The Bad Splice

Spoiler level: Moderately low

What was the last big-budget summer movie made you laugh out loud repeatedly? And (not so fast, Disco Spidey…) with it, not at it? For me, it was the first Pirates of the Caribbean - you know, the good one. In between the exploding of ships and the discovering of sunken treasure was some really sharply written-and-acted interplay between the characters, primarily due to a memorably strange and funny performance from one-time bad boy Johnny Depp. That movie, of course, elevated him onto the household-name tier of celebrity that he had been circling for years.

Meet the new Depp. Robert Downey Jr., for years relegated to appearances in courtrooms and gossip pages, gets another crack at leading man status with Iron Man, and absolutely knocks it out of the park. This is some old-school star-making stuff and I suspect this will shoot him to the top of every casting agent’s want list.

If you’re a fan of Downey’s endlessly witty buddy-cop flick Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (and you should be), you won’t be surprised at his way with a quip - this guy could probably make a reading of The Book of Revelations sound off-the-cuff and breezy. What is surprising is just how far his approach manages to elevate the typically moribund genre of superhero movie into something unexpected - fun.

Downey is Tony Stark, wunderkind weapons designer and the playboy billionaire head of his own company. He’s gotten rich off inventing new ways to kill the enemy, and if the idea of “enemy” is a little fuzzily defined, well, that’s someone else’s problem. When we first meet him, he is on a trip to Afghanistan to promote his latest killing machine. He is alternately intimidating and charming, and the U.S. soldiers he is riding with are not quite sure what to make of him. Neither are we, for that matter. He’s quick with a joke or to light up your smoke and all that, but his offhanded amorality is tough to disguise.

It doesn’t help when we see him in flashbacks back at his beyond-opulent mansion. Stark is such a playa, that he has an elaborate system set up for getting rid of his one-night stands, involving his long-suffering but faithful assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). Neither he nor his business partner, Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges with an awful beard), seem to pay too much attention to the real-world effects their weapons are having. They are safely insulated in their own world of private jets and sportscars.

While in Afghanistan, though, Stark is kidnapped by terrorists, held at gunpoint (with guns from his company), and forced to build them a powerful weapon. Instead, he uses their supplies to create a high-tech suit of armor that helps him escape. In the process, he sees how his own weapons are being used to oppress innocent people in these towns, who are regularly mown down by gunfire when they get in the way, and this inspires his transformation into Iron Man.

Because Iron Man, like most of these comic book movies, is about transformation. Physical transformation, of course, into a larger-than-life, high-tech contraption, but also a transformation of the soul. Tony Stark, like Bruce Wayne, has a revelation, and discovers there’s more to life than mere conspicuous consumption. He resolves to use this empire he has built to save people rather than enslave and kill them. This is a reliably effective story arc, because we get to ooh and aah over all the amazing gadgetry (and even the sportscars and jets), while feeling like this wealth is being put to good use, something we don’t often get to feel in the real world.

In a meta kind of way, the transformation theme applies to Downey too, which is something the movie also seems aware of. Heretofore, it’s been almost impossible to separate Downey the actor from Downey the eternal relapser. He’s always been a smooth talker, dating back to the first time I remember seeing him, on SNL and in 1986’s Back to School. His innate charm even served him well in his various court appearances, as he pleaded for mercy in a seemingly never-ending string of drug busts and incarceration. In casting him, Iron Man’s director acknowledges the strikes in Downey’s past, and almost encourages us to put what we know of his troubled history into Stark’s backstory. This is a gamble, but it pays off surprisingly well; the birth of Iron Man is also the re-birth of Downey onto the A-list.

Downey is assisted by a great supporting cast; those Dinners for Five must have made Favreau some good friends. Paltrow, particularly, comes off really well. So often cast in chilly roles that match her pale visage, she gets to be funny and real here, and makes a part that could very easily have been a thankless one into a great supporting turn. Paltrow actually lights up the screen whenever she appears, something I don’t think I’ve ever said before. Terrence Howard plays Stark’s military commander friend, and, unfortunately, talented as Howard is, there’s not enough here to help him flesh out the role; he gets almost nothing to do but shake his head at Stark’s craziness. And then there’s Bridges, being especially un-Dude-like. He gets a lot of expensive scenery to chew on, and he goes to town.

It all works well, at least until the climax, where the special effects take over, and the performances are put on the back burner; I guess you have to throw the kids a bone now and then. But mostly, this is a surprisingly adult action movie, with complex themes and real performances. This is easily the best comic book movie since Batman Begins, and a great start to the summer movie season.

Spoiler level: Moderate

A sort of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure on shrooms (wait, is that redundant…?), Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (H&K2) is the most hilariously demented road movie since Pee-wee went looking for that basement in the Alamo. H&K2 takes a satirical swipe at the current state of America that is no less effective for being so broad; this may be the smartest T&A movie ever made.

Picking up almost immediately where its predecessor left off, H&K2 finds our still-White Castle-stuffed heroes preparing to fly to Amsterdam so Harold (John Cho) can be reunited with the lovely Maria. Kumar (Kal Penn), not able to wait the eight hours until their plane reaches the pot capital of the world, smuggles a “smokeless bong” onto the plane and lights up in the airplane restroom. An elderly white woman, already unnerved by the color of Kumar’s skin, sees him with the contraption and yells “terrorist!!”, leading to Harold and Kumar being arrested by air marshals and sent back to the U.S. These airport/plane scenes are ingenious - a tricky blend of real laughs and uncomfortable subject matter. The audience with whom I saw the movie laughed long and hard, and it’s easy to forget that the filmmakers are walking a very precarious line.

The dark laughs don’t let up as the boys are interrogated by Rob Corddry’s incredibly racist and idiotic government agent Ron Fox. “Al Qaeda and North Korea working together,” he says, shaking his head. Fox’s interrogation technique, seemingly informed by bad TV shows, consists mainly of throwing ashtrays and hurling racial slurs. He’s like a real-life grown-up Eric Cartman, and Corddry is terrific in the role, bringing his aggressive dumb-guy schtick from The Daily Show and fleshing out a memorable character. He takes what could easily have been a one-note parody of Tommy Lee Jones’ Fugitive character and makes it his own.

Harold and Kumar are quickly dispatched to Guantanamo Bay, but I suspect that was primarily because the writers came up with the funny title and needed a way to justify it. They are barely at the prison for a few minutes before they are afforded a chance to escape. This will be a disappointment to those who were hoping for more prison humor; five minutes was plenty for me. After hopping a raft with some friendly Cubans escapees, Harold and Kumar arrive in the United States with no money and no identification, and here’s where their trek through Bizarre America begins.

I don’t want to spoil any more of the story, but H&K2 gets a lot of comedic mileage out of people who are not whom they initially appear to be. On the run from Agent Fox, they make their way through the South in an attempt to get to Texas, where Harold hopes a friend with connections can clear their name, and Kumar hopes to break up the wedding of said friend, who is marrying his ex-girlfriend. The filmmakers treat the South the same way they treat race throughout the movie - poking fun at the usual cliches and throwing in a surprising turn now and then.

Most of the reason these movies work so well is the dynamic between Cho and Penn. In order for this world-gone-crazy story to work, you need to have solid, believable characters at the core, and Harold and Kumar seem like genuine best friends, alternately exasperated by and enamored of each other. They are terrific stand-ins for the audience, even if they are maybe a little more irresponsible than we can afford to be. Their relationship is the stuff of standard comedic duos, with Kumar as the adventurous troublemaker and Harold as the straight man who must clean up the messes. Penn has some real acting chops, as he demonstrated in Mira Nair’s The Namesake, and Cho is an immensely likable screen presence, who will soon be seen as the new Sulu in JJ Abrams’ Star Trek reboot. These two elevate the material in a way that, say, Ashton Kutcher would be unable to.

The other reason these movie work is the filmmakers’ fearless determination to “go for it.” An early scene with maybe the most, uh, explosive climax ever committed to mainstream film lets us know they aren’t going to pull any punches. There’s a “bottomless” party and a visit to a whorehouse that really push the boundaries of the R rating. Plus, Neil Patrick Harris is back in all his shroom-eatin’, drunk drivin’ glory. It’s all in tasteless fun, and infused with a bit of sweetness that is de rigeur for comedies in this Age of Apatow. Perhaps most daring of all, H&K2 manage to do what Bush hasn’t been able to in seven years in office - make the President into a great guy.

This is the rare comedy packed with so many funny ideas and situations, it almost feels a little overstuffed. Just as you begin to tire of a particular setup, the movie flits on to the next one. It’s the smartest dumb guy movie since Bill and Ted’s heyday, and the funniest film I’ve seen so far this year.

Spoiler level: Moderately low

I’ve been humming that NeverEnding Story song for days now. It won’t go away. Oh Limahl! You and your crazy hair sure know how to write a catchy song! And I can pinpoint the exact moment it started too. Ten minutes into The Forbidden Kingdom, Jason, a somewhat dorky, martial arts movie-obsessed teen (Sky High’s Michael Angarano) is getting the stuffing beat out of him by the most vicious bully this side of Drillbit Taylor’s psychotic teens. This bully has just shot an elderly Chinese man and used an unfortunate ethnic slur, so you know he’s gonna get his sometime in the last reel. Jason, holding an ancient Chinese staff, is suddenly magically transported off the roof… and that’s when the blippy synths from the 1984 movie wormed their way into my consciousness and have yet to leave.

Because, regardless of the movie the ads are trying to sell you, The Forbidden Kingdom is a movie for kids. It’s The NeverEnding Story with a martial arts theme, and it’s about to become your ten-year old nephew’s favorite movie. It’s got magic, time-travel, endearingly dodgy special effects, a pretty girl, and the first-ever pairing of martial arts legends Jackie Chan and Jet Li. It’s an absolute home run for kids (the PG-13 rating is inexplicable to me); your enjoyment level will depend on your tolerance and/or secret love of the cheesy elements on display here. A working knowledge of 1985’s cult hit Berry Gordon’s The Last Dragon is a good start.

Actually, Forbidden Kingdom is a sort of mash-up of various 80s favorites, as if the writer had a fever dream after watching too many Saturday afternoon TV matinees. Jason, after toppling off the roof, wakes up in a different place and time (hello Time Bandits!) - in this case, an ancient China where everyone speaks pretty decent English. He is told the legend of the Monkey King (Li), a prankster who is a master of martial arts and magic. The Monkey King is tricked by an evil warlord, turned to stone, and needs the staff that Jason possesses to return to power. Jason, then, is schooled in kung-fu by the wise (and comically drunk) Lu Yan (Chan) in a series of Karate Kid-ish montages. He is also assisted by the lovely/fierce Sparrow (Yifei Liu) and the mysterious Silent Monk (Li again), who actually has plenty to say.

These four journey to the Temple of the Five Elements, where they will face off against the warlord’s army. They trek through seemingly endless deserts, and lush forests. They fight off baddies as Jason falls on his butt a lot. There is much jovial bickering between Chan and Li and googly eyes between Angarano and Liu along the way. Obviously, the story is fairly formulaic stuff.

The Forbidden Kingdom has a secret weapon, though - the amazing fight choreography by Woo-ping Yuen. Yuen has been directing action for 35 years, and has gained fame in the U.S. recently for being the choreographer behind The Matrix, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and the Kill Bill movies, among others. He doesn’t disappoint here either; the fight scenes are plentiful and creative. This is the first American-made film that Chan hasn’t choreographed himself, but he is in good hands with Yuen; he hasn’t seemed this energetic in years. And Li, supposedly retired from martial arts epics, still looks great and has fun with his dual roles. These are two very charismatic men, and it really is a kick to see them occupying the same screen.

I can’t help but be curious about the marketing, though. This is undeniably Jason’s story; the Chan and Li characters are supporting roles. The action is primarily seen through Jason’s eyes, and Angarano is in nearly every scene. So, it’s puzzling that the television ads I’ve seen go to great lengths to avoid showing him at all. Even one of the trailers downplays the time-travel aspects as much as possible, while playing up the Chan/Li fighting. Obviously, I understand that the two action legends are a much bigger draw than the kid from Sky High and Snow Angels. But there seems to be a concentrated effort to misrepresent the movie they have actually produced. I think there is a danger that the action fans they are so aggressively courting will be disappointed with the NeverEnding Story aspects of the film, and the real target audience won’t realize it’s a movie made primarily for them.

Basically, The Forbidden Kingdom is a perfectly fine April movie, a kind of placeholder while Hollywood wheels in the big guns. In another two weeks, we’ll all be getting THX headaches from three months of $200 million summer movies; The Forbidden Kingdom is a little simpler, a little more easygoing. For young people, it will be a great introduction to the work of Chan and Li, and hopefully some will be inspired to follow it up with their more classic movies. For those of us who already enjoy their films, it’s nice to see them having a good time and playing off each other’s energy. And even if there is a bit of the ol’ switcheroo going on with the marketing, well, who can’t use a bit of magic and fantasy in their lives? Let your inner ten year-old enjoy him/herself a little. Dream a dream. And what you see will…be… Ahhh! Curse you Limahl!!!

Spoiler level: Moderate

Chaos Theory is not, alas, two hours of Jeff Goldblum dripping water on Laura Dern’s hand to see which way it rolls, before being attacked by dinosaurs. Oh, that it was. No, Chaos Theory is a comedy with no laughs and a drama with no heart. There isn’t a single moment of truth to be found anywhere in its 90 minutes; instead, it replaces any sort of meaningful insight into the lives of its characters with continuous frantic manipulations by the screenwriter.

We’ll get back to Truth with a capital T in a minute. First, let me lay out the story for you. In one of those tiresome framing structures that hasn’t been effective since War of the Roses, a middle-aged Frank Allen (Ryan Reynolds with gray in his beard = middle-aged) tells a story to the young man who is having second thoughts about marrying his daughter. This tale is the story of Frank’s married life, and how he went from being super anal-retentive to, well, going batshit crazy. It’s apparently supposed to be an inspirational yarn; I just wanted this poor kid to get the hell away from this bunch of lunatics.

The flashback portion of the story begins with young Frank (clean-shaven Reynolds = young) and his band of unconvincing friends lounging around a bar on New Year’s Eve. His friend and object of desire, Susan (Emily Mortimer), improbably announces that her New Year’s resolution is to marry one of her friends, and that she will select which one based on the nickname they have for their penis. Ah yes, we are firmly on CBS sitcom territory here. Tee-hee! Penis nicknames! The other men have laugh track-ready names like Pink Bald Avenger, or whatever. Frank’s frank’s nickname? Truth. “It was always going to be you,” Susan coos to him a minute later as the clock strikes twelve. Wait, what? Did she forget that he just called his penis “Truth”? Do you want to spend the rest of your life with *that* guy? Does anyone?

Apparently, Susan does, because the narrative jumps ahead seven years where they are married with an adorable daughter. Frank, sporting a late-twenties/early-thirties dark beard, is fastidious about time and organization. Naturally, he has the favorite job of screenwriters everywhere - the motivational speaker. On the morning of a big presentation, Susan, in an attempt to be helpful, changes his clock to give him more time, but changes it the wrong way. Ho ho! Frank is late and misses the ferry (the preferred method of transportation of screenwriters everywhere), making him late for his speech. This sets off a series of unfathomably ridiculous consequences and misunderstandings that even Three’s Company’s writers might balk at. This is one of those movies where everything could be settled in a minute if only the characters stopped hanging up on each other and yelling at the top of their lungs.

I won’t get into the soap operatics of it all, but suffice it to say, the uptight Frank becomes suicidal, homicidal, and vows never to make another decision for himself. Instead, he carries around a few index cards and writes down possibilities for every situation, then shuffles them and draws one at random. If this means performing some PG-13 streaking across the ice at a hockey game, so be it.

I can’t remember a recent movie with such a schizophrenic tone. As Frank is making choices on his cards that include killing himself and/or other people, the score gives us some winking pizzicato music cues. “It’s all in good fun,” say the plucking strings. “He’s probably not going to kill anyone! Ha ha! What a lark!” Similarly, the movie uses weepy semi-indie rock to indicate deep sadness, which the film itself has done nothing to earn. The whole thing feels like a mess that they tried to focus-group into something salvageable, but didn’t quite succeed.

Reynolds himself is fine. He’s spent much of his career following in the footsteps of Jim Carrey, moving from sitcom cut-up, to frat boy hero, to more serious work. This, then, is his Majestic - a bilious bit of sap, masquerading as something meaningful and true. He tries to give a grounded performance in this hurricane of tones, but is betrayed at every turn by the screenplay, written by Daniel Taplitz, also the writer of the Jamie Foxx vehicle Breakin’ All the Rules, and the weird religious black comedy Commandments. The director is Marcos Siega, mostly known for TV and music video work, but also the director of Pretty Persuasion and Nick Cannon’s Underclassman. Clearly, Siega is trying to branch out and cover more adult territory, but this movie has no idea how adults really talk and behave. If someone were sequestered inside a bubble with no contact with the outside world, aside from sitcoms and soap operas, and they decided to make a movie, the result would be a lot like Chaos Theory.

Apparently, the movie was made under Warner Independent, but got bumped up to the majors, and is now being given a limited release by Warner Brothers proper. This would, I suppose, explain some of the poor editing and ADR work; I imagine it was an R-rated movie trimmed to a more audience-friendly PG-13. But it’s kind of a sad commentary on the state of independent films that someone deemed this material strong enough to be made at all. It is movies like this one that give “art-house” films a bad name. It’s pretty sad when a movie about theme park dinosaurs has more to say about the human condition than a low-budget would-be indie drama. Truthfully.

Spoiler level: Moderately low

“You’ve been stop-lossed.”

It sounds like the signature dismissal from a particularly obnoxious reality show, designed for t-shirts and talking bobble heads. In reality, though, its meaning for today’s soldiers is almost the opposite of The Donald’s snappy Apprentice catchphrase - not only are you not fired, your contract has been involuntarily extended, and you are required to report back to the battlefield, even though you have already served your term. This loophole in military law is the core of Kimberly Peirce’s Stop Loss, the long-gestating follow-up to her acclaimed Boys Don’t Cry.

In interviews, Peirce has stated that she had difficulty finding a suitable topic for her next film in the nine years since Boys won Hilary Swank her first Oscar. She’s definitely found a hot button topic to explore for this movie, though it has the misfortune to arrive at the tail end of a glut of sub-par war movies that have made brief appearances in theaters over the past few months. The main difference between those films and Stop Loss is, frankly, Peirce herself. She has taken what is a fairly conventional premise and made it her own, by bringing the unique voice that she demonstrated in Boys to the proceedings.

The first fifteen minutes of Stop Loss are an exciting and terrifying shoot-out between American troops in Iraq and local insurgents. Peirce uses hand-held cameras for this sequence, and, like in the Bourne sequels, they don’t seem to anticipate what will happen next. The camera seems as caught off-guard by the scene as the soldiers, as it struggles to keep up and record the action. We have barely had time to meet the soldiers before the gunfire kicks in, so it’s a little difficult to parse out who is who at first. But we immediately understand that Sgt. Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) is the glue holding this group together. He barks out orders and tries to keep a level head as things begin to go wrong in this encounter, and it becomes clear that his men need his voice of reason.

As the survivors return home, greeted by friends, lovers, and an old-fashioned Welcome Home parade, it is apparent that the soldiers’ reliance on Brandon extends beyond the battlefield. This is the meat of Stop Loss’s story - the obligations King feels towards his men and country, and his need to do what is best for himself. His main two friends are both severely emotionally damaged - Steve (Channing Tatum), who digs a hole in his yard to sleep in and hits his girlfriend, and Tommy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), sunken-eyed and darkly introspective, who seems incapable of living without some sort of violence around him. Even Brandon, ever struggling to be the reliable one, hears gunfire on the edge of his dreams and sometimes has trouble staying in the moment. These are men who undeniably need to come home and get treatment. Brandon is rational enough to realize this, so when he receives the news that he and Steve have been stop-lossed, he takes the only course of action he can imagine - driving from Texas to Washington DC to talk to a senator he met at his homecoming parade.

This is where a director with a heavier touch would run into trouble. Brandon, who is now AWOL, takes a trip up north with Steve’s girlfriend, avoiding the police while his friends melt down back home. It would be very easy for all this to veer into melodrama, but Peirce is a smart filmmaker who realizes that sometimes less is more. She gets a terrific performance out of Gordon-Levitt, who has quietly become perhaps the best actor of his peers. His Tommy manages to be heartbreaking and frightening at the same time, and we can see that he is aware that he is losing control over his life and emotions, but is helpless to stop it.

Ryan Phillippe is an actor who spent most of his early career being miscast as vacuous pretty boys in mostly forgettable movies. But with last year’s Breach and now this film, he has shown a new-found ability to hold his own with powerful co-stars. His characterization of a man desperately trying to hold it together for the sake of his friends and family anchors the movie in place. There is a scene where he confronts some petty criminals who have broken his car window, and his shocking behavior fills us with dread, because we, like his men, have come to rely on Brandon to be the level-headed one, the one who will make everything okay, and with that gone, it seems like almost anything can happen.

There will be those who call Stop Loss anti-military or anti-American. But maybe the most surprising element of the film to me is that it is not even very interested in the war in a political sense. I was expecting to be preached to Lions for Lambs-style, but Peirce is almost wholly focused on these men and the people around them. They are called “heroes” in the movie and Peirce seems to agree with this; she just wants her heroes to get the help and rest they are entitled to.

Stop Loss will not be the most fun you have at the movies this weekend, and if you buy a ticket hoping for the romantic drama the ads and posters are trying to sell, you will be severely disappointed. But this is a film with some important things to say, and most of it feels truthful, rather than just some standard election-year rhetoric. You will leave wanting to talk about it, instead of just vacantly nodding along to sentiments you already share, and that alone is enough to make Stop Loss a film that deserves to be seen.

These aren’t necessarily what I want to win, but, rather, what I expect will win.

Picture : No Country For Old Men
Director : Joel and Ethan Coen
Actor : Daniel Day Lewis
Actress : Marion Cotillard
Supporting Actor : Javier Bardem
Supporting Actress : Cate Blanchett
Original Screenplay : Juno
Adapted Screenplay : No Country For Old Men
Animated Feature : Ratatouille
Foreign : The Counterfeiters
Documentary Feature : No End in Sight
Short : Sari’s Mother
Cinematography : No Country for Old Men
Animated Short : I Met the Walrus
Live Action Short : At Night
Editing : Bourne Ultimatum
Art Direction : Sweeney Todd
Costumes : Sweeney Todd
Makeup : La Vie en Rose
Song : That’s How You Know (Enchanted)
Score : Atonement
Sound Editing : No Country for Old Men
Sound Mixing : No Country for Old Men
Visual Effects : Transformers

Goodbye January! Fare thee well! Never again will we have to cast our eyes upon your insipid teen spoof movies. Your resurrected 80s action heroes. Your nauseating Oscar castoffs (I’m looking at you, Bucket List). For now, we enter into a bold new month, crisp and full of promise. We welcome you, February! O February, with your glorious… er, Jessica Alba J-Horror remakes. Your, um, Paris Hilton romantic comedies. Martin Lawrence? Hannah Montana? Larry the Cable Guy’s Witless Protection? February, you are a cruel, cruel mistress. Come back January! All is forgiven!

1) The Spiderwick Chronicles
Look, if Alvin and his “raisin” joke can gross $200 million, it seems obvious that family audiences will pretty much throw their money at anything that caters to them. And since Alvin and National Treasure: Book of Secrets are old-timers at this point, and there hasn’t really been anything else to drag the kids to, I feel like there is some pent-up demand for an all-ages flick, and this looks to be it. The trailers are enticing, mimicking the spooky-yet-not-too-scary territory that has worked so well for the Harry Potter movies. Freddy Highmore is a familiar face to family audiences, from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Finding Neverland, though he is not really a box office draw. The main appeal is the story, about a boy who can see the world of fairies and goblins when he opens a book, and the special effects, which look decent.

2) Semi-Pro
Will Ferrell is never going to stop making these sports comedies. Even when he’s dead, his digital likeness will be inserted into curling footage, as he wanders around the ice in his underwear, shouting about brooms. His latest, Semi-Pro, is about basketball, and, in my mind’s eye, it’s the Jim Carrey basketball scene from The Cable Guy blown up to an hour and a half. This might not be accurate, but I haven’t seen too many ads for it, so I’m only speculating. It also stars Woody Harrelson and Andre Benjamin. Oh, and it takes place in the 70’s, so there are many opportunities for hair style hilarity. Ferrell’s a smart guy, and must realize he’s coasting with these movies, but they make money, and I guess that’s all there is to it. This one shouldn’t be any different. Yawn.

3) The Eye
I still can’t believe that Jessica Alba continues to find work. She, along with Hayden Christensen, is the great charisma void of young Hollywood. Her “screen presence” consists of blankly and awkwardly spouting dialogue while men go crazy over her. I guess she fills out a bikini nicely in the poster for that Paul Walker beach movie you and I didn’t see, but that seems to be all there is to her. And yet, every two or three months, she’s in another movie.

This time it’s a remake of the disturbing Hong Kong horror flick Jian Gui. Alba plays a blind woman who gets a cornea transplant and starts seeing some strange stuff. The original film is terrifying and really dark, with one of the all-time great downer endings. I would be very surprised if the American-ized version manages to sustain the same tone, and I kind of doubt the ending will remain intact. Despite all that, there’s been something of a horror lull at the box office for awhile, and the Friday teen crowd needs a new film to watch while they text their friends, so this should at least have a good opening weekend. I’m hoping for some inadvertent humor, with Alba playing both a blind person AND a violinist, but everyone else will just be looking for a good scare or two to liven up the mid-winter blahs, and this should fill that role.

4) Jumper
Director Doug Liman has four terrific movies to his credit — Swingers, Go, The Bourne Identity, Mr. and Mrs. Smith — and he’s looking to make it five with his latest, Jumper. This is a sci-fi flick about a young man who discovers he has the ability to teleport from one place to another. He thinks there are no consequences to his “jumping”, but like Sam Jackson says in the trailer, “there are ALWAYS consequences.” Jackson plays an agent who tries to destroy the jumpers because of the dangers they pose. This sounds like a good time. However, the lead jumper is played by Hayden Christensen, and his ability to suck the energy out of a cinematic room is unmatched by anyone who hasn’t played Sue Storm. It’s like hiring a black hole to anchor your film. Plus, it also stars some girl from The O.C. That said, the trailers are fairly intriguing, and with Liman’s track record, there is some hope. Sci-fi fans will be there, of course, but its appeal should expand beyond just that base.

5) Vantage Point
The President has been shot! Or has he? I wish I didn’t know, but the trailer is one of those “let’s give away everything but the ending” kind of trailers, so I know a lot more than I wish I did. Anyway, the action is seen from differing viewpoints by such diverse actors as Forest Whitaker, Sigourney Weaver, Matthew Fox, and Dennis Quaid. The President is played by serial over-actor William Hurt. We see the minutes leading up to the assassination attempt from these other perspectives as we and the characters try to sort out what happened. That blasted trailer makes the movie look genuinely exciting and suspenseful, and this should have pretty broad appeal, particularly to the older crowd, who appreciate a smart action movie.

6) Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour
I neither have The Disney Channel nor am I 12 years old, so here’s everything I know about Hannah Montana:

A. If Hannah Montana lived in Tennessee, her name would be “Hennessee.”
B. Maybe Hannah Montana’s not even from Montana. Who the frig knows?
C. Hannah Montana is played by Achy Breaky daughter Miley Cyrus
D. There are performances by both Hannah Montana and Cyrus herself, which strikes me transparently as a demand by her agent to try to avoid having her typecast already
E. Kids apparently throw Super Sweet Sixteen-worthy fits if their parents don’t take them to see Hannah Montana concerts, which are supposedly pre-pubescent mob scenes

Since I only know five things about her, I feel ill-advised on where to place her concert film on my list. Has there ever even been a kiddie concert film before? Raffi: Bananaphone - The Concert Experience? The film is in Disney Digital 3-D, which, at least with theaters around me, means a ticket costs a few bucks more. Will that be a consideration? And what about the dirty old man contingent? A b.o. factor or not? I have no idea, though I suspect in any case it will be mostly a one weekend sensation.

7) Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins
Everybody loves Undercover Brother. Can you think of anyone who doesn’t? No, of course you can’t. And Roll Bounce, the rollerskating movie with Bow Wow, was a truly sweet slice of 70’s life. So, the good news is that the man behind these movies, Malcolm D. Lee, is back with another one. The bad news is that it stars Martin Lawrence. Lawrence, once upon a time a welcome supporting player in movies like House Party and Do the Right Thing, has increasingly become a force to avoid as he shifted to the center of his films. Black Knight, Big Momma’s House 2, and What’s the Worst That Could Happen? I rest my case. Not to mention his penchant for playing multiple characters in the same film (if you haven’t seen his double turn in Rebound, my nightmares wouldn’t make any sense to you). But hey! It’s a new year, and we’re feeling charitable. If anyone can rein in Lawrence’s worst tendencies, I think Lee is the person to do it. First, it appears that Lawrence is only playing one character, which is a good start. Also, Lee has surrounded Lawrence with a terrific cast, including James Earl Jones, Margaret Avery, Cedric the Entertainer, Mike Epps, and the occasionally funny Mo’Nique. The story, about a successful talk show host who returns to his hometown and is taken down a peg, feels a little generic and predictable, but I’m willing to give Lee the benefit of the doubt, and I suspect a lot of others will too. Films with largely African American casts have doing well at the box office lately, including Why Did I Get Married and This Christmas. Roscoe Jenkins should benefit from this momentum. I expect it will have a decent opening weekend, and should play well through the rest of the month.

8 ) Fool’s Gold
I was thinking awhile back that Romancing the Stone would be a good contender for a remake. Girl and guy bicker while skirting danger and looking for fortune. Comedy, action, romance. It’s a solid concept, and Fool’s Gold looks to have at least borrowed the formula. Reteaming Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey after their successful rom-com How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Fool’s Gold casts them as married treasure hunters whose passion is re-ignited as they look for the buried treasure mother lode. The trailer isn’t anything great, probably because it is working so hard to fit the action, romance, and comedy into a two minute clip. I trust the film itself will not be quite so schizo. The director is Andy Tennant, who, with hits like Sweet Home Alabama and Hitch under his belt, knows his way around this territory. The treasure angle may make it more palatable to guys than a straight-up romantic comedy, so this looks to be the date movie choice of the month.

9) Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show
In the tradition of Kings of Comedy and The Blue Collar Comedy Tour, Vince Vaughn and his comedian buddies hit the road, do some stand-up, and film the results. This seems likely to appeal primarily to the actor’s frat boy fans, and not so much to the family audiences he picked up with Fred Claus. It’s being released on a limited number of screens, but with its low cost and Vaughn’s name, it should be a profitable little movie. Plus, it has a buzz-cut Peter “Ralphie from A Christmas Story” Billingsley in it. Added value!

10) Step Up 2 the Streets
Kids dance. In the rain! Oh, look out, they’re fight-dancing! Now, they’re going to use dancing to make better lives for themselves!! Dancing really is the great equalizer!!! Someday, these movies will make great material for VH1’s I Love the 00’s as The Jonas Brothers and Abigail Breslin pine for the simpler days of their youth, when kids went to see movies about dancing. In the meantime, this will be good for maybe a weekend or so of popularity among the junior high set.

Bonus!
11) Be Kind Rewind
This is my most anticipated movie of the month by far. After a magnetized Jack Black erases all the tapes in a VHS rental shop, he and Mos Def recreate the movies and rent out the tapes of their performances. They make low-budget recreations of Ghostbusters, Driving Miss Daisy, and 2001, among others. They’re just like the originals, but only 20 minutes long! Be Kind Rewind is from director Michel Gondry, the fabulous French fabulist behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep. Plus that YouTube video where he solves a Rubik’s Cube with his feet. After his more serious turn in Margot at the Wedding, Black is back doing that JB thing we all know and love. And Mos Def is my favorite rapper-turned-actor — he has a real screen presence, and his on-screen chemistry with Black looks great. I don’t think this movie will set the box office on fire; it’s a little too whimsical, and self-reflexivity is not usually embraced by general audiences. Plus, it’s being distributed by New Line, who has been having a tough time connecting with audiences lately. Still, I hope it finds its audience. I can’t wait to see it.

Also coming out: Over Her Dead Body, with Eva Longoria and Paul Rudd; Strange Wilderness, with Steve Zahn, The Hottie and the Nottie (shudder), with Paris Hilton; In Bruges, with Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson; Definitely Maybe, with Ryan Reynolds and Isla Fisher; Witless Protection, with Larry the Cable Guy; Babylon A.D., with Vin Diesel; Possession, with Sarah Michelle Gellar; and something called The Signal.

Spoiler level: Moderate 

National Treasure: Book of Secrets is maybe the dumbest movie I have ever seen. And I’ve seen that movie where Whoopi Goldberg and a T-Rex fight crime.

BoS posits itself as a sort of modern Indiana Jones with a decidedly family-friendly sensibility. But Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the all-time great action scripts, exploding with clever plotting and witty dialogue, and manages to make the impossible seem, well, possible. BoS, on the other hand, has some of the laziest writing and plotting you can imagine. I’ll give you an example. There may be some minor spoilers.

Nicolas Cage’s history-lovin’ treasure hunter, Ben Gates, needs some information that can only be found in the titular book, a possibly mythological tome which contains the most classified information in our country’s history, and to which only the President has access. Gates cooks up a plan to get the book, and somehow (with powers left over from Next perhaps?) correctly foresees that all of the following will happen: a) the Secret Service agent at a party the President is attending will not be suspicious of Gates when he stumbles out of the woods and will admit him into the party; b) the President will just be doddering around this party aimlessly; c) the President will know who Gates is and be interested in a map he has showing underground passages below the hotel where the party is; d) the President will immediately want to explore said passages and take Gates along with him; e) the President will tell his Secret Service bodyguards to wait outside the secret cave, and they will comply; f) after he has been kidnapped by Gates, the President will still tell him about the book and where it’s located.

I’m serious when I say this is dumber than a sneaker-wearing T-Rex cop.  At least Theodore Rex acknowledges that it takes place in an alternate universe. BoS, on the other hand, thinks it is set in our own universe, and in our universe, THERE’S NO FREAKING WAY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES IS GOING TO GO TROMPING AROUND SOME UNDERGROUND TUNNELS WITH NICOLAS CAGE!! *whew* Sorry about that. It’s just that that is only one example in a sea of ridiculously contrived setups. For instance, there are apparently no security cameras and no guards in The White House, Library of Congress, or Buckingham Palace. Feel free to rustle through the Queen’s things - who’s going to stop you? Oh, and here’s a handy tip - if Ed Harris is ever holding you at gunpoint, just tell him to leave the gun and his henchmen behind, and he will, without even arguing about it. It really works!

I suppose I would be more inclined to overlook these, uh, plot developments if the story were more engrossing, but it’s so simple-minded that the brain tends to wander. The main thrust of the film is Gates trying to clear his ancestor’s name in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, while a sneering, Southern-drawling Harris tries to stop him, using every PG-rated means at his disposal. Along the way, we get not one but two bickering couples who rekindle their romance while picking fake spiderwebs out of their hair and pouring Aquafina on rocks (at least they’re not drinking the stuff…). Plus, there’s some “comic relief” courtesy of Ben’s associate Riley, played by Gigli’s Justin Bartha, who seems embarrassed to be spewing out endless lame bon mots, like some sort of sidekick robot with a quip switch permanently locked to “on.” Steve Zahn did the goofy, wisecracking, de-sexualized buddy thing much better in Sahara. Yup, Sahara, which is like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre compared to this mess.

Look, I’m all for escapist fun, and, I won’t lie, watching Academy Award winner Helen Mirren swing over a bottomless chasm clutching Academy Award winner Jon Voight has some undeniable appeal. But this is inexcusably lazy, paint-by-numbers filmmaking, with absolutely no passion or reason for existence beyond hoovering up some holiday B.O. loot. There are a lot of really worthwhile movies playing right now - Juno, No Country for Old Men, Atonement, just to name a few. These films crackle with wit and originality that make BoS feel downright depressing by comparison. Give your brain a holiday treat - skip the gaudy Treasure, and take in one of these gems instead.

Spoiler level: Moderate

I feel like I need to give you a bit of background information for this review. Rushmore is my favorite movie. The Royal Tenenbaums is in my top five. I think Bottle Rocket is a great debut film, and I even love The Life Aquatic, though I’ll admit it’s not up to the standards of the others. Basically, I’m a Wes Anderson superfan. So it pains me greatly to say that his newest film, The Darjeeling Limited, doesn’t work. At all.

The style of Anderson’s films is instantly recognizable — the pan shots, characters peering into the camera, obsessive attention to color and small details, the omnipresence of Futura font. Lately, he’s been using his bag of tricks in a series of entertaining ads for American Express and AT&T. I like these commercials, but I think they are part of the problem with Darjeeling. Now that he’s ubiquitous, it’s hard to get excited about his work, which seemed so fresh even just a couple of years ago. Anderson isn’t doing anything here he hasn’t done before and better, and for the first time, his stylistic flourishes completely overtake the plot.

It’s not much of a plot though. The story, written by Anderson, Roman Coppola, and Jason Schwartzman, is a road-trip/travelogue/family drama concerning three estranged brothers journeying on a train through India. The brothers, played by Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, and Adrien Brody, are the usual Anderson specimen of man-child, each with their own layers of damage. Wilson, doing a slightly toned-down version of the same character he always plays, takes the position of leader and organizer of the trip, including hiring an assistant who types up and laminates itineraries for the brothers every morning. Brody is the middle son, whose main attribute seems to be stealing their late father’s personal belongings. And co-writer Schwartzman is the youngest, eager to please, and, maybe a little implausibly, also a lady-killer.

Anderson very obviously does not care about India, aside from the way it allows the brothers to act as fish out of water. They spend a great deal of time on the titular train, which is as exhaustively detailed as the house in Tenenbaums and the boat in Aquatic. But despite all the talk of “spiritual journeys,” Anderson could have filmed most of Darjeeling on a set in Burbank. Anderson was never going to make a travelogue — his obsession with emotionally wounded upper class white Americans doesn’t allow much breathing room for outsiders — and I, for one, wouldn’t want him to, but even I am taken back a little at the near-complete lack of interest in the country itself on display here. It’s like a frat boy who went to Cancun for a week talking about his journey through Mexico.

I think it’s just that India is too sprawling and complex to fit into Anderson’s hyper-focused vision. Something happens in the middle of the film, something significant that makes the entire beginning, with the bickering, scheming and lying, seem like the waste of time that it is. And here is where I figured Anderson would drop the affectations and domino-precision of his film-making style and really let the story take over. He doesn’t, of course. It’s the same elaborate tracking shots and choreographed acting, more out of place than ever in this poor Indian village. And it’s really a missed opportunity. The story ultimately, as with all his films, is about learning to face responsibilities and finally grow up, and he had the perfect platform to indicate this visually. After an hour’s worth of running time in which the brothers are immune to everything around them but their own broken lives, Anderson could have used this event to open up the world and take a look around. By filming it in the same style as the rest, it makes the emotional impact seem as artificial as everything else.

I’ve always loved the artificiality of his style before, but I always figured it was tied into the movies themselves. The Tenenbaums, for instance, are trapped in childhood, with their house being a physical manifestation of their inability to move on with their lives, so of course it is packed with an insane amount of detail. Even Anderson’s OCD filming style seems to be a symptom of their dysfunction, and the songs, from Rolling Stones to Charlie Brown, act as their comfort food. Darjeeling’s soundtrack, on the other hand, uses many themes from Merchant/Ivory’s Indian movies, which is clever if a bit precious, but it’s like he’s trying to buy some India cred which he clearly hasn’t earned. And the camerawork this time hurts the performances, rather than bolstering them. All three of the main actors are often appealing and engaging in other projects, but here Anderson doesn’t give us any reason to like them or want to spend time with them. I simply didn’t care enough about any of them to wade through their seemingly endless self-journeys. Darjeeling is the shortest of the Anderson films, but feels interminable.

There is a set of luggage that the brothers spend the entire movie carting around. The baggage is given a staggering amount of screen time, and is the subject of many plot points and visual jokes. The suitcases were apparently designed by Marc Jacobs, and are, naturally, painstakingly detailed, with multi-colored animals and monograms. Two things about the luggage: 1) The payoff with the baggage is so incredibly literal and simple-minded that I wonder if Crash writer/director Paul Haggis did a script polish. 2) There couldn’t be a better metaphor for Anderson himself than this bulky set of bags being carried around for far too long. His characters may have ditched theirs, but he still has a huge, immaculately designed steamer trunk on his back, weighing him down.

Spoiler level: Moderate

Russell Crowe likes to be in manly movies about manly men doing manly things. And if he gets to be the manliest man around, all the better. Well, it doesn’t get much more manly than this. James Mangold’s absolutely fantastic western 3:10 to Yuma is veritably dripping with sweat, bullets, dirt, testosterone, booze, and sheer unadulterated manliness. It practically oozes through the screen, and you may want a shower after watching it.

Mangold’s film is a remake of the 1957 movie of the same name, much beloved by others but unseen by me. Both films are based on a short story by Elmore Leonard, the writer of novels like Get Shorty and Rum Punch, among many others. The film’s plot is fairly straightforward — a principled rancher (Christian Bale) agrees to help escort a notorious stagecoach bandit (Crowe) to the titular train to jail, in exchange for some money that will help keep his ranch in business. There are, of course, many complications, but Yuma is primarily about these two men who develop a grudging (if wary) respect for each other over the course of the movie. It’s a little like Midnight Run, but with fewer F-bombs and more cattle.

Mangold’s last movie was the Johnny Cash story Walk the Line, which garnered an Academy Award for Reese Witherspoon and a nomination for Joaquin Phoenix. I was impressed by the performances in that film, but felt like the movie itself failed to live up to them. In Yuma, Mangold gets another pair of outstanding performances from his leads, but here has crafted a movie that bolsters his actors instead of leaving them out to dry. The film has pretty clear-cut good and bad guys, but with more interesting shading than the standard “black hat vs. white hat.” The screenplay for Yuma is all understated dialogue and glowering. Nobody talks too much, and they don’t have to — everything is in the eyes.

This reliance on subtle acting over words requires really skilled performers, and Mangold lucks out with his Crowe/Bale dream team. For reasons that I don’t understand, Bale often is overlooked, both by the Academy and viewers in general, when it comes to great working actors. He doesn’t bring any star baggage to his parts, and therefore still seems like a regular guy and can pull off these everyman roles. Even though he is, you know, Batman. In Yuma, he plays a good man struggling just to keep himself and his family afloat. He takes the assignment, mostly for the money, but also to try to be a hero to his teenage son (Logan Lerman, a long way from owl movie/yaoi fantasy Hoot!). Bale has incredibly expressive eyes, and you can feel his struggle to be righteous, even in the face of the temptations placed before him.

Crowe, on the other hand, brings an airport’s worth of star baggage to his roles, which sometimes works for him (Master and Commander) and sometimes doesn’t (A Good Year). Crowe is Hollywood’s go-to alpha male, at least now that Mel Gibson has gone insane. He excels in roles where he is the one in charge, and he’s a good fit with this character — the much-feared leader of a pack of vicious robbers. His eyes always seem to be smiling a little, like he’s one step ahead of everyone and knows how everything will play out. He doesn’t overdo this smugness in a way that, say, George Clooney might. But he has a innate charm that draws us (and several characters) to him. He’s a smooth talker, and it’s easy to forget how dangerous he really is.

This leaves the overacting duties to Malkovich-in-training Ben Foster. After memorable appearances in “Freaks and Geeks” and as the lead in the affable teen movie Get Over It, Foster would seem to have been destined for a Jason Biggs-like career. But after some over the top performances in Hostage and “Six Feet Under,” Foster has cornered the market on “young crazy guy.” In Yuma, he plays Crowe’s sociopathic, strangely fey right-hand man. He is cold-blooded in a way that even Crowe seems to find disturbing, and he supplements his violence with weird facial tics and odd phrases. It’s a classic bit of scenery-chewing, but it works.

Maybe the most impressive aspect of Yuma is that it has given new life to an old genre. All the standard western elements are here (horses, guns, saloons), but Mangold modernizes everything while staying true to the formula that has worked for so long. This is a great-looking movie, from a locomotive’s steam billowing against the blue sky, to a frightening barn fire that casts flickering shadows on faces already devastated by the economic ruin it’s causing. There is a simple scene with people eating dinner in a dining room that is loaded with tension and is shot a bit like a horror film. It is these unexpected touches that make Yuma such a memorable experience.

I’ve never been a big fan of westerns, something I think is common to many people born after the 60’s. They just seem so foreign and antiquated. How can a movie with dusty guys riding around on dusty horses possibly be relevant to my life in any way? Well, the moralistic story of Yuma, with its struggles about trying to get by in an unfair-seeming world couldn’t be more timely or relevant in today’s climate. The highest praise I can give to the movie is that it has ignited a curiosity in me about other westerns, and a desire to see what I’ve been missing all this time. Maybe all those dusty manly manly men aren’t quite the dinosaurs I had always thought them to be. In any case, 3:10 to Yuma is a definite must-see and one of the year’s best so far.