Movie Night!

Is there anything better than opening your mailbox and finding three red Netflix envelopes?

Last night my husband and I celebrated this momentous weekly occasion with a little pizza, a little wine and a triple feature. With our trusty Pomeranian in tow (ignoring his cries for pizza) we started our cinematic adventures with:

The Road (6.5 out of 10) is based off a novel by Cormac McCarthy. You know, the author who also wrote 'No County for Old Men'? I had read 'The Road' some years back and was curious how Hollywood was ever going to turn the narratively-sparse novel into a movie. If you've never heard of the film, don't worry--I don't think many have. It came and went quickly to smaller art theaters after several release delays. That usual signals a bad film or one the studio doesn't have much faith in. Clearly, I think it was the latter.

That isn't to say The Road is a good movie, per se. Interesting is a better word.

The basic story goes like this: The Man and the Boy (those are the only "names" you get) travel south across post-apocalyptic America. They are two of only a handful of survivors of a tragedy that is never defined (although the film implies it might have been global warming...). The Man, played by Viggo Mortensen, is only concerned with one thing: protecting his son, which isn't easy when around every corner are cannibals and thieves. It seems that most survivors have turned to their basest instincts for survival although there aren't many others to be had as most of the movie finds the Man and Boy simply walking and exploring their burnt out husk of existence.

The abandoned houses, gray streams, and charred forests pile on the despair and act as a character in themselves to great affect. The Man and the Boy hate life--they're absolutely miserable, but they continue on because they feel like the have to, for one another, not really because they want to.

While The Road does a good job actualizing The Man and the Boy's despair, it all feels a little self-serving. The Man and Boy are held as something of Christ-like figures (the movie actually official changes their names to The Father and The Son), calling themselves "the good guys"and implying that no one else is "carrying the fire" (a reference to having heart). And then there's the whole nothing really happens thing. Like in the book, no explanation is given for the current state of things, but the film greatly expands the presence of the Boy's mother for no good reason other than they had time to fill. In the film, she's played by Charlize Theron and she's fine at conveying the absolute pathos the character feels about bringing a child up in this situation, but, for some reason, the filmmakers chose to end her story line in a way that makes little sense.

All in all, The Road is more than worth a peek. It's a good little movie that borders on being something really special, but never quite gets there. The performances are solid (watch for Robert Duvall and Guy Pearce is small roles) and the landscape is beautifully depressing, but there was something missing--the fire--that means, for me, it's not worth a second viewing.

Next up, Daybreakers (8 out of 10). Imagine if you will: the world has become filled with vampires. Like the Richard Matheson novel 'I Am Legend' (read it...the Will Smith film is awful in comparison), vampires are the norm and people are fugitives. Fugitives farmed for blood. In this dystopian future, the supply is running out and Daybreakers begins with the knowledge that there's less than 30 days left of mealtime left for the vamps.  Our main player is a hematologist with a soft spot for the human race (played by Ethan Hawke--I never realize how much I love him until he pops up in a film) who is desperately trying to find blood substitute.

What he stumbles upon, rather crashes into, is a cure for vampirism.

With a solid little twist at the end, Daybreakers is equal parts action horror film, film noir and social commentary. In short, it was pretty surprising and really well done. Directors and writers Michael and Peter Spierig bring a unique narrative to the vampire story--and not in a 'we don't need no stinkin' lore' Stephanie Myers' kind of way. They marry what we know about vampires into interesting ways throughout the story to present a world where vampires run the world (I rather liked the car equipped with daytime driving features) while inserting their own spin. With vampires as the new black these days, it's good to see a movie truly do something different and fun with the concept while treating all its characters with equal doses of humanity.

Daybreakers is a vampire film for thinking adults. It has it's fair share of gore and isn't perfect, but should hold a place pretty high up within the genre.

On another note, I've just learned that Michael and Peter Spierig have been tapped to direct the sequel to The Dark Crystal. Could be interesting.

The pizza's gone. The dog has finally found a comfortable place to sleep. Time for movie three: The Lovely Bones.

I loved the book. That's about all I can say because the DVD didn't work. Yes, I cleaned it. But our Blu-Ray player would only get as far as the Paramount HD screen before turning to black save for a little line (that looked like a minus sign) in the left hand corner. Bummer.

All worked up for a third movie, we decided to peruse Netflix's instant view. After nixing a bunch of options, we somehow decided to revisit:

Karate Kid 2 (6 out of 10) begins where the original ended with Daniel LaRusso beating his high school nemesis, a Cobra Kai student named Johnny, in a karate tournament. Sweeping the leg didn't work, so Danny got the trophy, the girl, and his self-respect.

Only the girl leaves him before prom and that trophy doesn't mean much when your mom wants to move to Fresno for the summer. So Daniel accompanies his sensei, Mr. Miyagi, to Japan to visit the old man's ailing father. Of course, we need some karate so the story has Daniel walking right into a war that started 45 years before when Mr. Miyagi refused to fight his best friend, Sato, for the hand of the woman he loved.

Wearing more fruit-colored shirts than I knew existed (of course this is the 80s), Daniel finds a new love and fights for his honor against the weasel-like Chozen (Yuji Okumoto, who still acts but whose career highlight was clearly this movie...and Big Momma's House 2). After breaking six blocks of ice, dancing with a girl in a poodle skirt, and learning the secrets of the drum, I don't think I'm ruining anything when I say it all works out fine and we all learn a valuable lesson. Cue Peter Cetera.

I can't say Karate Kid 2 holds up, but it's better than a lot of the 80s flicks we 30-somethings revisit from our childhood. I dare say though, and I'll agree this is part nostalgia talking, I can't see how the new version (updated with Will Smith's kid, Jackie Chan, Kung-Fu and China) could hold a candle to the heart and charm of this film and the original. There's an earnestness to this film that makes you want to stand up and cheer when the good guys win. Sure, it's a little mawkish and silly, but it's clear who our heroes are and through every last frame they earn our admiration.

And with that movie night ends. Thank you and good night!

Hollywood Reporter Gets a New Editor

Hmmm...several outlets are reporting the appointment of ex-Us Weekly celeb editor, Janice Min, taking the helm at industry mag The Hollywood Reporter. This follows on the heels of the hiring of the former publisher of celeb rag OK! Magazine.

This makes me nervous.

While Min stress the Reporter will remain a trade publication, I would bet that within the year the pub will flip to something more likely to report on Lindsay Lohan's bad behavior than the business that really drives the entertainment industry. If it happens, it'll be about money, of course. I mean, we live in a world where the industry juggernaut Variety chose to lay off its seminal film critic to cut costs.

Time will tell. I hope I'm wrong. The last thing the world needs is another gossip outlet.

The Muppets Sing 'Stand By Me'

This absolutely made my day. 

Review: Shutter Island (2010)

Directed by Martin Scorsese
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max Von Syndow
Score: 8.5 out of 10

Possible spoilers follow. If you haven’t read the book, beware.

Martin Scorsese has never made a bad film. Even his mediocre work is a step above just simply good. That’s the best way I can think to describe Shutter Island.

If you’ve read Dennis Lehane’s novel, you’ve seen the movie. The film is less of an adaptation and more of pictorial reading of the book, which is not a bad thing. It’s an excellent novel, but the twist at the end is far less fun when you know exactly what’s coming before the lights go down.

The story starts off simply enough, but progression builds its layers. Shutter Island is a small isle off the coast of Massachusetts, home to an asylum for the criminally insane. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Edward “Teddy” Daniels, an agent with the U.S. Marshall Service. Along with his brand new partner, Chuck (Mark Ruffalo), Teddy is dispatched to the island to investigate the disappearance of a patient/prisoner who seemingly disappeared into thin air.

From the moment Teddy and Chuck step off the ferry from Boston, it’s apparent something’s not right. The guards are twitchy, the patients anxious, the missing patient’s doctor (Ben Kingsley, played with his usual efficiency) elusive. The story about how patient Rachel Solando disappeared just doesn’t add up. The investigation builds, questions lead into answers shrouded in subterfuge taunting the officers.

There’s not much more I can say about the film’s plot without giving it all away, but those who have read the book know where things are leading. The film makes it easy to follow Scorsese and company down the path and, in a lesser filmmaker’s hands, the story might have maudlin and laughable. There’s an underlying chaos to the story that’s reigned in just enough so the insanity (pun intended) doesn’t overrun what Scorsese wants you to focus on at the moment. This is important because without this steady direction the film could have been an unadulterated mess. On the downside though, there’s no interpretation to the novel, which is something I would have liked to have seen. Screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis (whose resume includes the film Alexander and episodes of the new “Bionic Woman”--take from that what you will) is maddeningly faithful to the novel, which I’m not sure should really be a complaint as it’s really quite excellent, but films are not books. Books allow for the reflection of the reader; movies require some reflection by the filmmaker. That’s not here and it’s a disappointment, albeit a minor one.

The cast as a whole is excellent. DiCaprio is doing an amazing job with his career shunning the romantic comedy or action trap that would be so easy to fall into. He’s an actor’s actor with a fierce intelligence behind all his performances. Of also special note is Michelle Williams as Teddy’s deceased wife, who in brilliantly constructed dream sequences, brings to life Teddy’s destroyed psyche and brittle emotions. Without Williams’ fragile performance, the scenes simply would not have worked.

Shutter Island is a very good movie and definitely worth a look, but don’t expect one of Scorsese’s masterpieces. It’s a capable film that’s better than most, but lacking in an individual voice.

Review: Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Directed by Tim Burton

Starring Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway

Score: 3 out of 10

Do you remember when Tim Burton made good movies? I do. I even remember when he made them with Johnny Depp.

Tim Burton’s take on Alice in Wonderland is a joyless affair; a wanna-be epic movie that doesn’t try nearly hard enough and ends up being quite small and insignificant.

In this “re-visioning”, Alice is played by relative newcomer Mia Wasikowska and, despite her sallow pallor that made me a bit worried she might faint, she is one of the few bright spots of this dull adaptation. Burton has revamped the basic Alice story so she is now a young woman of 20 plagued her whole life by a series of maddening dreams involving a blue caterpillar and a smiling, devious cat.

We meet grown-up Alice on the day she is proposed to by a toothy, ginger-haired lord, who has little patience for whimsy and Alice’s dreamy ways. Instead of giving the ‘yes’ her family and friends expect, Alice ditches the Duke, I mean Lord, and follows a white rabbit she sees in the garden down a literal rabbit hole to Wonderland.

Only in this version, it’s “Underland”, a twisted, faded mess of a place. Everyone seems to know Alice while the girl herself insists throughout the entirely too-long film that this is only a dream. Had she actually been delusional, the movie might have turned out a sight more interesting.

It’s these little tweaks to the basic story (i.e. Wonderland v. Underland) that seem to pass as a re-visioning for Burton, but instead the effect adds to the film’s overall misdirection. Throughout the story is rudderless; there are hints of something different that never really materializes beyond sight gags and some truly perplexing dialogue. The original magic of the story is lost in the translation.

And then there are the performances.

With the exception of Wasikowska and Crispin Glover as a creepy one-eyed black knight (yes, he’s typecast, but I am so happy to see Crispin getting into mainstream film again), everyone else is, at best, middle-of-the-road save Johnny Depp and Anne Hathaway, who are truly awful.

Depp plays the Mad Hatter with glassy eyes and a level of faux insanity that isn’t interesting; it’s embarrassing and uncomfortable to watch. Depp’s Hatter could literally be dropped into a film about crack addicts and would make as equal, or perhaps, more sense. There’s little doubt that Depp is a talented, enthusiastic actor who tries to bring something unique to every role. Sometimes, though, someone needs to tell him no.

As the White Queen, Hathaway emotes and poses. Granted there isn’t a lot of depth to the character, but Hathaway is little more than a living doll. Perhaps that’s what Burton wanted, but compared to Helena Bonham Carter’s fiery and emotional sister, the Red Queen, the White Queen comes off like a plastic person on lithium.

It’s as if Burton and crew wanted to make a much darker and more interesting movie (think: American McGee’s Alice), but were forced to work within the confines of a Disney PG rating and all the mediocrity that comes with it. "Alice in Wonderland", like "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", is, ultimately, something of a horror story and in both cases, Burton’s take is right at the edge of stepping into the darkness, but ends up trading what could be a fascinating, more layered take into something vapid and thoughtless.

Alice in Wonderland isn’t unwatchable, but it's close and, certainly, a big disappointment.