Oher is utterly adrift at his new school.  The victim of his previous school’s practice of social promotion, he has no concept of how do to schoolwork.  The administration doesn’t realize that Oher is essentially homeless; scavenging for discarded bags of half-eaten popcorn after school events and spending the night in 24-hour laundromats when he can’t find a stray couch to crash on.  Following one of those events, Leigh Anne Touhy (Sandra Bullock) sees Oher walking aimlessly in the cold.  He’s wearing shorts and short-sleeved shirt, the same outfit he’s always wearing and the only one he owns.  Sensing something is amiss; Leigh Anne has her husband Sean (Tim McGraw) pullover and pick him up.  The Touhys are wealthy, owning upwards of 75 fast-food restaurants, and immediately take him into their home.  There is initially trepidation as they wonder what a child of his background might do unsupervised.  But they quickly realize that Oher is not only a gentle giant, but a protective one. 

It would be easy to mock The Blind Side as a manipulative tearjerker full of self-congratulatory White folks.  And I had every intention of doing just that but something unexpected happened – it’s actually kind of um, well…good.  In lesser hands it could have easily turned into a treacly mess; a sort of Rudy meets Diff’rent Strokes.  But Writer/director John Lee Hancock actually shows remarkable restraint throughout the film.  Sure, Bullock looks like a made-for-TV Erin Brokovich and it’s a showy role, to be sure.  And Bullock gets her chance to puff-up with self-righteous indignation.  But it is so much more than that.  It’s interesting in the film doesn’t feel the need to create a villain.  There are certainly some characters that are insensitive but they come across not so much “racist” as they do “jaded”; quick to assume that someone from Oher’s Dickensian background would need more than a little elbow grease in order to turn things around.

While it is another story about saintly White people helping out a downtrodden minority, the film is aided by the fact that it’s a true story.  If not, Oher’s depiction as a somewhat asexual puppy-dog would be a more troubling.  His character remains something of a nonentity for much of the film due to his seldom speaking.  Perplexed by both the wealth and hospitality of the Touhys, he spends much of the film holding his tongue while waiting for the other shoe to drop.  His relationship with the Touhy's attractive teenage daughter (Lily Collins) never becomes anything more than sibling-like; a development that would seem more akin to condescending wish-fulfillment if it weren’t apparently substantiated by actual family photos over the end-credits. 

The Blind Side is a crowd-pleaser of the highest order.  The film is conventional but manages to wring new life out of an old story (even if this particular variation is true and recent).  Sports movies are notorious for hinging on that final drive, at-bat, free-throw, etc.  But the last act of this film surprisingly doesn’t focus on Oher’s on-field achievements but rather his off-field ones.  His football acumen has made an SEC Conference scholarship a foregone conclusion.  However, his grades need improvement per NCAA guidelines.  The climactic montage of the film isn’t a sports hero training but a sports hero studying; the lingering shot of victory isn’t of Oher scoring a touchdown but of accepting his diploma.  And it’s hard not to root for a sports movie with such a unique and virtually unprecedented message.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being Rudy and 1 being Johnny Be Good, The Blind Side gets an 8.

[attachment:5166]

The film’s concept is cute enough and there are some clever concepts such as Lem battling for the affections of Neera (Jessica Biel) as hippie prototype Glar (Alan Marriott) draws her into their planet’s nascent protest movement.  However, the fact that their planet is without a war means that there isn’t much of anything for them to protest.  And the films ‘50s throwback conceit is not without its charms; especially as we see the Eisenhower-era mentality through the prism of alien life-forms.  Unfortunately, subtlety, like humans, is alien on this plane.  All of the voice work is over-the-top.  There isn’t one joke in the film isn’t overplayed and/or telegraphed.

The filmmakers create several questions that never get addressed.  Why does the world replicate 1950’s small town America?  Why do the people on Planet 51 speak English?  Why doesn’t Baker seem the least bit perplexed by the fact that they speak English?  Why do they have lush and green vegetation when we see that it rains rocks?  Why do all the men have no pants while all the women have to wear dresses?  Planet 51 feels as if it’s the combination of too many different visions.  The fact that the movie lists four people as having the “original idea” would seem to bear this out.  (How exactly do four people have the exact same “original idea?”)  The film can’t decide if it’s a straight-ahead kid’s film, or a subversive anti-imperialist allegory.  It succeeds as neither. 

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being Iron Giant and 1 being Alien Trespass, Planet 51 gets 4.

[attachment:5164]

Splitting up our lovers is problematic for the film in that the charisma-less Pattinson, for reasons which still baffle me, has become tween girls’ “It” boy.  The girls love his meticulously crafted bed-head and his pale (is there an opposite of swarthy?) good looks.  So removing him from the equation for half the film is dicey a proposition given the movie's core audience.  However, the filmmakers have been “kind” enough to give us Jacob (Taylor Lautner), Bella’s Native American friend from the first film.  Though he’s two years younger than her, his abs tell us that he’s all “grow’d-up” and ready to get in on the action.  Interestingly, he almost lost the part when the studio didn’t think he was up the task of playing a love interest.  It’s ironic given that he brings a level of intensity to the role that’s practically Brando-esque when compared to Pattinson. 

Jacob helps Bella mend her broken-heart after Edward lights out for the territories.  But his romantic feelings for her remain unrequited…that is until he discovers that he comes from a long line of werewolves.  Unlike traditional werewolves, they don’t transform based upon the lunar calendar but instead whenever they become angry.  (Which means the film is called “New Moon” for no apparent reason.)  Once Jacob discovers he’s a lycanthrope who runs the risk of killing Bella should he ever lose his temper in her presence, he chivalrously rejects her friendship out of concern for her own safety…which we all know by now is the quickest way to her heart.  Once again, Bella finds herself falling for a boy that loves her so much he might kill her.  Boy, does this chick have a “type” or what?

For a movie ostensibly about the battle between werewolves and vampires, there isn’t much in the way of action.  Which is a blessing given the state of the special effects in the film.  Why does such a major franchise, with such a large budget and so few scenes that actually require CGI, have such lousy effects?  Granted, they’re superior to the previous installment’s but the same could be said for any random episode of Wizards of Waverly Place.

New Moon shares many of its predecessor’s problems: a scarcity of action, substandard effects and a cast that thinks great acting consists of nothing more that dramatic pauses and sulking.  I found the first Twilight film disconcerting in that it seemed to glamorize domestic abuse.  This time out, they’ve added the romanticization of suicide to their repertoire as Edward repeatedly espouses (and acts upon) his desire to die if can’t live in a world with Bella.  I guess you could make the argument that 400 years ago people were saying the same thing about Romeo & Juliet…but at least that was good. 

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being An American Werewolf in London and 1 being Teen Wolf Too, New Moon gets a 5.

[attachment:5162]

Director Roland Emmerich has become this generations Irwin Allen.  Where Emmerich has given us Independence Day, Godzilla and The Day After Tomorrow, Allen gave us The Towering Inferno, Flood! and Fire!.  (If only he had made Fire! first…the Flood! could have put it out.)  Emmerich has made a cottage industry out of destroying cities and countries.  In his latest “epic”, he raises the stakes by giving us what amounts to a planetary snuff film.  The Mayan calendar has predicted that the world will end in the year 2012.  As the film opens, those predictions appear to be coming true as the Earth’s core is heating up while the Sun is throwing off high amounts of radiation.  If there’s a greater reason than that, I couldn’t make it out amongst all the pseudo-scientific gibberish.  But who are we kidding?  A movie like 2012 is more akin to an “adult film”.  We’re not here for the story, just get to the money shot. [morelink]

Unfortunately, the movie takes a while to find its footing; giving us almost an hour of pointless exposition and meaningless character development.  (I mean, we get it.  Jackson Curtis is good-hearted but a little absentminded…that’s why you cast John Cusack.)  The movie’s first action set-piece doesn’t come until the 45-minute mark.  With a running time of almost 2 hours and 40 minutes, the film often times feels like it won’t be over until 2012.  However, once things kick-in to gear we are treated to an orgy of CGI excess so immense that I’m pretty sure the film can no longer be classified as “live action”.  Floods, tsunamis, earthquakes, riots, volcanic eruptions…I think the only reason Emmerich didn’t include famine and pestilence was because he couldn’t figure out a way to make them look “kick ass”. 

The plot (if I may be so bold as to call it that) is essentially a cast of characters scrambling to reach (and gain access to) the interstellar arks that the governments of the world are rumored to have built.  Along the way, we witness Cusack play Road Runner to God’s Wile E. Coyote; consistently outrunning cataclysms and dodging debris with remarkable prescience.  (Maybe he’s Mayan?)  There is something disconcerting about being expected to cheer the survival of the main characters while watching the rest of the world’s population die in the periphery.  Buried in the background, like the Where’s Waldo of personal tragedy, we see people as they cling to collapsing buildings, get burned alive or willingly leap to their deaths.  Late in the film, when Cusack’s son says, “We’re all gonna die” I half-expected him to console the boy by saying, “Only extras die, son…only extras”. 

The movie strikes some odd emotional beats.  Danny Glover, whispering his way through the role of the President of the United States, spends time helping a little girl look for her lost father.  It would be almost touching if it weren’t a complete waste of the efforts of the POTUS.  But hey, it makes us feel all warm inside.  Carl Anheuser (Oliver Platt) is tasked with the job of maintaining the continuity of the U.S government as they embark on their voyage.  He is our ostensible villain with his cold-hearted, bureaucratic calculations about who makes the cut.  However, in spite of the movie’s intent, he’s often the only character making sense.  The world is literally ending and you can’t save everyone.  You can’t worry about man; you have to worry about mankind.  And late in the film, the scientist who predicted the deluge, Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor), gives an impassioned speech for compassion predicated on the fact that one of his friends just died.  Um...dude, 99.9% of the world is obliterated…EVERYONE’S “friend” just died.  You’re not unique.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being Children of Men and 1 being Left Behind III: World At War, 2012 gets a 5.

[attachment:5083]

An Education is a simple tale told wonderfully.  It draws us into its world in much the same way that David draws in Jenny.  It beautifully recreates ‘60s England, from trendy nightclubs to middle class residences.  Mulligan gives an award-worthy performance as does Sarsgaard. 

Buoyed by strong performances from Sarsgaard, Mulligan and Alfred Molina (as Jack, Jenny’s father), the film is interesting in that its Jenny’s point of view in which the story is firmly ensconced.  While the plot obviously has shades of Lolita (with a touch of Pygmalion) it’s told (largely) with a light and airy tone.  Molina is strong as a father who wants the best for his daughter, even if his ideas are a bit antiquated.  Sarsgaard is masterful as man who might or might not be a predator.  He walks that line between creepy and charming, dangerous and exciting, never fully landing on one or the other until just the right moment.  And Mulligan, as Jenny, is enchanting enough to believe that an older man could be interested in her as more than just a plaything.  She’s smart, funny, educated and, lest we forget, beautiful.  And while she is too young for him, it’s “just barely” (she’ll be graduating soon).  This, combined with the fact that film takes place in era that’s (perceived) as more innocent, makes it easier to think that this just might be the exception to the rule.  After all, Jenny’s mother is clearly smitten with David and her father is impressed, in spite of himself, with just how urbane her daughter’s suitor is.

It’s easy to read the above as the salacious wish-fulfillment of a rapidly-approaching middle age man.  But it’s precisely this element of the film that allows it to rise above the level of an After School Special.  Even as we watch all parties involved make decisions that we find questionable, we never lose sight of why they’re making such decisions.  Every character has a unique motivation that allows them to permit something concrete that they would never tolerate in the abstract. 

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being Lolita and 1 being Casualties of Love: The Long Island Lolita Story, An Education gets an 8.

[attachment:5074]

Pirate Radio opens by telling us that, “In 1966 the British government banned rock 'n' roll on the radio. Until one American deejay and a band of renegades launched a radio station on the high seas and raided the air waves."  That is, as the British would say, “bollocks.”  Were their illegal radio stations off the coast of England in the ‘60s?  Yes.  Did the British government ban rock and/or roll?  Umm…no.  If you’re looking for a historically accurate depiction of the era, you will be sorely disappointed.  However, you might find the film more amenable if you’re looking for a rollicking, British sex romp with one hell of a soundtrack.  [morelink]

The station’s DJs consist of the rebelliously lighthearted The Count (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the not-quite-as-funny-as-he-thinks Angus (Rhys Darby), the sexy and mysterious late night jock Midnight Mark (Tom Wisdom) and reclusive early-morning host Smooth Bob (Ralph Brown) as well as a host of others.  Into all this is thrust Carl (Tom Sturridge), the son of a former girlfriend of the charming and sophisticated station owner Dave (Nick Frost).  Having been suspended from school, Carl’s mother has placed him under the tutelage of Dave in the hopes of returning him to the straight-and-narrow.  Admittedly, it’s not a very well thought-out plan. 

The film is intentionally light on plot.  It’s basically a collection of wacky characters and amusing anecdotes.  What little plot there is revolves largely around government bureaucrat Alistair Dormandy’s (Kenneth Branagh) obsession with shutting down the illegal transmissions…even before they’re made illegal.  (An interesting footnote: the film paints Dormandy as a right-wing zealot though his real life counterpart, Tony Benn, was member of Labour Party (i.e. the British equivalent of a Democrat) and is widely considered to be one of the most left-leaning politicians in the history of the U.K.  But there is no bias within the movie industry and you would be a fool and Glenn Beck fan to think otherwise.)  Politics aside, the film’s humor is scattershot and largely juvenile but, more often than not, it works.  The lack of drug references and fairly tame sex-humor makes for a somewhat sanitized take on the ‘60s.  Often times, it feels like the sitcom adaptation of an edgier film. But the characters are immensely likeable and their hijinks are enjoyable even if they’re not quite as bawdy as they would like us to believe. 

Most likely one’s affinity for the movie will be in direct proportion their relationship with radio during their formative years.  As Sammy Hagar once sang, “We’ve been waiting all night to just hear that song.”  Believe it or not, there was a time when that “waiting” inspired passion rather than consternation.  But we now live in an age where someone can email us our favorite song, so the wistful nostalgia of anxiously waiting for a radio station to play a song might seem antiquated to younger viewers.  It harkens back to the days of freeform radio when the music selection was left in the hands of the broadcaster and a DJ’s taste in music could be just as important, if not more so, than his on-air persona. 

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being Good Morning, Vietnam and 1 being The New WKRP In Cincinnati, Pirate Radio gets a 6.

[attachment:5066]

Based on Richard Matheson’s short story Button, Button, The Box stars Cameron Diaz and James Marsden as Norma and Arthur Lewis. The Lewis’ are an upper middleclass couple; she’s an English teacher at an upscale prep school while he works at NASA with hopes of entering their astronaut program. However, their idyllic live begins to unravel when he is passed over as a potential astronaut and she is informed that faculty members will no longer receive discounted tuition for their children. In the midst of this upheaval they are presented with an unusual opportunity. A man arrives on their doorstep with a box and an offer. The box is nothing more than that; a wood box with a button on top. Press the button and receive a million dollars. Oh, but there is one caveat: someone somewhere, whom you don’t know, will die. Will they press the button? Will they not press the button? At the risk of revealing too much, one of those choices would make for an extremely anticlimactic (not to mention brief) film going experience, now wouldn’t it? [morelink]

As the Lewis’ begin to investigate Arlington Steward (Frank Langella), the man who extended the offer, they begin to realize that they’re caught up in something larger than they had ever imagined. The movie is based on a short story which becomes problematic. The first half-hour is somewhat promising (despite the fact that Diaz chose to adopt a Southern accent that makes her sound like an escaped understudy from a community theater production of Steel Magnolias). The first thirty minutes follows the original story’s plot points; with the exception of a slight tweak to the ending similar to the version that aired in the 1980’s version of The Twilight Zone. However, the filmmakers decided to not leave well enough alone. Since the original story can’t reasonably be stretched to feature length, they’ve fleshed out the back-story in order to explain the motivation and machinations of Stewards’ offer. But much of the original's charm is due precisely to the lack of information. No details were ever given as to why Steward is making this offer or how it works. Like all good Twilight Zone episodes, it ended with a nice little twist and left the viewers with enough answers to be satisfying but enough questions to keep them thinking.

Is there any answer that could be given as to why or how this works that would be gratifying? If this film is any indication, the answer is a resounding “no.” Without revealing too much about Steward, suffice it to say that the answer is both ludicrous and (from a sci-fi/fantasy standpoint) rather routine; a dues ex machina that is as maddening as it is mundane. Steward has an army of people able to monitor the Lewis’ every movie and the movie quickly devolves into a poor-man’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The Box is set in 1976 for no apparent reason beyond showing clips of ‘70s era sitcoms. And you know a movie is in trouble when you wish they’d go back to showing you an Alice rerun. It’s the sort of movie where people arrive on a hero’s doorstep frantically offering to help…but only with cryptically worded messages that inevitably do more harm than good. After all, why say, “Hey, that guy’s gonna kill you” when you can just as easily say, “The crow flies at midnight?” We’ve got two hours to fill here people.

I will give the film credit for not copping out. It creates dark choices (no spoilers, I haven’t even approached mentioning them here) and never backs away from them. The film has fairly nihilistic tone and makes absolutely no effort to graft on a Hollywood ending. I think Rod Serling would actually be fairly happy with the beginning and the ending…it’s all that stuff in the middle that he’d want to fix.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being Indecent Proposal (really? Indecent Proposal? A “10”? Sure, why not?) and 1 being Saw V, The Box gets a 5.

[attachment:5006]

Directed by Robert Zemeckis the film marks his third consecutive directorial effort using motion capture animation (the previous two being Beowulf and The Polar Express).   This film illustrates that Zemeckis is getting quite adept with the new technology.  The creepy emotionless expressions of The Polar Express are all but gone and he’s become comfortable enough with motion capture that he no longer feels compelled to overwhelm our senses with every frame of footage.  That’s not to say the film doesn’t utilize the technology effectively.  The film opens with a dizzying tracking shot above and through the streets of 19^th century London, going places (and getting there) in ways that no normal camera ever could.  And the Victorian England that we so often associate with Christmas has been painstakingly recreated in detail so meticulous it would make any historian proud.  There were times when I wished we could pause the film merely so we could take a walking tour through the snow-covered streets of a bygone era.  One of my biggest complaints about the recent spate of 3D movies is that the glasses required to render the effect inevitably end up reducing the brightness of the colors.  This film is no exception.  However, Victorian England was a dark place.  The Industrial Revolution was in full-swing and air pollution was rampant.  Plus, electric lighting did not yet exist; most illumination was created via lamps and candles.  Therefore, the film comes by its darkness honestly.  It’s more a commitment to historical accuracy than it is a byproduct of 3D glasses.

I’ve never been much of a fan of Carrey.  I typically find his performances too manic.  Ironically, being animated seems to have toned down his…well, animation.  He’s, thankfully, not his usual blend of exaggerated expressions and hyperactive tics.  Instead, his take on Scrooge is a bit more nuanced.  Granted, it’s difficult to humanize a character whose very name has literally become a synonym for a miserly killjoy.  But he manages to humanize the character more than expected.  If only the people behind motion capture would jettison the gimmick of having one actor play multiple parts.  Carrey plays EIGHT different characters: Scrooge, Ghost of Christmas Past, Ghost of Christmas Present, Ghost of Christmas Yet-To-Come, Scrooge as a young boy, Scrooge as a young man and Scrooge as a middle-age man.  While it’s interesting that the technology allows one actor to play the same character at various ages, seeing one actor as multiple characters generally feels hokey. 

Zemeckis is credited with the screenplay but, given how much of the dialog is lifted directly from the book, I believe the film could just as easily credit “Cut” and “Paste.”  And I mean that in a good way.  The story itself is surprisingly, remarkably, blessedly faithful to its source material.  Hard as it is to believe, this could quite possibly be the most faithful retelling of the story ever brought to the screen.  While the commercials go to great lengths in order to make the film appear to be an action-packed comedy, the moments featured have been cherry-picked to make the movie seem a bit more kid-friendly than it actually is.  This is not a kid’s movie.  It’s not that there’s anything “inappropriate” in the movie.  But it’s a dark film both literally (as mentioned above) and figuratively.  The ghost of Jacob Marley (Gary Oldman), Scrooge’s former business partner, is rendered as the rotting the corpse he is (though he mercifully appears to be in the earlier stages of decomposition rather than later stages that he should actually be in).  The film is a ghost story and it never strays too far afield from that premise.  This fact, combined with some Dickensian dialog that can be a bit stilted (not to mention a touch arcane) when being said aloud, might make the film problematic for some younger and/or less than patient filmgoers.  But beyond that, A Christmas Carol is that rare thing: a Christmas movie we might still be watching in twenty years.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being Scrooge and 1 being An All Dogs Christmas Carol, A Christmas Carol gets an 8.

[attachment:4996]

The film follows two tracks: the present, where Bob follows Lyn on his “top secret” mission into Iraq, and the past, which consists of a series of flashbacks in which we see how this group of “Jedi Warriors” was assembled. The team was the brainchild of Bill Django (Jeff Bridges channeling “The Dude’s” warmongering doppelganger). He referred to them as the New Earth Army and incorporated as much hippie/new age hocus-pocus into their training as he could. The film shows us just enough to keep us guessing as to whether the New Earth Army is actually mastering their powers or merely occasionally getting lucky.

While it aims to be a cutting political satire, the picture is ultimately a one-joke premise: let’s laugh at conservative, uptight soldiers acting like the hippies they hate in order exploit “flower power” for militaristic gain. And don’t get me wrong, there are some laughs within that premise. But it tends to lose its effectiveness after being repeated ad nauseum for ninety minutes. The filmmakers treat the Army with derision for wanting to utilize the more metaphysical aspects of the peace movement in an effort to wage war. And there is a certain level of hypocrisy there, I suppose. But the movie’s sanctimonious, anti-military arrogance belies a hypocrisy all its own. It asks the audience to believe that the paranormal is possible while repeatedly ridiculing the government for doing the same. The implication being that they aren’t mocking the belief in the mystical but the motivations for said believe. It’s a subtle but important distinction…and kind of a snotty one.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being Dr. Strangelove and 1 being Firestarter 2: Rekindled, The Men Who Stare at Goats gets a 5.

[attachment:4988]

As Tyler investigates further, she begins to believe (with the help of her murdered husband’s research) that aliens are afoot. (Spacemen not foreigners.) Nome, after all, has the highest per capita rate of disappearances and unsolved deaths according to the film. Let’s see…people are routinely going missing in a desolate frozen-tundra with a population of less than 10,000 and one of the highest rates of alcoholism in the United States…I think everyone’s first thought is alien abduction, really. As if aliens are smart enough to master interstellar travel but dumb enough to continually abduct subjects from a town with a population smaller than the average Nickelback concert.

Of course, none of this be would so frustrating if the film weren’t so adamant about all of this being true. The film desperately wants to be The Blair Witch Project of alien movies. It’s full of twisty/bendy head fakes - actors breaking the fourth wall, video that is alleged to be true, the director (Olatunde Osunsanmi) playing himself on screen - each element carefully chosen to heighten the realism and ratchet up the tension. But instead of immersing you in the story, it pulls you out. It wants you to believe, if only for a second, that this is all happened. But none of it rings true. Many characters are given aliases in order to protect their true “identities” (and, one would presume, to prevent debunking the entire film with a simple Google search). But the film reveals so much ancillary information about its characters that a mere name change would do little good in obfuscating their real names. The video footage all comes emblazoned with a time/date stamp and the movie takes great pains to let us know that we’re in Nome, Alaska. So if we know the year and the location, does changing the name of the town’s sheriff really protect his privacy? And how many Black Sumerian language professors (Hakeem Kae-Kazim) working at a “prestigious Canadian university” could there be? No, aliases aren’t provided to protect identities, they’re provided to create the appearance of protecting identities. This way it all looks more “real.”

In the end, all we’re left with is grainy, pixilated (you know…to protect their identities) camcorder footage and a few cheap scares on par with your kid brother jumping out from behind a door. It quickly becomes evident that this “archival footage” serves two purposes: to create the illusion of authenticity and, more importantly, to save the filmmakers the cost and trouble of creating believable special effects. The Fourth Kind is lazy, derivative and disingenuous.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 1 being Erotic Encounters of the Fourth Kind, The Fourth Kind gets a 3.

[attachment:4987]

Can you go to Hell for seeing a movie?  If so, it’s too late for me but you still have a chance.  Written and directed by Lars von Trier, Antichrist is the most perplexing movie I’ve ever seen, let alone reviewed.  Visually stunning yet repulsive to watch; psychologically intense yet morally reprehensible; a spectacular cinematic achievement that quite possibly should be seen by no one.  The film tells the story of He (Willem Dafoe) and She (Charlotte Gainsbourg).  (You know you’re in highbrow “art house” territory when the characters’ names are pronouns.)  They are a married couple; he’s a psychologist, she’s an author.   In the opening scene, their toddler dies as a result of their inattention whilst engaged in “marital relations.”  The scene is beautifully filmed, bathed in blue light and perfectly edited to the strains of 'Lascia ch'io pianga' from 'Rinaldo' and climaxes (both literally and figuratively) in the death of their child.  Hang on to your hats, folks…this is as “cheery” as it’s gonna get.  [morelink]

He, being a psychologist, convinces his wife to eschew the antidepressants prescribed by her medical doctors.  Instead, he will be her grief counselor even though he knows that no self-respecting professional would ever attempt to provide guidance to a family member.   He begins an intense round mental masochism, forcing her to discuss and relive the loss of her child.  Eventually he reaches the conclusion that they should continue these “sessions” in an isolated cabin, a locale where she once spent the summer alone with their child while she was writing her thesis on historical crimes against women.  Upon arriving, things hurriedly begin to devolve.  As her erratic, and increasingly violent, actions escalate, He begins to suspect that there is more wrong with She than simply grief.

While the film has nothing to do the “antichrist” in a literal sense, it’s most certainly a horror film.  However, unlike most horror films, this one focuses as much on the psychological as it does on the physiological.  Von Trier creates a sense of overwhelming dread and devastating foreboding that’s almost palpable.  The film’s sense of desolation and despair is unrelenting.  The characters’ (and the audiences’) psyche is battered and bruised long before the film’s brutality becomes bodily. 

While the entire film is psychologically exhausting, von Trier ups the ante in the final third by escalating the violence.  In short succession the film subjects us to three graphic, realistically photographed acts of extreme carnage; two of which were easily the most revolting things I’ve ever witnessed in a mainstream film.  Images so disgustingly vile that it caused me to do something I haven’t done at the movies since I was a child: I closed my eyes.  The scenes in question are so nauseating that they would be rejected as album cover artwork for most “death metal” bands.  There are things in this movie that make Saw look like Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein.  It is extraordinarily explicit, both in terms of violence and sexuality.  The film merges sex and bloodshed and chronicles them in an unambiguous way that is typically only seen in pornography.  While I wouldn’t classify the scenes as pornography per se, the case could certainly be made; and never has the line been thinner.

I won’t be giving this film a number like I usually do.  Antichrist is polarizing and deliberately so.  Its purpose is to shock and divide.  It wants to photograph depravity beautifully and then repulse us with the juxtaposition.  I’m a big believer in judging a film on what it’s attempting to do.  It’s unfair, not to mention counterproductive, to hold Caddyshack to the same standards as Citizen Kane when they’re trying to achieve two separate things.  Using that logic, Antichrist is an unmitigated success.  It accomplished what it wanted to…but so do snuff films.  That doesn’t mean you should go see one.

[attachment:4930]

Since the film is constructed from rehearsal footage, no effort is made toward continuity, nor could there be.  Jackson is seen in multiple outfits during each “performance.”  They used the best available vocal track, so sometimes the lip-synching is a little out of phase.  What’s most remarkable is how healthy he looks.  Jackson appears thin but not frail.  He’s singing abilities are most definitely intact and he still possesses all but his most strenuous dance moves.  And, unlike most singer/dancers of today, he apparently had no intention of lip-synching or “singing to track,” a process in which a performer sings along with a prerecorded vocal track in the event they need to catch their breath.  There is the occasional missed word or forgotten line, this is rehearsal after all, but not once do we hear a “guide track” pick up the slack.  Due to his sudden and unexpected death, the film will no doubt be examined for “clues” frame-by-frame, like the Zapruder film or a celebrity sex tape.  But on a first pass, I saw nothing but a man of extraordinary talent who appeared to be building quite possibly the greatest pop concert of all time. 

While the concert tour was felt by many to be a cash-grab by a bankrupt, fading superstar (and, yes, you can put me in that camp); that’s clearly not the show he was constructing.  While he could have allowed the younger dancers to do the heavy lifting while he belted out the hits, he clearly had no intention of doing so.  This show was to be an amazingly choreographed, high-energy spectacle with stunning set pieces.  The promoters had allegedly spent $30 million just on concert production in what was to have been the most expensive arena shows in history.  And you can see every nickel of it on that stage.  Yet even with all the over-the-top set pieces some of the most enthralling moments are simply Jackson on-stage, working out a number.  Jackson had spent so many years as fodder for either headlines or punch lines that it’s easy to forget just why he was a star.  This film will remind you.

Even before his controversies, I never considered myself a fan.  While he’s astonishingly talented, I’m more of “rock” guy.  But This Is It stands as a testament to the man’s gifts.  Ortega presents us with a Jackson that the public rarely saw: normal.  (Or as normal as any celebrity of his magnitude could be.)  He was noticeably hands-on with the concert’s creations.  And every suggestion he makes or change that he calls for improves the show.  He’s not being weird for the sake of weirdness, as is so often thought of him.  He’s not asking to be flown in on a llama or wear a hat made out of cheese.  He wants to hold for an extra beat or make a bass line a little “funkier”…you know, the sort of things a responsible artist would do. 

However, as the film progresses some of the numbers become decidedly less ambitious.  Had he bitten off more than he could chew?  Or did he simply need some “cool down” numbers in order to catch his breath?  My guess would be a little from column “A” and a little from column “B.”  But there are wonderful sequences filmed to be shown during his live performances.  He is digitally inserted into old Warner Brothers gangster films for “Smooth Criminal,” where he is seen shooting it out with Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney.  And there’s new footage filmed for what would have been a 3D “Thriller” segment.  It’s a spectacular scene that serves as both an homage to the original and, interestingly, to Walt Disney World’s Haunted Mansion. 

The film does drag a bit towards the end, especially an overly long portion devoted to “Earth Song.”  (Though admittedly, it was huge hit in England, where the tour was to have begun.)  Ultimately, the film is a monument to one man’s talent.  (I’ll leave the discussion as to whether he deserves a monument for another day.)  It’s a rousing film-going experience that will have audiences applauding after each number, all but forgetting that they’re even in a movie theater.  If this was the rehearsal footage…good God, what would the actual concerts have been like?

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being The Last Waltz and 1 being The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, This Is It gets a 9.

[attachment:4907]

[attachment:4867]

I don’t think I’ve seen a movie position itself for a sequel this unabashedly since Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (that’s their subtitle, by the way).  The movie spends so much time attempting to create a franchise that it forgets to create an interesting film.  Characters come and go: Mr. Tall (Ken Watanabe), Madame Truska (Salma Hayek), Alexander Ribs (Orlando Jones), Gavner Purl (Willem Dafoe), Corma Limbs (Jane Krakowski).  Judging by the casting, they’re clearly meant to be of some importance further down the line.  But all we get here are head-scratching cameos that leave us wondering why such well known actors were only given five lines of dialog.   The entire movie feels like ninety-minutes of prologue.  

There are a few moments that show us what might have been.  Vampires in this world don’t kill; they merely knock their victims unconscious and take a sip.  (Apparently even the undead have “gone green” and now find themselves concerned with “sustainability”.)  Of course, this is merely a plot device designed to allow viewers to like vampires.  But it does present a somewhat interesting take on the genre as Vampires are locked in battle with “Vampanese”, vampires who are still willing to kill in order to feed.  I have no idea why the non-killing offshoots were allowed to keep the name “vampire” though.  That’d be like Meadowlark Lemon leaving the Harlem Globetrotters and taking the name with him.  Nevertheless, it at least adds a new wrinkle vampire lore.

If the film has one redeeming quality, it’s the performance of John C. Reilly.  He gives the character of Crepsley a tired, world-weary delivery that accounts for every laugh that the film manages to muster (not counting the substandard special effects, that is).  Crepsley, as a vampire, is very much aware of what people perceive vampires to be.  His level of self-awareness was played to great comic effect and left me wishing he was in a different/better movie. 

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being Dracula (1931) and 1 being Dracula: Dead and Loving It, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant gets a 4.

[attachment:4866]

Biographical works that focus on Walt Disney inevitably become Faustian in nature.  The Walt Disney Company and the Disney family maintain a tight grip on any and all archival materials as they relate to Walt.  Therefore if a filmmaker wants access to the materials necessary to craft a story, he or she must tell a tale that the Disney gatekeepers deem worthy of telling (and tell it in a fashion that won’t bring derision upon the family name).  Over the years, Walt has become as much of a corporate mascot as Mickey Mouse.  So protecting his image is of the utmost importance.  The end result is that virtually anything short of the canonization of Walt is met with a complete lack of cooperation from those who control the Disney archives.  They’re anal about their annals.  The fact that this film was produced by The Walt Disney Family Foundation should give you some idea of the sort of sanitized account that filmgoers are in store for. 

The main problem with the film is that ultimately it’s not a very interesting story.  It’s basically footage of Walt & Co. traveling through South America.  Sure, the expedition resulted in two animated features but the fact that those cartoons are practically footnotes doesn’t do this film any favors.  However, the family archives do come through by providing copious amounts of trip photos, film footage and (most importantly) abundant amounts of artwork that was created on the trip.  The film is well constructed and creatively segues from past photos to present and between various sketches, paintings and drawings.  Unfortunately, none of this is strong enough to make the film feel like much more than watching someone else’s vacation slides.  Granted, they’re extraordinarily well made vacation slides…but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re vacation slides.  And while the film introduces us to each of the Disney employees that make up the group, we’re given little insight as to what their achievements are (or would be) within the Disney pantheon.  Furthermore the film makes little effort to put Walt’s trip into a larger historical context or illustrate its cultural impact on either the countries visited or the one returned to.  My guess would be because there wasn’t much of one. 

Walt & El Grupo is for only the most diehard of Disney aficionados.  And trust me, I mean diehard.  I am a self-proclaimed Disney dork.  My wedding theme was Disney, Mickey and Minnie were our cake topper, we went to Disneyworld on our honeymoon, I’ve been in the utilidors.  And even I was having trouble staying awake.  The film is classic example of filmmakers so close to the subject matter that they’ve lost sight of what made the subject interesting in the first place.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being Frank and Ollie and 1 being Back to Enchantment: The Making of Thumbelina, Walt & El Grupo gets a 5.

[attachment:4865]