Across the Universe (2007) (nat)

I guess to give this one credit it wasn't as bad as (a) I thought it would be or (b) it could have been. But it wasn't all that good. Thank god they didn't really slaughter the Beatles (but they didn't do anything revolutionary with the songs either--especially considering what a fantastic job Love has done). The acting was ok, nothing special.

What went awry was the trippy, have to have dropped acid to sort them out, artsy, technicolor sequences with odd characters and wild-eyed close-ups. That didn't work for me. What else didn't work was naming the characters after those in the songs and then trying to be clever about the use of said songs (ex: "Dear Prudence" to get Prudence to come out of a closet she's locked herself in; "Hey Jude" to get said character to chase after the girl (Lucy) he loves). Also not working? Bono in the movie at all and then that his "American" accent is just a really very poor version of Christian Slater's Jack Nicholson. And, despite my liking Eddie Izzard, I am not a fan of the "Mr. Kite" sequence. Not one bit.

What was to the film's partial credit but just couldn't work is that Taymor just wanted too much in the film. She could have cut several characters (Prudence, for example) without losing anything (except that trite closet scene). Bono's Dr. Robert could have been cut. And, she tried too hard to squeeze too much in to get a feel for the time. I could have done without caricatures of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, for example.

What was a real treat? Joe Cocker making a cameo and singing "Come Together" and, actually, the singer who played Sadie the Janis Joplin doppelganger singing--she did fantastic versions of "Helter Skelter" and "Don't Let Me Down."

So I'm a little torn about this one. It's not contemptible. But it's not altogether a pleasant viewing experience either. You won't miss much if you don't see it but it's not a complete waste of time either.

The Libertine (2004) (nat)

Oh dear, Johnny can make some bad choices. This one isn't so great. It's sort of a confused telling of John Wilmot the Duke of Rochester's (Depp) life--he led a debauched life full of women, alcohol, etc. the way only a poet could only to die an early death and (according to summaries of the film, not the film itself) become renowned postmortem. To the movie's credit (I think), I do want to at least Google the man to see what he was all about.

The movie isn't all that great--watch it if it comes on TV and you don't have much else to do. Meanwhile, can I ask in what world does it make sense that Denzel Washington and Jamie Foxx have Oscars, but Johnny doesn't? At least they're nominating him but give it a few years and he'll be competing with Peter O'Toole for never having won one.

Surf's Up (2007) (nat)

We watched this last night in prep for the Oscar's. When the film was in theaters, I wasn't too interested in it. It looked stupid. But it's actually very good. It's about Cody, a little Antarctic penguin, who loves surfing and idolizes the big surfer of his childhood, Big Z. Cody isn't all that talented but he manages to get accepted into a contest on Pen Gu Island. There his love of surfing is tested. What makes this one a little more interesting than your average animated movie is that the whole thing is set up like a documentary. There are unseen documentary makers following Cody and the other penguins (oh, and a chicken, Chicken Joe) and asking them questions. A small section is made to look like ESPN footage, complete with slow motion and repeated footage. Also fun is the cast of voices: Shia LeBeouf, Jeff Daniels, Zooey Deschanel, Jon Heder, and James Woods, amongst others.

I admit being surprised but it's a cute, clever, funny story, the animation is first rate, and, most importantly, no penguins die :-)

A Good Woman (2004) (nat)

I'd forgotten I watched this one yesterday morning. It was on Sundance and I was intrigued because it's apparently adapted from an Oscar Wilde play and I love The Importance of Being Earnest. Well, while this one made me want to read the play ("Lady Windermere's Fan"), the film was underwhelming, predictable, and very poorly acted. Helen Hunt and Scarlett Johansson star but they just yell all of their lines instead of acting. It does have Stephen Campbell Moore who was in Amazing Grace and History Boys and is both cute and a good actor.

Anyway, it's a 1920s-ish comedy of errors about a woman of ill-repute (Hunt) who latches on to the husband half of a rich couple while the pair vacations in Italy. The whole town thinks the two are having an affair but the too-pure-to-be-real wife (Johansson) misses it because she trusts him. Meanwhile the resident playboy wants to start something with the wife and gets the "truth" telling started.

I'm betting the play is much funnier and subtle but this adaptation is just clumsy and poorly done. I figured out the twist as soon as the characters involved were in the same scene (way early in the movie). I wouldn't bother with watching it unless for some reason you were teaching Wilde and needed a bad adaptation of the play. . .

Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) (nat)

Pretty costumes. Good acting. Pretty Clive Owen. Pretty Cate Blanchett. Historically rich subject matter. Boring. Boring. Boring.

I don't really have too much to say about it. It's just like a poor version of Elizabeth. It has some of the same surface issues in that I couldn't match names with faces and I don't know the history to help me along with the plot. But otherwise, it's just blah. Not good but not terrible. Just blah.

In the Valley of Elah (2007) (nat)

I made no secret of the fact that I was less than inclined to see this movie-what with it's bad reviews, limited run, and just sketchy subject matter not to mention the worst script writer/director to ever set foot on a studio lot: Paul Haggis. Unfortunately for the hour and forty minutes I just spent watching the film, I was not wrong in my assumptions that this one just sucks. I really found no redeeming quality whatsoever. (I totally should have re-watched Ratatouille or watched Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Across the Universe, or Surf's Up instead--Joel picked up all of those in prep. for Sunday's Oscars--the good thing is that none of them can be this bad.)

A brief catalog of what's wrong with the film (it's just in order of what I can remember but it can in no way be comprehensive because I'd have to watch the thing again and that's so not happening):
1. In usual Haggis fashion, he forgets about characters. Susan Sarandon who plays the mother simply disappears halfway through. We get nothing else from her.
2. The film is dedicated (I'm not making this up) "to the children" in the credits.
3. In usual Haggis fashion, he beats you over the head with visual "metaphors" (spoiler: Tommy Lee stops what he's doing to help a Dominican hang a school's flag the right way (it had been upside down--which is retarded, I'm sure the guy knew how to fly the flag if he was given the job to do so) at the beginning of the movie. But, ominous music please, at the end of the movie, Jones stops at the same school to hang an American flag that flew in Iraq and was war damaged at the same school BUT he hangs the flag upside down AND duct tapes it to the pole so it can't be removed at night. Now this is ALL retarded for a number of reasons including #4. Additionally, Jones's character begins to lose his rigid military-ness as his son's murder investigation gets messier--he sleeps later and later, doesn't make the beds with military corners, blah blah blah stupid)
4. In usual Haggis fashion, he ignores what a character would actually do in favor of what he wants the character to do to further Haggis's retarded thematic plans (ie: Jones's strict Army man flying a torn flag upside down)
5. In usual Haggis fashion, he adds in nonsense subplots to beat us over the head with his retarded themes (this one has Charlize Theron's cop going to a crime scene for no other reason than to show how she screwed that one up and how army guys can be violent--no shit we knew both of those things 30 minutes earlier)
6. Charlize Theron. Bad acting. Looks like she's going to cry the WHOLE movie.
7. In usual Haggis fashion, he has to have an "unusual" narrative aspect that adds absolutely nothing to the movie (here he has the dead son's camera-phone photos and videos from Iraq interwoven)
8. In usual Haggis fashion, he has a TWIST that's so not a twist at all.
9. In usual Haggis fashion, he has to remind us that we're all a little bit racist and go for the easiest answer (this time we don't like Mexicans and think they're all murderous decapitating drug dealers)
10. Topless women--throughout the film--for no real useful or artistic reason.
11. James Franco's haircut.
12. I just didn't care. Haggis managed to write a story about a father losing his second son to the military in a less than kosher way and I could have cared less. He did nothing to endear the son to me.
13. In true Haggis fashion, his trademark really, BAM! BAM! BAM! He insists on beating you over the head with absolutely EVERYTHING.
14. In usual Haggis fashion, another trademark, dialogue that makes not a damned bit of sense (at one point the Hispanic man that we're supposed to believe is a murderous decapitating drug dealer says to Jones "Wouldn't it be funny if the devil looked just like you" What?! There is no interaction between the two--save Jones beating the shit out of him--before this comment and it is never explained.)
15. In usual Haggis fashion, the title has to be some sort of dead horse beaten repeatedly and crammed into the least fitting place in the film. The Valley of Elah is where David fought Goliath. Theron's son in the film is named David. Jones tells him the story. David is afraid of the dark, a little less so after Jones tells him the story. Can we cram anything else nonsensical and pseudo-metaphorical into the film? Wait! Are you thinking what I'm thinking! By God, yes we can! The WHOLE film is dedicated to "the children" who have to be brave and fight evil . . . . . could that mean the boys we've sent to Iraq? Could it? Hmmmm. I wouldn't be so sure except Haggis beat me over the head repeatedly with that very not so subtly yelled sentiment.

That's all I can think of at the moment. Ugh. It's just disgusting that this got made and that Haggis gets any sort of acclaim for anything that he does. The really sad part of the film is that it's a story that should be told--the children we've sent to a horrible war in which they have to perform amoral tasks and then we bring them home and we're shocked that they retain the behavior--the differences between this war and all of the wars that have come before--the degradation of honor in the military . . . .

Ugh. I like Tommy Lee Jones but if he wins for this movie (which I actually really doubt) I will scream. Loudly. You may hear me in Columbia.

Definitely, Maybe (2008) (nat)

A cute romantic comedy (although Joel takes issue with my putting it in that genre). Maya (Abilgail Breslin) asks her dad, Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds), to tell her the story of how he got together with her mother after she's learned about sex in school that day (it's also prompted by the fact that her parents are divorcing). He tells her a long story about his dating three girls-- Emily (Elizabeth Banks), Summer Hartley (Rachel Weisz), and April (Isla Fisher)--and doesn't tell Maya which woman is her mother so she has to figure it out. The poor guy is not so much lucky in love but I can't so much tell you how. Everybody does a wonderful job with the acting and whatnot--which is impressive in this case because the viewer has to constantly change his/her opinion of the characters. Anyway, it's super-cute and fun to watch and very satisfying as a romantic comedy.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick (2007) (nat)

This is a kids' book that took me forever to get my hands on. It won the Caldecott and was nominated for the National Book Award but the B&N across the street just refused to have it in stock--and I wanted to see it before buying it because, although it looked interesting, it's a kids' book and those can be of little interest to me in a lot of cases. Anyway, I finally got it and read it in two sittings.

It's about a boy, Hugo Cabret, who lives in the walls of a Paris train station (not in the magical Harry Potter sense; in a literal through the heating vent way). He ends up in an adventure of sorts when he's caught stealing from a toy maker with a booth in the station. But not just any toy maker, a toy maker who creates automaton. Hugo happens to be fantastic with little gears and such because his father repaired watches and clocks and taught Hugo to do so as well. I can't say too much more about the plot because, while it's not overly simple, the twists are important and easily given away.

What is fun about the book is that it's about half images--a lot drawn by Selznick but some taken from old movies (movies from the very beginning of movies, ex. A Trip to the Moon)--that work with the text and George Melies (creator of A Trip to the Moon) is a character.

It is definitely a kids' book but I liked it a good bit.

The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008) (nat)

I wanted more fairies. I like fairies and they're not so much in the movie. These pretty little flower fairies make an appearance once and then they are in the credits but they don't play any sort of role in the film. Fairies are better than goblins.

Anyway, so the film is about a family, sans dad thanks to an implied impending divorce, that moves into an old house bequeathed to the mother by a great aunt who was sent to an asylum in her youth. Freddie Highmore plays twins, the rebellious Jared and the milquetoast Simon, an actress I don't know is their older fencing sister, Mallory, and Mary-Louise Parker is their mother, Helen. Once ensconced in the house despite Jared's objections and incessant calls to his father to rescue him, Jared finds a book with a note warning him not to read it or his life will be in danger. Jared reads it and the house is almost immediately swarmed by goblins. (Not fairies, goblins.) So Jared, the misfit, has to not only convince everyone that he's not destined to share a room with his loony aunt but he has to save his family and the world (seen and unseen, i.e. the fairies we don't get in the film).

The movie works but it could be better. It’s only a little over an hour and a half—wonders could be done with the half an hour the movie could legitimately claim. Of course, I wanted fairies but part of the issue with the movie is that while the goblins, specifically the head shape-shifting nasty goblin, want the book so they can destroy the world of humans and the unseen world of fairies et al, we don’t so much see that unseen world. We get a brownie that lives in the house and a hobgoblin whose family has been killed by goblins (because the goblins got that page from the book) and we get some little dandelion looking things for just a minute but that’s it besides a handful of fairies that live with the great aunt. That’s only two characters, a few fairies, and some dust-looking stuff. I’m not convinced that there’s much in this unseen world and, therefore, not so concerned about the goblins getting the book. We do see how the goblins are nasty and hurt humans—that’s readily established.

I’m also not a fan of the same actor playing twins game. That should have ended with Hayley Mills. I just think it puts a ton of pressure on such a young actor to not only carry a film but to then play a lesser character as well. And the plot could have been super-easily changed to make them fraternal twins, brothers, etc with no problem. I know it’s probably following the books, but I didn’t read those and don’t really care. But, I thought the movie was entertaining and interesting, nonetheless. (And I got to see another preview for Kung Fu Panda, which makes me very happy--although we did see a nauseating preview for an "Abigail Breslin plays an American Girl doll" movie—yick, saccharine).

The Diving Bell and The Butterfly (2007)

Something else French . . .

This may be the best of the French things I've seen thus far (with the exception of the American/Canadian Rufus concert at the very beginning of the year). The synopses and reviews of the film left me sort of luke-warm about seeing it. But, we all know I am nothing if not OCD about fulfilling imaginary requirements. An annual imaginary requirement is to see all of the movies nominated for major Oscars or multiple Oscars (there are, of course, always exceptions based on various "moral" codes, ex: Into the Wild, which I almost adamantly refuse to see because I refuse to validate that child's wandering blindly and unprepared into the wilderness as a noble return to nature--that's right, Sean Penn, I think it's stupid). ANYWAY, Diving Bell was nominated for cinematography, directing, editing, and adapted screenplay. So . . . right, it’s an imaginary requirement.

While the synopses offered strange information like the fact that you see a lot of the action through the eyes of the paralyzed main character, blinking and all. That and the fact that the whole thing is a bit of a downer about an Elle magazine editor who suffers a stroke at only 43 and is immediately and irreversibly paralyzed with his eyes being the only absolute exception (his lips make efforts toward movement and his head sort-of moves), made me less than thrilled to make a trip to a second-run theater to see the thing. I was greatly rewarded for seeing it, though. It’s really fantastic.

Quite a bit of the film is “literally” through the eyes of the protagonist. You see the blur of his coming out of a coma, the strange people talking in his face, and his right (?) eye being sewn shut—all of this through his eyes. And it’s not annoying or cloying or imposed. It works. The film also functions on the protagonist’s interior monologue. So you feel his absolute confusion and frustration that he cannot communicate (feeling his disappointment when the soccer game he was so invested in on TV is turned off and he can’t tell anyone to turn the TV back on). We also get the dreaded flashback except here they work wonderfully well. Somehow Schnabel manages to include almost every aspect of films that can go horribly wrong and alienate an audience within seconds but he not only makes it work, he makes it work well.

It’s a sad sad sad sad movie (especially a phone conversation with his dad that almost killed me) but it’s well worth the watch. It should win direction, adapted screenplay, and cinematography (who knows what should ever win editing, really). But I doubt it will—what with Hollywood’s love affair with No Country, which is up for all of the same awards (incl. editing).

Also worth mentioning is my desire to see Young at Heart, which is about the Young at Heart chorus, a group of senior citizens singing rock songs (“I wanna be sedated” . . . . ). They’re on YouTube. You should watch a clip of them. And, I want to see Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day with Amy Adams and Frances McDormand this very minute (I have to wait until March unfortunately). Both were previewed before Diving Bell.

In Bruges (2008) (nat)

I'm finicky about my comedy. I adore black comedy but normally hate stupid comedy. I don't particularly like stand-up and have trouble when parodies cross the line into a dramatic tone. All that to say, I'm not sure about In Bruges.

The very basic plot is that Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson) are sent to Bruges, Belguim by their boss, Harry (Ralph Fiennes), after a hit has gone wrong for Ray. A bit of a spoiler (but not really): the hit went wrong because Ray accidentally kills a child when he kills the priest he was sent to kill. I can't really reconcile killing a child who was praying because he was bad at math and moody with comedy. It doesn't quite work for me.

If you can put that aside, the movie does actually work--the only trouble was what I imposed upon it--and is funny with actually very good performances from Farrell, Gleeson, and Fiennes.

Eastern Promises (2007) and Elizabeth (1998) (nat)

Eastern Promises was a re-watch. Joel hadn't seen it yet so I watched it again with him--but skipping the nude bath fight. But nothing to add to the other post about it.

Somehow I missed Elizabeth when it first came out (and in the 10 years that followed). I liked it just fine but I am getting somewhat annoyed with movies that make it hard for me to remember the names of the key players. And I am curious as to whether we are supposed to think that Robert was in on the kill the Queen game before she shunned him or if he just got in on it when the Spaniard proposed the idea. And why it was a good idea for him to get in on it so late in the game if the latter is true. But, otherwise, I liked the story and the costuming (especially the costuming). I'm now interested to see how the second one screws it all up.

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky (1942/2004/2007) (nat)

I'm not normally one to dwell on autobiographical aspects of books. I don't know much about most of the authors I read. Nemirovsky's biography is so tied up with the novel that it's impossible to ignore and it really makes the whole thing desperately tragic.

Suite Francaise is about a wide cast of characters, most of them French, from a wide sweep of social and economic situations who must cope with WWII and their displacement from Paris and surrounding cities because of the German invasion. They must then negotiate the German occupation of France. The characters are all engaging and fully formed despite the reader only seeing snippets of their lives. In the first half, each chapter focuses on one set of characters (a family, or group) with those groups sometimes splitting or interacting with other groups during the war until the armstice. What we do not see in this first section is the German point of view. The reader is teased with almost-encounters and exposed to the fear engendered in the French who never have much exposure to the enemy s a people during the war, only air raid sirens and bombers. The second half of the novel focuses mainly on a mother and wife of a prisoner of war during the occupation with brief excursions to see characters in Paris. What makes this half so interesting is that we see the German officers and we get to know one in particular fairly well.

Unfortunately, Nemirovsky never finished the novel. It was supposed to be two or three more sections to round out the war. The autobiographical aspect is particularly poignant in this sense because she was writing the novel about the war while the war was going on. There are some notes about the next sections but there were gaps because she wasn't sure what was going to happen, how long the war would last, and how these things would impact the the course of the novel's plot. And she never had the opportunity to finish the novel or see the end of the war because she was taken prisoner by the Germans in 1942 and sent to Auschwitz--her parents were Russian Jews but Nemirovsky had denouced her parents' religion (as had her husband) and converted to Catholicism. The Germans didn't care about that and didn't care that she was a highly successful, highly regarded French novelist. At the end of her life, she was being persecuted by the Germans while writing the tenuous love-affair between a French woman and a German soldier. Normally I'd skip the appendices at the end of the book--her notes and then her correspondence--but I started skimming them and then paying attention more closely. I wish she had the chance to finish the novel (it works as a fragment because the stories tie themselves up in a way that satisfies the reader, but it would have been wonderful as she saw it) and the letters broke my heart. First Nemirovsky is taken (her voice disappearing from the correspondence), then her husband begins a heart-rending letter-writing campaign to save her, then he is taken to a concentration camp as a reward for his efforts, then there are letters from people who don't know either has been taken, and, finally, letters about the well-being of Nemirovsky's two daughters who had to be hidden in various places during the war because the Germans were constantly looking for them. Nemirovsky's final two novels (this one and Fire in the Blood) have seen the light of day because her oldest daughter stuffed the manuscripts in a suitcase when they fled. She didn't open the suitcase until the 1998 when she began to type out what she thought was her mother's diary in order to donate it to a French archive. She soon found that the presumed diary was a novel-in-progress and part of another novel (her father had the other half of Fire). She had Suite published in French in 2004 (translated into English in 2007) to much acclaim not to mention buzz that this might be the first WWII novel. Fire was published a year later in France and in late 2007 in English.

I really enjoyed the book. It has short chapters (which I LOVE) but is engaging so you want to read a million tiny chapters instead of treating them like stopping points. I'll definitely look into Fire and maybe her pre-war novels that won her fame during her life.

La Vie en Rose (2007)

It's been a very French year thus far. This film, Suite Francais by Irene Nemirovsky, the Parisian New Year's concert . . . . The other two are better than this film (thus far, I haven't finished the book yet).

I completely understand and even advocate the use of an untranslatable word in a book or refusing to include a glossary to help with translation. That makes sense and the meaning of the word can either be gleaned from context or simply looked up in a dictionary. What I cannot abide is a film's subtitles not translating everything. This is a film about Edith Piaf's music and musical career yet the lyrics are not subtitled. This seems more than slightly counterintuitive to me.

While that's the most prevalent problem with the film, it's not the only one. While Marion Cotillard does a fantastic job (worthy of her Oscar nom) just being Piaf (even with the various stages of age make-up), the wider cast of characters is a blur. There are quite a number of people in Piaf's entourage and I never caught their names. A prostitute becomes psychotically and overzealously attached in what could have only been a few months. Her mother and father are in and out of the plot line with no real exposition. One woman pops up from Piaf's youth as a confidant, is taken away in what I thought were her early 20s by her mother and the government (somehow, this is not explained), and randomly pops up later in Piaf's life dressed as a man at first (with no explanation) with what are clearly romantic inclinations although none of this is shown or referenced. When working as a street singer, Piaf gives most of her money to some random violent man--no explanation given. When she begins working in nightclubs, a man is killed and Piaf is questioned about her connections to the mob--no explanation is given. Another man helps her really begin her career--we don't really know who this man is or what his connections are. We never really see Piaf date a man until she sort-of dates a French boxer but apparently she had a child when she was in her late teens but that fact is only mentioned at the end of the film when she is dying--yet the death of this child prompted her heavy drinking and affiliation with less-than-desirable people. She was apparently married twice late in her life but this is only vaguely referred to late in the film (one marriage, not two) and apparently Marlene Dietrich was the maid of honor--who made an appearance as a character in the film although she's only identified as Marlene and the actress had a huge mole on her face that Marlene did not have and therefore the actress bore little resemblance to the famous actress. And Piaf died of liver cancer--the film isn't specific.

I shouldn't have had to look online for any of that info. The film should have filled me in on the details, especially considering that it spanned 2 hours and 20 minutes. It had the time to do so. I guess it's worth watching for Cotillard but be prepared for some unanswered questions and a long movie.

The Cutting Edge (1992) and Deep Impact (1998) (nat)

Whatever. They were on TV. I didn't feel well. I love The Cutting Edge (which, strangely, was written by the same guy who wrote Michael Clayton, the Bourne movies, and Armageddon and directed by a guy who directed an episode or two of one of Michael's TV shows, "The Agency" . . . odd connections). And I'd never seen Deep Impact (which was just fine and appropriately sappy and whatnot). I also re-watched Take the Lead the other night because it was on TV. That was satisfying, too.