The Grouchy Editor

The Housemaid promises to deliver the mother of all Korean catfights.  It doesn’t quite come through, but watching the four female leads as they lie, scheme, and shift loyalties makes for some ticklish good fun in director Im Sang-soo’s remake of a 1960 Korean classic.

At the heart of all this estrogen-fueled enmity is, naturally, a man.  When innocent young Eun-yi (Jeon Do-yeon) is hired as a nanny by a wealthy pregnant woman, it isn’t long before the woman’s lascivious husband (Lee Jung-Jae) is bedding the girl.  Complicating matters is an older housekeeper (Youn Yuh-jung), an embittered woman who takes an instant dislike to Eun-yi.

The illicit affair between husband and housemaid is soon uncovered, and at this point the movie gains momentum, spinning an elaborate game of cat-and-mouse between servants, the wife, and the wife’s mother.  There are shades of Hitchcock here – Rebecca and Notorious, in particular – and the proceedings are imaginatively photographed, with cameras gliding in and out of elegant sets.

Unfortunately, that hoped-for catfight doesn’t really materialize.  Instead, Sang-soo gives us a denouement that strives to be shocking but is instead melodramatic and unsatisfying.  One character is singled out for revenge, but it’s the one female in the house who’s guilty of no wrongdoing.        Grade:  B

Director:  Im Sang-soo  Cast:  Jeon Do-yeon, Lee Jung-Jae,  Woo Seo, Youn Yuh-jung, Park Ji-young  Release:  2010

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I don’t have kids, so I suppose I could argue that I don’t have much at stake when it comes to the education of young Americans.  After all, they’re your kids, not mine.  Don’t I already pay enough taxes for their schooling?

But of course, nothing is that simple.  Your kids are going to cost me more in taxes or less in taxes, and they will directly or indirectly affect my quality of life in myriad ways, whether I like it or not.  Add to that this moral question:  Isn’t a quality education for all kids simply the right thing to do?

Waiting for “Superman,” like any good student (or teacher), asks a lot of provocative questions about the decline of public schools in America.  Should we send children to pricey charter schools, seven days a week and during the summer months?  If we don’t spend more on education now, will we wind up spending more later on bigger and better prisons?

As I write this, teachers in neighboring Wisconsin are protesting their governor’s efforts to scale back the clout of teachers’ unions.  Those protestors face an uphill battle, because much of the recession-weary public is in a sour mood, and movies like this one make it clear that teachers’ unions have a major public relations problem.  Director Davis Guggenheim tries to make a distinction between teachers, whom he depicts as (mostly) noble warriors, and their unions, which seem intractable and corrupt.  But aren’t those unions composed of … well, teachers?

If Waiting for “Superman” has a flaw, it’s that it tries to tackle too many complex issues in less than two hours.  But it has stirred up public debate, and that can only be a good thing for the kids.        Grade:  B+

Director:  Davis Guggenheim  Featuring:  Geoffrey Canada, Michelle Rhee, Bill Strickland, Randi Weingarten, Bill Gates  Release:  2010

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“A vile bag of garbage named I Spit on Your Grave is playing in Chicago theaters this weekend.  It is a movie so sick, reprehensible and contemptible that I can hardly believe it’s playing in respectable theaters.”  That’s critic Roger Ebert back in 1980, explaining the repugnance he felt for a low-budget horror film that has since gained notoriety and a cult following.

Fast-forward to October 2010.  Our man Roger finds himself reviewing yet another sexploitation movie, which he decries as a “despicable remake of the despicable 1978 film I Spit on Your Grave.”  Poor Roger.  He didn’t seem to learn much.  You’d think that after being so traumatized by the original, he might have known to avoid the remake.

Both Graves have the same plot, in which an attractive, “uppity” city girl named Jennifer is brutally gang-raped by country hooligans and then wreaks bloody vengeance on all of them.  As Ebert points out, the first half of the new film, with its prolonged sexual assault, is by far the more realistic part of the story.  Actress Sarah Butler (as Jennifer) is degraded in every imaginable way:  She is patted down by a leering sheriff, forced to fellate a bottle, has a gun barrel poked against her crotch, is anally raped, and then raped again.  Butler is shown nude during the assaults and again as she wanders dazedly through the woods.  Director Steven R. Monroe’s camera eschews modesty in favor of gratuitousness, focusing on Butler’s small breasts, bare buttocks and, in at least one fleeting close-up, her pudendum.

When it is time for Jennifer’s revenge scenes, however, Monroe preserves the male actors’ dignity.  There isn’t much nudity from the men – not even during a scene in which Jennifer uses hedge clippers to castrate one of them.  These scenes are standard gore-movie stuff, and the audience will be thinking of plaster, putty, and fake blood – certainly not about social statements.  Jennifer is not so much an empowered feminist as she is a credibility-stretching psychopath.  The frail-looking girl manages to physically overpower all of the beefy young men, and then devise Rube Goldberg-like contraptions to torture and dispatch them.

How does all of this compare to the infamous original film?  The first one was so cheap and so poorly acted (excepting Camille Keaton, who played Jennifer) that it was almost like watching a home movie.  In a way, that rawness made it even more disturbing.  The new film has much better production values, acting, and direction.  Otherwise, they are basically the same story.

Neither movie is what I’d call “horror.”  They are both fetish films, designed for people who enjoy seeing their rape fantasies enacted on screen.  Jennifer’s revenge scenes are simply an attempt to fend off social-minded critics like Roger Ebert.         Grade:  C+

Director:  Steven R. Monroe  Cast:  Sarah Butler, Jeff Branson, Andrew Howard, Daniel Franzese, Rodney Eastman, Chad Lindberg, Tracey Walter, Mollie Milligan, Saxon Sharbino  Release:  2010

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This is a difficult film to review.  The problem is my over-familiarity with the source material, both the original Swedish film, which has become an instant classic, and the book by John Ajvide Lindqvist.  I’ve seen Let the Right One In several times, and last year I read the novel.  So my exposure to the story is extensive, recent, and – annoyingly – a hindrance to enjoying the Hollywood makeover.

Matt Reeves’s American remake immediately had two strikes against it:  “How dare Reeves mess with what is already a flawless movie?” screamed fans of the Scandinavian film.  Chipped in everyone else:  How would Reeves screw up a great story with an inevitable “Americanization”?  Compounding these issues was the fact that Lindqvist’s tale is essentially a love story about two children – definitely not the standard-issue horror film marketers led us believe – making the box-office potential of the remake less than promising.

Alas, Let Me In was not a financial success last year, which is too bad, because it’s a lot better than I expected it to be.  The power of the remake does not depend on special effects, or even direction, but on the performances by its two young leads.  In this regard, Let Me In works.  The best scenes are not the vampire attacks, but the tender, low-key interaction between Kodi Smit-McPhee and Chloe Moretz.  They are expressive actors, and they make you care about their characters.  If I had to compare (apparently I want to), I’d say Smit-McPhee is slightly better than Kare Hedebrant, his Swedish counterpart who played Oskar (“Owen” in the remake), but Moretz doesn’t quite live up to the gold standard, Lena Leandersson’s unforgettable portrayal of Eli (“Abby”).

But the kids are more than all right, and so is the film.  Let Me In doesn’t dumb down anything for its American audience, it is faithful to its source material, and it takes its time telling a mesmerizing tale.  Unfortunately, that’s usually a recipe for box-office poison.  I liked it very much but, dammit, I think I would have liked it even more if I weren’t so familiar with the story.      Grade:  B+       

Director:  Matt Reeves  Cast:  Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloe Moretz, Richard Jenkins, Cara Buono, Elias Koteas, Sasha Barrese, Dylan Kenin, Chris Browning, Ritchie Coster  Release:  2010

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If there’s a lesson to be learned from James Franco’s grueling ordeal in 127 Hours, my guess is that the wrong people will learn it.  By now, most people know the story of young Aron Ralston, the climber who became trapped in a Utah canyon and was forced to amputate his own arm.  Ralston, who failed to alert anyone to his whereabouts, spent five miserable days in a hellish hole before, essentially, rescuing himself.  The moral of the story seems to be:  No matter how tough (and young) you think you are, at some point you’ll need other people.  (A second lesson is obvious:  Don’t mess with Mother Nature.)

Believe it or not, I used to be a young man, even more foolish than I am now.  So I’m guessing the reaction from today’s young men to this film will fall into one of two camps:  1) Wow, I guess I’d better not try to be so much like Superman – I really do need friends and family, or 2) That Ralston dude was a wimp.  I’m going out climbing tomorrow, and I ain’t tellin’ nobody!

British director Danny Boyle, whom I think is better suited to fast-paced material (Trainspotting and 28 Days Later come to mind), is constrained here to one actor and one setting.  He tries to overcome this potential handicap with a series of low-impact flashbacks and hallucinations whilst his hero is trapped.  These predictable techniques are only mildly effective.  The audience doesn’t have much emotional stake in Ralston’s life, unlike the connection we felt for Tom Hanks’s marooned executive in Cast Away.

Franco is personable and entertaining as the focus of nearly every scene (somewhere, Ryan Reynolds – similarly entombed in last year’s Buried – is scratching his head and wondering what became of his Oscar nomination), but he can only do so much.

As for the famous amputation scene, it’s gorier than I was led to believe, but I was more affected when Hanks had to extract his own tooth in Cast Away.     Grade:  B 

Director:  Danny Boyle  Cast:  James Franco, Kate Mara, Amber Tamblyn, Sean Bott, Treat Williams, Kate Burton, Clemence Poesy, Koleman Stinger, John Lawrence, Rebecca C. Olson  Release:  2010

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I’ve never been to Australia, but if there’s another country (or continent, if you prefer) that has more in common with the United States, I’d like to know what it is.  Australia and the U.S. share a common history.  More so than, say, Canada, we share a “wild west” mentality that lingers to the present day.  More so than England, we have prominent gun cultures.  Aussies and Americans love their macho, and they love to drink.

So it comes as no surprise that our movies are similar, in particular our crime movies.  An armed-robbery gang lives in a blue-collar neighborhood.  Loyalty to the gang is paramount, and so is fear and hatred of the police.  One young man wants to escape this paranoid world, preferably with his sweetheart.  I am describing Boston and The Town, but swap Beantown for Melbourne, and you are watching Animal Kingdom.

Australian actress Jacki Weaver has gotten a lot of attention for her role as mother “Smurf,” the reptilian matriarch of the crime family in Kingdom, but – at least until the final minutes of the film – her part is relatively small.  Weaver is good, but this movie belongs to Ben Mendelsohn as eldest son Andrew.  Andrew just wants to be helpful, he’ll tell you.  Are you gay, but hesitant to “come out”?  Sit down and talk to Andrew about it.  Having troubles with your teenage girlfriend? Andrew can be your friend and counselor.  But beware, because Andrew isn’t always so friendly ….

Animal Kingdom is compelling, but like The Town, it’s not a great movie.  Part of the problem, I think, lies with the young protagonist, Joshua.  Joshua is a typical teenage boy, full of angst yet shy to the point of being a complete enigma.  He is a blank slate, and it’s tough for an audience to relate to blank slates.      Grade:  B

Director:  David Michod  Cast:  Ben Mendelsohn, Joel Edgerton, Guy Pearce, Luke Ford, Jacki Weaver, Sullivan Stapleton, James Frecheville, Dan Wyllie, Anthony Hayes, Laura Wheelwright  Release:  2010

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The best movies don’t end well.  By that, I mean that their fadeouts are bittersweet, ambiguous, or flat-out depressing.  Citizen Kane dies, alone and friendless.  Rick and Ilsa are separated, apparently for good.  Old Yeller gets shot.

Blue Valentine is that kind of movie, and that’s a good thing.  Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams play (superbly) a married couple that would seem to have it all.  Young, bright, and white in America – if these two can’t attain the American Dream, what hope is there for anyone?

Director Derek Cianfrance films his romantic tragedy in a documentary style, which is both a strength and a weakness.  The sense of eavesdropping on private moments lends credibility and depth to the proceedings, and yet ….

Movies similar to Blue Valentine in the past – I am thinking specifically of Days of Wine and Roses and Two for the Road – relied heavily on melodrama.  Alcohol was a major culprit in Roses; infidelity reared its ugly head in Road.  There are no such obvious trappings in Cianfrance’s movie.  Two nice people run up against something much more mundane:  dashed expectations about married life.

I’m sure that mirrors reality for many people, and it suits the realistic tone of the film.  But I wanted something more.  I was watching, after all, a product of the Hollywood Dream Factory.  Where was the stirring soundtrack, emphasizing dramatic highs and lows?  Why were there no villains – human or otherwise – for me to hiss?  Instead of emotional catharsis, I left the cinema with this feeling:  shit happens.     Grade:  B+

Director:  Derek Cianfrance  Cast:  Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams, Faith Wladyka, John Doman, Mike Vogel, Marshall Johnson, Jen Jones, Maryann Plunkett, James Benatti  Release:  2010

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