The Grouchy Editor

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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There is a movie from 1979 that I recall fondly, about a poor-little-rich-girl (Diane Lane) who runs away with a charismatic French boy.  The two 13-year-olds have but one goal:  to share a kiss under the Bridge of Sighs in Venice, Italy.

The movie is A Little Romance, directed by George Roy Hill.   It’s not a profound film by any means, but it is quite the charmer if you happen to be in the right mood.

In Kisses, two 11-year-olds (Shane Curry and Kelly O’Neill) also run away from home.  They, too, find romance, ride in a boat, and share a kiss – but this ain’t Venice and it sure ain’t the Bridge of Sighs.  Dylan and Kylie are two ragamuffins from broken homes in gritty, suburban Dublin, and they find their puppy love – and trouble – during one hardscrabble night in the big city. 

In terms of plot, not that much transpires in Kisses.  Dylan and Kylie meet people, some of them good and some of them very bad.  They hunt for Dylan’s older brother, and they just … well, play.  They are 11-year-olds, after all.  Their journey begins like an Irish version of Huckleberry Finn, with the kids hitching a ride on a river dredger captained by a friendly fellow.  Their adventure ends with a frantic escape from the clutches of two child molesters.  

So what do these kids learn from their night on the town?  As Kylie tells Dylan, “You were right, though.  There is no devil.  Just people.”  Which may or may not be the same thing.  Unpleasant things happen to our young heroes in Kisses, but this is far from an unpleasant movie.  In its humble, gritty way, Kisses is every bit as beguiling as A Little Romance.         Grade:  B+

Director:  Lance Daly  Cast:  Shane Curry, Kelly O’Neill, Paul Roe, Neili Conroy, David Bendito, Elizabeth Fuh, Cathy Malone  Release:  2010

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My One and Only is one of those small movies that flies under the radar for a number of reasons.  It has an unfortunate title (too generic), no car chases, and no special effects.  There are no vampires.   But it has two things that 95 percent of modern movies lack:  a script brimming with humanity and wit, and a cast of actors obviously in love with the film.  Reportedly, My One and Only is loosely based on the early life of actor George Hamilton.  If Hamilton’s teen years were anything like events in this film, they must have been colorful, indeed.  

As the movie opens, young George’s mother, Ann (Renee Zellweger), finally has enough of her philandering, bandleader husband (Kevin Bacon), and so packs up George and his half-brother Robbie (Mark Rendall), assuring them that their new life on the road will be “an adventure.”  Ann rashly purchases an expensive, 1953 Cadillac Eldorado.  This acquisition is just the first of many unwise decisions Ann will make as she dallies, disastrously, with a series of potential new husbands.

Ann might be delusional, but she is also tenacious.  Just as Blanche DuBois “always depended on the kindness of strangers,” kindred spirit Ann has her own aphorism:  “Everything works out for the best.”   Well, maybe not always.  I have never been a big fan of Zellweger’s acting.  I did like her in Jerry Maguire, but that was a long time ago.  But Zellweger doesn’t simply carry My One and Only, she turns in an unforgettable performance.  I am now an unapologetic fan.

My One and Only is a road-trip movie that shines because there are so many genuine, small moments that aren’t essential to the plot,  but that nonetheless stand out.  Every character this gypsy-like family encounters on the road is flawed, but also likable.  When Ann, George and Robbie depart Pittsburgh to continue their journey, thereby cutting short a tenuous romance between George and a freckle-faced sweetheart named Paula, the camera lingers on the girl, who is sad to see them go. So was I.                  Grade:  B+

Director:  Richard Loncraine  Cast:  Renee Zellweger, Logan Lerman, Mark Rendall, Kevin Bacon, Troy Garity, David Koechner, J.C. MacKenzie, Eric McCormack, Chris Noth, Molly C. Quinn  Release:  2009

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I’m going to penetrate deep into your subconscious – not on just one level, but on three.  On the first level, I will appeal to your hunger for spiritual nourishment.  On level two, I will attempt to feed your intellect.  And on the third level … ah, who the hell am I trying to kid?  I am Hollywood, and I just want your hard-earned leisure-time money, so fork it over.

Inception is a total mess of a movie.  It will make a load of money at the box office, because Hollywood knows how hungry audiences are for something that is – at least on the surface – intellectually a notch above junk like, say, Kick-Ass, or Avatar.  And in their promotional pieces, filmmakers can deceive Joe and Mary Filmgoer into the false belief that Inception has a heart.  It doesn’t.

Director Christopher Nolan is known for filmic puzzles (Memento), and in this regard Inception does not disappoint.  But what Nolan fails to understand, or doesn’t care enough about, is that in order to devote two and a half hours attempting to decipher an intricate puzzle, it helps if the audience can identify with the movie’s protagonists.  Leonardo DiCaprio is an appealing actor, but even he can’t rescue a script that devotes oodles of brainpower to the mysteries of the human mind but not one scrap of concern for the emotional end of things – despite a half-hearted attempt at “family values” involving Leo’s dead wife and their young children.

Inception is so, well, unimaginative that two-thirds into the thing, Nolan resorts to endlessly dull, mind-numbing car chases and shoot ‘em ups – the same routines we’ve seen a thousand times before.  The special effects are kind of fun but, well … yawn.

As this pretentious hokum dragged on and on and on, I kept glancing at my neighbor in the movie theater, hoping he would lean over and whisper in my ear:  “Don’t worry; it’s just a bad dream.  It will all be over soon.”              Grade:  C-

Director:  Christopher Nolan  Cast:  Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe, Dileep Rao, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, Marion Cotillard, Michael Caine  Release:  2010

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There isn’t much worse than a Hollywood movie that feels compelled to spell out every plot point.  “You are 12 years old,” these films seem to say to us, “and so this is why Bobby loves Susie, and this is why Susie was in that car chase, and this is why Bobby shot the bad man in the head.”

On the other end of the spectrum, however, is the “enigmatic” drama – films in which too little is explained.  Tom Ford’s A Single Man falls into this category, with its chronicle of the last day in the life of a despondent, homosexual English professor who has recently lost his longtime partner.  I haven’t read the Christopher Isherwood novel upon which Man is based, but I imagine the book relies heavily on the inner-voice technique – narration or exposition that is commonplace in print but which can handicap a film version of the story.

Much has been made of Colin Firth’s portrayal of George, the lonely professor who spends one last day putting his affairs, literal and figurative, in order while preparing for suicide.  Firth’s expressive face conveys intelligence, no question, but it also conveys little else.  George is maddeningly detached from everyone around him, from neighborhood families to casual acquaintances.  He can cut loose only with best pal Charley (Julianne Moore) – but even then only with much coaxing on her part.  Right up until the end, George remains at arm’s length from other people, including the audience.

George seems to be watching himself in his own movie.  When he learns from a child that his neighbor would like to toss him to the lions – just deserts for being “light in the loafers” – his reaction seems to be mild disappointment.  When he aims a pistol into his own mouth, he seems to be wrestling with the proper way to blow-dry his hair.  The end, when it finally comes, is not poignant but almost unintentionally funny – all that preparation, and look what happens.   As the cliché goes, life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.       Grade:  B-

Director:  Tom Ford  Cast:  Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Nicholas Hoult, Matthew Goode, Jon Kortajarena, Paulette Lamori  Release:  2009

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Chloe is elevated a notch above the type of late-night erotic mysteries found on Cinemax by the strength of one neat plot twist and some top-tier actors.  Those actors would be old pros Julianne Moore and Liam Neeson, who garner sympathy for two largely unsympathetic characters.  Moore and Neeson play an upper-crust Toronto couple – he’s a charismatic college professor; she’s his smart-but-insecure gynecologist wife – living in the lap of luxury but succumbing to an oh-so-typical midlife crisis.

Enter Chloe (Amanda Seyfried), a glamorous young prostitute whom Catherine (Moore) spots from her office window and then decides to include in a fateful decision.  Catherine hires the girl to use as bait in a test of her husband’s fidelity, or lack thereof.  This decision – certainly atypical of most women, but handled deftly by screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson (Secretary) – sends the story in unexpected directions.

Chloe’s problem is Seyfried.  The actress certainly looks the part, but she lacks the acting chops of, say, Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, or Anne Baxter in All About Eve.  Unfortunately, Seyfried proves that less is more:  The less she wears, the more watchable the movie; the less she speaks, the more believable the story.  She lacks the gravitas needed for the titular role – although her titular rolls certainly defy gravity.  Sorry.

Chloe has its attractions.  The twist, as I’ve said, is a neat one.  Moore turns in yet another intriguing performance.  And the ballyhooed sex scene between Moore and Seyfried is suitably steamy – if you like that kind of thing on Cinemax.      Grade:  B

Director:  Atom Egoyan  Cast:  Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson, Amanda Seyfried, Max Thieriot, R.H. Thomson, Nina Dobrev  Release:  2010

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Mathematics is at the heart of the mystery in The Oxford Murders — but don’t let that scare you away from the film.  There is something much more chilling than the Pythagorean theorem in this movie:  Elijah Wood.  Someone made the ill-fated decision to cast Wood as a student mathematician and (gulp!) romantic hero in this whodunit, and that miscalculation might be the film’s greatest mystery.

We are asked to believe that Wood’s animal magnetism (iguanas have mates, correct?) is so irresistible that not one, but two fetching young women fall into his arms within minutes of meeting his character, Martin the math major.  Director Alex de la Iglesia tried spinning the casting of his leading man this way:  “I’m delighted to work with Elijah, who undoubtedly has the most powerful eyes in the industry and who is perfect for the part.”  Well.  The young actor’s eyes certainly are powerful, in a deathray sort of way.  In Oxford, Wood is also asked to remove his shirt for a sex scene with Spanish beauty Leonor Watling.  The scene depicts a bug-eyed Wood slurping spaghetti off Ms. Watling’s chest.  It also exposes audiences to Wood’s scrawny, pale torso.  The kid is in obvious need of the spaghetti. 

To be fair, the horribly miscast lead actor is not the film’s only flaw.  I haven’t read the novel upon which the movie is based, but I’m guessing that plot developments that seem sketchy, implausible, and rushed on screen might be thoughtful and well-developed on the printed page.  The movie races through key plot points when it really should pause for all of us slow students in class.

John Hurt is excellent as famed mathematician-philosopher Arthur Seldom.  It’s the overmatched Wood’s misfortune to be paired with a consummate professional like Hurt in scene after scene – as if the romantic bits with Watling weren’t humiliation enough for one actor.

The movie did leave me with greater appreciation for people who are gifted with numbers.  Unfortunately, it also left me with a newly acquired aversion to spaghetti.       Grade:  C

Director:  Alex de la Iglesia  Cast:  Elijah Wood, John Hurt, Leonor Watling, Julie Cox, Jim Carter, Alex Cox, Burn Gorman, Anna Massey  Release:  2008

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[Rec] 2 is one of the dumbest horror movies I’ve seen in quite some time.  If you’re looking for a few good scares, I highly recommend it.

I suppose that sounds contradictory.  All I can say is, when you go to a fright flick, what exactly are you looking for – intellectual stimulation, or something that makes you jump out of your seat?  In a perfect world, an audience gets both, a la The Exorcist or Rosemary’s Baby.  [Rec] 2 is no art-house classic, but it does its main job and delivers some genuine jolts.

Let me describe the plot.  On second thought, I can’t do that.  The plot is ridiculous, but it’s also beside the point.  Suffice to say there is a creepy old apartment complex in Barcelona, Spain.  Some kind of virus (or demonic possession, or both) has infected the people inside, turning them into bloodthirsty savages (or zombies, or demons, or both).  Humanity’s only hope is to secure a blood sample from a young girl who was the first infectee (or Satan’s spawn, or something like that).  A Spanish SWAT team (or something like that) is dispatched to the building to save the day.  Virus, possession, demons, zombies … whatever.  The only thing that matters is that we now have potential victims in the building.

This is the kind of script in which police use a bullhorn to warn everyone away from the windows – and within seconds one of the protagonists stands in front of a window.  This is the sort of movie where our heroes are inundated with gore, carnage, and psychological horror – but their overriding priority is to make sure the video camera is still recording.

It’s a stupid plot and a stupid movie.  But if you are willing to turn your brain off for 85 minutes, it’s a lot of fun.  Directors Juame Balaguero and Paco Plaza know that handheld photography can be effective on a purely visceral level.  Combined with ominously claustrophobic apartment hallways, the jerky visuals enhance each attack.  By showing some, but not quite all, of the demonic assaults, the effect is often chilling.

The best way to enjoy [Rec] 2 is by turning your own brain into a handheld camera. Watch and record everything, but try not to think about it.        Grade:  B-

Directors:  Juame Balaguero, Paco Plaza  Cast:  Jonathan Mellor, Manuela Velasco, Oscar Zafra, Ariel Casas, Leticia Dolera, Alejandro Casaseca, Pablo Rosso, Pep Molina, Andrea Ros  Release:  2010

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