The Grouchy Editor

If you live in the city, or near the city, it can be easy to forget that there are multiple Americas.  Hollywood excels at showing us how rich America lives, and that’s where it spends most of its time.  We don’t call our movie capital “Tinseltown” for nothing.  When films do depict the poor, the stories are almost always drug-related, crime-related, and set in the inner city.

Then along comes a film like Winter’s Bone, just to remind us that there are other Americans out there, people sometimes referred to as “poor white trash,” people like 17-year-old Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence).  Ree lives in the Ozark Mountains with her mentally ill mother and two siblings, both of them still children.  When her drug-dealing father abandons the family and puts their ramshackle home up as bail bond, it’s up to Ree to either find him or risk losing the homestead.

Winter’s Bone is worth seeing for atmosphere alone.  Ree’s rural neighbors are all colorful, but flesh-and-blood colorful, not caricatures.  At times, the movie feels less like fictional drama than like an old Charles Kuralt, “On the Road” TV special.  Lawrence, in a breakout performance as the unflinching, tough-as-nails Ree, will probably get Oscar consideration, but she’s matched by sad-eyed John Hawkes, playing her deceptively resourceful uncle.

There is one flaw to this movie, and it affects its overall impact:  The story is slight.   Writer-director Debra Granik builds dramatic tension as Ree hunts for her elusive father, but the payoff is not strong.  That lack of dramatic meat isn’t fatal, but it does prevent a very good movie from becoming a truly great one.       Grade:  B+

Director:  Debra Granik  Cast:  Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes, Kevin Breznahan, Dale Dickey, Garret Dillahunt, Shelley Waggener, Lauren Sweetser, Sheryl Lee  Release:  2010

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Let me propose a little scenario.  You go to the cinema, purchase a ticket, grab some popcorn, and find a seat somewhere in the middle of the theater.  I walk in and sit down right behind you.  You have your buttery popcorn; I have a cattle prod.  Every 10 or 15 minutes, preferably during a quiet scene in the movie, I lean forward and ZAP! you in the ass with my cattle prod.  Then we both resume watching the film, until I decide to ZAP! you again.  When you leave the theater, you tell all of your friends that you went to a scary movie and jumped out of your seat numerous times.

Sound absurd?  To me, my cattle prod and I are just a low-tech version of what filmmakers routinely do to audiences with modern horror flicks.  Case in point: The Crazies.  I counted at least half a dozen moments in which, ZAP!, a hand, face, shadow, or whatever suddenly pops into the frame, accompanied by what sounds like a ton of bricks being dropped onto a piano keyboard, or shrieking violins out of an orchestra pit from hell.  The soundtrack is nothing more than the high-tech equivalent of my cattle prod, a cheap way to make you jump in lieu of genuine fright.

In the case of The Crazies, that’s too bad, because as horror films go, director Breck Eisner’s movie is pretty good.  In fact, it’s much better than most films in the genre. Of course, the bar is set so low for horror movies that you can take that praise for what it’s worth.  But The Crazies is well directed and edited with an eye for tension. Also, the actors actually seem like real people.

I think we are overdue for a horror-movie renaissance.  The last time that occurred was in the 1970s, and the genre seems to rejuvenate itself every 40 years or so, and so the time is ripe.  Great scare films seem to have one thing in common:  We are intrigued by the characters, not just the situation.  Think of Jack Nicholson in The Shining, or Linda Blair in The Exorcist.  When I think back on The Crazies, I’ll recall it as a decent horror movie — but mostly I’ll think of cattle prods.         Grade:  B-

Director:  Breck Eisner  Cast:  Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Joe Anderson, Danielle Panabaker, Christie Lynn Smith, Brett Rickaby  Release:  2010

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Correct me if I’m wrong, but if you set out to satirize something, shouldn’t your movie be a bit smarter and wittier than whatever it is you’re satirizing?

I’m old enough to remember the 1980s (vaguely) and its films, and one thing I recall is that comedies back then didn’t rely exclusively on flatulence, bodily fluids, arrested development, and foul-mouthed mean-spiritedness for 99 percent of their humor.  Granted, a lot of the ‘80s movies were garbage — but they didn’t smell as bad as Hot Tub Time Machine.

God knows the ‘80s look awful enough in this film.  From the dreadful sitcoms on background TVs to the stick-your-finger-in-an-electrical-socket hairdos, it’s easy to see why the four characters who get magically transported back to 1986 want so desperately to return to the present.  Not so easy to understand is why John Cusack, an actor I once admired, now seems to be in a race with Robert Downey, Jr. to see who can taint his acting legacy the fastest.  Faring better than Cusack is gentle-giant Craig Robinson, who is featured in the few scenes in Machine that are genuinely funny.

Time-machine comedies can work.  For evidence of that, you need only go back to, well, the 1980s (Back to the Future).  But as I stared, glassy-eyed and foggy-brained, at this mess of a movie on DVD, I was happy that I had my own time machine – the fast-forward button on my remote.      Grade:  D-

Director:  Steve Pink  Cast:  John Cusack, Clark Duke, Craig Robinson, Rob Corddry, Sebastian Stan, Lyndsy Fonseca, Crispin Glover, Chevy Chase, Lizzy Caplan, Collette Wolfe, Crystal Lowe, Jessica Pare  Release:  2010

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If you plan to read Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, here’s a piece of advice:  Don’t feel bad about skipping certain chapters to get to the good parts.  The novel deserves its reputation as great literature, no question, but you have to be a dedicated military historian – or have the patience of a saint – to suffer through the lengthy passages that Tolstoy devotes to Napoleon’s march through Russia.

Similarly, much of The Last Station, a movie about Tolstoy’s final days in 1910, is an exercise in frustration.  The plot centers on a battle over the old man’s will.  Should Tolstoy’s considerable fortune go to his wife, Sofya (Helen Mirren), or to the Russian people, as advocated by Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti) and the idealistic Tolstoyans?

I’m no Russian historian, but if we are to believe events as played in The Last Station, it seems to me that none of them were deserving of an inheritance.  Chertkov is presented as a mustache-twirling blackguard; Sofya, though charming, is not exactly a needy peasant girl.  She lives in the lap of luxury, and her self-serving “suicide” attempt (in front of a crowd of potential rescuers) is not endearing.  She is a materialistic woman, and Tolstoy himself is either naïve or misguided.  In short, there is no one to really root for in this story.

The filmmakers intend that we find James McAvoy and Kerry Condon, as young lovers who parallel old-timers Leo and Sofya, appealing enough to cheer for, but they are an afterthought to the main plot.  The film belongs to Mirren and Plummer.  They were both Oscar-nominated, and it’s amusing to see them joust.  But not amusing enough to overcome a frustrating script.         Grade:  B-

Director:  Michael Hoffman  Cast:  James McAvoy, Helen Mirren, Christopher Plummer, Paul Giamatti, Kerry Condon, Anne-Marie Duff  Release:  2009

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Pity the poor Baby Boomers.  … OK, OK, so screw the Boomers.  Boomers, as they never tire of reminding us, gave us the civil rights movement and The Beatles.  Of course, they also gave us skyrocketing divorce rates and the breakup of the American family, but hey, let’s not talk about that.

Every generation has its own movie stars, and none is more emblematic of the Boomer than Michael Douglas.  Little Boomers once sprawled on their parents’ living-room floors and watched young Douglas on TV as Steve Keller, solving crime on The Streets of San Francisco.  Later, Boomers moved out of the house and discovered fun and adventure with Douglas in Romancing the Stone.  But the Boomers and Kirk Douglas’s boy also had a serious side.  They took on environmental issues with The China Syndrome and confronted divorce in The War of the Roses.  Alas, in the 1980s, Boomers tired of their endless good deeds, and Douglas’s Gordon Gekko taught everyone that “greed is good” in Wall Street.

So now, as the golden years approach, what does the iconic Douglas have to say in Solitary Man?  Nothing very good.  Apparently, you can “have it all” – just not all at once.  Ben Kalmen (Douglas) is an auto dealer, pushing 60 and finding his life on the skids.  Kalmen’s health is declining, his business is ruined by scandal, and chasing tail isn’t as easy as it once was.  He has managed to alienate his own family in his relentless pursuit of the fountain of youth.  But you’re only as old as you feel, right Ben?

The final shot in Solitary Man is pure gold.  Kalmen must make a choice between something solid and reassuring, or something more in keeping with the Boomer mantras of free love and self-expression.  Which one should he choose?  Don’t ask me.  I’m a Boomer, myself, so how would I know?         Grade:  A-

Directors:  Brian Koppelman, David Levien  Cast:  Michael Douglas, Susan Sarandon, Danny DeVito, Mary-Louise Parker, Jenna Fischer, Imogen Poots, Jesse Eisenberg, Olivia Thirlby, Richard Schiff, Anastasia Griffith  Release:  2010

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I’ll bet The Book of Eli looked great on paper.  In some Hollywood conference room, the movie’s sales pitch might have gone something like this:  “Post-apocalyptic – but with a serious theme (we’ve included the King James Bible!).  We’ve got Denzel on board; he’s going to produce, as well.  And the picture will look great – special effects galore!  As for plot, well, we’ve borrowed some stuff from Ray Bradbury’s story, Fahrenheit 451, so we’re not too concerned about that, and audiences love twist endings.  Boy, have we got a twist ending!”

The Book of Eli is certainly stylish, and it really does look great.  Its barren, desert landscapes resemble a montage of the coolest-looking album covers you can imagine.  And Denzel Washington is suitably somber, doing his best “man with no name,” Clint Eastwood-channeling.  Gary Oldman is, as always, eminently watchable as the movie’s villain, a cackling madman who decides that the Bible is all he needs to expand his post-nuclear slice of America.

It is The Book of Eli’s misfortune that it opened so close to the premiere of a much superior after-the-bomb movie, The Road.  I guess the cinematography and art direction are grander in Eli than in Road, and a bit more “happens,” plot-wise, in Denzel’s movie.  But all of Washington’s glum stares, ominous growls, and a somber, strings-heavy soundtrack can’t overcome the pretentious, derivative story, shallow characters, and preposterous twist ending.         Grade:  C+

Directors:  Albert Hughes, Allen Hughes  Cast:  Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Mila Kunis, Ray Stevenson, Jennifer Beals, Michael Gambon, Tom Waits, Malcolm McDowell  Release:  2010

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Want to know what makes comedienne Joan Rivers tick?  Curious if Rivers believes in God or in an afterlife?  What drives this woman, now 77, wealthy and secure, to still play rundown nightclubs in the Bronx and backwater venues in Wisconsin?

Surprise!  You won’t find the answers to any of those questions in Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, the new documentary covering one year in the workaholic comic’s life.  You also won’t laugh very much during the film.  There are occasional clips of Rivers performing on stage — and then you’ll probably laugh (I did) — but this movie is not a concert film, and it’s not a very detailed biography, either.

What Joan Rivers is, however, is a riveting look at Rivers right now.   Conventional wisdom declares that people either love her or hate her, but to this reviewer, sitting here entrenched in “the end of the world” (Rivers’s conception of the Midwest, in her view anywhere outside of New York and L.A.), Rivers is not so black or white.  She is more like an odd lab specimen.  She defies every grandmother stereotype, whether she’s competing with daughter Melissa on The Celebrity Apprentice, joking about anal sex on stage, or yelling back at the heckling father of a deaf child, calling the man a bastard.

There are surprises about this show-business legend.  Rivers first and foremost considers herself an actress – not a comedienne, which she considers just another acting role.  She lives in an apartment she deems worthy of Marie Antoinette, yet she also delivers meals to the disabled on Thanksgiving.  She allows the documentarians to film unflattering footage of her surgically enhanced face, decries deceased husband Edgar as a poor businessman, and doesn’t hesitate to name names in a roll call of comics she does or does not favor (Maher, Stewart, and Rickles get passing grades;  Ben Stiller, not so much).

Above all, Rivers is ceaselessly entertaining.  The movie is amusing because with Rivers there is no alternative.  The filmmakers could have placed a camera on a tripod in her living room and left town for a week, and I’m sure whenever Rivers was in view, the result would be hilarious.

We are told that Rivers, like all comedians, is a “damaged” soul in need of constant audience approval.  We read Entertainment Weekly, so we already knew that.  But what caused Rivers’s psychic trauma?  I still don’t have a clue, and that’s my only complaint about this fascinating documentary.          Grade:  B+

Directors:  Ricki Stern, Anne Sundberg  Featuring:  Joan Rivers, Melissa Rivers, Kathy Griffin, Emily Kosloski, Mark Anderson Phillips, Larry A. Thompson, Don Rickles  Release:  2010

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Alice in Wonderland is a smorgasbord of rainbow-hued vistas, mist-enshrouded glens, and hallucinogenic castles, most of it photographed in vivid, primary colors.  I haven’t had posters on my bedroom wall since college, but after feasting on director Tim Burton’s visual delights, I’m considering big ones of Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen and Anne Hathaway as the White Queen.  (I’ll tack them up right where Farrah Fawcett used to hang out.)  Burton’s images will be my lasting impression of Alice in Wonderland, I’m certain.  Unfortunately, I’m also pretty sure that everything else about his movie will fade from memory in no time at all.

I’ll forget that the surrealistic special effects were so eye-popping that I spent most of the film staring at them – completely oblivious to any plot developments.  I’ll remember Johnny Depp’s makeup as the Mad Hatter – and not recall that he was horribly miscast in the role.  Depp is a fine thespian, but the Mad Hatter requires a quirky, physically unusual actor, not someone who looks like a matinee idol in clown makeup.

Everything takes second place to the look of this movie.  Alice author Lewis Carroll’s written wit is not here.  There is nothing remotely humorous about what Tweedledum and Tweedledee have to say in the film, but boy, they sure look cool. Fake, but cool.

Alice in Wonderland is a prime example of what happens when story and character play second fiddle to computer and motion-capture effects.  I did not see Burton’s film in 3-D, and I can imagine it is even more visually impressive in that format.  But it’s a sad day when you go to watch a story by the great nonsense-writer Carroll, and watch it is all you do, no listening required.            Grade:  C-

Director:  Tim Burton  Cast:  Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Crispin Glover, Matt Lucas  Release:  2010

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