CAPSULE REVIEW MEGA-POST (PAGE 1 OF 5):
If there was anyone outside of teenage girls
who woulda thunk that a “romance” starring Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet
would actually be a good movie, it wasn’t me. I walked into the screening
of A Lot Like Love as pessimistic as could be, ready to chew the it
up and spit it out in this review. And who could blame me? The film was
advertised as the identical of Kutcher’s previous project of insufferable
cinematic inhumanity, Just Married. But guess what? It turns out
that it was falsely marketed in such a fashion so that it would attract
the actor’s usual fan-base. In actuality, the movie is of surprising
depth; it seamlessly uses circumstance-driven acts of coincidence to build
a relationship-dynamic between the two main characters. A Lot Like Love
may echo several superior films in its genre, but it’s always unique
enough to be able to be both thoughtful and sensual.
As for Kutcher and Peet—these are probably the
performances of their careers. While her work has impressed me in the
past, his always seems to curse everyone and anyone who comes near it.
Here, the two show genuine chemistry together, supplementing each other’s
strengths and weaknesses, many of which I had no idea that they had.
Director Nigel Cole should not go without mention for making this happen,
either, as he allows the duo to glow onscreen. Cole paces the movie with a
certain poetic elegance rarely found in Hollywood romances anymore,
especially those of this nature. Contrived his movie may be, but it’s
beautifully contrived because it uses its assets well. A Lot Like Love
is one of the most pleasant surprises of the year thus far.
Paul Haggis, who spoke with such remarkable
confidence through his screenplay for Million Dollar Baby, one of
the best films of the past few years, seems to be his own worst enemy in
Crash, his directorial debut. Ambition-wise, he doesn’t disappoint,
taking on the touchy concept of the frightening practicalities of racism
in Modern-Day American Society. However, while the movie is far from a bad
one, Crash is not everything that it could’ve been. Often not
making full use of the undeniable knack for observing the vulnerabilities
of life created by mere human tragedy that he displayed in Million
Dollar Baby, he here crafts an ensemble-driven motion picture that is
unrealistically trite. In the film, every single character is a racist in
some way or another. Because of this, it seems as though Haggis wants to
make a statement—and maybe he does—that his cast is representative of the
majority of people in reality. As a result, it’s hard to take the truly
valid and thoughtful material in the film seriously.
This all being said, Crash contains many
redeeming passages and qualities. In particular, there are three scenes in
it that are able to overpower and transcend the endlessly contrived slew
of racist remarks which exist in its realm. They conclude stories
regarding a conflict between a Persian store-owner and a Latino handy-man,
a crooked cop and a woman he violates as her husband watches, and the
cop’s former partner who one night picks up another man who has lost all
direction in life. As I witnessed each of these sketches, I felt as though
seeing the movie was an entirely worthwhile decision. Haggis’ powerful
abilities as both a writer and a director are beautifully displayed in
each of them. This isn’t to say that he was the only talented person who
participated in the making of the film; Don Cheadle, Thandie Newton,
Terrence Howard, Jennifer Esposito, Sandra Bullock, Brendan Fraser,
Michael Pena, Matt Dillon, and Ryan Phillippe are just a few of the
members of the cast, which is as artistically diverse as it is racially
diverse. Together, they allow the motion picture’s artificial and, in
truth, somewhat stereotypical ideas to form a whole that is far more
poignant than it ever could’ve been on paper. Crash’s repetitive
execution may be maddening at times, but the experience proves ultimately
rewarding in more ways than one.
Without a particularly
interesting plot—granted, the supernatural conflict found in this film is
far more absorbing than that of any other American remake of a Japanese
Horror movie—Dark Water manages to be quite a captivating and
haunting motion picture. The reason for this is simple: it is expertly
crafted, especially in terms of mood and atmosphere, as well as
realistically performed. The beauty of Dark Water is that it
doesn’t try to go for the same cheap scares that its peers do, but rather
creates an eerie, dark realm of existence which deeply taps into the
psyche. The premise is surprisingly human; rather than using the
ghost-story which accompanies the apartment that the protagonist (Jennifer
Connelly) and her daughter (Ariel Gage) move into as its main focus, the
film concentrates more on a custody battle between she and her ex-husband
(Dougray Scott).
Connelly crafts her character, named Dahlia, in
such a convincing and assured manner that I have a hard time believing
that she didn’t use personal experience—perhaps she based it on what went
on with her first child?—as a point of reference. In fact, not a single
member of the cast, which also includes John C. Reily as the owner of
Dahlia’s apartment complex, disappoints at all. This, in itself, makes the
more derivative elements of the Japanese Horror Genre found in Dark
Water far more compelling than they ever have been before. It’s quite
amazing to see how effective the somewhat hokey material, which usually
comes across as utterly ridiculous in other movies, is when real, cutting
emotion is actually involved. Likewise, such emotion also propels the
tinted, stunning camerawork by Affonso Beato—which in its prime when it
focuses on the geometric shapes of the film’s sublime setting of Roosevelt
Island, New York—allowing it to ooze of a creepy feel. Even when Dark
Water looses coherency at times, director Walter Salles (The
Motorcycle Diaries) always uses its many assets to his advantage and
the result is thoroughly fascinating. The movie represents what its
peers—namely The Ring 2, which shared the same source-writer, and
last year’s The Grudge—should’ve been.
Just when I thought that the Farrelly Brothers
were about to destroy the streak of hysterical films that makes up the
majority of the whole of their entire film careers, they ended up dishing
out the best film that they’ve ever made. The ads for Fever Pitch,
a movie which is basically about learning to balance the passions in our
lives, made it seem like a product of profound stupidity, even more of an
artistic bottom-feeder than the Farrelly’s shaky debut, Dumb & Dumber.
Surprisingly, it is anything but.
Truth be told, mere clips and a synopsis of
Fever Pitch do no justice to its somewhat unassuming depth. This is a
film that is all about atmosphere, portraying the ways that we humans
respond to the loves of our lives more by understanding the mere nature of
things than through plotting. The story, which chronicles the dilemma that
Red Sox Fan Ben (Jimmy Fallon) faces when he discovers the magnitude to
which his relationship with his girlfriend Lindsey (Drew Barrymore) is
hindered by his devotion to his favorite baseball team, is undeniably
silly. This, however, does not change the fact that the movie is so warm
and so easy-going that the ridiculousness of the premise only adds to its
charm. Fallon and Barrymore share wondrously realistic chemistry together
and the picture benefits tremendously from such, especially in terms of
making the ending, which was changed when the supposedly-cursed Sox
actually went on to win last year’s World Series, feel seamless and
natural. It’s no exaggeration to say that as far as Hollywood’s
romantic-comedies go, Fever Pitch is quite a unique and precious
catch.
Leave it to Hayao Miyazaki to turn a mess of a
story into a spectacle, further proving the fact that he’s the Martin
Scorsese equivalent of the animated world. While probably his weakest
effort in years—Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and My
Neighbor Totoro are tough competition—Howl’s Moving Castle is
still a riveting motion picture, often joyous, magical, and sorrowing all
at the same time. Even without an entirely fulfilling narrative arc—it
seems to me as though Diana Wynne Jones’ book was quite a challenge to
adapt—Miyazaki’s abilities to deliver visually, thematically, and
symbolically make this film truly one of the year’s best. It plays like a
truly sublime fable, as any great picture of this sort should, displaying
distinct and often wacky characteristics. Younger viewers will be able to
respond to these at face-value, whereas adults will appreciate them on
higher, more meaningful levels, if they so desire. Not to mention,
whatever one’s age, it’s hard not to be left completely awestruck by the
beautifully detailed look of the movie, especially in terms of the “Moving
Castle” which the film was named after, a humongous, gorgeous triumph of
the imagination. This is a stunning motion picture that just begs to be
experienced.
The problem with Kingdom of Heaven, which is the bearer of a
whopping $130 million production budget, isn’t technical inadequacy. In
fact, if viewed in a “by-the-books” fashion, it could be said that it is a
very good movie. However, it isn’t and the reason why is because
well-rounded viewers have seen everything in it before. The film’s visuals
are jaw-dropping, but they’re mere equals to those of last year’s Troy.
There is historical information regarding the Crusades that can be learned
from it, but nothing that couldn’t be absorbed from a History Channel
program regarding the same subject. Director Ridley Scott draws parallels
between the Middle East in ancient times and the Middle East today, but
they aren’t any more enlightening than those that could be found on any
‘ol talk radio show. The performances by leads Orlando Bloom and Eva Green
are solid, but nothing superior to their previous work. While Kingdom
of Heaven is efficient enough to seem alright to audience-members
while they are watching it, they will only leave the theatre thinking
about the alternatives that they could’ve better spent their time with.
The mere fact that March of the Penguins’
subject, the Emperor Penguin, is able to survive and protect the egg of
their growing offspring in the often negative-eighty-degree weather of
Antarctica, for months on end, is limitlessly fascinating. The film is
quick to inform us that “no other living creature can survive this
ritual.” Apparently, Luc Jacquet and his crew weren’t thinking of their
own participation in it when making that statement. It is almost equally
remarkable that they were able to take the footage that is seen in the
film, which was, for the most part, not enhanced by computer-generated
effects. March of the Penguins is a documentary of limitless
pleasures—Morgan Freeman’s wonderful storytelling (not narration) comes to
mind, in addition to those I have already mentioned—although it
unfortunately presents itself in a mediocre way. Out of his own desire to
have his film seen by the masses, Jacquet has stretched it out to a
feature-length of eighty minutes, allowing it qualify as
multiplex-material. As a result, it often grows tiring to watch. As
amazing as most of the material that it contains is, the truth of the
matter is that once a viewer has seen one Antarctic landscape, they’ve
seen them all. Had Jacquet cut the film’s length by twenty minutes and
blown it up to fit IMAX screens, the gigantic vastness of the locales
would’ve been far more captivating and the pacing of the movie would’ve
become tighter. Still, there’s no denying the wonders that can be found in
many elements of March of the Penguins, even if they, combined,
aren’t able to match the grandness of 2003’s Winged Migration, as
far as big-screen nature-documentaries go.
You can say what you want about his more recent fare, but it’s
undeniable that Woody Allen is still one of the greatest working
filmmakers. Melinda and Melinda will hopefully put an end to the
doubt surrounding the veteran writer/director, mainly because it doesn’t
exist in the same light-hearted bubble as Anything Else,
Hollywood Ending, and The Curse of the Jade Scorpion. While I
also enjoy those films, there’s no arguing that this is Allen’s best
motion picture in the last decade, an exuberantly cinematic piece of work.
Its structure, which consists of two interwoven renditions of the same
story—one comedic, one tragic—might’ve come across as a completely
artificial gimmick in anyone else’s hands, but Allen knows exactly what he
is doing. With his vision, Melinda and Melinda never slips into a
state that is anything short of genius.
The main reason why Melinda and Melinda is such a wonderful
motion picture is that Allen made sure to make both storylines
individually interesting and poignant. Rarely do we sense any strings of
manipulation being pulled on his behalf. The movie does delve into its own
philosophies—and, sure, sometimes pseudo-philosophies—regarding the ideas
comedy and tragedy, but its main purpose is to be what every film strives
to be: captivating. Helping Allen to make this possible is his wonderful
cast, which is headlined by a near-Oscar-worthy Radha Mitchell, playing
the title character with incendiary flair. Chiwetel Ejiofor Amanda Peet,
Will Ferrell, and Chloë Sevigny are also all at the tops of their games,
providing some terrific support. Despite Allen’s confident lead,
Melinda and Melinda is a team effort through and through, functioning
as a bi-polar representation of everything that’s good about art. It will
likely be forgotten and left unseen by the majority of moviegoers, but for
those who do see it, it will be one of the year’s most rewarding
experiences at the cinema.
I have no problem with a single movie taking on
two genres—Woody Allen’s Melinda and Melinda offers proof of
this—as long as it handles both of them well. Mr. & Mrs. Smith
wants to be both a comedy and an action film, but only masters the former
genre. It does contain several inspired moments of the latter, but its
abundance of shoot-outs and chase-scenes grows tiring and, as a result,
the whole of the movie does too.
Directed by Doug Liman, whose impressive resume
also includes Go and The Bourne Identity, the movie realizes
that it is a style-over-substance extravaganza of the highest degree and
uses such to its advantage. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie play John and
Jane Smith, two married assassins who have no idea that they are working
for competing organizations until they are hired to kill each other. As
leads, the two are profoundly sexy together and share overflowing
chemistry. Throughout Mr. & Mrs. Smith, this allows the dynamic
between them to be both romantic and humorous, deliciously consumable for
even the most cynical of all audience members. Not to mention, the fact
that they are dating in real-life adds to the film’s charm. Aided by some
terrific one-liners penned by screenwriter Simon Kinberg, Pitt and Jolie
couldn’t sizzle any more onscreen. During all of its first and the
majority of its second act, I was ready to proclaim that Mr. & Mrs.
Smith was the best movie of its sort to come out of Hollywood in
years.
But then the action-overkill started. For
nearly forty-five minutes, the cat-and-mouse chase between John and Jane,
which is certainly expertly crafted, is thrilling and fun. However, there
are few action scenes of this caliber found in the last third of Mr. &
Mrs. Smith. Pitt and Jolie’s talents take a backseat to special
effects; there is probably fifty times more gunshots than there is lines
of dialogue. The escapist fun found earlier in the film is replaced by
utterly ridiculous, redundant, and boring excess. Still, even considering
this, Mr. & Mrs. Smith will make for a terrific DVD rental in the
future. While beset by juvenile tendencies in the end, its sportive, saucy
first half ultimately makes it a worthwhile experience.
There is a scene in Sahara in which practically hundreds of bullets
fly through the remnants of a civil-war boat which somehow naturally found
its way to the African desert from North America, over time. The three
main characters use boat as a means of shielding themselves from the
gunfire and, despite the fact that it is basically blown to bits by the
end of the scene, they make it out unscratched. At this point in the
movie, many viewers will find themselves screaming “Yeah, right!” at the
screen, trying to pretend that one of its goals is realism. I, on the
other hand, developed some sort of geeky admiration for such sequences.
For me, Sahara played like a rough, updated version Indiana
Jones, in which the characters had greater survival-skills than Indy
himself, but never realized this. A great picture it is not—perhaps it
isn’t even a good one—but it is made and performed with such great energy
and enthusiasm that it’s impossible not to like. By embracing Sahara’s
silliness every step of the way, unlike those who participated in the
filming of last year’s naively-constructed Day After Tomorrow,
everyone involved clearly had fun making it. As forgettable as it is, this
is the kind of movie that could be watched fifteen times without it ever
really tiring. Not to mention the fact that Penelope Cruz looks as
astonishing as could be—and then some—despite the grime she encounters
running around the desert for two hours. The only question the film really
left me with was: why weren’t any of the four screenwriters smart enough
to include a role for Cruz’s fellow Oscar-presenter from this past year,
the just-as-tantalizing Salma Hayek?
It has finally arrived. Thank God.
I make the above statement for two reasons. The
first, and probably most important, is that I’m glad that I have finally
seen the last installment in the Star Wars saga; my anxiousness to
see it, which became more and more unbearable as each day of the first
half of May passed, has been quenched. The second is that I can finally
blow a sigh of relief; not until the film’s December DVD-release will
those massive lines of irritating people dressed up in Wookie costumes be
featured as the top-story on the Nightly News. I think my feelings towards
the prequel-trilogy of Star Wars are the same as those of most
others. I am of the opinion that the three films were unnecessary
additions to the franchise, but now that they have been made competently,
it’s hard to really object to them.
Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, like
The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, is a stunning
technical achievement. All of its visuals are absolutely astonishing
looking, lending to the creation of what has been perhaps the most
imaginative world ever seen on the silver-screen. But this isn’t exactly
News to anyone; George Lucas, who seems more like a world-leader to me
than just a plain ‘ol writer/director, has been wowing audiences since the
release of A New Hope in 1977. What’s truly impressive about
Revenge of the Sith, in particular, is the exact same thing that’s
wrong with it: it’s a great big mess. Whatever narrative-drawbacks that
may entail as a result of this, it is what makes the movie work. The sheer
magnitude of the film allows viewers to be treated not as
audience-members, but as believers. Revenge of the Sith enraptures
us in a spell of true science-fiction magic.
While not the fateful operetta of a cinematic
opus that many of us were hoping for—as impressive as the movie’s scope
is, it results in indifference just as much as it does eye-popping—Revenge
of the Sith is still a masterpiece in its own sense of the term. It’d
be an impossible endeavor to find a movie that was able to pull off
laughable dialogue; wise, green creatures; and cheesy performances better
than this one. The magic of Star Wars is in the spirit; while
nothing in the new trilogy resembles anything found in A New Hope
or The Empire Strikes Back, all three movies’ hearts are in the
right place. Above all else, Revenge of the Sith allows all of its
viewers to immerse themselves in the fan-boy mentality that the concept of
sophistication prohibits them from embracing in the real-world.
The fact that Sean Penn, Nicole
Kidman, and Sidney Pollack had ulterior motives floating around in their
liberal, little heads when they decided to make a “political thriller”
centering on the United Nations was hardly subtle. And indeed, The
Interpreter is a movie that is full of blatant pro-diplomacy,
anti-Bush remarks, but that doesn’t change the fact that its central
triangle is extremely talented. Pollack knows how to craft a thriller
behind the camera; he has an expert command of pacing and plotting,
setting up interesting situations masterfully. Kidman and Penn have only
been better before in more artistically demanding roles. They, unlike most
other actors in similar projects, bring creativity to their somewhat
one-dimensional characters. The Interpreter offers an experience
comprised of wonderful tension, only allowing viewers to slip out of a
state of captivation during its strung-out second act, in which it plods
and wanders along before realizing where it would like to take them. Sure,
the political references are ridiculously presented and totally
unnecessary (especially those hinted through the reaction of the African
Dictator of the movie’s focus to the climax), but the fact that The
Interpreter usually works as a clever thriller is undeniable. While
certainly no match for the 2002 Tom Clancy adaptation, The Sum of All
Fears, it is probably the best motion picture of its kind to come out
since then.
The Longest Yard is a remake of the 1974
Burt Reynolds film of the same name, telling the story of ex-NFL
Quarterback Paul Crewe (Sandler), who finds himself in prison after he is
convicted of a DUI. There, Crewe is forced into taking a deal to coach a
football team of his fellow inmates that will play against the prison’s
guards and intentionally lose. However, when he discovers that his raggedy
group actually has a shot at winning the big game, he finds that his
conscience will no longer allow him to willingly throw in the towel. The
situation serves as a setup for huge amount of clichés, yes, but there’s
some fun to be had here. While full of a lot of stupid humor—I could’ve
done without the material regarding a squad of transsexual supporting
characters—I found the actual execution of the football-sequences to be
unexpectedly well-done. Somehow, director Peter Segal, who Sandler also
worked with on Anger Management and 50 First Dates, finds a
way of allowing audience-members to suspend enough disbelief regarding
The Longest Yard’s predictable outcome for each individual play to be
exciting. In addition, some of the training sequences early on in the film
prove amusing, especially those involving physically-gigantic
supporting-actor Bob Sapp (despite his totally lame Michael Jackson line).
It’s a bit much to be calling The Longest
Yard, which is very similar to every other Adam-Sandler-vehicle made
in the past, homophobic or racist, but I learn that a lot of critics and
cinemagoers have. I find it hard to understand their point of view, given
the completely playful tone of the film when it cracks
politically-incorrect gags. The only thing I found questionable about it
was its glamorized view of the prisoners and disapproving one of the
guards, but even it is forgivable because of the simple fact that every
movie needs protagonists and antagonists. Despite his tendency to often
try to appeal to viewers with the dumbest senses of humor, it’s hard not
to find Sandler to be completely harmless. I realize why many people don’t
find him funny, but offensive is an entirely different adjective.
The Longest Yard is unmistakably a Sandler movie; it may not be
very smart or even effectively farcical, but it delivers what it promises
and is well-made in most senses of the term.
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