Legally Blonde

2001 US Robert Luketic
✰✰

Ah, the story of Elle Woods: seeming West Coast bimbo turned East Coast student at Harvard law. It's a good, simple, "high" concept executed to within inches of the formula. Some of the gags ("bend and snap") are moronic and repeated, but humor's not all bad. It should make you laugh; you'll have a good time. Unfortunately, whatever credit goes to the screenwriter and Reese Witherspoon (and Bruce Thomas as "UPS Guy"!) does not go to the filmmakers. The film itself comes out dull, boring, and—dare I say it—blonde. Not up to par with, like, Clueless.

Park Row

1952 US Samuel Fuller
✰✰✰

Sam Fuller's [sincere] love letter to the ideals of a young American newspaper-business unfolds like a dime-bag version of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane—complete with a Declaration of Principles and a dose of wickedly-good images: tracking across the film's lone set, a reconstructed Park Row; closing in on characters, turning office balusters into jail bars; squeezing as much out of a buck as possible. Gene Evans plays Phineas Mitchell, a good reporter treated badly by his employer; he quits, then sets up his own rival press. Ex-boss now-enemy Charity Hackett, played fiendish dominatrix by Mary Welch, poses business and romantic problems, slithering, dazzling in her only film role. Let me tell ya: it's a powder-keg of an 83-minutes, without much let-up. And though it gets a tad sentimental, with too many speeches, we must remember that this is Fuller. If ever a filmmaker deserved to get a bit doe-eyed and romantic...

Merrill's Marauders

1962 US Samuel Fuller
✰✰ 1/2

Samuel Fuller's war films are all worth watching, but this one won't top any lists. It's about a stubborn, courageous U.S. Army commander who leads his men on a bushwhack through WWII-era Burma, cleaning out the Japanese. There are a lot of characters, not a lot of time to get to know them. War is shown as exhaustion, the winner being the one able to stretch himself the thinnest without snapping. Action itself is thick, 95 minutes without relaxation. One of the best sequences (there are several amazing ones) shows the effects of war by showing a handful of spots twice: once clean, before combat; once after, with bodies and destruction strewn all around. Interactions between foreign soldiers and native villagers are touching. Unfortunately, these highlights occur on an ordinary backdrop: film is workmanlike, for the most part. Fuller's toughness is here, but not quite his talent, his heart. Still, it's interesting to consider '62 and think of the film as sensing Vietnam.

Marley & Me

2008 US David Frankel
✰ 1/2

There's only one proper way to do a "dog film" without turning your work into mush, and that's by refraining from killing the cute, cuddly guy at the end. Marley & Me not only fails at this—but does so spectacularly, milking the death with cross-cuts (little kid watching doggy home videos / the dog being killed by injection) followed by a lengthy canine funeral. Neither Owen Wilson nor Jennifer Aniston are particularly good actors, which doesn't help, though at least Wilson keeps most of the goings-on goofy. Alan Arkin is a supporting pleasure. The story is predictable, formulaic; I didn't mind. The dog's antics are fun for people who like dogs. A sub-plot involving TV actor Eric Dane goes nowhere throughout the movie. I guess I should also say that this manipulative piece of trash made my eyes water. Damn you, David Frankel. Damn you!

Winter Kills

1979 US William Richert
✰

I picked up this film-I'd-never-heard-of because it was mentioned in Greencine's "Political Thrillers" primer. Based on a novel by Richard (Manchurian Candidate) Condon; starring Jeff Bridges, Walter Huston, Anthony Perkins; a film "faithful to the book's overall melancholy tone"—what could possibly go wrong? How about this: it's either very, very bad or a freakin' pastiche! Melancholy mood, my ass. Any value the movie possesses is due to a few performances (hint: not Jeff Bridges) or the sheer strength of its unrelenting weirdness. Many of the scenes defy description. Others: Bridges arguing with Pop, then astride a horse, riding to some place up in the mountains (montage) just so that he can scream his frustrations to the wind. Is it stupidity, is it surrealism? I dunno. Whatever the heck it is, I didn't like it. I suppose other people think it's brilliant, so let's chalk it up to my own tonal wiring. I do admit it's colourful, though.

The Caller

2008 US Richard Ledes
✰✰ 1/2

Yeah, it's a bit corny and too-much into Coppola's The Conversation—but can anyone truly resist Frank Langella and Elliott Gould? Once you buy into low-budgetry and lite politics, settle into a cozy zone and watch two great actors make the most of their roles. The set-up ain't too bad, either: a big-time exec with a guilty conscience and job at a shady international company pays a small-time private dick with a thing for birds to spy on him. There's also a French, wartime back story and some present-time relationships with women. Perhaps too much cynicism will ruin the film; but I was in a good mood, I bought in, I was moved.

The Day the Earth Stood Still

2008 US Scott Derrickson
✰ 1/2

Pretty-cool effects fail to save this Al Gore-ish remake from sucking air into its gills and dying a slow, philosophically painful ("Nothing ever truly dies. Everything is simply [...] transformed.") cinematic death. Ably-made, but acting sucks—Keanu Reeves being the least of the problem. Jennifer Connelly has been shit ever since she shaved off her unibrow, and Klaatu should have killed Will Smith's kid when he had the damn chance. What an annoying brat! Otherwise: I haven't seen the original, but this one tries to be Green and well-meaning, like a dumb kid's science project. You smile, because what else can you do? Though it is hard to stomach the "progressive" attitude when you know the filmmakers have a black kid with a white stepmother and a throwaway scientist character named Yusef only so that, generations from now, when our great grandchildren are studying our cultural artifacts, they'll watch The Day the Earth Stood Still (yeah, right!) and say, "Gee, interracial marriage and smart, America-friendly Arabs—what a brave and daring portrayal."

The Salvation Hunters

1925 US Josef von Sternberg
✰✰✰

The hapless trio, Children of the Mud—the Boy, the Girl, the Child—defeat the Brute, discover their inner faith, and become Children of the Sun. The beginning, on a barge, "giant claw" of a dredge menacing and symbolic in the background, foreground, ever-present; magical, other-worldly, fifteen minutes of the most-wonderful silent cinema! Then, like flakes of caked mud, these qualities are stripped off, lost, the story moving from barge to city, from city to climax in the country. Overall quality remains, but it is no longer brilliant—simply good. Rich fantasy sequence withstanding, balance tips too far toward reality. Is Tag Gallagher right: is it "hard now to appreciate the bomb-shell that Sternberg's first feature must have been in Hollywood"? I can't say, but it takes a mere pinch of patience to see that Sternberg's $5,000 (about $50,000 today) hour-long debut contains poetry, beauty, moments of the sublime. If you can, experience it.

My Brother's Wife

1966 US Doris Wishman
✰ 1/2

Unloved housewife Mary falls for suddenly-arriving, lecherous bro-in-law Frankie. Husband Bob unaware, while Frankie steams it up with former flame Zena. Tragedy strikes—in the beginning. Film starts in the present, followed by a long flashback. Inspiration: film noir? Double voice-overs, shadows, Frankie as homme fatale. Sound is wholly over-dubbed, not matchings lips, camera dipping to capture headless bodies and tangled feet. Editing is rough. Really, a terrible film, but watchable sleaze-plus. Catchy jazz soundtrack never stops, like in a silent film. Compositions are often striking, adding to melancholy mood of empty lives (bad characters? yes, but it works). Random insert shots of objects, whatever happens to be around. Some nudity, no sex. Sometimes erotic, mostly bored. Wishman cuts whenever anything heats up. Transitions usually in the form of a camera zooming into black.

Towelhead

2007 US Alan Ball
✰

Alan Ball plays with a Lebanese Lolita rather than Mena Suvari in this re-hash of American Beauty, which was garbage to begin with. You get: depravity lurking beneath suburbia, over-cooked dinner scenes, a redneck neighbour with a sexual underbelly, thick second helpings of "symbolism" topped with pretentious dialogue—even the freakin' music is the twinkling same. The story is about the sexual awakening (popular cinema topic, no?) of an Arab-American 13-year old, in case you're wondering. But, really: add in that Ball can't direct (dullness), and the film ends up staring at you like a well-dressed deaf-mute for two hours. It's disconcerting, but not because it deals with sexual abuse; rather, because you're asked to take it seriously. I snickered back in '99, now you're just annoying me, Ball. Actors do a decent job, considering. With two games played, the Suburbs lead Alan 2-0.

Goodfellas

1990 US Martin Scorsese
✰✰✰✰

Goodfellas get born, get made, get dead. So: who doesn't remember the opening lines, Joe Pesci, bug-eyed, brain-fried Ray Liotta watching helly-copters, that sub-urban ending? This is pop culture. And it's good, too. On this viewing, I remember: the wedding scene, the feeling that you can keep your money bags under the table and no one's gonna swipe 'em. That's the dream, the national dream, the personal dream. It's also the mob tragedy: nations have myths; Henry Hill had the real thing, real security, and lost it. Of course, he had to lose it (illusory). From perfect trust to Florida whack jobs. Power breeds paranoia. I've also decided Karen Hill's narration is a welcome voice—though Karen Hill (character, acting) has fits of unwelcome hysteria. What else? Goodfellas is a technical marvel, a good story, entertaining. It's the Scorsese second only to Mean Streets, overcoming with style and blood-laughs interplay what it loses in depth.

Humboldt County

2008 US Danny Jacobs
✰

Awful "indie" about a lost (played: comatose) medical student who follows a girl (where did you go, Fairuza?) to a Northern California pot farm, where he learns to live again. Excusing the green photography and setting, this film tastes like bong water. Main character's transformation is unbelievable—unless he just needed oxygen, crises happen on clockwork cue, and [excess] characters pass around life speeches like so-many empty reefers. The climax involves a shotgun, a helicopter, running around, and the DEA. Peter Bogdanovich, who is undoubtedly now searching for acting jobs in porn, looks appropriately bewildered throughout.

Babysitter Wanted

2008 US Jonas Barnes
✰✰

Disarmingly-entertaining flick about a devout Christian girl who goes to college (Art History) and takes a babysitting job at a farmhouse out in the sticks to earn money. Her seemingly-normal employer family isn't so normal, however; comic-relief sprinkled horror follows! Good production values make good-looking picture, suspenseful, acting is what it should be (Bruce Campbell twin Bruce Thomas looks like he had an especially good time). But: long beginning is stronger than ending, which gets cheesy in a bad way. Soundtrack is emotionally-abusive at times, too. Gore is restricted to a handful of scenes, played over-the-top. Surprisingly, no nudity.

Dark Command

1940 US Raoul Walsh
✰✰✰

John Wayne plays illiterate cowboy turned politician (Walsh seeing into America's future?) who fights corruption and Quantrill's raiders in Civil War-era Kansas. Real history is minimal. Was supposed to be Big for a B-studio, and turned out mid-sized, with good names: Walter Pidgeon, Roy Rogers, and the one I drool over, Claire Trevor, who looks glamorous, given her share of gauzy close-ups. A three-way dinner / power struggle in the third Act between Wayne, Trevor, and Pidgeon's baddie is expertly-handled, and the whole film is sleek, if not epic. An earlier, rousing chase is the remembered standout, as Wayne drives his wagon over a cliff and into the drink below: Splash! Of course, he gets the girl and the moral high ground at the end. Some nice one-liners, too.

Frozen River

2008 US Courtney Hunt
✰ 1/2

Ugly NY-state Winter provides backdrop for unlikely friendship between White & Mohawk women that ends predictably / tragically, with important lessons for all—at Christmas! Expect a filmmaker trying to play your heartstrings like an over-eager fifth grader plucking a violin, and with as much intelligence. Amidst the human trafficking and poverty there's even a baby, used as a MacGuffin in a rather horrible 'lil sequence of "will it or won't it die" suspense. Lead actresses do a fine job, look is acceptably dirty, but the script: Jesus. Not that there are many films about the Mohawk, so at least there's that.

Hamlet 2

2008 US Andrew Fleming
✰✰

Zaniness about a high-school drama teacher writing and staging a sequel to Shakespeare—with time machines, Hillary Clinton, and Sexy Jesus! Funny, if you got the knack. Follows Hollywood formula, but seasons with pleasing pinch of chaos. Like an angry anarchist's bomb: loud, skewers everything, means little. So lovable, like an insane puppy. But the film's greatest accomplishment is that it doesn't wear out its welcome. Truth: not particularly well made.

Revolutionary Road

2008 US Sam Mendes
✰ 1/2

If Sam Mendes rewrote a good book, it wouldn't be good, either. Alas: like a blood stain slowly filling out the front of a nice dress, the film ruins, smears, stains. Players do well to say impossibly-literate lines and attempt stylization, but else runs screaming towards "realism". Realism? Hardly. Melodrama, but Iz bin Done, dee-done Done [before]. Idea to adapt takes hit: 60s satire of 50s is expired, bad milk. Overwrought, mawkish, yes; but why so self-serious, Sam?

The Wrestler

2008 US Darren Aronofsky
✰✰ 1/2

Precisely-styled, but clean and conventional "sports" movie. Good contrast between brutal fight scenes (ouch!) and pitiful existence (Nintendo!), but daughter scenes: bleh. Ending similar. Could have been tragic, but why the excessive post-processing, why the stripper racing against time? Best scene is in supermarket as Wrestler gets worn down, chucks salad. Iran doesn't like Ayatollah breaking in-half Iranian flag. Confession: Mickey Rourke is good, give him that.

Synecdoche, New York

2008 US Charlie Kaufman
✰✰✰1/2

It's not pretentious, it's about something (what?)! A vanity project, sure—but one that eats with both hands: ironic detachment, we laugh at the characters; attachment, we feel sympathy for those we laugh at. Writing is top-notch, as expected. Cinematography is good, direction above-average. Overflows with ideas, surrealism. Touching. Cons: suffers from over-length, beginning is better than ending, certain weirdness is excessive. But Samantha Morton is adorable. All is well, because I'm in love again. Says the ear-piece: "Die."

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

2008 US Woody Allen
✰✰ 1/2

Woody pencils a flowing, intelligent sketch, not fully-formed, of four characters and a pack of stereotypes. Enjoying himself in Spain. Quick, loose, funny, bit of drama, romantic. Voice-over grates, then amuses. Stale dialogue is sub-par for Woody's course. Conflict: US vs. European culture, Responsibility vs. Living. Mad Penelope won the Oscar, but it's Javier Bardem (sexy, slightly-creepy) who's indispensable.