Movie Review Tape

Tape (2001) 

Directed by Richard Linklater

Written by Stephen Belber 

Starring Uma Thurman, Robert Sean Leonard, Ethan Hawke 

Release Date November 2nd, 2001 

Published April 16th, 2002 

Someone once said that there are three sides to every story: Yours, mine, and the truth. This is the central theme of Richard Linklater's film Tape starring Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard, and Uma Thurman.

Hawke is Vince, a low level drug dealer and a world-class fuckup. Vince is in Lansing, Michigan for the Lansing Film Festival where his friend John (Leonard) is debuting his first film. The two meet at Vince's rundown hotel room with John expecting to go to dinner, but Vince has another agenda. Thus begins a game of verbal cat and mouse with Vince attempting lead John to the conclusion that best fits what Vince wants to hear.

The disagreement is over Vince's high school girlfriend Amy and an incident between John and Amy that each remembers differently. Vince has a surprise for John in that Amy is in Lansing and on her way to the hotel as they speak. Amy (Uma) is surprised to see John and is obviously unnerved at seeing him again. Vince quickly steers the conversation to high school and the thing that happened between John and Amy.

What happened between John and Amy? Well that’s interesting you see, they aren't quite sure. Each character remembers it differently which leads to amazing bouts of verbal warfare, shifting alliances and childish name-calling.

Linklater, the man behind Dazed and Confused and Slacker, here crafts a story that would easily translate to a play. A single set three actors and a lot of very good dialogue. The actors are up to the challenge. With each line of dialogue they make their point while their faces and actions give the audience insight into who they are. There is some obvious improvisation going on and the improv makes the dialogue feel real.

Linklater shot the film on digital video, which allows him to use the room’s natural lighting and adds to the feeling of intimacy, of being there, witnessing this conversational warfare. As the film progresses, Linklater uses the DV camera to visually shrink the room with tight, claustrophobic, close-ups, magnifying the tension in each characters face.

Tape is a small but powerful film that, like Changing Lanes, is an insightful look at human nature and how right and wrong can at times be decided by what is perceived instead of what is true. Emotions, instincts, anger and self-preservation are all part of being human; it's how you deal with them that define you as a person. I may be over-intellectualizing this film, maybe it's just about three people and a misunderstanding. This review may be more of an insight into this reviewer than this film, but these are honestly all the things that went through my mind as I watched this magnificent film. 

I highly recommend Tape. 

Movie Review Knocked Up

Knocked Up (2007) 

Directed by Judd Apatow

Written by Judd Apatow 

Starring Seth Rogen, Katherine Heigl, Jonah Hill, Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Jason Segal 

Release Date June 1st, 2007 

Published May 30th, 2007 

Television's loss has become the film world's gain. Just think, had either of Judd Apatow's television ventures, Freaks & Geeks or Undeclared become the hit they deserved to be, we might have had to wait for The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. Thankfully, and yet sadly, both shows were mistreated by hasty network execs seeking quick hit programming, and thus Apatow was pushed to create two of the best comedies of this decade.

The 40 Year Old Virgin is a masterwork in the comedy of discomfort. For all of its lowbrow elements, Virgin thrived on delivering characters with great heart as well as great humor. Judd Apatow's new film Knocked Up shares Virgin's heart and humor but also manages to go a little deeper in analyzing its characters and their flaws. That said, for fans of the off-color humor, there are plenty of dick jokes, vomit jokes, and a birthing scene like nothing you have seen outside of a medical documentary.

Seth Rogan stars in Knocked Up as Ben, a true loser. He lives in a run down house with several of his loser friends. He smokes pot all day and is waiting while his stoner pals try and launch a website dedicated to nude scenes of Hollywood movies. He lives off the profits of a personal injury lawsuit he won several years earlier.

How Ben (Seth Rogan) managed to hook up with a woman like Allison (Katherine Heigl) is entirely about the alcohol. Without a little help from Jose Cuervo there was no way Allison and Ben would end up in bed together. Allison is a gorgeous, highly ambitious, entertainment reporter who, while celebrating her promotion at E! Entertainment television, meets Ben and somehow ends up in bed with him.

The meeting of Ben and Allison should have been for just one alcohol fueled night. However, thanks to condom troubles, Allison ends up pregnant and now she and Ben are tied for good. She has to try and find a way to make things work for the sake of her baby and he must find some way to grow up and become a father.

Written and directed by Judd Apatow, Knocked Up is a foul mouthed yet thoughtful examination of real life issues, parenthood and marriage, and the fears that many people share about growing up and becoming a real adult. The Peter Pan syndrome of many child adults has been a trend in comedies of this decade. Where Knocked Up is different from films like Grandma's Boy, Benchwarmers or Failure To Launch is that Knocked Up is smarter, funnier and features a far more talented group of performers.  

The most important difference however is creator Judd Apatow whose witty insightful writing, leavened by copious amounts of lowbrow jokes, creates characters and situations that are funnier and more believable than those in supposedly similar films. As he did on his terrific, but sadly short lived TV shows, Apatow shows in Knocked Up a level of understanding and good heartedness that often feels crass in lesser talented hands.

His comic timing, the way he mixes the lowbrow humor with the insightful character stuff is a near perfect mixture. Teaming with Seth Rogan, his longtime friend and producing partner, Apatow creates a quick, witty shorthand that never plays like two friends and an inside joke. The shorthand they have together is apparent but they keep all of the humor open and accessible.

If I have any complaint about Knocked Up it comes from a not so surprising lack of depth in the Allison character. It has long been a difficult road for male writers attempting to write fully fleshed out female characters and even a writer as talented as Judd Apatow can't avoid the pitfalls. While Katherine Heigl brings a wonderful inner life to Allison, Apatow fails to flesh out a back story and motivation for her prior to hooking up with Ben.

Why does she live in her sister's guest house? Where are her friends? We meet all of Ben's stoner buddies, but not one of Allison's friends. What about other men? Certainly a woman as beautiful as Allison has had other boyfriends or would attract other men even as she is trying things with Ben. We never learn anything about Allison other than how she reacts to Ben and to becoming a parent with him.

One reason Allison gets the short end of the stick is that this is really Ben's journey told from Ben's perspective and what an interesting perspective that is. Seth Rogan makes Ben so charming and funny that you only question how a schlub like him could win over a goddess like Allison for maybe... half the movie's runtime. But, once we are comfortable with Ben you can't help but be won over. His quick wit, his willingness to make himself the subject of the joke and his relaxed easy going charisma make him a real winner even as his lifestyle and some of his actions betray a loser.

This is the fifth time Rogan has worked with his good friend Judd Apatow, he was on both of Apatow's TV series, had a small role in Anchorman, where Apatow was an executive producer, and co-starred and earned a producer's credit on The 40 Year Old Virgin. The breezy way in which these two work together likely comes from a long honed shorthand.

Paul Rudd is the secret weapon of Knocked Up. Once seen as just another handsome actor, Rudd has in the past 3 years established himself as a tremendously funny supporting player. In Anchorman as Will Ferrell's go to guy and in The 40 Year Old Virgin Rudd showed a terrific flair for self-deprecating humor, a willingness to make jokes about him and a pitch perfect ear  for the one liner.

In Knocked Up Rudd crafts a very human and very funny character that is both self deprecating and confident. His Pete is at first the least complicated character in the film and you feel you know where his secondary storyline is heading. Thankfully, Apatow and Rudd have a number of surprises in store and Pete is much more interesting than he initially appears.

Throughout the middle portion of Knocked Up, as we are getting close with Ben and Allison, we get some very interesting and insightful moments with Pete and his wife, Allison's sister, Debbie played by Leslie Mann. The marriage of Pete and Debbie is counterpoint to Ben and Allison's burgeoning romance and the two relationships are a commentary on one another in a very unique way.

Finally, in a tiny, almost insignificant role, Saturday Night Live star Kristin Wiig is a terrific scene stealer. Playing one of Allison's bosses at the E! Network, Wiig plays a variation on one of her SNL characters, one who feels she must top any story with one of her own. The subtle brilliance of Wiig's performance is almost so low key you could miss it. Pay attention when she is on, you are guaranteed some big laughs.

Yes, Knocked Up is often foul and features a good deal of low humor. However, mixed within the lowest common denominator stuff is a true heart and a great head. The film is warmer and truer than most of the films Hollywood releases in any year, not just comedies. Knocked Up is a terrifically funny movie packed with talented performers and a creator who is a star on the rise for many years to come. As good as both The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up are, I feel Judd Apatow will only get more interesting as he matures. His best work may be yet to come. 

Movie Review The Bourne Supremacy

The Bourne Supremacy (2004) 

Directed by Paul Greengrass

Written by Tony Gilroy

Starring Matt Damon, Brian Cox, Franke Potente, Julia Stiles, Karl Urban, Joan Allen 

Release Date July 23rd, 2004 

Published July 22nd, 2004 

What I have always loved about action movies, or more specifically spy movies, is the idea that while we live our everyday mundane lives, secret forces are out there creating and covering up chaos. Just think of all those times the world has been in peril or (at least the lives of normal civilians like ourselves) and we have never known it. 

We have wandered into city squares unaware that they are teeming with secret agents and surrounded by SWAT team snipers. What about all of those times you have been cut off by some nut in traffic unaware that he is fleeing for his life with the fate of the nation hanging in the balance.  The Bourne Supremacy doesn’t get caught up with saving the world but it does have a few of those moments where everyday civilians unknowingly cross paths with danger -- all of it cleverly staged and playing into a smart, action-packed plot, heavy on spycraft and low on dialogue. 

Matt Damon returns as Jason Bourne the amnesiac hero of 2002’s The Bourne Identity. As we rejoin Jason Bourne, he is hiding out in India with his on the lam girlfriend Marie (Franke Potente) whom he kidnapped and fell in love with in the first film. The couple has an idyllic life of leisure aside from Jason’s occasional flashes of memories that he can’t fully recover. Jason knows he did something horrible but can’t remember what it is.

Not surprisingly, his memory will become important as Jason is drawn back into the spy game by the arrival of an assassin (Karl Urban) who has just framed Jason for murder in Munich, Germany, and has now come to India to tie up his loose ends. Jason doesn’t know about the Munich setup; he assumes the CIA has resumed pursuit of him despite his warning of reprisal.

Joan Allen is Pamela Landy, CIA field director, who stumbles on to Bourne through the assassin’s setup in Munich. Landy was in Munich when two of her CIA squad were killed and the evidence points to Bourne. Searching for Bourne leads her to Bourne’s former boss Ward Abbott (Brian Cox) who has something big to hide. Whether it’s criminal or merely a CIA operation is one of many tantalizing mysteries. From the outset, the only character to trust is Bourne; everyone else is suspect. 

Director Paul Greengrass’s previous film was the visceral pseudo-documentary Bloody Sunday about terrorist strife in Ireland. That film employed a grainy look that dated the film to its 1980s setting. There is no need for such tricks in this film but that does not preclude Greengrass from being innovative with the film’s look. Its color palette, sun-soaked yellows in India, subtle grays and cold exteriors in Europe follow closely the film’s tone. 

The action scenes are where The Bourne Supremacy sets itself apart from other action movies. Especially good is a hand-to-hand fight scene that Greengrass shot with a handheld camera that follows the action much like Michael Mann’s camera in the boxing ring in Ali, the difference being that Mann shot that on Digital and Greengrass does this on film. 

The Bourne Supremacy also has one of the best chase scenes ever. This is on par with John Frankenheimer’s Ronin and William Friedkin’s The French Connection, with Bourne chased by Urban’s unknown assassin and a number of Russian police. Bourne is driving with one arm after being shot and while being chased he must stop the bleeding. And did I mention the car is a stick shift.

The most essential element of The Bourne Supremacy is the performance of Damon. This film, like its progenitor, turns on whether or not Damon is a believable action hero and once again Damon is a revelation. Damon brings an actor’s chops to a role that most actors throw away, hoping the special effects will carry them. He has the serious manner of Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible but with a grittier, more realistic approach.

Though I would like stronger dialogue and the plot could stand to be a little more fleshed out, there is very little to complain about. Screenwriter Tony Gilroy has an efficient writing style reminiscent of David Mamet’s Spartan but with less wit and far fewer four-letter words. It resembles Mamet in efficiency, if not wordiness, both films don't writers are not wasting time. 

The Bourne Supremacy, like The Bourne Identity, is based on a novel by the late Robert Ludlum who has many more Bourne thrillers already on bookshelves guaranteeing more of this smart, efficient spy thriller. Hopefully the next film is as kinetic and inventive as The Bourne Supremacy is; a terrific summer action movie.

Movie Review: Before Sunset

Before Sunrise (1995) 

Directed by Richard Linklater

Written by Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Richard Linklater 

Starring Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy

Release Date January 27th 1995 

Published June 15th, 2004 

Massively moneyed blockbusters are supposed to have sequels, not tiny independent romances with cult followings. Richard Linklater however has always been one to do things differently and thus there is now a sequel to his 1995 romance Before Sunrise. With that film set for release in America in July (it's already been seen in Germany where it premiered at the Berlin), I thought it was a good time to revisit the original and I’m glad I did.

On a train traveling through Europe, two twenty-somethings meet by chance and spend one romantic night in Vienna. Jesse (Ethan Hawke) is an American who came to Europe to see his girlfriend and ends up heartbroken and wandering. Celine (Julie Delpy) is a French college student headed home from Budapest after visiting relatives.

Jesse and Celine bond over their mutual distaste with a couple loudly fighting in indecipherable German. They decide to hang out together in the dining car and what begins as a time-killing conversation becomes a series of smart, witty exchanges and real honest romance. He has to get off in Vienna to catch a plane the next morning, she is supposed to just go straight home but Jesse's charm tempts her enough to jump off the train for one romantic night in Vienna.

A more Hollywood style romance would fly off the rails at this point adding mobsters, thieves or something supernatural to the plot in order to give the characters something more to do than just walk and talk. Writer-Director Richard Linklater is more confident in his writing and especially his dialogue to need any Hollywoodized plot devices. His dialogue and his two amazing actors are all the devices he needs.

As Jesse and Celine laconically wander the streets of Vienna, their conversations twist and turn through such diverse topics as reincarnation (they both believe but Jesse has a unique theory), Feminism (Celine believes it may be a conspiracy to get woman to act more like men so they will have sex more), and the inevitable discussion of each other’s pasts which they handle in part with fake phone calls to best friends.

The conversations border on cuteness but the two actors are good at steering away from anything that might be considered cloying. Julie Delpy is a revelation. She looks like your classic French ingenue, the type of shrinking violet that could be blown away by a stiff wind. She changes that right from the start by jumping right into the heavy conversation with the sardonic and clever Hawke and matching him word for clever word. She also curses like a sailor, but an unbelievably sexy French sailor.

What a wonderfully romantic idea. Meeting a stranger on a train and falling in love in some far out foreign locale for only one night. I have always thought it would be amazing to go Europe with a backpack full of books and a laptop of my own writing and just wander until I find my muse. Before Sunrise allowed me to lose myself in that fantasy with two characters who's wit, intelligence and romance could be just the inspiration I would need.

The sequel, Before Sunset, hits theaters in July 2004 and though I haven't seen it yet, the idea of it evokes Claude Lelouche's masterpiece A Man and A Woman and it's sequel of the same title set 20 years later. Both films are romantic and smart, following strangers who fall in love only to separate soon after. Hopefully, Before Sunset will be a more successful follow up than Lelouche's follow-up, which damaged the first film’s legacy as a classic. I doubt that would happen to Linklater who has yet to make a bad film, at least from this critic’s perspective.

If Before Sunset can manage to be as witty, romantic and poetic as Before Sunrise, then those of us who enjoy movies without the aid of special effects and blaring soundtracks will have something to look forward to this summer.

Movie Review: Beat

Beat (2000) 

Directed by Gary Walkow 

Written by Gary Walkow 

Starring Norman Reedus, Kiefer Sutherland, Courtney Love, Kyle Secor, Ron Livingston 

Release Date January 29th, 2000 

Published October 29th, 2002 

Knowing little more than the names of the Beat poets of the 1950's I was intrigued to see a film that I assumed would shed some light on the work and motivation of what has been called the golden age of American poetry. Instead, with the drama, Beat, we get a very short and at times quite dull love story involving bland secondary characters who rotate around the poets one would expect the film to focus on.

Beat stars Courtney Love as Joanie Burroughs, the wife of William S. Burroughs, whose death at his hands in 1951 is said to be what launched William S. Burroughs' best work. Burroughs is played by Kiefer Sutherland, in what amounts to an extended cameo. His Burroughs spends most of the film pursuing an off camera affair with another man. In 1951, the Burroughs are living in Mexico as William ducks a heroin conviction in New York. Here, they are visited by a pair of old friends, Allen Ginsburg (Ron Livingston) and Lucien Carr (Norman Reedus). Their aim for their trip is to convince Joan to come back to New York with or without William. Lucien is in love with Joan and sees William's cheating as his opportunity to steal her away.

While one might expect a film about poets to be very talky, not much more than talking happens in Beat, though not the kind of talking you would hope for. I was hoping to hear poetry, but, for a film that features William S. Burroughs, Allan Ginsburg and alludes to a character playing Jack Kerouac, there is surprisingly little poetry. Livingston is also the film's narrator and, at times, he does riff, but those riffs are abbreviated. Most of the film consists of discussions about Lucien having been released from jail after murdering a gay friend (Homicide's Kye Secor), who tried to get a little too close. Reedus's Lucien is often referred to as the catalyst of the New York poetry scene, though he does not seem to compose much (if any) poetry. His place in history is not well known.

The film's ending, also portrayed in the Burroughs adaptation Naked Lunch, is tragic but not unexpected. Anyone familiar with Burroughs' history knows this actually happened. Whether or not the incident portrayed followed so closely after a visit by Carr and Ginsburg is unclear. Most of the film is an allusion to events as they may have happened, implying the reason and motivations.

Clocking in at a slim 67 minutes, Beat begins with little narrative momentum and runs out of it quickly. The film has no story, and what's worse, it has some of the most fascinating people of the last half-century but doesn't portray them doing what they do best. A movie about poets with little or no poetry... whose idea was this? 

Movie Review: Basic

Basic (2003)

Directed by John McTiernan 

Written by James Vanderbilt 

Starring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Connie Nielsen, Taye Diggs, Giovanni Ribisi, Tim Daly 

Release Date March 28th, 2003 

Published March 27th, 2003 

Just over a year ago, director John McTiernan hit a career low point that made The Last Action Hero look like an Oscar winner. The 2002 remake of Rollerball was a painful cinematic experience for the audience and probably the filmmaker as well. McTiernan soldiers on, literally in fact, with his new military thriller Basic. Re-teaming Pulp Fiction partners John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson, McTiernan has improved on his last effort; then again, how could he not?

Travolta, back in military mode for the first time since 1999 trash thriller The General's Daughter, here plays another troubled outsider called into the military fold to investigate a murder. Sergeant Nathan West(Jackson) and a group of six recruits went into the jungle training grounds of Panama and only two people came back. Both men, Lieutenant Kendell(Giovanni Ribisi) and Lieutenant Dunbar (Brian Van Holt) say Sergeant West was killed, but that is where the similarities in their stories end. While Travolta's Tom Hardy--who is paired with a military investigator, Lieutenant Osborne (Connie Nielsen)--interrogates each man, two very different stories evolve as time ticks away before the FBI and military police step in and take the case over.

The camp commander, Colonel Styles (Tim Daly), needs the case cracked before the Feds get there or the camp will be shut down. Of course, his motives come into question, as do the motives of everyone in the film, as the plot begins to spin out of control with flashback on top of flashback. The film's plot is based on so many lucky guesses and well-timed confessions, that by the time it arrives at its final twist, you're too exhausted to care. Whether it was too much editing and settling for shorthand clues that the audience never sees or simply a poorly-constructed plot one is left to wonder.

If you are looking for a Pulp Fiction reunion, there isn't much to get excited about Travolta and Jackson share very little screen time. However, Travolta is well teamed with Nielsen. The two spark with flirty dialogue even while at each other's throat over who is in charge. Travolta is in full-on cool mode, much like his performance in Broken Arrow--all swagger, bravado, and charisma. Jackson, on the other hand, though he is played up as a star, really only has a cameo in the film. He's barely there. In typical Sam Jackson manner, he still manages to make an impression.

Of course, if one is to compare Basic to any of Travolta's past films, the obvious one is The General's Daughter. In both films, Travolta plays a cop on the outskirts of the military called into an investigation that could lead to a scandal. Both are murder investigations with mysterious circumstances and witnesses with conflicting accounts and there is even a soldier with a powerful general for a father who wants things to keep quiet. Thankfully, the general remains off screen. The difference between Basic and The General's Daughter is entertainment value. 

Where Basic tires you with twist after twist, The General's Daughter has the advantage of salacious subject matter and trashy novelizations to titillate the audience and distract from the formula thriller twists. Basic doesn't have that to fall back on and thus, outside of Travolta, it's just no fun. The further I get from the film, the more the cracks in the plot become big gaping holes. Unlike many critics though, I cannot lay all the blame with screenwriter James Vanderbilt because some of these ideas, especially the ending, seem to have been made up as they went along.

Basic is an improvement for John McTiernan over Rollerball. (Then again, repertory theater versions of Rollerball would improve over that film.) McTiernan is in a slump and rumors of a Die Hard sequel are out there. Maybe a return to such familiar ground is what the man needs. That or maybe just a nice long vacation.

Movie Review: Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday (2002) 

Directed by Edward Burns

Written by Edward Burns 

Starring Edward Burns, Elijah Wood, Rosario Dawson, Oliver Platt 

Release Date October 11th, 2002 

Published December 16th, 2002 

One of the holiest of Catholic holidays, Ash Wednesday is celebrated as the beginning of Lent. The ashes anointed on the head of the believer is a reminder that we are born of dust and will one day return to dust. Essentially, it's a reminder of death. The perfect metaphor for Edward Burns’ new feature Ash Wednesday. A film that is a meditation on life and death and the choices people make that lead to death. Though the filmmaking is somewhat misguided, its heart is in the right place.

Ash Wednesday, written, directed by and starring Burns is Francis, a former Irish mob thug turned reformed citizen after the supposed death of his brother Sean (Elijah Wood). It was 1980 in a part of New York known as Hell's Kitchen. Sean Sullivan was tending bar when he overheard a group of men talking over the murder of Sean's brother. Sensing the men meant business, Sean does the only thing he can think of to save his brother and murders the group. 

Conspiring with his brother, their priest Father Mahoney (James Handy), and their father’s mob partner Whitey (Malachy McCourt), Sean is smuggled out of the state and his death is faked to satisfy the families of the men he killed. Unfortunately, Sean leaves behind a wife played by Rosario Dawson, and an unborn son he does not know of. Three years pass and Francis has been spending time with Sean's wife until Sean pops up unannounced to claim her and take her away with him. Sean is unaware of his brother's actions. The rumors of Sean's return from the grave spread quickly and the family of the men Sean killed lead by Oliver Platt (in what amounts to a cameo, though he's on the poster) immediately come looking for Francis and a fight.

Once the indie wunderkind who went from intern on Entertainment Tonight to writer-director with his first feature The Brothers McMullan, Ed Burns has been on a steady decline since his charming debut. His most recent film was the highly uneven Woody Allen homage Sidewalks Of New York. Before that the unnoticed No Looking Back. The quality of Burns' work has slipped with each outing and Ash Wednesday continues the decline.

Though the film has its moments of purity and intelligence, Burns' performance, along with that of his woefully miscast co-star Elijah Wood, undoes any interesting elements the film has. Burns is excessively laid back for the character he is portraying, a killer with a conscience. To convince anyone he was a conflicted killer Burns would have to show us he has a pulse, show us that he actually cares. However, even during the few scenes of gunplay Burns maintains a disaffected air that is off-putting to the audience and undermining of the character.

As for Wood, his wistful looks make him about the least believable killer since Julia Roberts shot that guy in The Mexican. I honestly expected him to drop the gun and start crying. I'm not commenting on Wood's masculinity, I'm speaking solely of his performance which is dewy eyed, whiny, and deeply unconvincing for what the character is called upon to do. 

There are good things about Ash Wednesday, specifically the performance of Rosario Dawson who in a very limited role manages to earn audience sympathies while saddled with subpar dialogue. Also good is the film’s score, a piano driven dirge that reinforces the gloom that rises from the crime ridden streets.

The truly disappointing part of Ash Wednesday is it's ending, which is meant to be emotional and cathartic, but is instead insultingly obvious.