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21Sep

The Grand Design

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by Stephen Hawking, Leonard Mlodinow

I miss Carl Sagan. Perhaps the late, great scientist-teacher was simplistic – even condescending – to laymen when he described scientific concepts, but at least Sagan’s message got through. The Grand Design, famed physicist Stephen Hawking’s latest attempt to dumb down physics for the general reader, has the same problems as did Hawking’s A Brief History of Time: dense mathematical formulas and language that only future Einsteins could love (and comprehend).

Hawking and his co-author seem to understand that multiverses and string theory are difficult to grasp, so they compensate in the worst possible manner. After particularly complex passages about numerical formulas or mind-bending worlds, they will toss in a lame pun, basically downgrading from doctorate lecture to show-and-tell time for the kiddies. It’s insulting and annoying. There are fascinating concepts at play in this book; it’s just too bad that the geniuses behind them aren’t skilled in basic communication. Sagan – whatever alternate universe you are in – please come back. Science needs you.

19Sep

Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

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Is it movie-lore sacrilege to suggest that Cary Grant was miscast in one of his most beloved roles? I recently re-watched Arsenic and Old Lace, director Frank Capra’s 1944 version of the popular stage play, and later I learned that comedian Bob Hope was originally sought for the lead: Mortimer Brewster, the set-upon nephew of two spinsters who just happen to be poisoning their gentleman callers.

Grant, of course, immortalized the part of Mortimer with a frantic, bug-eyed rendition of the nephew as he tries to make sense of his aunts’ bizarre behavior – and also save their skins. But when I again watched this delightful (albeit a bit dated) farce, I was struck by two things: 1) the brilliant, subtle portrayal of sociopath Jonathan by actor Raymond Massey, and 2) Grant’s over-the-top, anything-but-subtle frenzy as Mortimer. To me, Grant overacts something fierce.

When the stage directions call for Mortimer to do a double-take, Grant delivers whiplash. When he is supposed to be surprised, his eyes burst from their sockets. When he’s asked to dash across the stage, Grant does acrobatics, leaping and spilling over furniture. It’s all very amusing, but also distracting. I have to wonder, would Mortimer have been better played by Hope, an actor more suited to roles that emphasize self-preservation? Would a sweating, paranoid Hope have been better than a mugging, exasperated Grant?

It’s a moot point, but what is clear is the hilarious turn by Massey, who turns the “Karloff” killer into a prickly psycho whose predominant characteristic is not malice, but rather vanity. Massey’s glaring reactions to anyone who comments on his physical appearance are hysterical. Also on the plus side: Director Capra, who can be mawkish, is restrained here by the limitations of playwright Joseph Kesselring’s plot. And Josephine Hull, so wonderful six years later in a similar role in Harvey, gives us the ultimate fussy eccentric. Grade: B+

Director: Frank Capra Cast: Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre, Jack Carson, Josephine Hull, Jean Adair, James Gleason, Grant Mitchell, John Alexander Release: 1944

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18Sep

The Town

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According to rottentomatoes.com, “The Town proves that Ben Affleck has rediscovered his muse.” After sitting through this pedestrian cops-and-robbers movie, Affleck’s second film as director, I can only speculate what that “muse” might be. Old episodes of Starsky & Hutch? Repeat viewings of Point Break?

You can’t blame the charisma-challenged actor for trying his hand at directing, and Gone Baby Gone was a fine debut for him, but let’s not go overboard in praising The Town, which is no more than a cliché-laden crime drama. Affleck was smart to surround himself with talented supporting actors, but casting himself in the lead role as a Boston “tough guy”? I didn’t buy that.

This kind of movie, in which we are asked to empathize with blue-collar roughnecks, has worked well in the past. It worked beautifully in Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River. But sorry, while I definitely do not want to run into an angry Sean Penn in a dark Charlestown alley, if I encounter an angry Ben Affleck in that same alley, I’ll just assume he’s having trouble locating his car keys. Affleck is more Dudley Do-Right than brooding antihero. With his soft eyes and earnest expressions, he projects harmless nice-guy, not Boston tough.

This miscasting of Affleck by Affleck tears down The Town, because Affleck the actor is key to the whole enterprise. If I don’t buy his bank robber, I don’t buy anything else in the movie, which is as much about relationships as it is bank heists. Jeremy Renner and Pete Postlethwaite, great as they are, are supporting characters. Rebecca Hall, as Affleck’s love interest, plays yet another “girlfriend” – the same underwritten role we’ve seen in a hundred other films. We’ve also seen this plot, in which the bad guy hopes to reform and win the love of a beautiful woman, in better films.

Affleck was quoted in Entertainment Weekly explaining that the studio wanted The Town to be an action movie with plenty of gunplay. “If I could deliver those sequences, I was free to make a drama with themes I was interested in, like class in America and how children pay for the sins of their parents.” That’s an admirable goal, but let’s hope that next time Affleck and his muse stay behind the camera. Grade: C-

Director: Ben Affleck Cast: Ben Affleck, Rebecca Hall, Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner, Blake Lively, Slaine, Owen Burke, Titus Welliver, Pete Postlethwaite, Chris Cooper Release: 2010

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15Sep

Irreversible (2002)

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“You can see that the rapist doesn’t have a penis,” says Rodolphe Chabrier, “so Gaspar [Noe, the director] and I decided to add a virtual one, created with 3-D animation.”

So says Chabrier, visual effects supervisor of Irreversible, elaborating on the filming of a 10-minute rape scene that rankles many of the movie’s detractors. But Chabrier’s revelation pretty much sums up what’s wrong with the entire film: A genital isn’t the only thing missing from this revenge drama; the film itself is all style and very little substance.

Thanks I suppose to Memento, which came out two years earlier, Irreversible is told in reverse chronological order. But that wasn’t disorienting enough for Noe. The first third of the movie is a whirlwind of spinning and zooming camera angles, screamed obscenities, and a discordant soundtrack – all meant to convey a sensation of chaos as the rape victim’s two male friends seek to avenge the crime. This sense of nightmarish anarchy works, but to what end? The men are enraged, I get it. The gay S&M bar they wind up in is a fevered den of unleashed passion, I get that, too. Does that mean I want to wallow in this dizzying world of flash-and-dash cinematography for a full 30 minutes? No.

I guess that by beginning his movie with violent retribution and then working backwards to more sedate times, Noe wants audiences to look at the concept of vengeance in a new way. But I felt I was just watching a director and his CGI guys show off what they could do.

As for the lengthy rape that actress Monica Bellucci endures in the infamous tunnel scene, it’s graphic without being explicit. But you have to wonder if it was really necessary to make the scene ten minutes long. And here’s a question that is probably superfluous, but what’s up with adding in that penis? Grade: C-

Director: Gaspar Noe Cast: Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel, Albert Dupontel, Jo Prestia Release: 2002

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14Sep

Burning Bright

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Moviemakers go to great extremes to frighten us. They will concoct sociopathic monsters with tragic childhoods and perverse predilections, or hatch drooling aliens on a spaceship a million miles from Earth. But, hey – why go to all that trouble when you can simply drop a great white shark into our favorite swimming hole? Or, as director Carlos Brooks does in Burning Bright, let loose a Bengal tiger in our living room? And not just any tiger, but one that hasn’t been fed for two weeks and thus is rather, uh, “irritable.”

As Spielberg proved in Jaws, we humans haven’t evolved so much that we don’t still jump when we spot a menacing fin gliding toward us in the water and, I don’t know about you, but Tony the Tiger tiptoeing out of my bathroom will always get my attention. With skilled direction, clever editing, and a soundtrack that knows what it’s doing, a movie that exploits our primal fears can be disturbingly effective.

Brooks’s problem in Burning Bright is the set-up: How do you get a ferocious feline into a sealed-off house with a cute girl and her autistic younger brother? In retrospect, the explanation that Brooks and his screenwriters expect us to buy is ridiculous, but by the time you stop to think about it you won’t care, mostly because you haven’t had time to stop and think about it. Once that girl and boy are trapped in the house with the cat, your brain will spend the next 45 minutes thinking one of two things: “Where the fuck is the tiger?” and “Where the fuck is that tiger now?”

This is a small movie, nowhere near as epic as Jaws, but it depresses me that a thriller this skillful and fun (likewise for the similar, crocodile-themed Black Water) is relegated straight to the DVD shelf while big-budget junk like the A Nightmare on Elm Street remake gets wide release. Sure, Burning Bright is derivative (it’s basically Cujo mixed with Halloween), and its plot is absurd. But I’ll wager you won’t care about any of that while it’s playing. You’ll be too busy glancing at corners of the screen, anxiously asking yourself, “Where the fuck is that tiger?” Grade: B+

Director: Carlos Brooks Cast: Briana Evigan, Garret Dillahunt, Charlie Tahan, Meat Loaf Release: 2010

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12Sep

Death in Holy Orders

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by P.D. James

Mystery queen P.D. James is a master of character and atmosphere, but I always have issues with her plots. Either her endings seem preposterous, or I am unconvinced by various story elements along the way. True to form, Death in Holy Orders is deliciously moody, and its people are intriguing. But the ending was unsurprising and a bit anticlimactic (not exactly “preposterous,” this time), and I simply did not buy into certain key motivations earlier in the tale. Still … if the idea of four deaths at an isolated, seaside theology college appeals to your mystery-loving side, you can do a lot worse than this book.

09Sep

In Bruges (2008)

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“Lovable hit men.” If you have a hard time wrapping your mind around that concept, imagine what studio heads must have felt when writer-director Martin McDonagh approached them with the idea of making two assassins the heroes of his black comedy, In Bruges.

Whatever the reaction, it was a great day for filmgoers when McDonagh’s movie got the green light. In this wacky yet poignant (yes, poignant) film, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson play Ray and Ken, two European hit men laying low in Bruges, Belgium. Ray has accidentally killed a child, and the boss (Ralph Fiennes), for reasons known only to him, has ordered his two hapless killers into hibernation. Bruges is an ideal layover for middle-aged Ken, who digs its medieval architecture and relative freedom from tourists. For the younger, more impetuous Ray, however, the old city is anathema. “Ray, you’re about the worst tourist in the whole world,” complains Ken. “If I’d grown up on a farm,” rejoins Ray, “and was retarded, Bruges might impress me. But I didn’t, so it doesn’t.”

The first ten minutes of In Bruges – even on a second viewing – had me laughing out loud. This is something I rarely do when watching movies. The film is gleefully politically incorrect, with targets ranging from American tourists to obese people to dwarves, but I wouldn’t call it mean-spirited. And Farrell and Gleeson make an extraordinary movie team; this is Laurel and Hardy with silencers.

That “lovable hit men” concept could not have been easy to pull off. A deft touch was required, and McDonagh strikes a perfect balance between light and dark. In Bruges has bad guys galore, but these villains are all cursed with consciences and warped honor codes. “You’ve got to stick to your principles,” says Fiennes, right before pulling his trigger. Grade: B+

Director: Martin McDonagh Cast: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes, Clemence Poesy, Jordan Prentice, Thekla Reuten, Eric Godon Release: 2008

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05Sep

Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1974

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Critic Roger Ebert describes the world on display in Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1974 as an immersive experience, and I can’t disagree with that assessment. But this is not the England filmgoers have grown accustomed to seeing. There are no by-the-rules Scotland Yard inspectors, no Sherlock Holmes, no Jane Tennison. There is nothing “feel good” in this crime drama, period.

Director Julian Jarrold, in this first installment of a televised trilogy based on novels by David Peace, has expertly crafted a noir that depicts 1970s Yorkshire (in northern England) as a place of unrelenting evil and despair. This hopeless atmosphere, punctuated by acts of violence, is the movie’s strength. But I also think it’s a weakness.

The protagonist of the film is young Eddie Dunford (Andrew Garfield), a hotshot reporter who is arrogant and mouthy, but also a bit naïve. When Eddie investigates a string of serial killings targeting young girls, he stumbles upon a web of corruption among city officials and businessmen. He also falls in love with the attractive mother of one of the murdered girls.

My problem with Red Riding: 1974 was my sense of detachment. The character of Eddie, as written, is no doubt realistic, but it’s difficult to empathize with him. The kid is a jerk, and no matter what horrors he uncovers, I don’t particularly care about his fate. His romance with the mysterious Paula (Rebecca Hall) is abrupt and uninvolving, and he seems to have no other social life. In a narrative this downbeat, and which offers no comic relief, it should be a requirement that viewers be given some character – any character – with whom they can relate.

What results is a film I admired, but didn’t much like. As Ebert observed, Red Riding: 1974 is a directorial triumph, a dark and bleak world successfully recreated. But this fairy tale was too grim for my taste. Grade: B-

Director: Julian Jarrold Cast: Andrew Garfield, David Morrissey, Sean Bean, Rebecca Hall, John Henshaw, Anthony Flanagan Release: 2009

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01Sep

A Prophet

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A Prophet is a tough film to criticize. It boasts a whopping 97 percent approval rating on rottentomatoes.com, so other critics are obviously impressed. It’s a serious crime drama that was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film.

I thought the movie was compelling – but not riveting; good – but not particularly memorable. It’s always watchable, but never as sensational as Scarface, nor as epic as The Godfather, and it has fewer colorful characters than GoodFellas. Do I recommend it? Sure. Is it a “great” movie? I don’t think so.

A Prophet follows the career of prison inmate Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim), a young convict who gets recruited by Corsican crime boss Luciani (Niels Arestrup) and then offered protection from other inmates. This presents a problem for Malik, who is drawn toward the Arabic prisoners because of their shared ethnicity. As we watch Malik progress from the Corsicans’ gofer to polished criminal, we realize it’s just a matter of time before he and Luciani will clash.

All of this is well-acted and directed. But we learn nothing new about criminals or incarceration. Prison is hard on young men: check. Prisoners segregate themselves by racial or ethnic identity: check. Men who enter penitentiaries are not rehabilitated, but simply learn how to become better criminals: check.

Will you like this movie? Probably. Will you remember it a year from now? I’m not so sure about that. Grade: B

Director: Jacques Audiard Cast: Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup, Adel Bencherif, Reda Kateb, Hichem Yacoubi, Jean-Philippe Ricci, Gilles Cohen Release: 2009

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31Aug

Time After Time (1979)

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Time-travel movies are often problematic. If characters can zip forward or backward in space/time to alter events, why do they do so only at some junctures, and not others? And once you get into that whole “butterfly effect” business … it’s enough to drive a viewer bonkers.

Time After Time, a 1979 lark starring Malcolm McDowell and Mary Steenburgen, also runs into these problems when plot complications cause it to lose steam, and credibility, in its final half hour. But until then the movie is a fanciful good time.

McDowell stars as H.G. Wells, and the famous philosopher/novelist has a problem: Jack the Ripper has stolen his time machine and transported himself from 1893 London to 1979 San Francisco. Wells, nineteenth-century romantic that he is, follows the infamous serial killer into the future and in the course of his pursuit falls in love with a quirky bank employee (Steenburgen).

There are two reasons this movie is so enjoyable: 1) McDowell’s amusing turn as Wells, a man completely out of his element in San Francisco as he navigates modern food (dining at “that Scottish place” – McDonald’s), escalators, movies, and an electric toothbrush; and 2) the cute – but never precious – romance between Wells and banker Amy. Steenburgen’s combination modern woman/ditzy brunette is a perfect foil for Wells, and you’ll find yourself pulling for these two.

I’m a sucker for H.G. Wells, Jack the Ripper, and (sometimes) time-travel movies, so this is great entertainment for me. But don’t take my word for it. Here is a capsule review from someone called “moneygob,” commenting on Time After Time at YouTube: “This was a strange film. I started watching it at 3 p.m. one Sunday afternoon and the film finished at 1 p.m. the same day. Very realistic film!” What more can you ask for – a great movie and it takes no time to watch? Grade: B+

Director: Nicholas Meyer Cast: Malcolm McDowell, David Warner, Mary Steenburgen, Charles Cioffi, Kent Williams, Patti D’Arbanville Release: 1979

Watch the Trailer (click here)

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