It’s the mid-1960s, and British radio is essentially ignoring the rise of iconic rock acts as they tear through popular culture. Here to help the infection is the boat Radio Rock, home to a pirate radio station, which employs some of the fiercest on-air talent around, under the guidance of Captain Quentin (Bill Nighy). For DJs Gavin (Rhys Ifans), The Count (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Dr. Dave (Nick Frost), Bob (Ralph Brown), Simon (Chris O’Dowd), and Angus (Rhys Darby), life on the ship is pure recreation, with rock blaring all day and excitable women making occasional visits. On land, government minister Dormandy (Kenneth Branagh) is looking to shut down pirate radio for good, bringing ambitious civil servant Twatt (Jack Davenport) in to help concoct a plan that will stop the supposed filth from poisoning the populace.
Actually, “Pirate Radio” was “The Boat That Rocked” for most of its worldwide theatrical life, undergoing a name change and runtime reduction (about 20 minutes was cut) to help streamline a film for American audiences that wasn’t having too much luck at the box office. An awful replacement title for sure, but the edits are welcome in an already crowded motion picture. Curtis, looking to do for the British Invasion and virginity what he did for relationships in “Love Actually,” doesn’t fashion a suitable concentration for the material, which wanders around on a quest to be profound and giddy, but mostly comes across blind. Curtis can’t locate a suitable tenor for his material, instead spraying the screen with wild personalities, delicious soundtrack selections (including The Kinks, The Beach Boys, and The Who), and vague declarations of rebellion.
I’m not suggesting “Pirate Radio” is a joyless experience; with a cast this diverse and willing to please, the film maintains a few highlights, most concerning the on-air antics of the DJs as they push the barriers of taste and revel in the majestic music. Curtis arranges a community of competition and friendship to give the cast something to chew on, leading to some strained moments of tension, especially the unconvincing rivalry between The Count and hipster Gavin (which requires the pair to play a film-stopping game of chicken as they climb to the highest area of the ship to prove their masculinity). Sexual games are also afoot, with plenty of giggly groupies around to help pollute the serene air onboard.
The film’s lead is actually Carl (Tom Sturridge), a teenaged virgin sent to the ship for purposes unclear to him at the outset. Carl is the audience POV for the Radio Rock, who struggles to keep track of all the treachery and bravado of the staff. His subplot carries insufficient weight, and the push from the DJs to help Carl advance sexually leads to hilariously melodramatic bouts of implausible betrayal. Curtis is adamant to keep Carl the center of attention, but Sturridge’s unappealing performance (mostly made of mope and greasy hair) mixed with the script’s shortcomings fail to further the madcap mood of the film.
Curtis lunges for a massive grand finale, not content with the Dormandy subplot to act as the film’s only threat, allowing matters to frantically dissolve just to place a definitive, defiant exclamation point on the picture. The director’s intent appears to be the celebration of rock music and its enduring, tongue-extended spirit, and the movie finds occasional inspiration with this commotion. However, by the conclusion, “Pirate Radio” is asking for more than it gives, making the whole act of music appreciation feel silly, especially if it means indulging in this much pointless hysteria. “Pirate Radio” slips out of Curtis’s control early on, and try as he might with this sparkling cast and soundtrack supremacy, the film never returns to solid ground.
Filmfodder Grade: C]]>
As the Mayan calendar foretold, Earth is ready to restructure itself in the year 2012, and there’s no possible way to stop it. For government scientist Adrian (Chiwetel Ejiofor), semi-early detection has helped to prepare the leaders of the world for the worst, with billions spent to construct colossal arks to help preserve humanity’s finest minds. In Los Angeles, Jackson (John Cusack) is a struggling divorced dad hoping to connect with his estranged kids on a camping trip to Yellowstone. En route, Jackson finds ecological devastation and the radio rants of conspiracy nut Charlie (Woody Harrelson), who warns of the impending 2012 disaster, much to Jackson’s disbelief. Once the Earth’s crust commences its destructive shift, Jackson races back to California to rescue his family (including Amanda Peet) as the continents crumble, burst, and submerge during the planet’s ferocious final act.
Roland Emmerich has a wealth of experience in the field of disaster cinema. In fact, it’s pretty much all the man has worked on during his erratic career. While hitting highlights like the rousing “Independence Day,” Emmerich is also responsible for cringers such as “The Day After Tomorrow” and 1998’s “Godzilla.” “2012” is a brown cloud floating somewhere between the two extremes, often uncomfortably so. While the creative electricity is obviously flowing through the filmmaker’s system with “2012,” Emmerich’s notoriously questionable taste is on vivid display throughout this gaudy epic, emphasizing a director who’s lost his youthful wonder, replacing nimble silver screen spectacle with severe punishment.
“2012” is 158 minutes long. This is not an unheard of running time for the genre, but for such a snarling, aggressive film, 158 minutes feels like an eternity. Granted, the picture’s early scenes are comfortable enough, happily building the suspense as the ground splits open, scientists stare feverishly at apocalyptic forecasts, and Jackson slowly grasps the frightening end of the world scenario standing before him. Action is always a priority for Emmerich, and “2012” submits a carefree mood of near misses and, of course, cataclysmic events that tear a good section of the world (notably Los Angeles and Washington D.C.) to pieces. These are the money shots and they’re sold impeccably by the special effects team, who manage well under Emmerich’s patient eye, delivering vast, extended statements of doom, marked by outstanding detail and twisted imagination (however, the greenscreen work is the worst I’ve seen since “A Sound of Thunder”). With Cusack around, the nightmare scenario is lifted some: the actor leans into the outrageousness agreeably, though I’m sure Emmerich didn’t even notice.
There’s Danny Glover as the President of the United States, a Russian billionaire with a Paris Hiltonesque girlfriend, Tom McCarthy playing Jackson’s domestic rival, kids with urinary incontinence problems, Oliver Platt as the sniveling government stooge, improbable cell phone reception, car-fu, airplane gymnastics, bad Arnold Schwarzenegger vocal imitators, and surveillance cameras with unlikely range. There’s a whole lotta silly going on in “2012,” and while camp is always repellent, Emmerich could’ve made the entire experience more agreeable by keeping the mood fresh and playful. Instead, “2012” becomes quite grave, taking its nonsense seriously after a frothy start, alternating between scenes of unspeakable annihilation and absurd intimacy, where the characters take a smoke break from the end of the world to worry about parental responsibility or romantic partners. The female characters even bond over breast implant talk. Yeesh.
Volleying back and forth between agony and melodrama tuckers out “2012” quickly, forcing Emmerich to dial up the noise even louder to keep attention glued to the screen. Is there any reason to care about these characters? Absolutely not. They’re pathetic Irwin Allen stand-ins saddled with threadbare motivation and abysmal dialogue, standing in a single file line on their way to the CG-amped slaughterhouse, filling Emmerich’s screenwriting 101 cliché requirements to help beef up the mayhem. It’s bad enough to be subjected to 158 minutes of earsplitting chaos, but to witness a clownish director making a pass at poignancy is excruciating to behold. The more “2012” attempts to brazenly manipulate, the more it turns to stone.
Some might make the argument that Emmerich is in on the joke. That “2012” is purposely engorged to best extract the finest blockbuster bait. I’m not convinced such a plan was in place. The picture is too oblivious and too self-congratulatory for such a master stroke of wit, and, outside of an asinine doggie rescue scene, I’m positive Emmerich believes in every single moment of this film. Someone has to.
There’s an idiotic audacity to “2012” that might appeal to certain audiences out there craving a silver screen circus. For the gut-level awe of it all, “2012” will provide the appropriate chills as Earth succumbs to its fiery, waterlogged destiny. Just don’t sit there expecting an invitation from Emmerich to join the fun. He’s only here to beat you senseless, not entertain. It’ll hurt more if you squirm.
Filmfodder Grade: D+]]>
Please bear with me here, as the concept is a little convoluted. “Fourth Kind” posits the idea that director Olatunde Osunsami is assembling footage to investigate the strange case of Psychiatrist Abigail Tyler, who, while living in Nome, Alaska, was witness to alien visitations through her patients. Using video footage that documented the alien possessions and assorted otherworldly happenings, Osunsami fills in the gaps of the proof through a dramatic recreation shot with actress Milla Jovovich as Abigail. Blending the “real” and the Hollywood, “Kind” seeks to develop a thorough portrait of mysterious Nome incidents, presenting evidence of a horrific alien event that places the burden of belief on you, the viewer.
As passionate a hoax as it may be, “Fourth Kind” is still a hoax. Even if the whole story turned out to be horrifying fact, I still wouldn’t believe it. Thanks to Osunsami’s limited assets as a filmmaker, “Fourth Kind” is a dreary, uneventful ride that fails to conjure a convincing argument for authenticity.
The mix of video and film is clever enough to lend “Fourth Kind” an arresting identity. The film is eager to play mind games with the audience, selling Abigail’s torment through interview footage of the shattered woman as she recounts her ordeal to Osunsami. Trouble is, reality just can’t be manufactured, and it’s difficult to believe anything the film is pushing due to the irritating artificiality of the performances. Had the film stayed in glossy recreation mode, it might’ve encouraged a deeper sense of fear and mystery.
Furiously juggling videotape documentation with film overwhelms Osunsami’s skill level, as the director attempts to tighten the vise through painfully clichéd filmmaking moves, the most torturous one being a ridiculous usage of jittery handheld camerawork to suggest intensity. There’s also a bizarre attempt to keep the film’s employment of split screen lively by moving the divider back and forth, manufacturing energy where the film has none.
As for this collection of hard evidence, it’s also a bit of a cheat. The video sequences are appropriately hollow and atmospheric, yet the electromagnetic energy of the alien presence just happens to fuzz out the money shots. Osunsami relies on transcription of Sumerian language outbursts and volume shocks to help cook the tension, and it results in a few stunning moments of visitation, but nothing that’s able to sustain an entire feature film or win over mounting doubt. The rest of the picture is ineffective suspense brought on by vicious overacting (Will Patton as the skeptical sheriff is particularly grating) and a tepid story that doesn’t develop beyond VHS parlor tricks.
For the “Fourth Kind” to work as intended, it simply must convince the audience that the camcorder footage is authentic. I never felt comfortable believing Abigail, and most of the picture comes across as an amateurish prank created by someone itching to be clever, without the aptitude to accurately sell a complex hoax to the viewing audience. Attempting shock value and extraterrestrial disturbance to generate a cult smash, “The Fourth Kind” will likely tire audiences before it ever has a chance to swindle them.
Filmfodder Grade: D+]]>
In Virginia circa 1976, Arthur (James Marsden) and Norma Lewis (Cameron Diaz) are under pressure to keep up with their bills, with Arthur failing to secure a desired astronaut position at NASA. Into their life comes Arlington Steward (Frank Langella), a disfigured man who arrives with a box and careful instructions. Inside the box is a red button and, if pressed, a stranger will die, with one million dollars left to the couple as a reward. Leave the button be and Steward takes the box away, never to be heard from again. Weighing their options, Arthur attempts to investigate Steward, only to find the spooky dealmaker’s associates watching him from everywhere. Norma also digs for answers, finding Steward’s origins might not be as plainly malicious as previously thought.
I respect Kelly as an intelligent fellow who could probably solve a Rubik’s Cube in four moves. His intellect and insatiable itch for the unknown made “Darko” and “Southland” into distinctive treasures, but his imagination shows a considerable reduction of tread while navigating the winding road of “The Box.” Adapting the Richard Matheson short story “Button, Button” for the big screen (after a previous stop on an episode of “The Twilight Zone”), Kelly allows the source material a chance to only eat up a fraction of the screenplay. This is a crying shame, as Matheson’s contributions are the only convincing suspense acrobatics of the picture.
A sci-fi morality tale, “The Box” presents an assertive “would you?” dilemma into the minds of the audience. Knowing someone would perish, be it baby or bum, would you take the fat cash and slap the red button? Or would the guilt, the sheer unknown elements of the situation, be enough to ruin your life, leaving refusal the only choice? “Box” sincerely addresses these questions, and Kelly understands how to squeeze the Lewis pickle for the optimum amount of dread. Shot with an impressive HD-powered ‘70’s glaze and captured with convincing special effects, Kelly opens “The Box” with stupendous promise. It’s a clean machine of suspense and ethical debate, assertively displaying hesitant heroes, a ghoulish villain, and a devious offer perfectly arranged to feed post-screening debates for years to come.
And then Kelly begins grating nonsense over the whole magnificent effort.
Once Arthur and Norma make their choice, there’s nowhere for “The Box” to go. Kelly, understanding the limitations of the short story adaptation challenge, pulls a bootlegger’s turn with his script, moving away from tentative reality to pure sci-fi. We’re talking operatic nose bleeds, liquid doorways to the afterlife (a Kelly staple), and a grandiose threat from unspecified origins. Kelly looks to the skies to embellish “Box” past the raw materials. While there’s a fascinating pull in the early going, hope is drained the longer Kelly stretches the mystery. At nearly two hours, the feature runs completely out of steam by the conclusion, making horrific dilemmas of life and death feel like amateurish stalling. “Box” bites off way more than it can possibly chew, and the flavor is overwhelmingly stale.
It’s difficult to label “The Box” simply incomprehensible. The worst offense of the film is the manner in which it pushes the viewer away, unable to clarify itself to a degree where it feels more like a puzzle and less like a diary reading. The feature willingly runs off the rails, and normally that sort of fearless sense of adventure is welcome. Heck, it’s benefitted Kelly on two previous occasions, but “The Box” is no party. Perhaps its secrets are not effortlessly interpreted, but they’re easily telegraphed.
Somebody get Richard Kelly a Katherine Heigl romantic comedy stat, or else we might have yet another talented filmmaker unable to wiggle free from his own cavernous pretension.
Filmfodder Grade: C-]]>
A shriveled, angular miser, Ebenezer Scrooge (voiced by Jim Carrey), has allowed his heart to harden over the years, shutting out the affections of his nephew, Fred (Colin Firth), and making life difficult for sole employee, Bob Cratchit (Gary Oldman). To help mend his miserable ways, the spirit of old business partner Jacob Marley (Oldman) warns Scrooge that he will be visited by three ghosts: Christmas Past (Carrey), Christmas Present (Carrey), and Christmas Yet to Come. Sweeping Scrooge up into the sky, the spirits show the vile man the error of his ways, detailing a life of misery if he continues down a path of bitterness.
Zemeckis first toyed with mo-cap on 2004’s holiday extravaganza, “The Polar Express.” It was an experimental triumph, showing off the dynamic range of the animation and the performances, allowed free range to make it all come to sparkling life. 2007’s “Beowulf” divided audiences, but nevertheless proved again that mo-cap permitted Zemeckis to seek out new avenues of artistic release, indulging grand visions of camera fluidity and thespian dexterity. Certainly his live-action work is missed, but Zemeckis has found a singular inspiration with mo-cap that’s heartening to behold.
“A Christmas Carol” submits a unique challenge for Zemeckis and the mo-cap aesthetic. It’s a legendary story, immortalized in a thousand different forms. The repetition urges the filmmaker to challenge the staleness of the tale, working the mo-cap buttons and levers to reimagine a Dickensian world with stunning 360 degree detail (enchanced brilliantly if one chooses a 3-D theatrical experience) live-action can’t quite accomplish on a sensible budget. It goes beyond chipped cobblestones and apple cheeks to the otherworldly tangents of the source material, depicting three ghosts with mysterious, unsettling powers of persuasion that have the sort of silver screen dynamism Zemeckis loves to fiddle with.
The animation in “Carol” is constantly spectacular, reworking known elements into graphic, riveting extremes. Scrooge isn’t simply a man of meager soul, but a near-reptilian creature folding at the waist, excited only by money and cruelty. The CG work enjoys the challenge of representation, merging the features of the actors with the exaggeration of the characters. While Scrooge is nicely crusted and skeletal (losing Carrey’s distinct Carreyisms in the process), the rest of the roles find a happy medium between literary homage and modern star power, with little recognizable patches of Oldman and Firth (along with Robin Wright Penn and Bob Hoskins in various supporting roles) fed into the plump, Victorian spirit.
Behind the animated flamboyance are performances that tunnel deep into the dramatic possibilities of the material. It should be noted that this “Carol” is perhaps the least emotionally gluey version in quite some time, with Zemeckis utilizing great passages of silence and discombobulating psychedelics to articulate Scrooge’s illuminating interaction with the three ghosts. The film is cold to the touch, but not easily written off. Jim Carrey’s lead performance contains heady passages of pathos within a remarkable piece of acting that not only burrows into Scrooge’s panic, but also his disorientation near the phantoms, who offer the miserable man passage to a bleak future. It’s a vocal fantasia for Carrey, creatively working through the multiple roles, with only animation flourishes giving him away.
While sticking close to Dickens, Zemeckis runs off to play with a few choice moments of action. The best features Scrooge shrunk down to the size of a pencil by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, scurrying through sewers and nervously riding bottles as he avoids future’s wrath. Yielding to this sort of tomfoolery is understandable, considering the stillness of the film and the stark depiction of doomsday decision making, which helps the movie to an intense PG rating. Zemeckis staging elaborate leaps, smashes, and scares is always wonderful thing, allowing for a “Carol” that stays within a boundary of reverential behavior, yet prepared to blast off when the mood strikes.
“Carol” isn’t a warm, comforting hug of a feature film. Its sympathies are projected subtlety, assembling a moody picture of extraordinary technical achievement, not a glazed retelling of holiday reform. The distance is unavoidable, but my hope is that audiences take the opportunity to drink in the astonishing craftsmanship of the film and welcome its unsettling atmosphere. Robert Zemeckis may not have you reaching for the tissues by the end of the picture, but “A Christmas Carol” should drop a few jaws with its sterling animated achievements.
Filmfodder Grade: B+]]>
The year is 1987, and Precious (newcomer Gabourey Sidibe) is a morbidly obese, illiterate 16-year-old girl suffering abuse at the hands of her violent mother, Mary (Mo’Nique), and expecting her second child, impregnated by her own father. Kicked out of school, Precious is sent to the “Each One Teach One” GED education center, where she meets sympathetic teacher Ms. Rain (Paula Patton). Trying to survive her daily punishments and humiliations, Precious starts to put her life in order through her educational efforts, engaging slowly but surely with counselor Ms. Weiss (Mariah Carey), who attempts to adjust the young lady’s sense of self-worth. Emboldened by her accomplishments and newfound friends, Precious realizes she isn’t free from her mother’s wrath, with even more severe turns of fate waiting around the corner to smash her confidence to pieces.
There’s a special low-to-the-ground quality to “Precious” that pulled me into the story almost completely. Narrated by the title character in a thick-tongued, stream-of-consciousness ramble, mumbling her every thought as though the audience should not be allowed to hear her hopes and dreams, “Precious” feels properly intimate. It’s almost voyeuristic in a way. The screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher seeks to provide a balance between the character’s horrific reality and the shelter of her mind, where dreams of red-carpet stardom and the romantic attention of cute boys whisks Precious away from the cruelty that’s toughened her exterior and sent her heart into a coma. The film preserves its literary foundation by capturing Precious’ conflicted core, performed with stupendous clotted discomfort by Sidibe, whose fearlessness in appearance and emotional availability gives Daniels a miraculous canvas to work with.
With such throbbing swells of misery portioned throughout the film, it’s a miracle Daniels never accepts a less aggressive route of misery for his heroine. The option is there, but Daniels (last seen with the eye-rollingly bizarre 2006 thriller, “Shadowboxer”) ducks temptation, preferring to tackle Precious’ grueling world with authentic malice and irritation, showing equal parts love and frustration for the character. Daniels takes an unfortunate off-ramp with his visual style, which arrives as clichéd as can be, using zooms and fractured editing to artificially breathe for the story. The effort is distracting and entirely worthless when the cast is harmonizing superbly. Even Mo’Nique, not normally known for her graceful screen presence, contributes volatile work as the demonic mother, cursed with feelings of irrational jealousy that have made her daughter the enemy. She’s pure malice, and a nice contrast to the work of Paula Patton, who steals the film as the exhausted, supportive beacon of hope for Precious, refusing to accept her excuses, nudging the terrified girl into literacy and communication.
“Precious” is more concerned with the first steps of empowerment, not an overall cure, leaving more of a lasting impression than outright closure allows. The story of Precious hits several staggering low points, but the humanity is never far from view, and while uncomfortable to process at times, the film retains an impressive dramatic grip through unimaginable horror. Tyler Perry could learn a thing or two from this approach.
Filmfodder Grade: B+]]>
A Midwestern journalist with heavy domestic troubles, Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) heads over to Iraq to cover the war, looking to challenge himself and prove his worth to his cheating wife. Needing a specialist to help cross the border, Bob meets Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a former diamond soldier of the New Earth Army (NEA), a military unit dedicated to nurturing psychic powers, under the command of new age enthusiast, Bill Django (Jeff Bridges). Learning more about these self-proclaimed “Jedis,” Bob is sucked into Lyn’s history, learning about wondrous mental feats of strength and the bitterness of Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), a rival who desired his own position of leadership. Traveling into the heart of the war, Bob and Lyn bond as they dodge trouble, trusting in the ridiculous powers of the mind to help them stave off certain doom.
“Goats” is a tightrope act without a safety net, requiring a sense of adventure from the viewer as screenwriter Peter Straughan and director Grant Heslov depict the waves of tomfoolery while satirizing rigid military behaviors and ferocious ambition. “Goats” is a comedy and a zany one at that, highlighting the birth of the psychic warrior, trained by Django to be sensitive souls willing to express themselves through dance, deviating from the military norm -- a generation of flower children for the 1980s, with Lyn the star pupil. Finding his true calling in life as a member of the NEA, Lyn sharpens his untested mental skill while discovering himself in ways never allowed in stricter setting of instruction.
Through Heslov, the concept of psychic warfare is left in a gray area of belief, using Bob as the surrogate who initially doubts Lyn’s explanations, but eventually fully immerses himself in the NEA world, becoming a true believer the more Lyn divulges state secrets in the middle of the Iraq desert. Summoning the miracle of a classic rock soundtrack and trusting the power of careful, considerate framing, Heslov sells the insanity with amazing results, allowing the movie to chase pure goofball splendor, giving in to the slapstick and exaggerated reactions, creating a festive atmosphere where every actor contributes superbly to the eccentricity. Dealing with psychedelic drugs, mind games with goats, and wild stories of unorthodox training, Heslov shows an incredible flair for finger-paint comedy, allowing the picture to gracefully soak up nonsense, sharply performed by the outstanding cast.
Moving into darker, treacherous corners for the last act, endeavoring to tie something madcap into sobering Iraq War history, Heslov extends the conclusion past the expiration date. He stops the party, and the energy is noticeably lacking from the final reel, which feels uncharacteristically severe. Thank heavens the rest of the picture stuck with the silly. Heslov has shaped “The Men Who Stare at Goats” into a lively romp; an indescribable satiric lunge that’s big on laughs and puzzlement, making it a constantly engaging sit despite some potentially off-putting material.
Filmfodder Grade: B+]]>
From April to June 2009, Michael Jackson held rehearsals for his “This Is It” megaconcert in Los Angeles, renting out an arena to work out the complex choreography and sound cues needed to bring his vivid imagination for showmanship to life. Backed by a throng of zealous dancers and awed musicians (along with director Kenny Ortega), Jackson trotted out over 20 of his greatest hits, repetitively walking through the songs to make sure the details were in perfect place for this, the most important and financially lucrative concert stand of his career. Behind heavy makeup and oversized sunglasses, Jackson presided over the effort, desperate to give his fans a mind-blowing performance that would live up to his legend.
And then Michael Jackson died, mere weeks before the whole endeavor was to commence.
Flush with rehearsal and backstage footage commissioned by Jackson for personal study, Ortega and his editors have decided to turn tragedy into a fresh revenue stream. Now that’s the cynicism rising up inside me, but after watching “This Is It,” I fail to see a reason why a tedious collection of practice sessions should pass for a proper farewell celebration. Sure, there’s the novelty of watching Jackson inches away from the grave, moonwalkin’ and crotch-grabbin’ like there’s no tomorrow. And then there’s the cold reality of the footage, which displays Jackson half-heartedly running through his chart-toppers, at times barely singing along, looking to save his airy voice for the big debut. The cameras used here are commercial-grade (not powerful HD machinery), Jackson is rarely viewed in close-up or without his facial protection, and the songs are limply performed. Surely there was a better way to capture Jackson’s musical tenacity than a slapdash compilation of rehearsals.
The only benefit of the footage is witnessing how Jackson designed the arena experience, instructing his employees with equal parts insistence and patience (always chased with a “God bless you”). Ortega manages to work in a few choice moments of the singer feeling out the beats, and while brief, it’s fascinating to watch Jackson hiccup and jitter his way through the tunes, deploying his famous moves to fit a new stage of opportunities. Ortega is always there, the endless yes man who needs Jackson as happy as can be, representing the ugly sycophantic mentality that ultimately drove the gloved one to his grave.
“This Is It” tries to fatten the shallow experience by including video clips of the concert that never was, showing off the short films Jackson was working on (“Smooth Criminal” features the singer interacting with Rita Hayworth and Humphrey Bogart, “Thriller” comes alive again as a 3-D spectacle) and crude CG-animated concepts to help to understand how the show was meant to be seen. Threadbare interview footage is included as well, but only adds more fawn to the fire. Ortega works up a sweat manipulating “This Is It” into a cinematic event, but it’s an unfinished symphony, and a marginally tacky one at that.
Courtrooms and plausible rumors aside, Jackson deserved something booming and blinding to send his legacy into orbit, perhaps a documentary of some type that might gift the devoted a lasting image of pop culture supremacy. “This Is It” is strictly pressed factory floor sweepings, packaged and sold with questionable intent to a public aching for closure.
Filmfodder Grade: D+]]>
Ever since her childhood in Kansas, Amelia Earhart (Hilary Swank) wanted to fly. Using the publicity skills of publisher George Putnam (Richard Gere), Amelia found fame as a passenger on a 1928 transatlantic flight, catapulting her name into the history books. But Amelia wanted her own glory. Eventually marrying Putnam, the couple built Amelia into a brand name, sending her into the skies and on the lecture circuit, even finding a romantic dalliance with admirer Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor) along the way. Against Putnam’s wishes, Amelia desired a transatlantic solo flight, eventually looking to take on the impossible: a flight around the world. With navigator Fred Noonan (Christopher Eccleston) in tow, Amelia took off in 1937, sailing into the skies for the last time.
I suppose there’s some expectation for “Amelia” to focus intently on the airborne accomplishments of its heroine, seeing how her name was built on incredible leaps of skyward faith and instinct. It certainly came as a surprise to me to see that the film isn’t always interested in Amelia’s gifts, but her bedroom proclivities. Director Mira Nair searches to unearth Amelia’s heart, investigating the passions that found her bouncing between men as she craved freedom from limitation. It seems Amelia wasn’t always driven by honor, more often pushed into opportunity by the men who attempted to run her life.
Nair handles the domestic disturbance with heavy melodramatic hands, pressing Gere and Swank into a heightened state of emotion, keeping in line with the cinematic offerings of the era. The homage is clear, but the delivery is trying, especially under the tight bondage of the film’s PG rating. The picture depicts Amelia Earhart as a bisexual adulteress with a soaring heart, easily susceptible to male control. Nair handles the subplot cautiously, but it feels distracting, especially placed next to the aviation material, where the film’s heart truly lies.
Wielding exaggerated accents (Gere’s comes and goes), the leads fail to generate much heat, instead only encouraging painful pockets of overacting, trying to compete with cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh’s amazing aerial footage by broadly overstating desire. The performances are awkward, made worse by Nair’s indecision, caught between Amelia’s legacy, built through endorsements and media curiosity, and her innate need to be in the air. The two elements of her personality never gel properly into a convincing feature.
I’ll give Nair this, she does make history exciting again. The final act, where Amelia’s fate is sealed somewhere over the Pacific, is a harrowing sequence of miscommunication and acceptance, generating astounding tension. Here, the merging of wonder and panic creates a strong brew of suspense, taking a conclusion widely documented and making it feel sickening all over again. “Amelia” could’ve used more of this inspired manipulation.
As I walked out of the screening, I tried to assess what I learned about Amelia over the course of the feature. What the film offers is melodrama, more interested in the aviatrix’s bedroom activities than her spirit. The picture doesn’t track her heroism or her elevated determination, soon reflected in the eyes of millions of impressionable young women. “Amelia” hunts for complexity, but it only achieves a tedious middle ground. Amelia Earhart left behind an amazing legacy of accomplishments and exited the world creating one of history’s most enduring mysteries. Her story is a mighty creature, but “Amelia” can only muster a dull roar.
Filmfodder Grade: C]]>
In Metro City, a metropolis hovering high above a polluted Earth, Dr. Tenma (voiced by Nicolas Cage) is preparing to experiment with a pure energy source intended to enhance the citys overflowing robot population. When wicked President Stone (Donald Sutherland) assumes control of the energy, an accident occurs, killing Tenmas son (Freddie Highmore). Racked with grief, Tenma decides to use the special power to fuel a robot replica of his beloved child, but the boys artificiality only deepens the doctors depression. Cast down to Earth, the boy, rechristened Astro by a gang of pre-teen salvagers and their makeshift guardian, Hamegg (Nathan Lane), grows to love treatment as a human, but when Stone rises up again to claim power, Astro must embrace his robotic roots to save humanity.
Astro Boy comes from Imagi Animation Studios, who last gave the world the wonderful TMNT CG update. If there are any absolutes about this film, its the striking animation. Granted, Imagi doesnt have the budget or the manpower to compete with Pixar and Dreamworks just yet, but their minimal-coin work on Astro Boy is nicely futuristic and clean, with expressive body language and outstanding kinetic energy for the action sequences. The picture is fun to watch, and director David Bowers (Flushed Away) builds a few exhilarating sequences to show off the CG work, the highlights being the flying excursions where our hero learns of his rocket-feet gifts.
While Bowers can assemble superhero wonderment, managing the numerous moods of Astro Boy proves to be an impossible task. Heres a film that opens with the death of a child, yet insists its this wide-eyed, banana-peel cartoon, ushering in a series of wacky characters and slapstick to offset the potential emotional starkness of the material. The additions are poorly selected, ranging from a group of communist robots intent on leading a synthetic uprising to the squad of surface kids Astro befriends, who live in a semi-Dickensian wonderland under Hamegg, with one of the group admitting illiteracy. Of course, in the grand tradition of good taste, this leaves Bowers with no choice but to make fun of their inability to write.
Astro Boy settles into a routine of the awesome and the awful quickly, though its disappointing to see the bad decisions win out in the end. The President Stone character is a prime example of the lousy screenwriting. A Bush-era, war-crazy baddie whos on a fear mongering crusade to secure re-election, Bowers turns the menace away from horror to comedy, trying to lighten up the picture by urging Sutherland to ham it up (always a rotten idea), making obvious and spastic jokes when a nice coating of subtlety mightve brought the film interesting dimensions. By nudging the picture into primary colors, Astro Boy loses a shot at an intriguing personality. A little sustained darkness never hurt anyone.
A colorful voice cast (including Bill Nighy, Charlize Theron, Kristen Bell, David Alan Grier, and Eugene Levy) offers something to savor while the film struggles to find its footing, but this update of a classic animated character lands with a thud. A promise of a sequel at the end of the film (where our now shirtless boy-hero tears off into the sky) remains an unlikely prospect, but if there must be further Astro adventures, lets hope the filmmakers stick to heroic feats of strength and aerial ballet over awful stabs at comedy.
Filmfodder Grade: C-]]>
16-year-old Darren (Chris Massoglia) is an average teen with good grades and a love for spiders. Finding a flyer for the Cirque du Freak sideshow, Darren decides to attend with impulsive best friend Steve (the limited Josh Hutcherson), finding the evening of oddities to their liking. Discovering the main act, Mr. Crepsley (John C. Reilly), is actually a vampire, a situation arises where Darren needs Crepsleys help to save Steve from doom. Vowing to become his assistant, Crepsley fakes Darrens death and ushers him into the Cirque family (including Salma Hayek, Orlando Jones, and Patrick Fugit). Educated in the ways of the vampire, Darren is troubled to learn that Steve has aligned himself with the nefarious Vampaneze and is dead set on revenge for all the humiliations hes endured.
Its not that Assistant is confusing, because Im convinced that with ample time and patience, one could piece together the tale Weitz is desperate to sell here. My displeasure with the film comes from the velocity of the facts and figures. Condensing three books into 100 minutes is just asking for trouble, and Weitz isnt the man for such an arduous job; how Weitz even nabbed the directors chair is the most interesting mystery about this film. After In Good Company and the execrable American Dreamz, its odd that the producers handed the keys to a filmmaker without any previous work in the horror/fantasy genre. Hoping for a wry take on unconventional neck-biting shenanigans, Weitz offers the moneymen a joyless, verbose picture fiercely consumed with packing every last subplot into the script. Theres barely a moment to breathe before the next random act of Shan is introduced.
Assistant looks funky enough, with great attention to ghoulish moonlit graveyards and campsites. I also enjoyed the Cirque troupe and their variousahem, gifts, sold well by the special effects. Theres just something inspired about Salma Hayek as a bearded lady. Reilly is a joy as Mr. Crepsley, moving away from his normal thick-tongued dopey guy routine to play a character with some menace about him and a little panache. Theres just not enough time spent on the freaks in the picture. With the focus on the teen characters and the hazy nonsense of the Vampaneze (a name that provoked waves of laughter from my screening audience), Assistant doesnt chase the most exciting tangents, instead weighing itself down with bland subplots that never reach a fever pitch of enthusiasm the way Weitz hopes. With so much here to digest, the viewing experience is one of constant education, rarely allowing an opportunity to enjoy the vampiric fireworks.
In a ballsy move, Assistant ends with a cliffhanger of sorts, failing to seal the story shut in an effort to drag this anemic saga into a full-fledged franchise. Its an ambitious gamble, and one wasted on a dreary exercise in Harry Potter franchise money tree dreams.
Filmfodder Grade: C-]]>
Round after round, they kept coming back, encouraging the producers to churn out product on a yearly basis (the filmmaking equivalent of a Twinkie). Who cares if the series makes only a modicum of sense anymore? Who cares if the screenplays have run out of ideas for shock value? Saw brings the pain; a comfy sweater film series for those who crave displays of agony. And now, my dear readers, were up to chapter six. An impossible number. Freddy went out in a hail of 3-D and goofy celebrity cameos at this point. Jason folded into a cartoon for his sixth adventure. But Jigsaw? He still has something to prove. As long as the box office returns flood the Lionsgate bank account every Halloween, nothing is going to kill Jigsaw. And Saw VI (IMDb listing) is further proof that the producers of this franchise are running on fumes, flailing hysterically to keep the momentum going, still beating a premise that was bled dry long ago.
Agent Strahm is dead, leaving Lieutenant Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) free to continue the sadistic work of Jigsaw (Tobin Bell), setting death traps and teaching lasting lessons of morality. For Jigsaws widow, Jill (the always welcome Betsy Russell), a box containing the final instructions of punishment from her dead husband has been opened, with orders to target William (Peter Outerbridge), an insurance executive who has denied important health coverage for the needy for years, including Jigsaw. Setting William up in a sophisticated obstacle course of traps and time-sensitive judgment calls, Hoffman is ready to initiate his own reign of terror, only to find the unfinished fragments of Jigsaws past coming back to thwart his new direction.
Yes, for the first Obama-era Saw picture, the producers have decided to take on the health care industry. This has to be the most ridiculously perfect timing ever encountered in the horror industry. Of course, this means Saw VI is less of a torture chamber and more of a medieval town square confrontation, where the wicked insurance ghoul is brought before the paying audience to be pelted with vegetables and scorn, leaving director Kevin Greutert the honor of a slow cinematic dismemberment. Now hows that for a public option!
The health care angle for Saw VI is a wild one, but in the grand tradition of these sequels, the filmmakers havent a clue what to do with the eency weency spark of creativity theyve stumbled upon. Instead, they smother the topical subject in familiar monkey business, literally retracing the previous pictures, retelling the same old story of withered, cancer-stricken Jigsaw and his craving to scare the life back into his victims. Saw VI hints at a drive to tie up dusty loose ends and tender some closure to those whove stuck around this long. However, a swan song this film is most certainly not.
Shamelessly repetitive, Saw VI reheats old conflicts, brings back an old character to panic Hoffman, and simply feels old all around. Five sequels in, and the producers are still milking Jigsaws message of redemption? What was once comfortably tedious is now deadly dull, and Greutert is no help, blindly sticking to the franchise formula to make it out of his directorial debut alive. Its lazy filmmaking all around.
The second half of Saw VI pits William against his vicious challenges, allowing the audience to root for the traps as they aim to chomp the money mans limbs away. The extremity of the violence here is more cartoonish than ever before; the production is desperate to stay one step ahead of the audience by mounting more outlandish traps that necessitate the worst acting imaginable. The bloodletting is grandiose in Saw VI, but strangely uneventful. You know youve seen one too many of these films when the sight of man hacking away at his own engorged stomach with a rusty knife elicits a yawn and a quick check of the wristwatch. It seems vile of me to even suggest it, but the intensity of Saw is gone, replaced by predictability for installment six. The work of the devil now feels like senseless padding to make a feature-length running time.
While declarations of finality are tossed around liberally by the characters, Saw VI ends with another cliffhanger, assuring that the Jigsaw train will make a future stop come Halloween 2010. Would it kill these producers to take a few chances for the next adventure? Its easy to loathe a Saw picture, but to be utterly bored by one seems an unpardonable offense.
Filmfodder Grade: D+]]>
Fresh from his latest domestic murder, David Harris (Dylan Walsh) has come to Oregon to start over, targeting single mom Susan (Sela Ward) and her family, including eldest son Michael (Penn Badgley), fresh home from a juvenile military camp. Slipping into a fatherly role, David attempts to make the best out of the uncomfortable situation, pushing himself as a grand paternal figure, much to the disdain of Michael. Trying to convince his mentally challenged girlfriend, Kelly (Amber Heard), that David is nothing but trouble, Michael sneaks around the house, hoping to gather enough clues to prove his theory. David, sensing he wont find the idyllic life he craves with Susans family, becomes increasingly violent to protect his fragmented identity.
I suppose there wasnt much to expect from The Stepfather, seeing how it ended up in the hands of director Nelson McCormick, who tore the cult legacy of Prom Night apart last year with his moronic second take. McCormick is studio-controlled puppet, not a director in the artistic sense of the word, and his stillborn pass on the material is unsurprisingly dismal. The 1987 picture wasnt the most refined production, but it retained a dazzling ambiance of suspense, twisting the traditions of the slasher genre to discover fresh areas of psychological troublemaking. McCormick doesnt share the same sense of adventure, instead piping in the stupidity once David spots Susan.
With a restrictive rating, McCormick cant stretch out his imagination to depict Davids homicidal appetites. The films limited to vague menace and neutered acts of violence, most featuring David suffocating his victims in various ways. Since the feature isnt permitted to play rough, McCormick gives up the hunt early and aims the film toward teen viewers, filling the soundtrack with tuneless emo-rock snoozers and keeping Heard and Badgley in various states of undress. Hey, if actual suspense cant be summoned, cheesecake will always do the trick.
The flagrant and crude manipulation would digest easier if the two young stars could act. Instead, Badgley looks and sound like a heavily sedated version of Mark Wahlberg (Jill Schoelen was a much feistier teen killjoy), and Heard is atrocious in a role that requires nothing more from her than the ability to tie a bikini top. These two werent hired for their acting gifts, I understand, but theyre in charge of nurturing the mystery. Without a pair of lively, believable spoilers stepping in Davids way, theres no reason to invest in the nonsense.
Walsh gives the killer dad role the old college try, but a plausible menace he is not. McCormick has an annoying habit of thickly underlining all of Davids misdeeds and predatory glances, making Stepfather more of a brazen cartoon experience, confusing Walshs concentration. It leads to a whopping bit of absurdity reserved for the standard-issue final showdown, which promises a sequel as our reward. With this cast and crew, it feels more like an act of intimidation.
Filmfodder Grade: D]]>
Having witnessed the murder of his wife and daughter, Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler, destroying an American accent yet again) is ready for justice to be served. Up and coming D.A. Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) is in charge of the case and eager to make a deal with one of the brutes to send the other to death row. Clyde, witnessing his dreams of justice expire, walks away, allowing Nick to carry out his plan. 10 years later, the two killers end up murdered in gruesome ways, with Clyde the only possible suspect. Instigating a psychological war with Nick, Clyde demands a new type of justice, mysteriously reaching out from behind bars to systematically torment everyone associated with his case (including Leslie Bibb and Bruce McGill). Nick, fearing for his life, races against the clock to crack Clydes master plan before he targets his wife and child.
When Law Abiding Citizen feels comfortable enough to be a blunt object of suspense, it comes together splendidly. Pitting the harsh realities of the modern justice system against the suburban cry for blood from a soccer dad, Kurt Wimmers screenplay nurtures a pungent odor of injustice that sets up the plot in an exhilarating manner. Morally frozen lawyers? Tired, careless judges? Wimmer manipulates audience reaction superbly, bringing the story to a wonderful boil as Nick stands firm to his case-winning percentages and Clyde sulks away, beaten down by the system that was supposed to heal his aching heart. Now theres a proper set-up for a bracing thriller that respects the fine art of revenge.
Unfortunately, Citizen doesnt follow through with its corker of a first act. Director F. Gary Gray toys with the audience for fair amount of the running time, building the characterizations of the two men as they disagree on what the punishment should be. Staying put with Nick the ladder-climbing opportunist and Clyde the meek idealist provides the film with a sensational, unfussy pulse of tension. Wimmer and Gray dont trust that simplicity, and they overreach to contort Citizen from a solid thriller to a surprisingly violent thrill ride.
You see, Clyde has a secret. All men do. Yet, Clydes secret scrubs away the films sense of realism and suggestion of fair play. By turning Mr. Rogers into Jason Bourne, the sensation of surprise is smothered. Suddenly everything is larger than life, and Clydes symphony of revenge plays out like a typical action film, not a sinister pageant of dark justice. Wimmer dreams up one whopper after the next to keep the film rolling, enthusiastically turning Citizen into a sci-fi film of sorts with its extreme sequences of comeuppance. By the time a robot shows up in a graveyard to mow down the greater Philadelphia D.A. office, itll take a heavenly force to keep most eyes from rolling.
By the final reel, Citizen has shed all of its thought-provoking material, morphing completely into a contrived thriller that doesnt fully understand how to close on a satisfying note. Instead of a wicked game of mental chess, we get fireballs. Law Abiding Citizen takes the easy route out, assuming that flagrant manipulation requires a cartoon hand. All it really needs is confidence, patience, and someone to boo.
Filmfodder Grade: C+]]>
Young Max (Max Records) is facing the end of his innocence, with an older sister moving on to teen concerns, an education that promises the end of the world, and his mother (Catherine Keener), whos trying to make sense of her job and love life. A moment of violent rebellion takes Max outside of his home and into the wilds of his mind, where he imagines a boat trip to a far away land inhabited by neurotic monsters. Meeting behemoths Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini), Judith (Catherine OHara), Ira (Forest Whitaker), K.W. (Lauren Ambrose), Douglas (Chris Cooper), and runt Alexander (Paul Dano), Max makes himself the king of the land, joining the monsters as they play and argue. However, leadership has its price, and the longer Max stays with the bickering monsters, the more he comprehends his misbehavior at home.
Long thought to be an unfilmable book, Where the Wild Things Are doesnt strike me as something that required a silver screen conquering, providing a succinct exploration of juvenile anger and remorse on just a handful of magnificently illustrated pages. However, Jonze is a determined man, and through a meandering screenplay (co-written by Dave Eggers), the filmmaker has managed to stretch the material to a size befitting a motion picture event. Im impressed with Jonzes commitment to the scope and design of the film, but to find the filler that plumps up the sliver-thin narrative, the filmmaker reaches into his bag of gloom and oddity, molesting Sendaks simplicity with winded pathos.
While Max is our guide to the outer realms of this expansive dream world, the monsters are the centerpiece, and the characters Jonze is most fixated on. A blend of Henson Creature Shop bodies and CG faces, the enormous inhabitants of Maxs subconscious are miraculous creations that respect the art of the tangible while engaging in seamless computer wizardry to lend the monsters divergent personalities. The creatures are all details and worry, with a magnificent voice cast providing a tender core to the herculean visual effort. Eschewing dynamic visual trickery in favor of roly-poly, wobbly puppet outfits, the monsters are rendered as real as monstrously possible, allowing Jonze to provide a certain threat for Max as he looks to win over his tempestuous friends. Acting more like Jackass cast members as they punch through trees, rubber-ball bounce around the wilderness, and enjoy a good dirt-clump fight, the monsters are easily the most technologically impressive screen effect of the year. Jim Henson would be proud.
Now, what Jonze does with his special screen achievement is another story. Maxs arc of rage to regret is a brief journey in Sendaks book, and the screenplay is careful to maintain the role-reversal twist of the tale, where Max finds himself in a parental role with his persistent monster pals. Moving past Maxs responsibility proves to be more difficult for the picture, which seeks to fashion the furry co-stars as uniquely tormented souls who need the boy for enlightenment and reassurance. Instead of a joyful romp, Jonze aims his sniper rifle toward the heart, strumming the nostalgic strings of lost childhood and strain of friendship to build up some drama to pad out the running time. The monsters as individuals with hopes, suspicions, and fears is a wonderful idea, but the execution comes off labored, often showcasing the characters yelling at each other, a few moments hitting Carnal Knowledge levels of relationship ferocity. The monsters love and alienate easily, but theres no real pull to their contention, wallowing in sadness, turning Sendaks book into an emo beacon. The author celebrated the feral passion of youth. Jonze positively mourns it.
Boasting an outstanding production design, Where the Wild Things Are is a feast for the eyes. Its magical in spurts, snatching the highlights of the book and making some terrific make-believe with jaw-dropping technical achievements. The substance between the marvel is another matter entirely. Spike Jonze obviously has his heart in the right place here, but extending something so perfectly concise, so willingly brief, to an absurd length invites more trouble than triumph. The rumpus runs out of steam quickly.
Filmfodder Grade: C+]]>