The Grouchy Editor

How important are a good story and likable stars to a motion picture?  Let me recount my experience at a screening of The Secret in Their Eyes, this year’s foreign-language Best Picture winner.

About ten minutes into the movie, the theater’s sound system broke down.  It was fixed, but five minutes later the soundtrack again malfunctioned, this time blaring Muzak at us over the theater speakers.  The problem was eventually resolved.  An audience member’s cell phone began ringing.  And ringing.  And ringing.  Later, someone else’s cell began chiming.  The third time this happened, there was a near-riot as other patrons ran out of patience, demanding the offender “shut it off!” 

When you factor in the inherent demands placed on an audience by an Argentinean, subtitled movie with a complex plot, it’s a wonder we didn’t all march out in a huff, demanding refunds.  Or at the very least attempt to lynch the cell-phone owners. 

That didn’t happen, which I believe is a testament to Secret stars Soledad Villamil and Ricardo Darin, a first-rate supporting cast, and a multilayered plot with great romance and a better-than-average mystery.  There are two puzzles in director Juan Jose Campanella’s story:  Will the characters played by Villamil and Darin at long last  — 25 years after first meeting — become a couple?  And who brutally raped and murdered a young bride in 1974?

Villamil and Darin, as justice department colleagues drawn into the crime investigation, bring such believability and maturity to their roles that, mercifully, I forgot all about those damn ringing cell phones.       Grade:  B+

Director:  Juan Jose Campanella  Cast:  Ricardo Darin, Soledad Villamil, Guillermo Francella, Javier Godino, Pablo Rago, Carla Quevedo  Release:  2009

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As I suffered through the early stages of It’s Complicated, writer-director Nancy Meyers’s latest comedy, I came to the unhappy conclusion that the problem was my gender.  Clearly, I could not relate to this “chick flick.”  Probably I did not appreciate – or worse, even notice – a parade of designer clothes, kitchens, and bathtubs as it passed before my bloodshot eyes.  Probably I was genetically incapable of grasping the romantic plight of the film’s heroine, a middle-aged, divorced mother of three played by Meryl Streep.

Shortly after I reached this dismaying conclusion, I changed my mind and began to blame Meyers’ script, instead.  Streep’s character was being wooed by her ex-husband (Alec Baldwin), a one-dimensional, pot-bellied cad panicked by his loveless marriage to a one-dimensional shrew without an ounce of humanity.  Silliness ensued.  I’ve seen this plot before, I thought.  Too many times.

And then, like a bolt from the blue, the movie knocked me senseless in its second hour with not one, but two bursts of inspired comic lunacy.  The first involved Streep, Steve Martin, and a marijuana joint, and the second showcased Baldwin, Martin, and an invasive laptop computer.  It was as if old pros Streep, Martin, and Baldwin, just as tired of the insipid storyline as I was, suddenly told Meyers to just point the damn camera at them and see what they could do.

Those two scenes are very funny and they rescue the second half of the film.  Too bad, though, about that first half.      Grade:  C+

Director:  Nancy Meyers  Cast:  Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, Steve Martin, John Krasinski, Lake Bell, Mary Kay Place, Rita Wilson  Release:  2009

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These thoughts were swirling in my head as I watched the final 45 minutes of The Human Centipede:  “You’ve got to be kidding me … What kind of career do these actors think they’ll have after appearing in this movie? … I can’t take my eyes off this thing … I used to think Cronenberg’s films were bizarre, but not after seeing this …  This must be why much of the Muslim world detests the decadent West … This movie is actually hypnotizing me, in a perverse sort of way ….”

I don’t know how better to describe the Dutch horror flick than by citing those random impressions.  It’s certainly not a film for everyone.  Some reviews imply that Centipede requires a viewer warning because it’s loaded with gore and violence.  Not true.  Although it does have some blood and guts, the film is disturbing because of the human degradation on display.  It’s a psychological freak show, at once repellent and absorbing.

Dieter Laser plays renowned German surgeon Dr. Heiter — surely one of the creepiest characters to grace movie screens in ages.  To say that Heiter is antisocial is like saying Hitler was a naughty boy.  Heiter kidnaps unwary tourists, takes them to his basement laboratory and, in a twist that elevates Centipede above other slasher flicks, treats his victims as combination students/patients, lecturing them as though they should be proud of participating in his groundbreaking “work.”  In this case, that means fusing their mouths to each other’s buttocks to form one long digestive chain or, as the title spells out, a human centipede.

That synopsis should tell you whether or not you can, sorry, stomach this movie.  The actual “centipede” effect is not shown in graphic detail — which somehow makes the proceedings even more horrifying.      Grade:  B+  (if you like this sort of thing)  Grade:  F   (if you don’t) 

Director:  Tom Six  Cast:  Dieter Laser, Ashley C. Williams, Ashlynn Yennie, Akihiro Kitamura, Andreas Leupold, Peter Blankenstein  Release:  2010

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Some movies beg for comparison to others, and the film that The Square most resembles is Body Heat.  Both dramas fall into the category of film noir, both feature illicit lovers doing very bad things, and both want nothing more than to ratchet up audience tension.

The Square mostly succeeds, but it falls short of Lawrence Kasdan’s 1981 classic for a number of reasons.  The Square doesn’t have two compelling characters, it has just one (the male lead).  And director Nash Edgerton’s film lacks something else found in Body Heat — a delicious twist ending.  It tries to compensate by jacking up the body count.

David Roberts plays everyman Ray Yale, a married construction foreman carrying on with Carla (Claire van der Boom), who is married to a small-time crook.  When Carla discovers her husband’s stash of stolen cash, she persuades Ray that the money is their ticket to paradise.

Ray reluctantly goes along with Carla’s plan, and of course their scheme rapidly goes from bad to worse.  Edgerton does a nice job building suspense, but The Square is handicapped by a script that has plenty of bodies, just not enough soul.    Grade:  B

Director:  Nash Edgerton  Cast:  David Roberts, Claire van der Boom, Joel Edgerton, Anthony Hayes, Peter Phelps, Bill Hunter, Hanna Mangan-Lawrence  Release:  2010

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We humans are truly a fickle species.  Or at least I am a fickle human.  I watched a motion picture this afternoon that would have absolutely astounded any man or woman throughout most of human history and yet, I must confess, parts of the film seemed dull to me.

IMAX’s Hubble 3D, if you think about it, is a magnificent achievement.  Not only did astronauts travel into space, but they brought cameras to film the adventure as they penetrated the deepest recesses of outer space, and technology then allows an audience — popcorn in hand and reclining in comfort —  to feel like it’s along for the ride.

I suppose space travel isn’t as gripping as it ought to be because fiction has made so much of it seem familiar.  Hubble 3D is weakest when it focuses on the astronauts inside the space shuttle as they eat, play, or prepare for the task of repairing the Hubble Space Telescope.  Compared to what we see in movies like Aliens or Star Wars, watching an astronaut prepare a burrito in zero-gravity is pretty tame stuff.

Ironically, the movie is most spectacular when it uses 3-D computer technology — done right here on boring old Earth — to enhance pictures taken by the telescope.  Zooming through the stars, plunging deep into the constellation Virgo to inspect a gigantic black hole, the images rekindled in me a semblance of primitive awe.      Grade:  B+

Director:  Toni Myers  Narrator:  Leonardo DiCaprio  Release:  2010

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Cyrus is a movie you want to like, if only because it dares to be different.  Here we have corpulent Jonah Hill (Superbad) in a comedy, only this time it’s not produced by Judd Apatow, and Hill’s character actually has some depth.  And the star is John C. Reilly, whose major attribute is that he doesn’t look like a movie star.  This hangdog actor could be your mechanic, or veterinarian.  In other words, Reilly’s characters are instantly relatable.

Reilly plays John, a sad sack who’s been divorced for seven years yet can’t seem to let go of his ex (Catherine Keener), who is soon to remarry.  At a party, John gets drunk and somehow winds up with vivacious Molly (Marisa Tomei), who finds him charming.  Things are looking up for our hero.  But then he meets Cyrus (Hill).  Cyrus is Molly’s 21-year-old son and he has  …  issues.  Cyrus initiates a passive-aggressive campaign to get John out of his mother’s life, because in his mind, there is only room for Cyrus and Molly.  It’s at this point that the film falls apart.

I envisioned the story going in one of two directions:  It could have morphed into Neighbors, in which a seemingly normal mother and son reveal their true psychotic selves.  Or it could have become like The War of the Roses, with the battle between John and Cyrus escalating to epic proportions.

Alas, Cyrus does neither.  It’s not funny enough to succeed as pure comedy, and its attempts at sensitive male bonding are shallow.  Directors Jay and Mark Duplass don’t help matters with their filming style.  They shoot the action as though Cyrus were the latest Bourne adventure, with hand-held, herky-jerky zooms that are completely out of place in a movie like this.          Grade:  C

Directors:  Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass  Cast:  John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei, Jonah Hill, Catherine Keener, Tim Guinee, Matt Walsh, Katie Aselton  Release:  2010

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