Movie Review: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul

Diary of a Wimpy Kid The Long Haul (2017) 

Directed by David Bowers

Written by Jeff Kinney, David Bowers

Starring Jason Drucker, Alicia Silverstone, Tom Everett Scott, Charlie Wright

Release Date May 19th, 2017

Published May 20th, 2017

What did the world do to deserve a reboot of the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” franchise? What was it about the mediocre previous entries in this franchise that inspired producers, a screenwriter and a director to believe this was something they should dedicate time and effort to? Well, time anyway, effort, as you will find from reading this review, is a questionable aspect of the making of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul.”

We are once again brought into the world of Greg Heffley (Jason Drucker) an imaginative kid who continues to find himself in humiliating situations. Greg’s latest humiliation has gone viral after a trip to a family restaurant leads to Greg chasing his little brother Manny (played by twin kids Wyatt and Dylan Waters) into a ballpit where Greg ends up getting his hand stuck in a used diaper and leads to him being referred to in internet memes as ‘Diaper Hands.’

That opening alone could tell you how charmless “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul” is but the film somehow manages to find one new low after another. Greg’s family is taking a road trip to Mee-Maw’s house and along the way Greg wants to trick his parents, slumming former stars Tom Everett Scott and Alicia Silverstone, into taking him to videogame convention while Greg’s brother Rowley (Charlie Wright) acts dumb and adds little to nothing to the story.

The road trip is a mere set up for some of the most disgusting gross out jokes this side of a horror film. Poop, puke and body horror are employed throughout “The Long Haul” to the point where I nearly walked out, something I haven’t done since Samuel L. Jackson graphically fed laxatives to bad guys for an explosive diarrhea gag in the forgotten action movie “Formula 53.” This film is nearly as offensive as that R-Rated movie despite somehow carrying a PG Rating.

“Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul” also features a subplot about another family on a road trip who keep crossing paths with Greg. Jokes about Greg accidentally sleeping in the family’s bed, in his underwear, in a strange man’s bed, is just one of a series of highly questionable gags. The father of this competing family, referred to for some reason as Beardo and played by Chris Coppola is portrayed as wanting to murder Greg throughout the film. The character lapses in and out of a murderous rage each time he see’s Greg and again and again director David Bowers seems to find this notion hilarious.

In one epically bizarre homage Greg somehow winds up in Beardo’s shower and the scene devolves into a remake of the shower scene in “Psycho.” In what universe is a “Psycho” homage a good idea for a family road trip comedy? What kid in the audience is getting that reference? What parent in the audience feels that this homage is remotely appropriate for a family comedy? WHO THINKS THIS IS OK????

Please do not tell me that I am overreacting or that it’s “Just a kid’s movie.” If anything, we should hold children’s entertainment to a higher standard of quality than we do entertainment aimed at older audiences. Children’s tastes are just not evolving and growing. Exposing a child to entertainment that is beneath contempt as “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul” truly is, is irresponsible. This is a film so execrable that it could do permanent damage to a child’s taste; this is the kind of kid’s movie that creates Adam Sandler fans.

I am not being hyperbolic when I say that “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul” is the worst movie of 2017. Gross, unfunny, and genuinely unpleasant to sit through, I am truly shocked that major movie studios still allow such movies to reach mass audiences. This is a dispiriting experience. If ever you need proof that Hollywood does not care about what it puts into the world “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul” is that proof.

Movie Review: All About Steve

All About Steve (2009) 

Directed by Phil Traill

Written by Kim Barker

Starring Sandra Bullock, Bradley Cooper, Thomas Haden Church, Ken Jeong

Release Date September 4th, 2009

Published September 4th, 2009

You don't watch a movie like All About Steve as much as witness it. Like a crime in progress or a car accident, you were there, you were slightly traumatized and later, in a daze of disbelief, you recounted your experience to authorities. All About Steve is such a remarkably bad movie that it may actually be an insult to a car wreck to make the comparison.

All About Steve began life as a drama about a mentally challenged woman whose syndrome involves an obsession with crossword puzzles. Through a pity blind date she meets a man who was unaware that he was going out with a handicapped person. After being accosted by her, he tries to reject her in a way that spares her feelings. Instead, he stokes her fire and she begins a cross country trek to show her love for him.

It was to be a dramatic journey of self discovery for this spunky mentally challenged gal and a role that would deliver to whomever played it; a chance to show real dramatic range. Somewhere along the line things were derailed in a fashion that even Amtrak could not imagine.

OK, I was lying about the film's origin as a drama. As far as I know, All About Steve is everything its creators intended it to be. It is a broad, boneheaded, nonsensical romantic comedy about one crazy person chasing a sad wretch across state lines aided by people of similar diminished mental capacities. What anyone saw in this remarkably misguided screenplay is truly baffling. 

Sandra Bullock stars as Mary. She somehow subsists as a crossword puzzle creator. We are told that this is her only job and that she only publishes in one paper, once a week. If there is a newspaper in this country paying a crossword puzzle maker a living wage for one days work then I think we know why the papers are going out of business.

Mary has no social life. So, her meddling parents set her up on a blind date. This poor, doomed soul is Steve played by Bradley Cooper. Subjected to 10 minutes with Mary, in which she says about a million words and attempts to have sex with him, before they have even pulled away from the curb of her parents' home.

Steve blows her off nicely but saying he has to work and 'wishes she could come' he unwittingly sets himself on a path to disaster. Soon, Mary is fired from her job for somehow publishing an all Steve crossword (How did it get in the paper? All she did was drop it off? Did they fire all the editors but keep the type setter and and the wacko crossword chick? Logical questions are not welcome here.), Mary hits the road to follow Steve to work.

Work for Steve is as a cameraman for a fictional cable news outlet. His reporter pal, Thomas Haden Church, thinks Mary the stalker is a funny prank and encourages her by repeatedly telling her where the crew is headed next. Mary follows to a protest involving a baby with three legs, a hurricane/tornado and finally to a sinkhole that somehow swallowed several deaf children.

The three legged baby, if you don't get the joke already, is one of a number of juvenile jokes in this blisteringly stupid movie. A baby with three legs is the subject of protesters who want to the leg cut off and those who don't who then get to chant 'save the third leg'. If you need the joke explained maybe you are the audience for this movie.

Wildly moronic, utterly inept and a just plain disaster, All About Steve is not merely one of the worst films of 2009, it's a candidate for worst of the last decade. Poor Bradley Cooper seems absolutely lost in the morass of this idiocy. Sandra Bullock on the other hand indulges every last moronic twist.

I could almost recommend this bizarrely horrendous movie just for the explanation that Bullock as Mary gives for her blindingly red boots. It's a brief bit of dialogue but it is so astoundingly doltish that you can't help but indulge a condescending, ear splitting, gut laugh, not quite what the movie intended for this moment.

If I see a movie as bad as All About Steve again this year, I may have to quit the critic biz. There is a limit to the mindblowingly awful that one person can endure. I think I am safe. All About Steve sets such a high bar of badness it would be remarkable if anything could approach it.

Movie Review: District 9

District 9 (2009) 

Directed by Neil Blomkamp

Written by Neil Blomkamp

Starring Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, David James 

Release Date August 14th, 2009 

Published August 14th, 2009 

On the surface Districyt 9 looks like it could be a reolutionary work of science fiction filmmaking. It's stylish with some extraordinary CGI. That's the surface. What is revealed upon actually seeing the movie is a relatively familiar chase movie that brushes over social commentary in favor of an garden variety action plot.

District 9 stars South African film and television star Sharlito Copley as Wikus Van De Merwe. Wikus is a flunky for a corporate military outfit who, because he is the boss's son in law, is placed in charge of a massive operation. It will be Wikus's job to oversee the eviction and safe transport of refugees from a camp known as District 9.

Oh, I failed to mention, the residents of district 9 happen to be aliens stranded on earth by busted space ship. More than 20 years these aliens, given the un-PC nickname prawns, came to earth and their ship settled over Johannesburg. A humanatarian effort found the aliens huddled on the ship dying of starvation and brought them down to the surface where they were given shelter and food.

All these years later district 9 is a ghetto filled with crime, violence and poverty. The aliens are treated badly by humans, hated by most, exploited by some including a group of Nigerians who first discovered the aliens addiction to cat food. Also taking advantage of the aliens is MNU, the company which employs our hero Wikus. Part of his job isn't merely moving the aliens it's discovering their weapons so that the company can figure out how to use and exploit them.

In the course of his job; Wikus is exposed to an alien virus and begins developing alien skin, eventually even a lobster like claw just like the prawns. Taken into custody by his employers, Wikus soon finds himself the subject of the same scientific exploitation as the aliens he has treated so badly. When he escapes there is only one place to go and there the movie kicks into an action mode that is where it  is most comfortable.

Don't be fooled into thinking District 9 is anything more than sci fi action of the highest calibur. There are those who take the easy shots this movie fires off as insight and social commentary but the fact is the very broad strokes are merely a backdrop for the film's real purpose, kick ass action movie chase scenes and fights.

Director Neil Blomkamp, who co-wrote the script for District 9 with Terry Tatchell, alludes to and obfuscates deeper points about racism and corporate greed but those really aren't what he is interested in. The potshots at a company vaguely like the real life KBR (formerly Halliburton) are easy and cheap. The racial stuff is a little offensive, drawing as they do comparisons between ugly, disgusting, savage aliens and real life mistreated humans.

That said, the action of District 9 is top notch. I particularly enjoyed allusions to The Defiant Ones as Wikus and an alien co-hort run from well armed commandos. Is it a little cheesy when Wikus tells the alien to go on without him ('Go, I'll hold'em off')? Sure, but the scene is such a well done homage and parody of similar, humans only, chase scenes, I willingly forgave the cliche.

When Wikus jumps inside a giant alien version of the War Monger vehicle from Iron Man, the action amps up another degree and District 9 becomes one kick ass action flick.

If you go into District 9 looking for something more than fantastic effects and butt kicking action you may be disappointed. District 9 is just posing as social commentary. Having a brain is just a pre-tense, a way to give the appearance of depth to something that is really just a visceral, epic, chase movie.

Taken just for what it is, District 9 is one of the best action movies of the year. If that is not enough for you I suggest you skip it.

Movie Review: 'Bella'

Bella (2007) 

Directed by Alejandro Gomez Monteverde

Written by Alejandro Gomez Monteverde

Starring Eduardo Verastegui, Tammy Blanchard 

Release Date October 26th, 2007

Published October 26th, 2007

The right wing politicos have been salivating over Bella. This tiny drama about a woman considering an abortion and the conversation she has about her decision with a troubled co-worker has been passed around by the church crowd and is being pushed as the rare, outspoken pro-life movie to come out of Hollywood.

Whether that was the intention of writer-director Alejandro Monteverde is debatable. Watching Bella and comparing it with the hype surrounding it; you get an odd picture of just what this movie is. Away from the hype, Bella is a thoughtful conversation about life between two interesting and engaging people. With the hype you can divine a message if you want one but the film is far from strident about it's political edge.

Eduardo Verastegui stars in Bella as Jose, a former soccer star whose life was changed in one fateful moment. Today he works for his brother Manny (Manny Perez) as a chef at a popular restaurant. Well, he did work there, but today he lost his job. Jose walked out on Manny after the boss fired Nina (Tammy Blanchard) for once again showing up late.

Nina had a good reason however, she just found out she was pregnant. Sensing the injustice of her firing and her obvious need for comfort, Jose walked off the job to tend to her. This begins a long conversation that takes them across New York City and to the outskirts of Manhattan for dinner with Jose's family, minus Manny who is dealing with his brother's absence.

Nina has made up her mind, she is getting an abortion. Losing her job was the clincher. She already felt that she was in no position to raise a child. Now, facing the idea of having to apply for jobs while waiting to give birth is just something she cannot imagine. For his part, Jose is supportive but questioning. Though he doesn't reveal any specific belief about the morality of abortion, he wants to know if Nina is certain of her decision and fully aware of the consequences and dangers.

There is a distinct lack of stridency in director Alejandro Monteverde's approach to abortion. The film is no polemic though if one chooses to, they could divine that the filmmakers are indeed pro-life. That belief is not openly expressed because I'm not sure that is what the film is really about. Rather, Bella is about these two characters and their specific situation.

The decisions made by Jose and Nina are their decisions and not ones that feel mandated by an agenda. In that account I didn't mind Bella so much. I like these two characters,I found both to be gentle, thoughtful and sweet. Their conversation is thoughtful and revealing without a hint of agenda or talking points. If the film meanders a bit, it's only because there isn't much more to it than a single conversation.

The thing about Bella and it's pro life message is that it is not all that unique. The message is certainly not nearly as unique in a Hollywood movie as the right wing agenda types would have you believe. Think about the last time you saw abortion portrayed in a mainstream movie. The one instance that jumps to mind is Fast Times At Ridgemont High a comedy that was somewhat breezy about the issue and likely one of the reasons the right wing see's pro-choice conspiracy inside every film canister.

Think really hard though about Hollywood's true attitude toward abortion. Three of this years most talked about films Knocked Up, Waitress and Juno flirted with idea of abortion but were immediately dismissive. Granted each film needed those babies for plot purposes but check the attitudes. The characters in Knocked Up can't even bring themselves to say the word abortion, inserting the nonsense phrase ‘smashmortion’ as a dodge.

Keri Russell's Waitress barely takes a moment to ponder the idea before she dismisses the idea. Even the idea of selling the baby on the black market was discussed as a more appealing idea. I've not seen but trailers for Juno and I know that abortion is not part of that films teen pregnancy scenario. Juno centers around a knocked up teen who decides to give up her baby to a couple she finds in the newspaper.

So where, I ask, is the left wing, pro-choice agenda? I do not argue that Hollywood is not inherently liberal. The industry has churned out a number of anti-war films this year that attest to a left wing perspective. That perspective however, is nowhere to be found when it comes to abortion.

Again, I feel it necessary to point out that Bella is not really as much of an agenda film as the right wing would have you believe. Rather, Bella is a thoughtful discussion of life, and the choices available, between two kind, intelligent and engaging characters. It's unfortunate that outside agendas have become attached to this film. The idea that Bella is an anti-abortion movie has become attached unfairly. Bella isn’t anti-abortion, it’s pro-friendship and conversation and the choices made by individuals that aren’t driven by the politics of the day. 

Movie Review: Waltz with Bashir

Waltz with Bashir (2008) 

Directed by Ari Folman 

Written by Ari Folman

Starring Ari Folman 

Release Date June 5th, 2008

Published March 19th, 2009

Isn't it wonderful to know that with all of the sameness at the movies these days there are still filmmakers out there experimenting with the form and telling personal stories while doing it. Certainly, I appreciate a movie like I Love You Man for giving me characters that I like and a seemingly endless supply of laughs. The virtues of that film are not forgotten or discounted.

My point is this, it's just nice to know that not every movie adheres to formula and not every filmmaker simply reiterates and underlines what has come before him. In the world there are filmmakers like Ari Folman who push aside the typical and the expected and deliver something wholly unique. But, Folman doesn't stop. After deciding and executing his unique form, he also takes care to deliver a deeply personal and effecting story.

Waltz With Bashir recounts, in a pseudo-documentary form, Folman's experience during the 1981 was between Israel and Lebanon. I say pseudo-documentary because rather than simply sitting down his old war buddies in front of a camera and interviewing them about their experiences and interspersing in between interviews some found footage from soldiers or news broadcasts, Folman animates the whole thing in the dreamike fashion reminiscent of Richard Linklater's seminal effort Waking Life.

The film begins with the recounting of a dream. Folman is in a bar with a friend, Boaz, who recounts his nightly nightmare. He is in his apartment and outside his window 26 angry dogs charge through the streets in search of him. Why 26? Because during the invasion of Beirut it was Boaz's duty to shoot dogs before they could wake and alert their owners of the impending arrival of Israeli soldiers. Boaz remembers the looks on the dogs faces and the exact number of dogs he killed.

Boaz is curious if his filmmaker friend can help him somehow get past this memory. Boaz's memory ignites Folman's long dormant memories and one prominent thought about floating off the coast of some Lebanese city. He and two other soldiers are swimming in the nude and looking up at the high rise hotels as bright flares suddenly light the sky and they slowly emerge from the water, dress and take to the streets.

Folman wants to remember more of what happens and the journey takes him and several old friends on a unique and stirring journey into the past and into the nature of war and death.

Waltz With Bashir is one of the most striking and memorable filmgoing experiences I have ever had the pleasure of witnessing. Such a remarkable piece of work that afterward I just sort of sat and pondered it for awhile. I will carry this movie with me for a very long time. The final images transcend from animation to real life and the effect is heart rending and sad and strangely cathartic as if Folman were fully recovering his memory and we with him now can carry these real images in full flower.

Had I seen Waltz With Bashir last year it would have contested Rachel Getting Married for the best movie of 2008. A stunning work of heart and genius like few films I have ever seen, Waltz With Bashir is playing at the Nova 6 in Moline for at least a week and you must, MUST see it.

Movie Review: New York Ninja

New York Ninja (1985) (2021) 

Directed by John Liu, Kurtis Spieler 

Written by John Liu, Kurtis Spieler

Starring John Liu, Don The Dragon Wilson, Cynthia Rothrock, Linnea Quigley, Michael Berryman

Release Date October 21st, 2021

Published August 22nd, 2022

The movie New York Ninja was lost to time. In 1984 director and actor John Liu gathered a cast and a crew and made an entire movie. Then, he never finished the movie. 37 years later the video distribution company Vinegar Syndrome, a boutique movie distribution company which specializes in movies few other studios wanted, outlandish and bizarre movies from foreign countries and the like, discovered that they had an unedited camera negative of the movie. 

This means that they had enough of the actual completed footage to edit into a complete movie. What they did not have, unfortunately, was the soundtrack including the recorded dialogue for all of the characters. That was unfortunate but the end of the road for this project as Vinegar Syndrome’s Curtis Spieler cut the movie together, wrote a script to match the action and tone of the film and then hired actors to provide voices, including some true B-movie legends, and New York Ninja was reborn. 

New York Ninja was the brainchild of actor-director-martial artist, John Liu. It’s rather unknown why Liu abandoned the project and how it ended being transferred around from owner to owner before ending up at Vinegar Syndrome. Regardless of the circumstances, New York Ninja is quite a revelation. That’s not to say it is a good movie, it most certainly is not, but it is a classically 80s style bit of nonsense that would have been right at home in the canon of Cannon Films or under the banner of the legendary schlockmeister Roger Corman. 

The story finds our lead character, played by John Liu, greeting his newly pregnant girlfriend. The girlfriend may as well have deadmeat tattooed on her forehead as they share a confusing interaction that ends after she ominously talks of her excitement about becoming a mother. In this conception of New York City street gangs roam the streets as of cosplaying The Warriors but with Halloween masks. They rob just about everyone and those who witness the robberies, assaults and rapes, simply turn the other cheek and go on with their business. 

Liu’s pregnant galpal happens to witness another woman being assaulted and because she didn’t just go on her merry way like nothing was happening, one of the thugs breaks away from the assault to murder her in broad daylight, on street teeming with cars, shooting her multiple times as she fumbles down some subway stairs. It’s a brilliantly unsubtle bit of off-kilter violence. You know this death is coming, everything about this screams motivation for a man to become a vengeance seeking Ninja. 

But first, John Liu has to show his range as he grieves his loss in the strangest way imaginable.  In a scene that I imagine would have resonated with a young Tommy Wiseau, Liu is alone on a rooftop of an apartment building where he had laid out a picnic for he and his lady love. He is desperately sad and after sending his news reporter coworker away, he proceeds to destroy the picnic table including a photo of himself and the girlfriend which he shatters. He then picks up the pieces of glass and crushes them into his hands leaving him cut and bleeding. 

When did he set up the picnic? Did he find out she was dead while on the rooftop? Did he set up an elaborate picnic on a bare rooftop after he knew she was already dead? None of these questions are answered and, even if they were answered, I can’t imagine the answers making any sense. All I do know is that this scene is awesomely funny. It’s a glorious piece of unintentional comedy, both poignant and hysterical, poignant for being so pathetic. 

In case you need it laid out any more blatantly, the death of his girlfriend is the impetus for Liu to become the New York Ninja, a martial arts vigilante. Or it will be his motivation, eventually. Before we actually see the New York Ninja in action we have to see him grieve in different locations and eventually show off some of his fighting skills out of costume when some thugs try to steal a thing he appears to be praying to? Not sure what it was but it was gold and he didn’t want to give it up. 

It actually takes forever for Liu to swear revenge. Before that, he becomes the Ninja and sets about saving random New Yorkers from random attacks by one of the City’s many roving bands of rapists and thieves. It’s actually an unintentionally hilarious send up of the perception of New York City in the 1980s. If you weren’t living in New York in 1984 you might have assumed it was overrun by gangs of rapists and thieves based on news coverage and comedy acts. Homer Simpson would appreciate the New York Ninja version of New York City as if it were a documentary. 

All the while the New York Ninja is finding himself as a crime fighter he’s missing the major criminal enterprise that was responsible for murdering his girlfriend. Considering that this gang is kidnapping attractive women, in broad daylight, and committing various murders, you might assume that Liu would target this group but that doesn’t happen until the final act when Liu finally gets around to trying to rescue nearly 20 or so beautiful women who were kidnapped in broad daylight and have been reported on repeatedly on the television network that Liu himself works for as a sound guy for the same reporter who is covering that story. 

Much of this odd, disconnected story was intentional, for comic effect. The intention of co-director, screenwriter and editor Kurtis Spieler who took John Liu's bizarre movie and pushed it to new Z-movie heights. With the help of distributor Vinegar Syndrome, Spieler created a new script, had that script performed by well known martial arts movie stars, and mixed the new comic dialogue over the unfinished work of original filmmaker John Liu. Famed figures such as scream Queen Linnea Quigley, beloved character actor Michael Berryman, and martial arts legends Cynthia Rothrock and Don The Dragon Wilson have leant their voices to the new track of New York Ninja. 

Now, I love the idea behind what Kuris Spieler has created here and some of the movie is quite fun. However, I can't help but feel a pang of disappointment. It's not a bad thing that we're all in on the joke of New York Ninja but it does take away some of the magic of it all. Take for instance, a movie like Miami Connection. The magic and appeal of Miami Connection is that no one involved is aware of the joke we in the audience are sharing. We are all laughing at the genuine effort of the filmmakers and the poignant, earnest failure is a delicious irony. 

You simply cannot manufacture that kind of ironic appreciation. There is only so much of that in New York Ninja and it comes from what little of John Liu's work remains. His deeply misguided plotting and lack of awareness of how a story should flow. In fairness, the dialogue created by Spieler is earnestly delivered and fitting for the strange anti-narrative of Liu's movie but knowing that this dialogue was crafted for the movie takes some of the thrill of New York Ninja away. 

Maybe it's just me, I felt the same way about the manufactured badness of Sharknado and never enjoyed any aspect of that brief cultural phenomenon. Perhaps, if you did like Sharknado and you don't mind having your so bad its good created with specific intent, then you might enjoy New York Ninja. For me, I will be over here enjoying Miami Connection, Fatal Deviation, and The Room. 

Movie Review: Big Eyes

Big Eyes (2014) 

Directed by Tim Burton 

Written by Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski

Starring Amy Adams, Christoph Waltz, Danny Huston, Krysten Ritter

Release Date December 25th, 2014

Published December 25th, 2014

Few people have a face as punch-able as Christoph Waltz. The supercilious grin he affects in "Inglourious Basterds" and brings back for his villainous role in Tim Burton's "Big Eyes" desperately invites one to pop him. Of course, it's not just his face that makes you want to poke him one, it's that arrogant manner, that superior tone and hardcore obnoxiousness. But, for a moment, just watch that jaw as he slips toward that grin and tell me you don't know exactly where you want your fist to land. 

That's the power of Waltz, a man remarkably capable of making you loathe him, a capability that is both a blessing and a curse to the new movie "Big Eyes." On the one hand, Waltz is playing a real-life character quite worthy of a sock on the jaw. Art phony Walter Keane ho attempted to steal credit for his wife's remarkably popular art. On the other hand, Waltz's Keane is so loathsome I could barely stay in the theater to watch.

"Big Eyes" tells a story of fraud and how a meek woman through inner strength, and an assist from Jehovah, overcame her domineering fraud of a husband to claim her life's work. Amy Adams portrays Margaret Keane as an impulsive woman who flees her first husband for unspecified reasons and heads for San Francisco with her daughter in tow and no plan whatsoever for how to provide for them.

In very short order Margaret meets and marries Walter Keane (Waltz) who dazzles her with stories of living in Paris and supporting himself as an artist/real estate agent. At first, Walter is supportive and the two work together. However, when Margaret's unique paintings of saucer-eyed children gain attention over Walter's street scene of Paris, he decides he should pretend the “Big Eyes” are his work ... for promotional purposes only, of course.

That Walter Keane was a fraud is relatively well known, because he was an especially successful fraud. "Big Eyes" demonstrates how Margaret enabled the fraud and why it persisted for so long.

Adams is wonderful at portraying multitudes of emotion on her splendid features, especially with her narrow blue eyes, which ache and delight with equal fervor. With her voice barely a quiver, Adams brings Margaret's strength forward in brief dissertations about how personal her art is, and we know eventually that strength will transition into action.

After years of letting Walter co-opt her work and bastardize it into a pop phenomenon, Margaret left Walter and moved with her daughter to Hawaii. There she became a Jehovah's Witness and decided it was time to tell the truth about her paintings.

Here director Tim Burton directs a delightful scene in which Margaret reveals the truth to a random Hawaiian radio DJ who thought he was simply interviewing the wife of Walter Keane.

"Big Eyes" is certainly not without its delightful moments -- not just in its depiction of the radio show, but its scenes of the aftermath of people seeing Margaret's story on the AP wire. Then it appears in newspapers finally reaches Walter in San Francisco, where his indignant reaction to the story is completely hysterical. Also delightful is the courtroom follow-up as Margaret sues Walter for the proceeds of the “Big Eyes” paintings. Waltz acts out both sides of a cross-examination of himself about his creative process.

In the courtroom scene, Waltz becomes his most unctuously punch-able. If you didn't truly despise Walter prior to this scene, you will truly wish him ill by the end of his courtroom shenanigans. I have no idea how much of Walter Keane's work in court as his own idiot lawyer is actually based on the real-life case, but if it was anything like in the movie, he's lucky he wasn't strung up in the town square. 

While I was delighted by the courtroom scene and Waltz has moments of glorious, comic oiliness, there are times when the drama becomes too much. The scene in which Walter first seizes credit for the paintings is infuriating to watch, as are all scenes in the film featuring Waltz opposite Danny Huston. He portrays the film's narrator, a gossip columnist for a San Francisco newspaper. Huston has an unctuousness to match Waltz's, and the two of them together is more insufferable than entertaining. 

I can't say Tim Burton needed to cut back on Walter. That's relatively impossible given the true story. But some kind of modulation on the tone of his performance is, I believe, a reasonable request. The performance is at times so detestable that I wanted to leave the theater. 

So, do I recommend "Big Eyes?" That's a good question. I really don't know. I appreciate the effort the film puts forth to tell this worthy, true-life story, but some of the film is nearly impossible to sit through. Waltz is incredibly effective, almost too effective, at making us despise him. Still, I can't help but credit the film for provoking such a visceral reaction in a viewer. 

I really hate Walter Keane as he's portrayed in "Big Eyes." In that way I can't help but recommend the movie, with the caveat that this film will turn off as many people as it entertains. Adams is wonderful and the film is the best thing with Tim Burton's name on it in quite some time.

I still want to punch Christoph Waltz. 

Movie Review: Unbroken

Unbroken (2014) 

Directed by Angelina Jolie 

Written by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, Richard LaGravenese, William Nicholson

Starring Jack O'Connell, Domhnall Gleeson, Miyavi, Garrett Hedlund, Finn Whitrock

Release Date December 25th, 2014

Published December 24th, 2014 

Angelina Jolie's "Unbroken" is an incredibly powerful experience. The story of real life war hero Louis Zamperini is a confidently directed film that evokes the best of Clint Eastwood, Jolie's director on "Changeling," while also showing Jolie as a sensitive, inquisitive and assured artist. Far more accomplished and commercial than her directorial debut "In the Land of Blood and Honey," "Unbroken" is the announcement of Angelina Jolie as a director of exceptional talent.

"Unbroken," based on a book by Laura Hillenbrand, tells the story of Zamperini, the son of Italian immigrant parents. He became an Olympic athlete and then a war hero, fighting in World War II in the Pacific. Zamperini, played by English actor Jack O'Connell, was just a teenager when he traveled to Germany to compete in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. He was barely into his 20s when he was sent to the Pacific Theater and wound up spending 45 days on a raft after the crash of his B1 bomber.

For most, a plane crash and surviving for 45 days in a raft with two other soldiers would be enough for a lifetime. But Zamperini's story has barely begun. Zamperini and fellow crash survivor Russell Allen "Phil" Phillips were saved from their predicament. Unfortunately, their rescue was a Japanese war ship off the coast of Marshall Island, a Japanese stronghold in 1943. Zamperini would spend the next two years, until the very end of World War II, in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps. On top of that, his status as an American Olympic athlete earned him the ire of the sadistic Japanese camp commander Matsushiro Watanaba, nicknamed “The Bird.”

The Bird repeatedly tortured Zamperini, forcing him to race camp guards, despite his obviously emaciated condition. When Zamperini loses the race, The Bird strikes him with a bamboo cane, a sadistic device that The Bird employs almost exclusively in relation to Zamperini. A bizarre relationship develops between the two, one that Zamperini doesn't want but indulges to avoid further torture. The Bird chooses to confide in Zamperini as if they are somehow bonded. This strange bond is what pays off the film's final, triumphant moments, when The Bird gives Zamperini an almost-impossible task and Zamperini uses what strength and will he has left to stick it to The Bird.

That Zamperini survived the war is remarkable given the extraordinary obstacles he faced. Director Jolie dramatizes these obstacles in visceral, frightening fashion. The crisp, beautiful cinematography of Roger Deakins, likely on his way to a 12th Oscar nomination, gives "Unbroken" a classic Hollywood look without taking away any of the gut-wrenching power of the story. The film proceeds fearlessly from one set piece to the next, creating both a entertaining and moving portrait of an American hero without becoming simpleminded hagiography.

Much credit belongs to star Jack O'Connell, who delivers a natural, human performance. O'Connell captures the complex dimensions of Zamperini, who began the war as a devout agnostic and slowly came to give his life completely to God. Stories abound about Zamperini who, after the war, preached the word of God and traveled back to Japan to meet with the guards who tortured him for two solid years. Zamperini returned to forgive them for what they did and to tell them about the word of Jesus Christ. Zamperini allegedly even converted a couple of his former tormentors (but The Bird refused to see Zamperini).

Jolie beautifully captures the life and defining faith of Zamperini in "Unbroken." It's easy to be cynical about how someone who survived such trauma would have a “come to Jesus” moment, but "Unbroken" doesn't linger on that. Instead, Jolie sticks to the fact of Zamperini's faith that created within him the will to survive and drove him to become an inspiration to his fellow prisoners.

"Unbroken" is a remarkable portrait of heroism and triumph, filled with rich details of an extraordinary life. Here’s a man who punched a shark, even captured and ate a shark raw. He accomplished incredible feats in about a decade of his life that was so vast its individual pieces could be complete movies on their own. 

That Jolie has made this life into one singular, incredible film is another feat to be celebrated.

Movie Review: Two for the Money

Two for the Money (2005) 

Directed by D.J Caruso 

Written by Dan Gilroy

Starring Al Pacino, Matthew McConaughey, Rene Russo, Armand Assante, Jeremy Piven

Release Date October 7th, 2005

Published October 7th, 2005 

Director D.J. Caruso may have peaked too soon. His feature directing debut The Salton Sea is a gritty noir masterpiece that overcomes simplistic comparisons to Tarantino by out Quentin-ing Quentin. The combination of grit and style is perfect and everything comes together with the career redefining performance of Val Kilmer.

So what happened? Caruso moved up to studio pictures with the thriller Taking Lives and delivered a stylish piece of mainstream formulaic garbage. Now with yet another slick mainstream disappointment, albeit much improved, it is definitely time to return to the indies. The sports gambling melodrama Two For The Money is fast paced and stylish but compared to Salton Sea, it's simply not up to snuff when coming from a former indie auteur.

Two For The Money stars Matthew McConaughey as Brandon Long, a failed college quarterback who, after blowing out his knee in a big game, keeps his NFL dreams alive with failed tryouts in the arena league. While he awaits his return to the field he works as a wage slave at nine hundred number recording service.

Brandon's life-changing moment comes when the guy who records the NFL picks gets sick and Brandon takes his place. His ability to pick winners is Rainman-esqe and earns him the attention of gambling guru, Walter Abrams (Al Pacino). Abrams' sports advisors are a fly by night operation that skirts the anti-sports gambling laws by "advising" gamblers in exchange for a piece of their winnings.

Abrams transplants Brandon from his mother's house to a penthouse in New York City. Soon Brandon Lang is gone and John Anthony 'The Million Dollar Man' is in. Again Brandon's winning streak is uncanny and millions begin pouring in. However, as Jeremy Piven's fellow prognosticator points out; the sports gambling gods are fickle and soon Brandon/John Anthony's win streak is over.

Two For The Money moves at a quick clip and is a slickly organized character piece that falls prey to sports movie cliches even while only on the outskirts of the actual sport. What Fast and The Furious did for fast cars Two For The Money does for sports gambling, capturing the pulse pounding excitement, the visceral high of winning and the cost of losing.

What the film does best is capture the character of a true addict. Pacino essays a performance here with elements of his satanic character in Devils Advocate and his beleaguered publicist in the underappreciated People I Know and crafts one of his best performances of the past ten years. Pacino has not been this on key since Donnie Brasco and while it's not an Oscar worthy return to form-- the film itself is too flawed for that-- watching Pacino on his game is a real delight.

Matthew McConaughey still has a way to go to shed the lightweight image he has earned for onscreen fare like How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days and The Wedding Planner and offscreen for his much publicized love life and bongo playing. Breezy plot free actioners like Sahara have not helped either. In Two For The Money McConaughey strikes beefcake poses and makes goo goo eyes at Rene Russo, as Pacino's wife, but fails to deliver anything below the surface.

A feature narrative at its most basic level follows a character through a life changing experience that should make them wiser in the end. Essentially the lead character needs to learn a lesson. In Two For The Money Brandon begins one way and ends up just the same way. You never get the sense that he learns anything other than you can't trust a man like Walter Abrams. What lesson does Brandon really learn? How is he changed forever? Is he just never going to work for Walter again? Not much of a lesson really.

Pacino's character has a similarly flat arc. In the beginning Walter is reformed from every possible vice. As Russo's character puts it, if there is a meeting for it he goes. Once he takes on Brandon, cleans him up, and starts living vicariously through his winning, he succumbs to his demons and soon is the devil he once was. But was he ever really reformed? The film dangles a number of loose ends as to Walter's many vices and never ties them up.

Despite the troubled plot there is still alot to enjoy about Two For The Money, especially in D.J. Caruso's lightning fast pace and stylish big city setting. Caruso keeps the movie running at a rate that seems impossible to sustain and keeps it going all the way to the finish. The fast pace is probably there to cover up the thin narrative but it also serves to amp up the visceral excitement of winning and losing that pervades every scene. What Two For The Money lacks in depth it nearly makes up for in excitement.

But the best part about Two For The Money is the old school Pacino in rare form. Watch a scene where Pacino and McConaughey attend a gamblers anonymous meeting. Pacino's soliloquy on the gamblers love of losing is a four minute masterpiece of delivery and actorly flair. It's so good he really should have taken a curtain call.

The film captures the high that winning and even losing gamblers feel when in the thick of a big score. With a quick pace and polished look you barely notice that the film is all shiny surface. The filmmaking is so strong I can recommend it simply for the panache and composition alone. I cannot makes heads or tales of a betting line but the mechanics of sports betting are not the subject of Two For The Money but rather a vehicle for creating tension and excitement.

The betting line can make even the lamest sunday NFL contest a tense nail biter. Your team not only has to win the game they have to win by a particular number of points. Sometimes your team does not have to win the game for you to cash in.  They merely must lose by a particular number of points. You can even wager on how many points both teams will score in the game or which team will score first.  All very complicated for someone not in the know like myself.

Two For The Money is not for the recovering gambler, safe to say. The film makes sports betting look incredibly exciting and kinetic and will entice more than a few moviegoers into placing a few bets of their own. If the plot had come together a little better maybe the film itself would be as exciting as its betting lines. As it is Two For The Money is a flawed but always interesting movie that at the very least reinvigorates the moribund career of Al Pacino. For that alone Two For The Money is worth betting the price of a movie ticket.

Movie Review: Tian Tang Kou

Blood Brothers (2007) 

Directed by Alexi Tan

Written by Alexi Tan

Starring Daniel Wu, Tony Yang, Ye Liu 

Release Date August 23rd, 2007 

Published November 15th, 2007 

John Woo will return to directing for the first time in nearly four years later this year. For now, Woo seems to be reveling in his elder statesman of Asian filmmaking status. His influence is all over the new Alexi Tan action flick Three Brothers. The story of three guys from a small village who move to 1930's Shanghai and find themselves in the world of crime features some very John Woo-esque visuals, though without Woo's taste for hyperkinetic editing.

Fung (Daniel Wu) Hu (Tony Yang) and Kang (Ye Liu) have grown up together in a tiny fishing village just far enough removed from the big city of Shanghai that they are able to dream of what the city is like without the intrusion of harsh realities. Hu and Kang are brothers who accepted Fung as their brother at a very young age.

Kang is clearly the leader of this little crew and when he decides to go to Shanghai, with dreams of becoming a waiter in a fancy restaurant, it is with little disagreement that Hu and Fung follow him. Once in Shanghai Hu and Fung take jobs as rickshaw drivers while Kang manages his dream and becomes a waiter at the paradise club.

The club is a mob front for Boss Hong (Honglei Sung). With his top enforcer Mark (Chen Chang), Boss Hong runs Shanghai's elicit weapons biz. Behind the boss's back, Mark is making time with Lulu (Qi Shiu), the woman Boss Hong has turned into Shanghai's top cabaret performer. She wants to run away with Mark but is more practical than Mark who thinks he can kill the boss and get away clean.

These five people intersect in ways that will divide and combine in the most unexpected ways. Director Alexi Tang starts off slow, spending more time dazzling the eyes with striking visuals and unique music cues, lot's of classical music, very western influenced, before plunging deep into these characters and the tragic ways in which their lives cross.

The visual style of Three Brothers will be what garners the most attention for the film. Director Alexi Tang is a former production still photographer who takes his eye for static scenery and applies it beautifully to moving pictures. The crisp, clean visuals of Three Brothers gives a clear eyed view of all of the moral, ethical and other such issues faced by these compelling characters.

It is fair to say that the fate of some characters are easily predicted. If you don't already know the fate of Boss Hong you've likely not seen many movies. Also, Hu being the little brother has a fate that becomes clear very early on. His character development has a number of clues and tips that lead the way quite obviously to his fate but he nevertheless remains compelling. 

Chen Chang is the actor who stands out in a terrific cast. Playing a mob hitman gives him a badass air from the beginning but his development as a tragic, tortured hero is arguably the most compelling arc of the whole film. Chang is stunning in the films final shoot out with the lines "That is a killer?" and "This is my fate"  delivered with a flat, unironic monotone that gives the words an extra, unexpected punch.

Three Brothers develops slowly and will have many audiences squirming through the first 30 minutes or so. However, once the brothers are in Shanghai and into the world of crime, the transition becomes a concentric circle of ever evolving tragedy mixed with stylish violence and compelling imagery.

Stepping from the shadows of producer John Woo, director Alexi Tang delivers an western influenced gangster epic that pays homage to Woo but is without a doubt it's own movie.

Movie Review The Greatest

The Greatest (2010) 

Directed by Shana Feste 

Written by Shana Feste 

Starring Susan Sarandon, Pierce Brosnan, Johnny Simmons, Carey Mulligan, Michael Shannon, Aaron Johnson

Release Date April 2nd, 2010

Published April 2nd, 2010

“The Greatest” is notable for being the first film I've seen featuring derisive bell ringing. Pierce Brosnan gives the bell to his grieving wife played with anguish and abandon by Susan Surandon. She rings it at him as a rebuke to his attempt to reach out to her following the death of their son. What meaning the bell had was lost on me after Sarandon began so contemptuously ringing it.

”The Greatest,” the first feature from writer-director Shana Feste, is a film that wants to be about grief but plays more like an oddball indie film trying exceptionally hard to treat a familiar subject in an obscure fashion. Pierce Brosnan is Allan, a mathematics professor who was cheating on his wife Grace (Susan Sarandon) at the time their son Bennett (Aaron Johnson) was killed in a car accident.

The affair and everything else in their lives stops at this point as Allan becomes sleepless and confused while Grace becomes crazed and obsessed with what may have been 17 minutes of her son’s life before he died; minutes spent with the man whose truck hit Bennett's car, Jordan (Michael Shannon). Unfortunately, Jordan fell into a coma before anyone could account for the 17 minute conversation.

As Allan, Grace and their younger son Ryan (Johnny Simmons) fall into a routine of grief, sleeplessness, drugs and mania, Rose (Carey Mulligan) enters their life. Rose was Bennett's girlfriend and though she was in the car with Bennett when he was killed, no one in the family seems that interested in her until she shows up at their door three months pregnant.

Allan asks her to move in while Grace resents her and Ryan is a prick to her for reasons only he understands. Why Rose has no one else to live with is passed over briefly in a conversation with Allan but has no importance. She is a plot catalyst and her immediate proximity to the rest of the cast is a plot necessity.

Nothing in “The Greatest” feels remotely organic. It's all dramatic contrivance meant to give the cast a chance to rage in one direction or another. Some of the rage is quite compelling, even moving but mostly it feels like actors showing off the ability to rant and rave in a fashion that feels dramatic. 

Carey Mulligan, the deserving Oscar nominee for “An Education,” plays Rose as an oddball loner who upon moving into the home of her ex's family begins building an elaborate sheet castle in the spare bedroom. She's the kind of indie movie cutie who takes random photographs, typically not on a digital camera, has a pixie haircut and says the things that no one else is willing to say.

Sarandon finds moments of truth in the midst of wilding emotions. She has the film's best scene opposite Michael Shannon as the comatose man. The account of the 17 minutes is deeply moving and revealing and Shannon, a once and future Oscar contender, nails the moment.

”The Greatest” is far from terrible; it's merely off-putting in its overly dramatic fashion and typically offbeat indie movie-ness that has become as cliche as the mainstream dramas that “The Greatest” attempts to circumvent with its oddity.

Movie Review Happy Feet 2

Happy Feet 2 (2011) 

Directed by George Miller

Written by George Miller, Gary Eck

Starring Elijah Wood, Brittany Murphy, Pink, Hank Azaria, Brad Pitt, Common, Matt Damon, Sofia Vergara

Release Date November 18th, 2011

Published November 18th, 2011

Pop junk is a little harsh for a movie as harmless as "Happy Feet 2" but it is nevertheless a fitting pronunciation. "Happy Feet 2" is junky; filled to overflow with dull pop songs and boring perfunctory messages about finding your place, growing up, family and global warming.

The original "Happy Feet," also a fluffy piece of pop junk, followed Mumble (Elijah Wood) as he learned to dance with the aid of his pal Ramon (Robin Williams) and the love of a female penguin named Gloria (Brittany Murphy). Five years later, Mumble and Gloria, now voiced by pop star Pink, have a son (Ava Acres) named Erik who struggles to find his place in the world.

The plot kicks in when Uncle Ramon decides to return to his penguin flock on the other side of the mountain. Unknowingly, Ramon is trailed by Erik and his pals. They follow Ramon back to his old family where they make a fascinating discovery; a penguin who can fly.

While Mumble tracks down his son and also confronts The Mighty Sven (Hank Azaria) a massive glacier crashes into Mumble's home and traps his friends and family, including Gloria. With his home cut off from the ocean Mumble must find a way to get food to his friends and a way to get them out of the hole they're in.

In a minor and surprisingly entertaining subplot a pair of Krill named Will (Brad Pitt) and Bill (Matt Damon) leaves their swarm behind in search of adventure and an identity of their own. Will wants to become a predator and is determined to take a bite out of something; Will is along for the ride with his best friend.

This subplot is funny not because it's wildly inventive or well written but because Brad Pitt and Matt Damon throw dignity to the wind and give full throat to a pair of sweet, strange performances. How strange are they? Pitt and Damon each sing, quite badly but with complete abandon and joy.

Pitt and Damon are the standouts in an otherwise by the numbers effort that recycles cloying cuteness, boring, overplayed pop songs and good intentions. There's nothing wrong with the messages ``Happy Feet 2" intends to pass along. The problem is the method of delivering these messages has no freshness and thus lacks resonance.

Rather than waste the price of a movie ticket on "Happy Feet 2" I recommend you grab your DVD of the original off the shelf and toss that in the DVD player. All you're losing in the experience is the chance to pay big money at a movie theater for a movie you've basically seen already.

Movie Review The Family Tree

The Family Tree (2011) 

Directed by Vivi Friedman

Written by Mark Lisson 

Starring Dermot Mulroney, Hope Davis, Chi McBride, Max Thieriot, Selma Blair, Christina Hendricks

Release Date August 26th, 2011

Published August 25th, 2011 

The Family Tree, starring Dermot Mulroney and Hope Davis is nuts, in a really great way. This dysfunctional family comedy about a family going to pieces is populated by a wonderfully game all-star cast that sacrifices dignity at every turn to deliver more than a few ridiculously funny moments.

The story is thus, Dermot Mulroney stars as Jack Burnett, a below average suburban working stiff. Hope Davis is his bitchy wife Bunnie and Max Theriot and Britt Robertson are their screwed up kids Eric and Kelly. Eric is a Jesus freak with a love for guns while Kelly portrays herself as loose though she’s not really.

What happens to this family during The Family Tree includes infidelity, a very unique accidental death–an acquaintance, not a family member—drugs and some divine intervention. All of the action is captured by first time director Vivi Friedman in a madcap fashion that plays like American Beauty through the prism of the Coen Brothers.

The phenomenal supporting cast includes Chi McBride’s funniest and most unexpected performance in years as Burnett's neighbor. McBride is joined by a veritable Battle of the Network Stars size supporting cast that includes Burn Notice star Gabrielle Anwar, Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks, Jane Seymour, Selma Blair, Madeline Zima, Keith Carradine, Rachel Leigh Cook and Bow Wow, among others.

Corralling all of this talent into one wonderfully wild movie is first time director Vivi Friedman. Working from a script by a veteran TV writer, and I do mean veteran, the guy who wrote for Hart to Hart, Mark Lisson, Friedman takes her cast and just keeps whipping them into a weird comic frenzy right up to the odd, highly unlikely but still strangely satisfying ending.

Hollywood tried to turn Dermot Mulroney into a hunky leading man a few years ago but it never took. He’s better off without the romantic comedies; character roles like this one in The Family Tree may just be his niche. Mulroney finds a note of suburban white guy awkwardness in The Family Tree that never fails to find the most unexpected laughs.

Hope Davis is a terrific match for Mulroney as a Real Housewife of just outside Beverly Hills. I don’t want to spoil all the trouble that Davis’s Bunnie finds in The Family Tree, but I’ll just say that after her character comes out of a brief hospital stay she becomes endearing and adorable in strange and interesting ways.

I could go on for a while about the rest of the cast but as I said, I don’t want to spoil the movie. The Family Tree is not without its flaws, the guy in the tree… sorry, no spoilers. That aside, I laughed a lot and quite hard while watching this terrific little indie comedy that will without doubt sneak up and surprise you if you give it a chance.

Movie Review: Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair (2004) 

Directed by Mira Nair

Written by Julian Fellowes

Starring Reese Witherspoon, Eileen Atkins, Jim Broadbent, Gabriel Byrne, Romola Garai, Bob Hoskins

Release Date September 1st, 2004 

Published September 1st, 2004 

In its day, William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair, written in 1847, was a witty and scathing rebuke of the British society in which it was set. In the ensuing 157 years, even as society in Britain and elsewhere has changed, the wit of Thackeray's words has remained and Hollywood has taken notice more than once. First adapted in 1935 in the very first film ever in Technicolor, Thackeray's novel was renamed for its heroine Becky Sharp and won an Oscar nomination for star Miriam Hopkins.

The book found its greatest exposure in the mini-series format where it has been adapted three times. Because of the large number of characters, subplots, and endlessly witty dialogue exchanges the mini-series seems to be the truly ideal format for this story. A perfect example of that is the latest film adaptation of Vanity Fair by Mira Nair and Oscar-nominated screenwriter Julian Fellowes which evokes the images of the story but has no time for the depth and breadth of it.

Reese Witherspoon takes on the difficult role of Becky Sharp, the razor tongued social climber who in the book is not the most sympathetic creature. In the film, after a little back story about how Becky was the orphaned daughter of a starving artist sent to live and work in a finishing school, we find Becky taking advantage of the one friend she has made in her life Amelia Sedley (Romola Garai). In this scene at least Becky seems genuine, if a bit devilish towards her ex-schoolmates and teachers.

Becky is leaving the school to join Amelia and her family for a week before she begins life as a governess for Sit Pitt Crawley (Bob Hoskins). In the week with Amelia's family, Becky hopes to take advantage of her friend’s kindness and find herself a way into high society. Becky's chance opens up when Amelia's brother Jos returns from his military post in India. Jos is shy, overweight and easily mislead, the perfect patsy for Becky who would marry anyone to get into high society.

Unfortunately for Becky, Amelia's fiancé George Osbourne (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) is far savvier than Jos and helps the fat man see through Becky's scheming. With no fiancé to help her climb the social ladder, Becky is off to the home of Sir Pitt Crawley where a whole new scheme must begin. It doesn't take someone of Becky's street smarts long to insinuate herself into an important position in the Crawley household. She makes an especially strong impression on the most important Crawley, Sir Pitt's sister Miss Crawley (Eileen Atkins) the one with all of the family's money.

Miss Crawley and Becky are fast friends as both have a quick and savage wit. Miss Crawley claims to detest the class system and any system that would place her dull witted clan ahead of someone like Becky simply because of breeding. However Miss Crawley's true feelings are tested after Becky elopes with Sir Pitt's youngest son Rawdon (James Purefoy) who was Miss Crawley's favorite and the one most likely to inherit the family fortune.

This is a lot of plot and I have not yet mentioned Rhys Ifans as Major Dobbin and Gabriel Byrne as Steyne both of whom are pivotal in the book but get a bit of a short shrift due the films 2 hrs 17 min. runtime. Even the plot I have already described is embellished a bit on my part from what I know from reading the book. Having read it, I can fill in the gaps that Ms. Nair and Mr. Fellowes rush over in order to get a more salable runtime.

Clearly there was some sort of studio mandate on runtime because there is simply no other way to make sense of the cuts made by the talented director and writer. People who have not read the book will often be left wondering what just happened as the plot points are introduced and left behind in mere moments as the narrative jumps ahead years in leaps and bounds. Important plots about deaths, births and cross-continental moves are left on the cutting room floor leaving the audience unsatisfied, with little to no catharsis or consideration.

To be fair Thackeray wasn't much interested in catharsis as he was in the witty, sexy, and devilishly clever banter of his characters, especially Becky Sharp. At the very least in the book, you have Thackeray as narrator offering some commentary on these life-changing events, usually with a very witty aside. There again points to another problem with the film, it lacks Thackeray's voice which is the books true source of humor. Like the cattiest of gossips, Thackeray's narration let us inside the thoughts of each character and spelled out important motivations.

The filmmakers rely heavily on their actors to deliver the characters inner lives and while this is a talented group of actors who communicate insight, intelligence, and humor the audience members aren't mind readers and the filmmakers can't just assume people will get it. That is unless you read the book then maybe you do get it. Maybe the film’s biggest issue is the way Thackeray's biting satire has been softened to appeal to a more mainstream audience.

That appeal to the mainstream extends to the casting of Reese Witherspoon as Becky Sharp. Ms. Witherspoon is a terrific actress who has the perfect face to play Becky Sharp, with that devilish glint in her deep-set eyes and that hint of a snarl in her smile she evoked my vision of Becky. The problem is her star power and presence overwhelms the lesser-known cast members that surround her. In scenes where the film shoehorns in the subplots about Romola Garai's Amelia or Rhys Ifans as Dobbin we are left wondering where is Becky. Also to accommodate someone of Ms. Witherspoon's obvious likeability, many of Becky's sharp edges have been softened so as not to offend her fanbase.

The only cast member that is able to make a real impression outside of Ms. Witherspoon is Eileen Atkins as Miss Crawley, probably because she is the only character other than Becky allowed to employ Mr. Thackeray's wit. Other characters make strong impressions in the book but have no time to do so in this film and may hav been better off left on the cutting room floor. More focus on Becky and her plot would seem to be the only way to make this film work.

Ms. Nair nails the period in her direction and embellishes it with the Indian imagery that she is known for from her wonderful Bollywood movie Monsoon Wedding. Thackeray himself was born in India and includes a number of references to British military outposts in that country and how the culture was part of the zeitgeist of the time amongst British aristocrats. That zeitgeist is well captured in a scene that wasn't in the book, a dance scene in which Becky and other high society woman perform a traditional Indian dance for the King of England. For a film budgeted at a mere 35 Million dollars this a lavish production.

The crux of the problem with Vanity Fair is a war between the filmmakers and the producers with Ms. Nair and the creative team looking to do a faithful adaptation and producers fighting to make the film more commercial. The many compromises made along the way, run time, casting amongst others, are obvious and distracting. The films ending is definitely a victim of these compromises as it comes completely out of left field and depends on one credibility testing bit of luck and timing.

Vanity Fair was supposed to signal the beginning of the Oscar campaign season. However when the film missed its original fall 2003 opening and was dropped into the first week of September, many in-the-know Academy watchers threw up red flags. Our suspicions were correct, Vanity Fair is unlikely to challenge for any of the major awards at the end of the year. Compromise, it seems, is not always a good thing. 

Movie Review: Don't Let Go

Don't Let Go (2019)

Directed by Jacob Aaron Estes

Written by Jacob Aaron Estes

Starring David Oyelowo, Brian Tyree Henry, Storm Reid, Mykelti Williamson

Release Date August 30th, 2019

Published August 29th, 2019 

Don’t Let Go is a pulse-pounding stunner of a time travel thriller. David Oyelowo stars in Don’t Let go as Detective Jack Radcliff, an L.A cop with a very close relationship with his niece, Ashley (Storm Reid). Ashley’s dad, played in a cameo by Bryan Tyree Henry, is a troubled songwriter and part time drug dealer, who has recently gotten deep in over his head. It’s led him to neglect his daughter, and place his family in danger. 

How much danger? When Jack goes for a visit to his brother’s home, he finds the door standing open. Inside, he finds his brother’s wife on the floor, shot dead. Upstairs, Jack finds the body of his brother, dead from a gunshot wound to the head which we see in grisly detail as Jack’s grief overcomes him and he clutches his brother's gaping skull, attempting to hold closed the already fatal wound. 

The most devastating blow however, is yet to come. After finding his brother’s body, Jack goes looking for Ashley and finds her shot to death in the family bathroom, her attempt to flee through a window cut short. It’s a stunning scene and one played by David Oyelowo with a forlorn resignation and jarring emotionality. Oyelowo may be slight in build but his emotional stature is towering and in this scene, devastating. 

In another universe, we would get a straight ahead cop procedural in which Jack tracks down the killers, held back by the rules of law and probably some insider corruption that keeps the baddies ahead of his every move until he’s able to outwit them. That’s not, however, what Don’t Let Go is. This is nothing remotely typical. Written and directed by Jacob Estes, best known for the indie thriller Mean Creek, Don’t Let Go has a time travel conceit that subverts expectations in wonderfully inventive and genuinely surprising ways. 

Days after laying his family to rest, Jack’s phone rings and the display claims that the call is coming from Ashley’s phone. The calls keep coming until finally Jack answers and finds Ashley on the other end. No, she’s not survived by some miracle, she’s actually calling from two weeks in the past, a time before the murder. How is this possible? The filmmakers don’t appear to care about that and neither should we. 

The most important thing to consider in order to find Don’t Let Go as compelling and excited as I did, is not to get caught up on why this is happening. For me, the rest of Don’t Let Go is so interesting, so unique and attention grabbing, I simply bought into the story and went where the movie wanted to take me. I bought into the suspense, I bought into the blood and guts and I bought into this complicated premise that might prove to be a dealbreaker for less committed audience members. 

You cannot overestimate how incredible David Oyelowo is in Don’t Let Go. Oyelowo has remarkable instincts, his eyes are so alive and compelling. You never catch Oyelowo acting and yet the look on his face demonstrates wheels turning and remarkable effort. The blood, the sweat, the dirt, Oyelowo lives this role and I found his intensity and commitment impossible to resist. The same could be said of his young co-star, Storm Reid. Reid impressed me in Ava Duvernay's wonderful, A Wrinkle in Time and she's equally as impressive here as she attempts to solve her own murder. 

Don’t Let Go absolutely came out of nowhere for me. The generic title made me believe this was going to be a minor and forgettable and perhaps that low bar helped a little. Writer-director Jacob Estes makes a strong case that Don’t Let Go with its unusual time travel premise and heart-stopping suspense is just a really great thriller. The pace is perfectly calibrated and the film score is among the best of 2019. 

Don’t Let Go is exceptional and at a time where we lack in great thrillers, the film stands out that much more for being a classic piece of genre filmmaking.

Movie Review: Big Fan

Big Fan (2009)  

Directed by Robert D. Siegel

Written by Robert D. Siegel 

Starring Patton Oswalt, Kevin Corrigan, Michael Rappaport, Josh Trank

Release Date August 28th, 2009 

Published September 15th, 2009 

The rise of the man-child is one of the darkest moments of our culture. This basement dwelling cretin, personified by his lack of social grace, living with their mother and desperate clinging to childish things, has risen to prominence in just the last ten or so years and is becoming something of a force.

The movies are a haven for these overgrown children, as the career of Adam Sandler and his minions attests. In these movies the lifestyle of the man-child is critiqued but most often accepted and assimilated into the lives of exceptionally forgiving, stunningly attractive adult women in a tacit approval of the man-child life choice.

“Big Fan” is the rare film that takes the man-child to task for his childish proclivities. Directed by Robert Siegel, Oscar nominated screenwriter for “The Wrestler,” and starring comedian Patton Oswalt, “Big Fan” is a dark, ironic, parody of the man-child and his obsessions.

Paul Aufiero (Patton Oswalt) is obsessed with the New York Giants. He lives and dies with the team’s wins and losses. His nights at work, he's a parking attendant, are spent scribbling scripts for late night phone calls he places to a sports radio station. There he is Paul from Staten Island, a legend among other man-children for his passionate defenses of the Giants and attacks on their opponents. Paul even has a mortal enemy on the radio in Philadelphia Phil (Michael Rappaport). These witless battles of wit are at the center of Paul's being.

The plot of “Big Fan” kicks in when Paul and his man-child buddy Sal spot their favorite player, Quantrell Bishop (Jonathan Hamm) in their neighborhood. They choose to follow him and track QB back to Manhattan and a very pricey strip club. There, Paul gets up the nerve to approach his hero and wakes up several days later in the hospital.

Quantrell beat the holy hell out of Paul after he confessed that he and Sal had followed him. Now, as Paul awakes from a coma his only concern remains whether the Giants won or lost while he was out. When asked about the assault; Paul’s fan-boy nature kicks in and he develops amnesia. Will he turn in his hero or keep the secret to save his team?

The answer is not so much the subject of “Big Fan.” Rather, it’s something of a foregone conclusion by the time the answer arrives. “Big Fan” is not a mystery or a crime thriller but a darkly humorous, endlessly ironic observation of severe arrested development.

What Director Robert Siegel and star Patton Oswalt are after is a critique of man-child fan-boys whose obsessions have rendered them ill-equipped to deal with the fully formed adults around them. In movies like “Failure to Launch” starring Matt McConaughey or “Big Daddy” with Adam Sandler this childishness is played as charm. In “Big Fan” it is realistically pathetic.

Taking the critique further, director Siegel adds a disquieting homo-eroticism to Paul’s hero worship. Paul has a poster of Quantrell over his bed. He dreams about Quantrell, sweating and snarling, shirtless in his three point stance. Though Paul is too timid and immature to get it, he is a frustrated, closeted homosexual whose frustration is channeled into his love of sport.

Whether it’s Tom Brady or Han Solo this level of obsessive hero worship tinged with homo-erotic undertones is part of the culture of the man-child. Are all man-children closeted homosexuals? No, but frustrated sexuality and sexual identity are an aspect of the man-child most often unexplored.

Patton Oswalt is fearless in exploring these aspects of Paul Aufiero. Though he does well to keep Paul in the dark about his true self, Oswalt and director Robert Siegel are downright elegant in the ways they reveal and subtly ridicule Paul’s ignorance. In sending up Paul they send up those like Paul, the emotionally stunted, childishly obsessed man-child.

Darkly humorous, endlessly clever and revealing, “Big Fan” is a punch in the mouth to the growing man-child culture. Where so many movies let these overgrown children off the hook, “Big Fan” holds a mirror up to them and reveals them for who they truly are. It’s not a pretty picture.

Movie Review The Gambler

The Gambler (2014) 

Directed by Rupert Wyatt

Written by William Monahan

Starring Mark Wahlberg, John Goodman, Brie Larson, Michael K. Williams, Jessica Lange

Release Date December 25th, 2014

Published December 25th, 2014

Mark Wahlberg’s star power sustains “The Gambler,” a talky, existentialist meditation on gambling, addiction and self-destruction.  Without a star of Wahlberg’s charisma “The Gambler” would be a tough hike. Though playing against type as a philosophy-spouting, Dostoevsky-quoting college professor, Wahlberg finds just the right mix of magnetism and machismo to give life to the role of Jim Bennett. 

When we meet Bennett, he’s having an epic run of bad luck at a private casino owned by Asian gang members. In short order, Bennett goes way up and winds up way down -- $240,000 down. Desperate for help, Jim turns to his mother Roberta (Jessica Lange) who gives up the cash only for Jim to blow this $240,000 just as quickly. From there Jim begins a high-stakes scam, playing the money of one mobster against other mobsters, including Michael K. Williams as Neville Baraka and John Goodman as Frank. 

As good as Wahlberg is in “The Gambler,” he’s upstaged at every turn by Williams and especially by Goodman, who is Oscar caliber here. If you see “The Gambler,” see it first for a lesson in what Frank calls “Fuck-You Money.” This brilliant, sprawling monologue is delivered with such style and wit that you feel as if you really have learned something important, even if Jim doesn’t feel the same way. 

Also in Bennett’s orbit are a couple of students: Amy (Brie Larson), a talented writer, and Lamar (Anthony Kelley), a talented college basketball star. That Jim draws both into his massive scheme against his criminal debtors is an illustration of Jim’s twisted morality. Jim seems to have little empathy for others when his needs are involved. At least Wahlberg instills a heavy air of guilt in Jim’s manner. 

“The Gambler” was inspired by the 1974 film of the same title starring James Caan. The original was far colder and far more effective than the modern take. Where Wahlberg has guilt, James Caan has zero compunction about what he does to other people in his search for his next fix. Caan’s Axel was more obviously self-destructive than Wahlberg’s Jim. The only qualities the two characters really share are a shifty intelligence and charisma. 

Is Jim addicted to gambling? “The Gambler” doesn’t seem to be all that interested in that question. Certainly, Jim doesn’t seem capable of simply stopping. But his classroom oratories offer up an alternate theory for his gambling: a desire to feel something. As Bennett sounds off on Shakespeare or other legendary writers, he’s quick to share asides about his failure as a writer, where life has failed him and will fail his class. This gives strong indications about why he seeks out the highs and lows of high-stakes gambling as a way of coping with his life. 

“The Gambler” comes up short of greatness. It’s a little overlong in some areas and the soundtrack, though quite good, distracts from time to time. Nevertheless, the film is engaging and, with Wahlberg, it has a star who easily takes hold of our sympathies. Surrounded by Goodman, Williams and Larson, Wahlberg doesn’t always stand out front, but that’s to be expected because he’s among such an incredible ensemble of performers. 

Movie Review: Cedar Rapids

Cedar Rapids (2011) 

Directed by Miguel Arteta 

Written by Phil Johnson

Starring Ed Helms, John C. Reilly, Anne Heche, Isiah Whitlock, Sigourney Weaver

Release Date February 11th, 2011

Published February 11th, 2011

It's “The 40 Year Old Virgin” minus the Virgin part. That's a pretty solid description of “Cedar Rapids” which stars a former Daily Show correspondent turned star of The Office, Ed Helms, and tells the story of an innocent man-child slowly drawn toward debauchery by a coterie of bad influences who happen to make great friends.

Directed by Miguel Arteta (“Chuck & Buck,” “Youth in Revolt”), “Cedar Rapids” is the story of Tim Lippe (Ed Helms) a Wisconsin insurance salesman who gets the opportunity of a lifetime after the unfortunate passing of a co-worker (a delightfully awful cameo by Reno 911's Thomas Lennon as a top salesman who dies, off-screen, from auto-erotic asphyxiation.)

Tim is headed to Cedar Rapids for an annual conference of Insurance Company salespeople where the head of the industry, midwest division, Orrin Helgeson (Kurtwood Smith) will hand out the coveted Two Diamond Award, something Tim's late co-worker had walked away with each of the past two years.

While in Cedar Rapids Tim is instructed by his boss, go to character actor Stephen Root, to stay out of trouble as Orrin is a pious man and expects the same of all Two Diamond Award winners. Unfortunately for Tim staying out of trouble will be hard while rooming with his new best friend, the ingratiating Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly) who has no designs on the Two Diamond Award, only on having a real good time.

Also caught up with Tim and Dean is convention regular Ronald Wilkes (Isiah Whitlock) and mom turned Cedar Rapids party girl Joan Ostrowski Fox (Anne Heche); each of whom will help Tim come out of his shell in ways the naive Wisconsinite could never have imagined.

Miguel Arteta has a particular talent for characters like Tim Lippe. The innocent cast into a fast paced new world has been an area of expertise for Arteta in movies like “Youth in Revolt,” where Michael Cera created a French alter-ego to deal with the quick witted girl of his dreams leading to drug trips and a crime spree as well as in “The Good Girl” where a teenage Jake Gyllenhaal experienced love for the first time with a sad housewife played by Jennifer Aniston.

Arteta brings an immigrants eye view to these characters. Born in Puerto Rico, Arteta came to the US is the 80's where he fostered his love of movies at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Like Arteta at Wesleyan, his characters seem to be learning a whole new language and culture in their new environments and like Arteta they are quick on the uptake even as the experience is a mind-blowing change.

Ed Helms captures the eager to please Wisconsinite with just the right mix of man-child and upstanding citizenship. We meet Tim for the first time as he accepts a booty call from, of all people, his former grade school teacher played with voracious cougar-ness by Sigourney Weaver. Naturally, Tim thinks this relationship is going somewhere while we in the audience and the teacher quickly feel sorry for him.

Helms has the ability to earn sympathy and laughs in equal measure and it makes him an ideal innocent in the debauched, snowy airs of the big city, Cedar Rapids. John C. Reilly, Anne Heche and Isiah Whitlock make the perfect crew for Tim; Reilly the obnoxious, drunken ‘ladies man,’ Heche as the Cedar Rapids style 'femme fatale,' and Whitlock the stalwart good guy who we know has Tim's back with an assist from Omar from the HBO series 'The Wire.'

”Cedar Rapids” is a glorious satire of supposed big fish in small ponds everywhere. The overblown importance of the “Two Diamond Award,” Cedar Rapids as the Las Vegas of the Insurance sales game, and Tim's general awe at his surroundings set flame to the overstuffed egos of anyone who can't understand why the movie is so funny.

One of the major buys of the Sundance Film Festival, “Cedar Rapids” is poised to be one of the breakout comedies of 2011. Will Ed Helms become the next Steve Carell? Only the box office can decide that. For now bask in the glory of Tim Lippe and his wild weekend in “Cedar Rapids.”

Movie Review: Tsui Hark's Vampire Hunters

Tsui Hark's Vampire Hunters (2002) 

Directed by Wellson Chin

Written by Tsui Hark

Starring Danny Chan, Lam Suet, Michael Chow

Release Date 2003 

Published February 4th, 2003 

Tsui Hark must be Hong Kong's answer to Wes Craven. The new movie Tsui Hark's Vampire Hunters was not directed by the legendary Mr. Hark but bears his name. Unlike Craven though, Hark doesn't just slap his name on a project, and Vampire Hunters is proof of that.

The film is written by Hark and is as exciting, gory and funny as if he had made it himself. As another critic brilliantly cited, Vampire Hunters is Crouching Tiger meets Evil Dead, in a combination straight out of Hong Kong.

We begin in a darkened monastery where a master explains to his young charges that the legends they have heard about vampires are true and that it is their duty to stop them from devouring humanity. Oh, but not just vampires, there are also zombies who become vampires when they taste human blood. The master, with the help of his four most trusted students, Thunder, Lightning, Rain and Wind (each named for the element they control), search for the Vampire King. Once found, the King Vamp kills a number of the students and seemingly the Master as well. Rain, Thunder, Wind and Lightning survive and continue seeking out and destroying vampires.

Some months later the boys arrive at the home of Jiang, a strange old man who is celebrating the marriage of his oafish son to the beautiful Sasa. The odd thing is that the son has been married several times before with each of his wives meeting a strange end. This gets our hero’s attention, and using a unique vampire tracking compass find that the Vampire King could be the cause. Oh if only it were that easy. 

Unfortunately there is also an angry snake somewhere in the house, Jiang's odd-looking wife, and the collection of well-preserved dead people in Jiang's barn. There is also Jiang's legendary stash of gold which Sasa's brother has had his eye on since he allowed his sister to marry into Jiang's family. Jiang claims he invented the vampire myth to keep people from his gold.

The narrative of Vampire Hunters is muddled with romantic subplots for two of our heroes, a few red herrings to throw the audience off and couple of twists that seem either unnecessary or highly contrived. However, none of that matters in the least because Vampire Hunters is one of those films that is not about it's story or even it's characters (Who by the way never use the powers their names imply they have).

Vampire Hunters is about goofiness and gore and Director Wellson Chin delivers. Cheesy effects abound in Vampire Hunters, from hopping zombies to wire fights and tree jumping lifted from the Yuen Woo Ping school of movie fighting, though not nearly as fluid as the man behind the Matrix fights. The fighting in Vampire Hunters is played for laughs especially the climactic battle with the Vampire King, who looks like an oriental scarecrow.

The film isn't all laughs. some of it is excruciatingly gory such as the Vampire King's ability to suck the soul out of his opponents, leaving them a pile of used up bones and a small puddle. Eeewww. Tsui Hark's Vampire Hunter has cult classic written all over it. Though some will be left wondering if it might have been better with Hark himself behind the camera.