Winter Movies: Part 2

Somewhat surprinsingly for mid January, it's been a very good—if somewhat light—couple of weeks at the movies.

Written and directed by Alex Gibney (who did the same with the excellent Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, and who was also involved as a producer for the pretty excellent Mr. Untouchable and the amazingly excellent No End In Sight), Taxi to the Dark Side is a scathing, deeply affecting documentary of America's systematic use of torture—to the point of murder—on prisoners, held without charges, in Afghanistan (at Bagram), Iraq (at Abu Ghraib) and Guantánamo Bay. The film takes its name from the story of an Afghan cab driver named Dilawar who was picked up by soldiers in 2002 for transporting "terrorists", brought to Bagram, and beaten to death—his legs almost literally pummeled into mush—by Army interrogators. Gibney is a superb storyteller, and here he uses astoundingly frank interviews with Bagram personnel, archival footage of the smug-ass richboys of the Bush administration, and the insights of interrogation experts, to convey the undeniable truth that the Army's policy of torture comes from the top, and that the policy is both a moral travesty as well as a tactical disaster. Next up for Gibney? The presumably much lighter Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Can't wait.

Katherine Heigl is a total movie star. 27 Dresses—about a lovely, selfless woman who's been a bridesmaid 27 times, who secretly loves her boss, who watches said boss fall for her younger sister, who only slowly realizes that the perfect man has been right there in front of her, all along—will not once surprise you with its plotting. And yet Heigl is so appealing as the lead, so goofy and sweet, so incredibly watchable, that I loved nearly every moment of this romantic comedy... especially, of course, the Bennie and the Jets sequence. Also well-played: James Mardsen as Mr. Right. Yes, I laughed, I cried, I heartily recommend this, if this is at all your thing.

You've almost certainly already read waaaaaay too much about Cloverfield, so I'll just say this: sit in the back or risk extreme nausea; disregard both the annoying first act (which worked beautifully as a setup in the trailer, but seems interminable here) and the logic/geographic holes; enjoy the technical, aesthetic challenge, successfully, at times thrillingly, met, of telling such a huge story—a monster attacks Manhattan—with a single camcorder; keep your expectations low; walk home afterwards even more in love with this amazing City.

Although Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona trots out many of the usual scary-movie suspects for The Orphanage—playground equipment that moves slowly, squeakingly by itself; kids who shouldn't be there, standing at the end of hallways, looking totally freaky; a (beautiful) woman who refuses to get the hell out of what is clearly a very haunted house—he does use them all to good, creepy effect. Add a story that's emotionally honest, a respectable performance as a mother-gone-mad from Belén Rueda, and a great first "ending" (followed by a much weaker second ending, followed by a third that's weaker still), and I was willing to forgive whatever silliness came on the screen and enjoy the horrorshow.

Winter Movies: Part 1

Twenty-oh-eight begins with stragglers from aught-seven. Here's the standard quick look...

The first half of I Am Legend is riveting, with Will Smith as the last man alive tearing through the stunningly-rendered abandoned streets of my beloved city, hunting and scavenging for food, tools and entertainments, accompanied as he goes by the last dog alive, the rest of humanity (and canine-anity?) dead for two years, the world trashed, sad, weedy. And then when we first get a glimpse of the undead, rabid, only-come-out-at-night zombies—apparently the only other "survivors" of the plague that wiped out everyone else—twitching in their nest in a blacked-out MePa warehouse? My God, I thought, now THIS is a fun movie. And then, for reasons I won't reveal, the movie's dynamic changes, Smith's ingenious, likable, exceedingly capable Dr. Robert Neville completely changes, all for the much worse, and my enthusiasm and admiration for the film died as swiftly and as terminally as… well, you can guess the simile here.

Debbie and I both loved The Kite Runner, the book, and so approached the movie with more than a little trepidation, especially after several viewings last fall of the bland, feel-good trailer. We were pleasantly surprised, then, by how much we liked director Marc Foster's faithful, even occasionally unsentimental, adaptation for the screen. Of course, Foster has to hurry a bit over several key plot points, and the story's intitial betrayal lacks the gut-busting pain I remember from the novel (though I admit the ending truly soars), but overall this is a satisfying, nicely-played, genuinely emotional drama. Not Top 10 material, but definitely worth a viewing, especially in this no-new-releases, early winter season.



Maybe we were just desperate for some on-screen frivolity to close out the "serious season", but Debbie and I both totally enjoyed P.S. I Love You, the Hilary Swank romantic comedy about a woman whose beloved husband sickens, dies, and then speaks to her from the "grave" in a series of letters, delivered posthumously, all directing her to do things that involve having fun, moving on with her life, finding her true self, etc.. No question, the basic plot mechanics were pretty ridiculous, but Swank turns on the charm (to go with her usual guts), the script is sharp, and the supporting cast, especially Lisa Kudrow and Harry Connick, Jr., steal nearly every scene they're in. If you're in the right mood, you can definitely have some fun—and some tears—with this one.

I knew Sweeney Todd was going to be gory; the Times did compare it to Saw, after all. But what I didn't realize was just how bleak, how classically tragic this story is, the lightest, cutest moment of the entire two hour spiral into hell coming from Helena Bonham Carter crushing cockroaches into her meat pies. The setting is Tim Burton's relentlessly gloomy 19th-century London—where, it seems, bad things happen to all people—the songs are terrific, the singers less so (no one embarrasses themselves, but no one brings down the house, either); Johnny Depp is perfectly cast as the haunted, doomed serial killer. Just don't go in expecting Hairspray.

The Best of 2007: Movies

I saw 135 movies in the theater this year. Here are my ten favorite, in alphabetical order:

1. American Gangster
2. The Bourne Ultimatum
3. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
4. Helvetica: A Documentary Film
5. The Lives of Others
6. Michael Clayton
7. No End In Sight
8. The Savages
9. Sicko
10. Zodiac

If the above didn't exist, my alpha-sorted top ten would probably look like this:

1. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
2. Charlie Wilson's War
3. The Darjeeling Limited
4. In the Valley of Elah
5. Lars and the Real Girl
6. A Mighty Heart
7. Once
8. Protagonist
9. Starting Out in the Evening
10. Wristcutters: A Love Story

And what were the ten best movies I saw with my daughters, you ask?

1. Enchanted
2. In the Shadow of the Moon
3. Juno
4. Nancy Drew
5. Persepolis
6. Ratatouille
7. The Simpsons Movie
8. Spiderman 3
9. Stardust
10. Sydney White

Finally, here are ten movies that I've seen on other Best of 2007 lists that wouldn't even crack my Top 50:


1. Atonement
2. Away From Her
3. Bug
4. Grindhouse
5. The Host
6. I'm Not There
7. Into the Wild
8. Romance and Cigarettes
9. Terror's Advocate
10. There Will Be Blood

Holiday Season Movies: Part 3

Closing out the season, and the year, with these...

The biggest surprise this season was how much I enjoyed Charlie Wilson's War, the story of Reagan-era right-wingers, led by Tom Hanks (in a terrific performance) as the titular Congressman, who used U.S. taxpayer's money, funneled through the CIA, to run guns to the Afghanistan Mujahideen in their war against the invading—and, as we are reminded often, quite mighty—Soviet army. As I said, Hanks is great here, playing the skirt-chasing, whiskey-fueled Wilson not as a buffoon, but rather as a shrewd, maybe even principled, politician who happens to also be a hard-partying Texan. And Aaron Sorkin's script is pitch-perfect throughout, brisk and smart without being too bantery, or overly clever. But the real star here, once again, is Philip Seymour Hoffman, who completes his brilliant end-of-the-year trifecta (Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, The Savages) with an outstanding take on the sharp, bitter, disheveled, career CIA bureaucrat chomping at the bit to kill communists. Just the fact that you find yourself rooting for this guy tells you how effective a piece of filmmaking this is.

There's a deeply engaging, epic tale—and one of the great heroines of the year—in Persepolis, the true-life coming-of-age story of Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian girl who's probably ten years old when the revolution topples the Shah, and whose initial giddiness over the prospect of change gives way to fear and dread as family members are jailed or killed; and civil rights and liberties—especially for women—are stripped away by the fundamentalists. To make bad matters worse, her country plunges into war with neighboring Iraq... and when she flees to Vienna, then France, teenage Satrapi eventually winds up suicidal and homeless. To the author/filmmaker's credit, the movie (based on her graphic-novel memoir) is moving, even inspiring, rather than angry and bleak, owing in large measure to Satrapi's inextinguishable spirit—courageous, rebellious—as well as the love and wisdom of her iconoclastic grandmother. What kept the movie from being truly great for both me and my daughters (who are big fans of the two-volume memoir) was the flat, stylized, expressionistic animation which, while true to Satapri's original vision, never really allowed us in. In the end, it's all more admirable than transporting.

Yes, it's predictable and preachy. But if you just ride with it, as me and my daughters were able to do yesterday afternoon, there's also an undeniable appeal to Denzel Washington's The Great Debaters, about the historically dynastic debate team of all-black Wiley College who, in the 1930s, grew to such prominence that Harvard accepted their challenge for a match, and invited the Texans to come north for a nationally-broadcast contest in the fabled Memorial Hall. You know who wins in the end, of course, but the obvious outcome is more than balanced by several moments of genuine tension (mostly due to Texas lynch mobs and their ugly ilk), plenty of engaging period detail, and a hugely likable cast, all performing their hearts out.

After a well-played, reasonably creative and immersive first act, Atonement totally lost me. The exact moment I ceased to care about the characters, that I stopped believing in anything that was happening on screen? Director Joe Wright's "look-at-me" preening during the pivotal scene at Dunkirk. They must have spent a fortune on the recreation of the famous evacuation from the continent that saved the British army at the start of the Second World War, and yet all I could think of was: "this sure is a long, complicated tracking shot." Plus, really? I don't like James McEvoy. Not in The Last King of Scotland. Not here. And I'm getting kind of sick of Keira Knightley and her jutting chin. But I'm not sure that even the most dynamic actors, with the hottest chemistry, could have saved this cold, technical version of Ian McEwen's excellent novel.

Clearly, my expectations were WAY too high for There Will Be Blood. The trailer looked more than a little intriguing—the story of an ethically flawed but charismatic oil emperor, I thought, rising to riches and power through shrewd, possibly shady business deals, set against the great American tale of Western expansion—and the reviews have been rapturous. And yes, there are some pretty brilliant sequences here (when the derrick blows and the boy is flung, for instance), and Daniel Day Lewis can dominate the screen with the best of them. But honestly, I didn't really like this movie at all. Lewis is given no support; no one to play off of (Paul Dano is nowhere near up to the challenge as a miraculously ageless preacher). Far too long and tedious, it's not an epic at all... more like a bizarre character study of an exceedingly unpleasant man whose motives and demons, to my mind, remain mysterious throughout. Again, maybe it's my fault for expecting too much, but this has to be counted as the disappointment of the year.

Holiday Season Movies: Part 2

I'm pretty amazed that the pretty great Juno was only my fourth favorite movie in the last week or so, but that just shows what an excellent week it was. Herewith, a quick look...

Julian Schnabel's luscious, riveting The Diving Bell and the Butterfly should be held up as a model of how a director can create a visually stunning, creative and unique film—loved the camera work, the jump cuts, the dreams and metaphors—all without sacrificing a bit of storytelling. And what a great (true) story it is, the simple, moving, incredibly human portrait of Elle magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby who, after a massive stroke, emerges from a coma with locked-in syndrome: his brain is fine; his body completely paralyzed except for his left eye. How he learns to communicate—he wrote the memoir on which the film is based—through the heroic efforts of by far the most patient and oh-by-the-way gorgeous triumvirate of therapists and "translators" in existence, forms the core of the film. How he learns to live with those he loves—his children, their mother, his father, his mistress, his friends—will break your heart. Schnabel is generous with his vision, welcoming his audience into Jean-Do's world. The film gets a bit slack about two-thirds of the way through, but the most powerful scenes are just around corner. Don't miss this movie.

You haven't seen your father in years—he basically abandoned you—and you're just trying to live your life as best you can, dealing with your own issues, your own messes. Then the call comes: Dad's sick, he's losing his mind, he's lost his home, he needs you. It's an ultimately insoluble problem, but one that demands some sort of action. Do you do the right thing? Out of duty? Out of love? Is there even a right thing, or is it just a case of finding the lesser of multiple indignities? The Savages takes this compelling situation and delivers a smart, unsentimental, occasionally amusing (though this is definitely NOT the comedy the trailer wants you to believe it is), resonant and altogether real movie about responsibility and family and facing yourself and growing up and growing old. The performances are superb, led by Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman as the brother and sister forced to deal with Dad (Philip Bosco, and also very good); the script and direction assured; the whole thing vital, honest and alive.

The casting must have been an arduous process for Jessica Yu's gripping documentary Protagonist, but the result was well worth the effort. Or maybe she just got lucky? Anyway, this refreshing, original film introduces us to four men, all wonderful storytellers, whose lives couldn't be more different in the details (there's a "formerly gay" evangelist, a European terrorist, a Mexican bank robber, a geeky suburban kung-fu fanatic), but whose tales all follow the same narrative arc: terrible childhood pain, fierce attempts at self-control to change who they are, momentary success and freedom with their reinvented selves, profound depression when they see what a sham it is, ultimate redemption and peace when they find the courage to be, to their ownselves, true. Yu interweaves the four stories—told entirely by the men themselves, both as talking heads and using home movies and other archival material—and structures the whole thing as (apparently) a Euripidean drama, complete with titles and simple wooden puppets, which sounds boring and contrived, but most definitely is not.

My eager-to-giggle daughters and I agree: although we all liked Juno quite a bit, and although we did laugh out loud more than a couple of times, this is not a straight-up comedy, despite what the trailer would have you believe... and, really, it's not even a Little Miss Sunshine kind of comedy. That said, it certainly is a pretty great, nice and sweet (but not cloying) little movie, with a good script and a near-perfect performance by Ellen Page as a 16-year-old who gets pregnant (by the always welcome Michael Cera) and, in lieu of an abortion, decides to have the baby and give it up for adoption to a yuppie-ish couple (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman, both also solid). Our advice? No question, you should see it... but just don't expect to be doing a lot of giggling.

Although it was better than either Debbie or I expected (young Dakota Blue Richards holds things together pretty well), and we were both seriously impressed by the CGI, The Golden Compass is still, when you get right down to it, an overblown melodrama featuring gaggles of talking animals, skies-full of witches, an ill-defined mythology, and, most roaringingly, a pack of monstrous, warring ice bears. If that sounds appealing, then by all means you should go.

I don't know... I felt more than a little uncomfortable during too-long stretches of Billy the Kid, a real-life portrait of a hyper, geeky high-school sophmore in small-town Maine. Because although it definitely had some of the trappings of a serious documentary, it just felt a little too close to reality TV for my tastes... a tad too voyeuristic of Billy and his emotional "issues"; a bit too eager to exploit the kid's extraordinary willingness to open himself up.

Holiday Season Movies: Part 1

Surprises and disappointments start off my sure-to-be-busy Holiday Season of movie going. The standard quick look:

Frank Langella has been getting raves for his work in the excellent Starting Out In the Evening, and with good reason: his Leonard Schiller is brilliant, a wonderfully subtle portrayal of a dignified, aging New York City intellectual/writer—once celebrated, now out-of-print and "respected"— trying to finish his last novel before time runs out. But almost as impressive here is Lili Taylor as his protective, warmhearted daughter Ariel, on the cusp of 40, a little lost in life, longing to have a child, in love with a man who does not; and Lauren Ambrose as the pretty, precocious graduate student Heather, who, under the guise of writing her Master's thesis on the man, convinces Schiller to let her into his home, his mind, and, ultimately, his heart. This is just a great, grown-up movie, intelligent and true, about decent people whom you can root for to find some measure of peace and happiness in their lives.

We've been excited about Enchanted since the first trailer months ago... but after a dozen or so such viewings I was concerned that I was already sick of a movie I hadn't yet seen. Not to worry. This sweet, brisk and clever romantic comedy about an animated-turned-flesh-and-blood princess (a terrific Amy Adams) and her attendent prince-in-pursuit, talking chipmunk, and evil queen, all flung from a Disney cartoon fairytale land into present-day Manhattan, has enough honest emotion and genuinely hilarious moments that even an unnecessary—and unnecessarily loud and frantic—final act can't ruin the fun. While not as completely subversive as some viewers would like, if a fresh take on happily-ever-after appeals, this will not disappoint.

About half of Stephen King's The Mist is a ripping thriller featuring legions of horrifically skin-crawling creatures doing horrifically skin-crawling things to the good people of SmallTown, Maine. Unfortunately, the other half feels like a TV miniseries in the worst way. It's not that all the acting is terrible (Toby Jones and Andre Braugher aren't given nearly enough screen time), though some of it definitely is (I don't understand why people keep giving Thomas Jane work). But the script is hopelessly ham-fisted, the plotting clunky, and the film stars a character you've never wished would just please DIE already more than Marcia Gay Harden's crazy evangelist. That said, if you're at all intrigued, I would suggest checking it out, if only for the deliriously cruel ending, which had a packed house in Times Square hooting with glee and disbelief.

The more you know about Bob Dylan's life and music, the more you'll enjoy I'm Not There, Todd Hayne's impressionistic, creative, beautifully filmed, incredibly frustrating sort-of biopic. By now you know the central gimmick: six different actors play six different aspects of Dylan's life and personality, highlighted, in both my and Debbie's opinion, by Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, and Ben Whishaw. It's all very interesting and cool in theory—and, really, there are many very good individual moments here—but ultimately Haynes is annoyingly unhelpful to his audience, flexing an exclusivity that's totally unneeded. It was completely unclear to me for most of the movie how much of the action/emotion was based on reality, and how much was fiction. Should it have mattered? Maybe not... but because there's no real narrative here, admiring the director's imagination and technical skill is only compelling up to a point. The parts of the film I liked the most, by far, were the parts that I "got": Haynes's portrait of Dylan going electric at the Newport Folk Festival, to give just one example, was funny, ingenious, and powerful. I think if Haynes had just been a little more welcoming, just helped us non-fanatics a little more, my opinion of the movie would have changed dramatically. I don't like being pushed away so firmly by a filmmaker—especially for an overly-long 135 minutes—my only failing having been insufficient research on his subject. There's an underlying smugness to it all, as when anyone uses their knowledge of a certain set of facts or ideas—facts or ideas which we all could learn, but just haven't, for whatever reason—as the basis for feeling and asserting their superiority. There's no teaching in I'm Not There, no generosity, and I think Haynes really blew it.

Debbie put it best: Noah Baumbach's Margot at the Wedding is little more than an exercise in "horribleness for horribleness's sake". The story is simple: one sister comes to witness another's nuptials, and everyone treats everyone else like garbage. Kids, parents, neighbors, siblings, lovers, fiancés, exes, babysitters... all of them. Just horrible. Sure, the acting is first rate, especially the three leads, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Nicole Kidman, and Jack Black. And the script is sharp, though this feels like a much longer movie than its actual 90-minute running time. But, honestly, why do I need to spend any time at all with such miserable, vindictive, ugly, manipulative people? And the answer, of course, is that I don't. So, next time Baumbach, forget it... I'm NOT going! Now, I thought the same thing about his Squid and the Whale, which many people also loved, including my aforementioned girlfriend (in fact, I actually liked Margot more than Squid), so let your conscious, and your stomach for meanness, be your guide here.

Top Five Fall Movies

I saw 35 movies between the day after Labor Day and the start of the Thanksgiving weekend. Here are the five I enjoyed most:

1. Michael Clayton
2. Helvetica: A Documentary Film
3. American Gangster
4. The Darjeeling Limited
5. Lars and the Real Girl

Close six and seven:
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Wristcutters: A Love Story

And eight:
In the Valley of Elah

I'm totally right, right?

Fall Movies: Part 6

The Fall Movie Season is now officially over; ending, for the most part, with a whimper. So before we leap into the always-busy Holiday Season, here's the usual quick look back...

Above all else, the riveting, boisterous, poignant, surprisingly joyous documentary Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten made me so grateful that I was a teenager when The Clash were at their peak. My God those were/are good records: The Clash (a friend had the early-release import), Give 'Em Enough Rope, London Calling, Sandinista... so urgent, and genuine, and unafraid, and propulsive. I still remember the way it felt the first time I heard some of these songs, in awe of the energy behind I'm So Bored With USA, for example, or surprised and moved by the sweetness of Stay Free, or, perhaps most of all, I remember the day London Calling came out, and Tod and I hitched into town to get it (though roommates, we both bought copies), returning to our dorm room and blasting the title track probably five times in a row before we could get any deeper into the double-LP. We had the whole school addicted to this record within days.

Anyway, the movie. The structure here is pretty standard Behind-the-Music stuff, combining archival and home-movie footage (love the opening bit of Strummer recording the vocals to White Riot) with talking-head reminiscences from bandmates and friends as well as appreciations from the likes of Flea, John Cusack and Bono. These are mostly shot by campfire light, an homage to Strummer's late-in-life affection for such communal gatherings, which adds a warmth and intimacy to the memories. All the highs and lows are dutifully covered, from his renunciation of his rockabilly and hippie friends right after forming the Clash to the riotous Bonds Times Square shows in 1981 (one of which—old school cred alert!—I was lucky enough to go to at the time) to the dissolution of the band and Strummer's years of depression, lifted toward the end of his life by his music with the Mescaleros. And if you don't get chills during the impromptu "reunion" of Strummer and Mick Jones, performing White Riot at a Save-the-Firehouse Benefit, then, well... you probably never felt, at some point in your life, that this truly was "The Only Bands That Matters."

Occasionally cute and completely harmless, The Martian Child is the story of widowed science fiction writer John Cusack (bullied as a kid, he grew up to be rich and famous with a beautiful house) adopting an emotionally damaged boy who deals with his issues of abuse and abandonment by claiming (believing? is actually?) that he's from Mars, and will be called back as soon as his mission here on Earth is completed. Co loved it, Bo liked it, and I was less convinced: a couple of good laughs and some genuine sweetness didn't quite outweigh the annoying tendency of every character to talk in an earnest whisper all the time, as well as an authorial subplot seemingly thrown in just to try to choke us up even more. Amanda Peet was fun to watch, though. Where's she been?

An interesting idea gone wrong, John Turturro's Romance and Cigarettes takes a terrific cast—including James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon, Mandy Moore, Kate Winslet, and Steve Buscemi—puts them into that alternative Musical universe where people burst into song to express their emotions (in this case singing along with old standards like Janis Joplin's Piece of My Heart, Engelbert Humperdinck's Man Without Love, and, in the movie's best moment, Tom Jones's Delilah), and then uses fart jokes and nudge-nudge campiness to try to keep our attention. I wish Turturro had trusted his concept, and his actors, and played it straight. Maybe a genuinely sweet love story might have broken out.

Brian DePalma shows impressive restraint in Redacted, relying on none of his usual (and usually irritating) filmmaking tics. The concept is sound: show us the terror, the boredom, the isolation, the confusion, the travesty of the Iraqi War with immediacy and intimacy by potraying the life and horrific crimes of a single squadron entirely through "visual diaries": a soldier's camcorder, Arabic news reports, videos embedded into web pages. Unfortunately the movie is so poorly acted, and the script so annoyingly ham-fisted and expository, that by the time the story's defining act of violence rolls around I felt too detached from it all to even care. I wasn't in Iraq with these guys; I was at the Sunshine, checking my watch.

A twisty story that desperately needed more twistiness, the rewritten (by Harold Pintar) Sleuth was even worse than anticipated by my exceptionally low expectations. Michael Caine and Jude Law are pretty good moment to moment, but there's no consistency to their actions or reactions—no reason, external or internal, why one suddenly gets the upper hand over the other—and the script is all smugness and smarm pretending to be wit and intelligence.

Fall Movies: Part 5

What did I see last week, you ask? Well...

As much I liked American Gangster—and, really, I liked it quite a bit—Ridley Scott's powerful, hugely entertaining rise-and-fall epic of Harlem drug kingpin Frank Lucas also made me re-appreciate The Wire that much more, especially that show's ability to make the both the cops and the criminals equally compelling. Sure, Russell Crowe's portrait of honest-cop Richie Roberts is OK here, but the police procedural plotting—the thrill of the hunt—is almost non-existent, and the movie only really soars when Denzel Washington's superb Lucas, all dignified brutality and steely ambition, is on screen. Fortunately, he's up there for a good deal more than half the film (surprisingly, he and Crowe only share one scene, but it's a great one), and so the film is a good deal more than OK.

Not coincidentally, Mr. Untouchable also arrived in town last week, a small, often fascinating documentary on Frank Lucas's flamboyant (and, thus, far more famous) Harlem heroin rival in the late 1960s/1970s, Nicky Barnes. The movie is good on Barnes's style, as well as the structure of his organization (stolen from the Mafia), and it's even better on the core question of the Barnes legend: was he a cowardly snitch, or a true Godfather who buried his enemies the best way he could? It seems that, after being sentenced to life in 1978, Barnes ratted out nearly 100 of his former colleagues as part of an elaborate revenge scheme delivered upon a one-time top lieutenant for having an affair with his wife. The highlight here has to be the extensive interviews with Barnes himself, face shrouded in shadows to protect his new identity. To some degree, of course, these are nakedly self-serving, but there's no denying that the man has charisma, as well as a unique, insider's perspective on a certain time, and place, in New York City history.

While Co was at The Bee Movie with some friends last weekend (her review: "really good, and it wasn't cheesy"), Bo and I went to see and mostly enjoyed the cute romantic/family comedy Dan In Real Life. Though the whole thing is immediately forgettable and co-writer/director Peter Hedges doesn't really know what to do with everyone, the movie is not without its charms: Steve Carrell is maybe a little too mopey, but you can't help but laugh at his doofy antics; Juliette Binoche is lovely (if completely out of place); Dane Cook is shockingly tolerable; and the whole big-family-gathered-at-their-beach-house-engaged-in-their- adorable-big-family-traditions (crossword competitions, talent night, etc.) provided excellent fodder for my always eager to be fed nostalgia for a life I never had.

People are saying that Rendition is a admirable try, and I guess that's true... though a try at what I'm not quite sure. At being a taut political thriller? Mostly fails. At providing a vehicle for some excellent actors? Mostly fails... not that the acting isn't good—Streep, Witherspoon, Sarsgaard, Gylenhaal, et al, acquit themselves fine—it's just that no one's given much of anything to work with. At delivering the important message that torture is horrible? That US policy on and involvement in torture is horrible? That people of different nationalities, races, beliefs, cultures and religions all feel pain and loss when a loved one dies? Mostly succeeds! (You know... in case you didn't realize any of the above.) Though the narrative's structure proved to be a bit too tricky for some, it's about the only thing that delivers any sort of surprise here.

Fall Movies: Part 4

An excellent week at the movies. Here's the usual quick look...

The genius of Sydney Lumet's bleak, mesmerizing, almost perfect Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, of course, is how two-bit the whole thing is: the payoff from the crime at the film's center—the action that puts the final nail in the coffin of these already destroyed lives—would have "solved" the problems of the two pathetic, desperate brothers for maybe three or four months. After seeing the film I read several reviews, and was surprised at how much they gave away, so I'm just going to say that I loved Lumet's jumpy structure; and, unshockingly, the acting is superb, all of it (favorite scene: Philip Seymour Hoffman's quiet tantrum), though I was definitely disappointed that Marisa Tomei wasn't given more to do than look good with her shirt off.

Maybe it was partly the relief it provided from the intense nature of everything else I saw this week, but I was so pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Wristcutters: A Love Story. In the wrong hands, the premise here could have led to indie-film disaster: everyone who kills themselves winds up in a sort of purgatory that, in the words of our hero Patrick Fugit (who slits his wrists in the film's opening scene), looks and feels like the regular life, except that everything's "a little bit worse." But instead of a forced exercise in quirkiness, Croatian writer/director Goran Dukic delivers a movie that's funny, sweet, clever, imaginative, and so lovingly, exceptionally well art-directed that, even on what must have been a tiny budget, the suicide's world completely comes to life. The sleeper of the season.

OK, back to bleak... and more excellent art direction. Based on Dennis Lehane's novel (I forgot how much I loved his Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro books, which I devoured at one point in my life), Gone Baby Gone is a gripping thriller about a little girl kidnapped from her grim South Boston neighborhood, and the far-reaching, sometimes surprising aftershocks of the crime: moral, emotional, and physical. Though ultimately too far-fetched to retain its credibility, there are many memorable moments here, the pacing is brisk, the action smart, and it's filled with terrific performances (loved seeing The Wire's "Omar" show up!), in particular by Casey Affleck as Kenzie and Amy Ryan as the missing girl's near-junkie mom who wears her victimhood a lot more easily than she ever did in her motherhood.

A not-great film with several nearly-great scenes, Reservation Road is an emotional wringer of a movie-going experience that, I thought, honestly earned my tears (and there were plenty) through strong performances, confident pacing, and, of course, the story's central, wrenching event: in a small, too-pretty Connecticut town, an SUV slams into and kills a ten-year-old boy releasing fireflies by the side of the road; scared, distracted (his own son is slightly injured in the accident), and uncertain as to what just happened, the driver (an always welcome Mark Ruffalo) keeps going... and then spends the rest of the movie wrestling with his actions. The mother (an excellent Jennifer Connelly) and father (an OK Jaoquin Phoenix) of the dead boy obviously have plenty of wrestling to do of their own.

A Western in setting only, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is really more of talky, male ensemble drama—heck, it's really more art film than genre piece—exploring themes of power, fear, betrayal and what happens when one's idols turn out to be assholes. The cast is outstanding: Casey Affleck (again), Brad Pitt (not usually a huge fan, but he's great here), Sam Rockwell, Paul Schneider (also so good in Lars and the Real Girl), Garret Dilahunt (whom you'll recognize from Deadwood)... you can't take your eyes off of any these guys when they're on the screen. Be warned: this is a long (2 hours, 40 minutes), slowly paced film with virtually no music, but it definitely does reward the alert, patient viewer. My strategy: I had a venti Caramel Frappuccino on my way to the theater, and I suggest you do the same.

Fall Movies: Part 3

Boy, these movie posts sure can pile up! So, a quick look at what I've seen lately...

In addition to being enormously entertained throughout, I so admired Michael Clayton... such confident, grown-up filmmaking by Tony Gilroy, trusting that the audience will stay with him through this somewhat complex, slowly-revealed thriller about lawyers entangled on the same side of multi-billion-dollar lawsuit. And the cast is superb, led by George Clooney, playing the interestingly unsmooth title character; Tilda Swinton, in an extremely unattractive role; and Sidney Pollack as a corporate tiger with a decent heart. So far, this is the movie to beat this fall.

I can't believe they pulled it off... and, in fact, made a totally likable movie. You've undoubtedly heard the premise of Lars and the Real Girl: an emotionally shell-shocked Lars (an unsurprisingly excellent Ryan Gosling) orders a sex doll online—Bianca is her name—not for, ummm... physical relief, but rather for a woman to date, and bring to church, to introduce to all the other townsfolk, to fall in love with. I totally bought it—laughed and cried—and thought the acting was great from beginning to end, especially Paul Schneider and Emily Mortimor as Lars's initially baffled/embarrassed but quickly supportive brother and sister-in-law; the always-welcome Patricia Clarkson as the town doctor; and Kelli Garner as Lars's lovably nerdy office mate/crush.

I wondered as I watched the Ian Curtis biopic Control—he was the lead singer of the legendary band Joy Division who killed himself at the age of 23—how much would I like this movie if I didn't love the music... if it all wasn't so personally evocative? It is beautifully shot, and Sam Riley makes a credible Curtis—confused, romantic, cowardly, charismatic, epileptic, haunted, self-pitying, asshole-ish—but by far my favorite scenes were the songs, especially Transmission performed on the telly (it's like watching a dream take of this video), and She's Lost Control in the studio (so THAT'S how they made that rhythmic "tchee-tchee" sound!). Basically: if you're a fan, it's a must. If not, it's hard to say...

Make sure you sit way in the back for The Kingdom, which Peter Berg shoots almost entirely in that motion-sickness-inducing style that works so well in Peter Greengrass's work (Bourne Ultimatum, United 93), but I found overdone and simply gimmicky here. This isn't a bad movie at all—the plot involves the catastrophic bombing of an American compound in Saudi Arabia, and the subsequent, politically provocative FBI investigation on Saudi soil led by Jamie Fox, Jennifer Garner and Chris Cooper. In fact, I thought this was a solid thriller, filled with well-choreographed and genuinely tense action sequences, all, unfortunately, undermined by the aforementioned over-jitteryness, a ham-fisted message, and a really unfortunate ending.

Yes, of course, I cried during Feast of Love—I don't mind being manipulated by broken hearts, moments of great joy, and untimely deaths—but, really, this isn't that good a movie. I hear the book is amazing, but here there just seems to be too much going on; too many stories of love and sadness and betrayal and passion and tragedy for me to ever care too deeply about any single drama... although the cast is fine, I never got to know anyone well enough to feel too emotionally invested in their lives. And is Morgan Freeman ever going to play any other role besides the omniscient voice of wisdom?

We Own the Night was the big disappointment of the week. Not that my expectations were all that high to begin with, but I was surprised at how little, if anything, writer/director James Gray added to the already overdone brothers-at-odds/cop/'70s-'80s nostalgia movie. I guess I wanted to see Mark Wahlberg of The Departed, rather than the dreary do-gooder found here, and I wanted Robert Duvall to emote like he can do so well, and Joaquin Phoenix to use reptilian charm, and I wanted it all to be set against a wise-cracking background of hard-bitten cops and criminals.... But, no. The whole thing is irredeemably flat. You've seen this movie before, done much better.

Call me jaded, but is it really so interesting whether or not some wealthy Parisian lawyer has been more deeply, more intimately involved with the terrorists and other unsavory types he's defended—Carlos the Jackal, Klaus Barbie, various Palestinian and Algerian freedom fighters, evil African dictators, etc.—than he's letting on? Sure the subject of Terror's Advocate, Jacques Verges, has a certain slimy charisma, and director Barbet Schroeder does a nice job of taking us through, without overly explicating, a kind of Hall of Fame of 1970s and '80s European terrorist acts. But this is a long (160 mins) movie with no real answers on a subject that seems so small today.