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Babel
Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu
42 out of 100
I think the main problem with Babel is that we just don't care - at least I didn't. Iñárritu, who played the multi-layered storytelling game to near perfection in his debut feature Amores perros and pulled off a lesser yet competent follow-up in 21 Grams, seems to have run out of room for all his intertwining characterizations in Babel. Unfocused and unwieldy - and most importantly, uninteresting - Iñárritu's third film tries to tell the stories of ugly Americans and race relationships in a global community through the eyes of two farm boys in Morocco, a pair of rich American tourists who bring the world out for their cause célèbre, a Mexican-American nanny who drags her two blonde-haired, blue-eyed wards across the border for her son's wedding and a deaf young Japanese girl looking for love wherever she can find it.
The problem lies not in any of the acting (although most do not get much of a chance to shine and both Cate Blanchett and Gael Garcia Bernal are totally wasted in such tiny hapless roles that never seem to go anywhere) but rather in the telling of the story. Much more accessible than his previous films - and mired in many ways to the same ground that the highly overrated Crash was heralded for - Babel, wasting away what made his previous films so frisky and dynamic, links its characters together in such ridiculous ham-handed (and somewhat racist) ways as to make one think "what the fuck!?" when handed to us on the screen. Boring and pretentious, though adequate in the most mediocre manner, Babel is far from the causative, innovative, sooth-saying film it so desperately wants to be - and may very well think it is.
Of course my humble opinion is sure not to matter as Babel is sure to be a hit - in the same way Crash was - and sure to recieve several Oscar nods - in the same way Crash did - and sure to be overpraised for its naive social voice - in the same way Crash was. Babel ends up being - in the same way Crash was - an uneventful hand-wringing of pseudo-liberal guilt disguised as pseudo-arthouse cinema. [11/16/06]
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The Black Dahlia
Directed by Brian De Palma
20 out of 100
Fluctuating between tedium, audacious bravura, near-massive ridiculousness, incomprehension and De Palma's own perverse obsession with Hitchcock, The Black Dahlia, a retooling of the already retooled James Ellroy novel of the actual, still unsolved, case of the murder of Hollywood starlet-to-be Elizabeth Short, is nothing short of an unmitigated disaster. With that being said, let me also say that The Black Dahlia is all I expected it to be.
De Palma, who has always titillated with at least one or two scenes in each of his films - leaving the whole as yet another Hitchcockian screw-up - does no less here, but leaves the whole even deader than ever. Having balls enough to think he can "solve" a real-life murder that has never been solved, De Palma ends up with the most inanely preposterous finale he has ever exorcised out of celluloid - and that is saying a hell of a lot considering his stylized-yet-slaphappy oeuvre.
Slap this all up with over-the-top theatrics from both Aaron Eckhart and Josh Hartnett (and Hilary Swank, although she probably hands in the finest performance of all) and the typically hebetudinous performance of Scarlett Johansson and you have what could very well be De Palma's most boring film yet. In the past, De Palma has been hare-brained, half-witted, foolish, inane and loony, but until now, he has never been plain boring. Alas poor Brian... [10/04/07]
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Borat:
Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Directed by Larry Charles
33 out of 100
Is it offensive? Yes. Is it racist? Yes. Is it satire? Yes. Is it funny? Yes. But it is only a small portion of each of these things. Someone is always going to be offended. Someone is always going to say a certain thing is wrong. That is the way satire works. If no one is offended, then the writer(s) of said satire are not doing a good enough job. Perhaps Borat's anti-semitic rants can be seen as overtly racist. Perhaps they can be seen as parody against those who make such remarks in real life - after all creator and actor, Sacha Baron Cohen is Jewish. There are surely those that say no matter, he is perpetuating a racist myth through his comedy/satire. I say they should lighten the fuck up.
If Larry the Cable Guy were to start making Jewish jokes then there may be a need for outrage, but when a Jewish comedian makes them - and not just to be funny, but to show the stupidity of many Americans - the outrage is mostly unwarranted. Unfortunately for we the viewers, Cohen's satire falls flat more often than not. It is not that this is a racist, anti-American diatribe - which I suppose it is in some ways - it is even worse than that. Being one of the worst things a comedy can be, the movie just is not that funny. Sure, it has its moments (most of them already seen if you watched the trailer) especially two particular scenes (a naked wrestling match throughout a posh hotel and Borat praising Bush's "war of terror" at a midwestern rodeo appearence), but overall, well, let us just be glad the film is only an hour and twenty-three minutes long. High-five...not! [01/02/07]
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The Break-Up
Directed by Peyton reed
41 out of 100
There should be no argument that both Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston know how to play for laughs, and know how to play them for real. There should also be no argument that neither one of them deserves such below par material to work with, but even with such material, Vaughn and Aniston - tabloidally linked as they are - come out of this film smelling a lot more like roses than they probably should.
Clichéd to the core - which should not come as much of a surprise - yet actually a lot smarter than the comedies that are inevitably linked to it (Anchorman, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Wedding Crashers), The Break-Up plays out as if it so desperately wants to be the romantic comedy (or should I say anti-romantic comedy considering the premise) rendition of Bergman's Scenes From A Marriage. Except, wherein Bergman's film was successful in its treatment of a relationship falling apart, The Break-Up is a failure in the same - albeit comedic - attempt.
Yet, Vaughn and Aniston (the rest of the cast is pretty much superfluous to the storyline, and it seems that director Peyton Reed knows that fact and barely uses them) eek out a nearly successful comedy-at-arms with mere screen presence alone, even in the mire of their typically cookie-cutter movie. And as far as the ending goes - and I do not want to give anything pertinent away here - well, let's just leave it at that. [12/03/06]
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Brick
Directed by Rian Johnson
76 out of 100
Somewhere between Marlowe and Mulholland Dr., with a vocabulary all its own, the high school whodunit, Brick, debut feature from Rian Johnson, splays forth its noir soul with a sort of hip squareness rarely seen in American cinema since the demise of the "Age of the American Auteur" which permeated cinematic culture in the the early seventies. Underseen, and poorly recieved by critics (at least the mainstream press, which is no real surprise), as well as becoming stamped with the hands-off moniker of pretentious, Brick is nonetheless is a unique creature in modern cinema. Original - even with its rather obvious homage factor and not-so-surprising finale - and ultra smooth (without overdoing the hip-to-be-hip factor), Johnson film is not just retro in its noir style, but also in its contradicting visualness. Stunning in every aspect, the film is also full of grandiose - and yes, I dare say pretentious - performances galore. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (so brilliantly morose in the otherwise underwhelming Mysterious Skin) is Bogart with an unlimited hall pass (we never do see anyone actually attend class here) and Lukas Haas (no longer a shy Amish witness) steals the show as "The Pin", drug warlord of suburbia (who situates his hideout in the basement of his mother's house). Fun to the point of pretention - and that is a good thing dammit. [12/09/06]
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The Case of the Grinning Cat
Directed by Chris Marker
35 out of 100
The avant-gardist that brought La Jetée to semi-still life in 1962 (and I must admit, my only prior exposure to Marker) is still kicking halfway into his eighth decade of life. Only now, the man who would be king of French existential experimentation, shows only superficial teeth in describing the political landscape of modern-day France - but superficial in the wryest of ways.
His disdain for all things Bush is applaudable and his free association of cats and the left wing is laudable and his humour is sincerely intact, yet for some reason (and many of my fellow critics like Hoberman and Dargis disagree) I found myself anticipating the rolling final credits - even with its length at a paltry fifty-eight minutes. Sorry M. Marker (and to you M. Chat as well) but perhaps I just wasn't in the mood for a lecture - no matter how witty it may have been. I just cannot sneak out of my C+ impression of the film. I do applaud the effort though as well as the octogenarian playfulness and sardonic provocativeness. Perhaps, after all is said and done, I enjoyed it more than I originally thought. Perhaps I am playing at the same game that Marker plays at with his aloof cine-essay and I refuse to give too much information out to the imagination.
Preceeded by five of Marker's animal-oriented video pieces (billed as Marker's Bestiary in the program at Film Forum) which quietly prepare you for the tomfoolery of the eventual grinning cat. Perhaps I liked it indeed (wink wink). [12/31/06]
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Casino Royale
Directed by Martin Campbell
72 out of 100
So many claims have been made over the years with regards to Sean Connery being the best Bond money could buy, and his brand of cheeky charm certainly makes a seemingly open-and-shut case for the matter. Sure Pierce Brosnan, Roger Moore and even one hit wonder George Lazenby have their attributes (hopeless sad sack Timothy Dalton never stood a change with such a serous turn at the icon) but it is always Connery with whom we repeatedly, irresistibly and irrevocably return to. Well I am here to say - and it may go against the grain or even possibly seem a bit reactionary - that Daniel Craig may very well be the best James Bond yet.
Okay, stop your foaming at the mouth. I didn't really mean it. Or did I? In all actuality though, the way Bond is portrayed by the square-jawed (and square-bodied) Craig - both cocky and unsure of himself, both arrogant and innocent - is perhaps the closest we have ever gotten to the man originally created by Ian Fleming way back in 1952 (sixteen years before Craig was even born). Combine this with a great script (at least as far as the genre can take good writing), one of the hottest Bond girls in years (the enigmatic Eva Green as the equally enigmatic Vesper Lynd) and the obligatory action scene-cum-opening salvo that made me weak in the knees with acrophobic glee and you have the best Bond film since Roger Moore floated off a mountain beneath a Union Jacked parachute nearly thirty years earlier.
As far as Bond himself goes, played to a tee by one of the most chameleonic actors working today (just take a look at his vastly different personas in Road to Perdition, Sylvia, Layer Cake, The Jacket, Munich and now Casino Royale to see his transformations both physically and emotionally) Craig is certainly the truest of all the bonds - and very well may be the best too. Stop your whining. [01/27/07]
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Cavite
Directed by Neill Dela Llana & Ian Gamazon
67 out of 100
The strory of Adam, a young Filipino man who travels back home for his father's funeral only to find that his mother and sister have been kidnapped by terrorists who lead him on a wild chase through the streets of Cavite and to his eventual possible undoing, is independent filmmaking almost to the point of being poorly made. But what at first seems mere smoke and mirrors hiding what is essentially a one-note film, steadily and rather surprisingly becomes a quick-paced witty thriller.
Smartly filmed, with an amateur's touch that somehow seems to work on some level, we never actually see the kidnappers/terrorists, only hear them through Adam's cel phone, as to add to the suspense that probably would not have been there if this film had been made under any sort of convential means - which I am glad it was not. Its independent groove actually saves what would otherwise have been a typical staid thriller. What Cavite is, is a first film (co-directed by the actor who plays Adam) that gives us a taste (and hopeful anticipation) for whatever may come next. [06/02/06]
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Changing Times
Directed by André Téchiné
60 out of 100
Changing Times works only as much as its leading actors work, and though they work diligently, in the end it is not quite enough to save this smug - yet mostly entertaining - film. French to the point of almost being too French, Changing Times plays out as if it were a melodic distraction experienced by the director and its two stars - and we are never left in on the joke. Quietly elliptical, Téchiné's film - in which we get to see Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu back together again - tells the story of a man obsessed with the woman he reluctantly let slip through his fingers more than thirty years ago and what lengths he will go to - including stalking - to get her back.
Both funny and tragic, these two stars of French - and world - cinema act upon the screen as if they were meant to be both at odds with and in the arms of each other the entire time. In fact it is these two actors that nearly make an otherwise tired conception work. The rather politically-charged underlying story of Arab/Western relations (the film takes place in the Moroccan Free Zone of Tangiers) - one of only a few similarities this film has with last year's Haneke work, Caché (including the on-screen symbolic sacrificing of an animal), although that film is much harsher in both content and philosophy (and a much superior film in whole) - never overpowers the essential story of love, loss, redemption and possible love again. In all, about half a film worth seeing - if only for the performances alone. [06/10/06]
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Children of Men
Directed by Alfonso Cuarón
66 out of 100
Many times, when a filmmaker in another country hits with a powerful international hit, they are expeditiously and enthusiastically invited into the land of Hollywood to do for them what they did for their own national cinema. This was the case with Mexican New Waver, Alfonso Cuarón, the auteur behind Y tu mamá también (one of my favourite films of the decade so far). His first "in-house" production was to breathe new life into the already tiring Harry Potter franchise. The result was a slightly upgraded, and moodier installment than before, but still nothing to write home to Mexico City about. His next "assignment" was to take P.D. James' novel about the futuristic near-apocalypse of mankind, and create a masterpiece from it. He hasn't done quite that though. Instead he has built a visually appealing (or appalling considering it is meant to seem an ugly new world) set piece full of cliches and tired by-the-books plot lines.
The main problem I believe - and it happened with fellow countryman Alejandro González Iñárritu when he tried vainly to make 21 Grams and Babel into another Amores perros - is the way Hollywood cuts the teeth and claws of these vicissitudinous auteurs and ends up forcing them to make inferior films. Children of Men is one such inferior film. Seemingly everything is in place. A great cast. A great premise. A great director. A great cinematographer (The New World and Y tu mamá también are just two of many beneath his belt). Yet, in the end, all we get is an obvious - sometimes ridiculous - Hollywood motion picture full of big explosions (though they are damn well done explosions) and bigger transparent turns.
The main attraction to the film though - once one gets past the obligatory assembly-lineage plot turns - is the filmmaking itself. Full of quickly-paced tracking shots (one particular shot, a terrorist attack from the woods, is shot entirely without an edit) and Cuarón's knack of visual design is what clears an otherwise standardized studio movie of any of its cobwebs. Here though, is to hoping Cuarón's next project, the Spanish language and US/Mexican financed Mexico '68, about the student uprisings in Mexico City in 1968, brings back the magic of Y tu mamá, and that film's Sixties-esque cinematic bravura. A magic that has been circumcised - at least psychologically - by the studio mentality of movie making. [12/29/06]
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Clean
Directed by Olivier Assayas
73 out of 100
Probably Assayas' most accessible film to date - at least in a linear matter of speaking - but still full of enough of Assayas' more esoteric flair to go beyond the norm of cinema; although possibly a bit too accessible to be considered in the same breath as his one masterwork, Irma Vep - a beautifully incoherent fantasy homage to early French expressionist filmmaking.
Clean stars Maggie Cheung, star of the aforementioned Irma Vep - and former wife of the director (they famously signed divorce papers on the set of this film) - in what may be her most taxing role to date, and pulls it off without nary a misstep - which may be even more impressive when one considers the odds on chances for cliches and formulaic predictability with a storyline such as this. The story of Emily, a heroin-addicted Yoko Ono-esque singer (at least Yoko-esque in the similarities of her percievement by others around her) whose C-grade celebrity rock star has been/wanna be again husband O.D.'s in a cheap motel room one night, and leaves her to take the fall, followed by prison, rehab and the slow, painful climb back to sanity, redemption and the child she left behind.
Suspect in sub-genre labeling, Assayas - with the help of Cheung and the marvelous Nick Nolte as Emily's father-in-law - manages to cut through the stereotypical bullshit of redemption stories and serves us a sometimes trite yet pulchritudinous bon mot of cinema. Succeeding in its majority, Clean plays out as the exception that proves the rule of atypical mediocrity in drug rehab tales. [03/27/06]
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Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul
Directed by Fatih Akin
34 out of 100
Just last week, at the Harrisburg Film Festival, I had the opportunity to catch Screaming Masterpiece, the documentary on Icelandic music and its history. Then, just four days later I hopped up to New York and saw Fatih Akin's new film, Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul, a documentary on Turkish music and its history. What did I learn from this coincidental screening schedule? Well, first off I learned that I am much more interested (possibly attuned even) to the sounds of Iceland over those of Turkey.
A compitently made film (I suppose) from Akin, his follow-up to the much more heated, doomed love story, Head-On (the making of which was the inspiration for this look at the music of German-born Akin's Ancestorial land of Turkey), but all-in-all, it seems like just ninety minutes of the same sounds of Istanbul being recycled back into the soundtrack. Pretty at times, and funny too (at least momentarily and short-lived), but nowhere near the flexibility, the creativity that I saw from the sounds of Iceland just four days prior. Of course it does help to have the ever-lovely Björk up on the screen, screaming away. [06/03/06]
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The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
Directed by Cristi Puiu
80 out of 100
One could easily compare Cristi Puiu's film to those of the regarded "Cinema of Endurance". To Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, Tarkovsky's Sacrifice, Angelopoulos' Landscape in the Mist, Tarr's Satantango. Of course one would be correct in asserting these comparisons, yet the work with which this film most assimilates with is (surprisngly I think) Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. Although a much greater film in just about every aspect, Lazarescu mirrors the pain and suffering of Christ, but in a much more subtle - and realistic - manner than Gibson's over-the-top bloodletting of a motion picture.
Of course, even without the sidestepped comparison to Gibson's ultimately failed opus, and Lazarescu's comparison to Christ - splayed forth upon his own everpresent ambulance gurney-cum-cross - Puiu's film certainly has its fill of Christian allegory. Using Dante's Divine Comedy as its crux - complete with an EMT, his own guide through the underworld of the Romanian health system (which can only remind one of ours as well) and an oft-mentioned off-screen Virgil all his own - Puiu manages the best "translation" of Dante ever put on screen. And yes, in case you were curious, Mr. Lazarescu's first name is indeed Dante. [12/11/06]
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The Descent
Directed by Neil Marshall
78 out of 100
One thing I rarely expect from the genre of B-Horror, and even more rarely get, is any sense of true urgency from the characters. Sure, there may be moments of tense drama when the monster/killer/whatever is creeping up on where the hero and/or heroine is and/or are hiding, but never is it believable beyond that one frightful moment. With The Descent, Neil Marshall, the most provocative purveyor of B-style filmmaking with an A-style flair this side of Tarantino, has created a film - full of cliche and contempt, but beautifully so - which latches on to its viewers and will not let go, even after the credits roll.
This reaction may be in part due to the fact that I would freak the fuck out if I were in these ladies' position - trapped in breath-holding caverns miles below the real world with some sort of slimy half-human half-bat carniverous nightmare creatures (although my claustrophobia would most likely make me more concerned with the tight squeezes than the icky monsters).
Overall though, the film is less about monsters and more about the strength of women (notice the womb-like cavern walls that engulf their lithe bodies), even if some of the characters/actresses seem rather interchangeable (many times I could not tell three of the six women apart). [08/06/06]
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The Devil Wears Prada
Directed by David Frankel
62 out of 100
There are ceratain movies one would not otherwise turn an interested eye toward if it were not for certain elements of said movies. One of these elements in this case is Meryl Streep. Okay, she is pretty much the only element that would entice me into the commonplace breeding ground multiplex for The Devil Wears Prada.
In this critic's not-so-humble opinion, Ms. Streep is hands-down, no-holds-barred, the finest actor living dead or otherwise to ever grace the proverbial silver screen - and it is the same Ms. Streep that has caused me to curse her hallowed name after forcing me to sit through the huddled (Music of the Heart), the tired (Bridges of Madison County) and the poor (Death Becomes Her). Hell, it is this same Ms. Streep that made me watch She-Devil dammit !!
Of course this is also the same Ms. Streep who gave me such wonderous moments with such wonderous performances in The Deer Hunter, Kramer vs. Kramer, The French Lt.'s Woman, Sophie's Choice, Silkwood, Heartburn, Ironweed, A Cry in the Dark, Postcards from the Edge, One True Thing, The Hours, Adaptation and most recently, A Prairie Home Companion. These are the films that make the occasional Prada worth the time - sort of.
I am supposing at this time you are wondering when I am going to stop fawning all over Meryl Streep and get down to reviewing this film. Well, you are not going to like what I have to say otherwise, so I'll just stick to fawning over Ms. Streep. [07/07/06]
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Duck Season
Directed by Fernando Eimbcke
70 out of 100
Every few years a "new wave" hits the world of cinema. Not to say these films are any better than what came before them, only different. We had the French new wave in the early sixties, followed by the Czech and then the American new wave of the seventies. Countries as diverse as Italy, Germany, Iran, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Hungary and China have all had "new wave" attached to them at one time or another over the past 40 years or so. Well now it's Mexico's turn.
In the wake of such demiurgically controversial auteurs as Iñárritu, Cuarón (who exec produced this film) and Reygadas, newbie slacker-director (and I mean that with all due Linklater-esque affection) Fernando Eimbcke hands us a black and white meditation on boredom, young lust and determination in the face of nothing better to do - as if Andrew Bujalski went south-of-the-border.
Perhaps less energetic (or sorrowful in some cases) than his new waver comrades - as well as less inspired and/or visionary - Eimbcke still imbues his debut feature with enough charm (a big hand for his relatively novice cast should be sent about the room) and enough melancholy exuberance (now there's an oxymoron that somehow works) to hand out a witty and ambrosial "alternative" to the gritty (and ultimately more desirable) sensibility that is the Mexican new wave. [11/11/06]
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