Reviewers Suck

So now that my own review of “Watchmen” is written, I read the summary of “major” reviewers on imdb.com.  These people!  Usually, comic book movies and blockbusters in general get panned for being childish and superficial.  No subtext = bad movie.  But does “Watchmen” get any credit for being LOADED with subtext, for implying as much as it shows explicitly?  Not from most reviewers.

Most reviewers are denouncing the film for being too faithful to its source material. Wha?  A movie is bad for respecting its source material?  Source material considered one of the best examples of its own genre?

Reviewers usually slam action movies for being formulaic; “Watchmen” breaks formulas, but rather than praising that strategy, reviewers are calling it boring and plodding.

The guy from CNN spends half of his review criticizing the publicity, which calls director Zach Snyder a “visionary.”  I agree that Snyder doesn’t deserve the visionary title, but what does the trailer have to do with the actual movie?

The prevailing opinion is that “Watchmen” will only appeal to fanboys.  Not only am I not a fanboy, I’ve never looked at a frame of the graphic novel.  And I think it’s an outstanding film.  It’s refreshing to see a superhero/comic book movie that doesn’t cater to a 13-year old attention span.

Watchmen Review

“Watchmen” is a force to be reckoned with. It’s a sprawling, epic pop culture spectacle that refuses to let you ignore it.

Few movies arrive with as much hype. The trailers and viral marketing have been circulating for a year (there was a featurette on the movie’s wardrobe alone).

All the publicity repeats like a mantra that “Watchmen” is the greatest graphic novel of all time. Several comic aficionados have declared bluntly that “Watchmen” makes everything else look childish.

Fans have been either waiting anxiously for or denouncing the prospect of a film adaptation for over twenty years.

Those devotees can decide whether the film is faithful to the comics, but one thing is beyond dispute: “Watchmen” is unlike any superhero movie we’ve ever seen.

When their fellow costumed hero the Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is killed, Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson), Ozymandias (Matthew Goode), Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman), and Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup) begin to fear that someone plans to kill off their entire Watchmen league of heroes.

As Rorschach investigates, he begins to uncover something more complex and sinister. While the fate of the Watchmen hangs in the balance, the world inches ever closer to nuclear war.

The story is set in a fictionalized 1980s in which the world is enmeshed in Cold War paranoia yet Richard Nixon is serving a fourth term. But the film dazzlingly leaps through time as it interweaves origin stories for each of the heroes into the central plot.

This makes for a dense movie that never drags even for a moment, despite being over two and a half hours long. As rich as it is, they are clearly leaving out a great deal.

The whole cast plays it mostly low-key and are quite good, but Haley turns in a devastating, award-worthy performance. Start the Rorschach for Oscar campaigning now.

The “Watchmen” comics changed the game. They were a series collected into one of the earliest graphic novels, and their whole intent – other than to entertain, of course – was to deconstruct the whole concept of a superhero.

Most of the Watchmen, in both novel and film, don’t possess supernatural abilities. They are human, costumed vigilantes with certain pronounced talents and a noble desire for justice. That is, most are noble. Some are either maladjusted ideologues or sociopaths using the costume as a disguise that lets them behave badly.

The Watchmen experience human doubt and frailty, and some of them are deeply troubled to say the least. In this world, heroes and villains alike are both good and evil.

This is only one of the ways “Watchmen” violently, gleefully rips the rules to shreds.

This might be the first superhero movie ever made strictly for adults. Intense violence has become standard for the genre, but here we get a sex scene with nudity, and since Dr. Manhattan’s unique state of existence makes clothes unnecessary, he doesn’t wear any. Nor does the film try to hide Dr. Manhattan’s anatomy. So we see a whole lot of glowing, blue male frontal nudity.

“Watchmen” is made for mature fans of the graphic novel. Whether those folks will turn out and buy tickets is the big box office question. I think they should.

Will “Watchmen” the movie have the same game-changing influence as the graphic novel? Too early to tell.

But Spidey, the X-Men, and all the other superheroes with movies in development had better take notice: the same old, predictable endings and the tired clichés might look silly and outdated after “Watchmen.”

Bottomline: Essential viewing

Fired Up! Review

This one time, at cheerleader camp, two stud football players pretend to become cheerleaders so they can score with as many girls as possible.

That’s a nearly complete synopsis of “Fired Up!” Not much else happens, and nothing more substantial lurks beneath the surface.

This is a pretty bad movie. Let’s just get that out of the way.

I could pick it apart like a snobby vulture until nothing but skin and bones are left. But I won’t do that for a very simple reason: “Fired Up!”, despite the exclamation in the title, isn’t worthy of any sort of passion, positive or negative. I can’t imagine anyone loving or hating this movie.

It is a quintessential February release: a throw-away for the studio and an opportunity for unknowns and little-knowns to gain a bit of exposure.

Sadly, it’s also typical of what movies for teens have become. All the characters are pretty and shallow and provide eye candy that will help sell the soundtrack, which is much more memorable than the movie itself.

Our two jocks, Shawn (Nicholas D’Agosto) and Nick (Eric Christian Olsen), live out a teen male fantasy as gorgeous and vacant girls fall for the lamest pickup ploys imaginable. The dialogue makes “Porky’s” seem urbane. At one point, Nick promises Shawn that at the camp they will have “300 hotties on our biscuits.”

Of course, we wouldn’t have a movie if these two revolting libido cases didn’t eventually develop a conscience. Shawn falls for head cheerleader Carly (Sarah Roemer), while Nick attempts to romance camp leader Diora (Molly Sims). Think “Wedding Crashers” goes to cheerleader camp.

This movie isn’t for me, and if you’re mature and literate enough to be reading a newspaper, it probably isn’t for you, either.

Nor does it offer much to teenage girls, unless they are big fans of condescension. There is barely any cheerleading in this cheerleader movie, and I hope to heaven teen girls don’t identify with the airhead girls onscreen.

This one is strictly for teen boys, who will all be glad to know that one subplot is built around a closet lesbian, two other girls kiss, a group of cheerleaders swim in their underwear, and we see countless close-ups of lycra stretched over body parts.

Not that “Fired Up!” doesn’t have any bright spots.

They manage to mine the “guys in girl world” scenario for a few laughs (I mean that literally: I laughed exactly three times).

They confront the “Bring It On” comparisons head on by showing the campers gathering for an outdoor viewing of that masterpiece of cheer theatre. The campers all say the lines along with the movie like it’s the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” of the spirit finger subculture.

This also marks the first pop culture reference to “Hamlet 2.” While I laughed when a character in this movie quoted “Rock Me, Sexy Jesus,” the fact that “Fired Up!” quotes a 2008 movie should tell you something about its attention span.

“Fired Up!” apparently only cost around $10 million to make, which is dirt cheap for a Hollywood movie. In my opinion, it was worth every penny.

At this point, I’d like to remind you that most of the Oscar movies are still playing in the area. You might want to keep that in mind should you venture to the theatre this week.

Bottomline: Guaranteed not to fire you up

The International Review

Writer/director Tom Tykwer announced his presence with authority back in 1998, thanks to his worldwide hit “Run Lola Run.” It was his third feature, and he instantly seemed like the future of cinema.

“Run Lola Run” managed to throw a relentless excess of action at us while also making us ponder some timeless issues. It was an outstanding marriage of adrenaline and brains.

His films since then, though, have been entertaining at times, interestingly quirky at others, and occasionally just very bad.

So eleven years after planting his flag, Tykwer gets a shot at mainstream, global glory by making “The International,” a big budget political thriller that should appeal to wide audiences throughout the world.

“The International” is a throwback to the paranoid thrillers of the 70s, like “The Parallax View” and “Three Days of the Condor.”

While investigating an international bank for money laundering and arms trading, Interpol agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) and New York City Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) discover that the bank’s activities are much more widespread, politically motivated, and deadly than they thought.

Following the formula of political thrillers, Salinger and Whitman slowly peel back the onion of a vast conspiracy, relentlessly pursuing the truth and battling powerful businessman Jonas Skarssen (Ulrich Thomsen), his former-communist advisor Wilhelm Wexler (Armin Mueller-Stahl), and their world class hitman (Brian F. O’Byrne).

This all sounds great. So why is it this movie never grabs our emotions and rarely raises our pulse?

First, it’s all too formulaic, right down to the name of the bank: the International Bank of Business and Credit. A generic name for a generic villain.

“The International” also fails to strike the balance of thrills and smarts found in “Lola” or the best political thrillers.

It offers melodramatic platitudes rather than genuine insight. Salinger says at one point, “The hardest thing in life is knowing which bridges to cross and which to burn.” He also philosophizes, “Sometimes you meet your destiny on the very road you took to avoid it.” Gee, how zen.

It’s weak on action, too, with the exception of one spectacular shoot-out sequence set in the Guggenheim Museum. Thousands of bullets fly, several henchmen die (in fact, they seem to just keep coming out of nowhere throughout the scene), and the Manhattan landmark is left looking like spiral swiss cheese.

That sequence outshines what is otherwise a plodding, bland movie.

Try as he does, Owen can’t even save the movie with that intense, piercing stare of his.

“The International” is based on a real bank scandal, and it comes at a time when we’re all eager to root against corrupt bankers. Ironically, the movie can’t even capitalize on those emotions.

It might be unfair to judge everything a filmmaker does by whether it equals his signature work. Tykwer made one classic film years ago. We keep expecting him to do it again, and he keeps disappointing us.

We should maintain a little perspective, though: “The International” may be only a little above average, but if you have the urge to go to the movies this weekend, it’s certainly better than Tyler Perry’s latest culture crime or “Fired Up.”

Bottomline: Better than Madea or the cheerleader movie

The Wrestler

There’s something inspiring, beautiful even, about watching an actor rise to the occasion in what is unmistakably the role of his career.

That sensation is overwhelming when watching Mickey Rourke in “The Wrestler.”

Rourke’s substance abuse and bad cosmetic surgeries have been infamous for years – ever since his career began its slow, tragic decline. He has frequently been referred to as “Hollywood’s Dirty Little Secret” for merely doing in excess what everyone else in La La Land does in moderation.

All the years of abuse Rourke has inflicted upon his own body ironically make him ideal for the role of Randy “The Ram” Robinson.

Once upon a time in the Eighties, The Ram was the most popular professional wrestler in the world. When we meet him, though, some twenty years later, he has fallen into obscurity and poverty. Rather than Madison Square Garden, he now performs in elementary school gymnasiums and attends memorabilia signings along with other has-beens. He lives in a trailer park and can barely make rent.

His skin is scarred on virtually every part of his body, his joints are stiff and brittle, and he relies on drugs to maintain what little muscle strength he has left.

Randy is equally scarred on the inside.

He has enjoyed the worship of his fans for decades, yet he is heartbreakingly lonely. He has fallen in love with an exotic dancer named Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), who is similarly past her prime and looking to start a new life.

However, this heartbreak pales in comparison to the pain he has inflicted on his daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood). He abandoned her years ago, one of the many sins he committed while enjoying his glory days.

A heart attack forces Randy to face the realization that he must start a whole new life.

So Randy attempts to regain the trust of his daughter, to forge a relationship with Cassidy, to adjust to working class life, and to simply survive. Meanwhile, he struggles to actually leave the ring and his love of performing, which has been as crucial to him as the blood in his veins.

The scenario is a throwback to the down and out boxer and wrestler movies that were once quite common among Hollywood films. But director Darren Aronofsky (“Pi,” “Requiem for a Dream”) and Rourke take what could have been a formulaic character study and elevate it to the level of art.

“The Wrestler” is gritty and distinct in style and refuses to just rehash the old genre. The ending isn’t what we expect, yet it is supremely satisfying.

The supporting performances are excellent. Tomei gives yet another fearless and, shall we say, revealing performance. Wood, continuing to prove she is one of the best young actors in the world, stands toe to toe with Rourke during the scenes when Randy attempts to reconcile with Stephanie.

But from the moment The Ram appears onscreen, Rourke imbues the character with the irrepressible spirit of a man who by all logic should be dead, yet improbably battles on. Rourke and The Ram share a seemingly supernatural will to persevere.

I walked out of the theatre knowing I had seen not only the best individual performance of 2008, but also one of the best films of the year.

Bottomline: Essential viewing – catch it while you can

Coraline Review

It must be difficult living in Tim Burton’s shadow. How nice that Henry Selick has managed to escape it.

Selick directed “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” yet the name everyone associates with that movie is the publicity-stealing Burton’s. While Selick’s visual style remains akin to Burton’s, after “Coraline,” made completely independently of Burton, there should be no doubt that Selick is a major artist in his own right.

Adapted from a Neil Gaiman book, “Coraline” is a masterpiece of stop-motion animation. Yes, masterpiece. Selick and his animators have made possibly the most technically sophisticated stop-motion film ever. Improbably, they have also managed to retain all the charm of Gaiman’s story and characters.

Coraline (Dakota Fanning) is an imaginative young girl whose mother (Teri Hatcher) and father (John Hodgman) don’t pay her much attention. They are writers currently working on a book about gardening, even though neither likes to get dirty. They don’t devote much time or affection to Coraline. At one point, Coraline’s mother spells out the family roles: “Dad cooks, I clean, you stay out of the way.”

So irresistibly precocious Coraline investigates the boarding house they’ve just moved into and meets the neighbors, which include Miss Spink (Jennifer Saunders) and Miss Forcible (Dawn French), aging sisters and former burlesque performers, and Mr. Bobinksy (Ian McShane), a circus acrobat currently training a performing mice act.

She also befriends a similarly neglected boy named Wybie (Robert Bailey, Jr.) and his cat (Keith David), who live nearby.

Coraline soon discovers a portal to a sort of bizarro version of the house and her family. She enters this alternative world and all her desires seem to be fulfilled. Everything her “Other” mother and father and all the neighbors do is for her benefit.

This perfect world is of course not what it seems, and the lesson she learns is valuable: expecting the world to cater to all our whims and wishes isn’t healthy.

Coraline’s Other Mother eventually reveals herself to be a monstrous incarnation of greed and jealousy, and Coraline must figure out how to escape back to her real family and not so perfect life.

“Coraline” is a genuine achievement in stop-motion animation. The character animation is as expressive as I have ever seen, and I’ve seen just about every stop-motion film ever made. Facial expressions are difficult in all forms of animation, but the work here rivals classic Disney or recent Pixar.

The all-star voice cast also deserves praise for actually playing roles rather than merely lending their recognizably famous voices to sell the movie.

As is the trend, “Coraline” can be seen in 3-D, which occasionally does enhance the look of the film. Thankfully, though, the 3-D doesn’t detract from the distinctive charm of the stop-motion animation.

Use “Nightmare Before Christmas” as a reference to decide whether the film might be too frightening for children. “Coraline” doesn’t pack as much macabre imagery by volume, but Coraline’s Other Mother is quite an intense character. There is also one hugely awkward performance piece featuring Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, who wears only a G-string and pasties. It’s a very funny scene, but showing a near-naked old lady puppet is, admittably, questionable.

Aside from that caution, “Coraline” is a master work of animation which I give the highest possible recommendation.

Bottomline: The first great movie of 2009

Slumdog Millionaire Review

By now, you’ve probably heard plenty of hype surrounding “Slumdog Millionaire,” so there is no point in my lumping onto it.

Except that the film deserves every bit of the buzz it has generated in recent months.

Director Danny Boyle (“Trainspotting” and “28 Days Later”) has delivered the unlikeliest of hits which, even though it’s rooted very much in Indian culture, has managed to win over audiences around the world. Once you’ve seen it, there’s no mystery why it has done so well.

Jamal (Dev Patel) is a young man from the slums of Mumbai who takes a shot at riches on the Indian version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” Incredibly, this uneducated teenager keeps answering questions correctly. It’s so unprecedented that the elitist host of the show (Anil Kapoor) becomes convinced Jamal must be cheating.

After the first day of filming Jamal’s episode of the show, the host turns him over to a police inspector (Irrfan Khan), who uses borderline torture tactics to interrogate him.

Jamal reviews each question and explains how incidents from his own childhood supplied him with answers to questions that, miraculously, he was asked on the show.

The interrogation provides a framework for a magic realist biography of Jamal’s life so far. And what an oppressively tragic life he has had. Jamal has suffered one horror and loss after another. “Dickensian” is the adjective most frequently used to describe the film, and rightfully so. This boy’s life has been as sad as it gets, and it recalls many of the classic Charles Dickens themes: family, poverty, and of course, love.

Because we begin to realize that Jamal’s appearance on the game show is inspired by more than money. When still a boy, he met Latika (Freida Pinto) a young girl orphaned and homeless just like him. She becomes the love of his life, and he will confront all manner of danger, including a treacherous game show host and his own homicidal, gangster brother (Madhur Mittal) to find her and protect her.

We don’t watch “Slumdog Millionaire.” We experience it. Boyle is in top form and the filmmaking is exciting. The story is a terrific ride through sickening depths, exhiliarating heights, and all points in between.

It isn’t a perfect film, but it is filled with more spirit than any other 2008 release.

All the tragedy, all the melodrama pay off and we leave the theatre elated. Rather than smothering our faith in humanity, “Slumdog Millionaire” ultimately renews it.

No one expected “Slumdog” to make such a splash. In fact, at one point its distributors had so little confidence in the film they planned to release it straight to DVD. Now, it’s a global sensation, playing well in almost every country in which it has been released. Even in India, where half the population objected to its portrayal of the Mumbai slums, it has done solid business.

This buzz has grown not out of a massive publicity campaign, as is usually the case, but simply from word of mouth recommendations.

Many of the 2008 awards movies are now making it to our theatres, but this is one you should not miss.

Bottomline: A genuine movie experience

Best Thing About the Oscars

I’m developing a long list of crappy January & February movies to which I will not be subjected, thanks only to the slow roll out of Oscar movies to our local theatre.  I’ve always been a hater of awards shows, but my opinion is changing…

Defiance Review

The images the movies usually show us of Jews during the Holocaust are masses of huddled, emaciated, cowering victims.

“Defiance” is a different sort of Holocaust movie.

Based on the nonfiction book by Nechama Tec, “Defiance: the Bielski Partisans,” “Defiance” tells the story of a Jewish resistance group lead by four brothers from what is now Belarus.

After the rest of their family and village are slaughtered by Nazis, Tuvia Bielski (Daniel Craig) and his brothers Zus (Liev Schreiber), Asael (Jamie Bell), and Aron (George MacKay) hide in the forests they have known since childhood. They are soon joined by others who have taken to the woods to escape the ghettos and camps.

Resources are, of course, scarce for hundreds of people hiding out in the forest, and the only way to survive is to be organized and create some semblance of a social structure. Tuvia emerges as the leader of the camp, which calls itself the Bielski Otriad (or partisan detachment).

Zus, the more temperamental of the elder brothers, joins a Russian military otriad so he can fight. The brothers represent contrasting ideas about what constitutes moral resistance to Nazi oppression.

The real people on whom these characters are based were remarkable people who triumphed over the worst imaginable adversity. The film is engaging on that universal level.

But the onscreen characters are perhaps unlike any portrayal of Jews in movie history.

At one point, a Russian military commander says to Tuvia, “Jews do not fight.” Tuvia responds, “These Jews do.

That’s the essence of “Defiance.” These Jewish characters get angry, seek vengeance, have libidos, and take matters into their own hands rather than waiting to be lead to slaughter. It is a humanizing, emboldening representation of a people too often presented as passive.

“Defiance” is a previously untold chapter of modern history, yet it echoes the Exodus, the battle at Masada, and countless other times when the Jewish people have persevered and survived. The film uses these parallels effectively.

While the Bielski Otriad fights in the resistance, they also struggle to rebuild a community and to retain their customs and faith. We see characters take on new social roles in this makeshift society. They sacrifice for each other and work together. When Asael falls in love with a young woman named Chaya (Mia Wasikowska), the community hosts a wedding as close to Jewish custom as possible.

These are the best moments in “Defiance,” when we see common people struggling to retain their humanity and a sense of normality. At those times, it does what good drama should do: it finds the beauty in tragedy.

However, director Ed Zwick (“Blood Diamond,” “The Last Samurai”) tends toward action movies, and he pushes “Defiance” in that direction as well. The final act becomes (devolves?) into a fairly typical war movie as the whole thing builds to an inevitable climactic battle.

This has disappointed some viewers, but I thought everything leading up to the ending compensated for its weaknesses.

The entire film offers beautiful images of lush forests and a moving story of a people fighting to survive. I highly recommend it.

Bottomline: A lovely, thrilling, and original Holocaust story

The Reader

If you read this column with any kind of regularity, you know I am rarely at a loss for a strong, clear opinion.

But if asked whether to recommend “The Reader,” the most definitive response I can give is a shrug.

“The Reader” is one of four films in release right now related in some way with WWII Germany and the Holocaust (the others: “Valkyrie,” “Defiance,” and “Good”).  Awards season often prompts the release of dramas that, shall we say, capitalize on this greatest tragedy of the twentieth century, but this sudden burst of Holocaust-themed films shows we have yet to fully reconcile the event in our collective consciousness.

“The Reader” examines the difficulties the postwar generation of Germans had in discovering what took place in their country just before they were born.  It’s a fascinating, devastating question: how should young adults regard their parents’ generation, who at the very least allowed the Holocaust to happen?

So you should see it because it explores a cultural issue that still resonates.

Except, you’d never know the film is about such heavyweight topics from watching the first half.  For a good hour, “The Reader” is a sex-soaked romp about a May-December romance.

Michael Berg (played in youth by David Kross, as an adult by Ralph Fiennes) is part of that postwar generation of Germans.  When he is fifteen, he meets Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet), an older woman with whom he shares a summer fling.

At times the affair is a beautiful coming of age story.  Hanna is uneducated, and she delights in hearing Michael read works of classical literature.  It becomes a sort of intellectual foreplay, which is lovely.

However, this portion of the film is also filled with gratuitous nudity, and the whole thing devolves into the sort of movie I was forbidden from watching (but still watched) on Cinemax as a boy.  It borders on European softcore.

So you should not see “The Reader.”

Except, all the primary performances are quite strong.  Winslet has already won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her role.  And the affair sets up the more dramatic second half.

The fling comes to an end, and several years later, Michael is a law student.  A professor takes Michael’s class to watch the trial of four women who are accused of war crimes.  Hanna is one of the women on trial.

She speaks honestly about her involvement in the deaths of a group of Jewish prisoners, so the other women use her as a scapegoat.  Michael must not only choose how to regard Hanna – as the woman he once loved or as part of the generation he now resents – but he must choose whether to divulge information that might help her case.

These conflicting storylines build to a climax that, unfortunately, did not work for at all.  The very scene that forces the personal romance storyline and the broad cultural themes to collide should have been poignant and tragic.  Winslet’s Oscar moment.  Instead, that’s when this film, which had already flirted with disaster, fell apart completely.

Other critics I know and respect, though, argue persuasively that it is a fitting climax.

And so, asked whether to recommend the film, I can only leave you with this overview of the main elements of the film.  If such things intrigue you, see “The Reader.”  It is at least worthy of discussion.

Bottomline: Occasionally beautiful but ultimately unsatisfying