© 2010-2024 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
© 2010-2024 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
I have an elderly aunt, never married, who once told me that if the choice was between staying single or being in an unhappy marriage, her preference was to live alone. This choice is one of the themes of Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air, in which George Clooney’s character sees not just marriage, but all relationships, as so much unnecessary baggage.
About two-thirds into the film, I had the sinking feeling that director Reitman was going to take this idea into stale romantic-comedy turf. After knocking some sense into Clooney’s bachelor, it seemed the story would ensure a white picket fence and lots of little Clooneys in his future. But Reitman and cowriter Sheldon Turner had other, brighter ideas, and this is one reason why I think Up in the Air was robbed of a Best Screenplay Oscar.
Precious, which took home the screenplay award, was not a writer’s picture. Its signature moments involve great acting, particularly from the explosive Mo’Nique. Up in the Air, to the contrary, is a writer’s baby — from the repartee between Clooney and his female costars to the unexpected directions we are taken in the final act.
Does the film side with my elderly aunt’s philosophy on marriage? That’s a question the makers of Up in the Air leave, well, up in the air. Grade: B+
Director: Jason Reitman Cast: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, Melanie Lynskey, Danny McBride, J.K. Simmons Release: 2009
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If you hear anything at all about Precious before seeing it, you’ll probably expect a depressing, unpleasant experience. Your assumption would be correct. To Sir, With Love, this movie ain’t.
But director Lee Daniels’s drama is worth viewing for at least two reasons. No matter where you stand on the welfare issue, Daniels’s film will probably convince you that there are two types of people on public assistance — those who truly deserve it, and those who do not.
Which brings me to the second reason Precious is worth seeing: the Oscar-winning performance by Mo’Nique as the ultimate “welfare queen.” You do not want to haggle with this character over food stamps.
And yet, social issues and great performances aside, Precious is a movie that, I think, is not as accessible as it aspires to be. Try as I might, this middle-class, middle-aged, white male reviewer simply could not much relate to Precious’s nightmarish world. God knows that is not a complaint, just an observation. Grade: B+
Director: Lee Daniels Cast: Gabourey “Gabbie” Sidibe, Mo’Nique, Paula Patton, Lenny Kravitz, Mariah Carey, Sherri Shepherd Release: 2009
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I recently re-watched the classic sorority-massacre movie Black Christmas (1974 version), and that put me in the mood for a new slasher flick, and so I made the mistake of renting Sorority Row.
There is only one way to rate junk like this, so here we go (start with zero points):
1) Does it have an attractive cast? Are the sorority girls worth watching? Yes and yes. Add 50 points.
2) Are the production values decent? Is it well photographed, edited, scored, etcetera? Yes. Add 20 points.
3) Do the attractive stars get naked? No. Subtract 30 points.
4) Does anyone get naked? Yes, several bit players in a shower scene at the midpoint. Add 25 points.
5) Is the killer a surprise, or pretty obvious? Pretty obvious. Call it a draw.
6) Is the killer, once unmasked, a memorable villain? No. Very dull. Subtract 20 points.
7) Are the killings original? Not really. A tire iron is a tire iron. Subtract 10 points.
Total score: 35
Is that a D or an F? I’ll be generous. Grade: D
Director: Stewart Hendler Cast: Briana Evigan, Rumer Willis, Carrie Fisher, Jamie Chung, Julian Morris, Leah Pipes, Margo Harshman, Matt Lanter, Audrina Patridge, Deja Kreutzberg Release: 2009
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Black Christmas, the 1974 original, is the scariest movie ever made.
There. I’ve said it. And yes, I have seen The Exorcist. And Rosemary’s Baby, Psycho, Night of the Living Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Alien, The Ring, and Jaws. None of them match the creepy effectiveness of this little Canadian production from — of all directors — Bob Clark. Yes, that Bob Clark; the same man who also gave the world its beloved A Christmas Story and (less-beloved) Porky’s.
I tell people about this movie and, once they realize it’s not an episode of The Jeffersons, they ask about its plot. I hesitate to tell them, because the movie was so well-crafted that its innovations, so groundbreaking in 1974, have been copied and copied and copied, so that what was new in Black Christmas is now cliche. Halloween owes everything to this film, as do When a Stranger Calls and every maniac-terrorizes-young-people movie made since.
Clark taught all of these filmmakers lessons with Black Christmas: how to use sound and silence (a ticking grandfather’s clock, a howling winter’s wind), shadows, and pacing to scare the crap out of audiences.
It’s too bad Clark got little appreciation for this masterwork. If you see it now for the first time, you might feel as though you’ve seen it all before. The sorority house. The mindless killer. The multiple suspects. “The calls are coming from inside the house!”
But all of these elements were new in 1974 … and the ending of the scariest movie ever made is nothing short of brilliant. Grade: A
Director: Bob Clark Cast: Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder, John Saxon, Andrea Martin, Marian Waldman, Art Hindle, Lynne Griffin, Michael Rapport Release: 1974
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Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds is really two movies, which is a shame, because one of them is pretty good. Tarantino’s World War II revisionist revenge story has some seriously suspenseful scenes. I’m thinking, for example, of the lengthy prologue and a later scene that takes place in a basement tavern. You watch these scenes and the tension absorbs you.
Alas, we also have the second movie. This second film stars Brad Pitt in a foul-mouthed update of Lee Marvin’s character in The Dirty Dozen, and it features lots of goofiness and gore. It’s as if Tarantino could not make up his mind: create a nerve-wracking war drama, but also lampoon them, the better to attract the snark-loving youth market. And so we get a cartoonish portrayal from Pitt, spaghetti-Western music, and Batman-like graphics (I half expected “BAM!” and “ZOWEEE!” to appear during fight scenes). Tarantino’s two films don’t mesh.
As for the much-ballyhooed performance by Christoph Waltz, the pundits’ pick for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, Waltz is good. But if you prefer your Nazis with a bit more subtlety, I recommend August Diehl in a less-showy role as Major Hellstrom, oozing menace in the aforementioned tavern scene. Grade: C+
Director: Quentin Tarantino Cast: Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Daniel Bruhl, Til Schweiger, Melanie Laurent, August Diehl, Julie Dreyfus Release: 2009
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Gutfeld’s Girls
No one who knows me would label me a “red guy” politically, but I’ll have to admit there is something lecherously appealing about Greg Gutfeld’s wee-hours free-for-all on Fox News, otherwise known as Red Eye.
Gutfeld does spew conservative venom in his “Greg-alogues,” but there’s a reason for that sparkle in his peepers: the bevy of supermodel types that get booked to appear on the show. You won’t find Liz Cheney on Red Eye, but you will find babes like (clockwise from top left) Megyn Kelly, Diana Falzone, Martha MacCallum, Reshma Shetty, S.E. Cupp, and Remi Spencer.
Gutfeld and his View-like panel, including the hilariously deadpan Andy Levy, are in such good humor that it’s hard not to smile. Or, as Slate put it, “It’s all horribly watchable.” Does that make me a racist homophobe?
*****
Saying goodbye to Nip/Tuck was a bit like dumping old breast implants. At first they were good, but then they began to sag, and in the end you had to dump them. This FX show — one of the hottest on TV just five years ago — went out with a whimper on Wednesday. The finale was rather touching but, sad to say, I stopped watching Nip/Tuck a few years ago. What was once a cutting-edge drama with bizarre twists eventually became bizarre, period. But I used to like you, so thanks for the mammaries.
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You’re browsing at the video store and you read this on the back of a DVD cover: “Answers lead him (the hero) on a twisted journey of faith, family, delinquent behavior and mortality.” Do you rent the movie? Sounds nutritious, right? Nah, you do what I do — you put it back on the shelf and find something a little … earthier. Something with a little more … gusto.
Sometimes that impulse is a mistake. A Serious Man, the Coen brothers’ reflection on Jewish life in 1960s Minnesota, is what you get when you combine a low-budget, intimate indie with the polish you’d expect from two Oscar-winning Hollywood veterans.
The plot seems simple: Jewish family man faces crises as his world begins to crumble. The humor is gentle; this is the 1960s Midwest — hardly Judd Apatow territory. And yet, with this low-key, low-budget, low-concept material, the brothers Coen craft a film you might remember much longer than that earthier stuff, the stuff with “gusto.” Grade: B+
Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Cast: Michael Stuhlbarg, Fred Melamed, Richard Kind, Aaron Wolf, Sari Wagner, Jessica McManus, Amy Landecker Release: 2009
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If you check at Amazon.com, you’ll see The Game categorized as a drama, but also listed under “action & adventure” in the sales rankings. The Internet Movie Database calls David Fincher’s movie an “action/adventure/mystery.” And on rottentomatoes.com, it’s simply listed under “drama.” This is my burning question: Am I the only one who views this 1997 film as one of the funniest comedies of the past 20 years?
From the moment Michael Douglas’s staid businessman spills ink on his fancy shirt in an airport lounge, I know I’m in for a delightful ride, as Douglas’s misfortunes escalate from that inky blotch to, eventually, waking up in a dusty coffin in a Mexican slum. This is a Gordon Gekko comeuppance on a grand scale and, though the movie is certainly a thriller, it’s also one of a handful that can make me laugh out loud. Maybe you have to have a warped sense of humor ….
One thing I am certain about: The Game’s plot is absurd. No matter how many millions (or billions) at his disposal, the paces Conrad Van Orton (Sean Penn) puts brother Nicholas (Douglas) through as part of the “game” are pure fantasy. But thanks to Fincher’s sly direction, I was too busy laughing to much care. Grade: B+
Director: David Fincher Cast: Michael Douglas, Sean Penn, Deborah Kara Unger, James Rebhorn, Anna Katerina, Peter Donat, Carroll Baker, Armin Mueller-Stahl Release: 1997
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