The Grouchy Editor

There’s nothing more frustrating than a movie like Sherlock Holmes.

You watch it, and you’re impressed by all the loving care that went into the art direction, the special effects, the costumes, the musical score, the editing, the direction.  Hell, I was even impressed by the end credits.   And then there is Robert Downey, Jr. and his quirky, entertaining Sherlock Holmes.  Downey is a true talent, and if there’s a sequel, as I’m  sure there will be, I’ll look forward to Downey as Holmes again.

But what grates is that, with all of the millions of dollars and energy spent on the factors named above, the film itself  is only average.  It’s a mediocre movie because, once again, every expensive frill trumps what ought to be the most important element:  a good script.  It seems likely that producers instructed the writers that there was CGI for a shipbuilding yard, and spectacular effects for a bridge across London’s Thames, so be sure to build the story around those set pieces.

Stephen King recently wrote an essay about the merits and demerits of the Kindle, Amazon’s electronic reader.  “There’s a troubling lightness to the [Kindle’s] content … a not-thereness,” King wrote.  That’s similar to how I feel about modern special effects.  They look cool, but you know they’re fake, and so you spend time looking for flaws.  Unfortunately, flaws are also easy to spot in the screenplay for Sherlock Holmes.      Grade:  C+

Director:  Guy Ritchie  Cast:  Robert Downey, Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Eddie Marsan, Mark Strong, Kelly Reilly, James Fox  Release:  2009

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When I read that Nick Hornby, a favorite writer of mine, had written the screenplay for An Education, my spirits rose.  Who better, I thought, to translate a coming-of-age memoir about a 16-year-old girl in 1961 London than Hornby, an aging male Baby Boomer like myself?

Yeah, right.

But does Hornby pull it off?  Mostly.  I thought An Education was touching, funny, and with a few exceptions, true.  Is it true to teenage-girl life, circa 1961?  Were parents of teenage girls as naïve as they are in this film?  I have no idea.  I’d have to consult with a group of 16-year-old girls, or girls who were 16 fifty years ago.  What I do know is that the film is witty and the performances are captivating.

Carey Mulligan, as young Jenny, might have lost out on an Oscar this year, but I don’t think there’s much question we’ll be seeing a lot more of her.  An Education is really just soap opera, a morality tale about making bad choices and living with consequences; in other words, it’s a film we’ve seen many times before.  But it’s a story that never grows old because it’s a story that never changes, whether it’s 1961 or 2010.  At least I think so.  I’ll have to consult with some teenage girls.     Grade:  B

Director:  Lone Scherfig  Cast:  Peter Sarsgaard, Carey Mulligan, Alfred Molina, Rosamund Pike, Dominic Cooper, Olivia Williams, Cara Seymour, Emma Thompson, Matthew Beard, Sally Hawkins  Release:  2009

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One sign of a great movie is the images it leaves with you.  My favorite visual from Let the Right One In occurs in a swimming pool near the end of the film … but describing it would be a spoiler, so I’ll refrain.

Another indicator that a foreign film excels is when Hollywood announces plans for a remake.  Sadly, just such a plan is in the works for this brilliant Swedish movie from 2008.  But for now, we can still appreciate the original.

So how does this movie stand apart from the glut of other vampire films?  It is certainly not the scariest vampire movie you’ll ever see, but it might be the best.  A lot of the credit goes to Lina Leandersson’s performance as Eli, the young heroine with a taste for blood.  I’m not sure why, but prepubescent females make for some of the most frightening characters in horror.  I’m thinking of Linda Blair in The Exorcist, and the girl climbing through a television in The Ring.  Maybe it’s because in real life, young females are the least threatening members of society, and so when they do turn on you ….

Let the Right One In has more than strong performances; it has Swedish atmosphere, always cold, quiet, and creepy.  And director Tomas Alfredson does not rush things (I’ll bet the American remake won’t pause for a second).  Oh, and did I mention that this film is also a haunting love story?     Grade:  A-

Director:  Tomas Alfredson  Cast:  Kare Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar, Henrik Dahl, Karin Bergquist, Peter Carlberg, Ika Nord, Karl-Robert Lindgren  Release:  2008

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Since The Blind Side is purportedly about football, allow me to divide the film into halves:  The movie scores in its first half, but develops a severe case of fumble-itis in the second half.  Half One works well because it skillfully manipulates the audience.  There is nothing wrong with that.  All movies “manipulate” the audience — that’s what directors and editors are paid to do.  It’s only when we don’t care for a flick that we use the “M” word derisively. 

Blind Side gets off to its great start on the strength of star Sandra Bullock’s charisma.  Bullock is the queen of feistiness and the half-smile.  Her youngest child says something precocious?  Cut to a Bullock half-smile.  Her husband does something endearingly stupid?  Close-up shot of that half-smile.

Into Bullock’s charmed, upper-middle-class life comes Michael Oher, a teenaged giant from the Memphis slums with a teddy-bear personality and no place to sleep at night.  Bullock and her brood take the kid in.  I haven’t read the Michael Lewis book upon which  Blind Side is based but, according to critics who have, what follows in the film is very loosely based on the truth.  Young Michael’s adaptation to the privileged, white world of the Tuohy family was not so tidy in reality.

But no matter.  This is a Hollywood movie, and director John Lee Hancock’s artistic liberties make for a touching and funny first half.  Ironically, The Blind Side starts to collapse the minute its focus turns to football.  No amount of manipulation can change the feeling that we’ve seen this plot many times before, and even Bullock’s charm can’t stave off the staleness.     Grade:  C+

Director:  John Lee Hancock  Cast:  Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, Kathy Bates, Quinton Aaron, Jae Head, Lily Collins  Release:  2009

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There is a car chase in Roman Polanski’s new thriller, The Ghost Writer.  As car chases go, it’s not much of one.  It’s over shortly after it begins, and there are no crashes.  You have to wonder if it was inserted at the studio’s behest, something to spice up the trailers and lure in Joe and Mary Sixpack.  Having made that observation,  I’ll say The Ghost Writer is one of the year’s best movies.

That’s because Polanski, that old pro, has delivered a first-class psychological thriller, or, on second thought, a mental thriller.  The exiled director gathered a veteran cast, moved filming to Northern Europe (the story takes place on the U.S. east coast), and then assembled the pieces of his puzzle with loving attention to detail.

Ewan McGregor is a perfect everyman, an innocuous (and unnamed, in the story) ghost writer surrounded by perilous people and perilous places.  McGregor’s writer finds himself embroiled in not just a political whodunit, but also a “whatdunit,” and Polanski’s cast members — Pierce Brosnan, Olivia Williams, Tom Wilkinson, and Robert Pugh, in particular —  all ooze menace.

The movie is a tad too long and it could do with one or two less red herrings, but it’s something all too rare at today’s cineplex:  a thriller that doesn’t need any damn car chases.      Grade  B+

Director:  Roman Polanski  Cast:  Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Cattrall, Olivia Williams, Eli Wallach, James Belushi, Timothy Hutton, Tom Wilkinson  Release:  2010

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Where the Wild Things Are has everything:  breathtaking Australian scenery, with foaming surf pounding barren cliffsides; magical sets in which miniature worlds come to life; a quirky musical score that fully complements the story’s surreal atmosphere.  Oh, and did I mention it has actors in giant animal suits?

Where the Wild Things Are is certainly not a bad film — if you happen to be nine years old.  I found it excruciating.  I kept glancing at my watch to see when it would end, and I don’t wear a watch.  I might be one of six people in America who has not read Maurice Sendak’s beloved story, but there was nothing in director Spike Jonze’s crashing bore of a film to send me rushing to the bookstore.

I can’t completely trash the movie, because for all I know, it really does hold appeal for the tots in our midst.  But its arty pretentiousness leads me to think that Jonze was targeting adults, as well.  But whatever metaphors or embrace-your-inner-child motivations the filmmakers might have had are lost in this soggy mess, in which the whining “monsters” are more annoying than the young protagonist.

And did I mention there are actors in giant animal suits?  Sheesh.     Grade:  D

Director:  Spike Jonze  Cast:  Paul Dano, Forest Whitaker, Mark Ruffalo, Catherine Keener, Catherine O’Hara, Max Records, Lauren Ambrose, James Gandolfini, Chris Cooper  Release:  2009

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I recently saw 1947’s The Egg and I on television, and I kept thinking about that old comedy as I watched Did You Hear About the Morgans?, a film that aspires to Egg-like humor, with Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker playing an estranged couple stuck in Wyoming under the witness protection program.  People complain that “they just don’t make movies the way they used to,” but you can’t say Hollywood doesn’t try, and Morgans is a perfect example.

Grant is certainly a better comic actor than Egg’s Fred MacMurray, although Parker is no match for Claudette Colbert.  But Grant and Parker can both handle romantic comedy, and the fish-out-of-water plot device never gets old — does it?  So why doesn’t this material work better in 2010?  I think it’s just a sign of the times. 

Sixty years ago, MacMurray’s flirtation with a neighboring rich lady was amusing, whereas Grant and Parker actually cheating on each other is not.  And it was okay to poke fun at Ma and Pa Kettle in 1947, but laughing at Wyoming “country folk” who own computers and satellite dishes seems forced and condescending today.

Still, Morgans has its share of genuine chuckles.  The movie might not be able to channel Hollywood’s golden age, but it’s fun to watch it try.    Grade:  C

Director:  Marc Lawrence  Cast:  Hugh Grant, Sarah Jessica Parker, Sam Elliott, Mary Steenburgen, Elizabeth Moss, Michael Kelly, Wilford Brimley  Release:  2009

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I am of two minds about (500) Days of Summer.  I loved its bittersweet, realistic denouement.  The young actors in this romantic comedy are attractive and talented.  But there is only one word to describe my reaction to much of what precedes that poignant ending:  boredom.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel are likable as the young-lover protagonists, and the filmmakers deserve kudos for avoiding Judd Apatow plotting; the screenplay, refreshingly, seems not to have been informed by drunken frat boys.  But the screenplay is still the problem — not enough happens in it.  Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel meet, become a couple, break up … and that’s about it.  Their discussions about his architecture and her dreams of losing her teeth are not the stuff of great wit or great drama.

But as I said, the ending is very good.  And I’ll have to admit, I’d probably like the movie a lot more if I were 25 instead of, well, the age I am.      Grade:  B-

Director:  Marc Webb  Cast:  Zooey Deschanel, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Clark Gregg, Minka Kelly, Matthew Gray Gubler, Rachel Boston, Geoffrey Arend, Chloe Moretz  Release:  2009

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