Category: Film Review

The prospect of another laborious Iraq War film is perhaps about as welcome as a sharp stick in the eye. While a vital subject for discussion, Hollywood has managed to homogenize the lengthy Middle East affair, expelling too much effort to register as concerned rather than determined. Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker” looks to amp up the Iraq experience through a foot-long, rusty-edged needle shot of adrenaline, assuming a vigorous action movie mentality to cover global affairs. “Hurt Locker” is a superb achievement that not only constructs some of the finest suspense set pieces of the year, but manages to find compelling, innovative wartime psychological threads to pull at as well.

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I think “My Sister’s Keeper” has been robotically engineered to makes audiences weep uncontrollably. It’s a tear-jerking Terminator, an unstoppable force that beats the screen with tragedies of all shapes and sizes, looking to wear down the viewer until they’re a puddle of tears and snotty tissue. It’s a hostile approach to storytelling that director Nick Cassavetes manipulated to finely tuned results with the 2004 sleeper smash, “The Notebook.” For “Keeper,” the effort is much more transparent, and for every instant of genuine tragic ache within this dubious feature, there are two served up right behind it that drip with obnoxious manipulation and creaky execution.

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In 1988, director Stephen Frears, writer Christopher Hampton, and actress Michelle Pfeiffer teamed up to run through a myriad of period games of deception and lust in the classic picture, “Dangerous Liaisons.” Two decades later, the trio has reformed to plunge further into the bleak heart of obsession in the acidic dramedy “Cheri,” adapted from the novel (and its sequel) by celebrated French author Colette. It’s sexy, pithy, and enchantingly cutting, making the best use of Pfeiffer in a long time.

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Remember 1993’s “Boxing Helena?” Unless you happen to be Kim Basinger’s accountant, I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t. The new thriller “Surveillance” marks the return of Jennifer Lynch to the director’s chair, and the extended break from the industry hasn’t quite tempered the filmmaker’s sweet tooth for performance oddity, but it has simplified her storytelling ambition. A cool, creepy chiller, “Surveillance” doesn’t exactly leap off the screen as a diamond example of procedural crime busting cinema, but taken as the next professional step for Lynch, it’s an efficient mood piece, setting out to unnerve and baffle, and achieving most of its goals.

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A searing indictment of Islamic “Sharia” laws and rural Middle Eastern barbarism, “The Stoning of Soraya M.” is a surefire sock-in-the-gut motion picture that’s grueling to watch, yet perhaps impossible to ignore. I’m sure the prospect of sitting down with a movie concerning the painstaking ritual of stoning comes across as a gigantic NEGATORY on the average “Movies to See” list of multiplex adventures, yet this picture is worth a viewing, if only to be allowed entrance into the darker nuances of unspoken Islamic law.

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In 1995, director Michael Bay, untested and hungry, helmed his first feature, the action comedy “Bad Boys.” It was a lean, stylish production desperate to please. In 2003, after years fattening himself on blockbuster box office returns and industry deification, Bay directed “Bad Boys II,” and it was a vast facial blast of overconfident overkill — a joyless, humorless, bloated carcass of an event movie. After the domestic financial crumbling of his 2005 picture, “The Island,” Bay was again in a difficult position where he needed to prove his worth. Out of the ashes came “Transformers.” While hardly a mid-budget, no-expectation gamble like the original “Bad Boys,” the film nevertheless relied on Bay’s capacity to temper his proclivity for grotesque visual disorder, putting the needs of sci-fi adventure and crowd-pleasing theatrics above his diseased lust for claustrophobic, hyper-edited shenanigans. The semi-minimalist (for Bay) effort was rewarded with over 700 million dollars in worldwide box office returns. This leads up to the sequel, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” and, my dear readers, it’s “Bad Boys II” all over again. Nothing kills the euphoric buzz of exceptionally articulated carefree mindlessness quite like a newly emboldened Michael Bay.

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“Year One” is an immense farce, reminiscent of a time not too long ago when silliness was best served as an endless buffet, dished up by the finest comic minds of the era. “Year One” is not quite the death of comedy, but it tries for a cartwheeling tone of irreverence and buffoonery that doesn’t quite fit in with today’s presentations of irony and sarcasm, and lacks the crisp, filling writing of yesteryear. There’s barely more than a few laughs during the entire film, but I suppose there should be some appreciation offered for even attempting an expansive giggle melee such as this. And then a character decides to eat a piece of poop. And then “Year One” becomes an inexcusable misfire from a group of professionals who really should’ve known better.

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“Grace” is a pungent horror film that embraces the fine art of psychological intrusion. It’s a crafty bit of dementia that doesn’t play by standard genre rules, instead weaving its own diseased design of torment pointed directly at the most sacred of subjects: motherhood. “Grace” is sick, twisted, provoking, and just wrong all over; it’s everything a low-budget horror feature should be, especially to zombified audiences force-fed the same diet of spooky nonsense on a weekly basis.

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Sandra Bullock has been making movies like “The Proposal” for quite some time now. The romantic comedy is her Jedi power, and while the majority of her output has been either strained or downright intolerable (“Two Weeks Notice,” “While You Were Sleeping”), Bullock deserves some credit for her refusal to give up on the genre. “The Proposal” is harmless fluff, but it’s a dull routine, somehow lassoing the jumping bean charisma of co-star Ryan Reynolds to help liven up a confused screenplay. Regardless of the changes in setting and leading men, this is still Bullock running off the same old battery, and the fatigue is becoming increasingly difficult to cover up.

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“Dead Snow” walks and talks much like any other self-referential ‘80s throwback horror picture, with two laudable distinctions: its Norwegian roots and its snow-blasted mountain locations. Oh, and possibly the appearance of Nazi zombies. What should’ve been a rollicking, kick-the-air horror bonanza is instead reduced to a weirdly fruitless genre romp that looks to amuse and frighten, but only achieves a baffling, slightly mean-spirited tone that serves as the antithesis to the genre its working so diligently to celebrate.

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Teenagers. They do the darnedest things.

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While viewing the French chiller “Fissures,” the 2000 time-warping thriller “Frequency” sprung immediatley to mind as its Hollywood counterpart. Both films use fantastical means to explore the murder mystery genre; they head to the edge of complete and utter lunacy with outlandish plot developments, only to shoot the tube of absurdity with the grace of a pro surfer. Certainly it takes a few mouthfuls of suspension-of-disbelief pills to settle in with the peculiar mood of “Fissures,” but it doesn’t take long for the sheer invention of the filmmaking to seep through the sludgy illusion, making for a perceptive, engaging thriller.

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I hold severe reservations with “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3,” and it’s not tied to the fact that this story has now been dragged in front of the cameras on three separate occasions. No, my objection is reserved for director Tony Scott, who once again submerges the hope of thundering screen tension under a thick layer of meaningless cinematographic bells and whistles. Over the last fifteen years, Scott has sacrificed his mojo to pursue an eruption of visual noise and “Pelham,” with its promise of delectable conflict and gritty New York locales, is another wasted effort from the ineffectual filmmaker, who’s become one of the most disturbingly inept stylists working in Hollywood today.

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Taking inspiration from screen giants “2001,” “Solaris,” and perhaps even “Outland” (if you squint hard enough) comes Duncan Jones’s “Moon,” a cerebral potion of killer science fiction that deftly toys with futuristic worry to construct a terrifically understated nightmare. Evocative, riveting, and ultimately contemporary in a roundabout way, “Moon” is a superb mood piece, sublimely cradled by Jones, filtered through tireless work from star Sam Rockwell.

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“Imagine That” is a benevolent enough family dramedy, but it does a better job solidifying Eddie Murphy’s obsolescence as a big screen superstar. To watch Murphy drown his cracking comedic instincts in lousy kiddie comedies over the last 10 years has been a depressing experience, but “Imagine That” goes one step further and renders Murphy boring. A painfully exaggerated concept trapped inside an especially bland movie, “Imagine That” removes the desire to see Eddie Murphy act onscreen ever again. I’d rather not watch him at all than see the man continue to torch his once imposing legacy of cinematic achievements.

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Food. What was once an abundant, cherished source of nutrition and spirit has been turned into a cold, destructive big business by those looking to profit wildly by exploiting a necessity. The ambitious documentary “Food, Inc.” seeks to cover the wide range of food ills and agrarian perversions, hopeful to showcase a growing corporate movement that’s removed the purity of consumption to turn a fast buck, using abusive attitudes, fallible safety precautions, and unhealthy ingredients to keep the food flowing.

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I’m just going to quietly regard the 2006 feature “School for Scoundrels” as a bad dream. While shooting itself in the foot with a cast of such world-renown, gut-bustin’ jesters like Billy Bob Thornton and Jon Heder, “Scoundrels” more importantly wasted the talents of director Todd Phillips in a major way, casting serious doubts on his developing abilities as an ace comedic filmmaker. “The Hangover” restores faith in Phillips and the vulgar passions of the R-rated comedy, assembling a smutty epic of irresponsibility that handles with a certain amount of routine, but still delivers huge on laughs and knowing cringes.

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Running from 1974 to 1976, Sid and Marty Krofft’s “Land of the Lost” television series seized the imagination of a generation tickled to travel to far off dimensions, populated by the finest creatures a five-dollar production budget could buy. Far be it from me to pooh-pooh the ravenous nostalgia of others, but “Lost” was also borderline unwatchable; a glacially executed kids show that appeared more interested in locating creative ways to stall for 22 minutes than pursuing the more fantastical fringes of its own fantasia. Now comedy kingpin Will Ferrell steps up to the plate to reimagine “Lost” as a slickly budgeted, thrill-a-minute summer extravaganza, and while the film cheerfully dusts off Sleestaks, Chakas, and roaring dinosaurs to enchant the faithful, it seems the new film somehow lost access to an adequate script along the way.

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When Nia Vardalos broke out of obscurity with 2002’s sleeper smash “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” it was cause for a celebration. Vardalos triumphantly beat the industry odds, manufacturing a legitimately lovely romantic comedy stewed in the juices of Greek culture, gradually surviving the weekly multiplex onslaughts to become a top-grossing phenomenon. The film even earned her an Oscar nomination for screenwriting. How’s that for a miracle? After the heat died down, Vardalos segued into the hospitable 2004 drag queen comedy “Connie and Carla.” It tanked. So, five years later, Vardalos has booked a return flight to Greece with “My Life in Ruins,” a film so agonizingly devoid of intelligence, inspiration, and surprise, it makes “Big Fat Greek Wedding” stand out as a now loathsome fluke.

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Last winter, director Sam Mendes probed the ghoulish shades of marital woe with “Revolutionary Road,” a bracing, bitter pill of a drama that sternly underlined the fury of decayed commitment. “Away We Go,” debuting only a mere seven months after “Road,” takes a much kinder observational post. A story of a struggling relationship on the verge of solidifying through addition, “Away We Go” aims to humanize the universal fears of parenthood and commitment, using the structure of a road trip comedy to alleviate the suffocation that would normally squeeze tight a tale of domestic doubt. It’s Mendes attempting to lighten up his oeuvre, and the newly awakened tenderness suits him just fine.

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