The Moviefone Blog

The Basics: 'Used Cars' and Satisfying Endings

William Goss — 2011-03-26T17:00:00+00:00

Drew McWeeny of HitFix contributed a series of columns about the essential titles that any film fan ought to be familiar with, and I used to respond with my own thoughts in a timely manner. However, I've been working on this entry of The Basics since August of 2010, so it's fair to say that it will be my last post as part of the series... in addition to serving as my last post as part of the Cinematical staff.

I imagine that you have some questions.

If you're wondering what "The Basics" is, I implore you to go back and read that preface again, if not the four posts preceding this one. If you're wondering where "The Basics" went, well, it went on my back burner for far too long. If you're wondering where "The Basics" is going, keep your eyes on Drew's own corner of the internet, as he intends to bring the series back, and soon.

In the meantime, I recommend checking out Jacob Hall's like-minded column here, "Where Everyone Has Gone Before." This whippersnapper's been writing circles around me for a while now, and I encourage you all to continue reading his work...

But not before you finish reading mine, damn it.

For whatever reason -- probably because I felt like a change of pace after the B&W likes of 'Rumble Fish' and 'Manhattan' and 'Duck Soup' -- Drew picked the certainly colorful 'Used Cars' as our follow-up. I've seen my fair share of films directed by Robert Zemeckis, but beyond the immaculate 'Back to the Future,' I hadn't really appreciated the few screenplays co-written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale. What this film and, later on, '1941' made me realize was what kind of craft Zemeckis used to bring to his screenplays, a special effect in and of itself that has since been eclipsed by his preoccupation with advancing on-screen technology to increasingly eerie effect.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. 'Used Cars' starts with a dream: Rudy Russo (Kurt Russell) wants to run for office. More importantly, he's willing to do anything and everything to get off the used car lot at which he's currently glad-handing customers, if not outright duping them. Owner Luke Fuchs (Jack Warden) doesn't support Rudy's proudly amoral approach, but he loves the kid and he'll do anything to keep his brother, Roy (also Warden), from putting the lot out of business. Of course, Roy's even sneakier and manages to have the already frail Luke agitated into having a heart attack, forcing Rudy to take drastic measures in order to move that metal.

I was initially won over by the film's ribald yet affable sense of humor and charming cast. (Russell's perfectly cocky/charming/desperate here, and between this and 'Phantom of the Paradise,' I'm starting to form a soft spot for the wide-eyed antics of Gerrit Graham.) Rudy knows that sex sells, and that the right lie can not just sell a car, but save the day; to see our "hero" show up in court and convince Luke's daughter and heir apparent (Deborah Harmon) to lie under oath in a last-ditch effort to salvage their business only reinforces the casual refrain of "Trust me" that seems to issue from every last liar's mouth at some point. It's a refreshingly skewed view of the American Dream post-Watergate, mid-Iran hostage crisis: the only honest men here are soon dead, and some of these hucksters who openly criticize the government are merely thousands of dollars and votes away from being the target of constant cynicism rather than the culprit for a change.

However, I wasn't prepared for the scale of the film's climax. For all intents and purposes, 'Used Cars' starts out as a small comedy that volleys from one side of the street to another, but Zemeckis and Gale go for broke with a desert-set, 250-car race to the finish line that I would've expected from '1941' or 'The Blues Brothers,' not from this. It's great, though, as a stunt spectacle full of people jumping between cars and cars ramping over trains, as an opportunity to finally pay off several smaller gags, and as an excuse to introduce a much-needed ticking-clock element to the otherwise shaggy proceedings.

Few modern comedies bother with such a calculated and satisfying sense of escalation, instead dawdling their way to the two-hour mark (I'm looking at you, Judd Apatow). More disappointingly, Zemeckis hasn't bothered to write anything in the past two decades that even attempts to match the playful nature of his work here. Granted, neither he nor Gale have to prove themselves anymore, but it'd be nice to see them step away from the temptations of motion-capture and back towards making comedies that genuinely reward an audience for their time and trust.

Usually, I'd sign off with the phrase "Until next time..." followed by a quote from whatever movie I was covering. I suppose there's little use in maintaining the sentiment, though. I've had a good run here. I'm grateful to Drew for allowing me to pick up the dropped baton that was "The Basics," even if things did taper off in the end on my part. I'm beyond beholden to Erik and Scott for giving me the opportunity to find my voice before such a staggering audience. And finally, I'm thankful to Rudy Russo for encouraging me to follow my dreams and finally run for Senate.

Good night, everybody, and don't forget to vote Goss in 2012!

'Our Day Will Come' SXSW Review: Redheads on the Run

William Goss — 2011-03-22T17:15:00+00:00

When we first meet Remy (Olivier Barthelemy), he is both literally and figuratively bruised. He is ostracized from his soccer team, shunned by his family and even mocked online. Then again, he is a redhead, and in the world of Romain Gavras' 'Our Day Will Come,' he's one of many persecuted based on the color of his hair. Patrick (Vincent Cassel) knows his pain, and these two strangers partner up for a road trip to their idea of the promised land -- Ireland -- and cause much mayhem along the way.

The title comes from a slogan used by the IRA, the premise from a music video Gavras directed for rap artist MIA, and the result is a potent political parable in addition to being an exceedingly madcap and somewhat melancholy buddy adventure. Do we even know why Patrick is drawn to Remy in the first place? Not really; after Remy fights with his family and the cops are called, we can assume that psychiatrist/guidance counselor Patrick is assigned to his case, but for all we know, they're simply two strangers who meet in the night. Patrick does counsel him, but only in the form of escalating confrontations -- he's like Ferris Bueller by way of Tyler Durden, out to prevent an angry teen from growing into a numb adult like himself.

And in the Alan Ruck/Edward Norton role, Barthelemy is fine, perfectly volatile but mostly just a sexually confused grump. But it really is Cassel's show, a rebel without a care who is more concerned about his animal crackers than the clients he should be treating, who is prone to pissing in occupied hot tubs and throwing around racial slurs, if only to feel like the more oppressed minority in any given situation. It's a fierce performance, alternately cocky and compassionate, and he's the main reason you won't be able to tear your eyes away from this proudly meandering film.

To be clear, Gavras (son of Costa-Gavras) is far more interested in the journey rather than the destination, and he counters the terrifically foreboding score by Sebastian with his consistently peculiar sense of humor, itself always tinged with real-life regret or frustration. Stripped of its persecution parallels, it's simply the story of two scared men finding and supporting one another in a world hellbent on excluding them from the acceptable definition of happiness, and to his credit, Gavras manages to make this feel much more like a riff on the tale of Don Quixote than simply a two-dudes take on 'Thelma & Louise.'

'Our Day Will Come' is truly transportive filmmaking, a window into a world only one degree off from our own, laden with absurdist charms and about as hypnotic and brash as a klaxon. Although it's not for all tastes, it certainly stands out as a darkly funny, oddly moving look at two individuals looking for a fight, and for a home to call their own.

MORE: SXSW 2011: Spike Jonze & Romain Gavras Turn Music Videos Into Masterpieces

'Beginners' SXSW Review: I Love My Dead Gay Dad

William Goss — 2011-03-22T09:45:00+00:00

This is 2003. This is Oliver (Ewan McGregor). He is an artist whose work nobody appreciates. This is Hal (Christopher Plummer). He's a cancer-stricken widower who has come out of the closet at the age of 75. He is Oliver's father. This is 'Beginners,' Mike Mills' semi-autobiographical follow-up to 'Thumbsucker' and an artistic effort that I, for one, failed to appreciate.

See, Oliver is fine with his dad being a homosexual, even if boyfriend Andy (Goran Visnjic) doesn't believe that's the case. He's more troubled by the implication that his parents had a loveless marriage over so many years, making Oliver all the more concerned about his reluctance to commit to a relationship while in his late 30s.

He meets cute with Anna (Melanie Laurent) at a costume party, where the laryngitis-stricken actress is naturally dressed up as a silent movie star. He reads her thoughts on paper much as he reads the thoughts of his late father's Jack Russell terrier. Did I mention the subtitled dog? There is a subtitled dog, and a cute one at that.

Appropriately enough, when Oliver meets Anna, he's dressed up as Freud, playing an artist who's acting as a psychoanalyst in much the same way that Mills is using Oliver to explore his own issues about the very personal experiences of having his father come out at such a late age. These issues of love and loss are grounded in dilemmas that we all must face, and yet just as one might cope with tragic events using sarcasm, Mills seems to distance himself -- or, at the very least, his characters -- from real pain with relentless artifice.

Oliver is inexplicably able to read the dog's thoughts, the film's lone touch of magic realism. When Oliver learns of the cancerous lump inside his father's body, he's told that it's the size of a quarter, and so we're shown a quarter, and then five nickels, and then another combination of coins equal to that amount. When Oliver recalls Hal's revelation that he's gay, we get to see him deliver the pronouncement in the clothes Oliver thought he was wearing at the time, and then what he was actually wearing. Oliver reminds us of the time period as the narrative leaps between his early years hanging around with a lovelorn mother (Mary Page Keller), those last years spent with his father and his first dates with Anna: "This is 2003," he announces often. "This is the sun. These are the stars. This was the President," and so on.

The non-linear structure isn't an issue, nor are any of the three leads (four if you count the Jack Russell, and why shouldn't we?). Mopey and misunderstood, McGregor is a hard character to warm up to, but he does come across as fundamentally compassionate towards his father and concerned about whether or not he's bound to sabotage his interactions with Laurent, when not left to doodle in despair. Laurent matches McGregor beat for beat in terms of quiet vulnerability, even if she does happen to align with his insufferably twee sensibilities. Regardless, this is ultimately Plummer's show, and he goes about his final days with newfound relish and unshakable dignity.

Alas, virtually every moment of introspective tenderness mustered up by this trio ends up undermined by Mills' super-precious execution, each performance fragmented by all the detours and details that couldn't simply be omitted in favor of graceful emotional maturation. This is 2011, and I, for one, don't think it's too much to ask that films like 'Beginners' be based on screenplays and not scrapbooks.

Oh, and did I mention that his dad is gay? There is a dead gay dad, and a lively one at that.

'Kill List' SXSW Review: Their Sanity in Someone Else's Sights

William Goss — 2011-03-21T09:10:00+00:00

Well, it's official: Ben Wheatley is Mike Leigh with a far bigger set of huevos. The man's naturalistic approach gave his directorial debut, 'Down Terrace,' a dark comedy about a crime family, surprising dramatic heft, and with his follow-up, 'Kill List,' Wheatley takes his filmmaking in even bolder directions.

Jay (Neil Maskell) hasn't worked in eight months, and his unemployment and general lack of social graces are taking its toll on his marriage to Shel (MyAnna Buring). His pal Gal (Michael Smiley) has an assignment, though, if Jay wants it -- local work this time -- and after a particularly heated dinner party, Jay decides that maybe getting himself out of the house and back into the swing of things would be for the best.

It seems fair to say that Jay and Gal happen to be hitmen, and that the "Kill List" of the title is their target roster; to reveal much more would be criminal, as it becomes steadily apparent that our two professionals may be in over their heads with this particular assignment.

The first act is such a matter-of-fact affair that it could take place in the same world as 'Terrace' did, as evildoers go about their daily routines, caring for their children and otherwise trying to maintain the illusion of home-bound happiness. The second act reveals their true natures, as these skilled individuals expertly dispatch their marks and find themselves shaken up by circumstances beyond their control. The violence here is unbearably realistic at times, visceral in a way that 'Terrace' never was nor had to be; make no mistake, the makeup team deserves top marks for their grisly wound work here.

It's easy to become invested in the leads as they continue on their downward trajectory. Maskell and Smiley effortlessly convey their characters' like-minded professionalism, and to see the latter show concern for the former's mounting insecurity and nigh-righteous anger only endears them further to us. This proves critical in the third act, where matters take what seems to be a hard left turn that has in fact been signposted throughout. The reveal would be a breeze to give up -- just making one simple comparison to another film would tip its hand -- but that would diminish its eventual impact and Wheatley's remarkably nimble efforts in getting his audience and characters to that point feasibly. (Amy Jump, who co-wrote the screenplay with Wheatley, deserves due credit as well for ramping up the mystery in effectively eerie ways.)

'Kill List' works, whether as a domestic drama, a hitman thriller or something more sinister than either of those. Its ambiguity may be a bit maddening, but the ensemble delivers uniformly gripping performances and it's directed with the sure hand of a man who knows precisely which corners of darkness he wants to take his audience.

'Limitless' Review: This is Bradley Cooper's Brain on Drugs

William Goss — 2011-03-18T15:30:00+00:00

Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) is a writer, which is to say that he's a loser. His girlfriend, Lindy (Abbie Cornish), has just thrown in the towel, and who can blame her? But Eddie just bumped into his ex-brother-in-law, a drug dealer with a new pill to push. It's called "NZT," it's clear, it's allegedly FDA-approved, and it allows the user to take full advantage of their brain's capabilities (as opposed to the rumored 20% we only tap into now).

In essence, it transforms Eddie into Bradley Cooper, a beyond-suave math whiz who's finished his novel with ease and is now the toast of Wall Street. The drug's benefits are -- wait for it -- 'Limitless,' but it's not without some side effects...

Director Neil Burger (2006's 'The Illusionist') and writer Leslie Dixon (adapting Alan Glynn's novel, "The Dark Fields") work within a noir framework, starting with our super-smart hero finding himself standing on a ledge, wondering what he must've missed to find himself in this position. We then jump back in order to see him throttle forward from schlubiness to superstardom, and Burger's directorial approach at the start is primarily a kaleidoscopic one, with Jo Willems' cinematography lightening up and livening up every time Eddie pops another NZT.

The story starts out as 'Wall Street' on literal steroids, a pumped-up cautionary tale that sees Lindy returning to the newly motivated Eddie and the very powerful Carl Van Loon (Robert De Niro) keeping tabs on him. Eddie claims that he doesn't have delusions of grandeur, but rather "an actual recipe" for it, and Carl wants to capitalize on that rather than compete with it. Of course, the supply starts to run short, thusly endangering Eddie's reputation, relationship and his very life.

That means Cooper has to prove convincingly pathetic, then motivated, then desperate to his audience, and he's ideally cast in his first major leading role as something of a modern-day Icarus, somewhat sympathetic (if not simply pitiable) and effortlessly cocky as he rises through the ranks. The film's use of narration to spell out his state of mind at any given time becomes a bit of a crutch, but it also helps to have Cooper lighten the mood as the stakes get grim.

Cornish's love interest is rightfully fed up at first, only to find herself tempted by the allure of first a brand new Eddie and then the drug itself, and De Niro gives an admirably subdued yet sharp performance, striking the right note of menace while leaving the scenery unchewed (making his eventual relish in delivering one particularly threatening speech all the more satisfying). Andrew Howard initially turns up as Generic Russian Thug, but the plot takes his performance to a more interesting, amusing place, while the remarkably cute Anna Friel ('Land of the Lost') delivers a nicely scruffy turn as Eddie's estranged ex-wife.

'Limitless' eventually comes to close on a somewhat disingenuous note that reeks of re-shoots and/or test screening reactions, betraying the film's hyper-noir attitude up until that point. More often than not, though, it's a quicksilver thriller that gives familiar conventions a fresh spin, generating its own high from seeing everything else crash down around one man who just wanted better living through pharmaceuticals.

'The Beaver' SXSW Review: The Good, Not Great Depression

William Goss — 2011-03-17T14:00:00+00:00

It seems like a marvel that 'The Beaver' actually exists. Before any of Mel Gibson's off-screen behavior even happened, the suggestion that an A-list star would willingly play opposite a hand puppet seemed more like a fake film than a legitimate premise. Then again, there was a time when the likelihood of seeing Jimmy Stewart star opposite a giant, invisible rabbit had to have seemed equally spare.

Jodie Foster's third feature as a director won't garner the same validation that a Pulitzer Prize would bring, despite a well-regarded screenplay by newcomer Kyle Killen that famously topped Hollywood's Black List of the best unproduced scripts. It's an occasionally ham-fisted story tenderly helmed by Foster and performed by her cast, and its merits will undoubtedly be overshadowed by the considerable parallels to its star's recently troublesome reputation.

Walter Black (Gibson) has hit rock bottom. He's running his family's toy company into the ground, and his 20-year marriage to Meredith (Foster) is about to follow suit. After going on a drunken bender and attempting suicide, Walter wakes up and finds himself communicating with/via a beaver puppet he had salvaged from a dumpster the night before. The whole family, including oldest child Porter (Anton Yelchin), try to take this unconventional form of therapy in stride, but how long must they wait for Walter to fully recover from his depression? Is that even possible?

When combined with Marcelo Zarvos' fanciful score, the tone of the film's first hour is generally flippant as Walter re-integrates into the family unit and re-invigorates his business strategy (with a new beaver-based toy, naturally). He operates strictly through his newfound avatar, and Gibson brings him to life with a Cockney-by-way-of-Australia voice and surprisingly emotive hand movements. (As it turns out, the beaver is just as prone to post-coital breathlessness as the actual lovers.)

However, the cumulative effect of all this comedy is that it's hard to feel invested once the bottom falls out again. It's not for lack of trying on our lead's part; Gibson nails the despondency and weariness of life as a deeply depressed individual, and he manages to give that furry little defense mechanism a life and personality all its own. Foster is understandably saddened by, then skeptical of, her husband's behavior pre- and post-puppet, their youngest son (Riley Thomas Stewart) just adores the furry friend with the funny voice, and Yelchin's character already wanted nothing to do with Dad even before this development cropped up.

But Yelchin's character has his own story, which has its own problems. He's been writing other kids' papers on the sly, and valedictorian Norah (Jennifer Lawrence) has just asked him to write her graduation speech. Naturally, the outsider realizes that he has more in common with the all-A's cheerleader than meets the eye, but while both actors play nicely off one another -- not too quick, not too quirky so far as on-screen high schoolers go -- the way that Porter comes to provoke her into honesty is clumsy at best, and the running metaphor of seeing him punch an actual hole into his family's house with his frustrations, not unlike dear old Dad, is a tad on-the-nose.

Perhaps Porter is better seen as a substitute for the screenwriter, putting his words into the mouths of others for a price. Killen's tonal shift seems inevitable, but he leaves it to Foster as a director to keep the audience with it, and while she certainly elicits sensitive performances from her actors, the oversimplified psychology of the proceedings and the overall mood established by the music and occasional narration transform the end result from being a suitable dramedy in the vein of 'Lars and the Real Girl' or 'Harvey' into more of an awkward fusion between a '70s farce of success and a '50s domestic melodrama.

'The Beaver' is a movie with problems about a man with problems, often filled with compassion and at times devoid of subtlety. In all fairness, it would've been tricky for even the most skilled director to pull off, and none of its flaws can be chocked up to anything that Gibson has done or said in real life. He gives remarkable life to a man, and a film, in crisis, and with a little luck, the topic of conversation will adjust accordingly to how effective he is in a regrettably ineffectual film.

'Bridesmaids' SXSW Review: Girls Just Want to Have Fun

William Goss — 2011-03-16T10:00:00+00:00

'Bridesmaids' was presented as a work-in-progress; director Paul Feig prefaced the screening by explaining that, short of color timing, proper credits and a missing sound effect, the cut shown at SXSW would very much resemble the theatrical version, opening May 13.

The laziest comparisons will lump 'Bridesmaids' in with the recently rowdy likes of 'The Hangover,' but it deserves to sit on the same shelf as '9 to 5' and any other comedy that allows a capable female ensemble to take the reins without being stifled by rom-com routine (which isn't entirely absent here).

Annie (Kristen Wiig) is a former business owner now biting her tongue, barely, at her jeweler's job as the happy couples come in; contending with inconsiderate sibling roommates (Matt Lucas and Rebel Wilson); and settling for being the impersonal hump-buddy of a rich tool (Jon Hamm). She's unhappy at work, unhappy at home, and now left in the lurch when her best friend (Maya Rudolph) announces her engagement and effectively pits Annie against Helen (Rose Byrne) for maid-of-honor duties.

The name of the game here is one-upsmanship (one-upswomanship?) as Annie, Helen and other pals (Ellie Kemper, Wendy McLendon-Covey, Melissa McCarthy) go about organizing engagement parties, dress fittings, bachelorette parties and bridal showers to disastrous effect. In between shenanigans, Annie falls for a local state trooper (Chris O'Dowd, remaining inexplicably British for the role of a Wisconsin cop) and tries to appease her mother (Jill Clayburgh, in her final performance).

If that sounds like a lot of characters to juggle, it is. At this point, 'Bridesmaids' runs a solid two hours and bears the trademark, improv-heavy shagginess of any Judd Apatow production, and this is only really a problem when the inevitable third-act confrontations kick in. (And even then, Hamm handily shows up and saves the day with his pitch-perfect sleaze.) With all due respect to the late Clayburgh, Annie's mother hardly factors in, and her roommates feel like equally arbitrary inclusions whenever they crop up.

But most of what's there is fairly funny, whether it's the titular ensemble members each working their own charms -- McCarthy's boorish bud is usually trying hardest to steal the show, and she usually succeeds -- or Wiig front and center, looking a little worse for wear in her first leading role, but genuinely endearing as a walking shambles who doesn't necessarily need a man to make her happy, but just needs a life to call her own.

As written by Wiig and Annie Mumolo, the screenplay has no shortage of insecurities for Wiig to play up, but it never succumbs to making our heroine a sociopath who operates beyond all reason in the name of love as so many other chick flicks tend to do. Her general aimlessness in life directly fuels her pettiness when it comes to the wedding planning, and her foils (especially Byrne, rarely a comedienne on screen but adept when she is) respond to her antics with fitting fervor.

Director Paul Feig ('Unaccompanied Minors') doesn't mess with the Apatow mold, giving generous screen time to each of his performers and shooting every scene with sitcom-suitable lighting. An early crude set-piece, seemingly included in an effort to rival the schlub-centric comedies of late, is nonetheless executed well, and Annie's knack for baking allows for a handful of gratuitous food-fawning scenes. (What's to be said for the notion that our lead woman can only be happy in the kitchen, who knows.)

More often than not, though, 'Bridesmaids' strikes a proper balance between its potty mouths and sleeve-set heart. It's slack in pacing but raucous in tone and held together throughout by Wiig's spotlight turn. And do you really want to know why this isn't the new 'Hangover'? These ladies don't even make it to Vegas.

'Mars Needs Moms' Review: Laughs Are Also in Short Supply

William Goss — 2011-03-12T18:00:00+00:00

In some other world, 'Mars Needs Moms' would have settled for being just a family-friendly intergalactic adventure, a sprightly adaptation of Berkeley Breathed's 40-page children's book rendered well in 3D. Instead, Simon Wells' take on the material is an odd duck: part anti-feminist, anti-authoritarian screed, part insufferable culture-clash comedy, and part suitable space shenanigans that are nonetheless stranded in the uncanny valley thanks to producer Robert Zemeckis' insistence on employing motion-capture animation for his every post-'Polar Express' project.

Milo ("played" by Seth Green, voiced by Seth Dursky) is fed up with his mother (Joan Cusack) and her pleas for him to eat his broccoli and take out the trash and go right to bed after forcing the cat to eat said broccoli behind her back. But once aliens abduct Mom, Milo stows away and finds himself exploring a subterranean Martian base, assisted by Earth ex-pat Gribble (Dan Fogler) and alien rebel Ki (Elisabeth Harnois) in his mission to save Mom from a fairly convoluted scheme to extract her disciplinary characteristics.

As a purely technical exercise, 'Moms' boasts remarkably immersive environments and well-rendered textures, par for the course from the ImageMovers crew. Alas, all these pixels are in service of eerie character design for the humans and Martians alike. The motion-capture technology best employed in something like 'Avatar' remains cold and dead-eyed in service of 'The Polar Express,' 'A Christmas Carol' and this. Worse yet, many of the alien creations seem modeled on uncomfortable stereotypes of race -- the villain, known as the Supervisor (Mindy Sterling), looks like Joan Rivers without make-up and sounds like an older Asian woman, while the cast-away dads of their species wear dreadlocks and dance in a tribal fashion.

And then there's the matter of Gribble. The effortlessly obnoxious Fogler is certainly not asked to scale things back here, playing his second child of the '80s in as many weeks (after 'Take Me Home Tonight'). He plays a character who can seemingly hack an entire compound, and yet can't manage to get himself back home to Earth over the course of two decades, and his banter consists of exchanging era-appropriate slang with the '70s-steeped Ki, who herself has an aggravating fixation on Flower Power and the like.

Of course, that's not even to mention the nigh-traumatizing flashback in which we discover precisely what fate Gribble's mom faced and Milo's mom faces. It's only one of many wrong-headed calls in a cartoon that treats firing squads and hugging parties with equally low gravity. 'Mars Needs Moms' may look good, and it does, but its definition of fun (and funny) is -- in the worst sense -- out of this world.

'Take Me Home Tonight' Review: Topher Grace in That '80s Show

William Goss — 2011-03-04T11:00:00+00:00

After four years at M.I.T., Matt Franklin (Topher Grace) doesn't know what he wants to do with his life, and after nearly four years of sitting on a shelf, 'Take Me Home Tonight' isn't sure what it wants to be, either. Is it a knowing tribute to the "one crazy night" romps of the '80s? Is it an introspective coming-of-age dramedy that just happens to be set in the same era? The film starts out with big hair, skinny ties, and hit song after hit song after hit song, eager to capitalize on every possible pop-culture signpost early on before settling into a slack rhythm of sitcom setpieces interrupted by stale emotional conflict.

Matt's stuck in a post-grad rut; his biggest ambition is to not even to date Tori (Teresa Palmer), for whom he still harbors a high-school crush, but to simply get her number and maybe, eventually, work up the nerve to date her. Matt's stalker-like fascination pays off when she strolls into Suncoast Video one day and invites him to a party, believing that he works at Goldman Sachs and not in fact said video store. And so, with twin sister Wendy (Anna Faris) and boorish best bud Barry (Dan Fogler) in tow, Matt heads to a Labor Day blow-out, hoping to get the girl of his dreams and/or get on with his life.

None of these characters know what they want, and we're never given much reason to care. Matt, a proven math whiz, can't be bothered to land a cushy engineering job and only has eyes for one particular blonde. By the end, he's in much the same position. Meanwhile, Wendy hesitates to open a potential acceptance letter from Cambridge, lest it rocks the boat with her unlikely partner, the party-hearty Kyle (real-life spouse Chris Pratt), and the recently fired Barry tries very hard to binge on drink, drugs and dancing to make up for lost time. Their collective indecision is supposed to give the film its heart, but all it really does is set up terribly familiar moments of doubt and drama.

As for laughs, they are few and far between. As written by Jackie and Jeff Filgo ("That '70s Show"), the film veers between antics both raucous -- a sports car is stolen -- and raunchy, and director Michael Dowse ('It's All Gone Pete Tong') jumps from plot thread to plot thread with little concern for escalating stakes or simply building up comedic momentum. The audience is left with limp running gags involving a shrill floozy (Lucy Punch) who inexplicably believes that her and Matt are an item whenever they bump into one another and a climax built entirely around someone having the stones to roll down the nearest hill in a massive metallic sphere.

Grace's usually winning charms are toned down to the point where our protagonist seems simply too lazy to be a loser worth rooting for. Faris is unfortunately relegated to frumpy reaction shots and perhaps the most transparent subplot in a film full of them; Fogler, as always, hams it up to occasionally amusing effect; and Palmer serves as the picture-perfect ideal of love lost, able to exhibit slightly more charm than allowed by her recent roles in 'I Am Number Four' and 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice.' Only Demetri Martin, as a former school chum of Matt's, dares to demonstrate a flair for improvisation and thusly steals what few scenes he has.

At the end of the day, 'Take Me Home Tonight' has nothing on the films of Johns Cusack and Hughes, nor can it claim to rank with the likes of 'Superbad' or 'Adventureland' or 'Hot Tub Time Machine,' and one imagines that only a snort-along screening could possibly lend to the film the energy that it so desperately needs.

(With that said, no, we do not endorse the use of cocaine.)

'Just Go With It' Review: Adam Sandler Lies His Way Into Love

William Goss — 2011-02-11T09:35:00+00:00

It feels fitting that the soundtrack to Dennis Dugan's 'Just Go with It' consists mostly of mash-ups and covers. The film, a remake of 1969's Oscar-winning 'Cactus Flower' (itself an adaptation of a Broadway play, which was itself an adaptation of a French play), jostles between folly and genuine farce in a manner decidedly progressive for the likes of Dugan and his frequent collaborator, star Adam Sandler -- which is to say, it's better than their 'Grown Ups,' 'You Don't Mess with the Zohan' and 'I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry'. Make of that what you will.

This time around, Sandler plays Danny, a successful plastic surgeon who long ago had his heart broken by his bride-to-be and has since managed to make "being married" an attractive quality to most women in most bars. After spending one honest night with schoolteacher Palmer (Brooklyn Decker), Danny's about to play it straight when she discovers his critical prop: a wedding band. She says she's disgusted. He says he's getting a divorce. She says she wants to hear that from her. He begs his assistant, Katherine (Jennifer Aniston), to play the part of his ex-to-be, and from there, the web of lies only continues to grow.

In its early scenes, 'Just Go with It' works when Katherine and her two kids (Bailee Madison and Griffin Gluck) take advantage of Danny's desperation and considerable income, all eager -- at times, too much so -- to play their part. The immorality of being a fake adulterer goes unsurprisingly ignored by the Happy Madison crew, but at least this lot is willing to milk Sandler's sociopath for all that he's worth. Eventually, they manage to milk an entire trip to Hawaii: lead, lover, fake ex, fake kids and cousin Eddie (Nick Swardson) in tow.

Dugan constantly shoots their paid vacation and indeed the entire film like a commercial, and with the rampant product placement, it's hard not to believe that's the case. Cuts are sloppy, dialogue looping is obvious, and although they must've seemed fresh after every take on set, Sandler's perpetual off-the-cuff name checks become a monotonous crutch in scene after scene. The man can't resist ethnic stereotypes, plastic surgery mishaps, shots to the groin or sheep resuscitation gags (a moment any other film would've played off as something funnier said than shown), and the film runs nearly two hours for all its allegedly comedic indulgences.

But when the film becomes something resembling the romantic farce it originated as, it's not bad. Sandler and Aniston work well together as partners-in-crime, and it's fun to see the characters act out their own characters with both relish and friction. While Decker's supermodel looks can't be denied (and aren't), Palmer's ability to swallow the ever-building B.S. is itself a bit hard to swallow. A second-half surprise comes in the form of Nicole Kidman, playing Katherine's more successful sorority rival. She plays it like an audition for 'Some Like It Hot,' openly dopey and aggressively driven, and of the entire cast and crew, she stands out as the one person who best demonstrates exactly what type of movie this was meant to be. (Her husband, it should be said, is played by Dave Matthews of 'Zohan' and 'Chuck & Larry', seemingly imitating Thomas Lennon here.)

Just as 'The Heartbreak Kid' became a bawdy, clunky shell of its former self a few years back, 'Just Go with It' keeps welcoming crude asides rather than embracing the inherent absurdity of the situation, a formula which managed to work at least three times before. For Sandler and Dugan, this qualifies as almost good; without Sandler and Dugan, it might've been something great.

'Sanctum' Review: Short on Oxygen, Suspense and Sense

William Goss — 2011-02-04T09:30:00+00:00

It's easy to sit back and enjoy the adventure films of the 1950s, '60s and '70s with a detached regard today, but the question is: were they as corny then as they're often considered now? There's something hokey yet irresistible about 'Fantastic Voyage' and 'The Poseidon Adventure' and 'Journey to the Center of the Earth' as viewed through a CGI-jaded eye. Surely, someone must not have been so tickled by the transparent artifice of it all at the time. (Let's be fair, though: the bar for on-screen spectacle was on a whole different level back then.)

To be perfectly clear, 'Sanctum' is itself corny, and tremendously so. 2-3 servings of vegetables a day corny. Chief export of Iowa corny. And while it approaches its life-or-death dilemmas with an entirely straight face, the sense of peril is undone at nearly every turn by paint-by-numbers characterizations and cringe-worthy lines of dialogue. It's little wonder, then, why James Cameron ('Avatar') opted to tag along as an executive producer -- it's a project that encapsulates all of his worst tendencies and hopes to excuse them by way of some marginally effective 3D technology.

In Papua, New Guinea, where everyone speaks in hyperbole, the World's Last Great Explorer (Richard Roxburgh) is plumbing the depths of the Mother of All Caves when his boss, the Obnoxious American (Ioan Gruffudd), and his girlfriend (Alice Parkinson) decide to drop in. The Explorer's Son (Rhys Wakefield) would rather be anywhere else, and once a cyclone shows up with timing worthy of 'Jurassic Park', these four -- along with the Comic Relief (Dan Wyllie) -- share his sentiment. Together, they are forced to find a way to the surface before drowning, or worse, in the rapidly-flooding caves.

Apparently inspired by the real-life experiences of co-writer/Cameron buddy Andrew Wight, 'Sanctum' plays out less like a true story and more like a worst-case-scenario checklist. Hypothermia? Check. Decompression sickness? Check. Falling rocks and tangled lines? Check and check. There are plenty of informed touches as to proper diving procedures and feasible hurdles to overcome, but the stakes between the equally expendable characters are non-existent -- not to mention the inexplicable flash-forward opening, which manages to serve as both a spoiler and a cheat. The men squabble, the women panic, nobody is worth rooting for and, appropriately enough, there seems to be no end in sight.

Even with the lion's share of cheesy lines ("There are no rescue missions down here -- only body recoveries" and so on), Roxburgh fares best as the gruff leader, and as the film decides (too late) to become something of a father-son bonding drama rather than a prolonged shouting match between the two, Wakefield matches him in unspoken harmony. (And then they recite poetry together, and the whole illusion of investment is washed right away.) On the opposite end of the spectrum falls Gruffudd, playing his macho millionaire with the temperament of a middle school bully and the World's Least Convincing American Accent, and Parkinson, who counts among the cast's two women (well, the two with speaking roles anyway) and therefore seems doomed to play one of the more skittish and unreasonable individuals around.

The group's resulting adventures prove more monotonous than exciting, and the few close calls that do work on a visceral level all have one excellent thing in common: characters that are wearing diving masks cannot speak awful dialogue. Alister Grierson's priorities as a director clearly reside more with conveying the scope of the scenery and less with eliciting non-hysterical performances. To be fair, the lighting of the 3D presentation is surprisingly good, given the dim glasses, but the script is already too dim to enjoy, and the deeper our survivors go, the less convincing the environments look.

Overall, 'Sanctum' has the feel of a science-center show, dragged out to 110 minutes and embellished with some head wounds and F-bombs. But maybe with a little luck, twenty years from now, the World's Last Great Film Geek will find themselves staring down a prime piece of adventure kitsch instead of wishing that their ten dollars went toward something a little less waterlogged.

Sundance 2011 Award Winners Include 'Like Crazy,' 'Another Earth,' 'Pariah'

William Goss — 2011-01-29T22:36:00+00:00

It was already announced yesterday that the sci-fi drama 'Another Earth' took home the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Now, here are the rest of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival award winners.

Grand Jury Prize, Dramatic:
'Like Crazy'

Grand Jury Prize, Documentary:
'How to Die in Oregon'

Audience Award, Dramatic:
'Circumstance'

Audience Award, Documentary:
'Buck'

World Cinema Jury Prize, Dramatic:
'Happy Happy'

World Cinema Jury Prize, Documentary:
'Hell and Back Again'

World Cinema Audience Award, Dramatic:
'Kinyarwanda'

World Cinema Audience Award, Documentary:
'Senna'

More winners after the jump!

The Best of NEXT Audience Award:
'to.get.her'

Directing Award, Dramatic:
Sean Durkin, 'Martha Marcy May Marlene'

Directing Award, Documentary:
Jon Foy, 'Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles'

World Cinema Directing Award, Dramatic:
Paddy Considine, 'Tyrannosaur'

World Cinema Directing Award, Documentary:
James Marsh, 'Project Nim'

Waldo Scott Screenwriting Award:
'Another Happy Day'

World Cinema Screenwriting Award:
'Restoration'

Documentary Editing Award:
'If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front'

World Cinema Editing Award, Documentary:
'The Black Power Mixtape'

Excellence in Cinematography Award, Dramatic:
'Pariah'

Excellence in Cinematography Award, Documentary:
'The Redemption of General Butt Naked'

World Cinema Cinematography Award, Dramatic:
'All Your Dead Ones'

World Cinema Cinematography Award, Documentary:
'Hell and Back Again'

Special Jury Prize, Dramatic:
'Another Earth'

Special Jury Prize, Dramatic: (Acting)
Felicity Jones in 'Like Crazy'

Special Jury Prize, Documentary:
'Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey'

World Cinema Special Jury Prize, Dramatic:
Peter Mullan and Olivia Colman in 'Tyrannosaur'

World Cinema Special Jury Prize, Documentary:
'Position Among the Stars'

'The Rite' Review: Anthony Hopkins Fights to Keep Demons, Cliches at Bay

William Goss — 2011-01-28T11:20:00+00:00

"What were you expecting, spinning heads? Pea soup?," Father Lucas (Anthony Hopkins) asks of both his young liege (Colin O'Donoghue) and the audience for 'The Rite,' which is no 'Exorcist' and it knows it. Heck, it even pales in comparison to 2010's 'The Last Exorcism' when it comes to weighing a skeptic's reasoning against displays of supernatural mischief. But for a good while, it's got a handsome sheen in its favor and it dares to evoke something resembling a nuanced performance out of Hopkins, before having him succumb to his recent scenery-chewing habits.

This movie is proudly "inspired by true events," of course; Michael Petroni's screenplay was "suggested" by reporter Matt Baglio's book, so make of that what you will. The real-life Father Gary Thomas has been replaced by young buck Michael Kovak (O'Donoghue), driven to seminary school by longstanding issues with his father, the mortician (Rutger Hauer) who embalmed Mommy when the time came. After four years of study, Michael decides that maybe he isn't cut out for the clergy, but after Father Superior (Toby Jones) suggests that his scholarship would be converted into substantial student loans should he leave, he sucks it up and heads off to the Vatican for a two-month crash course in the rituals of exorcism.

There, under the tutelage of Father Xavier (Ciarán Hinds), he is encouraged to pay Father Lucas a visit. An old hand at this type of thing, Lucas allows Matthew to observe as he treats a number of possessed individuals -- namely, a pregnant teenage girl (Marta Gastini) -- and casts a fair amount of doubt on whether or not each occurrence can be chalked up strictly to science. And Hopkins, at least early on, is good in the movie, better than he's been in some time (mind you, hardly any of us saw 'The City of Your Final Destination,' but compared to 'The Wolfman' and that Woody Allen flick, this resembles progress). He brings just enough warmth to the role, that of the occasional skeptic who's encountered enough phenomena to keep his faith in check, and his built-in gravitas serves him well enough once required to intensely recite Italian and Latin.

O'Donoghue, pretty and prone to pouting, seems appropriately outmatched by the veteran of stage and screen, but his character is mostly defined by flashback trauma and the tidy talking points of a non-believer. The young Irish actor's not bad -- and his American accent is actually quite good -- but it's hard to buy that he's a lost soul worth saving, let alone worth following around for the better part of two hours. As if to further reinforce the liberties with which the film was made, we're offered up a lone, non-possessed, non-nun supporting actress in the form of journalist Angeline (Alice Braga) to balance out the male-heavy ranks of the church, and with all due respect to Baglio, the two journalists couldn't resemble one another less. She doesn't play a token love interest so much as a sidekick/witness, and like O'Donoghue, the best that can be said is that she is pretty and distinctly Not Bad.

Set in Rome and shot in Romania, 'The Rite' isn't lacking for moody architecture, and director Mikael Håfström ('1408,' the long-shelved 'Shanghai') knows how to sustain an atmosphere of portent to match the devil-minded decrees of old men in robes. Soon, though, the film's welcome sense of humor is diminished and its sense of horror comes to fall on the hoary clichés of leaping cats and violin shrieks. It should come as little surprise if you've seen any of the commercials or just about any other exorcism film (though it might, so perhaps skipping to the next paragraph would be best) that Father Lucas grows weak and becomes possessed ~~by distracting levels of CGI~~, causing Hopkins to revert back to Hannibal Lecter mode and leaving it to young Michael to save the day.

The drama between the two comes down to psychological hand-holding, and saddled with a PG-13 rating, the proceedings grow no more disturbing than seeing Gastini cough up a couple of nails (from the cross!). We've already established that 'The Rite' is no 'The Exorcist,' but if it's stuck anywhere on the spectrum, it falls somewhere between either version of the ill-fated 'Exorcist' prequel from a few years back, shooting for the soulful decay of Paul Schrader's take while settling for the go-for-broke goofiness of Renny Harlin's version (just replace "hyenas" with "a red-eyed mule"). As it stands now, Håfström's film is just another cautionary tale for atheists and just another loud-jolt exercise for the Friday-night teen audience, content with the mere ritual of supernatural hokum and the illusion of dramatic depth.

'No Strings Attached' Review: No Strings, Fewer Laughs

William Goss — 2011-01-21T09:30:00+00:00

Comedy veteran Ivan Reitman hasn't directed a film since 2006's 'My Super Ex-Girlfriend,' and for his return to the director's chair -- 'No Strings Attached' -- he has opted to make what a friend of a friend told him a Judd Apatow romantic comedy was supposed to be. The film is crowded with plenty of snappy best friends and warmed-over pop-culture references, the screenplay flips gender roles to little emotional effect, and the chemistry between its two leads is limited to the fact that Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher are both awfully photogenic beings.

We first meet Emma and Adam fifteen years ago, when they attended summer camp together and had already established their respective personalities -- he's the sensitive type, she's far more pragmatic. Jump ahead by ten years, where they reunite at a frat kegger and have grown into persons resembling Portman and Kutcher. She invites him to "some stupid thing" the following day, which turns out to be her father's funeral. (Any other movie would settle for the unlikely awkwardness of the situation alone. This one has Adam attending the funeral in a college hoodie, shorts and flip-flops.)

One more meet-cute later, the two have each made their way to L.A. and settle for being platonic pals -- that is, until Adam finds out that his ex has taken up with his dad (Kevin Kline, playing Harrison Ford) and goes on a full-blown bender before waking up in Emma's apartment. That's when she has her brilliant idea: what if they used one another for the sex? She works eighty hours a week at the hospital, he's still sore over his ex-girlfriend, and neither's really looking for any serious emotional attachment at the time. Can they keep things strictly carnal without falling in lurve?

You and I both know the answer to that, and credited screenwriter Elizabeth Meriwether hardly deviates from the routine. A few hump-happy montages later, and Emma and Adam are already questioning whether or not they're starting to have Real Feelings. At best, you could wind up with the next 'When Harry Met Sally..,' (which this is not). It echoes the "sex first, love later" approach of 'Love and Other Drugs,' but is far more cutesy in the execution when compared to the genuinely hot-blooded passion between Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal -- a chemistry potent enough to salvage that film from its own tonal issues. Kutcher is an adequate puppy dog, while Portman is a little worse for wear as the relationship's requisite commitment-phobe, constantly clammy and inexplicably resistent to making a proper adult connection. (The best reason we're given? Her daddy died.)

Waiting in the wings to dole out marginally snappy one-liners are Kline (playing a showbiz legend whose son doesn't want any help from him -- Jason Reitman, anyone?), the amazingly generic Jake Johnson as his best bud, Olivia Thirlby as her little sister, Ludacris as the black friend, Guy Branum as the gay friend, Lake Bell as a spazzy colleague of Adam's, Greta Gerwig and Mindy Kaling as Emma's sassy roommates, and Abby Elliott as a girl who does impressions just like that one girl on "Saturday Night Live." It's a laundry list of supporting comedians, and between Reitman and Meriwether, they're given precious little wit to work with. I suspect that Reitman, now 64, just let the kids have free reign; the resulting banter reflects such a disconnect.

(It should also be mentioned that Cary Elwes is ostensibly in this movie. He does in fact appear as a doctor, and the fact that all of his lines can be counted on one hand only reinforces any and all theories of apathy on the set and/or in the editing room.)

At 108 minutes, 'Strings' dawdles equally in the set-up and the home stretch, as if reluctant to finally surrender to the cliches it otherwise seems to relish. Admittedly, very few romantic comedies manage to subvert the formula -- if ever a genre was akin to comfort food, it's the rom-com -- but that's fine so long as the ingredients are somewhat fresh or charming. 'No Strings Attached' is bland even for comfort food: occasionally pleasing but mostly flat. Hopefully, they'll get the recipe right next time... which is to say, in 'Friends with Benefits' six months from now.

'Country Strong' Review: It's the Same Old Song

William Goss — 2011-01-07T09:00:00+00:00

Loaded with denim-coated drama, Shana Feste's 'Country Strong' means well -- maybe too well -- as it chronicles the attempted resurrection of a maligned music career. It's a romantic rectangle fused with a showbiz melodrama, crammed full of cheers, jeers, sobs and songs and generally grounded by four performances that try, but can't always defeat, the cliches at hand.

Country superstar Kelly Canter (Gwyneth Paltrow) has six Grammys and seven platinum records to her name, but she's also saddled with a much-publicized drinking problem. That isn't going to stop her husband/manager, James (Tim McGraw), from prematurely yanking her out of rehab and sending her on a three-stop career-recovery tour across the great state of Texas -- a tour which ominously ends in Dallas. Kelly makes a plea for rehab employee/fledgling crooner Beau (Garrett Hedlund) to tag along; James, insistent on would-be beauty queen Chiles (Leighton Meester), recruits both to serve as opening acts. Also, there's a baby bird that Kelly's caring for (named after Loretta Lynn, naturally), but that's not important right now.

One drinks too much, one cares too much, one doesn't care enough, and the other's just happy to be along for the ride. In this world of country Barbies and cowboy Kens, no one's a clear-cut good or bad guy, to writer/director Feste's credit. They're all just trying to change, whether to escape honky-tonks or hard traumas, and no one character winds up gunning for another's career as one would typically expect in such a scenario. Beau's tempted to trade in his beat-up pick-up lifestyle for one of slick SUVs, but he'll have to contend with starlets like Chiles, who worship Carrie Underwood above Patsy Cline. Kelly's quite apparently cheating on James in the bedroom with Beau; he essentially returns the favor by giving stronger songs to Chiles in the recording studio.

Paltrow smiles and trembles in equal measure, only occasionally giving into hysterics and never quite shaking the sense that she's playing at yee-haw dress-up instead of being a bonafide charmer who lost her way. Meanwhile, McGraw looks like he's wearing a turtleneck even when he's not, so stiff and single-minded as he drags Kelly back into the spotlight. As the only real-life country singer in the cast, perhaps he contributed some backstage insight, but he doesn't so much as sing a note here. His son in 'Friday Night Lights,' Hedlund outshines him here with the right amount of charisma, a mile-wide self-righteous streak and the perfectly smoky voice for his more classically country tunes. Meester rounds the ensemble out with a nimble balance of cute-on-cue charm and paralyzing insecurity.

It's a bit of a pity that they're subjected to such disjointed drama. I've yet to mention the moments of stage fright, or the Make-A-Wish scene, or the painful reminders of What Happened in Dallas, and that damned bird (a clunky bit of symbolism mercifully abandoned about halfway in). Granted, when the characters do shut up and sing (regardless of whether or not the actors sing for themselves), the songs work in the vein of modern country pop and love ballads, and the intimidation and thrill of the packed-arena crowds resonates on nearly every occasion.

Another pity, though, that the tour and film lead to such a curiously ineffective climax. 'Country Strong' is certainly earnest -- in fact, it almost works as a decent if familiar story of comebacks and setbacks -- but then one bottle goes crashing against the wall and the emotional investment all but flies out the window.

'The A-Team' Director Reteams with Liam Neeson for Killer Wolves Movie 'The Grey'

William Goss — 2011-01-05T18:00:00+00:00

"Overkill is underrated" was the understandable motto of Col. Hannibal Smith (Liam Neeson) in last summer's 'The A-Team,' Joe Carnahan's underrated big-budget adaptation of the small-screen series. For now, though, it seems that Neeson and Carnahan are going to forgo overkill by teaming back up for a more scaled-back man-versus-nature adventure.

According to Deadline, the director now has the green light for production on 'The Grey,' in which an oil-drilling crew is stranded in the Alaskan wilderness following a plane crash and is forced to fend off a nearby pack of wolves. Neeson will be joined by Dallas Roberts ('3:10 to Yuma,' "Rubicon"), James Badge Dale ("Rubicon"), Dermot Mulroney ('Flash of Genius'), Joe Anderson ('The Crazies') and others.

It's nice to see Carnahan change things up with a project about as far from 'The A-Team,' 'Narc,' and 'Smokin' Aces' as one could get, and the filmmaker intends to make the most of British Columbia's chilly climate: "In a way, it's great, because it beats the s--t out of the cast and that suits the storyline."

Meanwhile, Neeson's coming off a year that saw six of his films released and between this, 'Battleship,' this year's 'Hangover' sequel, next year's 'Clash of the Titans' sequel and an eventual 'Taken' sequel, the man shows no signs of slowing down. Overkill, schmoverkill...

The Top 10 "Guilty Pleasure" Movies of 2010

William Goss — 2010-12-26T17:00:00+00:00

Guilty pleasures. Some say there's no such thing. I believe they're out there, though, those junk-food flicks ripe for enjoyment almost in spite of themselves; in fact, here's ten of the year's most shameless entertainments for your consideration, thematically paired.

1. 'Piranha 3D' and 2. 'Jackass 3D' -- Sure enough, 2010 was the year where game-changing technology backfired on us, first as vicious fishes devoured porn stars and then as Johnny Knoxville's band of hooligans let loose with all the full frontal floppiness that audiences could stand. If neither was worth the surcharge, then I'm not sure what is.

3. 'Machete' (pictured above) and 4. 'Repo Men' -- Two of the year's more giddily grisly efforts, both boasted scenes we shouldn't have seen (cell phones and intestines coming out of bodies in the former, sexy internal scanning in the latter) and offered up valuable lessons: 1) when your organs aren't yours, don't fall behind on those payments and 2) Machete don't text.

5. 'MacGruber' and 6. 'OSS 117: Lost in Rio' (pictured above) -- Spy spoofs didn't come much more low-brow than SNL's very violent and crude "MacGuyver" send-up (featuring what has to be the funniest sex scene since 'Munich') and the second in Michel Hazanavicius' series of nutty espionage adventures with secret agent Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath (think James Bond if he were more anti-semitic and sexist).

7. 'The Losers' and 8. 'The A-Team' -- This year's slicker men-on-a-mission efforts (sorry, 'The Expendables') weren't met with the most muscular box-office numbers, which is a shame, because both were sprightly, fun action flicks when our summer needed them the most.

9. 'Faster' and 10. 'Centurion' (pictured above) -- If #7 and #8 were the loosey-goosey actioners that went ignored, then #9 and #10 are their no-nonsense neighbors. One was a dusty throwback to '70s vigilante flicks, the other a gruesome homage to epic swords-and-sandals adventures of yore, and neither got as much attention as they deserved.

'Gulliver's Travels' Review: Big Man, Little Laughs

William Goss — 2010-12-25T19:00:00+00:00

As based on Jonathan Swift's classic satire, 'Gulliver's Travels' is appropriately construed here as the story of a big man telling tall tales. But of course the big man is played here by that chubby rascal Jack Black, and of course his Lemuel Gulliver is a lowly mail-room worker at a bustling New York City newspaper. Of course he has a crush on travel editor Darcy (Amanda Peet), and of course he plaigirizes writing samples in order to impress her, and of course he takes her up on a Bermuda Triangle assignment in lieu of telling her the truth.

Of course, this journey lands him among the little people of Lilliput, where he is first regarded as beast (after landing on their shores and losing one of their number up his bare bum) and then hero (after urinating on Billy Connolly's king and thus saving him from a fire). He talks a big game, fending off similarly small foes with ease and helping peasant Horatio (Jason Segel) court Princess Mary (Emily Blunt) with spoken Prince lyrics, all the while irritating Gen. Edward (Chris O'Dowd), whose plans to retaliate involve building what is essentially a knock-off Transformer with which to give our trumped-up hero a wedgie.

I don't remember that much about Swift's original story, and of course, with a pitch like this, no one has to. It's numbing to watch the moderate imagination that comes with placing a big man among a shrunken society (and, eventually, turning the tables by sending said man to super-sized Brobdingnag next door) fade away in favor of gross-out gags, pop-culture references and a sing-along finale more groan-inducing than most.

Connelly, Segel, Blunt, Peet and especially O'Dowd are all being good sports; of course, that's what they're all being paid to do. And Jack Black does his Jack Black routine, of course, mugging with a tenacity no green-screen effect can match. Better yet, he even manages to say lines like "These little people have grown large in my heart" with a straight face -- this is why he gets paid the big bucks, people.

It's not the worst family film of the year, nor even second or third or fourth, but it is depressingly dependable on disappointing good taste and moderate expectations at every turn. Director Rob Letterman's previous film was the surprisingly clever 'Monsters vs. Aliens,' which made better use of the 3D format than this film can claim. Before that, Letterman directed 'Shark Tale,' which also starred Black and is hardly worth mentioning at all.

Needless to say, the kids won't mind that much. If I were 6, I'd probably be tickled to death by the fat man's antics; that's the great thing about being a kid. As an adult, though, there's little reason to recommend a movie in which a big man tells tall tales, tales that all happen to sound a lot like 'Star Wars,' 'Titanic,' and other movies foreign to the population of Lilliput -- and better for the 6-year-olds in your life.

'The Illusionist' Review: Magic Tricks and Melancholy in an Animated Scotland

William Goss — 2010-12-25T11:30:00+00:00

If Sylvain Chomet's 'The Triplets of Belleville' was a rollicking, proudly eccentric adventure, then his follow-up, 'The Illusionist,' is something much more bittersweet, a love letter to silent showmanship and a lament for its obsolescence on both stage and screen. 'The Illusionist' has the distinction of being based upon an unproduced screenplay by Jacques Tati, who played the affably bumbling Monsieur Hulot in several classic comedies, and the illusionist himself (named Tatischeff) is clearly modeled upon that character/filmmaker. (They even encounter one another in an amusing moment of happenstance.)

It's 1959 Paris, and our protagonist's sleight-of-hand tricks can no longer compete with the likes of garish rock-n-rollers, so he takes off for Edinburgh, where he keeps company with other struggling performers and dazzles a young housemaid, Alice, with his sly skills -- a continual illusion for an awe-struck audience of one that Tatischeff cannot maintain for free for much longer...

The animation is less exaggerated when compared to the walking blimps and towering skyscrapers of 'Belleville,' and when Chomet takes his hand to the scenery of Scotland, it's positively gorgeous; empty theatres, quaint inns and sweeping cliffs are all rendered perfectly picturesque. The character design beyond our plain leads skews a bit more cartoonish (plump opera singers, swishy rockers, the world's saddest clown), and their often whimsical appearances help counter-balance Tatischeff's work-related woes.

Our magic man works hard to maintain an interest from the general public and sustain an illusion for the little girl, moving from stage shows to wedding receptions to department-store gigs before settling for odd jobs like car repair and billboard painting, and Chomet works hard to keep things wistful rather than outright dismal. The style of animation, the nature of aggravations, and Chomet's own musical score help strike that proper balance, as 'The Illusionist' languishes over the divide between skilled pantomime and the noise of the modern age, between old-school hand-drawn animation and new-fangled computer-generated efforts, between innocence and imagination and the dreary duties of reality.

Chomet's contributions to the medium of animation are uniquely charming and evidently crafted by hand and with heart, qualities all too rare these days just as Tati's own films were themselves outstanding at the time. Both filmmakers found themselves faced with a changing world, and each found different ways to demonstrate the shifts in social strata with good humor and no small amount of frustration. However, Tati wrote 'The Illusionist' as a means of reconcilation with an estranged daughter, only to never film it, and the pangs of regret resonate stronger and stronger as Chomet's adaptation draws to a close.

In fact, at the risk of using too heavy a label, 'The Illusionist' does ultimately feel like a bit of a downer. Maybe the comparisons to 'Belleville' aren't helping, since that film escalated in rowdiness, while this film's simple charms begin to extinguish themselves in the name of sad truth before ending with, yes, a glimmer of hope that magic will live on for those who choose to believe in it. At first, the appearance (and disappearance) of Tatischeff's bite-happy rabbit is a running gag, and a cute one at that, but the animal is all too fitting a symbol for the troubling tonal tightrope that Chomet struggles to walk throughout: would you reach into a magic hat if you knew it was going to hurt?

The Weekend's Reviews: 'The Tourist', 'The Fighter' and More

William Goss — 2010-12-10T12:30:00+00:00

Everywhere you look this week, there's magic at the movies. On the one hand, children are vanishing into the fantasy world of Narnia. On the other, adults are vanishing into the fantasy world of either being or being with Angelina Jolie and/or Johnny Depp. Decisions, decisions...

'The Tourist'

Johnny Depp goes on vacation in Venice, only to run into Angelina Jolie and her web of deceit and espionage. Eric D. Snider had a problem with at least half of that equation, though: "The whole point of Frank is that he's an average, ordinary guy -- the one thing Johnny Depp is not good at playing. Misfits, oddballs, kooks, nuts, drunken pirates, tea-party-attending hat enthusiasts, sure. Regular guys, no. We have Jolie playing to her strengths (enigmatic beauty, vaguely sensual dialogue, some light gunplay) while Depp must play against his. It is a bad idea."

Sean O'Connell of ReelRave registered similar disappointment, calling it "one of those sleight-of-hand games where things make less sense once the story has revealed all of its tricks."

'The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader'

Two of the four Pevensie siblings are back in this third installment of the fantasy franchise, which only left yours truly marginally thrilled: "An early skermish with slave traders is marginally exciting, a quest to retrieve seven swords from seven lords feels far more routine, an encounter with invisible gnomes attempting an amusing amount of vocal intimidation brings welcome levity, while a climactic battle against a nasty sea serpent proves more thrilling than expected, if not more thrilling than any other showdown in the series to date... However, the arrival of Aslan this time marks the clunkiest semi-sermon [yet]..."

Over at Slant Magazine, Simon Abrams wrote that "no matter how old the Pevensies get, their fairy-tale friends will forever mark them as children trying vainly to prove themselves in a world they made. Nothing is really sacrificed and everything is still just make-believe."

'The Fighter'

Burnt-out boxer Mark Wahlberg and his half-brother (Christian Bale) do the true-life underdog thing, and Jenni Miller was mostly impressed by the end result: "Everyone loves a comeback story, especially in Oscar season, and that of the American boxer, a working class guy with busted knuckles and bruised cheekbones, is a classic. What makes David O. Russell's 'The Fighter' stand out -- or at least stand shoulder to shoulder -- with other boxing movies is its real-life subject, "Irish" Micky Ward, and its incredibly strong cast..."

Katey Rich of Cinema Blend felt the film "isn't quite as successful as it could have been, but relying as it does on its characters and the stupendous actors who embody most of them, it works quite well in overcoming its flaws."

'The Tempest'

Julie Taymor brings her typically striking directorial flair to William Shakespeare's classic play. This time, though, Jenni was considerably less impressed: "However appealing the idea of seeing [star Helen] Mirren do a subversive Shakespeare might be, it lacks a certain zing that makes it necessary. I expected it to be more charged, more experimental, more than either just a happenstance of Taymor and Mirren wanting to work together or more than a parlor trick"

Alonso Duralde of HitFix said, "There are worse ways than to spend two hours listening to Mirren and [Alfred] Molina and [Russell] Brand and Tom Conti dig into this ferocious iambic pentameter, but given the possibilities of this project, 'The Tempest' comes loaded with thunder but yields precious little precipitation."

'And Everything is Going Fine'

Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh was good friends with performance artist Spalding Gray before he took his own life in 2004. Now, Soderbergh has gone through countless interviews and filmed monologues to assemble this tribute to the man, which will be available on VOD starting December 22.

Monika Bartyzel felt the unconventional documentary was "something much more powerful -- something we're rarely awarded with after death. Instead of a comprehensive look completely removed from the subject, where one has to wade through nostalgia and filtered opinions, we're given Gray himself -- his feel, his verve, his liveliness. It's a gift to have so much first-person accounts to sift through, to feel Gray as filtered through Gray, not those who surround him."

The A.V. Club's Nathan Rabin felt similarly: "Soderbergh's loving, shattering valentine to his late friend and collaborator has an inherently tragic arc, but it's ultimately a celebration of Gray's irrepressible lust for life and bottomless curiosity about the strange and beautiful world around him."

'The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader' Review: This 'Voyage' is a Familiar One

William Goss — 2010-12-09T20:30:00+00:00

C.S. Lewis' 'Narnia' novels may have spanned seven books and several generations in their appeal, but their on-screen adaptations have always paled in comparison to the bigger and better likes of 'Harry Potter' and 'The Lord of the Rings.' The most remarkably unremarkable fantasy franchise around doesn't exactly break that streak with 'The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,' but it comes the closest so far in the series to achieving satisfying, rip-roaring adventure before the religious elements return in full force.

The elder Pevensie siblings are out of the picture for the most part, having been shipped off to America to live with dear old Dad. The younger two, Edmund (Skandar Keynes) and Lucy (Georgie Henley), are forced to endure alongside bratty cousin Eustace (Will Poulter) in brink-of-WWII London. The kingdom of Narnia comes a-calling, though, and all three find themselves summoned to the magical land, re-united with Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) and faced with a sinister green mist that's claiming their citizens by the boatload.

If the first two films felt somewhat reminiscent of the above-mentioned fantasy fare, then 'Dawn Treader' skews a bit closer to the island-hopping plots of a 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movie and, in its better moments, the classic adventures of Ray Harryhausen. Michael Apted ('The World is Not Enough') does a perfectly capable job in the director's chair, although the switch in cinematography from film to digital video gives live-action elements a distracting blur and the overall production an almost cheaper feel. (For being converted in post-production, the 3D presentation itself is perfectly adequate, enhancing otherwise convincing special effects without bringing much of an added "wow!" factor to the picture.)

The young British actors, comfortable enough around said special effects, still have their more wooden moments, especially upon their return to Narnia, and are saddled with simplistic character arcs. (He wants power, like his older brother had! She wants beauty, like her older sister has!) But neither Edmund nor Lucy are as woefully irritating as Eustace. A charming enough scamp in 'Son of Rambow,' Poulter plays out the stuffy, science-minded skeptic far harder than he has to, making his eventual transformation into a speechless dragon not so much a magical occurrance so much as a merciful one.

An early skermish with slave traders is marginally exciting, a quest to retrieve seven swords from seven lords feels far more routine, an encounter with invisible gnomes attempting an amusing amount of vocal intimidation brings welcome levity, while a climactic battle against a nasty sea serpent proves more thrilling than expected, if not more thrilling than any other showdown in the series to date. And then, at the very end, the lion we've all been waiting for makes his full-fledged return; however, the arrival of Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson) this time marks the clunkiest semi-sermon about Christian values, converting stuffy, science-minded skeptics, and reaching heaven. As I understand it, Lewis himself included as much in the books, but so far as the films go, this one is the least subtle in its underlying message.

Although there are four more books to adapt and, reportedly, one more film in production, Apted ends 'Dawn Treader' with a general sense of finality. Given the waning box-office returns and overall generic nature of the series, it doesn't come as much of a surprise. Besides, if another sequel means more Eustace, then you count me out on that voyage before it even sets sail.

The Weekend's Reviews: 'The Warrior's Way', 'Black Swan' and More

William Goss — 2010-12-05T18:02:00+00:00

The week after Thanksgiving is traditionally a slow one for wide releases, but for all the duds that have come out in either limited or wide release this week, there are also one or two of gems working their way into the year-end mix...

'The Warrior's Way': This samurai western starring Geoffrey Rush, Kate Bosworth and Korean action star Dong-gun Jang didn't screen for press, but Peter Martin went ahead and found out why: "Fleeting moments of pleasure can be found: a rain of black-clad ninjas fall from the sky; a dance under a starry, starry night; the kooky colors of a computer-generated town; the beauty of Kate Bosworth. Unfortunately, they're barely sufficient to fill a three-minute trailer. And when the filmmakers have to rely on the reactions of an incredibly cute and expressive baby to fill out the 100-minute running time, you know you're in trouble."

Mike Hale of the New York Times sympathized: "The sometimes impressive visual effects make these battles entertaining, in a mindless way, but it's impossible to work up any feeling about them."

'The Nutcracker in 3D': Andrei Konchalovsky's bold re-imagining of the classic ballet is expanding its run this week, expanding just wide enough to allow yours truly to catch it and confirm its reported dreadfulness: "The whole thing is just so astoundingly wrongheaded: it's 'The Nutcracker,' only with no ballet and a story culled together from 'Peter Pan,' 'Pinocchio,' 'Alice in Wonderland,' 'The Wizard of Oz,' 'Toy Story,' 'Metropolis' and the Third Reich in general, all topped with a steampunk streak, awful songs and an even worse after-the-fact 3D conversion."

Roger Ebert knows what I'm talking about: "You may be in disbelief. I was. 'The Nutcracker in 3D' is one of those rare holiday movies that may send children screaming under their seats."

'Black Swan': Darren Aronofsky's bold re-imagining of 'Swan Lake,' on the other hand, is getting much love, especially for Natalie Portman's lead performance. Eric D. Snider reviewed it back at Telluride, calling it "a wholly engrossing, almost unbearably tense drama about a fairly mundane thing: backstage anxiety in the performing arts. Countless movies have addressed the same subject, but I feel safe in saying none have addressed it in quite this way... Here you'll find psychological thrills, body horror, sexual awakening, symbolic self-discovery, hallucinatory trickery, and the terrifying calf muscles of ballet dancers, all in one movie."

Movie City News' Kim Voynar agreed: "A bold, brave, gorgeous, crazy yarn of a psychological thriller, one of the ballsiest, most intellectually ambitious films I've seen this year."

'I Love You, Phillip Morris': This long-delayed gay prisoner romantic comedy (based on a true story!) stars Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor and is finally getting a proper release. Jette Kernion saw it at the Austin Film Festival and felt that it "manages successfully to overlay a sweet and occasionally tragic romance -- if an unconventional one -- with great galumphing comedy and a stellar performance from Carrey."

Bill Gibron of PopMatters thought that "as a comedy, [it's] sly and genuinely clever... As a biopic - yes, these men actually existed - the film is breezy and beguiling... Finally, as a love story, [the film] is genuine and heartfelt."

'Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale': If you see one Finnish killer Santa movie this year, better make it the one Jason Murphy called "a rousing adventure full of comedy, sentiment, and some intense creepiness."

Noel Murray of The A.V. Club said it's "slight but fun: a potential new holiday classic for moviegoers who always suspected that any old dude who sneaks into houses can't really be as jolly as his reputation."

'All Good Things': Inspired by true events, this drama stars Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst as a young couple whose relationship isn't as perfect as it seems. Per Magnolia's distribution model, the film has been available on demand for the past month and is now playing in theaters.

Brian Orndorf remarked that "the challenge for [Andrew] Jarecki (director of 'Capturing the Friedmans') is to establish a tone that directly confronts the viewer with a riveting construct of wicked business, leading to a fulfilling package of lies and crimes that effectively conveys a twitchy life of suspicious, horrific behavior. 'All Good Things' doesn't nail that riveting tone, or any tone for that matter. It grazes along a field of clichés and anemic confrontations, leaving David a bizarrely unchallenged enigma of a man from the first frame to the last."

'Night Catches Us': In the 1970s, suspicion is cast over the return of a young man (Anthony Mackie) to his Philadelphia neighborhood. This film has similarly been available on demand and iTunes for the past month and is now playing in theaters.

Michelle Orange of Movieline said: "Meant to pique and hold our attention, the script's strategy of opening up blanks so that it can eventually fill them in contributes to a feeling of inertia, in part because three-quarters of the film pass with vague references to what sounds increasingly like a more interesting story."

'The Nutcracker' Review: In 3D, It's Nuttier Than Ever

William Goss — 2010-12-04T11:54:00+00:00

On stage and screen, Mel Brooks' 'The Producers' is all about two theatrical producers who raise more money than necessary for an intentionally awful show, "Springtime for Hitler," so that the play will close immediately, the books will go unchecked and they can take the money and run.

It's easy to wonder if -- with its jetpack-wearing Nazi-like rats shooting at children from the skies and its great white sharks being electrocuted for fun -- 'The Nutcracker in 3D' isn't the result of some similar scheme. At the reported cost of $90 million, director Andrei Konchalovsky has framed the classic ballet against imagery undeniably evocative of WWII Germany, and that's just the first of the film's many problems.

It's 1920s Vienna, and Uncle Albert (Nathan Lane, himself of 'The Producers'!) has brought home a nutcracker and a dollhouse for his niece and nephew to play with. Sure enough, Mary (Elle Fanning) brings them to life with the power of imagination, only to discover that the wooden nutcracker -- "Call me N.C.," of course -- is actually a cursed prince whose kingdom has been overrun by the Rat King (John Turturro) and his soldiers. Together, Mary and N.C. work to stop him from "rat-ifying" the entire populace and destroying every toy in town.

Did I mention that Uncle Albert is the Albert Einstein? Lane hams it up with an all-caps Austrian accent, making needless asides to the audience and belting out nonsensical songs about the theory of relativity to the tune of "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy." (Did I mention that it's a musical? The "Christmastime for Hitler" theory fits...) Often acting opposite digital elements, Fanning plays fine against thin air, though the difference between her apparent age and acting ability is quite distinct between this (reportedly shot in 2007) and this month's 'Somewhere'.

When not an actual human boy (played by Charlie Rowe), N.C. is rather annoyingly voiced by actress Shirley Henderson (Moaning Myrtle of the 'Harry Potter' series), coming off less like Pinocchio and more like Terrance and/or Phillip of "South Park" fame. His mother is the Snow Fairy, inadvertently dressed as Lady Gaga, while Hermes from "Futurama" pops up as the Little Drummer Boy (who is now Jamaican). That pretty much leaves us with Turturro in an Andy Warhol wig, chewing up the scenery even when his mouth hasn't mutated into a disturbing rat snout.

The anachronisms are staggering (Uncle Albert: "I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you"), the accents are a mess, and the set, costume and character design are all disturbingly reminiscent of the Holocaust. (For example, we're treated to the sight of smokestacks on the horizon as they issue black clouds of smoke from the relentless burning of toys.) Guillermo del Toro united the themes of adult war and childhood fantasy rather strikingly in 'Pan's Labyrinth,' but to put it mildly, Konchalovsky ('Tango & Cash') is no Guillermo del Toro, nor the next Terry Gilliam, nor even half of a second-rate Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

The whole thing is just so astoundingly wrongheaded: it's 'The Nutcracker,' only with no ballet and a story culled together from 'Peter Pan,' 'Pinocchio,' 'Alice in Wonderland,' 'The Wizard of Oz,' 'Toy Story,' 'Metropolis' and the Third Reich in general, all topped with a steampunk streak, awful songs and an even worse after-the-fact 3D conversion. This isn't Tchaikovsky's holiday classic as you remember it, but with a little luck, our children and our children's children will remember it for what it is: a $90-million lump of coal.

Irvin Kershner, Director of 'The Empire Strikes Back', Passes Away at 87

William Goss — 2010-11-29T09:33:00+00:00

Director of 'Robocop,' 'Star Wars,' and James Bond sequel alike, Irvin Kershner has passed away at 87. Empire Magazine reports that the filmmaker "died at his home following a long illness."

A student of photography, Kershner began his directorial career in 1958 with the Roger Corman-produced 'Stakeout on Dope Street.' After much TV work, he directed 1978's 'Eyes of Laura Mars' before being invited by George Lucas to helm 'Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back.'

After initially refusing the offer, Kershner asked Lucas why he was the choice, to which Lucas reportedly replied, "Well, because you know everything a Hollywood director is supposed to know, but you're not Hollywood." An unsurprising box-office success, 'Empire' faced a mixed critical reaction, but would later be regarded by most as the best film in the series.

Following 'Empire,' Kershner made 1983's "unofficial" Bond sequel/remake, 'Never Say Never Again,' as well as 1990's 'Robocop 2.' He made his acting debut in Martin Scorsese's 'The Last Temptation of Christ' in 1988, and he retired from directing in 1993.

Check out a great two-part interview with Kershner after the jump.

The Weekend's Reviews: Nov. 26, 2010

William Goss — 2010-11-26T19:35:00+00:00

As expected this time of year, Hollywood got its movie week off to an early start in order to capitalize on the Thanksgiving weekend, doling out shootouts, singing, and romance both kid-friendly and adults-only in an effort to appease every possible demographic. And I didn't even mention the next big awards juggernaut... (Hint: it's a British period piece.)

'Tangled'
Disney took the long-told story of Rapunzel's flowing locks and fit it into their trademark princess-comedy-adventure-musical mold, and yours truly was pleasantly surprised by the end result: "The usual princess pattern has been treated to a visual and verbal polish, and while the end result may not be an instant classic worthy of ranking alongside ['Beauty and the Beast,' 'Aladdin,' 'The Lion King,' etc.], it's certainly a more satisfying showcase of derring-do, sweet romance and musical numbers in-between than we've seen from the Mouse House in quite some time."

'Love and Other Drugs'

Jake Gyllenhaal sells pharmaceuticals, Anne Hathaway needs them, and they just might need each other in Ed Zwick's romantic-dramedy, about which David Ehrlich had mixed feelings: "The funny stuff is funny, the sweet stuff is sweet, and the nudity is frequent. But just when Zwick seems poised to elevate the movie into prestige picture territory, the rom-com formula takes hold and the movie reminds you of its limitations in the most painful of ways."

'Faster'

Dwayne "Don't Call Me 'The Rock'" Johnson has just been released from prison, and he's out to kill the men who killed his brother. Peter Hall felt like he and we have seen this kind of revenge flick before, but that this one's leading man made it a bit easier to sit through: "Even though this is a highly derivative thriller that telegraphs its moves, it's not quite a waste of time. There's a reason Dwayne Johnson has successfully transitioned from being a primetime wrestler to a legitimate movie star, and it's the same reason this otherwise forgettable film is tolerable: charisma."

'Burlesque'

Wide-eyed Christina Aguilera decides to give stardom a shot, club owner Cher decides to give this Iowa girl her chance to shine, and Jenni Miller enjoyed it as one might enjoy a harlequin romance novel: "The writing is silly -- "I will not be upstaged by some chick with mutant lungs!" fumes Nikki (Kristen Bell) -- but we're not here for the writing. We're here for the spectacle. And it is indeed a glittery, rhinestone-encrusted, red-lipsticked, false-eyelashed spectacle."

'The King's Speech'

When a stammering King George VI (Colin Firth) was faced with leading England into war with Germany, an Australian speech therapist (Geoffrey Rush) proved to be his secret weapon. Eugene Novikov saw the film at the Telluride Film Festival back in September and felt then that the film was "essentially a recontextualized iteration of the underdog sports movie, complete with an unconventional coach, a training montage, a big game, and even the scene where someone on the rival team exposes a secret that angers the players... Still, 'The King's Speech' skillfully executes a familiar plot, and the plot itself, it should be said, is nothing to sneeze at. The mechanics of the way Bertie and Logue attack the former's elocution problem are entertaining and often very funny. Rush and Firth are great fun together, Rush's confident Australian irreverence a perfect foil for Firth's aristocratic, prim-and-proper repression."

'Tangled' Review: A Disney Twist on the Princess Formula

William Goss — 2010-11-22T17:00:00+00:00

With last year's perfectly pleasant 'The Princess and the Frog,' Disney stuck to its traditional hand-drawn animation and fairy-tale formula in an effort to emulate the likes of 'Beauty and the Beast,' 'Aladdin,' 'The Lion King,' and so on. For the studio's 50th animated feature, 'Tangled,' the usual princess pattern has been treated to a visual and verbal polish, and while the end result may not be an instant classic worthy of ranking alongside the aforementioned films, it's certainly a more satisfying showcase of derring-do, sweet romance and musical numbers in-between than we've seen from the Mouse House in quite some time.

When the queen of the land was pregnant and ill, she was healed by a special flower renowned for its rejuvenating powers, and once young Rapunzel was born, her hair held the same strength. However she was snatched up by the evil witch Gothel (voiced by Donna Murphy) and locked away in a tower, where Gothel alone could reap the rewards of the child's golden locks. Now, nearing the age of eighteen, Rapunzel (Mandy Moore) would like to leave, but would hate to hurt her so-called mother's feelings. In drops Flynn (Zachary Levi), a local thief who has picked the wrong place to hide, and it isn't long before she's flown the coop with a pet chameleon on her shoulder, and he's stuck serving as chaperone with a police horse on his trail.

Directors Nathan Greno and Byron Howard ('Bolt') have taken great care to evoke a classic storybook look, from the design of the characters' faces and costumes to the idyllic environments, themselves made all the more immersive by a well-rendered 3-D presentation (although wearing those glasses does dim the lush color palette on display). The action beats -- your usual fights, escapes and close calls -- are executed with as much finesse as the musical moments, and once composer Alan Menken's biggest ballad plays out amidst countless lanterns on a serene lake, it proves equally lovely to the eyes and ears. The rest of 'Tangled''s tunes range from motherly fear-mongering (belted out perfectly by the Tony-winning Murphy) to the requisite declaration of dreams; they're all quite good, if not (and not to rub it in) 'Beauty'-'Aladdin'-'Lion King' good.

Moore's Rapunzel is alternately spunky and spazzy (her first moments outside the tower amusingly reflect her bi-polar reaction to newfound freedom), and with Gothel proving to be such a perpetually passive-aggressive mother figure, it's no wonder that our blond princess-in-denial has some trust issues. (She arms herself with a frying pan, a weapon that grows increasingly handy as the film progresses.) A minor fuss was made of Disney's decision to change the title from 'Rapunzel,' for fear of scaring off demographics that couldn't care less about princesses, so not only is she a decidedly more proactive protagonist than, say, Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, but the focus of the story is ostensibly the mucho macho Flynn.

Flynn may be named after old-school Errol Flynn, but he seems to be modeled on a modern-day Chris Evans/Pine type, and his glib narration -- combined with a hasty prologue -- almost makes it feel like writer Dan Fogelman is trying too hard to make this a boys' AND girls' club. The voice-over tapers off, though, and Levi proves to be a suitably cocky foil to the neurotic love interest. Ron Perlman, M.C. Gainey, Brad Garrett and others lend appropriately gruff support as any number of fearsome foes and surprising softies, but not a single one of them manages to be nearly as funny as Maximus, the silent horse who comes across as Tommy Lee Jones in 'The Fugitive' with hooves before becoming a reluctant sidekick. His antics may stick out as being more indebted to "Looney Tunes" than anything else here, but they're hilarious all the same.

Perhaps 'Tangled' seems so refreshing because it's not trying so hard to be post-modern in the age of 'Shrek' sequels. Its humor is contemporary in tone at times, and just clever in general, but everything else about its execution hearkens back to those cherished tales of empowerment and enchantment that made the Disney name in the first place.

The Weekend's Reviews: Nov. 19, 2010

William Goss — 2010-11-21T21:00:00+00:00

Yes, yes, the penultimate 'Harry Potter' film is upon us, but believe it or not, it isn't the sole moviegoing option this weekend. Let's dig in, shall we?

-'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1': Here's the magical elephant in the room, the first half of J.K. Rowling's last book brought to life. We had two reviews, one from Eric D. Snider's series-savvy perspective -- "a quietly thrilling and artful chapter in the eight-part series" -- and the other from admitted outsider Todd Gilchrist, who found the film to be "a well-constructed, competently-told and generally engaging tale that conveys an appropriate sense of finality and suffers only from being but part of the whole story." Win-win!

-'The Next Three Days': Russell Crowe wants to get wife Elizabeth Banks out of jail, while Jenni Miller wanted more excitement out of this would-be thriller: "Once John sets his plan in motion, things speed up nicely, but it's not really enough to redeem the previous two-thirds of the movie." You can read the rest here.

-'Made in Dagenham': Based on a true story, this dramedy focuses on Sally Hawkins ('Happy-Go-Lucky') as she helps rally her fellow factory workers into stand up for women's rights in 1960s England. Alonso Duralde of HitFix called it "a film that takes what was no doubt a valiant and game-changing labor battle and turns it into another Brit flick that tries desperately to be adorable."

-'White Material': Isabelle Huppert tries to keep her family's African coffee plantation running amid the threat of civil war in this latest drama from acclaimed filmmaker Claire Denis. Jeffrey M. Anderson saw it at the San Francisco International Film Festival and felt that "probably one of her most accessible movies. It has an actual plot, and a big star in the lead role, Isabelle Huppert, here looking bright and tough, her freckles and blue eyes glinting and gleaming in the heat... But it's also one of Denis' grimmest and most pessimistic films, although that doesn't stop me from wanting to see it again." The film will be available on demand starting next Wednesday, the 24th.

-'Heartless': Jim Strugess stars in this horror fantasy, which John Gholson reviewed at Fantastic Fest earlier this year: "[The film] starts strong... It's shot well, the demons provide some early, freaky moments of horror, and Sturgess makes for a sympathetic, interesting lead character. Then, it all sort of goes downhill."

The Weekend's Reviews: Nov. 12, 2010

William Goss — 2010-11-13T14:05:00+00:00

Romantic comedy? Check. Action thriller? Check. Sci-fi suspense? Uh-huh. The big-screen offerings are diverse this week, and that's not to mention your usual indies and documentaries currently in limited release.

- 'Morning Glory': Rachel McAdams tries to salvage a morning news show anchored by Diane Keaton and Harrison Ford, and Jenni Miller wasn't entirely tickled by the end result: "The meatiest parts of the movie are the scenes with McAdams and Ford, which is unfortunate since his performance is so grating and over-the-top that he's a mere caricature of both himself and of great newscasters. If he had dialed it back a few notches, the poignancy of their relationship would have felt much truer." (Check out the rest of her thoughts here.)

-'Unstoppable': Denzel Washington and Chris Pine have a runaway train to catch, but director Tony Scott lost Todd Gilchrist's interest in the process: "an onslaught of visual excess and nonsensical storytelling that believes it's a credible drama, which is why even by the most forgiving standards it's still awful." Todd's full review continues here.

-'Skyline': That guy from "Six Feet Under" and that guy from "Scrubs" fend off an alien invasion from the latter's L.A. penthouse. Peter Hall dug the effects, but felt the characters and story lacked in comparison: "It's plagued by too many elements that are, at best, marvelously derivative and, at worst, barely worthy of basic cable." The rest of his review's right over here.

-'Tiny Furniture': Jette Kernion thought she was sick of rambling indies about twenty-something ennui until she saw this low-key comedy back at SXSW: "The movie has a skewed sense of humor that works very well to counterbalance Aura's confusion and angst." The film will be available on demand on November 26.

-'Cool It': Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Ondi Timoner ('We Live in Public') made this climate change doc in response to 'An Inconvenient Truth,' and when Monika Bartyzel saw it in Toronto, she felt that "Timoner adeptly includes a multitude of opinions and ideas, all of which have some validity. The audience is urged to move beyond the hysteria and to think rationally about the issues..."

-'Helena from the Wedding': This indie drama stands at 63% on Rotten Tomatoes.

The Weekend's Reviews: Nov. 5, 2010

William Goss — 2010-11-05T21:02:00+00:00

With Halloween and another 'Saw' sequel behind us, Hollywood has decided to dole out a variety of wide releases this week, in addition to the usual indie titles likely to come your way on screens both big and small.

-'Due Date': Todd Phillips' follow-up to 'The Hangover' pairs up Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis for a rowdy cross-country road trip that I only found to be moderately amusing: "Phillips' shotgun spray approach to comedy does work on occasion, with Ethan's more absurd non sequiturs earning a laugh and Peter's punchier moments earning a rightful gasp. 'Due Date' is by no means a chore to watch; it just too often falls back on broad crutches instead of making the most of the acidic and deadpan talents at its disposal." (You can read my full thoughts here.)

-'For Colored Girls': Tyler Perry has set aside adapting his own plays from the stage to the screen in order to tackle Ntozake Shange's acclaimed "choreopoem" about the plights of the modern African-American woman. According to our Eric D. Snider, "Tyler Perry has Tyler Perried the hell out of this thing." (Full review here.)

-'Megamind': Todd Gilchrist checked out this spin on the superhero formula and called it "one of the year's better animated films, [offering] a surprisingly engrossing nature-versus-nurture question about those mythic origin stories: are heroes born, or are they made?" (More of Todd's review here.)

-'127 Hours': Eugene Novikov caught Danny Boyle's harrowing drama at the Telluride Film Festival and had this to say: "James Franco, who is on screen alone for the vast majority of the film's short running time, is perfectly cast and excellent. A lot of 127 Hours' medical-procedure-like squeamishness actually comes from him - e.g. his look of stunned incomprehension as the dust settles and he first beholds his arm crushed under a boulder... As things start looking dire, his pain and heartbreak are palpable."

-'Fair Game': Joe Utichi saw Doug Liman's take on the Valerie Plame scandal back at Cannes and felt that "this is a more serious piece of cinema than he's delivered to date, but his action chops mean it's a film which maintains its tension from scene one, even if there are no big action moments to fall back on."

-'Four Lions': Scott Weinberg raved about this farcical look at terrorism after seeing it at Sundance: "It's probably important to remember that director Chris Morris and [his] co-writers ... are mocking extremist values, and not all Muslim ideals. Plus, they do the world a great service by trying to de-mystify this type of horrifying behavior. If it's true that we stop being scared of something once we're able to laugh at it, well then, 'Four Lions' has made me feel just a little bit better about the war on terror."

-'Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer': Christopher Campbell saw a work-in-progress cut of Alex Gibney's new documentary at Tribeca, saying then that "the film details the shamed politician's career from Wall Street-wrangling Attorney General to reform-bent state leader." Per Magnolia's distribution model, the film has been available on demand and iTunes for the past month and is now playing in theaters.

-'Red Hill': We never formally reviewed this present-day Western starring Ryan Kwanten, but having caught the film at Fantastic Fest, I agreed most with Noel Murray's lukewarm review over at The A.V. Club: "There's nary a character, prop, or animal introduced in the first 20 minutes that doesn't become a factor in the story by the last 20, but [writer-director Patrick] Hughes embraces these contrivances, positioning 'Red Hill' as an homage to his favorite genre movies. The problem is that Hughes fails to imbue this homage with anything personal."

-'Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench': This indie musical currently sits at 75% on Rotten Tomatoes.

'Four Lions' Director Chris Morris Talks About Finding the Funny in Terrorism

William Goss — 2010-11-05T18:00:00+00:00

Although notorious in his native England for the satirical shows 'Brass Eye,' 'Jam,' and 'The Day Today,' Chris Morris is probably best known in the United States for his appearances as Denholm Reynholm on 'The IT Crowd.' Now, as Morris' directorial debut, 'Four Lions,' prepares to open Stateside, we sat down with the filmmaker to discuss the inspiration behind his bumbling terrorist comedy, the transition from TV to film work, the role cultural sensitivity plays in making jokes about jihadists, and what it means for a certain American journalist to have made a "British mistake."

The inspiration for the film:

"With this, it was a case of stumbling into the idea. I had no idea there would be funny things going on within serious terrorist operations. It was only in reading about it and finding out that, time and again, people are... flawed. There was a Canadian cell. They were planning all kinds of nefarious deeds, and they were constantly sort of bumbling along as they were doing it. They bought guns and then suddenly realized they had to hide them, and didn't know where, so they buried them in a public park. When they went back to pick them up, they'd been nicked. They went into the woods to do training camp stuff around Toronto, but the leader of the cell set himself on fire whilst trying to add fuel to the campfire. A mouse ran into their tent, and two of them got scared and had to go sleep in the van. One of them invented a detonator that made sure they could set off a bomb without getting blown up, but it only had a range of 15 feet... Some of the incidents made me laugh, and I thought, if this is as surprising to other people as it is to me, if you pursue that surprise, maybe you'll find something."

Approaching the subject matter with comedy as opposed to drama:

There's definitely something that comedy can do that drama can't do, but you lose as much as you gain. It depends on how things strike you, I guess. I think it's Sandy McKendrick who says, 'Drama, you have to get structure right. Comedy, you have to get structure-structure-structure-structure right.' Part of me thinks that drama is just doing half of the job. Comedy, you have to do that job as well and then make it funny.

How much was scripted as opposed to improvised:

It was all precisely written, but then we shot loose. So you get the version that you think you know you want, and then you've got some time to play around with it, when ideas come up while you're on set and you see dynamics evolve between people, or the script will get tired and you want to revitalize it by getting people to reformulate the words but say the same thing.

Making the transition from television to filmmaking:

These days, particularly when you shoot on HD, many aspects of the transition are done by the time you're filming. It's really in the script that you feel the work, because you're creating something that stretches across a three-act structure and that just multiplies the amount of correct weaving you have to do to make sure the thing is an integral piece at the end. By the time you're filming it, it's much more similar to how you would make television.

Whether comedy should target or avoid areas of sensitivity:

You're always, in comedy, going to be going somewhere near somebody's sensitivities, and that -- as anybody knows -- is part of the fun as well. You make a joke deliberately in the middle of a sensitive area to set off a little laughter grenade. That kind of joke, you identify the soft spot and you go for it. That's part of the artillery, but with this, we weren't doing that. We weren't saying that a dangerous, exploding, viscerally destructive weapon is -- as we all really know, if we weren't in denial -- a hilarious thing. We weren't doing that. There's no way we were doing that; it doesn't fit the category. The way you treat that kind of sensitivity is different... The thing that's at the core of a bomb, violence and death, is not something where you want to detonate a little charge on people's sensitivities because normally, those jokes are aimed at a kind of denial about something, not just a fact of carnage.

Having characters in a farce be more substantial than mere buffoons:
(This regards a subplot in the film involving Omar's wife and son supporting his terrorist goals.)

You get examples where all the axises seem to have just been switched 180 degrees, but that's partly because of the way you look at it. If that was a scene which involved a soldier, someone who we'd automatically accept as a goodie, who was having doubts about going on a lethal mission from which he'd probably never return and his wife was saying, 'You know what you've gotta do,' we'd probably accept it more. That is sort of like a joke going off with a lid on it.

How victims and Muslims have felt about the film:

When we've played it to Muslim audiences in New York, they've invariably gravitated towards it. They just recognize a lot of it. There's a guy who fought alongside Osama bin Laden in the '80s who I spoke to in research for this ... he laughed his head off when he saw the film. Of course, I didn't know that was going to happen when we made the film. You don't avoid things. You just make sure that you know what you're doing.

I spoke to a guy who'd been sitting next to one of the bombers on the London Underground and survived, amazingly, without appalling injury, not because I wanted to stop or start the film, but because I wanted to know what someone in his position might think and feel; without speaking for anyone besides himself, he said, 'Yeah, I can imagine the film being funny. I don't know that it's going to be funny, but I'll be interested to see it when it comes out.'

How Americans might feel about the film:
(I brought up some of the initial comments made when Drafthouse Films announced that they'd be releasing the film in the U.S., and as I tried to ask whether or not Americans seem more sensitive to matters of terrorism than any other audience that's also seen attacks, the wording of my question got away from me...)

You'll find a negative blog anywhere you play it. It's not a film that is completely seen the same way by everybody. We had a guy last night who was a Republican, was working two blocks from the World Trade Center when they were hit, he voted for George Bush twice, etc. And he claimed that he loved it. He was very detailed about the way he got it. So I can't anticipate what people will think. You've made what might be classified as a "British mistake." The way you were talking about America just now -- which I hope you're going to keep in, to damn yourself -- is a bit like the sort of comments you might hear a Brit think. Those kind of generalizations never really make any sense... Your suggestion was that Americans were too caught up in being victims?

Perhaps, and again, that's obviously a generalization, but if this film had come out five years ago instead of today, would people be as receptive to it?

You know, I was in a cab leaving New York City, and I had a certain feeling as if your own city had been attacked. It's not the same as an attack on London somehow. New York is such a massive statement of architecture, and they seem over and past it. Someone was telling me that a kid's toy horse was blown up. I saw it on the news. Some kid had left a little toy horse outside their school in some small town in the Midwest, and it became an incident -- could this be a bomb? -- and it got blown up by the local police, which is behavior considerably less cool than you'd find in NY. It probably depends on how people get whipped up.

'Four Lions' is now playing in select cities.

'Due Date' Review: On A Bumpy Road Trip with Zach Galifianakis and Robert Downey Jr.

William Goss — 2010-11-05T09:15:00+00:00

Humiliation-based comedy has taken a curious trajectory over the past decade or so. The Farrelly Brothers' earlier films like 'Dumb & Dumber' and 'Kingpin' were goofy but earnest, yet it was the gauntlet of gags known as 'There's Something About Mary' that exploded at the box office and (at the risk of generalizing) re-ignited studio interest in the R-rated comedy.

From there, Ben Stiller found himself embarrassed once more in 'Meet the Parents', and again in 'Along Came Polly', and yet again in 'Meet the Fockers' before re-uniting with the Farrellys on their underwhelming remake of 'The Heartbreak Kid'. Stiller wasn't just the funny man, but rather the punching bag, and after that, it seemed that endearing characters enduring great awkwardness became less of a priority as an elaborate sense of cruelty took the forefront. (One could argue that the 'Jackass' films have demonstrated this mentality in its purest form.)

Cut to last summer, when Todd Phillips' 'The Hangover' broke out and took the title of R-rated comedy box office champ away from 'Mary'. A sporadically hilarious movie that ran out of steam right around when Ken Jeong showed up to spout things like "Funny fat guy fall on face!", its blackout narrative at least brought a necessary spark of creativity to the table.

Now, in the time between 'The Hangover' and Phillips' follow-up -- 'Due Date' -- "Funny fat guy fall on face!" has become the rule of thumb and the systematic humiliation of protagonist(s) at any cost is the name of the game. 'Paul Blart: Mall Cop'? Check. 'Grown Ups'? Check. 'Wild Hogs'? Check. 'Old Dogs'? Check. The list goes on. To be fair, 'Due Date' is easily funnier than any of those titles, if not 'The Hangover' itself, but it shares with them all a mean-spirited mindset that nearly negates the laughs.

Peter (Robert Downey Jr.) is in Atlanta, but needs to be in Los Angeles. His wife ('Kiss Kiss Bang Bang' co-star Michelle Monaghan) is due to have their child there by the end of the week, and apparently, there was some emergency architect gig that's kept him away from home sweet home. A chance run-in at the airport with cheery would-be actor Ethan (Zach Galifianakis) sees them both kicked off their flight and promptly added to the No-Fly List, a scenario which forces the ill-tempered Peter to join the barely-there Ethan and his French bulldog for an impromptu road trip.

There are some familiar faces along the way -- Juliette Lewis as a drug dealer, Danny McBride as a war vet, Jamie Foxx as a good friend of Peter's -- and many, many obstacles for our odd couple to contend with. How will they pay for gas, food, lodging? How will they replace a soon-to-be-totaled car? Most importantly: how will they possibly tolerate one another? That's really to say, how will Peter survive Ethan? The former already has a short fuse, but when stuck next to the latter, anyone would resemble a complete and utter misanthrope. These two go together like Splenda goes with scotch.

You have every right to be reminded of John Hughes' 1987 classics, 'Planes, Trains and Automobiles', with the key difference being that John Candy's character in that film wasn't entirely insufferable and, for all intents and purposes, functionally retarded. Like Steve Carell's destructive eccentric in this summer's 'Dinner for Schmucks', Ethan goes beyond all reasonable logic in order to best serve the antics cooked up by Phillips and his three credited co-writers. It's irritating, the extent to which he serves as a catalyst first and a character second, and all would be forgiven if the film were far funnier for it. Falling asleep at the wheel and ramping off of an overpass? Getting baked and accidentally winding up at the U.S./Mexico border?

This is the type of movie where a grown man doesn't get smacked down by a car door when he runs up against it, but instead takes it clean off its hinges. This is a movie where a character's ashes are transported in a coffee can for the exclusive purpose of ensuring that someone, at some point, will make and serve coffee out of them. This is the movie where a dog winds up masturbating alongside its owner. (You may think that's especially hilarious, a la the baby-masturbation moment in 'The Hangover', and I would not be inclined to agree.)

Downey Jr. makes for a fine powder keg on legs, and Galifianakis lends some slight dramatic heft during the film's otherwise leaden sentimental moments that nicely differentiates his work here from his similarly spastic 'Hangover' performance. Phillips' shotgun spray approach to comedy does work on occasion, with Ethan's more absurd non sequiturs earning a laugh and Peter's punchier moments earning a rightful gasp. 'Due Date' is by no means a chore to watch; it just too often falls back on broad crutches instead of making the most of the acidic and deadpan talents at its disposal.

On second thought, this isn't 'Planes, Trains and Automobiles Redux' so much as it is that one scene where Steve Martin lets loose at an airport ticket counter with an epic string of profanity, only to be treated in kind. When characters here aren't mean, they're fed up, and after a while, the feeling is mutual.

Director George Hickenlooper Dead at 47

William Goss — 2010-10-30T18:20:00+00:00

Director George Hickenlooper was found dead in Denver this morning, according to the Denver Post. He was 47.

Hickenlooper's career was defined by a mix of documentaries and narrative features. He was in Denver to show his latest, 'Casino Jack', at the Starz Denver Film Festival later this week. The film stars Kevin Spacey as notorious political lobbyist Jack Abramoff; after its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, our own Scott Weinberg said that, while the film had "a smart script and some juicy performances from Spacey, Pepper, Kelly Preston, and Jon Lovitz, it's the director's approach to Abramoff's character that sets the film apart."

Before that, Hickenlooper made ''Hick' Town', a film focused on his cousin, John Hickenlooper, as he went through his duties as Denver mayor during the 2008 Democratic National Convention. (The latter reportedly makes a cameo in 'Casino Jack'.) Furthermore, he won a Primetime Emmy for co-directing the great 'Apocalypse Now' documentary 'Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse' in 1991, while his 1994 short 'Some Folks Call It a Sling Blade' was later expanded by star Billy Bob Thornton into a feature -- 'Sling Blade' -- to much acclaim.

An author and one-time intern for legendary producer Roger Corman, Hickenlooper died of natural causes.

[Special thanks to the Portland Oregonian's Shawn Levy.]

Here's What Tim Burton's 'Superman' Would've Looked Like

William Goss — 2010-10-29T23:17:00+00:00

Plenty of projects don't ever get off the ground for plenty of reasons -- creative differences, budgetary concerns, what-have-you. Case in point: 'Superman Lives', once set to star Nicolas Cage as the Man of Steel and to be directed by Tim Burton (of the non-Schumacher, pre-Nolan 'Batman' films at the time) from a script written by comic book die-hard Kevin Smith.

Aligned stars, right? Not so much. Creative differences, budgetary concerns and what-have-you ensued and this take on Supes wound up shelved for good. (If you really want to dig into the whole mess, Edward Gross wrote up a terrifically thorough three-part chronicle of what went wrong back in 2000.)

Cut to present day, when special effects supervisor Steve Johnson ('War of the Worlds', 'Spider-Man 2', 'Species') has decided to share an entire Facebook gallery full of shots of what might've been. Gone was the classic cape (per producer's demands), replaced instead with this 'Tron'-worthy suit and re-designed shield. It's a striking take on the legendary superhero to say the least.

What do you guys think? Does that scream "truth, justice and the American way" to you? Has the bar officially been lowered for new director Zack Snyder or what?

[Hat tip to Cinema Blend]

The Weekend's Reviews: Oct. 29, 2010

William Goss — 2010-10-29T19:00:00+00:00

Well, well, well, the weekend's finally here, and with it comes a few new movies and our Cinematical reviews for each of them. Actually, for most, it's just one new release -- 'Saw 3D' -- but there are some on-demand options and limited releases that will surely end up in your neck of the woods in due time.

-'Saw 3D': Eric D. Snider checked out Jigsaw's latest (and reportedly last) trap-a-palooza and had this to say: "Part 7 takes us back to the beginning in many ways, wrapping up some loose ends and reminding us of how goofy the whole thing has become. Even better, you get to pay extra for your ticket and wear dark glasses while you watch it!" (You can read his whole review here.)

-'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest': Jenni Miller caught up with the last entry in the Millennium Trilogy and felt that the story served its striking heroine poorly: "Lisbeth is the most interesting character in the series, and [Noomi] Rapace is the most dynamic actor in the cast. The movie tries to give her more face time, but that doesn't make up for the sluggish pace. [...] Watching the magazine editors squabble or elderly government gents discuss paperwork is just not as exciting as watching Rapace do, well, anything. Her performance makes even the most outlandish parts of the story, like her courthouse outfit, forgivable." (You can check out her full take here.)

-'Monsters': Per Magnolia's distribution model, Gareth Edwards' remarkable low-budget sci-fi debut has been available on demand and iTunes for the past month and is just now hitting theaters. Peter Hall saw it at SXSW and rightfully tempered expectations of non-stop creature carnage while championing the film: "That's not to say that 'Monsters' is without its spectacle. It's there, always looming on the horizon, ready to be showcased in incredibly clever, budget-conscious ways, but what's so impressive about Edwards' film is actually what he doesn't show the audience. The lovely, organic relationship that forms between Andrew and Sam in the midst of all the mayhem is just as rewarding as the restrained, resourceful encounters with the visitors from beyond the stars."

-'Welcome to the Rileys': Erik Childress caught this James Gandolfini-Kristen Stewart drama at Sundance and liked the former's performance but not the latter's: "Grasping onto surrogate family figures is not a new method of psychological healing in the cinema and 'Rileys' certainly doesn't cover any new territory. But thanks to an earnest performance by James Gandolfini anchoring it, we can almost forget the weight of Kristen Stewart dragging it down with every hair flip and tug."

-'Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields': I saw this doc about the aforementioned band during this year's Florida Film Festival and had this to report: "For those of us unfamiliar with the music of the Magnetic Fields (apparently just me), this documentary gives a comprehensive glimpse into the formation and popularity of the band, with rare footage from their early concerts and candid interviews from its members, as well as a glimpse into the particularly shy and sardonic life of its front man."

-'Wild Target': We never formally reviewed this hitman comedy starring Emily Blunt, Bill Nighy and Rupert Grint, but Brian Orndorf's review aligns with my own feelings about how spastic and unfunny the end result was: "...comes across as painfully slapdash, with screenwriter Lucinda Coxon struggling to maintain a sense of whimsy to a plot that contains a pool of abhorrent characters. ... Instead, [director Jonathan Lynn] aches to be more sympathetic, playing wiffle ball with violent events, making sure the viewer is in a position to embrace these characters at any cost..."

-'Waste Land': Christopher Campbell shone his Doc Talk spotlight on this film, calling it "what 'Born Into Brothels' should have been, a documentary that focuses on another subject trying to make a difference for select poor people of the Third World rather than trying to be that involved rescuer itself."

-'Inspector Bellamy': The final film by the late Claude Chabrol (his 50th at that), this mystery stars Gerard Depardieu and is currently available on demand through IFC. At the moment, it stands at 83% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Exclusive 'Four Lions' Red-Band Clip: Watch the Comedic Side of Terrorism

William Goss — 2010-10-27T13:02:00+00:00

WARNING: the following clip contains strong language.

By now, it's probably apparent that when Cinematical champions certain films, it's usually with good reason. Case in point: Chris Morris' 'Four Lions'. I really liked it at SXSW back in March, Scott really liked it at Sundance in January -- "grade-A high quality DARK comedy of the 'take no prisoners' variety" -- and starting next week, you'll get a chance to really like it yourself if/when the film comes to your town. (Release dates are listed along the right-hand side here, and if you just can't wait, Morris is doing a full-blown Stateside promotional tour that kicked off last night.)

'Lions' is a sharply satirical look at terrorism, focusing on four bumbling jihadists who are trying to orchestrate some sort of attack on London, but haven't a clue how to go about it. (One of them tries to plant a bomb on a crow, while another suggests blowing up "the Internet.") We're premiering a red-band clip below that offers a brief, profane look at what type of buffoonery awaits, especially whenever hotheaded Islamic convert Barry (Nigel Lindsay) tries to take charge.

The flagship release of Drafthouse Films (the very same minds behind the awesome Alamo Drafthouse theaters), 'Four Lions' goes into limited release on November 5th. Watch the red-band clip after the jump, and keep an eye out for our interview with Morris later on next week.

Francis Ford Coppola's Next Film to Star Val Kilmer and Elle Fanning

William Goss — 2010-10-26T10:05:00+00:00

When the director behind 'The Godfather,' 'The Conversation,' and 'Apocalypse Now' has his last two films -- 2007's 'Youth Without Youth' and 2009's 'Tetro' -- pretty much slip under the radar, what does he do? He slips right back, by quietly casting Val Kilmer as a horror novelist in a new thriller and filming it on his own Napa property.

Francis Ford Coppola is already shooting 'Twixt Now And Sunrise,' according to Deadline. Joining Kilmer in the cast is Elle Fanning (fresh off Sofia Coppola's 'Somewhere') and Bruce Dern, and little is known about the plot beyond it being based on Coppola's own short story.

It's curious to see the filmmaker go back to independent and often personal projects of late, more curious that he's decided to do a genre picture (his first since his 1992 take on 'Dracula') and even more curious to hear that he sought out Kilmer for the lead role. The definition of a good sport in 'MacGruber,' a scene stealer in 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,' and a badass in David Mamet's 'Spartan,' it could be nice to see Val get the spotlight proper again.

Or maybe, with its novelist protagonist, small setting and cast of three, it'll just end up being 'Secret Window Redux.' Let's hope, for Coppola's sake, that this isn't the case.

'Life As We Know It' Review: Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel Get Stuck with New Baby, Old Cliches

William Goss — 2010-10-08T19:37:00+00:00

Compromise. That's what 'Life As We Know It' is ostensibly about, but from its far-fetched premise on down, it's a potentially touching drama compromised by rom-com routine and defined by the type of sparks that rocks give off when clashed together often enough.

Holly (Katherine Heigl) and Messer (Josh Duhamel), respective best friends of Alison (Christina Hendricks) and Peter (Hayes MacArthur) and complete opposites otherwise, find themselves bound together by the burden of caring for that couple's young daughter, Sophie (the equally adorable Clagett triplets), when they die in a car crash. Forget that Holly owns and runs her own business. Never mind Messer's perpetual bachelor lifestyle. The couple's final wishes -- in addition to an overwhelming sense of guilt and a conveniently covered mortgage -- dictate that these two must live under the same roof and juggle the plans they had with the duties they now face in raising a kid.

It's hardly feasible that Alison and Peter would never have once shared with their child's godparents these unconventional arrangements that they had made. But if we're willing to roll with that, director Greg Berlanti manages a few touching moments of grief and guilt where these two realize what they'll have to give up if it means keeping little orphan Sophie out of state custody -- and how much that'll interfere with any and all of their best laid plans.

Then come the goofy neighbors, and the shrill black friends, and the pot brownies, and the baby poop, and the baby puke, and the cutesy montages, and the public blow-ups in the second act, and the climactic run to the airport in the third. Writers Ian Deitchman and Kristin Rusk Robinson pull out all the sitcom stops in creating a series of episodic dilemmas for this surrogate couple to tackle, and the rare zinger that does land hardly makes up for the rampant stereotypes among the supporting cast and a general fixation on the scatological habits of infants.

Berlanti does nothing but enable the pedestrian material at every turn and shoot each scene in an insufferable glow, suggesting that maybe Holly and Messer were the ones who died on their disastrous blind date and that the whole film takes place in some alternate-universe Atlanta (an alternate universe where one-time leading man Josh Lucas shows up as "The Other Guy" in the requisite love triangle). When it's not ridiculous, it's reheated, as Heigl's control freak learns to loosen up a bit and Duhamel's stud tries to settle down. Neither is particularly bad at their roles, but given how often they've played them before, there's really no excuse for them to be. They snipe and shout and flirt and plead dutifully, with little chemistry to show for it, and nothing that Berlanti, Deitchman and Robinson offer up would give them any cause to stretch these characters into something resembling real people dealing with real problems, albeit in a very contrived situation.

Even this summer's 'The Switch' took an unlikely, even potentially creepy scenario and infused it with a welcome dose of melancholy and a sense of real-world responsibility. That film wore its heart on its sleeve; this one would rather settle for poo on its face.

'13 Assassins' Review: Takashi Miike's Latest Ends Fantastic Fest Right

William Goss — 2010-10-04T22:18:00+00:00

The exceedingly prolific Takashi Miike has more than made a name for himself with his freakier fare -- 'Audition', 'The Happiness of the Katakuris', 'Ichi the Killer' -- but you wouldn't know it from '13 Assassins', his surprisingly conventional remake of a 1963 Eiichi Kudo film and apparent tribute to Kurosawa's 'Seven Samurai' and the like.

There is one unnerving scene early on that fits right into the filmmaker's reputation, the sight of a limbless, tongueless woman writhing around as samurai Shinzaemon Shimada (Kôji Yakusho) is told of her torment at the hands of the ruthless Lord Naritsugu (Gorô Inagaki). It's a necessarily grotesque moment that finally convinces to Shinzaemon to enlist twelve other men to ambush and kill the Lord, and it singularly grounds an immensely rousing showdown in some very real pain and suffering.

It can be slow going in between those two moments, though, as Miike goes to great lengths introducing each last character and every last motivation. He adheres so tightly to established men-on-a-mission tropes that the first hour of '13 Assassins' comes dangerously close to feeling like a chore, as Shinzaemon rounds out his ranks and Lord Naritsugu commits evil deed after evil deed with no mercy and a smirk that won't quit. (Hey, if you were the Shogun's untouchable younger brother, you'd probably be smirking and slicing all the time too.)

The other men aren't especially well-defined: one's the nephew of our fearless leader, reluctant to adhere to the strict samurai code, while others are old comrades, eager to see action once more. The chief conflict resides between Shinzaemon and Naritsugu's equally stoic right-hand man, Hanbei (Masachika Ichimura), who believes in unwavering obedience above honor and justice -- a moral dilemma not often examined by classic samurai adventures that lends curious weight to the somewhat plodding proceedings. Lone comic relief arrives in the form of Koyata (Yûsuke Iseya), a bandit who thinks the entire samurai code is a joke but is always down for a fight.

Once that last scrappy member joins the group and leads them out of the lush Japanese forest, the crew sets out to transform a sleepy boarding town into a well-conceived death trap and the pace picks up. Even when greatly outnumbered by Naritsugu's bodyguards, these guys won't hesitate to take them down in ways too delightfully creative to give up here. As Shinazaemon insists (and I'm paraphrasing): "If you don't have a sword, use a stick! If you don't have a stick, use a stone! If you don't have a stone, use your fists and feet!" And then some.

If Miike revels in the violence here, it's with some relative restraint. Once countless blades and bombardments come into play, things turn inevitably crimson without becoming excessively gushy. Heads go up, blood rains down, and all the while, the director shoots and cuts his action with a certain grace that prevents the 40-minute-long massacre from becoming too monotonous. (Personal favorite: a tilted shot of a swordsman awaiting his next victim, framed against a creek that slowly begins to run red.)

It's a Takashi Miike movie for people who thought they didn't have the stomach for those, a handsomely mounted samurai adventure that rewards the patient viewer with a rock-'em-sock-'em finale worthy of a Saturday afternoon matinee, and as far as Closing Night Films go, '13 Assassins' ended Fantastic Fest 2010 on the right bloody note.

Fantastic Fest Reviews: 'Bedevilled,' 'A Horrible Way to Die,' 'Undocumented'

William Goss — 2010-10-03T16:03:00+00:00

'Bedevilled', directed by Jang Cheol-so (S. Korea)

Everyone gets fed up sometimes. Hae-won (Ji Sung-won) is a curt young woman, bullied by thugs on the street when she's not denying loan applications at her bank. A series of incidents and one lost temper later, she has plenty of time with which to take a much-needed vacation to her childhood home on Moo-do Island. For Hae-won, it's a rural locale devoid of modern conveniences; for Bok-nam (a terrific Seo Yeong-hee), her friend's arrival is a welcome respite from the constant chores and sexual assaults that make up her day-to-day life. Bok-nam is curious about the mainland, and just as desperate to flee Moo-do with her daughter in tow. A series of incidents and one lost temper later, though, the island's population begins to be whittled down with ruthless efficiency...

Making his directorial debut, Jang Cheol-so slowly shifts focus from one frustrated female to the other, piling on injustices with a heavy hand for the better part of an hour before finally letting loose with his protagonist's righteous fury. The set-up may not be subtle -- the local elders are a constantly nagging lot, and a transparent button-pushing device so far as audience sympathies are concerned -- but the ultimate pay-off is certainly, viscerally satisfying.

'A Horrible Way to Die', directed by Adam Wingard (United States)

Sarah (Amy Seimetz) mostly keeps to herself at her AA meetings, shy but at least sober. Kevin (Joe Swanberg) tries to warm up to her anyway, generally awkward yet seemingly sincere once they finally do make a date. What Kevin doesn't know is that Sarah turned in her last boyfriend, Garrick (A.J. Bowen), after finding out that he was a serial killer. What Sarah doesn't know is that Garrick has escaped from his prison transport and is currently heading her way...

Pulpy title aside, 'Horrible' is a fairly subdued thriller, capably acted all around and cleverly structured by Simon Barrett's screenplay so as to jump between Sarah's cautious romance, Garrick's creepy determination and their once-happy romance. However, director Adam Wingard opts for frustratingly opaque camerawork and ragged editing in an attempt to bolster a sense of murky mood and growing menace when banality and a tripod would've served the story just fine and the performances even better.

'Undocumented', directed by Chris Peckover (United States)

What is it with grad students and the cameras they can't put down? Travis (Scott Mechlowicz) is making a documentary about illegal immigration with the help of four friends, and they commit to following a group of Mexicans as they cross into America. Wouldn't you know it, everyone makes it across, only to end up captured by border-patrolling radicals led by "Z" (a masked Peter Stormare) and forced to chronicle their grisly methods of dissuasion.

At the risk of marginalizing it, 'Undocumented' is essentially a Stateside answer to 'Hostel,' fusing together a very real sense of xenophobia with very gruesome torture scenarios. The political points are thuddingly obvious (is "Z" short for "Zealot"?), and even for a piece of survival horror, the violence grows somewhat tiresome after a while, but the cast is convincingly frantic throughout, their escape attempts make for genuinely tense moments, and the cutting by Glenn Garland and Jim May is slyly effective given the overly convenient first-person approach employed for the majority of the film.

The Killer Award Winners of Fantastic Fest 2010

William Goss — 2010-10-01T18:33:00+00:00

Rarely do film festival juries delegate their prestigious awards to films about serial killers, cannibals and ninja (oh my!), but this is pretty much par for the course at Fantastic Fest down in Austin, TX. This year's winners included:

-the South Korean revenge outing 'Bedevilled' (Audience Award for Best Picture and "Next Wave" Award for Best Actress - pictured above),
-the Mexican cannibal drama 'We Are What We Are' ("Next Wave" Award for Best Picture and Screenplay),
-the fact-based comedy 'Norwegian Ninja' ("Next Wave" Award for Best Actor and Director),
-the home invasion thriller 'Kidnapped' (Best Horror Feature and Director),
-and the doomed romance 'A Horrible Way to Die' (Best Horror Actor, Actress and Screenplay).

I was fortunate enough to sit on the Horror Shorts Jury, which awarded Best Horror Short to 'The Legend of Beaver Dam' and Honorable Mention to 'Deus Irae'. Best Fantastic Short went to 'Sorry... I Love You' and Best Animated Short went to 'Teclópolis'. They're shorts, so you may never see them for yourself, but they're darn good films anyway. So there.

A more complete list of this year's winners has been included below.

AUDIENCE AWARD
Bedevilled (Jang Cheol-so)
Runners Up: Golden Slumber, Rubber, Ip Man 2

AMD & DELL "NEXT WAVE" SPOTLIGHT COMPETITION
Best Picture: We Are What We Are
Best Director: Thomas Cappelen Malling (Norwegian Ninja)
Best Screenplay: Jorge Michel Grau (We Are What We Are)
Best Actor: Mads Ousdal (Norwegian Ninja)
Best Actress: Seo Yeong-hee (Bedevilled)

HORROR FEATURES
Best Picture: Kidnapped
Best Director: Miguel Ángel Vivas (Kidnapped)
Best Screenplay: Simon Barrett (A Horrible Way to Die)
Best Actor: A J Bowen (A Horrible Way to Die)
Best Actress: Amy Seimetz (A Horrible Way to Die)

FANTASTIC FEATURES
Best Picture: Sound of Noise
Best Director: Pablo Trapero (Carancho)
Best Screenplay: Shion Sono and Yoshiki Takahashi (Cold Fish)
Best Actor: Stellan Skarsgård (Somewhat Gentle Man)
Best Actress: Martina Gusman (Carancho)

HORROR SHORTS
Best Horror Short: Legend of Beaver Dam (Jerome Sable)
Honorable Mention - Best Potential: Deus Irae (Pedro Cristiani)

FANTASTIC SHORTS
Best Fantastic Short: Sorry...I Love You (Leticia Dolera)

ANIMATED SHORTS
Best Animated Short: Teclópolis (Javier Mrad)