Canada AM film critic Richard Crouse names his choices for the best and worst of 2008, from "Slumdog Millionaire" and "WALL-E" at the recommended end, to "The Other End of the Line" and Madonna's "Filth and Wisdom" on the 'don't rent' list.
Silver Screen Gems: Richard's best films of 2008
"Slumdog Millionaire"
Richard's review: 4 stars
At a time when many directors are leaving Bollywood for less exotic locations, Irish director Danny Boyle, following in the footsteps of Wes "Darjeeling Limited" Anderson, set his latest film in the New York of India, Mumbai, the most populous city in the world. Taking the lead from its setting "Slumdog Millionaire" is a chaotic movie; part nightmare, part fairy tale.
When we first meet Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), he's an eighteen-year old orphan at a crossroad. As a contestant on India's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? he is just one question away from winning it all--20 million rupees, but as the show breaks for the night he is arrested for cheating. After a brutal night of questioning he begins to tell his story in an attempt prove his innocence. Told primarily in flashbacks Jamal recounts a troubled life in the slums of Mumbai with a violent brother and a mother killed when he was just a child. The only ray of hope in his life was Latika (Freida Pinto), an orphan girl who enters and exits his life. Each story reveals the life experience that taught him the answers to the game show's questions; all set against the vibrant backdrop that is India.
"Slumdog Millionaire" is a wild ride from Boyle's hyper visual style, to the pulsating musical score, to the elements of the story that binds together Romeo and Juliet, Bollywood gangster pictures, the "Usual Suspects" and an occasionally tender coming-of-age story. Boyle pulls out all the stops, leaving the quiet, austere feeling of his last film, Sunshine behind for a frenetic pace that assaults the senses--in a good way. Like the slum lifestyle he portrays the film is relentless, a barrage of images, music and sound. His characters are constantly on the run, and the movie is just as restless as they are but luckily for us Boyle keeps the story on track pushing it forward with every frame.
Boyle is a chameleon of a filmmaker, switching styles with every film, but he is a master of telling realistic stories with complicated parallel character threads. From the edgy "Trainspotting" to the heartwarming "Millions" to the intense "28 Days Later" his films are immersive experiences that use images and music to maximum effect. "Slumdog Millionaire" is his most complex movie yet encompassing everything from romance to action, comedy to anguish, treachery, greed and yes, even a musical number (stay through the credits!). Exhilarating filmmaking and one of the year's best.
"WALL-E"
Richard's review: 4 1/2 stars
"WALL-E", the new movie from the animation wizards at Pixar, is the first art film for kids I have ever seen. The story of a lonely robot who inadvertently gives humankind a second chance is aimed at kids but doesn't look like any other kid's movie you've seen. If you're expecting the same-old from Pixar--maybe "Finding Nemo 2: That Darned Fish" or "Toy Story Three: This Time It's Personal" -- think again. "WALL-E" is an ambitious and beautiful stand alone film. It's "2001: A Space Odyssey" for children.
Set in the year 2700, Earth is now a dystopian world rendered uninhabitable by wasteful and excessive humans who exited the planet centuries ago. For seven-hundred years "WALL-E" (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) has lived alone (save for a friendly cockroach named Hal) compacting the heaps of trash and collecting trinkets left behind when the exodus from Earth happened.
The monotony of his lonely life is interrupted by a search robot named EVE who thinks one of WALL-E's discoveries is the key to repopulating the planet. When she heads back to the mother ship to pass along the news WALL-E tags along, unwilling to lose the only friend he's ever had.
"WALL-E" is one of the most unique children's films I have ever seen. Despite its relatively simple story, it's risky filmmaking that has more to do with the great science fiction films of the 1970s than family friendly fare like Nemo. The world director Andrew Stanton has created here is a dark one, where Earth is a wasteland (with tones of "The Andromeda Strain" and "The Omega Man") and overly pampered humankind has reverted back to an almost child-like state.
Add to that the fact that there is no dialogue at all for the first 30 minutes and only sporadic chit chat after that, and you are left with a film that can only be described as a brave and adventurous outing in the formulaic world of kid's entertainment.
This is a kid's film that doesn't pander to kids; that assumes they can use their imaginations to fill in the blanks left by the lack of talk. Most kid's flicks entertain the eye but don't give their minds much of a workout. "WALL-E" does both. It's the evolution of children's films; after this the wisecracking animals and toilet jokes of Madagascar and the like will look like relics, as current as Steamboat Willie.
A few famous names pop up on the cast list--Jeff Garland, Sigourney Weaver--but Stanton doesn't rely on them to sell the movie. Nor does he use current pop culture references to earn cheap laughs 锟� la Shrek. Instead he relies on the most old fashioned of devices--good storytelling--to tell his futuristic story.
Coupled with the good story is spectacular animation from the computer nerds at Pixar whose great achievement here is to give WALL-E and EVE, two inanimate objects, complex emotions while staying true to the characters without stooping to cheap manipulation.
Director Stanton's great achievement is to fill every frame with a sense of wonder and provide the viewer with one of the most unique and satisfying movie experiences of the summer.
"Let The Right One In"
Richard's review: 4 stars
"Let the Right One In" is a gem. It's a Swedish movie about Oskar, an overlooked and bullied twelve-year old boy, who finds love and revenge through Eli, a pretty but peculiar girl who turns out to be a vampire.
Anyone who has watched horror movies for the last decade or so can only complain about the state of vampire movies. Too often they rely on the age-old conventions of the genre--bloody fangs, holy water and black velvet capes. Every other horror icon has been given a facelift--for instance "28 Days Later" gave us zombies who were fast on their feet and Ginger Snaps presented an alternate theory for the presence of werewolves--but vampires have pretty much been stuck in gothic Bela Lugosi Land. The undead have been given a make-over on The Movie Network series Tru Blood, but interesting revisions of the vampire story on the big screen are as rare as baked garlic at a picnic at Dracula's house.
That's what makes "Let the Right One In" so refreshing. Relocating the story from Transylvania or New York or a giant gothic castle to the snowbound Stockholm suburb of Blackeberg literally blows the cobwebs off the traditional vampire tale. The setting is bright white, stark without a gargoyle or coffin in sight. It's an unusual backdrop for this kind of movie and the otherworldliness of the setting adds to the unsettling aspects of the story.
Then there is the story itself. It isn't so much a vampire story, as a story about two pre-teens who have been excluded from general society--one by bullies, the other because she's a vampire. They are outsiders and that is the bond that brings them together. Vampire movies have often had elements of romance but rarely has it been as sweet as the connection that forms between Oskar and Eli. It's a coming of age story with a twist.
The film is also buoyed by strong performances, particularly from Lina Leandersson as the eternal twelve-year-old Eli. She has one of those child's faces that seems like it belongs to a much older person. It's a perfect look for a character who says she is "twelve years old, more or less." As a vampire she is eternal, so while her body is frozen at twelve she has life experience that far exceeds her mortal shell.
"Let the Right One In" is in Swedish with English subtitles and is a welcome break from the usual Halloween fare.
"My Winnipeg"
Richard's review: 4 stars
According to the new Guy Maddin film, "My Winnipeg", his hometown has ten times more sleepwalkers than anywhere else in the world. That's just one of the many details that emerge in this black and white love letter to the town he grew up in and still calls home. I don't know if Winnipeg really is the sleepwalking capitol of the world, or how, exactly, one would set about to prove such a statistic, but facts aren't the point of this lovingly crafted and beautiful film.
With the release of "My Winnipeg" Maddin has done two things. Firstly he's crafted his most accessible film to date. His previous films--"The Saddest Music in the World", a fantasy set in Winnipeg during the Great Depression, where a beer baroness organizes a contest to find the saddest song ever written and Brand Upon the Brain!, a silent movie about the power of memory to name a couple--usually set critic's knees to knocking but have limited appeal outside of rep cinemas and art house theatres. "My Winnipeg", while not exactly mainstream, could and should find a wider audience than any of his previous efforts.
Secondly he has stretched the definition of documentary. My Winnipeg's deft mix of fact and fiction, bizarre recreations and Maddin's memories make for a portrait of the town that has more to do with sense memory than information you'd find at the Winnipeg Tourist Bureau. While the facts may be in short supply what emerges is a fully rounded portrait of a unique city.
From horses encased in frozen river ice to the rides of the Happyland Amusement Park and the ultravixens of St. Mary's Academy Maddin presents a deeply personal and heartfelt film that captures the spirit of Winnipeg.
"Iron Man"
Richard's review: 4 stars
In the Marvel universe Iron Man never achieved the super nova status of his comic book colleagues Spider-Man, the X-Men or the Hulk. He's Freddie and the Dreamers, the rest are The Beatles. Expect that to change with the release of a big budget, big screen adaptation of the Iron Man's origins starring Robert Downey Jr..
When the film begins eccentric, rich inventor Tony Stark (Downey Jr.)--the character was based on Howard Hughes, and the movie was actually shot in the same building where Hughes built the world's largest airplane, The Spruce Goose--is in Afghanistan. After inheriting a defense company from his father, he has become mega-wealthy selling innovative weapons to the U.S. military. He's in the Middle East to demo his newly designed missile, The Jericho, for the Air Force. All goes well until the unit guarding him is overcome by the Ten Rings, a terrorist group who kidnap Stark--they call him "the most famous mass murderer in all of America"--after he is wounded with shrapnel from one of his own Stark Industries bombs.
Hidden in a mountain cave his captors demand he recreate his latest and deadliest missile. Instead, with the help of another hostage (Shaun Toub) he builds an iron suit of armor and makes a spectacular escape. Once stateside he has a crisis of conscience and vows to use his gifts for the betterment of man, not its destruction. He wants to offer the world more than "making things blow up."
His newly found humanistic concerns don't jive with his board of directors and shareholders, however, and after he perfects his high tech Iron Man suit he must deal with the backlash from within his own company and a dangerous foe in the form of Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), his former second-in-command.
There are a couple of things that set "Iron Man" apart from the run-of-the-mill superhero movie. The big mistake often made by filmmakers when adapting comic books for the screen is to assume that superhero fans only want action, fight scenes and cool costumes. It's true that these things are key components to any superhero story, but all the truly great comic book movies are character driven and the action must stem from the characters. Sam Raimi understood that when making Spider-Man. Tim Burton knew it when he made Batman and so does "Iron Man" director Jon Favreau.
He wisely chose to make character development his main focus. As a result the action scenes fit seamlessly into the story and don't feel randomly inserted to help keep the film's pace up or simply entertain the eye with explosions and bombast.
Superhero origin stories are difficult. There has to be a lot of information regarding how and why the character morphed into a superhero, but Favreau painlessly manages to bring the back story to the fore with clever use of dialogue and situations that don't feel like exposition. I think Iron Man comic book fans will be satisfied and newcomers to the story will have no problem catching up.
At the forefront though, is a commanding and totally entertaining performance from Robert Downey Jr., who dominates every scene he appears in. His Tony Stark is charismatic, funny and smart--this tin man has a brain and a sense of humor--but best of all he plays off his own bad-boy reputation. Stark is a charming rogue, quick with a line--he's Irony Man!--but there is always a hint of a deeper, darker personality lurking under his middle-aged good looks. This is the film that finally proves what so many have known for so long. RDJr can carry a big budget movie all on his own.
He does, however, get ample help from a strong supporting cast including Gwyneth Paltrow as Stark's Girl Friday Pepper Potts--she and Downey have chemistry to burn--Jeff Bridges in a rare bad guy role as the ruthlessly evil corporate executive Obadiah Stane and Trevor Howard as military liaison Jim Rhodes. Each elevate comic book archetypes with skillful performances that round out the supporting characters.
I could have done without Ramin Djawadi's intrusive and yet somehow dull score, but that's a small quibble when the rest of the package is so enjoyable.
"The Dark Knight"
Richard's review: 4 1/2 stars
In my review of the first installment of the revived Caped Crusader franchise I wrote, "I went in to Batman Begins expecting a lot and left wanting less--less psychological babble, a lesser running time and less of Liam Neeson's ridiculously wispy goatee." For the new episode, "The Dark Knight", director Christopher Nolan has kept most of the stuff that bugged me about the first movie (except for the wispy goatee part, which is, thankfully, is no where to be seen) but has, this time around, created a tour-de-force that left me running for my thesaurus to find new words for awesome.
Its two-and-a-half running time makes it the longest of the summer blockbusters but, unlike "Get Smart" or "Sex and the City", there isn't a wasted second or extraneous scene. The film takes off like a turbo charged Batmobile, opening with an exciting bank heist, and doesn't let up until the end credits.
Following the robbery, in which $68 million dollars of the mob's money is stolen, the triumvirate of Batman (Christian Bale), Lieutenant Jim Gordon (Gary Oldham) and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) take a broom to the streets of Gotham in an effort to, once and for all, put an end to crime in their city. After mass arrests the crime fighting trio comes up against their greatest foe yet, The Joker (Heath Ledger), a psychopath with a sinister scar in place of a smile, who forces Batman and Dent to push the boundaries of their professional crime fighting ethics.
Since 9/11 the world has spent a great deal of time pondering good and evil, and so does "The Dark Knight". It is the first true, post 9/11 superhero movie; one that looks at the use of chaos as a tool of terrorism while exploring the paper thin line between good and evil.
Dispensing with the jocularity of "Iron Man", the CGI action of "The Incredible Hulk" and Hancock's sense of irony, "The Dark Knight" is a serious film with a positively Shakespearean exploration of the ethics of good and evil that raises timely questions in these unsettled times. Mainly, to what lengths can heroes go as they fight crime before they stop being heroes and become vigilantes? When is it OK to break the rules to stop evil? Batman and Dent grapple with these questions (more than, say, Rumsfeld or Bush ever did) as the Joker pushes them closer to the edge of their moral boundaries.
The Joker's biggest question is one for the ages. Can bad guys exist without the good guys?
"I don't want to kill you," the Joker tells Batman, by way of an answer. "You complete me."
But don't get the idea that "The Dark Knight" is only a treatise on the nature of villainy. It is that, but the ideas about good and evil are wrapped around a popcorn movie that is packed with great action, thrills and good performances.
Christian Bale fills out the Batsuit better this time around, skillfully portraying the moral tug of war the character plays with his conscience while ably pulling off Batman's outrageous feats of physical prowess. Bale may be the only contemporary actor who can convincingly pull off ennui one second and then pilot a supercharged motorcycle up the side of a building the next.
New franchise addition Maggie Gyllenhaal, stepping in for Katie Holmes, brings a feistiness to the character of Bruce Wayne's oldest friend and soul mate Rachel Dawes. Aaron Eckhart in a dual role does a nice job of playing the transformation from the virtuous DA Dent to the twisted morality of the considerably creepier Harvey-Two Face. Old pros Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman, as Bruce Wayne's trusted butler and equipment designer respectively, round out the cast, both handing in effortless performances.
Of course the cast member everyone wants to see is Heath Ledger as the Joker in his last completed performance. I always felt Batman Begins was marred by the lack of a great villain, but this time around the inclusion of Ledger's Joker guarantees on-screen fireworks for "The Dark Knight".
Whereas Jack Nicholson's Joker was a pop culture icon for the prosperous 80s and 90s, Ledger's Joker is a super villain for the new millennium; a terrorist, more interested in creating chaos than in anything else.
He's a disfigured bad man--"What doesn't kill you only makes you stranger," he says--who when he isn't killing people--his preferred weapon is a knife because it's up-close-and personal--keeps busy creating elaborate schemes to test the moral fiber of the men who want to put him behind bars. Ledger strips the character of Nicholson's cartoon persona, re-imagining him as a fiendish lunatic. From the slash of red lipstick where his mouth should be to the caked white make-up that obscures his face Ledger's Joker is an unhinged creation that will likely inspire nightmares. It's a bravura performance that sees the late actor working at the top of his game as he creates the definitive version of the character (sorry to any Cesar Romero fans who may disagree).
"The Dark Knight" is a rare beast. It's a summer blockbuster with equal parts brain and brawn.
"Frost/Nixon"
Richard's review: 4 1/2 stars
At first glance you wouldn't imagine television presenter David Frost and disgraced ex-president Richard Nixon have much in common. Frost was a well known playboy, as famous for his off screen antics as he was for his various television shows. Nixon was, well Richard Millhouse Nixon, the only U.S. president to ever resign the presidency. They were an odd couple who became inextricably linked in the public's mind following an historic series of interviews that brought in the largest audience for a news interview in history. In the new film "Frost / Nixon", director Ron Howard details how much alike these two men actually were. He spends time forging psychological parallels between the pair as two men from modest circumstances who rose to the top of the heap in their fields but never earned the respect they felt they deserved.
When we first meet Frost (Michael Sheen) he's a successful talk show host in Australia. His American show had been recently cancelled and he longed for another chance at fame in the US. "Success in America is unlike success anywhere else," he says. Meanwhile Richard Nixon is about to resign the presidency following the Watergate scandal. When Frost--and 400,000,000 other people worldwide--watched Nixon's resignation Frost saw a chance to rehabilitate his reputation. He understands that Nixon's Shakespearean fall from grace would make great television, and he knows how to make great TV. He plans a series of four ninety minute interviews with Nixon covering a variety of subjects, including Watergate and the subsequent cover-up. Nixon signs on, for a price, seeing the interviews with the lightweight Frost as the perfect venue to mend his battered political status.
Based on a play by The Queen screenwriter Peter Morgan "Frost / Nixon" is one of the rare plays that actually works better as a film. Howard opens up the story taking us to places and events that are only talked about in the stage show. His work here is enlivened after the turgid DaVinci Code, with a quick pace that keeps the wordy script moving along at a fast clip.
There's no action to speak of, save for the verbal sparring between interviewer and interviewee in their fourth and final televised meeting, and it is here that sparks fly. Sheen, best known to North American audiences for his portrayal of Tony Blair in The Queen, gives a flamboyant performance as the showy Frost but this is Frank Langella's movie.
In Langella's hands Nixon, one of the most vilified public figures of the last fifty years becomes almost sympathetic and not because he is handled with kid gloves. Quite the opposite; Howard often shoots Nixon peering out from the shadows to subtly imply that he is a shady character and the script has great fun portraying the president as a money grubbing opportunist. He becomes sympathetic through Langella's humanizing portrait. A man so often remembered in sound bites is shown here, in a commanding performance, as a real person, warts and all. He isn't, by his own admission in the script, a likeable man, but Langella's carefully calibrated performance unveils previously unseen aspects of his personality. In the film's final half hour--the events leading up to the final interview and the interview itself--Langella delivers tour de force work that could win him the Oscar for Best Actor.
The timing of the release of "Frost / Nixon" is interesting. Obviously a December release date puts it squarely in line for Academy consideration but beyond that it is an interesting look at the sad post Oval Office life of a president who left office with a very low approval rating. George Bush, take note.
"JCVD"
Richard's review: 3 1/2 stars
This is probably the most surprising film I saw at the Toronto International Film Festival. Before this it would have been an act of film critic heresy to suggest that a film starring Jean Claude Van Damme is one of the most fun movies I have seen in a long time, but it's true.
The audacious story has Jean Claude playing himself as a forty-seven-year-old has been action star who can't get a job--in the ultimate sign of his unbankability in Hollywood he keeps losing work to Steven Seagal--who has just lost custody of his kids and has blown all his money on women and drugs. A trip to his hometown in Brussels that was meant to rejuvenate him turns sour when he becomes involved in a hostage taking at a local post office.
This is a very strange movie, a weird mix of fact and fiction that is by times very funny, but then turns on a dime to poignant melancholy. The Muscles from Brussels has never looked so grizzled or shown the acting chops he has on display here.
Silver screen stinkers: richard's worst films of 2008
"Good Luck Chuck"
Richard's review: 0 stars
Romantic comedies are the most reliably predictable form of movie entertainment. The template for many 21st century rom coms goes something like this: Boy meets girl. Boy loses Girl. Boy realizes the error of his ways and runs through a busy airport to win back the heart of his soul mate who is about to start a new life elsewhere. We've seen it a thousand times and usually know how the movie will end before it even starts, so the challenge for filmmakers is to keep the journey interesting. How the lovers wind up together is as important as why.
"Good Luck Chuck" follows the formula to a tee--everything except the interesting journey part.
Internet comedy sensation Dane Cook plays Chuck, who as a youngster refused to kiss a Siouxsie Sioux wannabe during a hot-and-heavy game of spin the bottle. Hurt and embarrassed she placed a hex on him. To paraphrase--for a ten-year-old she has a pretty good sense of the dramatic--she says that every woman he sleeps with will dump him and marry the next man they meet. Twenty years later the curse seems to have taken hold. He's a rich, successful, but single dentist who exists on a diet of casual sex with women who ditch him and immediately fall into the arms of Mr. Right. When he meets Cam Wexler (Jessica Alba) a beautiful but clumsy penguin trainer (I'm not kidding) he realizes how empty his life of one-night-stands has been. He loves her, but is convinced that if he consummates the relationship he'll lose her to another man.
Unlike "Knocked Up" from earlier this year "Good Luck Chuck" doesn't have one moment in it that rings true. Everything in this movie is contrived, from the premise to the silly attitude of the film that women are so desperate to find a man that they would debase themselves with Chuck on the off-chance that a tryst with him could lead to nuptial bliss to the dull leading actors.
None of it connects and at the base of it there is no humanity here. Cook and Alba lack on-screen chemistry and are blander than plain oatmeal. Because no sparks fly between them it's hard to buy into the love story and with no believable romantic moments it's not quite a romance and with no laughs--you know you're in trouble when the characters on screen are laughing more than the audience--it's not really a comedy.
So what is it then? At best it is a chance for teenage boys to ogle some gratuitously topless women. At worst it is an unfunny sex farce that cries out for the deft touch of "The 40 Year Old Virgin" director Judd Apatow who seems to understand how to make a raunchy comedy with real heart.
"The Other End of the Line"
Richard's review: Minus infinity squared stars
Romantic comedies are all about two unlikely people beating the odds to become a happy couple by the time the credits roll. Dorky Harry meets beautiful Sally. Pretty Woman of the Night meets and is seduced by suave rich guy. You get the idea. In the new film "The Other End of the Line" two young, beautiful people must overcome odds both geographical and cultural before they can have their happy ending.
The cross cultural romantic journey begins as advertising executive Granger Woodruff (Jesse Metcalfe, best known for his role as the muscled teenage gardener on Desperate Housewives) chats on the phone with a customer service woman (Bollywood star Shriya Saran) in India who is pretending to be American. When their flirtation heats up to a boiling point she decides to take a drastic step, leave her fianc锟絜 behind and fly to San Francisco to hook up with the voice on the other end of the phone. It wouldn't be a romantic comedy without a bit of complication, so when she arrives in the States she decides to keep her true identity a secret. Romantic hi-jinks ensue.
I searched to find something, anything redeeming about "The Other End of the Line", but a quick look at the notes I made while watching the movie says it all. "Looks like a bad karaoke video," I wrote at one point. "By-the-book rom com," was the next entry. "Jesse Metcalfe has negative charisma," went another. The capper came when the woman sitting next to me leaned over, with an aggrieved look on her face and moaned, "This is painful."
The whole script feels like it was Frankensteined together using discarded bits and pieces from other, more successful romantic comedies. I counted only two real laughs, both late in the movie, by which point I had pretty much given up the will to live, so perhaps my defenses were down and I was so desperate for entertainment that I would laugh at anything. Only my professional obligation to stay until the final credits kept me in my seat. If I had seen this movie on a airplane I still would have wanted to walk out. It's that bad.
Poorly edited and senseless scenes bleed into one another for a mind numbing 106 minutes of brutal cinematic torture. The occasional spark--mostly delivered by the Indian family who appear to be acting in an entirely different movie--is dampened by a ham-fisted script, even worse direction and the nonexistent chemistry between the leads; two, supposedly star-crossed, lovers.
On paper "The Other End of the Line" looks like a good rom com. There are two attractive leads, exotic locations and a star-crossed-lovers storyline, but unfortunately not even the fetching Indian actress Shriya Saran in her first English role can save the movie from the slag heap of cinematic waste.
"Filth and Wisdom"
Richard's review: No (lucky) stars
Early on in "Filth and Wisdom" the movie's narrator and star A.K. (Eugene Hutz) says, "In my country we have a saying... He who licks knives will eventually cut his tongue." In film critic land we also have a saying. "He who watches this movie all the way to the end will want to cut their eyes out..." Filth and Wisdom is so amateurish, so poorly made that if Madonna's name wasn't on it as director and screenwriter you'd only be able to find it in delete bins nestled against copies of "Shanghai Surprise."
The story, such that it is, centers around three flat mates in a rundown London boarding house. A.K. (Ukrainian punk singer Hutz) is an aspiring musician by day, male dominatrix by night, while Holly (Holly Weston) is an unemployed ballet dancer who moonlights as a pole dancer and Juliette (Vicky McClure) is a pharmacist who steals drugs from her place of business to send to sick orphans in Africa.
Madonna claims Godard, Pasolini, Fellini and Visconti as her cinematic inspirations, but the slap dash nature of the film points more towards Benny Hill than any of the French New Wave or Italian neorealists she apparently so admires. From the incompetent performances to the dated, silly--and unsexy--sexual content to its Philosophy 101 meanderings Filth and Wisdom feels like cutting edge ideas... from 1982. It's the work yo'd expect from an overly earnest and inexperienced film student, not an international superstar who is usually anything but earnest and certainly not inexperienced.
The addition of a kickin' soundtrack and some interesting work from the strangely charismatic Hutz cannot rescue "Filth and Wisdom" from the cinematic dung heap.
"The Mummy: The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor"
Richard's review: Zero stars!!!
We've been lucky this year. The summer season has provided a bumper crop of blockbusters from "Iron Man" in May to July's mega chartbuster "The Dark Knight" which shattered every attendance record known to man. The good times had to stop sometime, though, and with the release of "The Mummy: The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" they come to a screeching halt. Seven years after the last installment of the Brendan Fraser franchise "The Dragon Emperor" proves that bigger and louder is not necessarily better when it comes to summer entertainment.
In the new Mummy movie treasure hunter Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) and family--wife Evelyn (Maria Bello taking Rachel Weisz's place), their son Alex (Luke Ford who is actually only 13 years younger than Fraser and 14 years younger than Bello) and hapless brother-in-law Jonathan Carnahan (John Hannah)--are in Asia and once again run afoul of ancient supernatural forces when Alex awakens a wicked 2000 year-old Emperor Mummy (Jet Li). The evil one's plan is double-pronged; he wants to use his army of undead warriors to conquer the world while getting revenge on the sorceress who cursed him two millennia ago.
Very loosely inspired by the 1932 Universal Boris Karloff classic the first two Mummy films were actually comedies disguised as horror. In the place of real scares were family-friendly thrills more in line with vintage Saturday-matinee horror-adventure classics than anything that'll really send shivers down your spine. The third installment follows suit, except the jokes aren't funny, the thrills are non-existent and worst of all, there's no actual mummies. I guess that saved on the movie's tissue budget but a movie titled The Mummy should have at least one character wrapped head to toe in toilet paper.
As big a waste of money and effort as we have seen on the big screen for some time, "The Mummy: The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" fails on almost every level. Usually Brendan Fraser can muster some goofy charm as he walks through these low-rent Indiana Jones rip offs, but here he's so disengaged you can almost see him reaching for the pay check while spouting bad one liners and battling blue-screen baddies. Maria Bello does a bad Rachel Weisz impression featuring the worst faux English accent since Kevin Costner created his own unique dialect in "The Adventures of Robin Hood." Top billed star Jet Li has very little screen time and the rest of the cast are so bland they barely rate a mention.
In a summer where computer generated images on screen have become pass锟�--both "The Dark Knight" and "Hellboy" favor practical effects to baffle the eye over CGI wizardry -- "The Dragon Emperor" relies too heavily on fake looking binary code fabrications. The "wow factor" of CGI dried up long ago and the movie's cheesy looking, but helpful Yetis and other computer created creations leave the film feeling old-fashioned and out-of-date.
Just like the evil mummies who cause so much trouble in this franchise "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" proves that some things should never be resurrected.
"The X-Files: I Want to Believe"
Richard's rating: 0 stars
There's an old joke about David Duchovny. In it he goes to a psychic to get his fortune read.
"I have good news and bad news for you" she says, peering into her crystal ball. "Which would you like first?"
"Give me the good news..." he says, breathlessly.
"Well... you will have a long career in movies."
"Really! That's great," he says. "What's the bad news?"
"Every successful movie you appear in will have the letter "X" in the title."
And so we have "X-Files: I Want to Believe" after a ten year big screen Duchovny drought that included films like House of D, Connie and Carla, Trust the Man and many other movies you haven't heard of.
Set in a bleak and snowy West Virginia the story begins when a female FBI agent is abducted. After a convicted pedophile priest named Father Joe (Billy Connolly) has visions related to the agent's disappearance the retired and reclusive Fox Mulder (Duchovny) is called in to help with the case. Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) his former FBI partner, now his partner in life, has also left the agency and is working as a doctor. She grudgingly becomes involved in the missing persons case despite endlessly reminding Mulder that she's "done chasing demons in the dark." At the same time she becomes emotionally involved with a young patient who can only be saved with a radical, invasive procedure. When the psychic gives her a veiled, opaque message she wavers between trusting her head and her heart.
On The X-Files television show, which ran for 202 one-hour episodes from 1993 to 2002, FBI Agents Mulder and Scully--one a believer the other a skeptic--investigated all manner of strange and supernatural phenomenon. No paranormal plotline was too far out for the brooding duo. They looked into the man-eating Jersey Devil, extraterrestrial serums and mutated killer cockroaches. The show was ominous and dark, but it had imagination, a trait sadly lacking from "X-Files: I Want to Believe". Co-writer and director Chris Carter seems to have eliminated the "para" from the show and emphasized the "normal."
The film is a run-of-the-mill detective story with a psychic angle tacked on. Cardboard characters--former Pimp My Ride host Xzibit as Agent Mosley Drummy is direct from the angry cop section at Central Casting--repetitive dialogue and a non-climax make I Want to Believe a lackluster affair.
Duchovny and Anderson bring little of the sexual tension that propelled their relationship on the TV series. He has a few of the trademark Mulder one-liners--and there is a good gag that suggests George W. might be an alien--but Anderson's role has been significantly reduced. She's a doctor who searches for ways to treat her patients on Google and spends much of the movie chanting, "That's not my life anymore."
A big screen adaptation of a television show should improve on the small screen efforts, but instead series creator Chris Carter offers up a talky nonstarter that barely measures up to the source material. Even a casual X-Files fan could name any number of episodes far superior than this unnecessary remounting.
"Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"
Richard's review: 1/2 star
Oh Michael Moore, what have you wrought?
The Academy Award winner unwittingly opened the floodgates when he repopularized the first person documentary. Moore films such as "Roger and Me", "Bowling for Columbine" and "Fahrenheit 911" inspired clones both good -- "Super Size Me", anything by Nick Broomfield--bad--"My Date with Drew"--and now ugly. In "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" former game show host Ben Stein turned roving reporter asking the question, "If we allow free speech to disappear in science, where will it end?"
Using a Moore-esque blend of animation, archival footage and interviews he sets out to prove his idea that the scientific community's unwillingness to accept the role of religion in the creation story is a free speech issue. In his search for the truth, or at least his version of the truth, Stein speaks to many science professionals on both sides of the debate revolving around intelligent design and Darwinism.
He interviews several university professors and researchers who claim to have lost high profile jobs for the "science sin" of mentioning, not even teaching, creationism. Fired by their Darwinist masters many of them now say they are outcasts in the scientific community, unable to find meaningful work because of their beliefs.
The flipside of these poor beleaguered intelligent design proponents are the Darwinists whose inflammatory declarations are deliberately edited and geared to present them as precocious eggheads whose moral compass has gone askew.
"Intelligent design is so boring I can't even be bothered to think about it anymore," says one scientist. "Religion is a primitive superstition," says another. One more compares a belief in God to a comforting pastime, not unlike knitting. These people, if you haven't figured it out yet, are the film's villains.
This is a truly strange movie. Modeled on Moore's left wing documentaries, Expelled takes a sharp turn to the right suggesting that anyone or any institution that that ignores intelligent design is somehow unpatriotic. Wrapping his thesis in good old American jingoistic rhetoric--remember this guy used to write speeches for Nixon--Stein repeatedly compares Darwinist scientists to communists by the suggestion that the only way they can get funding for research is to be good Darwinist "comrades" and even makes the outrageous connection between Darwin's theory and Nazism. To bolster this argument he heavy handedly layers the film with footage of the Berlin Wall--it's supposed to represent the rift in the scientific community with ID on one side and the evil communist Darwinians on the other--and images of Stalin.
As for alternative theories regarding the beginning of life as we know it Stein presents two fringe Darwinian propositions. Perhaps, suggests one scientist, life cold have appeared on the backs of crystals, while another mentions Earth having been seeded by aliens. Stein meets both with the kind of skepticism usually reserved for something you'd read in the Weekly World News next to a story about Bat Boy.
Despite its conservative slant Expelled does ask some interesting questions--Does science erode religious belief? Does Darwinism devalue human life? Is the scientific mainstream afraid of other ideas?--and could have worked as a pop propaganda pastiche if it wasn't so ham-fisted.
Never one to use a feather when a hammer will do, Stein employs a number of hoary old Fleet Street tabloid tricks to try and create drama. For example when he and his crew are kicked out of the Smithsonian for filming without a permit it's presented as though the Smithsonian is somehow curtailing Stein's quest for the truth. What he's doing there in the first place is never made clear and perhaps if a line producer had called first and arranged to show up with a camera they wouldn't have had to deal with security. In other cases deliberately provocative footage is added to the narrative to subliminally influence the viewer.
Perhaps it isn't just a co-incidence that the host's initials are B.S.
Stein is an unlikely emcee. Stone-faced and monotone he doesn't exactly drip star appeal, but he has some audience goodwill, I guess, from his days as a television host and his beloved movie role in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", but here he comes across as manipulative and grating. Trained as a lawyer he's smart enough to only ask questions he knows the answer to, so many of the exchanges in the film seem less like interviews and more like Stein baiting his subjects to provide answers he can use and manipulate to further his theories.
It's all a bit much really and so over the top it's hard to take seriously. It's a hot button topic for sure, but in its own hyperbolic way Expelled would have us believe that teaching Darwinian evolution while ignoring intelligent design is a greater threat to freedom than Osama Bin Laden or any of his al Qaeda cohorts. I wonder what Michael Moore thinks of the demon he's unleashed on us all.
"The Happening"
Richard's review: No rating
Remember the twist in "The Sixth Sense"? It was one of the best surprises in recent movie memory. Ever since little Haley Joel Osment uttered those four words that sent chills down audience's spines--"I see dead people"--director M. Night Shyamalan has been trying unsuccessfully to recreate that kind of jolt for his audience. His subsequent films, "Unbreakable", "Signs", "The Village" and "The Lady in the Water" have all had their moments, but none have become pop culture touchstones in the way that "The Sixth Sense" has.
The trailer for his latest film, "The Happening", is a grabber. Without giving away any details it elegantly sets up the premise that something catastrophic has happened, but if it isn't a terrorist attack, what is it? It gave me hope that M. Night was back on track.
Starring Mark Walhberg as science teacher Elliot Moore, "The Happening" sees him, his estranged wife (Zooey Deschanel) and the eight year old daughter (Ashlyn Sanchez) of a friend running for their lives after a strange pandemic spreads through the American Northeast. The mysterious disease causes loss of speech, physical stupefaction and suicide, usually by violent and very unpleasant means. Will they survive as the devastation swells?
Will there be a twist ending? Not since Chubby Checker has one man been so closely associated with "the twist."
Will Elliot Moore wake up in bed with Suzanne Pleshette and realize that it was all just a crazy dream?
And most importantly, will M. Night Shyamalan finally once again give audiences the shock they expect from his movies?
The answer to that last question, sadly is no. The biggest shock in "The Happening" is how ineptly made it is. Since his first big hit it seems as though M. Night has been hemorrhaging the good filmmaking sense he showed on that film, diminishing his talent with each new project.
For much of "The Happening" I thought perhaps he was making a tribute to the b-movies of the 1950s, complete with ridiculous dialogue, crazy science and wooden acting. I rejected that theory when I thought back to those movies and remembered that while they might not have been "Citizen Kane", at least they were entertaining. The Happening's main achievement is to figure out increasingly gruesome and strange ways for people to off themselves.
Even then, some of the methods of death raised hoots of derision from the audience I saw it with. When a woman watching a video of a man feeding himself to a pride of lions at a zoo says in horror, "Mother of God, what kind of terrorists are these?" it caused a ripple of laughter that passed through the entire theatre.
Even the film's eco message--we better start taking better care of the environment or Mother Nature might make us jump in front of a haymaker and die a bloody and brutal death--is simplistic and underdeveloped. One can only hope that other upcoming green themed movies like The Swarm and James Cameron's "Avatar" dig a little deeper.
Despite the rare flash of inspiration--a scene with a dead policeman's revolver is intense and effective--The Happening just doesn't deliver the goods. It's doubly disappointing because it comes from someone whose talent once approached greatness, but as it is this is the worst movie by a major, mainstream director since Gigli and could be used in film schools as a lesson in how NOT to make a thriller.
"The Happening" raises just one more question: M. Night, what happened?
"88 Minutes"
Richard's review: Minus 88 stars
In "88 Minutes" Al Pacino is Jack Gramm, a troubled college professor whose forensic psychiatrist testimony put serial killer Jon Forster (Neal McDonough) on death row. On the eve of the execution Gramm receives a mysterious phone call informing him that he only has 88 minutes to live. As the minutes speed by Gramm narrowly escapes several attempts on his life as he and some of his students (including Alicia Witt, Leelee Sobieski, and Benjamin McKenzie) attempt to track down the mysterious caller.
"88 Minutes" was shot two years ago in Vancouver and has been languishing on the shelf ever since, save for a DVD release in Brazil. Too bad for us that it made its way from the shelf to our theatres. From its ridiculous story to Pacino's poodle hair "88 Minutes" is an ill advised mess.
It's a thriller with no thrills that ineptly tires to use the "real time" tricking clock to create tension and excitement. "88 Minutes"? It feels more like 88 hours as Pacino sleepwalks through this absurd waste of time. Even though Pacino's character is trying to beat the clock to avoid a mysterious death sentence I guarantee you'll be looking at your watch more often than he does during the film's running time.
Years ago actress Jennifer Tilly told me that whenever she's made a really bad movie it's because she needed the money to put a new roof on her guest house or the like. With that in mind, and having just seen "88 Minutes", I wonder how the renovation on Pacino's guest house went.
"In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale"
Richard's review: Minus 127 stars -- one minus star for each minute I had to endure this movie
January and February are generally the months I suffer for my art. The studios figure that since the weather is crappy and everyone spent too much money at Christmas that regular movie goers will be staying at home instead of going out to the movies. That means, of course, that they don't waste their time releasing the good stuff. They'll save the a-list stuff until the sun starts to poke its cheery little face through the clouds and people have paid off their credit card debts from the holidays.
Unfortunately I still have to go see all the awful movies that come out at this time of year. It is a time for horror movies starring Jessica Alba, kid's comedies starring vegetables dressed as pirates and most horrifyingly, a new film from German auteur Uwe Boll.
Boll, for the uninitiated is the two time nominee for Worst Director at the Golden Razzie awards--I'm still not sure how its possible that he lost--and alarmingly prolific director behind such classics as "House of the Dead" and "BloodRayne", the latter a movie so dumb I'm sure my IQ actually lowered while sitting in the theatre watching it. This guy make Ed Wood Jr. look like Cecil B. DeMille. He's a filmmaker whose work makes the words "straight to video" seem like a lofty goal.
He's back with his 14th film--who keeps giving this guy money to make movies?--the maladroitly titled "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale". I suppose this is meant to be his "Lord of the Rings" but it comes off more like a bunch of geeky teens sitting in their parent's basement arguing about who should be the head sorcerer in their game of Dragons and Dungeons.
Based on a videogame called Dungeon Siege, "In the Name of the King" is a clunky behemoth of a film clocking in at a mind numbing 127 minutes. No one walks away from this mess looking good. A cast of former a-listers proves why they're no longer a-listers. Wearing ridiculous armor and a velvet cape Burt Reynolds as the King is so tanned and his skin stretched so tight he looks like he just stepped out of Medieval Floridian retirement community. Even Ron Perlman, usually such a talented actor comes off as a community theatre reject and poor Ray Liotta, once the star of Goodfellas and a Golden Globe nominee, is reduced to sneering at the camera while wearing a robe that looks like a castoff from Prince's Purple Rain tour. As the King's treacherous nephew, Matthew Lillard, never the sign of a quality production, is even worse than usual.
It doesn't help that they have to speak dialogue which sounds like it was written by a fourteen-year-old role playing "Lord of the Rings" fan or perform in clumsily blocked and shot scenes or fight bad guys that looks like the love child of "The Toxic Avenger" and a dried prune.
The best thing I can say about "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale" is that it was shot in British Columbia, so I hope lots of Canadians worked on it and made some cash and that its in focus. That's it.
