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8/8/06 Miami Vice (Michael Mann)
Big Toys for Big Boys
Two and half hours of wham-bam glitz and glam, and nothing more. Two undercover cops (Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx) out-cool the big-time bad guys with whom they match wits, from the fast cars, faster boats, and even faster airplanes they pilot to their slick suits and the swagger in their step. The murky plot proceeds by staccato, often-incomprehensible bursts of dialogue, as the pair pose as drug runners to penetrate a network of South American and Aryan Brotherhood drug dealers. The romantic subplot, between Farrell and an icy gangsterette (Gong Li), doesn’t ignite. Yet another fast food action film: it goes down easy, but contains only empty calories.
Grade: 5 brown-eyed handome men out of 10
8/2/06 World Trade Center (Oliver Stone)
Ground Zero
Stone’s mostly bombast-free take on a true 9/11 story does two things, one fairly well, the other only so-so. The disaster, from the impact of the planes to the collapse of the Twin Towers and the chaos that ensued, unfolds commandingly, mostly from the perspective of a couple of of a couple of doughty Port Authority cops (Nic Cage and Michael Peña) who are among the first responders and who end up trapped in the rubble of an elevator shaft; it’s brilliantly photographed and CGI’ed, and relentless, save for a ludicrous solarized vision of Jesus. The other thread follows the cops’ wives (Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal) and their families through helplessness, anger, fear and grief. Here, the film becomes conventional, veering close to airbrushed Hallmark sentimentality. Fortunately, most of the running time (a bit long at 2 hours 5 minutes) is spent with the cops. A solid effort, but not in a league with the shattering United 93.
Grade: 6 heroic rescues out of 10
7/25/06 Clerks II (Kevin Smith)
Dead-End Kids
“Sometimes I get the feeling the world kind of left us behind a long time ago,” laments Randal (Jeff Anderson), reflecting on the decade passed since Kevin Smith bitch-slapped Clerks on an unsuspecting moviegoing public. Still trapped in mindless New Jersey convenience store jobs, Randal and pal Dante (Kevin O’Halloran) haven’t lost a bit of their foul-mouthed irreverence, egged on by their louche buds, the impudent Jay (Jason Mewes) and the unflappable Silent Bob (Smith), a sort of smart-ass Greek chorus. These jaded, sarcastic, ennui-laden rascals pass the time good-humoredly mocking each other and their nondescript exurban milieu, and, as ever, in freewheeling, outrageously profane commentaries on sexual practices: just as in the original Clerks they mulled over the virtues of “sno-coning,” here they debate the merits of “ass-to-mouth.” Smith’s best move is casting the magnetic Rosario Dawson as Becky, an earthy, doe-eyed Aphrodite who gives Dante pause in his plan to escape his humdrum existence by marrying the ball-breaking Emma (Jennifer Schwalbach Smith, Kevin's wife) and moving to Florida. The high point arrives mid-flick, when Becky gives Dante a dance lesson that morphs into a full-on, Bollywood-worthy dance number, executed with infectious spirit by a motley, booty-shaking troupe. Maybe these chronic underachievers haven’t gone anywhere, but in the last decade Kevin Smith has learned how to add verve to nerve.
Grade: 7 1/2 insouciant slackers out of 10
7/12/06 The Ant Bully (John Davis)
Arthropods Rule
Animated films can be as fun for adults as for kids, especially today’s souped-up cartoons, with their lifelike, expressive characters. Movies like Shrek and Toy Story aren’t just clever diversions; they deliver a sense of wonderment and even universal truths. Animation gives filmmakers the freedom to create scenarios unimaginable in live action, like this summer’s Cars, which transports us into a world devoid of humans, where jalopies are endowed with quirky, charming personalities – even love lives. Here we return to the entomological microcosm visited in Antz and A Bug’s Life, as seen through the eyes of young Lucas (voiced by Zach Tyler), perennial victim of the neighborhood bully. When he takes out his frustration on the lowly critters, Lucas is shrunk by a potion concocted by the ant wizard Zoc (Nic Cage), and sentenced to live and work in the ant colony. He has plenty of rough-and-tumble adventures, like being menaced by Stan (Paul Giamatti), an unsavory exterminator, and being swallowed by a toad, as he comes to see life from a new perspective. With a gentle, on-target message of cooperation and tolerance, these industrious exoskeletons will keep kids well entertained, but the setups and dialogue aren’t as consistently ingenious and funny as the best of the genre, making the going a bit tedious at times for adults. And the filmmakers muffed a sure-fire gag: though Lucas has a normal home life, with a doting, pear-shaped maternal unit and a batty grandma who’s obsessed with extraterrestrials, he doesn’t have an Ant Farm.
Grade: 6 anthropomorphic insects out of 10
7/2/06 Mission: Impossible 3 (J.J. Abrams)
Man and Superman
Not surprising that violent special effects are the star of this show – Tom Cruise is practically Superman sans levitation, so untrammeled is he by mortal physical limitations in the role of Ethan Hunt, rogue agent of the risibly-named Impossible Mission Force, a sort of covert branch of the CIA. What is perhaps more surprising is the top-notch acting talent brought to bear, in the person of Lawrence Fishburne as a national security honcho and Philip Seymour Hoffman as the villain, a bilious misanthrope who supplies high-tech arms to terrorists and evil regimes. The obscure object of the parties’ desires is something called the "rabbit’s foot," a pneumatic glass cylinder bearing a biohazard symbol. Who knows what the the freakin’ thing does, but who cares; it's the pretext for globe-trotting search and rescue operations, and for a jaw-dropping arsenal of weapons and technological gadgetry. Cruise even emotes nicely in the rare moments when he’s not outrunning bullets, jumping off skyscrapers or crashing through windows. But Hoffman is a one-dimensional baddie, Fishburne’s stentorian eloquence doesn’t sell his convoluted truisms, and Hunt’s wife (Michele Monaghan) has only two modes – adoring helpmeet and damsel in distress, tied to the railroad track. (That she bears a disconcerting resemblance to Michael Jackson, a few iterations ago, doesn’t help.) All the acting muscle in the world can’t compensate for shallow, stereotyped characters. Maybe Ethan Hunt saved the world, but dude, he’s no Clark Kent.
Grade: 5 cheap thrills out of 10
6/8/06 The Break-Up (Peyton Reed)
Hepburn and Tracy They’re Not
The opening scene, in which Gary (Vince Vaughn) flirts brazenly with Brooke (Jennifer Aniston) across a row of fans at a Chicago Cubs game, is the only flash of Wedding Crashers-style inspiration. The rest is an erratic war-of-the-sexes comedy that treads a well-worn path of gender stereotypes: Gary is a selfish, glib, messy oaf, while Brooke is weary of his immaturity and of doing all the housework. The repartee is rapid-fire and clever, and Vaughn and Aniston have enough moxie to keep things moving along, but when things get serious, the script bogs down and the limited acting ability of both of the principals becomes evident. Nor does it help that some of the supporting characters are exaggeratedly loopy, like Gary’s business-obsessed brother (Vincent D’Onofrio), Brooke’s blunt, self-absorbed art-gallery-owner boss (Judy Davis), and Brooke’s brother (John Michael Higgins), an earnest, off-key a cappella singer. Concludes on the sanguine note that even a beer-slurping couch potato can change. Now that's inspired screenwriting.
Grade: 6 reformed Neanderthals out of 10
6/6/06 The Omen (John Moore)
Church Lady's Revenge
Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
– Revelation 13:18
If you didn’t get enough ecumenical onanism in The DaVinci Code, well, this remake of the 1976 Gregory Peck – Lee Remick satanic thriller ought to be right up your alley. Nary a moment is wasted in setting the stage for the arrival of the Antichrist, as celestial disturbances glimpsed on an enormous telescope deep in the bowels of the Vatican foretell extreme unction. The pint-sized Lucifer arrives right on schedule -- the sixth minute of the sixth hour of the sixth month -- in the form of Damien, an infant substituted for the stillborn son of an American ambassador in Italy (Liev Schreiber) and his timorous wife (Julia Stiles). Barely out of his swaddling clothes, the oddly affectless child (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick) provokes a series of freakish, Rube Goldberg-esque confluences of circumstances that cause gaudy, gruesome deaths, like a hapless priest who gets the steeple big-time. But beyond shock value, there’s not much to genuflect to. Schreiber is stolidly dull, Stiles is too young for the part, and together they lack the chemistry that Peck and Remick had in the original. The gravely determined natterings of half-addled priests become so wearying that one begins to wonder if the real subtext here is a sulfurous scheme to draw us to tepid remakes.
Grade: 4 diabolical decapitations out of 10
5/12/06 Down in the Valley (David Jacobson)
Stranger in a Strange Land
If the idea of a transplanted cowboy named Harlan (Edward Norton) clomping across freeway-clogged San Fernando Valley on a white horse, Colt .45 strapped around his waist, sounds a bit, uh, surrealistic, consider that this is only the jumping-off point for an ever-escalating series of non sequiturs. Starts out as an easygoing romance, as the putative South Dakota transplant works his homespun charm on Tobe (Evan Rachel Wood), a feisty, budding, can’t-wait-to-grow-up adolescent; things turn ugly when Tobe’s combative father (David Morse) tries to break up the relationship. Harlan busts a cap on Tobe for no good reason, and embarks on a spree of kidnapping and violence. Eventually it is revealed that his roots are as far removed from Marlboro country as, say, a college professor who hides his black ancestry. You can almost feel the screenwriter (Jacobson penned as well as directed) grasping desperately for the next bizarre turn. All this, without a glimmer of insight into the compulsion that spurs Harlan on such a deranged jag.
Grade: 2 human stains out of 10
5/3/06 United 93 (Paul Greengrass)
Getting a Wrong Right
The inevitable disclaimer at the conclusion of this retelling of the 9/11 hijacking that ended in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, leaving no survivors, confides that "some events have been dramatized." Not many. The story is related in an entirely evenhanded and plausible manner, from the mumbled Arabic prayers of the nervous hijackers, to the terrified, tearful passengers’ whispered cell-phone "I love yous," to the plane’s final, vertiginous descent. (The view of the earth looming below the spiraling plane during the final scene of struggle in the cockpit can only be entirely computer-generated, but it’s done so skillfully that it’s not noticeable.) Director-writer Greengrass, who established his politico-terrorist cred in Bloody Sunday, a gripping account of the violent suppression by British troops of an Irish civil-rights demonstration, gives United 93 exactly the right tone; neither sentimental nor exploitative, with meticulous attention to details that ring true. More than just the story of Flight 93, the film takes us into the subterranean national air traffic control centers where the 9/11 crisis was handled, from the moment the four jets went incommunicado and strayed from their flight plans, to the impact at the World Trade Center (the horrified controllers watch on CNN as the second plane hits the tower), to the shutdown of air traffic across the country. Many of the real air traffic controllers who were involved in the crisis play themselves in the film, and unknown actors play the passengers; these are not die-hard action heroes, just ordinary folks whose fear is palpable and whose courage stirs pride. Greengrass obtained permission from the families of every victim of Flight 93 before making the film, and he has produced a fitting tribute to their memories, as well as to all those who died on 9/11. United 93 is certainly one of the best films of the year.
Grade: 9 real deals out of 10
4/26/06 Hard Candy (David Slade)
When the Hunter Gets Captured by the Game
An on-line flirtation between a photographer in his 30s (Patrick Wilson) and a pixieish, pouty-lipped 14-year-old (Ellen Page) gives way to excruciating torture, as the preternaturally self-possessed teen, knowing that the glib lensman is a pedophile involved in a murder of an adolescent girl, turns the tables and executes an elaborate plan involving a surgical procedure that will have every male in the audience squirming in his seat. Most of the running time is consumed by prolonged scenes of psychological and physical duress, as the way-precocious adolescent slowly extracts a confession from her prisoner, bound and squirming like a fish on a hook. The talented Page, who is actually 19, is a marvel of willfulness, a guided missile of fiendish vengeance. But make no mistake: this low-budget digital video, with almost no supporting characters, is a straight-up horror flick, shallow and meaningless, with a garish, unbelievable premise and no purpose other than to make the flesh crawl. Which it does.
Grade: 3 cunning stunts out of 10
4/18/06
L’Enfant (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)
Running on Empty
"I don’t want to work," says Bruno (Jérémie Renier), a scruffy Belgian youth, "that’s for dickheads." This petty thief’s irresponsible, antisocial attitude soon creates a world of hurt not only for himself, but also for his cherubic girlfriend, Sonia (Déborah François), who has just given birth to his son. The downfall is no less harrowing for its inevitability, as Bruno, more stupidly foolish and naïve than evil, sells the baby and gets in over his head with extortionist baby traffickers and a desperate flight from police. Gutty performances, a raw, quasi-documentary style, and a self-destructive protagonist on the cusp of adulthood give L’Enfant a tone reminiscent of Agnès Varda’s excellent Vagabond (Sans toit ni loi) (1985), but of the two, this film is certainly less penetrating and narrower in scope. The setting, in the bleak industrial city of Seraing, lacks the openness and cultural touchstones of the south of France where Vagabond was set. And the meanderings of Varda’s nomadic protagonist, played with brilliant abandon by Sandrine Bonnaire, brought her into contact with characters more varied and colorful than those in L’Enfant, lending insight into her profoundly untethered, rebellious personality. Compared to her, Bruno is unfathomably callow. Nonetheless relentless and chilling, L’Enfant won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2005 (where one of the jurors was ... Agnès Varda). Renier also worked with les frères Dardenne in 1996 in La Promesse, another visceral, hard-scrabble drama.
Grade: 7 downward spirals out of 10
4/17/06 Friends With Money (Nicole Holofcener)
Rescue Me
This just in: Nowhere is it cast in stone that a movie has to have cataclysmic events that few people will ever experience in their lives, or eye-popping CGI effects, or knock-over-the-furniture sex. A movie can captivate by shedding a ray of light on the human condition; take, say, Tender Mercies or Marty. But you still need an arc, a voyage, some sort of growth or development. Writer-director Holofcener neglects this truism at her peril in this chatty dramedy about a quartet of self-absorbed, fortyish suburban women (Catherine Keener, Joan Cusack, Frances McDormand, Jennifer Aniston) obsessing over the usual preoccupations – money, sex, aging – and how to deliver the only singleton of the group (Aniston) from chronic under-employment and a history of romantic faux pas. The upshot is a desultory, superficial series of vignettes over such burning issues as hair-washing phobias and whether one of the women’s husbands is gay. On the other hand, there’s some decent banter and a few good gags, mostly when the viper-tongued McDormand takes out her frustrations on scourges like parking-place protocol violations and offbeat baby names. But Aniston’s off-kilter hookups with a couple of thinly-drawn oddballs don’t ring true . . . one guy won’t look at her when having sex. Right! Jennifer Aniston!
Estrogen level: 4 out of 10
4/3/06 Lonesome Jim (Steve Buscemi)
Prozac Nation
This black comedy wrings a modicum of gallows humor out of youthful ennui, malaise and depression, but the pedestrian script (by James C. Strouse) never varies in tone, never evokes real pathos, and often meanders into silliness. A morose, shiftless young man (Casey Affleck), at loose ends after a halfhearted stint as a dog walker in New York, returns to his parents’ rural Indiana home, and to the ministrations of his mother (Mary Kay Place, in a sweetly out-of-touch dingbat role similar to the one she played in the ‘70s TV series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman) and of a nurturing single mother (Liv Tyler) who -- rather inexplicably -- falls for him. As an actor, Steve Buscemi is engaging and unassuming, a more relaxed, hipper William H. Macy. As a director, he needs material with more spark, like the Sopranos episodes he directed. The Coen brothers’ flicks – say, Fargo or Intolerable Cruelty – tap into a similar vein of dark humor but bring truckloads more audacity and imagination to the table. Like its mopey protagonist, this flick has no place to go.
Grade: 4 slackers out of 10
4/2/06 Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (Grade: 8 out of 10)