Movie Review: Whip It

Whip It (2009) 

Directed by Drew Barrymore 

Written by Shauna Cross

Starring Elliot Page, Kristen Wiig, Marcia Gay Harden, Drew Barrymore, Juliette Lewis 

Release Date October 9th, 2009 

Published October 8th, 2009 

As a kid I watched Roller Derby on Saturday nights. I never quite understood how the game was played but I loved the violence, the speed and the quirky humor. But the one thing that really stood out for me were the women. It was a mixed league where guys did a round then the ladies. I remember these women, some were giants and some were tiny and quick. It fostered in me a love of tough chicks. Whip It is a movie about the women I admired on Saturday nights. The bruisers and the speedsters. Beyond their toughness, director Drew Barrymore finds heart, humor and love while never losing that violent, attractive toughness that some call Grrl Power. Whateve they call it, I love it.

Elliot Page is the star of Whip It as Bliss Cavender. Trapped in a tiny Texas town where her overbearing mother (Marcia Gay Harden) forces her to compete in teen pageants, Bliss longs for something more. What that something more is, Bliss doesn't know yet. It finally becomes clear to her when, on a shopping trip to Austin, she spies girls on roller skates handing out flyers for Roller Derby.

Enlisting the help of her best friend Pash (Elia Shawkat), Bliss attends the match and it's love at first sight. When she hears about tryouts for her new favorite team, the Hurl Scouts, she pulls out her Barbie roller skates and hops aboard a senior shuttle to Austin and begins a secret life under her new name "Babe Ruthless".

All the roller girls have nicknames. There is Smashley Simpson (Barrymore), Maggie Mayhem (Kristen Wiig), Bloody Holly (Zoe Bell) and Rosa Sparks (Eve) on the Hurl Scouts. On the other teams there is Eva Destruction (Ari Graynor) and the leagues top roller Iron Maven (Juliette Lewis). The names are part of the fun and bonding that give the film it's quirky heart.

Naturally, there is also romance in Bliss's new life as she meets and falls for a boy, a rocker played by newcomer Landon Pigg. While the romance blossoms and Bliss becomes a star there is inevitably trouble on the horizon. A requirement of this plot is her parents finding out and Bliss being separated from all that she loves. How Director Barrymore plays these scenes I will let you see for your self. I will say that while she cannot escape convention, Barrymore shows more skill with the expected scenes than a lot of mainstream directors who grow lazy in the face of convention.

The cast of Whip It is pitch perfect. Lead by the star turn of Elliot Page, leaving Juno behind growing into a movie. Alia Shawkat is a terrific comic foil with whom Page has great chemistry. The scene stealer however, is Kristen Wiig as Maggie, the heart of her team and just the right person to guide Bliss. Ms. Barrymore gives herself a remarkable role as well, one that requires her to put aside any and all star ego and just give in to pure excess. It's a very funny performance. Juliette Lewis makes a good villain, vulnerable but with the strength to kick the ass of anyone who takes notice of that vulnerability.

Marcia Gay Harden has not been this good since her Oscar winning role in Pollack. Her role is conventionally villainous but she short circuits that with humor and a painful longing that makes her sympathetic even as she is standing in the way of all of the fun. Paired with Daniel Stern as Bliss's sports addicted father, Harden is the perfect combination or harridan and heart.

Whip It is too predictable to go from a good movie to a great one but for what it is, it's a terrifically realized comedy with heart and humor and best of all characters we quickly come to love and care about. My memories of Saturday Night Roller Derby on cable are fuzzy now but I hope that behind the scenes things are something resembling this movie. I still love tough chicks.

Movie Review: V for Vendetta

V for Vendetta (2006) 

Directed by James McTiegue 

Written by The Wachowski's 

Starring Hugo Weaving, Natalie Portman, Stephen Rea, Stephen Fry, John Hurt 

Release Date March 17th, 2006 

Published March 16th, 2006 

The most controversial movie of 2006 has arrived. V For Vendetta, based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore, has been accused of subversion and supporting a terrorist agenda. The question then must be: Does V For Vendetta put forth a terrorist agenda? The answer, because this is such a wonderfully smart and complex film, is yes and no.

Yes, the character of V, portrayed by Hugo Weaving, uses terrorist tactics and his goals are most definitely subversive. However, in this dystopian vision of the future, V's reign of terror is aimed at a totalitarian government that can only be fought with guerrilla or terrorist tactics. Those who can think with both sides of their brain will understand this complex division of ideas. For the myopic and agenda driven however V For Vendetta is a threatening shot across the bow.

In the year 2020, England has fallen under the sway of a militaristic dictator named Adam Sutler (John Hurt). Exploiting a tragedy that killed hundreds of thousands in the early years of the 21st century, Sutler was able to impose his dictatorship by playing on the fears of society, especially fears of the kind of chaos that had thrown the U.S, in this vision of the future, into a wildly violent civil war.

The new English dictator censors all art forms and removed or edited British history to match the new dictator's worldview. However, one thing he cannot censor is a bizarre masked character calling himself V (Hugo Weaving). Hiding behind the grinning porcelain veneer of the 17th century English terrorist Guy Fawkes, V strolls the darkened streets of London righting injustice and launching masterpieces of violent uprising.

In the early hours of the 5th of November, the date that, in 1606, Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up parliament in what was called the gunpowder treason, V has hatched an elaborate plan to wake up the citizens of London to the tyranny of their government. But first V intercedes when he finds three of London's secret police, known as Fingermen, attacking a young woman named Evey (Natalie Portman). Saving Evey's life, V invites her to witness his symphony of violence that includes major fireworks and the destruction of the British landmark the Old Bailey courthouse.

Later, V tells a captive nationwide audience, in a pirate broadcast, that one year from that date, he will blow up parliament and invites everyone with an issue with the government's fear tactics to join him. In the meantime V will be exacting revenge on the men who turned him into a masked vigilante. A series of murders, all connected to the tragedies that lead to Adam Sutler winning power. Stephen Rea plays the head of the British police charged with finding V who, in the process, ends up uncovering more than he wants to know about his government.

Evey and V have a past that is linked in ways neither is fully aware of. Her parents and younger brother were victims of the plague that gave rise to the current government as was V. Evey (as played by the lovely Ms. Portman) gives the film its conscience and story arc. Her slow awakening to radicalism, and what some would call terrorism, is where the film finds its socio-political backbone. At first she questions V's tactics and motives, giving us in the audience a chance to do so as well. Once she comes around we likely already have but it makes for a few of the films big dramatic moments.

The cast of V For Vendetta is sprawling and spectacular from top to bottom. John Hurt perfectly embodies the vengeful power-hungry chancellor. His presence also offers the ironic humor of his having played protagonist Winston Smith in Orwell's 1984, now graduated to playing Big Brother. Stephen Fry appears, all too briefly, as a talk show host, Evey's closest friend, and a man with a deep secret that provides yet another deep and abiding principle that the writers Andy and Larry Wachowski wish to exploit.

Many nods to the British stage also mark this cast, from Timothy Pigott Smith as the Chancellor's hatchet man, to Rupert Graves as Rea's detective partner, to Roger Allam as an unctuous TV commentator who evinces more than a little Rush Limbaugh in his bombastic oratory.

Written by Andy and Larry Wachowski, V For Vendetta has the excitement of the Matrix films but with a bigger brain. Directed by Matrix second unit director James McTeigue in his feature debut, V For Vendetta is also as visually accomplished as The Matrix pictures--high praise for a first time director. I don't mean to imply that V For Vendetta is superior to The Matrix, though it is superior to the lackadaisical sequels.

What separates V For Vendetta is the ideas behind it. There are a myriad of interpretations of exactly what the Wachowskis were attempting to say with this picture. When V For Vendetta debuted as a graphic novel from Alan Moore, it was an allegory for the Margaret Thatcher administration in England in the '80s. Updated to our times some see this version of V For Vendetta as veiled attacks on either George W. Bush, Tony Blair, or both. If you want to follow that line you can, but V For Vendetta is not that simple to pin down.

Yes there are references to America's war leading to the chaos of this future society. Director James McTeigue also makes an obvious visual reference to the Abu Graib prisons in Iraq. But the film is more accurately an attack on a government out of control and the way absolute power corrupts absolutely. The films ideology could be compared with the logic offered by the National Rifle Association in America which posits that the people have the right to bear arms so that if the government ever became a threat the people could fight back.

V For Vendetta takes that theory to a particular conclusion as the people of Britain, lead by V, begin to fight back against the tyrannical leadership. Yes, V's tactics and ideas could be defined as terrorism. When V talks of how blowing up a building can be a revolutionary act you cannot help but make the queasy connection to 9/11. That however is not necessarily the context of V For Vendetta.

Taken specifically within the guidelines of the plot this line of logic from V is merely the only way for the people to fight back against a government run amok. Think of it in terms of North Koreans rising to blow up symbols of dictator Kim Jong Il, or the people of Iraq attacking Saddam's palaces and you have a better corollary to the mindset of V For Vendetta.

V For Vendetta is bathed in coolness from beginning to end. The reflected glory of rebellious writer Alan Moore should inspire fanboys despite Moore's disassociating himself from the film after reading the script. Then there are the Wachowskis, whose cache of cool remains intact despite the mixed results of the Matrix sequels and the brothers' personal stories which have made for some interesting tabloid fodder.

The film's outlaw spirit and exceptionally well-staged violence are the big draws and they do not disappoint. V For Vendetta is exciting, thought provoking and darkly humorous. The film encompasses the ideas of revolutionary politics and righteous martial arts violence in ways we have never seen before on film and that makes it at once relevant anti-establishment filmmaking and kickass blockbuster action movie.

If watching a movie can be a revolutionary act, then V For Vendetta could inspire generations. Not inspire them to blow up buildings, but rather to watch closer for the signposts of corruption and fear mongering, which many fear are already being seen throughout the free world. V For Vendetta is powerful filmmaking with the punch of social commentary wrapped in the popcorn goodness of the mainstream blockbuster. This is one of the best films you will see in 2006.

Movie Review The Darjeeling Limited

The Darjeeling Limited (2007) 

Directed by Wes Anderson 

Written by Wes Anderson 

Starring Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody, Angelica Huston, Natalie Portman 

Release Date October 26th, 2007 

Published October 25th, 2007 

Director Wes Anderson is spinning his wheels. Seemingly unable to make a movie with a point after the funny, insightful Rushmore and the quirky Royal Tenenbaums, Anderson's The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou and now The Darjeeling Limited are masturbatory exercises in style and precociousness. Their saving grace is good natured humor but that doesn't make them any less shallow.

Admit it Wes fans; we were expecting something more here.

The Darjeeling Limited is the name of a fictional train route through a few small villages in India. On this train three American brothers, Francis (Owen Wilson), Peter (Adrian Brody) and Jack (Jason Schwartzman), have gathered for a spiritual journey. Peter and Jack are under the impression that Francis, the oldest of the three, has brought them together to reconnect as brothers. In reality, Francis is leading them to a remote convent where their mother (Angelica Huston) has taken up residence.

The trip to see mom is the framing device for a series of revelatory moments for each of the brothers who slowly reveal their secrets to each other and come to terms with why they haven't spent much time together since their fathers death and an incident on the day of his funeral that sent them in different directions.

Director Wes Anderson seems to be stuck in a rut. After Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums he seemed destined for great things. In two consecutive features since; Anderson is caught up being overly precious and even cute in the way he toys with dialogue and with visuals. Some could fairly describe him as dicking around hoping to stumble on something insightful. He rarely finds anything in The Darjeeling Limited.

Arguably the most notable aspect of The Darjeeling Limited are the disturbing real life imitates art scenes with Owen Wilson. Just before Darjeeling was leaving the station, Wilson attempted to take his own life. The same thing happens to his character in the film who survived his own attempt at suicide. It's not Wes Anderson or the film's fault that such a coincidence happened but it does cast a pall over the otherwise good natured proceedings.

The true subject of The Darjeeling Limited may be a distinct sense of ennui. These characters are bored and so is Wes Anderson. In fact, so are we in the audience. Jason Schwartzman's Jack is plagued with ennui as evidenced in the short feature, Hotel Chevalier, that precedes The Darjeeling Limited. In this brief backstory we see Jack with, presumably, his girlfriend played by Natalie Portman. The two go through the motions of familiar interaction but the sense that they bother each other in order to stave off boredom is quite clear.

Adrien Brody's Peter deals with ennui by stealing or 'borrowing' his brother's and late father's things. His boredom isn't as plagung as Jack's and is also far less interesting. On the bright side, oldest brother Francis may have dealt with his ennui by attempting suicide, so the stealing is at least somewhat healthy by comparison. It's all very European and arty to make movies about characters who are disaffected, bored and longing but often in Europe those feelings are the run up to some kind of breakthrough or revelation.

In The Darjeeling Limited we get a cheap homage to revelation. The ending features the kind of ironic distance that was very much in style in the late nineties when hipsters had an allergic reaction to anything remotely earnest. This is not to say that The Darjeeling Limited isn't well crafted and oddly fascinating. It's just, for me personally, watching an artist drown in his own self satisfying disaffection is kind of boring.

Movie Review No Strings Attached

No Strings Attached (2011) 

Directed by Ivan Reitman 

Written by Elizabeth Meriweather 

Starring Natalie Portman, Ashton Kutcher, Cary Elwes, Kevin Kline 

Release Date January 21st, 2011 

Published January 20th, 2011 

It's becoming a modern movie affliction; movies that are more ideas than movies. "The Dilemma" is a good example: How do you tell your best friend that his wife is cheating on him? Good idea but that was all anyone seemed to come up with and the film flailed about hoping the cast would find something funny to do. More often than not, the cast never found anything.

"No Strings Attached" is another example of this affliction. The idea is simple: Can two people have a sexual relationship without feelings getting in the way? And, much like "The Dilemma," no one really thought of anything more beyond that idea and thus stranded a charming cast, lead by Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher, in a plotless mess where only occasionally does someone find something funny to say.

Adam and Emma met briefly in Summer Camp as teenagers when an awkwardly distant Emma attempted to comfort a sad Adam and he offered a clumsy teenage come on. They met again in College at a frat party when Emma asked Adam to a family function that turned out to be a funeral. You know how you invite strangers on dates to funerals, so funny. And they met again one year later at a random farmer's market where Adam got Emma's phone number right in front of his girlfriend, because our main character is a total jerk. 

Much would seem to stand in the way of these two bad-timing having folks getting together but when Adam gets blitzed after his girlfriend leaves him for his TV star father (Kevin Kline, in a shocking cameo) he ends up naked on Emma's couch and eventually in her bed. Emma is now a medical resident working ungodly hours in order to become a doctor; she has little time for a relationship. What she does have time for however is hook ups and booty calls and lots of them. Yes, Adam is given what we are to believe is the dream relationship for all emotionally stunted men 'Sex Buddies.'

So why is Adam so miserable? It turns out, in what would be an interesting twist in a better and far more thoughtful and unique film, Adam is not the typical immature boy-man that he might seem. Too bad he has fallen for an emotionally walled off nut case that could only exist in the pages of an under-written romantic comedy.

The eminent critic Mick Lasalle of the San Francisco Chronicle made an interesting point about Ashton Kutcher and his movies. To paraphrase Lasalle: Ashton Kutcher's been in a number of bad movies but he's never been all that bad in those movies. Indeed, Kutcher is an appealing screen presence who delivers more than what is on the page to his characters. He just chooses some truly horrible movies.

"No Strings Attached" is a pretty horrible movie in which Ashton Kutcher is, as usual, not that bad in. Ashton gives the character charm and a soulful, puppy dog quality. The problem is that the rest of the film is such a shambles. Director Ivan Reitman and writers Elizabeth Meriwether and Michael Samonek seem to have an idea for a movie but fail to deliver characters whose motivations from scene to scene are consistent and instead they rely on hit and miss sitcom jokes that hang off of the film's premise.

Poor Natalie Portman is the biggest victim of the hit and miss style of "No Strings Attached." Portman's Emma is called upon to be an emotional disaster reeling from one motivation to the next at the whim of whatever comic notion struck director Ivan Reitman in the moment.

At one moment Reitman finds it funny for Emma to invite a strange man on a date to a family funeral. In the next she's giving her phone number to a guy in front of his girlfriend. In the next she seeks a purely sexual relationship. Then she gets drunk and jealous. Then she tells him to sleep with other women and then she's jealous again. Each time Emma is led to look like a fool because no one bothered to give her a back-story that might lend context to her oddball behavior.

Making matters worse in "No Strings Attached" is a sensational supporting cast that drowns in the wake of the creators’ lack of any clue what to do with them. Kevin Kline as Adam's father is a heedless hedonist whose love of drugs and sex is supposedly funny because he's old. That's the joke, he's old. I imagine that Reitman thought hiring Kevin Kline was all that he needed to make this character work and that's not an unreasonable notion, but even Kline's charm can't get around how misbegotten Reitman's direction of No Strings Attached is. 

Lake Bell plays Adam's co-worker who clearly has a crush on him. Here, the film adds a strange sort of cruelty as nice guy Adam is asked to flirt with Bell's Lucy while pining for crazy Emma. If Lucy were a bigger nutcase than Emma or maybe just mean in some way then his behavior toward her might be excusable. Instead, Lucy and Adam have an uncomfortable and brief courtship before she is shuffled off into another character's jockey send off. 

The brilliant Greta Gerwig from “Greenberg” is wasted in the role of Emma's best friend, sweetly paired off with Adam's best friend Eli (Jake M. Johnson) in one of the film's many thrown away plots. And The Office star Mindy Kaling is brought in to deliver a few tart one liners that sound as if she wrote them herself. Kaling's character exists only for one-liners and to her credit they are the funniest moments in the film. 

There are parts as well for rapper Ludacris, Cary Elwes, and Juno's best pal Olivia Thirlby but nothing really of note. It seems at times that everyone in the cast was hired to inhabit a type and then jokes were written to play off of that type and then everything was cut together with fingers crossed that something coherent would emerge. 

Sadly, nothing coherent does emerge from No Strings Attached aside from a continuing sense that Ashton Kutcher has talent and really poor taste in material. Like us, Kutcher saw the potential of the idea of No Strings Attached but like the rest of the cast he is left hanging by a creative team that failed to develop anything beyond a premise and a couple of good one liners.

One last note, some Oscar pundits have wondered aloud if No Strings Attached were bad enough to be Natalie Portman’s “Norbit,” i.e the film that some believe sunk Eddie Murphy’s chances of winning Best Supporting Actor for his excellent turn in “Dreamgirls.” The answer is a simple no: “No Strings Attached” is not as bad as “Norbit.” Indeed, few movies have ever been as bad as “Norbit.”

Movie Review My Blueberry Nights

My Blueberry Nights (2008) 

Directed by Wong Kar Wai 

Written by Wong Kar Wai, Lawrence Block 

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

Release Date April 4th, 2008 

Published April 4th, 2008 

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

Didn't think so.

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

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

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

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

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

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

It all looks really unique but who cares.

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

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

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

Movie Review Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (2007) 

Directed by Zach Helm 

Written by Zach Helm

Starring Dustin Hoffman, Natalie Portman, Jason Bateman 

Release Date November 16th, 2007

Published November 15th, 2007 

Writer-director Zach Helm has a masterpiece in his future. A guy with this kind of imagination can't help but find greatness. Helm started his career with the inventive script for Marc Forster's Stranger Than Fiction, a film about a man whose life is narrated and manipulated by a novelist. Now he has moved on to his first directing gig and crafted the brightly imaginative kids flick Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium.

Just the kind of film that one would assume was adapted from a kids book, it has that much imaginative detail, Mr. Magorium is entirely the creation of Zach Helm. He was inspired by his time working in a toy store before Hollywood came calling. Assembling a top notch cast, including Stranger Than Fiction co-star Dustin Hoffman and the ethereal Natalie Portman, Helm creates a flawed but good natured family flick without the saccharine taste often attributed to the genre.

Mr. Magorium (Dustin Hoffman) has run his magical toy shop for more than 150 years, by his own count. He has made toys for Napoleon, Lincoln and any number of famous historical figures in his lifetime. Now however, it is time for his career to come to an end and indeed his time on this earth. No, Mr. Magorium is neither sick nor suicidal, it's just his time to go.

Before he leaves however, Magorium wants to make sure that his magic toy store is well taken care of. Ever since she was a young piano prodigy to the time she became manager of the toy shop, Molly Mahoney Natalie Portman) has been unknowingly groomed to take over the store. Now that Mr. Magorium is leaving he wants her to have the store.

Molly has never had a moment's doubt about the magic of the store but her failure to write a grand piano concerto after years of being a prodigy have left her with no belief in the magic within herself. Thus why she refuses to accept Mr. Magorium's offer of the store, and she is especially not ready for him to leave. Meanwhile Magorium hires an accountant, Henry (Jason Bateman) to look into the store's finances and discover the magic himself.

The whole thing about finding the magic within which is quite a cheeseball idea and yet it somehow works. Admittedly I almost choked on the line 'finding the magic within herself'. Nevertheless, that is the point of the film and that is not a bad aim for a kids flick. So many modern kids' flicks can barely claim to have such good intentions, often sacrificing good intentions in favor of loud noise and bright colors. Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium is not short on bright colors. Thankfully, writer-director Zach Helm has the good sense not to forget to tell a good story as he dazzles us with color and the magic of the toy shop.

Dustin Hoffman is no doubt channeling a bit of Willy Wonka in his Mr. Magorium. In fact, it's just the combination of Gene Wilder's sneaky, smarmy Wonka and Johnny Depp's wackjob, childlike Wonka. The combination works to make Mr. Magorium a terrifically funny and unique character like a grownup Pee Wee Herman.

Natalie Portman's pixie-ish beauty is the perfect casting for Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium even if her performance has a few off notes. Ms. Portman is always a joy to watch but as written her character is the roadblock that keeps Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium from taking off as a truly great movie. As written Mahoney doesn't want to own the magical toy store but it is a struggle for Portman herself to make this feel true.

As cheery and fun as she is and the way she lights up at the magic all around her, it is nearly impossible to believe that she wouldn't jump at the chance to own her own magical toy shop. She seems born to the job. Thus, the film flounders as it tries to keep Mahoney from her destiny and we must wade through a few to many scenes of her doubts and realizations.

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium is the kind of family entertainment you won't mind the kids picking up on DVD or catching on cable on a Saturday afternoon. It's harmless and playful and full of imagination and color. That's more than you can say about a number of the so-called 'family movies' we've seen in the past few years. I'm looking at you Cheaper By The Dozen and Are We There Yet.

Director Zach Helm has a masterpiece in his future and based on the wildly imaginative Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, it ought to be quite eye-catching.

Movie Review: Black Swan

Black Swan (2010)

Directed by Darren Aronofsky 

Written by Mark Heyman

Starring Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassell, Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder

Release Date December 3rd, 2010

Published December 2nd, 2010  

Cause this is f.....d up, f....d up.." Thom Yorke "Black Swan" The Eraser 2006.

Thom Yorke unknowingly encapsulated Darren Aronofsky's “Black Swan” in his song Black Swan back in 2006. Indeed, “Black Swan” the movie is 'F....d up.' The story of a prima ballerina in New York City who gets her big break as the lead in the legendary "Swan Lake."

“Black Swan” is extreme melodrama of a kind that only Darren Aronofsky can create and features a second to none, tour de force performance from Natalie Portman that bears comparison with De Niro's method take on Jake Lamotta in “Raging Bull.”

In “Black Swan” Natalie Portman stars as Nina Sayers an overgrown child with dreams of being the featured performer at the New York City Ballet. Living at home with her codependent mom (Barbara Hershey) whose own failure to rise beyond the corps in the same company years earlier has driven much of Nina's own career. If having her mother trying to live vicariously through her isn't troubling enough, Nina is also a cutter who has apparently started cutting again as we join the story; her mother discovers a scratch on Nina's back as she dresses her.

Arriving at Lincoln Center for the beginning of rehearsals for a new season Nina finds that the company's lead ballerina, Beth (Winona Ryder) is being forced out and that Thomas (Vincent Cassell) will mount a newly re-imagined version of Swan Lake with a new lead dancer. Complicating matters for Nina is the arrival of a new, free spirited dancer from the west coast, Lily (Mila Kunis), who Thomas has apparently recruited specifically to join this production.

The plot unfolds as one might expect as Nina finds herself in competition with Lily and constantly concerned that the newcomer is attempting to undermine her. What is not predictable is the ways in which director Darren Aronofsky and cinematographer Matthew Libatique turn up the heat on these proceedings and juice “Black Swan” from slight, goofy melodrama into an over the top camp melodrama that combines exploitation films with high minded art films like we've never seen before.

Natalie Portman spent months training to become a ballet professional losing more than 25 pounds from her already slight frame and allegedly breaking both ribs and toes in the process. I will put what Ms. Portman did up against the physical commitment of any actor in just about any role; her commitment here is remarkable and the performance is devastating as a result.

In previous roles Ms. Portman has played vulnerable but in “Black Swan” she takes on a frightful level of frailty. Looking as if a stiff breeze could take her away and speaking with the quivering voice of a small child, Ms. Portman portrays a fragility that is both physical and emotional. As Nina descends the depths of “Black Swan” Ms. Portman's delicate performance acquires bizarre new levels and by the end you are so fascinated by her that “Black Swan's” many artistic flights slip past almost unnoticed.

The extraordinary look of “Black Swan” is achieved with a combination of hand held digital and an extraordinarily small 16 millimeter film camera with minimal movie lighting that gives an intimate, almost claustrophobic effect in scenes set in Nina’s tiny apartment and an elegant yet macabre look during the lavishly produced ballet sequences. The camera work is so fluid and the production design so terrific that it may go unnoticed by many.

Not surprisingly, the scenes getting the most attention are the sex scenes. Long time friends Portman and Kunis engage is a rigorous girl on girl scene that is more in the imagination of the viewer than you may have been lead to believe. In an exceptional series of scenes Matthew Cassell's imperious leader instructs Nina to touch herself in order to get in touch with the seductive character of the Black Swan leading to a scene that begins erotic and grows disturbingly, darkly, comic.

Darren Aronofsky is part of that rare breed of directors with nerves of steel who rarely question their vision even if that vision is wildly out of the norm. Few other filmmakers would have the guts to try what Aronofsky somehow pulls off in “Black Swan,” a blithely over the top melodrama that haughtily demands to be taken seriously. Laugh if you like, Aronofsky and “Black Swan” stand proudly and in the ungodly brilliant performance of Natalie Portman indeed you have something that cannot easily be dismissed.

“Black Swan” is a stunner; a film of extravagant oddity and highly charged passion. A film with a deeply melodramatic heart and yet high minded pretensions. Darren Aronofsky and company walk a daring high wire act to keep all of these elements in play, at odds and ever moving toward a crashing, spectacular crescendo. This is a film that demands and commands your attention.