1984: The greatest year for movies...ever?

Chris Nashawaty at Entertainment Weekly just posted a story with that title on their Web site. I am inclined to agree with him. I have culled from his list my favorites:

• Amadeus
• Beverly Hills Cop
• C.H.U.D.
• Ghostbusters
• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
• Repo Man
• Revenge of the Nerds
• Romancing The Stone
• Sixteen Candles
• Splash
• Star Trek III: The Search For Spock
• The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai
• The Karate Kid
• The Natural
• The Terminator
• This Is Spinal Tap
• Top Secret!

Plus two movies with great soundtracks: Stop Making Sense and Purple Rain.

Can you name another calendar year where you can name 17 movies you loved? I saw five or six of these movies in the theater that year. I recently re-watched Temple Of Doom and I am pretty shocked at the racial choices Spielberg and Lucas made, especially the ridiculous Indian feast (snakes, eyeballs, monkey brains).

Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince

A brilliant adaptation of a overlong, boring, and clunky book, HBP the Movie one of the best Potter movies, and loads better than HBP the Book. Our young actors performances are getting better with each passing year: Tom Felton is a special revelation as Draco Malfoy, finally given something worthwhile to do in the movies besides sneering. Jim Broadbent is ideally suited, perhaps a little twitchy, to play the professor with a secret.

Over the course of the school year, Dumbledore instructs Harry on Voldemort 101, Harry suspects Draco Malfoy is a newly-branded Death Eater who's hatching a murderous plot, and, on a lighter note, romance is in full bloom as the hormone-soaked teenagers of Hogwarts suck face all year long.

In the book, the History Of Voldemort classes are supremely satisfying, but Harry's yearlong Malfoy conspiracy theory is not dramatically satisfying. Screenwriter Steve Kloves fixes this problem so by the end of the movie, we understand what Malfoy's been up to all year, and we actually care what happens to him when he meets his final confrontation with Dumbledore at the end of the movie.

The romantic storylines are very entertaining and silly, especially scene-stealer Jessie Cave as the love-struck Lavender Brown.

There was a lot of heavy lifting to do in the second half of this movie, in order to set up Harry's mission to destroy Voldemort in the last year of J.K. Rowling's saga. I don't know if Voldemort's Horcrux plot device is going to make sense to the uninitiated, but Kloves made a valiant effort to explain the concept to us.

NOTE: This movie is rated PG, even though it's full of bloody curses, the murder of a principal character, and undead zombies dragging Harry to a watery grave in a terrifying underground cave. This movie will give small children nightmares. (At the AMC Framingham Premium Cinema)

Public Enemies

A technically proficient but soulfully deficient gangster movie, from the kingpin of gun battles, Michael Mann (Heat, Collateral, Miami Vice). Talk about great gun battles- Mann truly knows how to stage a shootout, this time with tommy guns, single-action rifles, and shotguns. The live effects and sound design are both superior.

The casting is almost all fantastic- lots of doughy white 1930s faces with bad skin and sweaty necks: David Wenham, Stephen Dorff, and Giovanni Ribisi are fellow gangsters; Academy-Award winner Marion Cotillard succeeds in an underwritten, thankless role as Dillinger's moll; Christian Bale is fine as Melvin Purvis, the only G-Man with a soul; Billy Crudup looks nothing like J. Edgar Hoover, and he puts on a ridiculous Jimmy Cagney voice, as if all men in the 1930s talk like that? I really enjoyed a brief appearance by veteran character actor (and three-time Michael Mann alumnus) Stephen Lang.

It wouldn't be too hard to turn John Dillinger's last year of bankrobbing and police-fleeing into a metaphor: escaping the miseries of the Great Depression, making a better life away from a brutal childhood, innocent girlfriend = redemption from sin? Take your pick. Unfortunately, we aren't given much of a reason why we should care whether Dillinger makes that Last Big Score or not. Johnny Depp, who just turned 46 (!!), looks about ten years younger, as the charming, level-headed, and well-dressed Dillinger. We understand that Dillinger has spent over ten years in prison, and his childhood was brutal, but that makes him no more than a cliche ex-con. We need more from Depp, and the script, to care about him like he was a real person.

Mann goes out of his way to illustrate the changing times in organized crime and law enforcement, illustrating the proto-FBI's incompetence with vigor. J. Edgar Hoover's civil liberty-bending tactics feel very post-Patriot Act.

Mann's digital video camerawork is mostly superior, with no compromise compared to 35mm film, except in a few low-light scenes, where the graininess is distracting and unacceptable.(At the Somerville Theater with Emily, Sarah, Amy, and Adam)

The Oscars: Now Less Than Ever!

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have announced The Oscars will include ten Best Picture nominees this year instead of the usual five.

The end result will be more promotional ammunition for arty Oscar bait that no one wants to see twice, and a dilution of the Oscar brand: a symbol of "quality" for the industry which brings us Transformers 2 and Norbit. Let's be blunt for a moment: the Oscars are the prestige cherry atop a shit sundae.

I find it amazing that they have made this change three months after the weakest Best Picture pool in memory. The contrast is doubly delicious when, in the third paragraph, they invite us to compare today's forgettable fare with the truly epic competition of 1939:

• "Gone With the Wind"
• "Dark Victory,"
• "Goodbye, Mr. Chips,"
• "Love Affair,"
• "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,"
• "Ninotchka,"
• "Of Mice and Men,"
• "Stagecoach,"
• "The Wizard of Oz," and
• "Wuthering Heights."

Marquee Comedy

The marquee of the Lexington Flick last night:

STAR TREK  SEE IT AGAIN!
ANGELS & DEMONS
GOODBYE SOLO HOT DOGS

The Hangover

I had a great time at this good but not great morning-after comedy, from the director of Old School. The Hangover is much improved by a great audience. Way to go, Somerville Theater crowd! I missed at least half the dialog thanks to the excited and actively engaged audience. When I saw Wedding Crashers at Boston Common in 2005, the sold-out theater was a big bonus to the entertainment value of the movie. I am also reminded of the great crowd for The Simpsons Movie in 2007.

As the credits rolled, I had an epiphany: my Oscar Night costume will be as Best Newcomer nominee Zach Galifianakis's character Allan, complete with beard, dark sunglasses, and baby Carlos. Don't worry, I will be wearing pants!

Big shoutout to our friends, who showed up in force, considering the extremely short notice: my wife sent the initial email to the group at 8:52 A.M. Ten hours and 53 minutes later, we had six people join us! A wonderful time was had by all. (Somerville Theater [main theater], with Emily, Kim, Amy, Mandy, Kathy, Penny, Tom, and two beers)

Summer Movie Preview

These are the movies I want to see.

• I just read Dan Brown's novel Angels & Demons. It was so poorly written, I started quoting the worst passages to my wife. However, the plot is gripping and will make an exciting movie. It must turn out better than the inscrutable Da Vinci Code, whose plot I could not follow. UPDATE: Poor reviews have demoted this movie to "Must Rent" status.
• I am a huge fan of the first two Terminator movies. When I finally saw the third movie on HBO, I was not impressed. I had zero interest in a fourth Terminator movie, until I saw the intriguing trailers for Terminator: Salvation- the plot tease seems to be adding a new exciting variation into the Skynet world, let's see how the reviews look before I pony up $10...
• The new Pixar movie is called Up. I have really enjoyed all the Pixar movies (except Cars).
• The Hangover, from the director of Old School!
• Public Enemies is a gangster movie directed by Michael Mann. Need I say more?
• Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince, finally.
• The new Tarantino movie, Inglourious Basterds [sic]

To Boldly Go To The Theater To See Star Trek

I have seen at least 10 of the 11 Star Trek movies in the theater:

1. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979): I was 7 going on 8 when this movie came out. I am sure my parents would take me to see it, but I have no idea if they did.
2. The Wrath Of Khan (1982): I think I saw this in the theater when I was 10. I finally saw it again on the big screen, in 2007, at the Brattle.
3. The Search For Spock (1984): I must have seen this in the theater!
4. The Voyage Home (1986) I definitely saw this in the theater- my parents love this movie!
5. The "Final" Frontier (1989)
6. The Undiscovered Country (1991)
7. Generations (1994)
8. First Contact (1996)
9. Insurrection (1999)
10. Nemesis? I saw Star Trek: Nemesis in the theater in 2002, but I can't find the blog post?
11. Star Trek (2009)

Star Trek

An excellent general-interest reboot of the dormant Star Trek franchise. A thrilling, emotional, funny, and fast-paced ride, this Star Trek "origin" story remains faithful to the characters we love, while acknowledging the pre-TV show history which had already been told, in dribs and drabs, over the last 40-plus years.

NERD ALERT: Director/Producer JJ Abrams, with screenwriters Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman, have deliberately altered the history of the Star Trek "universe" within the first five minutes, which frees them from the shackles of 40 years of tangled and patchwork "history" of the Federation. Who honestly cares if 2009 Kirk contradicts something 1966 Kirk said in passing once? Blind fidelity like that only satisfies the most obsessive-compulsive of fans.

I'm conflicted over the general tone of the movie. The 1960s TV show was about a UN-style exploration vessel, which occasionally got into scrapes with strange alien worlds. The plot of this 2009 movie is similar to 1982's Wrath of Khan: a ruthless alien warrior takes vengeance on the Federation, and lots of spaceships go BOOM in the process. It's fair to acknowledge that the writers and director needed to make an effort to draw in a general audience to the theater, and the space battles are exciting. Besides, I am certain that the 1966 TV show would have had scenes like this if it were possible in their day.

The pacing was airtight and relentless- no third-act lag here! My only major complaint was a completely unnecessary interlude where Kirk escapes from some snow monsters. Besides the biological unlikelihood of giant monsters in an arctic wilderness, the creatures seemed out of character for Star Trek. I am not saying that they would never would have had giant monsters on Star Trek in 1966 if the technology allowed it, but it seems unlikely.

The casting of the original crew is uniformly excellent, and their performances are all spot-on. The only character which is slightly off-center is Simon Pegg's Scotty, who behaves exactly as Scotty should, but he's used exclusively as comic relief, including goofing around with a tiny alien sidekick.

Origin movies carry a heavy burden- introducing a dozen new characters and a whole fictional universe is hard work (see the first Harry Potter movie if you don't believe me) but Star Trek 2009 does it with grace, personality, faithfulness, and in an efficient and non-bloated 126 minutes. I give this movie an "A", and now that we've been reintroduced, the next adventure should be even better.

(AMC Boston Common, screen 2, with Emily, Jon & Bobbi, Amy & Adam, Ilan, Brian, Jess G, Marc, Jeff S, and friend; AND again on May 23 at the Somerville Theater with Emily)

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

So much of the Wolverine origin story has been told, perhaps obliquely, in X-Men feature films 1 thru 3, that I hoped that a 107 minute all-Wolverine movie would contribute something new, something interesting, and something faithful to the comic books. I was mostly disappointed. Excellent performances by Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber are the highlights of this workmanlike reheating of X-Men 2.

As a whole, the film was capable, but the three previous X-Men features (even The Last Stand, directed by Brett Ratner) all had some thoughtfulness, some sophistication, and some personal flair. Wolverine felt like it was directed by autopilot. "Workmanlike" is not much of a compliment to director Gavin Hood on his second Hollywood feature.

Adventureland

If you were expecting a wacky, Apatow-ian R-rated comedy (and based on the TV spots who could blame you), adjust your expectations sideways and buy a ticket anyways. Adventureland is a pleasant autobiographical coming-of-age movie from director Greg Mottola (Superbad, The Daytrippers).

More like Almost Famous than Superbad, Adventureland's plot is so transparent as to be nonexistent. Its success relies on capturing the atmosphere of its era, and the performances of the leads. Jesse Eisenberg is excellent as the over-smart, articulate, but slightly awkward brainiac, spending his summer of 1987 working as a carny at Adventureland. It's an archetype made famous by Michael Cera, just five years older in this case. Kristen Stewart better learn to act soon, because I have seen her in two movies this month, and her It Girl status won't carry her much further. Ryan Reynolds is surprisingly not bad. The music is pretty good, although I have NO interest in Lou Reed, so every Velvet Underground moment in the movie (of which there are many) made me groan. Bring on more Crowded House and Whitesnake!

(AMC Burlington, with the lovely wife. Paid for with an AMC GC my mother-in-law gave me for my birthday. Thanks Deb!)

Netflix: Our Longest Rentals 2001-2008

The New York Times published one of their cultural anecdotal news stories today about couples whose Netflix queue causes strife. The article highlights a common Netflix problem: you add a movie to your list, but once you receive it, you never watch it. Weeks and months go by, but you and/or your spouse just let it sit there. In my experience, this happens most often with serious dramas. In fact, this morning, I logged onto Netflix.com, clicked My Account, and viewed my complete rental history from the day I joined in 2001 through 2008. The report lists the ship and return dates for all the DVDs. For your edification, here's the titles we kept out the longest:

1. Children Of Men: 208 days - The irony is rich: I received Children Of Men in April 2007, but I didn't watch it until November. It turns out it was one of the best movies I saw that year. Regardless of its quality, Children Of Men is Netflix Kryptonite: a movie which is notoriously depressing, it took me over six months to work up the courage to watch it. The good news is, I loved it.
2. The TV Set: 105 days-- I like "Inside Hollywood" movies, and this feature film about the making of a sitcom pilot has some good parts, but this 88 minute dud was missing a third act and was wayyy underbaked. I think it took 105 days to watch it because my wife and I both wanted to see it, but never at the same time?
3. Freaks & Geeks Disc 2: 91 days -- I watched the episodes on disc 1, but I wasn't overwhelmed by them. As a result, when Disc 2 arrived, I had zero motivation to watch more.
4. Charlie Wilson's War: 90 days -- This movie felt like it was going to taste like medicine, and it did. That's why I sat on this animated history lesson for 3 months. The most memorable part is Julia Roberts in a bikini for the first time ever.
5. American Splendor: 77 days -- I don't know what took so long? I guess I didn't know what to expect from this movie, but it had been recommended to me. I ended up liking it very much.
6. After that there's eleven DVDs we kept out between 40 and 70 days, including downers like Munich (56 days) and American Gangster (55 days); plus subtitled films Nine Queens (53 days) and With A Friend Like Harry (42 days).

What have I learned from these experiences which I may pass along to you, my fellow Netflix users?

• Load up your Queue with comedies
• Don't put more than one disc of a TV show in your Queue unless you know you like it already
• Subtitled films are hard to watch at home, because you can't read the Sunday paper while watching. They demand your attention!
• If your subscription sends you more than 1 movie at a time, alternate comedies with those Important dramas, so at least you can continue to receive DVDs while Gandhi or The English Patient gathers dust next to the TV.
• Don't wait for your wife- watch those movies without them!

I Love You, Man

A funny and heartfelt movie which explores uncharted territory with subtlety and grace: how do adult men make new friends?

Paul Rudd is Peter, an L.A. metrosexual with zero serious male friendships. He has tons of friendships with women, but his only best friends have been his mother, and his fiancee. He's friendly, smart, and charming, but he becomes an awkward mess when he attempts to be chummy and casual with men.

Peter meets Sidney, a man-child free spirit who lives in a "man cave" on Venice Beach (next door to Mark Harmon's character in Summer School, both geographically and metaphorically).

The rest of the story is your classic romantic comedy, except it's the hetero love between two straight men, including the "falling in love" montage, the breakup in the third act, then the reconciliation and declaration of "I love you, man" at the end, during a wedding, no less.

The movie is a graceful balance of classic chuck flick humor (vomit jokes, poop jokes, gay jokes) and an honest character portrait.

Other highlights: a great supporting cast, including J.K. Simmons, Andy Samberg, Jamie Pressly, and Thomas Lennon. Two great "prick" roles: Jon Favreau as Jaime Pressly's husband, the classic "husband who hates being dragged out to social events", and a breakout performance by Rob Huebel as Peter's work rival.

I only have a few complaints: Peter's fiancee's friends include an underwritten "desparate and single" friend, who adds nothing to the movie. Also, Sidney is unique, entertaining, and memorable, but most of his backstory must have been cut out, because his history, job, etc, is a cipher.

My grade would have been a B+, but it gets bumped to an A-minus for fantastic costume design, and Rush makes a concert appearance, playing "Limelight"!

(AMC Boston Common, Screen 18, with Phil and Adam)

The Worst Movies 1998-2008

I have seen a lot of bad movies over the years, but making a list- a short list- was a challenge. While reviewing every post in this blog, these were my criteria:

• We're not looking for BAD movies, we're looking for movies I hated. I have enjoyed plenty of bad movies but I have hated many good movies.
• I had to see the movie in the theater. Therefore, movies I hated on TV (Napoleon Dynamite, The Break Up) don't make the list.
• They have to be memorable- movies I saw and have since forgotten completely (Hexed, Eve Of Destruction) don't make the list.

My first list covered twenty years and had 25 movies on it. I decided to limit myself to the last decade. This eliminates my free-spending, reckless youth, when my discretion in moviegoing has improved...slightly.

I have not re-reviewed these movies for this posting- follow the links to read what I had to say. (In chronological order)

• Meet Joe Black
• The Big Lebowski
• Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back
• View From The Top
• Beyond The Sea
• The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
• The Island
• Wanted
• You Don't Mess With The Zohan

Watchmen

The unfilmable graphic novel WATCHMEN has been filmed, and all my questions have been answered. If my main question is "how do you make a feature film out of such a big, dense, multilayered story", the answer is: you make it by stripping out everything which makes it worth watching.

A novel which would have made a brilliant 4 or 6 hour miniseries has been stripped down to a breakneck 2 hours and 45 minutes. Screenwriters David Hayter and Alex Tse have accomplished the thankless task of crafting a feature film whose plot makes sense. It's New York City 1985, and costumed heroes are real, in a loose confederacy called The Watchmen. When The Comedian is murdered, his fellow crime fighter Rorschach suspects a conspiracy: is someone targeting superheroes? Is there a plot to trigger World War III? Making a movie script out of this brilliant novel is thankless because they've managed to retain the plot and characterizations, while losing the heart and soul. The ending has been changed, it's true, but I didn't have a huge problem with this. Some compromises had to be made to make a comprehensible movie, and the essence of the finale remains the same.

I am more disappointed how the movie totally misses the point of the story. The major theme of the novel is to explore what masked heroes would really be like as people. What kind of person dresses up and fights crime? What would they look like in tights? The answer is- sociopaths, psychopaths put on masks and fight crime. Bruce Wayne was probably impotent when he wasn't dressing up and saving lives. Wonder Woman and her ridiculous clothes would be the laughingstock of every criminal fraternity. Even the most talented acrobat or martial artist can't fly through the air or throw a man across the room. Watchmen set out to illustrate this reality. The Watchmen movie amps up the action and fight sequences from the novel and obliterates this distinction. Every fistfight in the novel is now twice as long and twice as impossible. The masked adventurers, who have no special powers, can now crash through rooftops without a scratch, kick and punch people across a room, and by the way, look totally cool in their costumes, with no tights in sight. We're supposed to be watching ordinary people and their aberrant behavior, not actual superheroes.

Director Zack Snyder must have seemed like a perfect choice to direct this project. He certainly was in the right place at the right time- Snyder successfully made a hit action movie out of the graphic novel 300. In the wake of that success, the suits who controlled the fate of Watchmen must have figured this red-hot director has the right sensibility to make a successful movie out of another graphic novel. As for Snyder's motivation, you can't blame him for leveraging his momentum at the right moment. After 300, Snyder could write his own ticket. If he wanted to make an all-CGI feature of James Joyce's Ulysses starring meerkats, we'd be knee-deep in a meerkat burrow right now.

When Snyder was announced as the director ("the visionary behind 300"), fans of the graphic novel were concerned and excited at the same time. Clearly Snyder is a fanboy like the rest of us (I have read Watchmen maybe 5 or 10 times since 1988), but some were worried his slo-mo action sequences were less of a style choice and more of a crutch. We asked, did Snyder have the finesse this project required?

Unfortunately, what we should have been worried about was his pornographic obsession with ultraviolence. Watchmen is a violent novel, no doubt, but every scene of violence has been amplified to unnecessary extremes. I'm not talking about the action sequences (although those are disappointing for other reasons)- I am talking about the guns, knives, and rotary saws.

In one scene in the novel, a convict has his throat slit, but we don't even see it on the page. In the movie, the convict's arms are sawed off, in explicit detail.

In another scene in the novel, one person gets shot in the gut during an assassination attempt. In the movie, six people get shot, including one directly in the face.

And finally, in the novel, Rorschach kills a kidnaper/murderer by cuffing him to a stove and setting his house on fire. In the movie, Rorschach hacks his head in two with a meat cleaver.

The point I am trying to make is, Snyder has deliberately amped up the gore for its own sake. I am not normally squeamish when it comes to violence in movies- I love the chopping, hacking, and decapitating in Lord of the Rings and Braveheart, but the violence in Watchmen was unwatchable for even me. Who did Snyder think would enjoy this? Was he making this movie for the Hostel/Saw V crowd? Does he have a "tin ear" for style?

The Characters

• The Comedian looks, sounds, and acts just the way I had hoped. Nice work!
• Dr. Manhattan looks perfect, but is a little too whispering Buddha- he needs more of the lecturing pedant. Also, the totally-naked Dr. Manhattan prompted giggles every time his glowing blue penis appeared onscreen- our friend Scott counted "12 or 15 times" we saw it onscreen. Including the blue penis is faithful to the book, but I think the distraction was too much. I would have kept him in his thong throughout the movie.
• Rorschach is perfect. Jackie Earl Haley is the perfect mug, the voice is spot on. The mask isn't quite right, but I didn't mind it too much.
• Nite Owl: Patrick Wilson is just the right balance of pudgy, over-the-hill, with enough of the old muscle to make his fights plausible.
• Silk Spectre II: Poor Malin Ackerman can't act at all. She looks the part, but she's supposed to be about 35, and she looks 25.
• Ozymandias: I was imagining a blonde Spock- logical, unemotional, self-involved genius. Instead I get a sinister egomaniac who's also ten years too young for the part.
• Silk Spectre I: Carla Gugino is perfect as the young Silk Spectre in the 1940s and 1950s. She has that real old-fashioned beauty and the balls to play this role. Her old age makeup doesn't work too well.

(Regal Stadium Cinema 13, screen 11)

Defiance

A true story of four Belorussian Jewish brothers who help save thousands of fellow Jews from the Nazis during World War II. Strongly Recommended.

Based on an amazing true story- that's a cliche, but it's true in this case. The Bielski brothers retreat into the thick woods of their hometown to avoid the Russian police, who are rounding up Jews for the Nazis. When other Jews find them in the woods, their small campsite grows into a community trying to survive a long winter and avoid detection by police patrols. The larger their group becomes, the more attention they draw from the Nazis, and the harder it becomes to maintain law and order within the camp as well. Eventually the community, is forced to flee the forest in a Moses-like Exodus to freedom.

I appreciated that there were no black-and-white, good and evil people in this movie. The police who round up Jews are not totally evil, and the Bielski brothers are forced to make life and death decisions every day. This struggle is dramatized with the two eldest brothers, level-headed diplomat Tuvia (Daniel Craig), who manages to broker detente with the local Red Army resistance, and revenge-minded fighter Zus (Liev Schreiber), who joins the army to kill Nazis, rather than compromise himself. The performances were fine all around, the story was amazing as I had never heard it before, and the direction was quite good, even if the battle scenes were a little rudimentary.

Defiance was directed by Edward Zwick, who has made a series of passionate and important movies about war, politics, and race, including Glory and Courage Under Fire, which I both strongly recommend. Also, The Siege, The Last Samurai, and Blood Diamond. (Somerville Theater)

Gran Torino

A modern-day Western, Gran Torino is the story of Walt Kowalski, a stubborn, "racist" widower who has nothing left to live for but his honor and manhood. You could easily set this movie in Arizona 100 years ago, with Clint as a Civil War vet, change the Hmong immigrants to Indians or Mexicans, and the movie would work perfectly. Gran Torino could be his horse instead of his car.

Clint is smart enough to take roles he's good at, and he was a pleasure to see in this movie. I never really believed Walt was really a racist- he spews an amazing variety of ethnic slurs, a ever-changing cornucopia of insults and offensive names, which was actually quite funny. The truth is, Walt has too much honor and decency to judge his neighbors unfairly- once he gets to know them. The two Hmong neighbors are played by newcomers Bee Vang as Thao, the teenaged neighbor who needs a strong father figure to avoid the gang life, and Ahney Her as his sister Sue, who befriends Walt with strength and honesty. I thought Ahney Her was quite talented and engaging, but I was never really convinced by Bee Vang.

The story is really quite plain and obvious, and the middle section is deadly slow. I liked the movie quite a lot, but it's easy to like a Clint Eastwood movie. In fact, when Clint Eastwood directs a movie, I think critics (and the Academy) give him a full letter-grade bump above what the movie really deserves. Why? First of all, he directs with restraint and class. Simplicity is the key, and there's no gloss or distractions. Secondly, he plays to his strengths, in directing and acting. He doesn't stretch himself, so he's always in his comfort zone. Third, he has such a consistent and quality track record, he gets the benefit of the doubt every time. Lastly, everyone in Hollywood loves him. (At Regal Fenway, screen 12, with Marc, Jeff, and Harry)

I Attempt to Rank the Pixar Movies

I finally saw WALL•E on DVD last month, and I liked it very much. I also watched the enclosed documentary The Pixar Story. The doc inspired me to attempt the ridiculous and impossible: I decided to rank the nine Pixar feature films.

Ranking Pixar films from best to worst is like ranking honor students: they're all so much better than the rest of the class, it seems petty to say one is better than another. However, there are differences between them, and at the very least, this list might inspire some conversations and arguments!

1. Ratatouille (2007) A+
   A complete success on all levels. An artistic, emotional, and comedic triumph.
2. Finding Nemo (2003) A+
   Nemo has the biggest heart of all the Pixar movies.
3. The Incredibles (2004) A+
   Not only is it a great superhero movie, but it's a great adventure/action movie too, and it's about family.
4. Toy Story 2 (1999) A+
   One of the greatest sequels of all time.
5. Monsters, Inc. (2001) A
   Funny, funny, funny.
6. WALL•E (2008) A
   I've only seen it once, but it's very promising. I wish I had seen it in the theater, but after the terrible crowd at Ratatouille, I couldn't bring myself to go to the theater.
7. Toy Story (1995) A
   A great movie and a great beginning.
8. A Bug's Life (1998) B+
   There's nothing wrong with A Bug's Life, but ten years and seven more movies later, there's nothing exceptional about it either.
9. Cars (2006) B
   An ill-executed labor of love for Pixar founder John Lasseter, Cars only appeals to baby boomers and small children. It left me cold, and confused.

Slumdog Millionaire

A simple romantic Dickensian drama told very cleverly, Slumdog Millionaire tells a very common story of an orphan who survives the slums of Mumbai through courage, heart, guile, and perseverance-- all through the lens of quiz show questions. This movie has so much heart, it makes Benjamin Button look like a bloodless effects exercise by comparison. I'm giving Slumdog an A grade, it narrowly avoids an A-plus because it didn't make me cry- but close! I hope it wins Best Picture.

Be warned: there are two brief but disturbing scenes of torture, one of them in the first five minutes.

THEATER NOTES: The Lexington Flick was very full of middle-aged persons whom I can only assume are mentally retarded. Admittedly, the movie was in two languages, and the dialog was not always well recorded. Every time something happened which was not immediately explained or obvious, half the spouses leaned over to their more silent halves and started whispering, or even talking out loud: "What was that?"; "I don't get it"; "What did he say?" Slumdog was such a simple story, you could follow the plot if it were shown on an airplane and you didn't rent the headphones, AND you were watching the screen of the guy across the aisle from you. Yet these entitled assnuggets talk out loud like they're at home. Go home and watch Two And A Half Men- that's about the sophistication level these people can handle. Ugg.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

A clever idea which isn't explored fully to my satisfaction, Benjamin Button would remind me of Forrest Gump even if they weren't both written by the same man (Eric Roth). Much like Forrest Gump, Benjamin wanders the globe, meeting a wild variety of colorful characters along the way. More a passive observer than an active participant, Benjamin never gets happy or sad or excited or angry, he just gently smiles and shuffles along.

Brad Pitt is almost as talented as he is handsome, but this script offers him zero challenges. Cate Blanchett is excellent again, as usual. I enjoyed Taraji P. Henson as Button's adoptive mother, and English character actor Jason Flemyng (Layer Cake, Snatch, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) as Button's birth father.

The special effects are excellent- the young/old Button in the early scenes is easy to watch without distraction, and the super-young Cate Blanchett is also not distracting. When Brad Pitt finally shows up, in his actual body, about halfway through, he certainly looks old, but you don't notice how much makeup and effects they're really using until he finally shows up in "as-is" condition in the last 30 minutes.

Overall, I had much higher hopes from David Fincher, the normally provocative and inventive director of the underrated Zodiac, plus Se7en, Fight Club, and Panic Room.

Valkyrie

A mildly gripping but ultimately pointless conspiracy thriller. There were more than a dozen conspiracies by Germans to kill Hitler, but this one isn't particularly clever or exciting. The ultimate theme of this movie seems to be "not all Nazis are evil", which is hardly the most necessary story to tell, is it?

Tom Cruise, meanwhile, has devolved to the point where the only emotion he's capable of is single-minded determined certainty. I didn't find his regular American speaking voice distracting, but I did find it troubling that he was so certain and unwavering about everything through every second of the movie. It was impossible for me to empathize with his character. Kenneth Branagh has a supporting role as another Nazi conspirator, and I felt more empathy for his character and his plight in his few brief scenes than I ever felt for Cruise. Swap Branagh and Cruise's parts, and this movie earns a B+ instead of a C+.

THEATER NOTES: The 7:20pm showing at the Embassy Landmark Theater in Waltham was nearly sold out. I think this is a symptom of how few quality movies there are to choose from this season. Most of the movies I'm "supposed" to see before Oscars night look so depressing, this might be the only exctiing film out right now which doesn't star Jim Carrey or another animated character. If only the new Harry Potter movie weren't sitting in a vault right now. Sigh.

2008 Year-End Wrap Up

This was not a swell year for movies. The best superhero movie of all time was released, but beyond that, it was pretty weak. The granddaddy of them all (almost literally), they finally made another Indiana Jones movie this year, much to everyone's disappointment. Harry Potter 6 was ready to be released, but they decided to wait until next July. The new James Bond was good but not great. In good franchise news, the new Hellboy and Hulk sequels were both better than the previous movies. And last and least, the funniest man of the 1990s, Mike Myers, tried a live-action comeback in The Love Guru, and no one cared. Thank God 2008 is over!

BEST PICTURE I saw in the theater: The Dark Knight is the best superhero movie ever, and should be nominated for Best Picture by the Academy. I haven't gotten my ballot yet- I feel like they're missing an important voice!

BEST PICTURE I did NOT see in the theater: WALL•E After I got my neck belched on at Ratatouille, I could not bring myself to go to another children's movie. In December 2008, I watched WALL•E on DVD, and now I wish I had seen those amazing visuals on a big silver screen! Sigh.

MOST ENTERTAINING MOVIE: Iron Man was too short. How often do I say that?

BEST COMEDY: Pineapple Express, way funnier than Tropic Thunder, which cost ten times as much to make.

TEARJERKER AWARD: I cried copiously at Young At Heart. We were just getting to know those nice old folks when they started dropping like flies! Sniff.

REDEMPTION AWARD: Colin Farrell in In Bruges. Who knew that I would care about him ever again?

WORST PICTURE: I saw some of but not all of MAMMA MIA! on DVD. Enough to find Meryl Streep and Amanda Seyfried's mother and daughter team to be repellent. Who treats their mother or daughter that way? Enough to find the "plot" beyond ridiculous. Enough to wonder why you'd pay to hear those great ABBA songs butchered like bad kareoke. Ugg.

NOTE: These awards may be changed pending any movies I see in 2009 which came out in 2008.

Eleven Movies I Almost Saw In The Theater in 2008

• Baby Mama: A pleasant romantic comedy, with a cast all 35 plus, including Greg Kinnear as the love interest. I love Tina Fey, and I loved the movie on DVD. No need to spend $10 for this mildly amusing comedy.
• Charlie Wilson's War had no plot to speak of. It was like a documentary brought to life.
• Get Smart: let's be serious, I was never going to see this in the theater.
• Ghost Town: Another mild DVD-level rom-com starring 35+ actors and Greg Kinnear. This time, the beloved cult comic who isn't a big enough star to make me go to the theater is Ricky Gervais.
• Hancock: Two-thirds of a really good idea. Terrible too-short ending.
• Leatherheads: Tries to hard to do too much. Could have been better.
• Prince Caspian: The plot is badly f**ked up. Not recommended.
• "W": I haven't seen this one yet. I will update this posting once I rent it.
• WALL•E (see above)
• X-Files: I Want to Believe: I was a huge fan of the TV show (while David Duchovny was on it), and I quite liked the Fight The Future movie in 1998. I felt it was important to tell you that before I revealed how much I Want To Believe sucked. In this blog, I normally do not review movies I didn't see in the theater, but I want to warn X-philes to stay away. Wow. I can hardly believe that Chris Carter had TEN YEARS to write another X-Files movie and this was the result. Avoid this movie at all costs. It has no redeeming value. How can I explain?
  • There's no supernatural elements at all. It's a serial kidnap-killer movie.
  • There's no good reason for Mulder & Scully to reunite to solve this case.
  • They only follow around FBI agents and bicker.
  • They do not really investigate anything.
  • They only find a couple clues.
  • I hate movies where women are kidnapped, imprisoned, tortured, and killed.
  • Did I mention, it's not an X-file at all?
  • It would have been OK as an episode of the TV show, but not good enough for a movie.
• Zack & Miri Make A Porno: I haven't seen this one yet. I will update this posting once I rent it.

Milk

A great American story about civil rights, politics, and community organizing, the story of Harvey Milk has finally been told. The movie is super-gay and super-1970s, but in 2008, the year of Proposition 8, this story of civil rights seems more universal and timely than ever. The screenplay seems a little too well groomed at times, but the direction is deft, the use of archival footage is clever, and most of all, the performances are superb across the board.

MILK stars Sean Penn as we haven't seen him since Jeff Spicoli: having fun. Penn plays Milk as a nerdy prankster, charismatic and quick with a joke. Josh Brolin is fantastic as Dan White, a unstable rival politician. White plays the part of a successful American father and husband, but wound so tight that we wonder what's wrong with him. James Franco continues to impress me: first Pineapple Express, then this part, the "political wife" role.

NOTES: This is my second movie in a row with a gay director: first Australia (Baz Luhrmann), and now MILK (Gus Van Sant). Both movies prominently feature Judy Garland singing "Over The Rainbow". Coincidence? (Kendall Square Cinema with my wife, plus Eve & Brenda)

Australia

A good old-fashioned epic romance, at long last Australian director Baz Luhrmann tells the entire history of his homeland in a 165-minute saga. Luhrmann is making a style homage here, almost as classic as Far From Heaven. Baz has clearly wanted to make an old-fashioned romance for his native land, and he has done so, including location photography combined with the classic "campfire on a soundstage" look of old movies. There are plenty of outdoor scenes where the lighting is obviously artificial, and my wife thinks a lot of color-adjusting was going on (a la O Brother Where Art Thou)- she noticed one scene in particular where the blue sky was a perfect match for David Wenham's irises. I noticed some special effects in Hugh Jackman's facial hair- at age 39, are we supposed to believe that Hugh's beard is 100% brown? He looked like a three-hour Just For Men For Beards commercial.

Nicole Kidman is Lady Sarah Ashley, a headstrong fish out of water, crossing the hemisphere to dispose of her unfaithful husband's cattle ranch. If the premise sounds like a remake of Out Of Africa, you're not alone! Ashley enlists Hugh Jackman's cowboy The Drover, to "drove" 1,500 head of cattle to Darwin to break the monopoly of King Carney and his wicked son (Bryan Brown and David Wenham.) This section feels a bit like City Slickers, but ends before it gets too tedious. Along the way, Ashley and the Drover become the surrogate parents of Nullah (Brandon Walters), a 10-year-old half-Aboriginal orphan, who acts as the movie's narrator, soul, and the director's proxy for the long legacy of racism and abuse of Aboriginals, especially Aboriginal youths in Australia. Luhrmann tries to tell the entire history of Aboriginals in Australia through Nullah and his family, which mostly works, but sometimes becomes preachy and forced. Walters is a heartbreaking revelation, jerking tears from the audience every time he is separated, then renjoined, with those he loves. The last third of the movie tells the story of Australia's own Pearl Harbor, a Japanese aerial bombing of Darwin shortly after Pearl Harbor in 1941. While the movie tries to pack in a lot of history, and several lengthy stories into its 165 minutes, the pacing is actually quite brisk, and the editing and cinematography are quite fluid and dynamic. There are lots of effects shots, to include WWII-era ships, planes, etc, but they are rendered with less compulsive perfectionism (see Titanic) and more lyrical impressionism, like you'd see in an old 1950s movie. Hugh Jackman earned his "Sexiest Man Alive" crown with his portrayal of The Drover, a classic cowboy crossed with Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen. Whether he was filthy and bearded, shirtless and soapy, or smooth and tuxedo-ed, Jackman had hearts a-twitter throughout the theater. Nicole Kidman somehow managed to stay pale and pristine throughout- she must hold a patent on 1,000 SPF sunblock to remain porcelain throughout a movie set in the Outback! I certainly enjoyed myself, I was never bored, and I even leaked a few tears in this old-school epic romance. (At the Somerville Theater, the day after Thanksgiving, with my wife, plus Debbie, Kathy, Becca, and Sara)

Quantum of Solace

In the first "direct sequel" Bond movie, 007 continues to backtrack the organization which conspired to kill his would-be girlfriend Vesper Lynd. He discovers a worldwide secret society codenamed QUANTUM. This organization is kind of like Enron crossed with Halliburton, and the still-green Bond is outsmarted at almost every turn, leaving everyone around him dead.

SPOILERS APLENTY: The villains don't seem particularly powerful or memorable: the main heavy, Dominic Green, is played by another in a long series of sallow-faced, black-eyed actors from Europe: French actor Mathieu Amalric. He's basically swindling a series of third world countries out of their resources. It's true that resources are the source of true world power in the 21st century, but there simply wasn't enough at stake at the climax of the movie. Nuclear bombs and space lasers inflict permanent and devastating damage. All Bond would have to do to undo Green's villany is tear up a few contracts. I'm not asking for volcano lairs or submarine-swallowing ships, but toppling an evil Enron is a little tame and ordinary.

Bond keeps crossing paths with Camille, a tough and angry woman with a indeterminate past and muddy accent: Russian actress Olga Kurylenko. It turns out Camille and Bond are on parallel and complimentary missions: she's on a revenge trip after her family was murdered. Bond has crossed paths like this before. This subplot is lifted directly from Goldfinger, where the sister of the woman who was painted gold attempted to avenge her sister on Goldfinger. I found this subplot boring, and the acting of Kurylenko didn't draw me in or make me care what happened to her. My wife pointed out that it's a sign of progress in a Bond movie when a Bond Girl gets a subplot of her own, with her own motivations, and she doesn't sleep with Bond either.

The good news is, the action sequences were all top-notch, equal to the standard set in Casino Royale. The opening car chase was spectacular, the fistfights were great, and the footchases were still exciting and fresh.

(Regal Fenway Stadium 13, Theater 12 (The Green Monster), with my lovely wife, plus my brother + sister-in-law, Karen & Ilan, and Angus & Kristen.)

Burn After Reading

Best case scenario, this movie would be nearly as funny as Raising Arizona. Brad Pitt and John Malkovich's performances comes close to that kind of lunacy. Pitt is a personal trainer/eager puppy, who gets himself all torqued up over a stray CD-ROM found in a locker room- this is his chance to be in his own spy thriller, and he's going to make the most of it. Malkovich is the oil to Pitt's water- a career intelligence analyst, beset on all sides by morons and mediocrity. He's an actual CIA spook, and Pitt's moron has got him over a barrel. Put the two of them together and you've got the only truly funny scenes in this movie.

Oh, I forgot J.K. Simmons- casting him as a CIA director is almost too easy! The Coen brothers are the true heirs to Alfred Hitchcock. They understand human emotions, they know what makes their audiences tick, but they don't feel these same feelings for their characters. In fact, the Coens punish us for growing to like their characters. About halfway through, I thought this movie still had some potential, but then the bloodletting began. There was too much explicit violence, and too many of our favorite characters end up dead. By the last scene, you're meant to feel nothing for these people. As a result, the Coen brothers have made a screwball-style spy-thriller parody which no one will recommend to a friend. The audience walks out feeling abused and insulted, and only a little entertained.

Hamlet 2

A rough and silly comedy in the mold of School of Rock, Hamlet 2 is the story of a talent-free but enthusiastic drama teacher (Steve Coogan) who fights the closing of his drama department by staging a ridiculous musical Hamlet 2.

I have begun to like Steve Coogan in a few roles (he's barely in Tropic Thunder) and he tries very hard to make this part funny. One of the problems is that I never really believed that Coogan is a fool. Other Brit actors like Hugh Laurie and Rowan Atkinson can play the fool or the smartest guy in the room equally effectively, but Coogan never quite achieves the "talentless AND foolish" perfection.

Co-writer-director Andrew Fleming (Dick and The In-Laws remake) throws everything at the wall to try and make some jokes stick: there's a wise thespian voice-over, there's chapter title cards (like in Clerks), there's recurring physical comedy (Coogan rides rollerskates to work), funny costumes (Coogan wears a caftan at one point), but half the jokes fall flat. The musical-within-the-movie is great: Hamlet and Jesus Christ go back in a time machine to save everyone who dies in Hamlet 1, including a slo-mo dash across stage to stop Queen Gertrude from drinking the poisoned wine. Hamlet and Laertes duel with lightsabers in midair, until they call a truce and start kissing. The music is a mix of Grease-style fluff ("Rock Me Sexy Jesus") and Rent-style sentimento-rock: the conclusion of the musical is set to the Gay Men's Choir of Tuscon singing "Someone Saved My Life Tonight." The original music was quite good but there wasn't enough of it.

Catherine Keener is starting to grate on me- she seems to have only one mode, and it's all too dull to cast her as the bitchy wife. It's a shame, because she was so subtle and sympathetic in The Forty-Year-Old Virgin. Inexplicably, David Arquette was cast in a part with only two lines: the lodger whom Keener runs away with. The adorable Melonie Diaz has become the mascot of underwhelming high-concept art-house comedies- she plays a student in Hamlet 2 and a girlfriend to Mos Def in Be Kind Rewind. Somewhat randomly, Elisabeth Shue plays herself as a Hollywood actress who got off the merry-go-round and became a nurse. When asked "what do you miss most about acting", she reminisces about how great it was to make out with her co-stars, which is funny by itself- how many times do we need to hear actors saying "love scenes are not fun"? But what takes the joke to a whole meta-level is that she ends the movie making big sloppy French kisses with Coogan- is she the only one who knows this is a movie?

There were also two appearances by classic "Hey it's that guy" veterans. Marshall Bell as the principal- I remember him best for having the Martian revolution leader growing out of his chest in Total Recall. He was Wil Wheaton's dad in Stand By Me and a crazy officer in Starship Troopers. Marco Rodríguez plays the father of one of the students. He hasn't had an iconic movie role, but he's been on every big TV drama of the last 25 years, including recurring characters on Hill Street Blues, Cagney & Lacey, Star Trek: The Next Generation, L.A. Law, Nash Bridges, NYPD Blue, JAG, CSI, and Cold Case.

Oh, I almost forgot the funniest moment in the movie- Coogan is planted in front of his keyboard trying to write his HAMLET 2 script. He has been at it for 46 hours straight. He is strung out, exhausted, wired, and desperate. His housecat is sitting on his computer printer, purring. Slowly he turns to the cat, and growls "What the f**k is YOUR problem?" (At the Landmark Embassy in Waltham with Amy)

Pineapple Express

The latest product from (Judd) Apa-Town is a perfect fit for the typical Apa-Townie style- loose, silly, and assembled from the funniest bits culled from "improv" riffing. The movie had a very organic feel, in direct contrast with Tropic Thunder, which was tight, too smart, and overly constructed. It's not as quotable as Apato-nnected movies like Anchorman or Talladega Nights, mainly because in Express, all the characters talk simultaneously. I noticed that all the hardcore marijuana jokes drew lots of laughter from a certain segment of the crowd, in the back right corner of the theater. We were all a little surprised at how violent the movie was, but it was hard to stay shocked amongst all the silliness. One character is shot and loses part of his ear. Actually, he doesn't lose the part-- he manages to keep the chunk which got shot off-- but the part isn't attached anymore! (At the Somerville Theater with my wife plus Mandy, Amy, Adam, and two beers inside me!)

Tropic Thunder

The relentlessly insane Robert Downey Jr. saves this overly complicated, overlong comedy.

Tropic Thunder is Galaxy Quest crossed with Platoon: the cast of a Vietnam War movie gets dropped into the authentic Vietnam jungle and has to fake their way through a Missing In Action-style "rescue-the-POW" adventure.

Why does this movie remind me of Galaxy Quest?

	Tropic Thunder	Galaxy Quest
Over-the-hill blowhard who gets them all in trouble?	Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller)	Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen)
Captain Kirk reference?	Speedman watches classic Star Trek on his iPod for inspiration	Allen's entire character is an homage to William Shatner
Classically Trained Actor slumming in genre piece?	Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr)	Alexander Dane (Alan Rickman)
Classically Trained Actor wears prosthetics?	Lazarus has his skin surgically darkened	Dane wears latex gill-head to play "Dr. Lazarus"
African-American 'Straight Man'?	Alpa Chino (Brandon T Jackson)	Tommy Webber (Daryl Mitchell)

(AMC Burlington, with my wife and her sister Sara)

The Dark Knight

Director Christopher Nolan has avoided the dreaded Sequel-itis with his second Batman movie.

The Dark Knight is an ambitious, epic length (but not tedious) battle for the soul of Gotham. As the movie begins, a fragile power triangle forms between Lt. Gordon (Gary Oldman), D.A. Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), and Batman. Their goal: crush the Mob in Gotham City. Meanwhile, The Joker uses the Mob to tear the city apart. In a romantic subplot, Bruce Wayne imagines a life after Batman, while his would-be girlfriend A.D.A. Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is stuck in a triangle between Wayne and Dent. From the moment Rachel was introduced in Batman Begins, I thought that a romantic subplot was a poor idea, but it appears Nolan (who also co-wrote the movie) had important plans for her character all along.

Just like Batman Begins, The Dark Knight explores the psychological motivation of the heroes and villains of the Batman comic books with an exciting postmodern, 21st century perspective. The classic comic book relationship between the Batman and the Joker, the relationship which makes these characters worth watching, is faithfully depicted, and the Joker is shown as the demented and sadistic yet playful terrorist that he is. Instead of killing people with his killer laughing gas, he tends to use a knife, gun, or a bomb. He doesn't care about money or power- he's determined to show Gotham the true face of human nature, and have some fun doing it.

Heath Ledger does a great job as the Joker- he doesn't let out the oversized laughter too much. He speaks with a nasal twang, with his pauses in all the wrong places, while he plays with his greasy hair and his knives, and licks his distorted face like a wormy maladjusted pervert. The hair and makeup contributed a lot to the overall effect. I think all the Oscar talk is a little overblown, but he still did a sufficiently creepy job.

I thought Aaron Eckhart did a good job introducing a complex character. I don't want to say too much about his part, but he's perfect as a big talking politician, slightly less believable as a honest and crusading attorney, and powerfully scary when he crosses the line between passion and madness. Boy that sounds dumb but I don't want to say too much!

I was worried that the Batman would become a supporting player in his own movie, but he has plenty to do in this sequel- that's one of the reasons the movie is 2 hours, 32 minutes long. He has several very satisfying adventures, including one trip overseas. He does some actual detective work, a side of the Batman which isn't explored enough. His unlimited wealth is good for more than weapons and vehicles, he also uses his R&D resources to improve his detecting ability.

The plot details are a little overcomplicated, but the pacing is brisk so I didn't ruminate about it too much. The Joker's mayhem and murderous plots are all sufficiently sick and funny, but all his puzzle pieces fall into place a little too perfectly. His traps and practical jokes are too implausibly synchronized. However, the nature of his plots and mayhem were perfect- they captured the nature of the Joker well, and I really appreciated how Gordon and the GCPD are so easily predictable. Near the end of the movie, Gordon is taking one of the Joker's schemes at face value, and Batman has to step in to say "with the Joker, it's never that simple", which is a classic Batman comic book scene. Later, Batman braces the Joker and yells "where are the detonators!", a pure comic book moment which gave me chills.

Strongly recommended. The movie has a lot of beatings, shootings, and several buildings get blown up. The Joker is fond of knives, but the movie is more suggestive of gruesomeness than explicitly gruesome.