guys get away. Worse yet, their undercover mission was not authorized by their boss (Frankie Faizon) and they are almost fired.

Barely retaining their jobs, Kevin and Marcus are stuck with a crappy babysitting gig far from the action of the big case. The brother’s job is to escort bitchy socialite sisters Brittany (Maitland Ward) and Tiffany Wilson (Anne Dudek) to the Hamptons where the sisters are bait in a kidnapping sting. Of course Kevin and Marcus screw up, a car accident leaves the girls slightly banged up and they refuse to go to the Hamptons. This leaves Marcus and Kevin with only one option, call a bunch of makeup and costume artists and take the girl’s place.

Okay so there were a number of better options but this was the only one that got our heroes into white-face and drag. Now the boys must convince everyone from their FBI partners to Tiff and Brit's closest friends and enemies that they are the Wilson sisters. This is where the film completely tosses plausibility to the wind in favor of impossible contrivance.

Yes I realize there is a thing in Hollywood movies called the willing suspension of disbelief, but this is ridiculous. Anyone who could mistake Shawn and Marlon Wayans in their drag get-ups as these two attractive women, Maitland Ward and Anne Dudek, would have to blind, deaf and dumb. That is a little bit too much suspension of disbelief for me. I might be willing to overlook it a little in Marlon's case, his slight frame is better suited for drag, but Shawn Wayans looks only like a man in a bad drag outfit.

Even if the drag bit were a little more convincing, the plot and the various comic situations are so dreary that it wouldn't matter. After dressing Shawn and Marlon in drag, co-writer, director and big brother Keenan Ivory Wayans can think of nothing funnier than having them win a dance contest and act black stereotypes under the guise of being white woman. The running gag is that the guys can't help but revert to being themselves in situations where they are supposed to be acting like white chicks.

The kidnapping plot is far less inspired, involving a career low performance from John Heard as well as the smoking hot Brittany Daniel and model Jaimie King. The only actor that walks out of White Chicks better off is former football star Terry Crews who tops both Marlon and Shawn in the number of laughs, even with far less screentime. 

Crews' character Latrell is a basketball star with a fetish for, ahem, white chicks. When he takes a liking to Marlon in the guise of Tiffany, it leads to the film’s best scene, the restaurant date so prominently shown in the film’s trailer. There is more to that what is seen in the trailer and it's almost worth the price of admission. Just wait till Crews sings, by far the film’s biggest sustained laugh, or maybe it's only sustained laugh.

The problem comes from the idea of parodying Paris and Nicole Hilton who are the oh-so-obvious templates for the film’s bitchy heiresses. Paris is already such an outsized character, on TV every week making a continuing fool of herself and not caring or realizing. Parody of her behavior is far less interesting than the real thing. Worse yet, the little satire that they include has no bite. It's in fact sympathetic to the stick thin, shopping obsessed socialites that are supposed to be its targets.

I know the Wayans Brothers are funny but they need to cultivate better material. Shawn and Marlon are credited with the script with big brother Keenan but there is also a lawsuit soon to hit the courts from a couple guys who claim they submitted this idea to the Wayans’ production company. Why anyone would want to claim this script is beyond me, but on the bright side maybe all these bad jokes weren't entirely the Wayans fault.

Movie Review Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) 

Directed by Alfonso Cuaron 

Written by Steve Kloves 

Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Alan Rickman, David Thewlis, Gary Oldman 

Release Date June 4th, 2004 

Published June 3rd, 2004 

When Chris Columbus announced that he would not direct the third Harry Potter film, Alfonso Cuaron was not the first director who came to mind. His most recent work, the coming of age drama Y Tu Mama Tambien, earned an NC-17 rating. Not exactly the sensibility one would bring to one of the largest family movie franchises in history. A closer look however at Cuaron's body of work shows that he indeed may be the best choice they could have made. Cuaron's innate understanding of teenage emotions and adolescence are exactly where the Harry Potter series is headed with its young characters and the combination is electric.

As we rejoin our hero Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), he is back in the world of muggles, living with his awful Aunt and Uncle. This is not the same Harry Potter however who has cowered from his family's unreasonable behavior. Harry is becoming his own man and when a family friend insults Harry's late parents, he exacts a revenge that could get him kicked out of Hogwarts.

After running away from home, including an exciting ride on a ghostly wizard bus, Harry is told that he won't be punished for his illegal use of magic and he will be allowed to return to Hogwarts. The intimation is that Harry's destiny is so closely linked to that of Hogwarts that he can't be kicked out.

Soon, Harry is reunited with his friends Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint). Before the kids leave for school Harry is told that the criminal Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) has escaped Azkaban prison and may be looking for Harry, though it is unclear why.

On the train to Hogwarts, Harry meets one of his new teachers, Professor Lupin (David Thewlis). He also meets an entity called a dementor, a ghostly creature that is supposed to be hunting Sirius Black but whose actions are uncontrollable. Professor Lupin saves Harry from the dementor's soul sucking attack and once on campus at Hogwarts, the Professor becomes a mentor and friend to Harry as Sirius Black looms. Both Lupin and Sirius Black both have links to Harry's parents that are revealed late in the film

The first two Harry Potter films had the feel of self-contained action movies. One could exist without the other. This third film in the series however feels more connected to the series as a whole. There is a transitory feel to the story with more backstory and fleshing out of the characters. This is why the film feels deeper and richer from a character standpoint than the first two films but also why it has less narrative force.

The building of the backstory and characters shove this film’s main plot into the background. The main plot is supposed to be Harry's confrontation with Sirius Black yet Gary Oldman's character only comes into the film in the third act. The thrust of the film is laying out the characters not only for this one episode but also for the future of the series.

There are a number of good things about this film on its own. Alfonso Cuaron's artistic sensibilities bring a more artistic look to the series. His visuals are richer and deeper than ever before. His use of colors reminded me a little of his underappreciated remake of Great Expectations in 1998, a film that used the color green as the third lead character. This is a beautiful looking film and yet the visuals never overwhelm the characters, they deepen and enrich them.

There has been talk that the young actors (Radcliffe, Watson and Grint) may be getting too old for their characters and may be replaced when Mike Newell directs the next film in the series. I hope that isn't true, as each becomes increasingly comfortable as these characters. Especially good is Watson who has stardom in her future. Her spunk and smarts make Hermione shine even brighter than the star in name. Daniel Radcliffe is improving with every outing. While he still at times looks a little overmatched, another film and he could really show us something.

If I were to choose my favorite Potter film, I would say Chamber Of Secrets, which is the most artistic and exciting movie Chris Columbus ever made. That said, Alfonso Cuaron's Prisoner Of Azkaban is the most visually impressive of the three and it's the most deeply emotional. It lacks only the narrative force and adventure of Chamber. If this is the way the Harry Potter series is going to evolve, the best of all may be yet to come.

Movie Review: The Stepford Wives

The Stepford Wives (2004) 

Directed by Frank Oz 

Written by Paul Rudnick 

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

Release Date June 11th, 2004

Published June 12th, 2004 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Movie Review Saved

Saved! (2004) 

Directed by Brian Dannelly 

Written by Brian Dannelly 

Starring Jena Malone, Mary Louise Parker, Macauley Culkin, Patrick Fugit, Heather Matarazzo, Eva Amurri 

Release Date May 28th, 2004

Published May 28th, 2004 

As fans of Kevin Smith’s Dogma can attest, people do not have a great sense of humor about their religion. This makes the teen comedy Saved! a bold endeavor indeed. A religious satire set in a Catholic high school, Saved! is a savagely witty film about piety and acceptance, about being different and fitting in. Mostly though, it's just darn funny.

Jena Malone stars as Mary, a member of her Catholic high school's most popular clique, The Christian Jewels. The leader of the clique is Hillary Faye (Mandy Moore), a teen who takes her love of Christ more seriously than most girls take their first crush. Hillary has a brother, Roland, played by Macauley Culkin, who is in a wheelchair and she can't tell you enough how much she sacrifices to take care of him, whether he needs it or not.

Mary is an only child whose mother Lillian (Mary Louise Parker) is a dedicated Christian, recently named the number one Christian interior designer in the city. Her job takes her away from home often as does her faith. Also, Lillian has weekly meetings with the school's principal Pastor Skip (Martin Donavon). The meetings are poorly disguised trysts. Pastor Skip happens to have a son named Patrick (Patrick Fugit) who's the head of the Christian skateboarding team and has a crush on Mary.

Mary has a boyfriend, Dean (Chad Faust) who is the source of most of her troubles. While hanging out in Mary's pool Dean confides that he thinks he is gay. Shocked, Mary has an accident in the pool and has a vision of Christ that inspires her to try and save Dean. Her idea however is not the best, she thinks that having sex with him will cure him and that since it is in service of Christ, he will forgive her and restore her virginity. Instead she gets pregnant and Dean is sent to a facility that claims to cure homosexuality.

Also in the cast is Eva Amurri as Cassandra. She is the only Jewish girl at this Christian high school, there only because she has been kicked out of every other school. Cassandra is an absolute outcast and revels in her rebellious role and especially enjoys tormenting Hillary Faye. She really gets Hillary when she takes an interest in Roland and the two begin a tentative relationship. When Mary finds out she is pregnant she turns to Cassandra for help.

It's a terrifically funny setup that leads to a surprisingly softhearted ending. A slight disappointment but because the characters are so likable you can forgive the slight schmaltz. In its smart and savage wit the film evokes a little of the classic black comedy Heathers and the more recent teen satire Mean Girls. The religious setting gives the film some rich targets and it hits most of them with smart, funny observations.

This is a very funny cast of teen actors, especially Jena Malone whose indie smarts will guarantee her a long healthy career. Macauley Culkin is also a standout. Finally coming out of his own shadow, Culkin has a relaxed bemused manner and shows that he may still grow into a good actor. Mandy Moore deserves credit for taking a secondary ensemble role, eschewing her star status in order to take on a tough role.

The film’s best performance however comes from Eva Amurri. For a good portion of the film, Amurri is the conduit for the audience of non-Christians who can't stand the constant milquetoast piety thrust upon them. She savagely rips everything and everyone she sees and is hysterical doing it. By the end of the film she has softened a little but overall it's still the best performance in the film.

First-time feature director Brian Donnelly deserves credit for taking on a tough topic. Religious satire is often demonized and marginalized by controversy, Saved! has been lucky thus far not to have aroused the attention of the religious right. Donnelly, with his co-writer Michael Urban, has crafted a very funny teen movie with an edge that provides some very big and controversial targets. The film however does not rely solely on its setting to provide it's humor but smartly relies on it's talented cast to deliver the laughs. 

Movie Review Simone

Simone (2002) 

Directed by Andrew Niccol 

Written by Andrew Niccol 

Starring Al Pacino, Catherine Keener, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Jay Mohr

Release Date August 23rd, 2002

Published August 26th, 2002 

The question of computer-generated actors is a very recent one. It began just last year, with the computer animated Final Fantasy, a colossal failure. It will soon be put to the test to bring Bruce Lee back from the dead. In the new Andrew Niccol satire Simone the topic is spun comedically though with an actual actress portraying the so-called synthespian.

Al Pacino is struggling director Viktor Taransky, whose last three pictures have bombed. His new film is to be his comeback until his temperamental leading lady (played by Winona Ryder) walks of the picture, leaving Viktor unable to complete the film. The head of the studio, who is also Viktor's ex wife, shelves his film and kicks him off the lot.

While packing up, Viktor is accosted by a mad scientist who claims he has solved Viktor's problem with overly temperamental actors. The scientist (Elias Koteas in a cameo) claims he has created an entirely CGI actress. Taransky doesn't believe him, but after the scientist dies and leaves Viktor the computer program, he discovers the scientist wasn't kidding and Simone is created. Viktor uses Simone to complete his film and she is a huge success. She quickly becomes a huge star but her fame grows out of control and soon Viktor begins too lose his grip on his creation.

A guarded secret during the film’s production was the identity of the actress laying the computer simulation, her name is Rachel Stevens and she is fantastic. Though one of the film’s drawbacks is she isn't called on to do very much. I spent most of the film wanting to see more of Simone.

The film has some biting satire of the nature of celebrity and Hollywood in general, however the film never really comes together. Director Andrew Niccol, the man wrote The Truman Show and directed the film Gattaca here combines element of both those films which give the film a strong base but no general direction. Director Niccol never really figures out what point he is trying to make.

Pacino for his part is game; he doesn't get enough credit for his sense of humor. Simone though doesn't have enough humor. What it does have is very funny but it's not enough for the film’s 2 hour plus runtime and by the end it completely runs out of steam. The ending is extremely unsatisfying and undoes a lot what the film had accomplished until then. It's not a bad film but best to wait till it's on the shelf at blockbuster. 

Movie Review Deadly Rhapsody

Deadly Rhapsody (2001) 

Directed by Don Abernathy 

Written by Don Abernathy, Fred Pittman 

Starring Glenn Plummer, Fred Williamson, Freda Payne, Ice T, M.C Hammer, Tone Loc 

Release Date March 15th, 2001 

Published November 10th, 2002 

We have heard of troubled productions before. Films like Waterworld, Batman & Robin and Titanic among many others. However I have never seen a production completely botched from the first frame that was shot all the way to its release. The film Deadly Rhapsody is a complete mess. It's likely you have never heard of this movie. If there is any justice in the world you never will. Take this review as a warning in case this movie ever does see the light of day.

This pathetic production stars Glenn Plummer (South Central, Speed) as Roughneck, a fresh from jail parolee looking to reconnect with his mother (Freda Payne), his Uncle (Fred "The Hammer" Williamson) and his brother who remains unknown. Roughneck also has a score to settle with an ex-friend who got him sent to jail named Jelly, no clue who played this guy either.

None of this plot description means anything because the script direction and overall production of Deadly Rhapsody is something only Ed Wood could appreciate. Scenes are out of frame, there are numerous meaningless scenes of people driving, walking and opening doors. There are numerous unnecessary closeups, gratuitous nudity, and characters introduced at random. In one scene, as Plummer's character is talking to his love interest, the camera begins to just drift away and for a solid minute we stare at empty space while characters are talking.

The film looks as if it were shot on a home video camera by a twelve year old with A.D.D. Despite this ridiculousness the film still attracted recognizable stars including Plummer, Williamson, Freda Payne, Ice T, MC Hammer and Tone Loc. It's as if these stars were tricked into making this movie thinking they were just rehearsing in front of a video camera. The film reminded me of Steve Martin's Bowfinger, especially in Hammer's brief scene where he looks like he's being accosted by film cameras.

The most offensive thing about this film is not just its botched production but also the film being released at all. Deadly Rhapsody is a straight to video cheapie slapped together with recognizable African-American actors to take advantage of an urban market who producers cynically believe will watch anything with a black face on the cover box.

Let us all come together and communally hope that this film is canned forever. And if my review has sparked a need to see this movie just to see how bad it really is, you have to trust me, you don't want to see this.