The Grouchy Editor

It’s funny how one flaw in a movie can make all the difference between an enjoyable time or an exasperating experience.  Cell 211, a Spanish prison thriller, is absorbing for about 30 minutes – but then a key relationship that does not ring true spoils all the fun.

The movie has a clever premise.  A rookie prison guard has just walked into the joint when all hell breaks loose.  There is a riot, violence and, in the confusion, guard trainee Juan (Alberto Ammann) is mistaken for one of the inmates.  He becomes trapped with hundreds of vicious cons as tense negotiations begin between prison officials and the inmates’ leader, Malamadre (Luis Tosar).

And this is where the movie lost me.  Implausibly, the tough, shrewd Malamadre is so impressed by a couple of seemingly pro-inmate suggestions made by newcomer Juan that the hardened con and the stubble-faced young man quickly become Best Friends Forever.  This plot absurdity turns what might have been a tense thrill ride into a series of “yeah, right” moments.

I don’t generally read a lot of reviews before writing mine, but yesterday I noticed two local scribes with opposite takes on Cell 211.   Said Critic Number One:  “It’s a great, simple premise, and I will be surprised if we don’t get an American remake … this may be one case where a remake is justified.”  Said Critic Number Two:  “I’ll bet you $100 that Hollywood snaps up this property for a glossy, star-studded remake. I’ll bet you $1,000 that this version is better.”

I’m taking the side of Critic Number One.  For once, Hollywood has the opportunity to actually improve on a foreign film.         Grade:  C

Director:  Daniel Monzon  Cast:  Luis Tosar, Alberto Ammann, Antonio Resines, Manuel Moron, Carlos Bardem, Marta Etura  Release:  2009

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Say the word “pedophile,” and most people look the other way.  In Life During Wartime, director Todd Solondz asks you to spend 96 minutes not looking away – just to see, you know, if you might learn something about this uncomfortable subject.  Solondz does everything in his power to keep you watching.  Much of the film is shot in sunny Florida, with bright colors, pretty people, and polite conversation.  Ah, but what lurks between the lines of those conversations ….

We hear a lot in our news media about the victims of sex abuse.  What goes under-reported is the devastation wreaked on the families of the abusers – those siblings, wives, and children who are not abused themselves, but who are nevertheless affected.  The emphasis is on these people in Wartime, and there is much talk about “forgetting” and “forgiving.”

Although most of the film is about these relatives, its most powerful scene is between the pedophile himself, recently released from prison, and his college-student son.  It’s a short scene, and there are no histrionics, but actors Ciaran Hinds and Chris Marquette turn it into the most potent five minutes in the movie.

I suppose some viewers will feel that, by focusing on the father in this dramatic scene, Solondz is asking us to empathize with a child molester.  I didn’t see it that way.  I saw it as a filmmaker pointing his camera at two talented actors, letting the scene unfold, and simply saying to the audience, “Here.  This is unpleasant but this is what happens.  You be the judge.”              Grade:  B+

Director:  Todd Solondz  Cast:  Allison Janney, Shirley Henderson, Michael Lerner, Dylan Riley Snyder, Ciaran Hinds, Michael K. Williams, Paul Reubens, Charlotte Rampling, Ally Sheedy, Chris Marquette  Release:  2010

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Every little kid knows the bogeyman.  The bogeyman hides in the bedroom closet, or lurks on the floor beneath the bed.  Fortunately, most kids grow up and find out who the real scary people are:  math teachers and driving instructors.  But for documentarians Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio, both of whom grew up on New York’s Staten Island, the bogeyman never really went away.  He is, apparently, still haunting them.

Zeman and Brancaccio wrote and directed Cropsey, a documentary about child abductions and the alleged, real-life bogeyman behind them.  The filmmakers grew up in the 1980s during what surely must have been a nightmare-come-true for Staten Island parents:  Children kept disappearing, and one of them was found dead and buried near the site of an abandoned mental hospital.  Suspicion fell on a middle-aged drifter named Andre Rand, and this pathetic outcast became the borough’s “Cropsey” (a Hudson Valley nickname for any ax-wielding bogeyman) as related in this creepy – yet ultimately unsatisfying – movie.

I call it unsatisfying because, try though they might, Zeman and Brancaccio never get past gossip, rumor, and speculation regarding the decades-old disappearance of five children on the New York island.  Rand was eventually convicted of kidnapping two of the kids, though he never confessed to their killings, and no additional bodies were ever recovered.  This lack of hard evidence forces Zeman and Brancaccio to venture all sorts of hypotheses, including:  Rand, who once worked as an attendant at the notorious Willowbrook mental institution, was seeking to rid the world of mentally disabled children;  Rand was under the influence of a devil-worshipping cult, which roamed a network of subterranean tunnels beneath the ruins of Willowbrook.

There are no revelations from Rand, no interviews with him, but instead lots of wide-eyed theories posited by regular folk and authorities.   But all of this speculation – from police, citizens, reporters, “experts” – has no payoff.  Rand remains in prison, possibly guilty, possibly the scapegoat of a fearful, ignorant community.  This ambiguity kills Cropsey, rendering it just a big-screen version of Dateline NBC when the film’s focus shifts from horror to courtroom politics.

Unfortunately for Zeman and Brancaccio, their bogeyman stayed in the bedroom closet … when they really needed him to come out.          Grade:  C-

Directors:  Joshua Zeman, Barbara Brancaccio  Featuring:  Donna Cutugno, Karen Schweiger, David Novarro, Ralph Aquino  Release:  2009

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You have to wonder how much time actor Mads Mikkelsen spent examining his own face in the mirror after accepting the lead role in Valhalla Rising, an artsy/gory Viking saga set in 1000 AD.   As the enigmatic warrior-slave “One Eye” (his character has, uh, one eye), Mikkelsen utters not a single line of dialogue in the film.  Not one.  Compared to this brooding Norseman, Clint Eastwood’s “Man With No Name” was a veritable Chatty Cathy doll.

Mikkelsen does, however, spend a lot of time gazing.  Sometimes he casts a meaningful gaze.  Other times, it’s a haunting gaze.  From time to time, he displays a mournful gaze.  And when he’s having a “vision,” his gaze turns bloodshot red.  One Eye might not say much, but the man does have an active fantasy life.

I suppose you could argue that in medieval Britain, there wasn’t that much to talk about.  Life in 1000 was short and brutal; “instant messaging” was likely a pickaxe to the skull, and too much gabbing got in the way of looting and pillaging.  When One Eye escapes bondage and joins up with some Christian Vikings, “conversation” often consists of a simple question, followed by 45 seconds of silence, and then, with any luck, a perfunctory reply.  Or more likely, additional gazing.   At times in this film, I longed for the sophisticated verbal interplay of, say, Deathstalker.

There is also very little plot in the film.  Again, you could argue that outside of simple survival, there wasn’t that much to do in 1000.  Director Nicolas Winding Refn fills a mid-movie script hole by sending his crusaders on an interminably long ocean voyage.  To give him due credit, Refn’s visuals are often striking, and his movie (shot in Scotland) is certainly atmospheric; in fact, at times it is nothing but atmosphere.  But I digress.  Back to our crusading heroes:  The Christian Vikings’ quest for fame and fortune in Jerusalem takes a nasty wrong turn somewhere, and the bearded ones wind up discovering North America.

After that endless sea voyage, I was prepared for a rip-roaring windup to the movie.  Surely, One Eye would stop his soulful gazing long enough to engage in some sort of bloody battle.   I checked his resume, and learned that director Refn’s recent credits include – of all things — a TV episode of “Miss Marple.”  After all that refined gentility, Refn would certainly cut loose with a testosterone-laden, heart-pounding climax to Valhalla, wouldn’t he?  Alas, once again I was destined to pine for Deathstalker.  A North American savage clobbers One Eye on the head, our hero keels over, and the end credits roll.  This disappointing denouement dumbfounded me, and I could only sit before the screen, gazing mournfully.       Grade:  C

Director:  Nicolas Winding Refn  Cast:  Mads Mikkelsen, Maarten Stevenson, Gordon Brown, Andrew Flanagan, Gary Lewis, Gary McCormack, Alexander Morton  Release:  2010

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And so this summer of over-hype marches on.  First, movie audiences were treated to Inception, an okay thriller that misguided “fanboys” praised as the second coming of Citizen Kane.  For the indie crowd, we now have The Kids Are All Right, a film that many critics are lauding as the second coming of … what?  Yours, Mine and Ours?

I don’t want to denigrate Lisa Cholodenko’s Kids, which is a fine movie, but despite its trendy family unit headed by a pair of lesbians, the film is a lot more conventional than you might think.  Rewrite Annette Bening’s character as a male, and you’re viewing a “family values” comedy-drama that might have starred Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball in the 1960s – minus the sex scenes and obscenities, of course.

Kids is a nice movie with nice characters and a bittersweet ending – nothing more, nothing less.  Bening and Julianne Moore play the moms of two teenagers, and Mark Ruffalo portrays an anonymous sperm donor who, 18 years after his donation, is tracked down by the curious boy and girl and invited into their family dynamic.  All of the characters in Kids seem like real people, which is refreshing, and you find yourself liking all of them, which is uncommon in today’s films.  I guess that’s such a rare combination that many critics can’t help falling all over themselves in praising the movie.

Kids manages to avoid excessive political correctness, a pitfall  that could have killed its feel-good nature.  You will probably leave the theater with a smile on your face, which certainly counts for something.        Grade:  B+

Director:  Lisa Cholodenko  Cast:  Julianne Moore, Annette Bening, Mark Ruffalo, Mia Wasikowska, Josh Hutcherson, Yaya DaCosta, Kunal Sharma, Rebecca Lawrence  Release:  2010

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