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04Jan

Reviews in Short: January 2013

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Midnight Movie If you like low-budget horror, there’s a lot to like about this one. It has a spunky heroine (Rebekah Brandes) who might be the most appealing “scream queen” since Jamie Lee Curtis, a clever setup (trapped with a killer in a movie theater), and one line — “You want her? You gotta go through me first!” — that, in context, is priceless. Sadly, it also has the usual bane of low-budget schlock: a plot that quickly turns preposterous. Release: 2008 Grade: C+

*****

Source Code It’s Groundhog Day for poor Jake Gyllenhaal, who must repeatedly travel back in time to prevent an act of terrorism — and repeatedly get blown up in the process. Clever ideas are introduced, but cramming action-movie sequences, a budding romance, and metaphysical musings into one 93-minute film results in an incoherent mess. Release: 2011 Grade: B-

*****

The Orphanage This Spanish chiller about a woman (Belen Rueda) returning to her childhood home, an orphanage, is a handsome production, replete with moody, haunting atmosphere — but not much in the way of actual scares. Orphanage doesn’t insult your intelligence, which is refreshing, but several plot elements in this ghost story are a bit, ahem, familiar. Release: 2007 Grade: B

*****

The Paperboy An odd mix of black comedy with lurid sex, murder, and mayhem, The Paperboy is too all over the place to completely satisfy, but individual scenes and performances are memorable — especially drooling, malevolent John Cusack as a Florida swampland hick who might have been unjustly imprisoned for murder. Release: 2012 Grade: B-

*****

Orphan With just a tweak here and a nudge there, Orphan might have joined the likes of The Sixth Sense and The Exorcist as one of the great horror films. It has a delicious twist, some fine performances and, unlike those other films, it manages to frighten without resorting to the supernatural. Eleven-year-old Isabelle Fuhrman, utterly convincing as the titular demon-child, almost — but not quite — pulls off a pivotal transformation late in the film; if she had, Linda Blair might have had competition in evil kid horror-movie history. Release: 2009 Grade: B+

03Jan

Skyfall

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In Skyfall, the legend of James Bond continues — and therein lies a problem.

When we go to a Bond movie, do we really care about his “back story,” or that he grew up as an orphan from Scotland? Do we wrack our brains trying to analyze the Freudian implications of Bond’s relationship with his boss, the redoubtable “M”? I don’t think we do. I think we go expecting to be entertained, but the Daniel Craig films are so preoccupied with being taken seriously that they sacrifice a sense of mischief. 007 films are not meant to be Greek tragedies; they are big-budget B-movies.

The producers of Skyfall did get one thing right this go-round when they cast Javier Bardem as the villain, Silva. Bardem’s smarmy bad guy is a scenery-chewing hoot — and a welcome change from the sluggish proceedings leading up to his introduction. A scene involving Silva’s, uh, mouthpiece, revives memories of Richard Kiel, the metal-toothed henchman (“Jaws”) in a pair of 1970s Bond entries. It’s a memorable scene, and it’s too bad there aren’t more like it, and too bad there isn’t more Silva in the film.

I am not a big fan of director Quentin Tarantino, but after viewing Skyfall I wondered if he might not have done a better job than Sam Mendes. At least Tarantino has a healthy appreciation of what makes a movie fun. Mendes seems to think he’s making Zero Dark Thirty, but Bond movies work best as live-action cartoons.

p.s. Everyone seems to be weighing in on whether Craig or Sean Connery plays the definitive Bond. My two cents: Connery. Sean Connery. Grade: B-

Director: Sam Mendes Cast: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Berenice Marlohe, Albert Finney, Ben Whishaw, Rory Kinnear, Ola Rapace Release: 2012

Watch Trailers and Clips (click here)

13Dec

The Redbreast

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by Jo Nesbo

Caustic critic Joe Queenan once wrote, “There is no earthly reason a mystery or thriller needs to be more than 175 pages. After a mystery writer passes the 200-page mark, it’s all ballast.” I suppose there are exceptions to Queenan’s rule, but not in this case. The Redbreast, Norwegian novelist Jo Nesbo’s 500-plus-page marathon of serial killings and romance in frigid Oslo, is mildly interesting. The characters are … mildly interesting. The sole aspect of this plodding novel to avoid a been-there-done-that sensation is its background theme about Norway’s tortured history during WWII, a topic about which I knew little.

In 2004, Norwegian book clubs declared The Redbreast the “Best Norwegian Crime Novel Ever Written.” Across the border in Sweden, I’m guessing that Henning Mankell suppressed a chuckle.

10Dec

Casino Royale (2006)

Posted in Books, Movies, TV & Web, Oldies | 1 Comment

James Bond got his license to thrill in 1962 because the first film based on Ian Fleming’s novels, Dr. No, had its tongue firmly planted in cheek. Bond, as personified by Sean Connery, kissed and he killed, but always with a wink at the audience. And we were delighted to be in on the joke. Later, in the Roger Moore years, the 007 franchise went too far and began to confuse wit for self-parody. In Octopussy, Moore/Bond even donned a clown suit. Were we supposed to laugh with him, or at him?

So now we have Daniel Craig in Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and the pendulum has swung to the other extreme. The tone of Casino Royale, Craig’s first outing in Bond’s tuxedo, is much too somber for a film loaded with outlandish set pieces. Both the movie and Craig have little sense of camp — but a modicum of camp has always distinguished the best Bond films.

The Good Stuff: As we’ve come to expect from this series, the producers do not skimp on the budget. The scenery, much of it shot in Prague and the Bahamas, is eye-catching and glamorous. There is some amazing stunt work in the opening action sequence, and an extended poker-playing scene is suspenseful, good fun.

The Other Stuff: The “Bond girls,” although fetching, do nothing to make us forget 007 hall-of-famers like Honey Ryder or Pussy Galore. The main villain (Mads Mikkelsen) is unexceptional; it’s hard to respect a bad guy who at one point gets the snot kicked out of him, and whose signature prop — an asthma inhaler — is a pale imitation of great gizmos past, such as Oddjob’s hat.

Casino Royale’s producers have said that they were seeking a more realistic tone for Craig’s debut. But when so much about Bond’s world is inherently ridiculous, too much realism can spoil the fun. What this movie needed was a hollowed-out volcano. Or perhaps Oddjob’s hat. Grade: B

Director: Martin Campbell Cast: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Judi Dench, Jeffrey Wright, Giancarlo Giannini, Caterina Murino, Simon Abkarian, Ivana Milicevic Release: 2006

Watch Trailers and Clips (click here)

03Dec

Reviews in Short: December 2012

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21 Jump Street Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum play cops who go undercover at a high school to bust drug dealers. Hill, who co-wrote the story, apparently drew inspiration from preschool memories for this immature, offensive, painfully unfunny garbage. Release: 2012 Grade: F

*****

The Hunger Games Jennifer Lawrence brings the same rural charm she rode to an Oscar nomination (for Winter’s Bone) to this entertaining, if overlong, spring blockbuster. The story — in the future, society’s upper class keeps the underclass in line by staging a televised battle to the death among selected young people — isn’t all that original, but Gary Ross’ stylish direction and Lawrence’s appeal produce riveting spectacle. Release: 2012 Grade: B+

*****

The Descendants George Clooney plays a Hawaiian lawyer who, after his wife is left comatose by a boating accident, must grapple with two rebellious daughters, greedy relatives, and one life-altering revelation. Nobody does Middle-Aged-Man-Under-Stress stories better than writer-director Alexander Payne (Sideways), whose movies click because their characters, although often behaving foolishly, worm their way into your heart. Release: 2011 Grade: A-

*****

A Separation A tense, intimate look at honor and justice, Iranian-style, as a man separating from his wife faces prison for accidentally causing — or not — a miscarriage suffered by a family caretaker. The clinical, faux-documentary style (shaky camera, no music) employed here adds to the story’s realism but also leaves what should be an emotional drama feeling a bit cold. Release: 2011 Grade: B+

*****

Killer Joe A black comedy that aims for twisted humor but mostly misses the mark. Members of a Texas trailer-trash clan hire a hit-man (Matthew McConaughey) to bump off a family member for the life insurance — but double-crosses are afoot. The acting is good, and the direction by old pro William Friedkin is slick, but any grins and giggles are drowned out by an off-putting abundance of sadistic sex and graphic violence. Release: 2012 Grade: B-

*****

Magic Mike The cable channel Cinemax used to specialize in movies like this (and maybe still does): Innocent youth takes job at strip club; older stripper takes kid under wing; bad things happen, anyway. Swap out the usual no-name cast for some Hollywood stars, add a slumming director (Steven Soderbergh) with a decent budget, trade all that girlish flesh for beefcake in thongs, and you have Magic Mike, voyeuristic claptrap that’s no better — or worse — than those late-night Cinemax flicks. Release: 2012 Grade: C-

29Nov

The Queen of Versailles

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In these contentious times, during which the “99 percent” seem to have no use for the “1 percent” — and vice versa — it’s tempting to prepare for The Queen of Versailles by polishing a bayonet and rehearsing the line, “Off with their heads!” The stars of this documentary are, after all, a filthy-rich husband and wife in the process of building the world’s largest vanity project, a 90,000-square-foot private home in Orlando, Florida. This monument to excess is rising up within shouting distance of that mecca of the common people, Disney World. Billionaire businessman David Siegel and his trophy wife, Jaqueline, liked what they saw in France and decided to recreate the famed French palace as their very own American dream home.

During the course of the film, we learn how David got rich in the timeshare business, which often involves selling pricey apartments to regular folks who don’t have much cash. We also listen to David boast that it was his influence that got George Bush elected in 2000. So the irony was heavy when Bush policies later contributed to the financial crisis that now threatens Siegel’s two Xanadus — his unfinished mansion in Florida, and Westgate Resorts, a timeshare high-rise in Las Vegas — because Siegel cannot raise enough cash.

So yes, it’s tempting to snicker when things go sour for the Siegels. Except … it’s not that simple. Director Lauren Greenfield dampens our glee by demonstrating that the Siegels, tacky as they might be, are not all that different from the rest of us. They both come from modest backgrounds, and David is nothing if not hard-working. When his (admittedly grandiose) dreams begin to fade, he is philosophical and maintains a sense of humor. He wants his kids, all eight of them, to turn off the damned lights when they leave a room.

Meanwhile, wife Jackie is a compulsive shopper who, according to her husband, is in reality the ninth child in his household. Former model Jackie means well, but seems clueless about her effect on others.

Watching this film, I was reminded of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s line in The Great Gatsby, in which he describes Tom and Daisy, a privileged pair who are not intentionally destructive:

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” Grade: B+

Director: Lauren Greenfield Featuring: David Siegel, Jackie Siegel, Virginia Nebab Release: 2012

Watch the Trailer (click here)

22Nov

One for the Books

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by Joe Queenan

Humorist Queenan, now in his 60s, says he occasionally visits the suburban Philadelphia library that he patronized in his youth, and where a librarian from that era, one Edith Prout, still toils among the shelves. One of Queenan’s books is stocked on those shelves. “Edith herself isn’t all that taken with my work,” Queenan tells us. “Too cynical, she says. Too snarky.”

I think Edith might have a point. Although Queenan’s homage to the book, in which he writes lovingly not just of his collection’s content but also of each title’s importance as a symbol of treasured moments in his life, is often funny, sometimes poignant, and frequently biting, I think One for the Books is probably best read in bits and pieces, rather than all at once – too much snarkiness can be hazardous to your health.

11Nov

Cheeky!

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It’s not easy being a “butt man” in a boobies world. When it comes to flesh and the female form in movies, the breast has always reigned supreme and, as a result, the butt man is often left behind.

So it was with a combination of cautious optimism and scholarly interest that I watched Cheeky!, Italian director Tinto Brass’s homage to the perky posterior. The movie was okay, but Brass’s comments in a DVD behind-the-scenes interview were heartening to all devotees of the derriere.

“I would like to propose myself to television with a program,” said the 67-year-old auteur. “There are some who read your palm. I’d like to go there [television] and read your ass. I would like to call it Not Just Vagina. Can you just imagine the success?”

Like any connoisseur of the caboose, Brass gave a great deal of thought to the subject of his movie before the cameras rolled for Cheeky! The director cast Ukrainian actress Yuliya Mayarchuk in the pivotal role of Carla, a young Venetian who learns that cheating on her boyfriend adds spice to their previously lackluster love life. In Mayarchuk, Brass found a willing accomplice toward his goal of shedding light on the psychology of modern women.

“Each woman is the ass that she has,” Brass says. “Actually, in addition, the ass is the mirror of the soul; in this specific case, it’s the mirror of that gorgeous Slavic soul, Yuliya Mayarchuk, who’s the lead actress of the movie.”

Although Mayarchuk was an acting unknown when the film was released in 2000, Brass had a hunch that her moon was about to rise. “She’s very good-natured, she has a great temperament, and she has a very cute little ass,” said the aesthetically minded filmmaker. Brass’s intent with Cheeky! was, first and foremost, to advance the cause of feminism through the character of Carla: “She’s a modern woman who is fully aware of her sexuality and sensuality, and of her right to enjoy it without subduing herself to a chauvinist mentality,” he said.

Just as that other cinematic giant, Alfred Hitchcock, inserted himself into his own films via cameo appearances, Brass inserted himself, and his finger, into both the movie and his young starlet. This occurs during a scene crucial to the plot in which … well, all right, perhaps the scene isn’t crucial to the plot. But Brass was intent on exploring bigger issues:

“It’s an old habit, a fixation of mine, a belief that in order to discover women’s lies, all you just have to do is look at their ass. Because, as opposed to the face, which is a hypocrite mask capable of faking and lies, the ass doesn’t lie.”

Or, to paraphrase the Eagles, you can’t hide your lying ass. Grade: B

Director: Tinto Brass Cast: Yuliya Mayarchuk, Jarno Berardi, Francesca Nunzi, Max Parodi, Mauro Lorenz, Leila Carli, Chiara Gobbato Release: 2000

Above, director Brass gives star Yuliya Mayarchuk a pointer on method acting.

Watch Trailer One (click here) or Trailer Two (click here)

11Nov

An English Murder

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by Cyril Hare

A gathering of hoity-toity Brits is cut off from the outside world by a snowstorm, trapped in a decrepit manor house as a clever killer picks them off, one by one. Thank goodness an eccentric little “foreigner” is on hand to save the day. If that sounds a lot like Agatha Christie, well, that’s because it is. But if you find this kind of piffle irresistible – and I confess that I do – you can do much worse than An English Murder.

03Nov

Reviews in Short: November 2012

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Office Space For anyone who works — or worked — in the soul-sucking confines of a corporate cubicle, this Mike Judge comedy is a must. Its deadly accurate depiction of the white-collar workplace has the makings for one depressing movie, but thanks to its ensemble of instantly recognizable office drones (standouts are Gary Cole as an unctuous, passive-aggressive boss, and Stephen Root as a mumbling milquetoast), it’s much more likely to make you laugh than cry. Release: 1999 Grade: B+

*****

The Bay What’s great about the movies is that the good ones suck you in and make you forget that everything you see is make-believe. The problem with most “found footage” movies is that the jerky camera, grainy film, and improbable edits are jarring reminders that everything you see is make-believe. So it is with The Bay, which is unfortunate because its premise — pollution-generated, flesh-eating parasites invade a seaside Maryland town — is timely and believable. Director Barry Levinson, who knows a thing or two about making movies the old-fashioned way, should have done so with this one. Release: 2012 Grade: C

*****

Kids An “after school special” from hell, Kids depicts one day in the life of some NYC teens who drink, drug, and screw their way through life, spreading AIDS and respecting only peer pressure. The lone role model on display is a grizzled taxi driver; other adults are either apathetic or missing in action. Kids was heralded as a wake-up call to society back in 1995; I have no idea whether anyone actually woke up. Release: 1995 Grade: B+

*****

Gut This low-budget horror film poses a provocative question: Can television viewing habits lead to actual violence? Nicholas Wilder, playing a disturbed loner who introduces his only friend to the lurid attraction of snuff movies, gets my vote for Creepy Friend of the Year. But there is a fine line between building suspense and moving at a snail’s pace, and Gut, with too many lingering close-ups and a plodding story, is undermined by its sluggish momentum. Release: 2012 Grade: C-

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