It’s been three lengthy years since “Batman Begins” clobbered the big screen, and the wait for the next chapter in this saga has been interminable. What director Christopher Nolan achieved with “Begins” was superhero tonality on an inspired, chilling scale; it was cartoon vigilantism turned into a mesmerizing metropolitan dirge, masterfully executed in a manner that made previous attempts to bring Batman to life seem juvenile and insincere.
Well, “The Dark Knight” eats “Begins” for breakfast.
It was only a year ago when I suffered utter disdain for “Hairspray,” a shrill, overdirected musical comedy that I found merciless in its unpleasantness. Turns out all it was missing was the music of ABBA; “Mamma Mia!” is the same vintage of shrill, overdirected musical comedy, yet it breaks free of self-conscious bondage to kick off a suitably electrifying big-screen pajama party of dancing, singing, and devotion to all things Europop.
“Space Chimps” is many things, but the one advantage it lacks is a sizable budget. If you’re a respectable production that wants to be taken seriously and can’t even scrounge up the coin to license Yello’s 1985 hit “Oh Yeah,” instead electing to use a tinny sound-alike…that should be the first clue that something is seriously awry with the movie.
A searing lament for China and the eradication of its historic farming culture, “Up the Yangtze” is a stunning documentary that details every gut-churning step of inevitability.
“Diminished Capacity” is actor Terry Kinney’s feature-film directing debut, and it handles like the work of someone who’s just getting the feel for his storytelling dimension. A gentle, agreeable dramedy, “Capacity” reveals that Kinney has a unique hold on tone and shares a palpable charm with his actors.
“Meet Bill” is a torturous viewing experience that’s downright baffling to even consider. Here’s a capable cast and a moody little plot, and yet there’s absolutely no reason to watch this dreadful picture. Consider it a brutal accident on the cinematic freeway. Just slow down long enough to gawk, but keep moving forward at all costs.
To better appreciate “Encounters at the End of the World,” it’s best to view it not as a scientific documentary, but as a home movie from screendom’s crankiest old bastard. That’s right, Werner Herzog is back with his latest non-fiction endeavor, proving again that it’s not actually naturalistic poetry until it’s been touched by his camera.
(Reviewed at the 2008 Phoenix Film Festival)
I don’t know what to be more frightened of: the plight of the average Midwestern teenager or the state of documentary films. “American Teen” yearns to expose the aching heart of high schoolers, but comes up short in rather impressive fashion, taking cues from MTV’s “The Hills” to manufacture a documentary that doesn’t appear to contain a living, breathing moment of reality.
Once the king of comedy, it’s been a disheartening journey for Eddie Murphy recently; he’s failed to remind audiences what once made him such a hot comedy commodity, only to see his mojo dissipate through a series of bad script choices and forgettable kid film diversions. I wouldn’t label “Meet Dave” a reputation-revitalizing turn for the actor, but the picture is admirably competent, delightfully silly, and absent a majority of repulsions typically associated with an Eddie Murphy family film.
2004’s “Hellboy” was a sprawling, mysterious, comical, slimy, and idiosyncratic monster movie. “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” has all of those qualities and one more: restraint. Well, at least a newfound sense of limitation; this sequel overdoses in a big way on fantasy tangents, yet, unlike the earlier picture, it clicks together with a greater, more direct geek panache.
“Journey to the Center of the Earth” isn’t a straight-jacket adaptation of the Jules Verne classic, but a vague photocopy that eschews daring adventure for cheap, plastic thrills, tarted up with a sickly glaze of 3-D to help prop up the anemic screenplay. It’s a gimmick-driven movie and it’s shocking how much the final product lacks the source material’s intrinsic magic.
“Never Forever” had all the opportunity in the world to fall in line with its romance-novel inclinations, to feed off melodrama and end up a tragic tear-jerker that flails wildly and distills the pain of life into bite-sized bits of mascara-smeared displeasure. Thank heavens writer/director Gina Kim isn’t interested in reducing her feature to a puddle of pandering.
“Brick Lane” is a melodrama, but it’s crafted with such fascinating compassion and care for moments of heart-twisting domestic compromise that it’s easy to forgive a few narrative bumps and a handful of familiarity.
The Los Angeles Times quote on the cover of the 20th Anniversary DVD release of “Heathers” reads: “Without ‘Heathers,’ there would be no ‘Jawbreaker,’ no ‘Mean Girls’ and certainly no ‘Juno.’
That’s the best Anchor Bay/Starz could come up with to describe this sublime motion picture? For this utterly faultless document not only of punishing high school hierarchy and melodramatics, but a pitch-black, pitch-perfect comedy that somehow manages to be completely reprehensible and socially irresponsible, yet remains shockingly devoid of mean-spirited characterization and preaching? Oh these marketing stooges…they just had to bring the rancid knockoffs into the mix to destroy the integrity of the preeminent high school disaster story.
I’m not used to writing a statement like this, so please forgive me if I pass out from the shock of disbelief: Peter Berg’s direction saves “Hancock.” There, it’s out on the page for the world to see. Clearly the cinema gods are pleased with me, because I just watched a Peter Berg film and I didn’t want to punch the screen afterwards.
It certainly took the gang at Cinematic Titanic enough time to regroup, but the six-month wait between episodes was worth the unbearable impatience. Backing away after the release of “The Oozing Skull” to reassess their strengths and weaknesses, Titanic storms back with “Doomsday Machine,” and while the series is starting to solidify pleasingly, the movie selection for this outing is perhaps too formidable for even this squad of ace comedians to conquer with quips.
Someone somewhere had the nutty idea to connect the music from the 1940s to the music of the late 1970s, and explore that combustible relationship to fashion the ultimate disco movie of 1980. It was the year that gave us “Flash Gordon,” “Can’t Stop the Music,” and “The Apple,” yet “Xanadu” trumped them all with its pageantry of glitter, roller skating, and yearning to put on a show larger than life to kick off the new decade on a skyrocketing fantastical note of nylon-jumpsuited ecstasy.
It’s not the familiarity that ultimately undoes “Wanted,” but its uncharacteristic reserve. A back-flipping action bonanza, “Wanted” is an adult cartoon, taking acts of death-defying stupidity to their most illogical extreme, and that’s exactly where this outlandish visual buffet should stay.
Pixar as a formidable storytelling machine is not an entity I’m entirely comfortable with. The studio has turned itself into a faceless animation brand name, and while I can’t argue the box office numbers, I’m not buying the artistic results. “Wall-E” is Pixar’s biggest creative gamble in over a decade; a genuine cinematic leap of faith. However, the ambition doesn’t match the outcome, and while “Wall-E” dances whimsically, it’s a plodding, frighteningly hypocritical, and forbidding film that trips over its fogged intentions at every dreary turn.
BRIAN ORNDORF 