10-4GB Film Reviews

Summer Movie Predictions

2006-05-28T16:49:00.000-07:00

Summer. For many, summer is a time for relaxation and vacation. For others, it’s a time to replenish the depleted bank account by trading away one’s time and soul for some hard-earned cash. Some lucky folks go on trips all over the world, proclaiming the cause of Christ, thanks to generous grants our school offers.

Me? Aside from a job and the worrying about what I’m going to do with my life come next summer, I’ll be at the movies, and I figured I’d enlighten you, the dear reader, as to what might be worth seeing. Joining me this week, because he enjoys the tag-team writing so much, is none other than Ben Wyman.

Now, I was a huge fan of “Sin City,” Robert Rodriguez’s film adaptation of the first three installments of Frank Miller’s graphic novel series. Though flashy film effects and over-the-top CGI aren’t necessarily what get me into a theater, Rodriguez managed to do it well, and mix it into a decent story to boot. So, naturally, when I saw the trailer for Richard Linklater’s “A Scanner Darkly,” I was intrigued.

The movie’s synopsis, according to my ever-faithful resource, the Internet Movie Database, goes something like this: “Darkly" imagines a paranoid world in which it seems two of every ten Americans has been hired by the government to spy on the other eight, in the name of national security and drug enforcement. When one reluctant government recruit (Keanu Reeves) is ordered to start spying on his friends, he is launched on a journey into the absurd, where not even his girlfriend can be trusted.

“A Scanner Darkly,” distributed by Warner Independent Films, is due for limited release on July 7, followed by a nationwide release on July 14.

Moving along, considering how hot the weather tends to get, it’s only natural that the Democrats will pick up their battered banner and champion the cause of global warming once again. At least, that’s where director Davis Guggenheim will focus his documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

“Truth,” as written in a synopsis by an obviously left-leaning Plantation Productions, is not a story of despair but rather a rallying cry to protect the one earth we all share. "It is now clear that we face a deepening global climate crisis that requires us to act boldly, quickly, and wisely," said Gore.

Personally, I just miss laughing at Gore’s monotone voice, and I’m interested to see what kind of fodder he’s trying to load into the metaphorical political cannons. “Truth,” distributed by Paramount Classics, will see a limited release on May 24.

Finally, what summer would be complete without a major release from the can’t-do-wrong folks at Pixar Animation Studios? “Cars,” was supposed to be Pixar’s final film with Disney before Disney bought them out for a mind-boggling sum.

Pixar can do no wrong in my eyes, but still, I can’t help but feel a little off-put by “Cars.” Perhaps it’s that they’ve already gone the “lifeless made lifelike” route with 1995’s “Toy Story” (and its 1999 follow-up, “Toy Story 2”), but I can’t help but wonder if they’ll manage to strike gold for a third time. But then again, they’ve been pretty tight-lipped on the project so far, and they managed to make me misty-eyed over a fish in 2003, so I’ll try to keep the faith a bit longer.

Wyman: I enjoy the challenge and thrill of Oscar season, but there's a heady, universal joy during the lazy days of summer: the mindless blockbuster. Every year, there's months of build-up before each film, with fans turning out in droves for each sweltering opening night. And you go too, of course, and you have a good time, but by the time you're back at work on Monday you've forgotten all about it, because of course, blockbusters are usually not very good.

But wait. There's hope. This summer has a bumper crop of films with surprising potential, and a crew of talented directors. "Rush Hour's" Bret Ratner breathes new life into "X-men," while "X-Men's" Brian Singer gives us the return of "Superman." Meanwhile, a resurgent Ron Howard takes on "The Da Vinci Code," and "Lost" creator J.J. Abrams revamps "Mission Impossible." And even if those fail, there's still the wild cards of M. Night Shyamalan's "Lady in the Water," and Richard Linklater's "A Scanner Darkly." We're not even to July yet, and that's about half of my graduation money right there.

Summer movies are simply too fun to miss. Sure, Will Ferrell's "Talledega Nights," may disappoint, and "The Break-Up," the tabloid-friendly Jennifer Aniston-Vince Vaughn vehicle might bust, but who cares? Jack Black and the boys from "Napoleon Dynamite" have "Nacho Libre" right around the corner. Johnny Depp dons the mascara again for "Pirates of the Caribbean," probably the most fun you'll have this summer.

My picks? I think "Pirates" and "The Da Vinci Code" should be everything we're hoping for, and that "Lady In The Water" proves to be the surprise hit of the season. But if you're longing for a little substance, please, don't miss "A Scanner Darkly." You won't be disappointed. And how often in the summer can you say that?

Peracchio: Speaking of surprise and substance, probably one of the most anticipated films of this summer for fans of Internet in-jokes is none other than “Snakes on a Plane.” You may think I’m joking, but I’m dead serious. “Snakes” is something like the black sheep of the disaster film genre, and stars Samuel L. Jackson as the man who saves a plane full of people from a crate full of deadly snakes.

At any rate, the ridiculous title, and even more ridiculous premise, have generated a huge amount of buzz on the Internet. So much so that fans are making their own trailers, and the film’s official website actually sports a logo created by a fan.

“Snakes,” distributed by New Line Cinema, is currently in post-production and due for release on August 18.

This past year proved the value of the independent film, but for once, I’m excited to see what the big-money studios have to offer. Until then, there are plenty of other pictures to see, and not much time left in this semester to do it. Lord knows, once summer hits, I'll have to find a real job.

And I mean it.

2005-12-23T22:37:00.000-08:00

The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (2005)

2005-12-21T22:58:00.000-08:00

Directed By: Andrew Adamson
Written By: Adamson and a bunch of other people adapted the beloved C.S. Lewis tale.
Starring: A bunch of appropriately ugly British children, Tilda Swinton, and Liam Neeson's voice.
Synopsis: A group of young siblings, while escaping from the WWII bombing of London at an old professor's house, find their way into a magical world where it's always winter and all the animals are computer-generated.

I didn't want the film to look like this. I wanted to go see Narnia and have it look like Lord of the Rings, only even more. I wanted accuracy, realism, and even the most nit-picking viewer to be unable to tell what's computer-generated and what's not. I wanted something huge, epic, and most of all, I didn't want it to be a (*flinch*) family-friendly Disney movie.

But then the news floated down that it was going to be... cutesy. Cartoonish, even. How baffling. This is a grand, huge story - why hand it off to Andrew Adamson, director of the Shrek films and a former visual effects supervisor? Why make an epic, spiritual film into a kid's movie? It should be more than that. But that's what it is.

And the truth of it is, it's a hell of a kid's movie.

For all the smack I was talking about Adamson in pre-production (and if you ever talked to me about it, you knew that I was sounding off on the subject), he honestly made a damn good film, and I've got five damn good reasons why his version of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe is worth seeing:

5. For someone making a kid's movie and not a huge epic, it's actually pretty grand. The final battle, in which Peter and his army take on the army of the White Witch takes place on a broad, sunlit battlefield that reminded me uncomfortably of the Gungan battle in The Phantom Menace, but Adamson proved awfully adept at giving the battle a lot of flash. Jamming as many various CGI creatures into the fight as he could find budget for, he throws in a lot of species that Lewis never really thought to involve (phoenixes? griffins? men crossed with pterodactyls? Why not?) around hundreds of intriguing specialized characters in blissfully outlandish outfits designed by the oh-so-dedicated WETA Workshop. So much is going on that on a viewer's third or fourth time through, they'll probably still be picking up new creatures floating on the wings (no pun intended. In fact, just to clear things up, puns are never intended at 10-4GB. Never). A few of the Lewis faithful might object, but without it, you just have a rehash of the craptastic renassaince-fair world imagined for the BBC version. This makes the world a whole lot more interesting.

4. Speaking of interesting, the CGI creatures are awfully entertaining. Sure, they're cartoonish, and you never really buy that they really are a beaver/rhinocerous/lion/etc., but they're barrels of fun. Adamson wants to let all the characters fully interact with the characters, so the animals don't just talk; they're major characters in the story, giving all the good lines, bickering with each other, narrating parts of the story. Adamson doesn't hide his CGI, and he doesn't pull back from the animals so that they look more realistic. Instead, he shows them close up, lets you see that they aren't real beavers - and then goes ahead and lets them be real characters. It's kind of... gutsy. Not a lot of other filmmakers are willing to let the audience see the flaws in their special effects, I sure wouldn't. But Adamson knows it's more fun this way. Bravo.

3. For a bunch of kids working alongside blue screens and said computer generated animals, the acting's pretty impressive. Especial props go to Edmund (Skandar Keynes) and Lucy (Georgie Henley), the youngest Pevensie children and the best actors in the film. Keynes manages to give Edmund both arrogance and vulnerability, and gives his character a complete arc, which is impressive for someone who was 12, maybe 13 when this was filmed. I'll get to Henley in a minute, but I also wanted to mention (I guess I'm feeling magnanimous today) the excellent turns by relative unknown James McAvoy (a perfectly charming Mr. Tumnus) and Jim Broadbent (Professor Kirke), who both understood perfectly the winsome nature of the story and carried themselves accordingly.

2. Adamson tried, really tried, to give Aslan more than just lip service as a God metaphor. I understand, I really do, that it's hard to do. And I think Adamson kinda botched it, I don't think it worked at all, but I'm proud anyway, way to go. He tried to balance both ways, and so the Christian market is aggravated at how Aslan isn't established as the Lord of All Creation, and the media is angry at how Aslan is such an obvious God metaphor, and how dare Adamson try to sneak in religion while we weren't watching? Why, it's upsetting the children! But I really felt that Adamson understood who Aslan was, and he wanted to make him important without bogging down the story with religious symbolism, which is awfully tough when one of your characters is killed in payment for someone's sins, resurrected from the dead at daybreak, saves the world from evil, and then disappears into the horizon. Adamson always had the deck stacked against him. But he wasn't trying to piss anyone off. He just wanted to make a good movie.

1. Lucy. Allow me to spin you the tale of how, in 1988, BBC began making movie versions of the Narnia series that featured a charmless young actress named Sophie Wilcox starring as Lucy Pevensie. I haven't posted her picture here, mostly because the sight of Wilcox's face, to this day, usually inspires me to retch (also, I couldn't find any pictures anywhere to put up, everyone else on the web apparently being of like mind) She giggled, whined, and flounced her tiresome little way through the first three films, slowly descending from merely aggravating into unconsciousably vexatious, until the plot of the series mercifully removed her from the films. Researching for this post lead me to discover that Wilcox's career promptly stalled following these films, finally resurrecting ten years later, which hopefully allowed her enough time to grow out of being so impossibly insufferable.

I bring all this up because I was so worried that Adamson would somehow manage to find another little Sophie Wilcox, or worse, bring back the original. And instead he gave us the charming, surprisingly mature Georgie Henley, who scampers through Narnia with the infectious delight of an English child who's only known grey skies and bad dentistry. Since we discover Narnia through her eyes the reason this whole film gains such momentum throughout the first half is her engaging performance. And unless she follows the Sophie Wilcox method of acting, she's only going to get better. I'm already looking forward to Prince Caspian.

Breakdown: Narnia gets a full, and deserved, three stars for not having Wilcox anywhere in the film, another star for having Henley instead, and another star for the performances of Keynes, McAvoy, etc. all. It also gets a star for casting unknowns in almost all the roles not created in a computer lab, and another for casting LOTR fan fave Kiran Shah (Elijah Wood's eccentric body double throughout the films) as the aggressive Ginarrbrik. However, it loses two stars for having unrealistic CGI characters, but gets one back for having the wherewithall to actually make them more than furry Jar-Jars. And finally, it loses two stars for screwing up Aslan. I'm sorry, Adamson, I hate to do it, but it really is the whole point of the story. Maybe next time. Still, Four Stars Out of Five.

Hello, and Welcome!

2005-12-12T17:04:00.000-08:00

Hello, and welcome to 10-4GB's latest venture!

It's not really anything new, of course - merely a reorganizing of current content, in order to create more specific pages and make it easier to find things. But it's the first step in 10-4GB's new layout, which should be complete by the end of this spring semester.

You see, I'm taking a class next semester called "Interactive Media." It's just the standard, basic media communications class teaching you the basics of internet page design and the like. Every college has one, most media majors take it as freshmen or sophomores. I brilliantly postponed it until the final semester of my college career, not the semester in which most college students are known to put forth their best efforts in pre-requisite courses. But it'll still be useful.

Therefore, I'm hoping to convince the professor to let me use the class to create a new "Ten-Four, Good Buddy" website. We'll see if he'll let it fly.

All of which is completely besides the point, which actually was to welcome you to the new addition. Please poke around and check out some of the things you might've missed before, now that they've finally been archived. All of the reviews have been updated in some way - footnotes added, new introductions, incorrect material corrected, and so on. Go on, take it for a spin.

Jarhead (2005)

2005-11-19T13:12:00.001-08:00

Director: Sam Mendes
Writer: Anthony Swofford, William Broyles Jr.
Starring: Jake Gyllenhall, Peter Sarsgaard, Jamie Foxx, Lucas Black, and Chris Cooper
Synopsis: A young Marine (Gyllenhall) in the Gulf War is frustrated at the fact that though he's on the front line, he never gets to fight.

I'm not, as you might have guessed, a Marine. I can neither verify nor deny the accuracy of the information put forth by Mendes in his harrowing documentary-style war-free war flick based on Swofford's Jarhead. I have no intentions of talking knowledgeably about the nature of war, of the killing of innocent citizens, or the homoerotic behavior of thousands of men trapped in the desert with nothing to do. If you scroll around online for a minute, you'll get varying opinions on the realism of Jarhead from military personnel, spanning a range from "stunningly exact" to "absurd," which leaves me in the lurch if I have any intention of congratulating Jarhead on its accuracy - or, conversely, debunking its falseness. And if there's anything that ticks a military man off, it's the false camraderie that comes from faking military knowledge when "we" went to war.

I didn't go to war. I don't know what it looks like to walk through burning oil fields. And I don't want to pretend I do. So I'm going to take this carefully.

Maybe you find this introduction completely unnecessary. "Show some nuts and write the review, kid," you say. But:
a) If I'm going to make a perhaps erroneous statement: "Jarhead is full of unconvincing, war-movie hokum that merely creates an unfair mythology to an already overly-mystified military branch" (and I am), I don't want to have any ex-Marine come and break a bottle over my head for any inaccuracies I might make. After all, Swofford was a Marine. Broyles was a Marine. What do I know?
b) Mendes works as a commercial director for RSA Films, a joint company of Scott Free, whose building conjoins this one. You've seen his work, I'm sure: the Ebay commercials that suddenly erupt into song-and-dance routines, or those Allstate commercials where Dennis Haybert tells you how Allstate will still be there, providing car insurance, even when aliens come and do awful things to your children, as the camera slowly pulls up to his face. I'm just afraid that if I rag on the flick too much, one thing might lead to another, some phone calls will get made, and Ridley'll come down here and break the bottle of Glen Elgin single malt I just delivered to his office over my head (am I a name-dropper? Yes I am)

I'll list out my complaints in an orderly fashion, so that if Mendes has a problem with anything, he can drop in* and correct the error of my ways.

Counting down from least ridiculous, the Top Five Unrealistic Metaphors:
5. At the end of official hostilities, yelling "we won't need this anymore," the soldiers and officers burn their uniforms and fire several clips from their automatic whatevers into the air. I'm sure none of them realized that they might have to stay in the Middle East a touch longer, though in Mendes' version, they seem to fly home the next day.
4. After spending several months together in a desert with nothing to do, I imagine a good deal of homoerotic banter goes on between the Marines. But simulating acts of fellatio in the middle of the desert for the TV cameras, regardless of its documentation in Swofford's narrative, is just ham-handed story-telling. And frankly, I don't buy it.
3. When Gyllenhall and Sarsgaard, a crack sniper team, are about to take a shot, a commanding officer (Dennis Haybert, again) comes in and overrules, making them move out for an airstrike. In frustration, Sarsgaard attacks Haybert and takes out his aggression on him. No one makes a big deal out of this. No discipline action is taken
2. In an early scene, Swofford's commander (Jamie Foxx) accidently kills one of his own men in training when the inexperienced soldier panics and stands up into the live fire Foxx is shooting over his head. Foxx stays in command of the unit. No discipline action is taken.
1. And, finally, the ultimate nonsensical piece of metaphorical tom-foolery ever foisted on a war movie: As Gyllenhall wanders through Kuwait's burning oil fields (like the burning of his own unrequited passion for war), a riderless Arabian horse (as lost as the war's own purpose), covered in oil (the currency of the war), appears from the darkness (like the bleakness of war) and comes and nuzzles Gyllenhall (like the affection he lacks from being away from his girlfriend because of the war), who rubs its neck and talks to it for a moment (like he can't talk to anyone because he's alone on a battlefield because of the war) before it disappears across the sands (like the sands of... um... war. I was doing great until then).

But let's be fair. For each moment of heartbreaking lunacy, there are two of breathtaking imagery. Mendes (American Beauty) appreciates the small things, and it's the tinier moments that land like grenades in the minds of viewers (that's a war metaphor. I can do it, too). When Gyllenhall tries and fails to masturbate to a picture of his possibly unfaithful girlfriend, it's a heart-in-throat sort of emotion that grips the viewer - in the hands of any other director, it would drive us from the character; here we just feel the pain. Kudos for truly unique direction.

Plus, in a story of bleak, empty warfare, Mendes' never lets his desert be an barren wasteland. Instead, the characters (and therefore the audience) always seem to feel strongly that the enemy is waiting just over that shimmery horizon, or in the shadow of burning oil wells (but no, it's just an Arabian horse covered in oil). There's lyricism to his urgency, you feel the sweep of the landscape, but there's always a deep gut feeling that you're among the action. If there was any action.

Plus, characteristically strong performances from Sarsgaard, Foxx, and Cooper manage to carry an incredibly difficult piece, while Gyllenhall simply shines as a tightly-wound, closed-off individual in a world of solidarity. But for all Gyllenhall's energy, the audience is never really let inside. We feel for him, but we never feel with him. It's the same distance we get from, say, Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List or The Constant Gardener. We appreciate the flawlessness of the acting, since it lets us feel the tension and power of each event. But we're still on the outside looking in.

In the end, it's a collection of pieces that never really gels into anything unified, but instead wanders through the desert endlessly (like an Arabian hors... oh, never mind).

The Rundown: Lessee, Jarhead gets one star for fantastic direction by Mendes, one for fantastic cinematography by Roger Deakins, one for fantastic performances by all concerned. Gyllenhall also get a star for having the sheer bravado to be willing to run through a good ten, fifteen minutes of the film wearing only a Santa hat around his groin, but the star gets taken away for actually letting him. I also give a star for the sheer power of the images, but I'll take that one back, too, 'cause I'm still ticked about the horse. That's three stars.

Oh, another half a star for the horse. That really was ridiculous. Two and a half stars.

* I'm in the library, Sam. Stop by anytime.

Elizabethtown (2005)

2005-10-12T13:01:00.000-07:00

Directed By: Cameron Crowe
Written By: Cameron Crowe
Starring: Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, Susan Sarandon, Paul Schneider, and Alec Baldwin
Synopsis: A failed young exec on the verge of killing himself returns to Elizabethtown, KY, to take care of the details of his estranged father's funeral.

Most reviews of Elizabethtown so far have dealt with its relation to Cameron Crowe: after all, if there's any modern-day director who defines the auteur theory, Crowe is it, and Elizabethtown is no exception. But the unlikely facts of the matter are that this review may end up being mostly about Orlando Bloom.

I've reviewed Bloom's work before: the troubled and mediocre Kingdom of Heaven, the abhorrent Ned Kelly. And I'm no stranger to putting the man in a box, he's spent most of his short career on one-note performances. Outside of Cruise, he's bashed more than any man in Hollywood. But the honest fact is that Bloom delivers a performance in Elizabethtown of the most sublime, subtle power.

Oh, snicker if you must. But I was paying pretty close attention on this one, and I'll stand by that statement. Let me try to convince you:

Elizabethtown is a complete mess. There's no way around it. Even those who truly loved the movie (I have a pretty fond impression myself) have to admit that it is, in many ways, a trainwreck of a movie. It's a structural wasteland, based, as far as I could tell, on some private, four-act structure that Crowe invented just for this picture. The music is turned up loud and often, usually at the expense of dialogue, story, and, indeed, logical sense.

But through it all, there is Bloom, creating space for himself as Crowe's whirlwind love letter to family, Ketucky, and timelessly rootsy pop tunes spins out of control. As each scene crashes around him, Bloom does what great actors do: he acts as if he believes so much what he's doing that the viewer can't help believe, too. It's tough to imagine, but Bloom is carrying, truly carrying, a picture.

In one extended sequence, as Elizabethtown's omnipresent voiceover wanders through some off-subject background info, Bloom stares curiously at his father's casket. He wanders around the casket, brow furrowed, and there's no narrative reason for us to care, or even wonder at his thoughts. But we do, simply because, somewhere in that strange, awkward, effeminate delivery, Bloom made me buy it, he sold me that he's a troubled man with deep pain floating just below the surface. It's something terrible and suicide-worthy, we feel, but nothing a little Tom Petty couldn't fix. Bloom's character is mostly an empty nothing of a person, but somehow I became convinced perhaps this is a guy with a story that deserved to be told.

Oh, yes, the story. I always forget. Elizabethtown is the tale of Drew Baylor, a young business exec at a monstrous shoe corporation whose brilliant career-making shoe design manages to lose his company a billion dollars. Frustrated and angry in that self-righteous way leading men always are at the beginning of cheerful romantic comedies, he builds an unbelievably appalling suicide machine out of an exercise bike and is on the verge of killing himself when the phone rings (this is the first, and only, plot point in Elizabethtown). His father has died on a trip to meet family in Kentucky, and the family needs him to go to Elizabethtown to take care of the details. Baylor goes because, hey, families stick together, and he can totally commit suicide whenever, so there's no rush.

On the way, he meets an amazingly cheerful flight attendant (Dunst), and the strange and estranged extended Baylor family (Schneider, Bruce McGill, plus a lot of pleasant chubby people), a collection of cheerfully redneck Kentucky down-home boys.* It's at this point that the pop music really starts rolling.

I'll lay my cards on the table at this point: I love Cameron Crowe. Diss Vanilla Sky all you want, I'll stand behind it forever - not to mention the '70's-nostalgia perfection of Almost Famous. But the first hour and a half of Elizabethtown almost feels like someone's been imitating Crowe. It's got all the elements there: the music, the trip-down-memory-lane vibe, the solid acting - but it's too heavy-handed. There's no frothy dialogue, no memorable lines, few standout performances. It's jumpy and awkward and not fully fleshed-out. It's all just sort of... mediocre.

But, in the same way that Bloom's performance slowly grows and and grows, so does Crowe's film. It just gets there in an awkward way - though, to me, a particularly funny one, because in my mind, Crowe has made a textbook student film. I can just see him sitting in some Hollywood office, talking to his producer: "okay, so I had this idea where I see Orlando Bloom drinking Ale-8, and Susan Sarandon dancing through the spotlight, and Kirsten Dunst smiling a lot, so I wrote this story around it, but I don't want it to follow a typical 'three-act' structure. See, it's about this guy, and he's all torn up, he's gonna commit suicide, but then he meets this girl, who just comes up to him from nowhere and she's amazing, and his life starts to turns around - and then he goes to meet his family, and they're all crazy, but you really like them, and the story never really resolves itself, but there's great music, and a great vibe, and at the end everyone just feels good." And since his producer is Tom Cruise, he gets the green light.

I pitch that same idea every week to my professors, and they always give the thumbs down. I'm beginning to see why. But the fact is that by the time the credits are rolling, Crowe has made it work. The pop music that was so frustrating and overbearing throughout suddenly seems to pull the images together. The story finds narrative flow. You start to care about the characters. And suddenly, without any idea why, you're happy. Elton John is pounding through "My Father's Gun" again, and you're watching Kentucky fences fly by, and Dunst is still smiling her heart out, and Bloom is now wandering through America's heartland talking to his father's ashes in the passenger seat, and yet... it just all seems right. Kudos, Cameron. I don't know how you did it.

Breakdown: Lessee here, Cameron, you get two stars for getting such an excellent performance out of Bloom, two stars for a fantastic soundtrack, and one for beautifully evocative cinematography. Since I completely sympathize with all of your mistakes on the film, we'll only take off half a star for having no structure whatsoever, and half a star for trying to jam too much music into the flick. We'll follow that up with another half-star off for disappointing subplots featuring Paul Schneider and Susan Sarandon, among others, and another half-star for occasionally resorting to pointless slapstick. We'll let that cover it - keep in mind I didn't mention dialogue, Cameron, you're getting off easy. Three Stars.

* Most reviewers have discounted the realism of the peppy Kentucky family as mere blue-state opinioning on red-state values, which simply reveals these reviewers as hapless blue-staters. They may, indeed, have "their finger on the pulse of the nation," but have probably never sat in a Waffle House at three in the morning, ordered steak and grits, and put Conway Twitty's "Red Necking, Love Making Night" on the jukebox (not that I'm condoning such behavior). I'm not claiming to be a native, but to someone who dearly loves the people of the Bluegrass State, Crowe makes Baylor's family feel like home.

Good Night, and Good Luck (2005)

2005-10-11T12:34:00.000-07:00

Directed By: George Clooney
Written By: George Clooney and Grant Heslov
Starring: David Strathairn, George Clooney, Jeff Daniels, Robert Downey Jr., Patricia Clarkson, Ray Wise, and Frank Langella
Synopsis: CBS reporter Edward Murrow takes it to red-scare leader Senator Joseph McCarthy. Hijinks do not ensue. Instead, everyone gets so depressed and mopey that they have to be shown in black-and-white.

To say that Clooney's directorial debut, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, lacked subtlety is... a bit... understated. Quite a bit of an understated, actually. One reviewer referred to it as "a movie dressed up in a camouflage shirt and pink polka-dotted pants in the middle of a surprise summer snowstorm." Colorful imagery, that. I don't think I could have come up with that myself.

I bring this up because Clooney's second picture is so much the antithesis to this. Good Night, and Good Luck bristles with tension, but the tone and style of the picture is, well, understated. Quite a bit understated, actually.

Inspired by the simplicity of Jean-Luc Godard's films (most notably, Breathless - Clooney wanted to use the same lenses so badly that when they didn't fit, he tried to scotch tape them to the camera), Clooney's film is sparse, subdued. He couldn't be any more deliberate. For almost every shot in the film, he let his actors pick out where they wanted to be, then moved the camera around to film them. It's a smart choice - in a story of such slow, careful change, the audience constantly feels like a fly on the wall, observing action that flows organically around the camera. In an utter rarity in recent filmmaking, every piece of the film's style - from its European cinematography to its silky 1950's black-and-white styling to its modern sensibilities - enhances the story.

Oh, right, the story. I forgot. Good Night is the true-to-life tale of how famed journalist Edward R. Murrow (it's okay, I hadn't heard of him either) turned the tables on red-scare ringleader Senator Joe McCarthy through a series of accusatory pieces on the mildly-groundbreaking CBS news show See It Now.

I wasn't particularly familiar with the story before seeing the film (alright, fine, I didn't know a damn thing about it), but Clooney's got newsman in his blood and his script - co-written with Grant Heslov, another actor-cum-writer - lays the facts out with a surprising journalistic clarity. In fact, Clooney's might even be too careful in covering all his bases: afraid that any deviation would let the press cut his film to ribbons, Clooney triple-checks his facts, leaning on actual recorded dialogue or stock footage whenever possible.* Most surprisingly, rather than having someone play McCarthy, he only uses what footage of the senator is available. It's simultaneously refreshing and a cheap filmmaking crutch for the story to lean on.

Still, I'm all for it. Clooney dearly wants his film to change a viewer's perspective, and I find Good Night's earnestness deeply endearing. Each actor's performance is entrancingly personal and natural - particularly Strathairn, who gives Murrow a subtle humanity covered over by a steely public persona. It's one of the many little-noted performances this year (along with Damian Lewis in Keane) that probably won't scare up any Best Actor buzz this spring, but really should.

The problem with Good Night, though, is that the message of the film is that once upon a time, newsmen gave a damn - but those days are gone now. The film bookends with clips of Strathairn performing Murrow's landmark keynote address at the Radio and Television News Directors Convention (Not to toot my intellectual horn, but I had actually heard about this speech. Admittedly, I'd heard about it in the promotional articles for Good Night, and Good Luck) about how news reporting was being replaced by mere entertainment, and the time has come for television journalists to stand up and use the medium for good. "This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire," Murrow notes. "But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box."

I agree. I do. I truly believe that if television reporting does nothing more than keep the viewer occupied for a moment, if it inspires nothing more than water-cooler talk, then it's wasted breath. And Lord knows I'm tired of: "Big news today in the Middle East - we'll keep you updated on the events as they unfold. But first - Kelly Ripa!"

But I'm not convinced that modern-day journalists have truly lost their belief in the power of the press. Consider the general reaction to Katrina: in the wake of tragedy, the press sprang into action faster than essentially every government office, and spent the next two weeks holding the government's feet to the fire on their lackadasical response. Admittedly, they didn't show a whole lot of disgression in understanding exactly whose feet should be held to which fire ("Hey, Benedict XVI! How could you just stand by and let the U.S. government develop no emergency flooding strategy?"), but no one's arguing that they didn't feel strongly about the issue. As a field reporter for the Daily Show gently lampooned: "I've been in New Orleans for six hours now and I still haven't gotten to publicly berate an official." I think Clooney can rest easy in that regard.

Furthermore, Clooney falls prey to one of the classic blunders (the most famous of which being never, ever give Michael Bay a camera): in striving to drive home a blistering lesson, he becomes the very evil he's fighting. Yes, entertainment shouldn't trump true news reporting in the hearts of television producers - but if that's the case, shouldn't Good Night hold the same tone? Instead, Clooney seems perfectly willing to deviate from his story in order to work in some comic relief: Murrow's interview with Liberace, a highlight of the film, helps loosen up a story becoming too wound up in its own careful pacing and weighty pauses; in the same way, modern newscasting breaks up the fiery crashes and confusing foreign policy with speculation on whether Paris has stolen Mary-Kate's boy toy. Watching Murrow try to hold on to his deadpan interview style across from the most flamboyant of all subjects humanizes his character, just as entertainment news helps humanize a medium that flourishes on destruction and pain.

I'm not saying that Clooney is wrong. I just feel that if you're so willing to film something in black-and-white, you better be ready to deal with the fact that it might be a gray area.

Rating: Lessee here - one star for Strathairn's performance and one for everyone else's, one star for making something as anachronistic as black-and-white movie, one star for making history interesting without adding any homosexuality (in case Oliver Stone ever reads this), minus one star for writing a movie that occasionally borders on propaganda but plus half a star for actually having the balls to make it. Comes out to three and half stars out of five.

* There's a good deal of argument in regards to how much Clooney really did stick to the facts. I have an argument here that disseminates (a blogger's favorite word, probably used incorrectly here) an entirely different story about the legend of Edward R. Murrow. It's just as slanted towards conservative thinking as Clooney's is in the opposite direction, but if you watch the film and read the article, you'll find they agree on a number of things:
1. Communism is at least a little bad.
2. McCarthy is not cool. Neither is McCarthyism. Smoking, however, might be cool. Keep that in mind, kids.
3. It's bad to take away people's constitutional rights, even if you really, really want to.

Of course, if you already agree on these things, you don't have to watch the movie or read the article, and you've saved yourself from Saturday night of political debate that can now safely spent snacking. Good job.

Batman Begins (2005)*

2005-06-17T11:16:00.000-07:00

Directed By: Christopher Nolan
Written By: David S. Goyer, Christopher Nolan, J.T. Petty
Starring: Christian Bale, Liam Neeson, Cillian Murphy, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Katie Holmes, Gary Oldman, Tom Wilkinson, Ken Watanabe, yada yada yada...
Synopsis: Batman... um... begins.

I know, I know: the hype, the strange Katie Holmes-Tom Cruise thing, the fact that basically all four Batman movies before were terrible (ranging from Tim Burton's mostly uninspired efforts to Joel Schumacher's truly inspired awfulness), you don't like superhero movies, you're afraid it'll be too like Ang Lee's The Hulk (which featured the worst filmmaking decision in recent memory: having Eric Bana wander along in confused angst for a good hour and half in a film that everyone came to in order to see a big green guy smash stuff), you're allergic to ironic camp, etc. Ignore all that. Go see Batman Begins. It's good. It's extraordinarily well acted for its type (special props go to Bale (Newsies, The Machinist), hands down the best Batman ever, and Murphy (28 Days Later), possibly the most realistic of all comic book villains), it isn't campy, you get to watch Christopher Nolan finds his feet as a director of action movies throughout, and even when the script (David S. Goyer, writer/director of the Blade movies) wavers in direction, Nolan keeps the intensity at the boiling point. And it's fun. Go find out yourself.

* This was written back when Batman Begins was still in theaters, and seemed more applicable then. Oh, well.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005)*

2005-06-13T11:37:00.000-07:00

Directed By: Doug Liman
Written By: Simon Kinberg
Starring: Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Vince Vaugn, and Adam Brody
Synopsis: Two married spies figure out that their spouse is also a spy, and have to kill each other. It's the ultimate "hijinks ensue" type plot.

Once again, dear reader, ignore the hype. Forget this whole Pitt-Jolie are-they-or-aren't-they bit. Mr. and Mrs. Smith is thrilling - loads of action, wry humor, smoking-hot chemistry between the leads, Vaugn trying without success to work his way into action films, a showdown in a department store featuring heat-seeking missiles, a car chase in a mini-van, Brody trying without success to be anything but an overly bright neurotic teen, and either Pitt or Jolie to look at, depending on which one seems more your style. This is summer movie season. Turn off your brain, deposit yourself in an air-conditioned theater, and enjoy yourself.

* This was written back when Mr. and Mrs. Smith was still in theatres. Having a review like this seemed more helpful then. I'm pretty sure the Pitt-Jolie gossip is awfully dated, too, but I haven't kept up.

Asbury College Film Festival (2005)

2005-05-24T13:40:00.000-07:00

I've decided it's finally time for me to critique all the various films in the Asbury Film Festival, since I definitely promised I would, and I've had more than enough time to let each film sink in. I've been dreading doing this, because I'm nervous about saying something critical of someone's film, because - I'm not actually saying it to their face as useful criticism; no, I'm just mocking their work behind their back. It's different when one's criticizing Michael Bay (Pearl Harbor, Armageddon), who will have wasted 100 million dollars of someone's money to create some piece of trash that it is my civic duty to protect you readers from watching.

(That being said, I still hold out hope for the Bay-directed The Island, due later this summer, to be excellent. When Ben Affleck is no longer your main character, your film is automatically miles better)

Still, I'm doing more here than just criticizing - I'm bestowing praises on work that's well done, and most of the films at the festival were very well done. Bear in mind that in each compliment and criticism I crank out, I truly mean what I say. If something's excellent, I say so, if it's terrible - I'm tearing it pieces. If you doubt me, keep reading. Though I don't know why I'm bothering with this intro. Peracchio's the only person whose film will be called to account who'll be reading this, and he's got nothing to worry about.

Now, in order of appearance at the Asbury Film Festival (as best I remember it):

1. Help Wanted - Justin Gustafson's final DFP (Digital Field and Post Production, for you non-Asbury Media Commies) project, Help Wanted is actually a presentation of a poem by the same name by Shane Koyczan, winner of the National Poetry Slam in 2000. Gustafson's piece shows startling maturity: he lets the poem speak for itself. Narrator Phil Brooks wanders through scenic parts of rural Kentucky, eventually ending up on somebody's rooftop, meditating on what his grandmother told him about religion, faith, people, and picking yourself up by your own bootstraps. Gustafson clearly has vision, and the piece has power because of his ability to see how to make each image emphasize what's important about each bit of narration. That sounds obvious, but it's not - it's fairly rare. Still, it's Brooks who makes the piece, communicating the message in a humble, introspective way that transforms the poem (a bit conceited and patronizing when read from the page) into something lasting.
Award Received: Best Editing. Absolutely deserved.
Ben Wyman Connection: Almost none. I worked with both Justin and Phil on Stolen Moments, but I knew nothing about the film except that Jeremy White called it "the best final DFP project I've ever seen." No arguments here.
Of Note: Sections of the poem are available here.

Three Stars out of Five

2. A Good Latte - Justin Ladd wrote this coffeeshop film, and it's a smart script. Jeremy White, Erin Schumaker, and Mary Lashbrook all star in this clever, fast-paced comedy, and the solid cast keeps everything running smoothly. The piece, filmed in a few hours at Lexington's Common Grounds, benefits from the location and Ladd's excellent cinematographer's eye but the time crunch sometimes makes the film's continuity a bit tenuous. That being said, the film's final line ("Well, someone's got to play matchmaker to the socially retarded") was one of the film festival's high points. Latte features all of the effortless tongue-in-cheek banter one expects in a Ladd film, and the piece doesn't lack for sardonic edge, but the script is a one-joke effort and therefore lacks the depth he's capable of.
Ben Wyman Connection: I helped Justin load all the camera equipment into the car.
Of Note: You can take a look at location pictures here.

Three Stars

3. Deceived - Erin Schumaker wrote and stars in this telling drama of a lonely pastor's wife jealous of the amount of time her husband spends with God and not with her. On a particularly bad day, she debates the matter with someone she thinks is God but turns out to be Satan (a bit of a downer when you're already in a bad mood). Susan Harper directs, and the acting flourishes under her able hand. Andrew Casto is solid in the as the neglectful pastor (nobody's favorite role) and Nathan Davies is eerily perfect as Old Scratch himself. Unfortunately, the intensity of the dialogue means that the emotional build-up is hurt badly each time the production value slips even a little. A few audio inconsistencies and continuity errors keep the piece, filmed in only a few hours in nearby sanctuary, from reaching its full potential. Still, nothing can slow down the tour-de-force performance of Schumaker, swinging from smoldering frustration to the deep secret sadness of the dutiful pastor's wife. "I can't compete with you," she whispers a seemingly oblivious crucified Christ hanging on the front of the church, and chills run down the viewer's spine as she visible struggles to cloak her pain. Provocative and painful, Deceived was perhaps the most eye-opening of the film festival films.
Award Received: Best Screenplay. No brainer.
Ben Wyman Connection: I lobbied hard for the role of Satan, but was deemed "too cute." Somewhere out there, Satan is really pissed about that.
Of Note: You can see a picture of the statue of Jesus, though unfinished, here.

Three and Half Stars

4. Peace, Love, & Scrubs: AJ Stich wrote and stars in this off-beat comedy much in the same vein of Garden State (a blessing and a curse). It was the most underrated film of the festival, as many complained that they didn't really get the point, and therefore wrote it off. But Stich's film was never about the destination, it's all about the journey. Stich is Dodger, a slightly socially inept medical student desperately seeking the attention of Mandy (Christen Cates), the depressed girl who's stuck listening to everyone else's problems. The script is subtle and nuanced, but despite Stich and first-time director Greg Weidman's delicate touch, the story never really ties together cohesively. It's a shame, too, since there's so much potential there. Cates carefully underplays Mandy, absorbing the world around her with soulful eyes, deferring the spotlight to Stich, who plays Dodger with charming exuberance. Of course, the fact that he gets to smoke and dance to his heart's content without fear of reprisal might have something to do with it. After all, he's acting. Charming and creative, Peace, Love, and Scrubs never cuts as deep as it hopes.
Award Received: Best Sound. Cash Tunstall helped Weidman and Stich re-record all of the movie's sound and dialogue, and the effort shows - the soundscape is nearly flawless. In addition, the film features a smart indie rock soundtrack (a must for off-beat films these days), which Weidman culled from his expansive music collection (just don't ask where he got it all from) . Honestly, no other film was even really up for this award besides them. They ran away with it from the beginning.
Ben Wyman Connection: AJ filmed an outtake of one of the scenes featuring me playing Dodger that ended up on the DVD. In addition, Cash noted that they put in a "reference" to me about halfway through the film. I've seen the film three times since, and I still have no clue what that means.
Of Note: You can check out the film's theme song, Pete Yorn's "Turn of the Century," here.

Three and a Half Stars

5. Leaves - This one you already know about. Jeremy White and I directed this piece which swallowed up our semesters and destroyed whatever social lives we had. Ah, well, those are the breaks.
Awards Received: Best Picture and Audience Favorite. Not a bad night out. You can read about it here.
Ben Wyman Connection: Blink and you'll miss it, but in the graveyard scene of Leaves, about halfway through the movie, I am Jeremy's hand double. And I directed the film.
Of Note: Leaves was inspired by an O. Henry short story called, "The Last Leaf," available here. In addition, you can check out the website of Enoch Jacobus, currently re-scoring Leaves for his senior recital, here.

Bit tough to rate your own films. You give 'em too high a rating, you look cocky, too low and you're self-depreciating. It's not even worth fighting over.

6. Mascot - Jeremy White directs this minute-and-a-half short piece about how the school mascot terrorizes Ben Peracchio in the library, until Peracchio finally tracks him down and seeks out his revenge. Soon, though, the mascot takes off his mask, revealing himself to be festival creator Professor Greg Bandy. It's a special moment, and it got the biggest laugh of the whole film festival.
Ben Wyman Connection: I actually play the mascot for part of the movie, plus I stuck around as a creative consultant for the shoot. Also, I directed a short film myself called The Mix-Up, about how the Kannensohn twins confuse Peracchio in the library, until Peracchio finally tracks them down to confront them, which Jeremy saw and might have helped inspire Mascot. Jeremy and I thought we should enter both films in the festival so they could play them back to back. But... we didn't.
Of Note: Jeremy has a worthwhile site, as does Peracchio, and Felicia Berggren (who plays the mascot - with zest - for most of the film) has one herself, available here.

Two and a Half Stars

7. Curtains And The Long Farewell - Richie Larison created this little gem about death and grief. It's a cool visual show, a thousands of images flashing across the screen while the color scheme flickers around hyperactively. It looked an awful lot like the greatest screensaver you've ever seen, crossed with a high school biology video on genetics. It's a whacked out video, and it wasn't until I saw it for the fifth time that I really began to understand what it was all about. I'd never want to go through the same amount of effort on such a project, so for creating a two minute video frame-by-frame, Larison gets all my respect. And my sympathy.
Ben Wyman Connection: Richie's the only student besides myself who had a film entered that was principally about death. I told Richie that I thought his film made a very attractive screensaver, but he just buried his head in his hands. Some people can't take a compliment.
Of Note: Click here to watch an actual high school genetics video.

Two and a Half Stars

8. The Salt Shaker - One of the better scripts of the festival, Salt Shaker was unfortunately one of its worst films. Terrible audio ruined the film's chances from the start, and despite a round of re-shoots, a good deal of the film ended up completely incomprehensible. They ended up having to add a narrator figure to the script to account for the bad audio. It's a shame, too, since the film itself is so much fun. Nathan Bauder is solid in his acting debut as a socially inept student who daydreams himself a better life, Walter Mitty-style. His sly narration holds the film together, while Mary Lashbrook plays his love interest with vim and vigor, but neither of their best efforts, nor director Mike Davis' desperate editing, can save the film.
Ben Wyman Connection: I'm featured in this piece, having a big enough role to merit having my name embossed on the movie poster. I play the random guy (no, I don't have a name. Shut up) who comes along occasionally and talks to Nathan, and I get the fun of being the character who exposes the surprise ending: his girlfriend is also a figment of his imagination (what? Don't get mad at me. It's not a spoiler if you're never going to see the film).
Of Note: You can see the really cool groundbreaking music video for the film's theme song, "Sitting, Waiting, Wishing" by Jack Johnson, here. In addition, you can read "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." If you didn't attend the Asbury Film Festival, you can do both at the same time, and you'll get the general idea.

Two Stars

9. Tracks - Nathan White directs this tale of a mother whose son runs across the tracks right before a train, and she must wait in horror for the train to pass. Tres Adames produces, and under his steady hand, they shoot the whole film in (surprise!) a few hours. Good acting, location, and editing holds together an uninspiringly shot film and its somewhat tenuous script. The film has definite punch, but it's tough to watch the film without thinking that it could have been a great deal better with a little more effort. Ah, well.
Ben Wyman Connection: I play the boorish NPR announcer heard at the beginning of the film, interviewing a yuppie child psychologist (Jane McDougall) filled with lots of good ideas on how to raise other people's children.
Of Note: You can hear actual boorish NPR announcers here.

Two Stars

10. Beaver - David Hancock wrote, directs, and stars in this Leave It To Beaver-esque tale of the adventures of a small-town boy in small-town Wilmore. It's clever, and funny, and it pissed me off because it's one of those films that you can film (wait for it) in a few hours, and it's really good. The whole film is told through narration, so you don't have to worry about the audio. The whole film is shot in black and white, so no one notices your focus or your lighting. And the whole film is shot on Asbury's campus or at the downtown supermarket, Fitch's IGA. I coulda done that myself in an afternoon. But no, I had to make film about death and the longing for home, and it had to involve jumping off of trains, and thousands of Christmas lights, and snow, and child prodigy actors. Sheesh. Beaver is clever and original, and most of all - funny. It ended up finishing second in the audience voting, which says a lot about a film shot on a borrowed camera by a freshman who hasn't taken any video classes yet. I maintain Hancock pulls it off because he was, in fact, raised in the 1950's, and is therefore not acting. I mean, nobody has hair like that anymore.
Awards Won: It tied for Best Comedy with Mug - I'll discuss this dilemma when I review that piece.
Ben Wyman Connection: I looked over David's shoulder as he edited the film. I was no help whatsoever.
Of Note: Click here to see actual Leave It To Beaver hair.

3 Stars

11. [Let Go] - I wrote and directed this one last semester as my final DFP project. It was the first film either Jeremy White or Becca Harvey had been in, and they went on to become the stars of Stolen Moments. So they can thank me. This was actually the surprise hit of the festival - neither Jeremy, Becca, or I thought it would make much of an impression, but people really seemed to dig it. The story revolves around Jeremy (played with deep emotion by White), who holds an argument with ex-girlfriend Becca (played with reserve and longing by Harvey), who turns out to be dead. Ain't that the breaks, kid. He finally imagines himself back in his crashed Honda Civic (played winningly by my crashed Honda Civic), where he monologues for a good two minutes or so about how wonderful things used to be, until Dave Matthews finally starts playing in the background and he's able to shut up and forgive himself.
Awards Won: Best Drama. Stolen Moments producer Don Mink was actually pushing for this to be Best Picture, but common sense prevailed.
Ben Wyman Connection: To crash the Civic, we had to actually push the stupid thing up a hill in order to let it roll back down again and crash. Guess who sat in the driver's seat and drove the car on the way up.
Of Note: You can read a good deal more about the filming of [Let Go] here. In addition, I recently posted some pictures of my brothers and I detailing (pronounced "spraypainting") the Civic.

Again, no rating, but as a frame of reference, [Let Go] is better than From Justin to Kelly, but not as good as, say, Citizen Kane.

12. Mug - Ben Peracchio and Justin Ladd put this film together based on a play written by Marianne Peracchio, who, it must be noted, is much brighter than you or I, and therefore comes up with much cleverer ideas. The idea for this one is no exception - a woman (Laura Hunt) walking home from an extremely bad day at work is mugged twice by essentially the criminal equivalent of Laurel (Taylor Vinson) and Hardy (Don Mink). Or maybe Mink is Laurel and Vinson is Hardy. I get them confused (I might be actually be thinking of Abbott and Costello, come to think of it). Regardless, they're both incomptent, and Hunt whups up on both of them, which makes the distinction moot. This startling bit of slapstick jolts each of them so much that they follow her around the city, trying to figure out what the heck happened. The script is Peracchio and Ladd to a T: lively, inventive, and riotously funny. This is impressive because most people would have just taken this as a one-joke premise and wouldn't have put nearly this much effort into the script. Heck, I certainly wouldn't (my script would be: "Sassy lawyer lays smackdown on loser muggers. Hijinks ensue."). This helps out a lot because Ladd and Peracchio shot Mug in downtown Lexington in (you know what's coming) only a few hours, and when the battery in their mic died, thy were left with extremely bad audio. Innovative to the last, the pair redubbed the whole film into Spanish. Really terrible Spanish, too - they typed each line into an online translator, and whatever came out, they said. Also, Peracchio (who speaks no Spanish but fairly fluent French and Italian) became the voice for both Laurel and Hardy (or whoever), and so the film became a mess of poorly-translated, mispronounced Spanish with an Italian accent. Which just made it that much funnier. Still, Mug would likely would have been just a little bit stronger had it still been in English, or if the Spanish had been translated cleaner, or if the subtitles were timed a little better in order to get maximum effect from each line. Who's to say, though? When the ride is this much fun, there's no point in griping about what could have been. Mug made me laugh harder than anything else in the whole festival.
Awards Won: As noted earlier, Mug tied for Best Comedy with Beaver. And honestly, it should have won outright. Mink was one of the seven judges on the panel, but was declared ineligible for voting due to his involvement in Mug - had he been allowed to cast a ballot, Mug would have taken the prize solo. While both Beaver and Mug were uproarious fun, Mug was clearly the stronger film.
Ben Wyman Connection: Mug was dedicated to me, and coming so quickly on the heels of The Salt Shaker, Tracks, and [Let Go], people laughed just seeing my name up there again. I can't say that I'd ever been prouder.
Of Note: You can try your hand at mistranslating Spanish yourself, or you can check out Justin or Peracchio's sites.

Three and a Half Stars

13. In[Terror]gation - Clay Hassler is a talented fellow. He's president of his class (and last I knew, dating his lovely vice president), he was selected last year (as a freshman) to compete as an actor in the Irene Ryan competition, and he tops it all off by making one of the best films of the Asbury Film Festival. In[terror]gation is less a story as it is a collection of ideas about how guilt imprisons the soul. At least, I think that's the case, because the movie really didn't make any sense. The idea is this: A scrubby looking chap (Hassler's high school drama teacher, who turns out to be a fantastic actor) is sitting in a white room wearing a straightjacket, when a voice in the public address speaker above him begins a conversation. I think the voice is supposed to represent Satan. But it could also be the voice of God. Or Deep Throat. Or Alf. I wasn't really certain, and things didn''t get any clearer as the piece went on - the man argues with the voice in the box, but suddenly his sins are written all over his face and the walls, then a second later he's homeless and sitting outside, and immediately after he's a successful businessman. His sins disappear off his face once he starts writing his thoughts down on scraps of paper, which gave me a pretty good reason to start journaling but didn't really clarify the storyline any. At the end of the piece, the man, who's been playing with a Rubik's cube this whole time, finally gets the white side done. This, it seems, is the turning point, and the movie therefore ends almost immediately. From this description, you might be wondering why I liked the film so much. The reason is that in every way other than script, the film is tremendous: the acting is exceptional, Hassler directs the film with flair, it's well edited and extremely well shot. In fact, visually, there wasn't a single Asbury piece - including Stolen Moments - that had better cinematography. Which is a little embarrassing when you realize how long it took to shoot Stolen Moments. Or, for that matter, Leaves.
Award Won: Best Cinematography. Hassler's the son of photographer, and he's got that "photographer's eye." Of course, he also had that "photographer's camera," which doesn't hurt either. More than half the films in the festival were shot on handheld Panasonic piece-o'-craps, so Hassler had a leg up right there, but it likely wouldn't have mattered if everyone had the beautiful HD camera that Stolen Moments was shot on - Hassler's film looked gorgeous, and he deserved this award hardcore.
Ben Wyman Connection: Halfway through the filming of In[Terror]gation (it was filmed over spring break in Clay's father's photography studio), Clay and I chatted for a bit about the piece, and he explained the whole plot to me. It made a heck of a lot more sense then. Clay's a modest man, so he downplayed how good he was, and I was therefore completely unprepared for the visual splendor of it all.
Of Note: You can have a hack yourself at getting the white side of a Rubik's cube done here.

Three Stars

14. Stolen Moments - I worked incredibly hard on this film, and I have very close ties with it - I've already mentioned before how I was documentary filmmaker/storyboard artist/pre-visualization/production assistant/yadda yadda yadda, and nobody cares, but I wanted to preface this review by saying that it's tough for me to to criticize Stolen Moments because I put so much effort into it and I wanted it to be great. But it wasn't great. It's pretty good, sure, but it's not stunning. And it's a shame, because after all our effort and having it be one of the first college films shot in high definition, the whole film was derailed by, amazingly enough, a mediocre script. Here's the basics: Jacob (Jeremy White. Again. Sheesh), a young, mild-mannered college student, often visits his grandfather, Pappy (Carl Spivey), who is stricken with Alzheimer's. Jacob helps Pappy by helping him remember the World Series game that Pappy's father, Freddy Bailey, played in. When not helping Pappy, Jacob spends time with his girlfriend Janie (Rebecca Harvey. Again. Cripes), and their group of friends, all of whom are trying unsuccesfully to get Jacob to be a little less of a wuss. As director Jeff Day noted, Stolen Moments is basically the movie version of Wild At Heart. Eventually, after some mostly random hijinks - a big wheel race, an all-girl performance of Hamlet, a celebration party at a student center - Jacob and Co. gather up a group and recreate the World Series game that Pappy's always trying to remember. It's a touching moment, and ultimately it's this scene that makes the whole film, stumbling down the stretch up until this point, succeed. Stolen Moments may have some real problems, but it has the guts to make it when it counts. The main reason that this scene works when so many others fail is a) Spivey is the focal point in this scene, and the film is at its strongest when it focuses on him and not Jacob, who is much too much of pansy for us to root for, and b) there's hardly any dialogue, which is where this film is weakest. In fact, the power of the film is almost jettisoned completely by its awkward dialogue. Day, who wrote as well as directed the film, has a clear understanding of story but far less understanding of how college students - or for that matter, anyone - talks on an everyday basis. The low point of this is in a scene where Janie pitches to Jacob's friends the idea of playing a baseball game for Pappy. They agree. Then they keep agreeing. In fact, they just can't stop saying that yes, they should definitely do that. This goes on for upwards of thirty seconds, until finally, mercifully, it cuts away, leaving the viewer flinching from the awkwardness of it all (fortunately, though, if you look carefully, I'm in the background of that scene, which makes things a lot easier to take). Still, as clunky as the conversations could sometimes be, there's no denying that Stolen Moments still has punch. An excellent original score by Rob Pottorf (Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius) holds the film together through its rockier moments, and even the often-unsteady camerawork can't take away the fact that a high definition film looks beautiful. Stolen Moments is not necessarily breathtaking but it shows great promise for the future of a possible Asbury film program.
Ben Wyman Connection: While working editing my film Hitchhiker late one night, the students putting together the Stolen Moments interactive CD-ROM suddenly realized they were one interview short. So, suddenly, I became their favorite person. I told the story about the vending machine that Don Mink and I accidently broke, except I said that Don was the one who actually did it. I hope I get a copy of that someday.
Of Note: Both Jeff and Rob have their own pages on IMDB, which is pretty cool in my book. Also, the Media Comm Department has a piece on the film, as does Rob's music site, which also has clips from the score. Also, Becca made a website called The Camera Never Lies to document the filming of Stolen Moments. She gave up after a few posts, but there's still some good pictures.

Three Stars

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (2005)

2005-05-12T12:26:00.000-07:00

Directed By: George Lucas
Written By: George Lucas. Sigh.
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman, and George Lucas' ego.
Synopsis: Anakin finally becomes Vader. We've waited 30 years for this, people, you don't need me telling you.

I don’t believe you can really imagine my level of disappointment after watching Revenge of the Sith for the first time. Understand, I had no real preconceptions of this movie – I knew what the plot was going to be, naturally, but I’d intentionally avoided listening to rumors about the film – which turned out to be a good thing. I heard vague reports that the opening firefight was going to be breathtaking (it wasn’t), I knew Lucas was finally going to reveal the secret of how some Jedi vanish and some Jedi’s bodies remain (he didn’t), and similar bits and pieces (I also heard Jar-Jar was going to be wasted. What happened?). And so I came into the theatre, wary from past Star Wars prequel missteps but hopeful for better things. In fact, my main hope was that it would just be as good as Attack of the Clones. If it was that good, I would be more than satisfied. I wasn’t satisfied.

(Before I go further, I do want to address Attack of the Clones. It’s time that people stop knocking that film. When it came out, it was lauded to the skies – a few nasty missteps on the romantic dialogue, but otherwise, the general consensus was that Episode II the best since Empire Strikes Back. So why the backlash? Everyone now talks about how awful it was, and all they ever mention was that terrible montage on Naboo. The rest of the film has disappeared from most people’s minds. Ask someone what he remembers of Attack of the Clones, and he’ll tell you about a film in which Hayden Christensen mumbles about sand. But try to think back – when you saw Episode II in theatres, it was stunning, it was breathtaking, it was everything you thought a Star Wars film should be. I state this as a fact: Though its translation to the small screen was roughest, Attack of the Clones was the best big-screen movie of the entire series. Period)

To continue: having been so disappointed the first time through, I vowed to look again with fresh eyes and just try to enjoy myself. Fortunately, the second time turned out to be a much more enjoyable ride, mostly because I made some new discoveries about Revenge of the Sith along the way, the main one being that: it's pretty good. I didn't see that one coming.

Why the change in heart? There's a number of reasons for it, each one of which I didn't notice the first time through but became much more apparent the second time through. Let me contrast it for you.

Original Impression: Hayden Christensen is the worst possible choice to have played Anakin. Lucas likely held auditions just for this purpose, and when he saw how awful Christensen could be, which is apparently even worse than Jake Lloyd, it was decided. Perhaps choosing Christensen is some sort of in-joke over at the Skywalker Ranch, where they're still giggling to this day at Christensen's selection, as people the world over stare at the screen in bewilderment and try to figure out if they're supposed to take him seriously or not.

Current Impression: Christensen is a great deal smarter than most people - for example, you and I - and he sees facets of Anakin which we never understood. Let me try to explain this to you, as this is a complicated theory: everything which we have disbelievingly shook our heads at throughout the prequels - the bad dialogue, the stilted acting, and so on - are actually calculated attempts to make us understand better the fate of Anakin.

Stick with me here. The first thing to understanding this theory is to consider all six movies in their chronological rather than created order. When you do that, you begin to understand that Star Wars is not about Luke, Leia, or Obi-Wan, but is in fact in its entirety about Anakin. Star Wars plots his rise, fall, and ultimate redemption, all other characters are merely taking part in his story.

Got that? Now, consider how Anakin relates to people. Throughout all of Star Wars (which, from now on, will be referred to as one continuous movie), Anakin's thought pattern is trapped into the framework which he learned as a child - you are either slave or free. As a result, he treats every person he meets as if they are beneath him and should be ignored, or above him, and should be deferred to (Obi-Wan, Yoda, Palpatine, even Padme). For example, his relationship with Obi-Wan is completely unlike any master-padawan relationship in all of Star Wars - Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan seem more like brothers, Obi-Wan and Luke are like father and son, and Yoda treats everyone like a favorite student. But Anakin can't fathom that sort of relationship, despite all of Obi-Wan's best efforts. When he reaches out to Anakin in friendship, which he does for most of Revenge of the Sith, Anakin still sees him as a master trying to control him - therefore, when Anakin complains "the whole Council's against me," he isn't merely being petulant. He really believes that you are either with him or you aren't, there is no in between. Obi-Wan assumes that "only a Sith speaks in absolutes," but he's mistaken - only someone who sees everything in black and white can truly reject all light as darkness. A more circumspect individual would have had to have admitted that yeah, maybe Mace Windu was wrong to have a hack at Palpatine when he was down, but it still seems a better option than executing eight-year-olds. Anakin's descent into becoming Darth Vader is less an example of how a good boy went bad as it is how misguided thinking creates misguided actions.

Which leads me to my next point, which is that Anakin isn't really all that evil at all. Even when he's turned so completely that he's even abandoned Padme, it's still fairly obvious that maybe if he had a good night's sleep, a round-table discussion with all the Jedi to clear the air a bit, and maybe a little racquetball to work off the stress, Anakin would've still stuck around on the Jedi side of things and he wouldn't have had to have gotten fitted for those robotic pajamas. In fact, the real message of Revenge of The Sith is basically that Darth Vader was really, all along, just a big dork.

No, really. See, all this time we thought what Anakin was saying was just bad dialogue, poorly written, with no snap to it. The truth of the the matter is - that's how Anakin talks. He's just a dorky kid, with kinda sucky social skills. He can't really relate to people, least of all Padme, whom he adores but always feels inadequate around. We all believed Darth Vader was the greatest of bad guys, pure badass evil enfleshed. Revenge of the Sith is about how there's just this... guy in there, forever captured by the stupid mistakes he made when he was dumb kid and sorta-accidently destroyed a republic. As my dad put it "Darth Vader has Asberger's Syndrome! It all makes sense now!" Touche.

Original Impression: The acting in Revenge of the Sith is, across the board, terrible.

Current Impression: The acting in Revenge of the Sith is, across the board, mediocre, with some bright spots and some flinch-inducing moments. I first of all want to congratulate Ewan McGregor, who clearly had no direction whatsoever on some of his lines but did a marvelous job anyway. Often he'll emphasize the wrong word, because he doesn't understand that he's dangling upside-down in an elevator shaft while the whole world is blowing up. This is the trouble with blue-screen technology - the actors cannot correctly convey to the viewer what their character feels about the current event because they have no clue what is going on. For not paying enough attention to such details and making sure that each actor's lines fit with the cinematic splendor that would later be appearing around them, Lucas deserves a healthy swat to the side of the head. I only wish I were there to give it to him.

Samuel L. Jackson (Mace Windu) and Ian McDiarmid (Chancellor Palpatine) are both mostly solid throughout, particularly McDiarmid in an excellent turn as the face of ultimate evil veiled as good intentions - though they do have their moments of hammy lunacy. The dramatic scene in Palpatine's office where Mace Windu tries to arrest and later execute Palpatine is perhaps the best example of both actors at their absolute worst: Jackson phones it in while McDiarmid performs with all the reserve and subtlety of an epileptic fit. It's a terrible scene in all regards, and features one of the biggest black marks on Revenge of the Sith - Anakin's final change to the Dark Side is a hamhanded, throwaway scene. Aim another swat at Lucas.

Natalie Portman (whom I desperately admire and hate to criticize) is mostly invisible throughout. Everyone else is computer animated (Yoda, the sadly not-dead Jar-Jar Binks) or so utterly blank that they might as well be (Jimmy Smits as a thoroughly useless Bail Organa). I'd give Lucas another swat, but he did give a cameo to Keisha Castle-Hughes (Whale Rider), making this the third straight film that he's disguised a talented, beautiful actress behind white make-up so that the viewing public has no idea that they're even in the film (Keira Knightley in Phantom Menace, Rose Byrne in Attack of the Clones). That's so strangely counter-intuitive that I have to give him credit: he really is making films with utter disregard to how Hollywood does anything. That's a worthwhile endeavor. We'll leave it at two swats.

Original Impression: The special effects in Star Wars are mere flash-and-dance, they don't help tell the story at all.

Current Impression: Lucas is so determined to be cutting-edge with his CGI that he sometimes missteps, and sometimes creates scenes of compelling emotion. Ultimately, it's worth the risk. Look, sometimes, it doesn't work, and the opening scene is the best example of this: the firefight as the Jedi try to find their way into General Grievous' ship, R2-D2's fight with the battle droids in the hanger bay, Grievous' escape from Anakin and Obi-Wan's clutches, the crash landing of the ship - it's a heckuva try, but there's nothing there. It's all thunder and tempest with no real plot behind it to interest the viewers who like that sort of thing. And what's more, it looks like a cut scene from the latest LucasArts video game.

And then, sometimes, it does work, to glorious effect. Obi-Wan battles Grievous in the Outer Rim, and it ranges all over the various levels of the city - it's fun, it's exciting, it's pure eye-candy, and you actually care about the outcome. Lucas keeps forgetting this important facet - that the audience wants to give a damn - during battle footage, so he shows us Wookies battling droids on Kashyyk, even though everyone knows that the outcome of the battle means absolutely nothing to the plot. He just wanted an excuse to jam Chewbacca in there. For shame, George.

Much better is the final battle scene on Mustafar, as Anakin battles Obi-Wan as lava surges all around them. Emotions are high, the fight sequence is frankly stunning (excellent work by Christensen and McGregor), and the CGI complements (hey!) the story.

Honestly, the problems of the CGI in Revenge of the Sith are a fitting metaphor for the problems of the rest of the film. Sometimes Lucas pushes beyond his limits and gums it all up, and it all falls flat. Sometimes he finds a new way to do things that is so provocative and stunning that it truly grips you with its emotion, without ever losing track of the fun of it all. There's no way to deny that as flawed as Revenge of the Sith is, it's still the same thrilling ride that A New Hope was a generation ago. Bravo.

Three and a Half Stars

Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

2005-04-30T12:01:00.000-07:00

Directed By: Ridley Scott
Written By: William Monahan
Starring: Orlando Bloom, Liam Neeson, Eva Green, Jeremy Irons, and Edward Norton.
Synopsis: A young blacksmith turns out to be next in line to be lord of something in some hot, sandy metaphor for modern-day Iraq. He rides down to rule his people fairly and honestly and not to steal their oil for his own evil capitalist purposes. Unfortuately for him, he has to fight a bunch of battle against those wicked Moslems, who turn out to be not so wicked at all, leaving him and everyone else to wonder why he should bother.

Before I start reviewing the actual story of Kingdom of Heaven, I want to give it at least five big compliments. Director Ridley Scott has really achieved something here, and I want to congratulate him on it:

1. No one has ever made any war film on such a large, epic scale as Kingdom. That's worthy of congratulations - no battle footage has ever been on so grand and awe-inspiring, never before has anyone seen a two-hundred thousand man army beat the tar out of another two-hundred thousand man army out on some desert plain. It pushes beyond Lord of The Rings and Troy and into new territory - hey, notice how many of these films star Orlando Bloom? His name on a film guarantees that it probably cost more than 100 million to make. In my book, that's not a bad thing; we need more of these sort of films populating the early summer months, it eases the pain brought on by House of Wax and Monster-In-Law.

2. The acting done in the film is pretty solid for a epic historical movie - this is normally the sort of film where good actors look like bad actors, and bad actors also look like bad actors. But Irons, Norton, and Neeson are all excellent, and Bloom is... well, Orlando Bloom, again (see review in Ned Kelly). However, he's added an extra level of passion and depth to his pretty-boy-kills-baddies bit. It's not heart-wrenching or jaw-dropping, but it's not bad. Plus, he bulked up twenty pounds for the flick, and the extra effort shows - he doesn't look completely out of place as a blacksmith this time (yes, he's a blacksmith again). Eva Green (The Dreamers) is excellent as Sibylla, though it's a completely thankless role: the princess of Jerusalem who falls for Bloom instantly despite already being married to Guy de Lusignan (Marton Csokas), a one-note evil dude with his eyes on the throne and no interest in his wife. Bloom and Green get it on almost instantly, which is okay because:
a) Cinema Morality Rule #34: It's not cheating if the husband doesn't really care about the wife because he's too busy being evil.
b) Cinema Morality Rule #13: It's not cheating if the main character protests at first that it might be wrong, and therefore they shouldn't do it.
c) Cinema Morality Rule #1: It's not cheating if the main character, like, totally loves her.

3. John Mathieson's cinematography for the film is absolutely breathtaking. I mean, it looks simply stunning. Mathieson and Scott have done excellent work before - Gladiator, Matchstick Men - and Kingdom, coming right at the heels of last year's Phantom of the Opera, shows that he's just about on the top of his game.

Okay, I'm running low on compliments, so:
4. After Alexander last Christmas, we were all starved for a decent historical epic with some good fight scenes. Thanks. You've tided me over for a bit.

5. At least at the end of this film, the viewer says, "You know what that film reminded me? Gladiator was a really good movie. I should watch that again." Whereas at the end of... Monster-In-Law, a viewer notes "Hey, you know what else sucked? Everything else Jennifer Lopez has ever been in. I think I'll never watch a movie again as long as I live." So, you see, Kingdom is really a great film in that regard - it's given us some option other than Jennifer Lopez and Paris Hilton this weekend. That's worth a lot.

Okay, now that I've been nice, I've got to start ripping on Monahan, who wrote Kingdom and deserves a good talking to. In fact, he's getting one now.

Dear William,

I recently saw you major opus Kingdom of Heaven, and thought I'd drop you a line. You see, William, you've clearly got a lot to explain.

Alright, you wrote a long war movie in which you never take a side. How can you expect this to work? Your main character, Balian, comes in to lead the Crusaders against those crazy infidels, the Moslems. But he doesn't really want to fight the Moslems. Neither does anyone else who isn't a crazy religious zealot. So Balian spends the whole movie asking "Can't we all just get along?" And everyone else answers, "No, dammit, let's kill us some infidels!" as if the Crusades were some redneck hunting trip for religious symbols, which your screenplay tries very hard to convince us that they were.

I mean, seriously, Bill - you have the entire forces of the Crusaders riding out to meet the entire forces of the Moslems, and nobody cares, not even you - which is why we cut away and never see the battle. And the whole time we're really just hoping that everyone just gets together and talks and sorts things out. And in the final, climactic battle, with all the cool siege engines, and flaming balls launched from trebuchets, and boiling oil poured from the battlements, the audience is sitting there wondering, "so, when are they going to get together and and apologize so that they don't have to fight anymore?"

Bill, you mystify me. Haven't you ever seen a war movie? And I understand that you're opposed to war - that's very clear from this film. I also understand that you're opposed to the war on Iraq - that too, is also pretty clear, since it spends a good deal of time cluttering up your story about the Crusades. I even think that it's helpful that you tried to show us what a terrible thing the Crusades really were. But did you really have to make it so ham-handed that nobody cared at all about the battle? Isn't there a better way to do things?

Just a suggestion, Bill. Good luck on Tripoli and Jurassic Park IV. I sincerely hope that they both don't suck.

Cordially,
Wyman

Kingdom of Heaven gets three stars out of a possible five, because I could only think of three legitimate compliments, and - Cinema Morality Rule #74: there's no way you can give a film more than three stars if you can only think of three good things about it.

Fever Pitch (2005)

2005-04-12T11:43:00.000-07:00

Directed By: Bobby and Peter Farrelly
Written By: Babaloo Mandel and Lowell Ganz (are those great names or what?) based it off the Nick Hornby novel.
Starring: Jimmy Fallon, Drew Barrymore, several actors who look vaguely familiar, and Johnny Damon. I am probably one of about seven people who look at that list and go "I bet that'll be good!"
Synopsis: Fallon is obsessed with the Red Sox. Barrymore is obsessed with her work. Hijinks ensue.

I write this review as a Red Sox fan. I make no apologies for this, and here's why: upon checking the IMDB boards about this movie, I discovered a number of Yankees fans griping about the film, which they have not seen yet and have no plans to see it anytime in the future. The overall feeling you get from the post is that of sour grapes - you guys already won the series, how come you get to have this romantic comedy about it, too? That's right, the Yankees fans are jealous. They're jealous 'cause we have it all.

Amazing how the tables turn, eh? When was the last time that you saw a romantic comedy that didn't take place in New York? They all do. They all feature opening sequences of helicopter shots of Manhattan with some cheerful Harry Connick Jr. song playing while the main titles flash by. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in You've Got Mail. Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman in While You Were Sleeping.* Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver. The list goes on.

Fever Pitch starts out with scenic shots of Beantown, but instead of some wandering Randy Newman song, it's "Dirty Water" by the Standells. "I'm gonna tell you a big, bad story, baby," croons Dick Dodd with lecherous vocals. "Aw, it's all about my town." And it is. The Farrelly brothers (Dumb and Dumber, There's Something About Mary, Stuck on You, etc.), grew up as Red Sox fans, and Fever Pitch is as much a sappy Valentine to Sox fans as it is a romantic comedy. It features cameos by Jim Rice, Dennis Eckerseley, Jason Varitek, Johnny Damon, Kevin Millar, etc. It even features Jessamy Finet, one of the fans from last year's Still We Believe Red Sox documentary as one of Fallon's Fenway family. Barrymore and Fallon join in as all the fans sing along to Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline." There's even the Dropkick Murphy's anthem "Tessie," their cover of an old Broadway tune that helped rally the 1903 Boston Pilgrims, and became a rallying cry for Red Sox Nation. It seems a bit of fitting, post-championship exuberance, a celebration of all things Red Sox.

And at the center of it is Fallon, surprisingly solid in his first real major studio release (let's all ignore Taxi, shall we?). The story goes like this: Fallon, an obsessed Red Sox fan, has a pair of season-tickets, just behind the Red Sox dugout, bequeathed to him by his late uncle. He's attended every home game in that seat for the past eleven years. He has a framed print of Tony Conigliaro that he crosses himself in front of every morning. Nothing comes between him and his Red Sox. And then one day, he meets Barrymore, successful, driven executive who has no idea what she's getting into.

I'll leave it there, so I won't ruin whatever suprise the ending might have for you - it's a romantic comedy, after all - but I will say this: if you have any love for the Red Sox at all, go see this movie. It's everything you love about Boston, the Red Sox, being a Sox fan, and beating the Yankees, all rolled up into one beautiful hour and half love story. And then there's that other love story that's going on, too.

Critics will rip this movie to pieces - after all, half of them live in New York, and the other half pretend they do. Let them. They hate this movie for reasons they cannot understand, because this movie perfectly encapsulates that sense of wonder that Red Sox Nation feels. They'll rip into Fallon and Barrymore's performances, they'll rant about how the Farrelly brothers have lost their touch (because of course, they were such fans back when they were making Dumb and Dumber), they'll call it mediocre and predictable and trite and unfunny. And it's all because for once - they want what we've got. Doesn't it feel good?

Rating: Separating myself from my Sox affections, the film's a better-than-average romantic comedy - but not much better. It gets to take the advanced math classes but it cheats off the girl who sits in front. It's not the Farrelly brother's best piece of work, but it's their deepest. I mean, name one earlier Farrelly work that has character development. I thought so.

* An astute reader later noted that While You Were Sleeping actually takes place in Chicago. I watched the film a few months later, and realized how obvious that is. A lot of the film revolves around an "L" train. Everyone knows New York doesn't have an "L" train. Otherwise, it would have been in a romantic comedy by now. Ironically, I did research Taxi Driver to make sure that it was in New York, but I don't think anyone noticed that Taxi Driver is quite obviously not a romantic comedy. Taxi Driver is that Scorsese film where De Niro is a mentally unstable Vietnam vet, the one that John Hinckley blamed after he shot Reagan because he said Jodie Foster made him do it after he watched the flick fifteen times... nothing? No recollection at all? Oh, never mind.

Hitch (2005)

2005-02-12T11:36:00.000-08:00

Directed By: Andy Tennant
Written By: Kevin Bisch
Starring: Will Smith, Kevin James, Eva Mendes, and Amber Valletta
Synopsis: A "date doctor" (Smith) helps incompetent young Lotharios find their romantic feet. Ironically but predictably, when he finds the girl of his dreams, he sucks at romance himself. And I mean totally sucks.

This past week, I attended a seminar on screenwriting that went over the basic three-act structure that essentially every movie is built on. There is an exposition, then the first plot point happens which throws our hero intractably into the conflict. He meets many difficulties until plot point number two, in which all his plans have come to nothing, and there seems to be no hope for happiness. Then, the third act brings the climax, and ultimately, the resolution. On some movies, the structure is more obvious, on others it isn't as clear, but generally, you can trace out these points on all movies. As a frame of reference, the second act is usually the strongest and the third act the weakest.

I bring this up because Hitch is such a clear example of how obviously the three-act structure can sometimes be seen, and how weak a third act can be. You see, Hitch is an excellent concept: a "date doctor" named Alex "Hitch" Hitchens (Smith) teaches incompetent men how to stumble their way through the first few awkward dates without striking out. A truly incompetent prospect, Albert Brennamen (James), is in love with famous socialite Allegra Cole (Valletta), and enlists Hitch to help him find his way into her heart. In the meantime, Hitch is having trouble (obvious plot point number one) on his own romantic front, having fallen for the beautiful and successful Sara (Mendes), a gossip columnist who is incredibly dedicated to her work. The set-up is a touch predictable, but most people would agree it certainly has the potential to become an excellent popcorn film. But it doesn't happen.

Which isn't to say that Hitch is a bad film. For much of the movie, it's a solid example of a romantic comedy with a touch of depth. Smith is at his most laid-back, funny and charming, and James is excellent foil as the incompetent loser who finds his feet under Smith's supervision. Mendes is at the top of her game, which means that she's merely adequate to the role. And for the first hour and half, I bought it whole-heartedly - I laughed, I got involved in the story, I even picked up some tips on women. Then came obvious plot point number two.

I won't reveal the ending, even though if I did so, when you eventually see the movie, you won't have to watch it, and you'll have a fairly positive impression of Hitch. You can leave at the end of the second act, right at the point when the writer, who must think you've never seen a romantic comedy, clearly wants you to wonder, "are they ever gonna end up together?" Because from then on in, it's awful. It's some of the worst dialogue I've ever heard. You know the old Bette Midler tune, "Wind Beneath My Wings?" The dramatic last section of dialogue seems to be Smith and Mendes reciting lines of it back and forth to each other. I can't tell you how miserable it was for me to watch every bit of energy that the movie had swirl down the tubes.

Therefore, I cannot recommend Hitch to you. I'm sure you understand. It's a noble effort, and a clever idea, but as much as I love Will Smith and all his "let this black man show you white boys how to be cool" swagger, it's just not worth the trip. Save your money and go see one of those Oscar-nominated films like Hotel Rwanda and Million Dollar Baby before they leave theatres. By the time you get back, Hitch might already be on cable.

Rating: I give you one and a half stars for the first act, two stars for the second act, minus one star for the third act, and minus half a star for having a character named "Allegra." Two stars outta five.

Finding Neverland (2004)

2004-12-20T11:28:00.000-08:00

Directed By: Marc Forster
Written By: David Magee, based off the Allan Knee play
Starring Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet, Dustin Hoffman, and Freddie Highmore
Synopsis: A lonely, struggling playwright (Depp), finds life, purpose, and (you guessed it) inspiration from spending time with a young widow (Winslet) and her young family. Much better than it sounds, I promise.

Big names, yes. But it's Highmore's performance as Peter, the boy who inspired Peter Pan, that makes this film. Highmore stares down everyone with soulful eyes throughout, daring anyone to help him deal with the pain of having lost a father and being on the verge of losing his mother. He and Depp drive the heart of this movie, giving me great hopes for the two of them in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, due this summer.

The movie's a tearjerker - designed to be one, and it succeeds with whimsical grace. Depp, the most open we've seen him at least since What's Eating Gilbert Grape, becomes writer J.M. Barrie, the creator of Peter Pan. Barrie, trapped in a cold relationship with his wife Mary (a tremendous Radha Mitchell), and lost for inspiration after the flop of his play Little Mary, is sparked out of his doldrums by widow Sylvia Davies (Winslet) and her four children. Barrie begins spending all his time with the family, sparking rumours around town and further alienating himself from his frustrated wife.

Barrie, a bit of an odd duck in real life, is well known for creating incredibly sympathetic woman characters, likely as a result of the distance between him and his real wife. In Neverland, Barrie instead finds solace with Sylvia, until she develops consumption (why is it always consumption in these movies? Is it just because caughing up a fit is easier than showing, say, cancer of the jaw?). Depp, Mitchell, and Winslet all play their roles with great reserve, letting writer David Magee's adept script and director Marc Forster's able hand steer the film.

The highlight is when Barrie brings the production of Peter Pan to Sylvia's parlor in order to show her Neverland. It's a great moment, one which Forster directs with alacrity as Jan A. P. Kaczmarek's lush score lifts the film from a solid biopic to one of the great films of 2004. The next best moment, though, would have to be seeing Hoffman, playing Barrie's producer, sitting back on his armchair reading over the script going "Indians! Pirates! Smee!" I'm making a rule that Hoffman (Captain Hook in Hook) must be in all movies relating to Peter Pan in some way.

The rundown: Well acted, well written, and well directed, Neverland is solid in every aspect. Four stars, and I believe in fairies again.

Phantom Of The Opera (2004)

2004-12-12T11:18:00.000-08:00

Directed By: Joel Schumacher
Written By: Schumacher and Andrew Lloyd Webber based it off Webber's stage adaptation of Gaston LeRoux's French novel.
Starring: Emmy Rossum, Minnie Driver, and unfortunately, Gerard Butler and Patrick Wilson.
Synopsis: The Phantom (Butler) obsesses over his young student (Rossum), and becomes insanely jealous when she has the audacity to fall in love with someone normal, if completely bland (Wilson). Dancing ensues.

Before I start this review, I'll admit that I'm feeling a bit of trepidation writing this one. Phantom is one of Broadway's most-loved musicals, and the film has earned a surprisingly rabid following since its release last year. As I hover over the keys, I have visions of irate fans pouring masses of flame mail into 10-4GB if I fail to exalt this film to the heavens. Though, honestly, those people can suck it. I'll write what I want.

Besides, I don't think any of those people visit this site.

Anyway, Phantom isn't the sort of a film where I feel the need to lay into it - it's really not that bad a piece of work. It's directed by Joel Schumacher, who normally directs taut thrillers - Phone Booth, Bad Company, 8MM, A Time To Kill, etc. A musical would seem a strange choice if Phantom weren't such a different sort of musical: it's all prolonged tension and musical dissonance - right up Schumacher's alley. Besides, it was originally supposed to be directed by the supremely boring Shekhar Kapur. Bleah.

Schumacher turns out to be a fine choice for directing in a lot of ways. He creates a thrilling intensity to Phantom - fully willing to let the film swing darker at points, but always making sure that the ride is fun along the way. In fact, Schumacher presses too hard at this, and in effort to make the film feel like 19th century bacchanalia, he loses the baroque eerieness that was pushing the film. There are only so many clowns drinking and midgets dancing that one can stuff into a scene before it all seems farcical. That aside, Schumacher does marvelous work creating the right mood for each number - "Past The Point of No Return" bristles with sexual tension, "Masquerade" is pure gaudy fun, and "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" is a solemn yet longing movement. Each piece is painted with great care, and the effort shows to marvelous effect.

While a good deal of this is due to Schumacher's instinctive understanding of tension (after all, this is a man who, when the script called for a theatre fire, actually lit the building on fire and filmed his actors running everywhere as the building burned to the ground), some of this credit should go to designer Anthony Pratt, who created each location from scratch on Los Angeles soundstages. Each site in the film is a memorable and evocative window into a really creepy version of the opulent Paris of 1870, and Pratt should be congratulated because each location is completely memorable. But above all, credit should go to cinematographer John Mathieson, whose constantly flickering camera and eye for attractive shots cover up the fact that at the heart of it all, Phantom really isn't all that good.

Mathieson does a good job, too, you'd almost never notice. He and Schumacher make each piece such a splashy thrill ride that it almost escapes you that these pieces are not adding up into a complete story. The problem is that Phantom is never quite able to throw off being a Broadway musical, and move into becoming a film. By making each scene a set piece, we're never given a chance to interact with the characters in any real way. We want to root for Christine, the girl torn between her handsome childhood sweetheart, Raoul, and the smoldering passion of the Phantom. After all, she's sweet, innocent, and beautiful, there's no reason on earth for us not to root for her. And yet it's difficult to become attached, because Schumacher never lets us see what's going on in her head. We cannot understand which one she really loves because we don't know her at all - she wanders through the movie without anything guiding her. And so we end up muddling along with her, confused. Do we like the Phantom? Or should we root for Raoul? They both have passion, but neither seems to know why, or what to do with it. So we watch in bewilderment, disconnected from it all.

Still, nobody went to see Phantom for character development, and often the film is usually at its weakest when it attempts to add depth to an essentially two-dimensional story. Besides, Phantom is in some ways a great triumph - it brings a stage show to film without damaging any of the elements that made it so popular in the first place. The greatest example of this is the character of Christine herself, famously played by Sarah Brightman in the Broadway piece (Brightman was herself slated to play Christine when the film was first pitched in 1990, until her subsequent divorce from Webber halted production). Christine is instead played by Emmy Rossum (The Day After Tomorrow, Mystic River), a truly stunning find. Rossum, only 16 when Phantom was shot, absolutely dazzles, leaving her two leading men, Gerard Butler* (the Phantom) and Patrick Wilson (Raoul), scrambling about to measure up. They don't. Butler (presence but no voice) and Wilson (voice but no presence) are both fully adequate for the role, and their earnestness to make this work is evident. They throw themselves into each scene with the vigor of unknown actors who know this is their big chance (after all, Phantom is the most expensive independent film ever shot). But it isn't to be - the Phantom's jealousy seems forced, Raul's pleas for Christine's attentions seem stilted, and their climactic duel scene is limp. Despite their best efforts, Phantom never quite pulls together in a cohesive way. Still, you've got to give them credit - they more than gave it a shot. And between everyone's best efforts, it really wasn't too bad a ride.

Three Stars out of Five - it would have gotten higher, but for a good half of the movie (warning: technical discussion to follow. Prepare for boredom), the music is not synched up to the movement of the singers' lips, which I find inexcusable. In addition, when the music is synched, the singer's expression rarely matches the actual music, which I also consider a travesty in modern filmmaking. If you've got enough money to burn a theatre to the ground, you've got enough money to play the CD through a boombox while you film so the singer has at least a chance of portraying the emotion of the song. Honestly.

* As little as I liked Butler, someone read this review this summer and suggested to me that a far better choice for the Phantom would have been Clay Aiken. I couldn't dissuade her of this. Therefore, I take back everything I ever said about Gerard Butler. I'll never complain about his performance again. You're great, man. You keep doing your thing.

Ten-Four, Good Buddy Pictures

2003-12-22T18:06:00.000-08:00

Ned Kelly (2003)

2003-12-12T11:08:00.000-08:00

Directed By: Gregor Jordan
Written By: John M. McDonagh adapted it from a hopefully superior Robert Drewe novel.
Starring: Heath Ledger, Orlando Bloom, Naomi Watts, and Geoffrey Rush
Synopsis: Ned Kelly, the famous Australian outlaw, wanders aimlessly through the Australian countryside killing people because they want to kill him until the film mercifully ends.

I should note that starring might be too strong a word. Watts and Rush float at the edges of this picture, while Ledger and Bloom get all the face time as this picture slowly slips from a mediocre historical drama into one of the most God-awful movies I have ever been unfortunate enough to sit through. And I own this movie. My brothers said it was good, it was only five bucks, and I bought it. I've been had.

Why is this picture so wretched, you inquire? After all, all of the actors named usually do excellent work - in fact, this picture is no exception for them. Ledger seems born to play Ned Kelly, the young Australian bandit driven into a Robin Hood-esque role by a corrupt police force, and Bloom is... well, he's Orlando Bloom. He plays Ledger's best friend just like you'd expect him to play him: Legolas the Australian bandit. He gazes across barren landscapes as if trying to use his Elf eyes, says all his lines with that elfin know-it-all attitude, he even speaks the language of every ethnic group they run into with perfect fluency. Watts spends most of her time on screen making out with Ledger. Rush stands around and looks bad-ass. In a lot of situations, this is the recipe for a great movie - just look at Pirates of the Caribbean, which also features Bloom, Rush, and composer Klaus Badelt. And yet it is not great. It is terrible, for two clear reasons:

1. Screenwriter John M. McDonagh is clearly incapable of fashioning any sort of understandable plot from what very well may be an well-written book by Robert Drewe. He somehow manages to make a fairly straightforward narrative about a man driven outside the law by a crooked cop (I've never seen that particular plot before, have you?) into a messy plot involving a circus that he steals, battle armor that recalls the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and a lot of Braveheart-type speeches that Ledger delivers to rally the troops. However, all of these speeches are delivered, not to his own men, but to the people that he is holding as hostages while he robs banks. No, it doesn't make any more sense than it sounds. For all I know, Ned Kelly was a heroic outlaw whose brave stand against the law is a part of Australian lore. However, the schizophrenic plot simply leaves me wondering why anyone would ever care - all of Kelly actions seem completely arbitrary. Nothing he does makes sense. At one point, he kills his own horse, and he and all his men eat it raw. I guess they were starving or something. Then he goes and makes out with Naomi Watts again. He's a real charismatic leader.
2. Director Gregor Jordan directs the film like a Discovery channel special. Wherever Kelly goes, Jordan seems determined to show the viewer the neat landscape that surrounds Kelly. Each scene is preceded by close-ups on snakes, birds, flowers, fern leaves. Fern leaves? Why? It's as if to remind viewers that the film takes place in Australia, in case they'd gotten confused and mistaken the film for a bad western. Frankly, it would be lucky to be mistaken for a bad western. However, it's interesting that he spends so much effort on creating extremely well-composed shots on all of these nature cutaways, because he shows no such passion on any part of the rest of the film. The camera work is shoddy; he never gives his actors any close-ups in emotional scenes, instead choosing to keep both the camera and the audience distant from any connection to the action. In fact, often he doesn't even remember to put the correct actor in focus in each sequence. It's half-hearted filmmaking at its most obvious.

In case you have any doubt as to the true atrociousness that is Ned Kelly, consider this: at the end of the movie (I'm going to spoil the ending for you here. I don't care), as the train carrying Kelly departs to take him away to be hung, Ledger's voice-over appears one last time (of course there's a voice-over in this movie) to say, quote: "Well, these things happen."

I think that says it all.

I'd give this film no stars at all, out of pure spite, but it did have one great line buried beneath the madness, for which I believe it should be rewarded. One of the pointless auxillary characters tells the others that they can't come in, because he has "company," Mary something-or-other. "Mary something-or-other? But she's only 13!" "It's alright. I'm not superstitious." For that one line, you get one star. Be grateful.

Sum Of All Fears (2002)

2002-12-12T11:00:00.000-08:00

Directed By: Phil Alden Robinson (hey, I hadn't heard of him, either. He directed Field of Dreams, though)
Written By: Paul Attanasio adapted it from a Tom Clancy novel.
Starring: Ben Affleck, Morgan Freeman, and a lot of vaguely familiar faces
Synopsis: A lot of important political people worry about bombs and assassinate people, sometimes simultaneously.

You have a pretty clear idea of what you're getting into when the DVD jacket proudly proclaims "Three and A Half Stars!" You couldn't find anyone to give you four stars? You have Morgan Freeman in a movie, and you can't find anyone to give you four stars? Usually, in this situation, the men in charge will find a quote from some no-name in a radio station in Alabama and throw that up there: "Visually Stunning!" "Huge Special Effects!" "Affleck Gives the Performance of His Career!" Now, there's a quote to make any viewer flinch.

Still, being from New England, I've got a soft spot for Affleck, who may have made some of the worst movie choices of all time, but nevertheless deserves more recognition than he gets for his acting chops. In Fears, he's in his element: a lot of stuff blows up around him, but he still manages to escape with great hair. The man's made a career out of roles like this (Armageddon, Pearl Harbor), and Fears is much of the same. He stars as Jack Ryan, a historian turned CIA-member, who gets his helicopter knocked out of the air by an exploding nuclear bomb three miles away, and you can tell it's serious because when he stumbles from the burning wreckage, his hair is now - ruffled.

How did the bomb get there? Well it all started with Russia. Or maybe Israel. And there's these rogue Americans, and a lot of guys with completely unidentifiable accents. The important part about the bomb is that it's not from Russia, it was just fired by a guy with a Russian accent. Unless this is a different bomb. There were a lot of nuclear bombs in this movie, and an awful lot of similar looking bad guys, and at the end, no one really seems to know where they are, which seems to be an awfully tricky loose end to leave hanging. It doesn't so much leave room for a sequel as it does leave you wondering "So, did the good guys win?"

I can't say for sure, but I was pleased to see Bridget Moynahan in the flick, a fine actress who I like for reasons other than just the fact that she's dating Tom Brady. She supplies the love interest for Affleck to not have chemistry with, while Freeman supplies a measure of credibility to a haphazard script by Paul Attanasio, who, as the writer of Sphere and the executive producer of House, M.D., ought to know better.

Still, what the heck. Four stars. Somebody's gotta do it.