Two very sad passings: Gloria Stuart and Sally Menke

The film world has suffered two great losses this week - of a familiar and unfamiliar name - but both were vital in their own ways.

The first loss, was, of course, Gloria Stuart, whom most people know as the elder Rose in Titanic.  She had a solid career in cinema's early days, having appeared in everything from movies with Shirley Temple to James Whale-directed frighteners like The Invisible Man and The Old Dark House. She never became a great star, a fact she lamented, but she was always a striking presence in those films. She wasn't quite the tough dame but not quite the damsel in distress, either. She occupied a fascinating middle ground, and had a very striking look.

Perhaps this is suggestion is a little too on the nose, but she had a fascinating life - and you know who I'd like to see play her in a biopic? Kate Winslet. It will probably never happen, but it's a tantalizing prospect.

On balance, though, it's probably better that she wasn't better known, because otherwise, she would not have gotten the part of Rose in Titanic - a part she played beautifully. Her Oscar nomination for that film wasn't just a case of "Let's give the old movie star something before it's too late" - she fully deserved her nod. Again, she struck just the right balance between spunkiness and sensitivity. And if you ask me, she, not Kim Basinger of LA Confidential - should have WON the Oscar. But living to be 100 was a great reward. Wasn't she a dish?

The other passing this week was of a woman whose name few people know, but her work has been seen and admired by millions, even if they don't know what exactly it is they're admiring. Sally Menke, who edited all of Quentin Tarantino's films, perished in a hiking accident Tuesday. She was only 56.

Many tributes to Menke will call attention to big action scenes like the fights in Kill Bill or the car chase in Death Proof - as well they should. Her work on those scenes was among the best of their kind. 

However, I think Menke's best work was in the kind of editing you're not supposed to notice, like the date between Vincent and Mia in Pulp Fiction - and no, I'm not talking about the dance scene or the needle into the heart. I'm talking about the conversations of the date. Check it out again and listen. They're perfectly balanced. Tarantino has said the date was originally much longer, but he and Menke cut it down to perfect effect so it had just the right air of mystery. 

Whenever Pulp Fiction is shown on TV now, it includes a scene excised from the theatrical cut - the "Beatles people vs. Elvis people" scene between Travolta and Thurman. It's a great scene. It's probably the most widely quoted scene that was not actually in a movie. But Menke and Tarantino were right to cut it, because it dispels the mystique around Thurman's character too soon. 

That's where Menke truly excelled. Check out her work in Jackie Brown, which I think is Tarantino's second-best film, and certainly his most mature one. That film juggles multiple characters and subplots, but the movie breathes just right. The viewer never gets lost and gets caught up in the overlapping stories. That's the mark of  a great editor. 

If you have Netflix, check out the editing documentary The Cutting Edge, which has interviews with Menke and Tarantino, and you'll see what I mean. More importantly, you'll learn more about an "invisible" art at which Menke excelled. (Note: The free streaming ends this Thursday, so catch it soon.)

For Sally, for Quentin and for us who love their movies,  final cut has come far too soon. 

Bye Sally.

REVIEW: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Maybe money never sleeps, but Oliver Stone's follow-up to his 1987 film comes closer than I expected to being drowsy.

It's a perfectly decent, enjoyable picture, but coming from a firebrand like Stone, it feels surprisingly tame. A movie with a plot wrapped around our economic woes would seem rife with dramatic possibilities, but it doesn't really mine them as deeply as I hoped.

The film begins with Gordon Gekko's release from prison, claiming among his belongings a mobile phone the size of a shoe. Crossing his path is - what else? - a young, opportunistic hustler, Jake Moore (Shia LeBeouf), who falls under Gekko's spell. Gekko may not be rolling in dough anymore, but he still has charisma to spare, and Jake is hooked.

And this time, the emotional stakes are high  - Jake just happens to be engaged to Gekko's estranged daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan) - and she refuses to have anything to do with her father.

On paper that sounds dramatically intense - on film, not so much. And that's strange. The actors all do good work. If anything, years of wear and tear on Gekko makes him more interesting for Douglas to play, and he does so to the hilt. Shia is well cast as the cocky rookie, and Mulligan is one of the brightest talents around. Stone directs the picture energetically, as well, creating several montages that pulse with energy, and the sequel moves fairly briskly.

Usually, however, if Stone errs, he does so by overplaying his hand, often underlining his points with sledgehammer dialogue. This time, however, the movie feels undercooked.

The original Wall Street had a fairly predictable plot, but it unfolded with a sense of urgency - and that sense is mostly missing here. And as is so often the case, I think the failure lies at script level. LaBeouf's character doesn't have much depth, so it's hard to develop a rooting interest in him. Gekko's daughter spends most of her time either scowling or crying - and not even Mulligan's considerable charisma can make her character compelling beyond surface level.

With all the financial peril in the headlines, the movie is certainly timely - and yet, in a strange way, maybe that's why it feels half -baked. Bombarded as we are with information 24/7 about the economy, a movie about it feels like old news by the time it comes out.

Wall Street famously told us that "greed is good." This new film tells us it's legal. As Gekko points out, his misdeeds were small time compared to today's financial shenanigans, and the sequel doesn't capitalize on that enough. The new movie doesn't crash, but it certainly doesn't explode either. GRADE: B-

Oeuvres: Oliver Stone

When many people think of Oliver Stone, the first word that comes to mind is "controversy." The first word that comes to my mind is "frustrating."

There is no doubt that Stone is a very skilled director. The trouble is, Stone himself often seems to doubt that.

Time and again in his films, Stone stages brilliant visual sequences, with his early- to mid-90s work being especially enthralling. Using hallucinatory imagery and innovative cutting, Stone's movies in this period were often hypnotic and mesmerizing.

However, his biggest flaw in all his movies is, he doesn't trust his own instincts. He'll do a great job pf making a point visually, then he'll beat the viewer over the head with truly ham-fisted dialogue that dilutes the power of the film. Sometimes the man just doesn't know how to get out of his own way - and more to the point, doesn't know when to shut the hell up.

When Stone does control his excesses, however, he's one of the best directors working. Here's my overview of his films I've seen, which excludes his early work. Given what I've heard about The Hand, that's probably all for the better. A review of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps will follow soon.

Salvador: The first part of a terrific one-two punch that established Stone as a director. The storytelling (and indeed the story itself) is a bit high strung, but James Woods' outstanding work as Richard Boyle carries the film. GRADE: B+

Platoon: If Salvador put Stone on the map, Platoon is the movie that made him an A-lister. Despite some overwrought dialogue, this is still the best Vietnam movie ever made. Sorry, Deer Hunter. Sorry, Apocalypse Now. And sorry, Full Metal Jacket. GRADE: A+

Wall Street: A movie about insider trading might not seem a ripe subject for high drama, but Stone pulls it off by getting some excellent performances from the cast and crafting fine, Scorsese-like visuals in some scenes. If only it were a bit less dramatically obvious ... GRADE: B+

Talk Radio: Few people have seen what is essentially a one-man show with Eric Bogosian as a caustic radio talk show host, and more's the pity. This is one of Stone's most underrated films, with the director and cinematographer Robert Richardson crafting striking imagery out of a limited setting. GRADE: A-

Born on the Fourth of July: The story of Vietnam vet Ron Kovic starts out very well, and then loses its way in the second half once Kovic comes home and struggles with his demons, and Stone struggles to keep his dramatics from overheating. Still, one of Tom Cruise's best performances makes it highly watchable. GRADE: B+

The Doors: Denis Leary summed up the dramatic arc of this film very well. "I'm drunk, I'm nobody; I'm drunk, I'm famous; I'm drunk, I'm dead." A fine lead performance by Val Kilmer and some trippy visuals can't save it. GRADE: C

JFK: Here is the film that is most emblematic of Stone's career. He crafts an astonishing look and feel for the movie, brilliantly capturing the paranoia surrounding the Kennedy assassination - then he undermines it with dull homefront sequences and courtroom speeches that don't just beat the audience over the head - they pummel it with a jackhammer. But even if one thinks it's BS as a historical document, it's visceral power deniable only by the foolish. Sadly, the only version available on DVD is the longer director's cut, which magnifies the flaws and is worth only a B. The theatrical cut is good enough to rate an A-.

Heaven and Earth: Stone's third film in his Vietnam triptych is the least successful. There are good performances and individual moments of power, but the story simply isn't especially well told. GRADE: C+

Natural Born Killers: If the script were as good as the direction, this would be one of Stone's best. As it is, it's the old familiar tale: great visuals, painful sledgehammer storytelling, For the wild imagery alone, though, it's unforgettable. GRADE: B+

Nixon: Stone takes his unorthodox, hypnotic visuals and makes them work in a most unexpected place: a presidential biography. And for once, the script doesn't undercut the film too badly. Terrific acting also bolsters this attempt not to condemn or pardon Nixon, but to understand him. GRADE: A

U-Turn: Once again, the visuals are hypnotic and the cast is solid - but this time the story is so undercooked as to barely be memorable. GRADE: C+

Any Given Sunday: Stone's football movie has some good acting, particularly from Al Pacino and Cameron Diaz, who turns in a surprisingly tough performance. They make it worth a look, but again, the story doesn't stick. GRADE: B-

Alexander: Hoo boy. All of Stone's worst tendencies come to the fore here. And this time, not even the visuals are enough to save what is a long, slow, and improbably boring mess. GRADE: D+

World Trade Center: Stone redeems himself by exercising restraint and simply telling a story straight and telling it very, very well. Some might miss Stone's florid images, but a story this powerful has no need for them. Excellent. GRADE: A+

W.: Stone's second attempt to understand an often vilified president isn't as successful as the first, partly because of cheap psychology,  and partly because Bush was still in office when this was made and so was unfinished.  It's just compelling enough to work, and Josh Brolin's lead performance is outstanding. GRADE: B 

To be continued ...

REVIEW: Easy A

Emma Stone has bloomed into a leading lady.  But she's not QUITE the "it" girl. And that's why Easy A truly lives up to its name.

Make no mistake - all those people who have hailed the movie as Stone's coming out party are absolutely correct. She is simply sensational playing a girl who enjoys her new notoriety as the school harlot after  the rumor mill buzzes that she's done it - never mind that she didn't.  I first took notice of her as someone to watch in Superbad. She was also great fun in The House Bunny, one of the few Happy Madison/Adam Sandler movies with at least half a brain. And she was great again in the hilarious Zombieland. 

Easy A marks the first time she has to carry a picture, and she doesn't just carry it - she gives it a piggyback ride, flips it in the air and then catches it again on her very capable shoulders. Stone is wonderfully sassy and sarcastic. At one point in the film, talking about The Scarlet Letter, she deadpans, "Make sure you watch the original, not the Demi Moore movie where she talks in a fake British accent and takes a lot of baths." Give that girl an Oscar nod, not just a Golden Globe nod.

And yet, it is almost possible to overpraise Stone. She's tremendous, but she isn't the whole show. Notice the number of talented adults in the cast: Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson as her parents. Thomas Haden Church as her favorite teacher. Lisa Kudrow as the guidance counselor All are terrific, and I don't think they all would have been here if the script by Bert V. Royal weren't crafted so well. 

Not only is Easy A very funny, it's also very smart - smart enough to give its story and characters real weight. I loved that the parents weren't the usual well-meaning dolts who come through with the pearls of wisdom at just the right moment. I loved the teacher's new world weary rant about Facebook, addict though I am. And I especially loved that Bert V. Royal's screenplay creates real consequences - there's much more at stake in the movie than mere popularity.

My only significant quibble is the overemphasis of the religious zealots who make Stone's life miserable. For one thing. lampooning these Bible-thumpers is akin to shooting fish (and loaves) in a barrel. And for another, Saved mined similar territory more gracefully. Amanda Bynes plays the ringleader very well, but Mandy Moore got there first and did it even better.

Even if the movie sometimes picks easy targets, it hits all of them. Easy A is the best high school comedy since Mean Girls - and like Mean Girls, it's not just for teens. This is a movie for people who graduated high school (and college) too. 

GRADE: A- (Natch)

REVIEW: The Town

Ben Affleck's The Town never really surprised me - and that's both a complaint and a compliment.

It seems to have surprised a number of my critical brethren, who have generally exclaimed, "Wow, Ben Affleck really CAN direct," and/or "Wow, the chick from Gossip Girl really CAN act!" While I agree on both counts, neither of these views surprised me. Affleck had already turned in the very assured Gone Baby Gone, and as such, I had faith in his talent. If Affleck cast Blake Lively, I was reasonably confident she could do something other than a wear a cleavage-baring dress.

Everyone in the A-list cast delivers, but I was most impressed by Rebeca Hall's touching, nuanced performance. From Vicky Cristina Barcelona to The Prestige to Please Give and beyond, Hall always makes for an engaging presence that suggests something intense lurking beneath her placid surface, and that's especially true here, where she plays a bank manager who unknowingly falls for one of the men who abducted her (Affleck). Jon Hamm proves himself a very capable  action hero of sorts, and Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) performs well as Affleck's hot-headed cohort, though I do hope Renner doesn't get typecast as "the loose cannon" too often.

What's truly impressive about The Town is what goes on behind the camera. Affleck directs cleanly and confidently, and what helps here are key behind-the-scenes personnel. His cinematographer is Robert Elswit and his editor is Dylan Tichenor, both Paul Thomas Anderson regulars. Other key collaborators include second-unit director Alexander Witt, and additional editor Christopher Rouse, both veterans of the Bourne series, who came in handy in shaping the complex and exciting action scenes.

As accomplished and enthralling as The Town often is, it doesn't quite hit the heights of other recent Boston crime dramas like The Departed or Mystic River, the latter of which is particularly echoed in this picture. The script, by Affleck, Aaron Stockard and Peter Craig, based on Chuck Hogan's  novel Prince of Thieves, unfolds rather predictably and isn't very good about misdirecting from its big reveals. Nothing here should come as a great surprise to anyone unless they've seen very few crime movies.  The ending, in particular, is too neat and tidy.

Still, The Town's flaws detract very little from it's considerable impact. Blake Lively should no longer have to atone for being a babe on a CW show, and Affleck does not have to atone for the J.Lo years either.

GRADE: A-

Second Rapunzel trailer less Tangled than the first

Disney has released a second trailer for its November fairy tale, Rapunzel, which I refuse to call by its more marketable than thou name.

That's appropriate, considering this trailer is much more Rapunzel-centric than the first trailer, which baffled many  people, including me. Disney seemed to be trying so hard to sell a princess movie to boys that it seemed to me to be in danger of selling its soul. It was just this sort of clouded thinking that contributed to Disney animation's decline in the past decade.

I will give credit where it's due. The new trailer is an improvement over the first. Maybe that's because I'm somewhat old-fashioned in my Disney tastes, and because I think Mandy Moore, who voices the lead, is an underrated talent.

But Disney isn't quite out of the woods here, in more ways than one. The trailer gives no indication that the movie is a musical, but it is - with songs by Alan Menken, no less - the composer of Disney's latter glory days who wrote the music for the "big three" - The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. Shouldn't that be a selling point?

Apparently not. Does Disney think that the mention of songs will send today's kids screaming for the hills, even in a more female-centric trailer?

Then again, Menken's partner on this picture is Glenn Slater, who collaborated with him on the utterly forgettable songs for the udderly forgettable Home on the Range, so maybe Disney has a point, though I prefer to give Menken the benefit of the doubt.

At the very least, this new trailer gives me more hope than the old trailer that Rapunzel will be a fun film - even if Disney's marketing is awfully tangled.

A few words on Jean Arthur/The Devil and Miss Jones

Jean Arthur rarely ranks among the very greatest stars of all time. That's both unfair - and kind of fitting.

It's unfair because Arthur had an irresistible charm, and what made it so irresistible was that she wasn't really trying to lay on the charm, like, say, Marilyn Monroe - she just naturally was. And yet her not falling into most greatest stars lists is appropriate, because she had a way about her that was different from other great players. She didn't have the effervescence of Audrey Hepburn or the snap of the other Hepburn, Kate - but her characters combined a shield of sass that masked a core of romanticism. That made her fascinating.

I've seen quite a few of her pictures (as they called them back in her day), and many of them are flat-out classics. Even if they're not, they're at the least very good, partly because she's in them. Such is the case with The Devil and Miss Jones (1941, Sam Wood) which I watched last night. Charles Coburn stars as an uber-wealthy department store owner who poses as a lowly employee to thwart unionizers  - and one of those employees is Arthur.

The movie loses focus whenever it concentrates on anyone besides Coburn and Arthur, especially toward the end, but on the whole, it's great fun and well worth seeing. Jean Arthur always is.

GRADE: B+

The Jean Arthur films I've seen:

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
You Can't Take it With You
Only Angels Have Wings
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
The Talk of the Town
A Foreign Affair
Shane

PS - Whatever you do, don't mix this up with The Devil IN Miss Jones. 'Nuff said.

Big ol' review catch-up

It's time to play catch-up with all the movies I've seen lately but not reviewed. And it's also time to make a fall resolution: to begin reviewing films as I watch them to generate more posts here and bring things back to life a bit.

On the Big Screen

I Am Love: I had heard many good things about this film, from Tilda Swinton's fine performances to the lush cinematography. Both are indeed pluses, but Luca Guadagnino's overly showy direction kept pushing me away from the story, making the film a near miss. GRADE: C+

The Kids are All Right: Outstanding performances from all five principals (Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson) combine with a canny, observant script to make this the indie film of the year. Attention, Academy: This is an EXCELLENT occasion to get Julianne Moore her Oscar. GRADE: A

Please Give: Nicole Holofcener's film about New Yorkers around an irascible old woman has many knowing moments and an excellent cast. but the screenplay is ambitious to a fault. Holofcener tries to cover so much ground, she doesn't find a shape for everything she has to say - but it connects often enough to work. GRADE: B

Restrepo:  This documentary about U.S. troops stationed at a particularlly deadly outpost in Afghanistan captures very well the mix of emotions involved in enduring such a place. I only wish it had devoted a little more time delving into the personalities of the individual soldiers. I would have liked to have known them better.GRADE: B+

Piranha: This goofy, lurid remake offers up a surprising number of genuine scares - and I would rate it even higher even if it didn't go for the sick gross-out gag a few times too often. This was shot in 3D, but I saw it flat at a drive-in, and I would say that I missed something - except I'm rather glad that a bloody dismembered penis didn't break the fourth wall. GRADE: B

Solitary Man: Note to filmmakers: When you make a movie about a completely irredeemable prick, you have to give the audience something to latch onto in the script or the direction. This movie fails to do that. A strong cast tries their best, but when I don't care if a terminally ill man lives or dies, something has failed to connect. GRADE: C-

Winter's Bone: Jennifer Lawrence's sensational performance as a young girl searching for her meth-head father has caused some people to mistake a very good film for a great one. The filmmaking is a bit too dry and ponderous, but Lawrence is a wonder. GRADE: B+

On the Small Screen

Following: Prototypical Christopher Nolan, which is to say that even in his early career, working in black and white with a shoestring budget, he was bending minds like no one else. I'd actually like to see him scale back and do something  more low-key again. GRADE: A

Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte: This high-camp follow-up to Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, also starring Bette Davis and directed by Robert Aldrich, plays like a decent sequel - it's not as good as the original, but it's delerious enough to be effective. It's especially fun to see Olivia de Havilland chewing scenery. And gee, poor Bruce Dern - between this and Marnie, it appears his early career was devoted to being bloodily dispatched. GRADE: B

The Old Man and the Sea: The filming of Ernest Hemingway's classic novel unsurprisingly gets most of its power from Spencer Tracy's performance, but it tries too hard to maintain Heminway's prose in distrracting voice over narration. That narration breaks Billy Wilder's writing rule: When using voice-over narration, don't tell the audience what they already see. GRADE: B

Wild Boys of the Road: This is one of many very fine movies I discovered via  Martin Scorsese's Personal Journey Through American Movies. Directed by William Wellman, the film plays like a junior version of the seminal I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang. The story structure is a bit repetitive (kids get in trouble, escape, kids get in trouble, escape), but it packs a punch nonetheless. GRADE: B+

The American is neither as good nor as bad as you've heard

On the one hand, there's Roger Ebert, who raves.

And then, on the other hand, there are members of the general public who rant.

Both reactions came  after seeing The American, George Clooney's latest film. Roger 4-starred it, but the general public forsook it, giving it a Cinemascore grade of D-. That's quite bad, considering the usually generous Cinemascore crowd rarely grades below a C.

Maybe it's the Libra in me, but I'm all about balancing the scales. As I so often do in disputes like this, I come down squarely in the middle. I LIKED The American, but I did not love it. I could understand why most audiences rejected it. The American is not for all tastes

If you harbor any resistance toward movies that are character studies -if you've never heard of director Michaelangelo Antonioni, whom Clooney's director Anton Corbijn tries to emulate - if your idea of a great action movie is anything with Stallone -  do  NOT see The American. You won't like it. You will find it about as exciting as watching a glacier melt. And the film movies at about the same speed.

But does that mean that if you like arthouse movies, and you know who Antonioni is, you will love The American? Not necessarily. I like arthouse movies and I know who Antonioni is, even though I've only ever seen Blow Up.  But I did not love The American. I thought the story of a weapons manufactuerer on the run was beautifully shot, with reliably solid work from George Clooney playing a lost soul.  Put in layman's terms, the theme of the movie is,  "It's no fun being a gunman." I found the idea of an assassin as a lonely soul was fascinating,

And yet, I found The American a little full of itself, a bit self-consciously pretentious. At heart, this is a tale best told as a short lasting an hour or less. But endless shots of Clooney's solitary  figure in a vast landscape overemphasize the themes of isolation and make the movie gaseous. There's just not much THERE there in the story. For me, that adds up to a good movie, not a great one. I'd give it a B.

So what do we learn from all this? Well, as many moviegoers have found out, trailers and TV spots can be deceptive. LA Times columnist Patrick Goldstein calls Focus Features disingenuous for knowing they had an arthouse movie on their hands but selling it as a thriller in the mold of Bourne or Bond.

But what else was Focus to do? If they sold the picture for what it really was, no one would have gone! People may come away hating the film, but it only cost about $30 million to make. It will turn a profit. Goldstein argues that Clooney may be hurt in the outcry over the film, but I doubt it. After all, this is a man who has made movies as uncommerical as Solaris and  The Good German. He's not going anywhere.

But you know who else could come out ahead in this? Critics.

That may sound preposterous because some people feel they got suckered by a movie those smarty-pants egghead critics liked. It just furthers the notion critics and Joe and Jane sixpack will never see eye to eye.

But you know what? The moral of the story is that even if you don't agree with critics, reading what we have to say will tell you what kind of film you're getting. We will tell you, better than the trailer, what the movie is like. You may not agree with us, but we'll be honest. Some people may say "If the critics like it, I'll hate it." Well, fine. So be it. Being used as a reverse divining rod is better than not being used at all.

But there's an even larger point to be made here. Movies come in all shapes and sizes, just like people do. Audiences may love Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, critics may hate it. Critics may like The American, even if audiences turn up their noses. And you know what? Both are OK. Neither means the death of American cinema. Popcorn flicks and arthouse fare will always be made, and as long as both are out there, then that's what matters.

The quote about movies I cite most often comes from Orson Welles, and it's especially apt here. He said, "To the movies, to good movies - to every possible kind."

He's right - even if you thought The American sucked.

Holiday movie preview: December/Undated

I changed the title of the blog post because even though most of December IS technically autumn, it just doesn't seem right to call it "fall," does it? On with the show ...

DECEMBER 10

The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader: The Narnia franchise moves from Disney to Fox, although I don't expect there will be much of a difference. One encouraging sign: the presence of the usually steady hand of Michael Apted behind the camera. PROSPECT: B

The Fighter: Amy Adams is in it, which is all I need to know, although I suppose it's also cool that Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg co-star and that David O. Russel (Three Kings, I (Heart) Huckabees) directs.  PROSPECT: A

The Tourist: The director of The Lives of Others makes a thriller with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie. On the basis of the names alone, I'm interested. I shall withhold further judgment until I see a trailer. PROSPECT: B

DECEMBER 17

How Do You Know: James L. Brooks directs Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd and Owen Wilson. Good enough for me, althrough it remains to be seen if this is closer to As Good as It Gets or Spanglish, the latter of which wasn't bad but needed an extra pass through the typewriter. PROSPECT: A

Tron Legacy: I had a big Tron Poster and the silly little electronic game when I was 12. I'm SO there. PROSPECT: A

Yogi Bear: Attention, Hollywood studios: Turning 2D cartoon characters into CG mutations is profoundly wrong and ugly, whether it's , Scooby-Doo, The Chipmunks or  Garfield. Enough!  PROSPECT: F

DECEMBER 22

Gulliver's Travels: I like Jack Black and Emily Blunt but I have to agree with IMDB that this has a very Land of the Lost vibe too it. I'm wary. PROSPECT: C

Little Fockers: I'm not quite so in love with this series as the general public, but not quite so down on it as some critics. The notion of trying to shoehorn in Dustin Hoffman at the last minute via pickup shots troubles me. PROSPECT: B

True Grit: The Coens remake John Wayne's Oscar winner with Jeff Bridges in the lead. How can one NOT be interested in that? PROSPECT: A

DECEMBER 29

The Debt: John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) directs Helen Mirren, Sam Worthington and Tom Wilkinson in a story about Mirren being a Mossad agent. The premise and the trailer are intriguing enough.

UNDATED LOCALLY

Another Year: Mike Leigh directs. Attention must always be paid on that fact alone. PROSPECT: B

Black Swan: Darren Aronofksy moves from The Wrestler to The Dancer in a gritty ballet movie that is generating very strong buzz, particularly for Natalie Portman's performance. PROSPECT: A

Fair Game: Don't worry, this is not a remake of the Billy Baldwin/Cindy Crawford caper, but the film version of the Valerie Plame story, starring Sean Penn and Naomi Watts and directed by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity). PROSPECT: A

The King's Speech: The King in question is George VI, father of Elizabeth II. Such period pieces often strike me as stuffy, but I can't fault the cast: Helena Bonham Carter, Colin Firth, Guy Pearce, Michael Gambon, Geoffrey Rush, Timothy Spall, Derek Jacobi. PROSPECT: B

I Love You Philip Morris: This has been jockeyed all over the schedule, probably because the distributor fears that the notion of Jim Carrey playing a gay man in a dramatic role will make people's heads explode. Here's what makes my head explode: it's directed by the guys who wrote Bad Santa. PROSPECT: B

Never Let Me Go: Adapted from a story by Kazuro Ishiguro, the author of The Remains of the Day,  the new film by Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo) has divided critics, with some saying it's a masterpiece and some saying it's too chilly and remote. But that very division is what intrigues me, along with the female leads: Keria Knightly and Carey Mulligan. PROSPECT: A

127 Hours: Danny Boyle follows up Slumdog Millionaire - and that's enough to hook me, but the premise ups the intrigue: a man becomes trapped under a boulder in a canyon and resorts to desperate measures to survive. PROSPECT: A

Somewhere: Sofia Coppola returns with a film about an actor (Stephen Dorff) holed up in the Chateau Marmont hotel, where his daughter (Elle Fanning) visits him. Dorff turns me off a bit, but Fanning is looking to match her sister in the eerie talent department. PROSPECT: A

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger: The buzz says that Woody Allen's latest is not one of his better movies, but as a film buff, I must obey the commandment: Thou Shalt Always Give Woody a Shot.

What fall/holiday movies are you most looking forward to? Least? I would put The Social Network in the "most" slot and Yogi Bear in the "least" slot.

Fall movie preview: November

Apologies for the delay in continuing this preview - work got very busy and I needed the Labor Day weekend to recharge. Depending on how you're viewing this entry, my September and October entries can be seen either by scrolling down or hitting the hyperlinks.

NOVEMBER 5

Due Date: The trailers for this certainly look amusing enough, but I hope this isn't a case of huge hit (The Hangover) followed by letdown. That's another way of saying I hope the best jokes aren't all in the ads. PROSPECT: B

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow is Enuf: Tyler Perry's movies have not interested me. Can't say if  this one, an adaptation of someone else's work, will be the one that hooks me. PROSPECT: C

Megamind: The good news is that DreamWorks has been on a strong streak of late, with How to Train Your Dragon and Shrek Forever After both being better than expected. The bad news is, the lead voice is Will Ferrell, whom I generally cannot stand. On the other hand. I did like him in Elf. We'll see. PROSPECT: B

NOVEMBER 12

Skyline: Yawn. Haven't we been through this before with War of the Worlds, Independence Day, Cloverfield,  etc. etc? It'll take more than a trailer showing the sky falling to hook me. Quite frankly, I'd be more interested if this were about the chili.  PROSPECT: C

Morning Glory: Rachel McAdams and Harrison Ford in a morning news environment, directed by Roger Michell, who made Notting Hill and the underrated Changing Lanes? We're on in 5, 4, 3, 2 ... PROSPECT: A

Unstoppable: Well, that was quick. Just last year, Tony Scott and Denzel Washington took a train ride with their remake of The Taking of Pelham 123. That movie was decent, but rather tepid. The premise of this one, an out-of-control train,  looks just ridiculous enough that this movie might be more entertaining. PROSPECT: B

NOVEMBER 19

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I: The trailer boldly calls this, "The Motion Picture Event of a Generation" - and it actually doesn't sound like so much hyperbole. After all, can YOU think of another long-running franchise that has been so consistent? Where even the least compelling film (my vote is Chamber of Secrets) is still pretty good? Not even James Bond has managed that. PROSPECT: A

The Next Three Days: This thriller starring Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks and directed by Paul Haggis, about Banks being accused of murder and Crowe trying to clear her, looks pretty good - so why is Lionsgate  putting it up against Potter, which EVERYONE is going to see? Either Lionsgate knows something we don't or has performed the dumbest counter-programming of all time. PROSPECT: B

NOVEMBER 24

Burlesque: Co-starring Cher and Christina Aguilera. Wow. Sounds like a train wreck. Just hope it's the good kind. PROSPECT: C

Faster: Dwayne Johnson and Billy Bob Thornton co-star in a revenge drama, directed by George Tillman, whose output is not all that distinguished. No read. PROSPECT: C




Love and Other Drugs: Anne Hathaway is earning very strong Oscar buzz for her reportedly sexually charged re-teaming with Brokeback Mountain star Jake Gyllenhaal - and this is romantic COMEDY, we're told. One blip is that the director is Edward Zwick, who is sometimes great (Glory) but is often middling (Blood Diamond, Defiance). PROSPECT: B

Red Dawn: Sigh - a remake of another movie where nostalgia clouds judgment, elevating a movie that was never that good in the first place. Casting for the Dirty Dancing reimagining in 5, 4, 3, 2 .... PROSPECT: C

Tangled: I really and truly hope the Disney magic is there with this musical fairy tale about Rapunzel. Yet I remain deeply suspicious of gearing the marketing to boys and changing the title in the wake of The Princess and the Frog's unspectacular box office. ("It underperformed because we didn't get the guys!") That's exactly the sort of corporate groupthink that stifled Disney animation in recent years. It would be the greatest joy of the season if the movie proved me wrong. PROSPECT : B

Fall movie preview: October

Ah, October 2010. It's looking to be an important month in a number of ways. Not only is it the month I turn 40, but it's also the month of some of the fall movies I most want to see - and some that I  least want to see.

In case you missed my September issue, click here.

OCTOBER 1

Case 39: This wouldn't be one of the movies, but I am sort of intrigued by the idea of Renee Zellweger heading up a horror flick. Let's just hope she's done a better job of picking scripts than she has of late. It would not be good if this were the bloody equivalent of New In Town. PROSPECT: B

Let Me In: This isn't the movie I was referring to either, but I AM very curious to see this one. Since it's the American remake of the well-loved vampire film Let the Right One In, some will dismiss it out of hand. I'm going to give it a chance. The director, Matt Reeves, has talent - he made Cloverfield. And the lead is ideal: she's  Chloe Grace Moretz, a bright young talent who was the best thing about Kick Ass. PROSPECT: B

The Social Network: What's on your mind? Eric Robinette is majorly stoked to see the movie about Facebook's formative years. He also wants to see Rooney Mara, AKA The Girl who Will Play Lisbeth Salander in the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo remake. Eric Robinette likes David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin. GRADE: A

OCTOBER 8

Buried: There was a time when I would have applauded the idea of Ryan Reynolds being buried in a coffin underground, in a schadenfreude sorta way. Now I applaud it for more sincere reasons. The premise and the trailers have got me quite intrigued. PROSPECT: A

Life as we Know It: Katherine Heigl in a romantic comedy. Blah. And to think that once actually sounded attractive. Not after junk like The Ugly Truth. And supposedly Takers. PROSPECT: C

My Soul to Take: Normally I would scoff at 3D horror, but Wes Craven directed. Gotta give him a shot. PROSPECT: B

Secretariat: It has a fine cast with Joan Allen, and a great true-life sports story in the titular horse, but a mediocre director in Randall Wallace (The Man in the Iron Mask) and a mediocre writer in Mike Rich, who piles on the sentimental glop in treacle like Radio. Unless the reviews come in strong, I'll pass. PROSPECT: C

OCTOBER 15

Jackass 3D: How to kill the 3D revival Part I. PROSPECT: F

Red: The good news: This thriller stars Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman and Helen Mirren. The bad news: It's from the writers of Whiteout and the indistinct director of Flightplan and The Time Traveler's Wife. Wait and see. PROSPECT: C

OCTOBER 22

Hereafter: All you have to say is "Clint Eastwood directs," and I'm in. Don't care what it is. PROSPECT: A

Paranormal Activity 2: I liked the first Blair Witch Project. I heard the Blair Witch sequel sucked. I liked Paranormal Activity. Why do I get the sense history is about to repeat itself? PROSPECT: C

OCTOBER 29

Saw 3D: How to Kill the 3D Revival Part II. PROSPECT: F

Fall movie preview: September

Having just returned from vacation, having played catch-up at work, and having noticed that it's now officially September, it's time to start the fall movie preview - even if it's officially still summer.

As always, each film gets a prospect grade, which goes like this.

A = Woohoo!
B = Cool
C = Eh.
D = *Mumble, grumble, gripe*
F=  #$!%!@$

Here's how September looks:

SEPTEMBER 3

The American: If George Clooney toplines a film, I'm automatically there. Even when he kinda-sorta misses (e.g. The Men Who Stare at Goats) he at least misses in an interesting way. Those expecting a Bourne-style thriller may be disappointed; this feels much more low-key and European. In fact, I've heard it resembles the work of Antonioni, which to me is not entirely a good thing -  much of his work strikes me as self-important. Still, this is one of the top picks for the month, kinda by default. PROSPECT: B

Going the Distance: On again/off again couple Drew Barrymore and Justin Long hook back up and - meh, can't find much of a reason to care. PROSPECT: C

Machete: The trailer from Grindhouse sprouts into a full-length movie. Looks rollicking enough, and I'll probably check it out, but Rodriguez's endless genre riffing is starting to feel a bit stale. PROSPECT: B

SEPTEMBER 10 

Resident Evil: Afterlife: I liked the first Resident Evil well enough, but not well enough to muster much interest in the sequels. PROSPECT: C

SEPTEMBER 17

Devil: This jeopardy in-an elevator thriller actually looked fairly intriguing until seven unlucky words popped up onscreen: "From the Mind of M. Night Shyamalan." What was once promising has become a total buzzkill.     I don't care if he didn't direct, his name has become a liability. Crowd in big cities have reportedly jeered when seeing Shyamalan's name - but it was happening in Dayton, Ohio too. Unless the reviews direct me otherwise, count me out. PROSPECT: D

Easy A: Teen comedies don't typically ring my bell, but this one has a funny premise (girl repeatedly fakes losing her virginity) and has a very appealing lead actress: Emma Stone, who was delightful in Superbad, The House Bunny and Zombieland, among others. Count me in. PROSPECT: B

The Town: I suppose one could say this looks a little too much like director Ben Affleck trying to be like Marty, but so what? The trailer is dynamite, and so is the cast. This is the movie I most want to see in September.  PROSPECT: A

SEPTEMBER 24

Legend of the Guardians - The Owls of Ga'Hoole: Gesundheit. And yeah, it looks like Happy Feathers as opposed to Happy Feet. But I am most intrigued by the director credit: Zack Snyder, that "visionary" who made 300 and Watchmen, but I won't hold the latter against him. PROSPECT: B

Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps: Maybe money never sleeps, but the quality of Oliver Stone's movies has sort of been snoozy lately. Still, a sequel is more than a little timely, and he has an excellent cast. Let's just hope he doesn't give Mr. LaBeouf an excuse to bad-mouth the movie months down the line. PROSPECT: B

You Again: Certainly has a likable roster of actors, including Sigourney Weaver, Kristen Bell and the ubiquitous Betty White, but I have no read on this one. PROSPECT: C

REVIEW: Eat Pray Love

Never have I identified so strongly with a movie I disliked as much as Eat Pray Love.

Now I know some female readers might be thinking, "That's because you're a guy."

Not so. I had been looking forward to this film all summer. I like Julia Roberts and I have a newfound appreciation for its director, Ryan Murphy, the creative force behind my new favorite TV show, Glee. Furthermore, I like movies of all types, including chick flicks, so long as they have a brain in their head and/or are enjoyably silly.

Alas, Eat Pray Love has a brain in its head, but there's a cold fish where its heart ought to be.

As a former colleague of mine (a female) so colorfully put it, "The premise, as I understand it (is) -- young, successful and wealthy woman has it all but decides she's not happy (boohoo) so she takes a year to travel around the world to find herself. Oh, PUH-LEEZE. And BARF!"

Part of me says, "Wait a second. I get it." I do understand the loneliness and isolation Gilbert feels, and I don't begrudge her playing Magellan. Granted, my circumstances are a little different. I'm an eternally single man who has lived completely by himself for more than seven years, without so much as a pet for a companion. I would love to find myself. I've been seriously questioning my habits and my personality, especially over the past year, considering I turn 40 in less than two months.  I would probably do the same thing Gilbert did if I had the money. I don't have the money, but I'm not going to play the envy card.  Gilbert can do what she wants with her wealth and write about it.

Unfortunately, Roberts and Murphy fail to make the journey compelling.  Gilbert, as played by Roberts, comes off as irritatingly self-possessed at first.  It's clear her husband (Billy Crudup) loves her and has done nothing "wrong" except to get caught in the cross-hairs of his wife's mid-life crisis. Later on in the film, Gilbert voices some fairly understandable reasons as to why she left, but the explanation comes too late. By that time, my attitude toward her character - and the movie - had already hardened. Not a good place to be when your story is less than halfway over.

It doesn't help that the text frequently sounds rehearsed and unnatural. When Roberts takes up with a hunky young actor (James Franco),  she says something like, "I felt like a character in a cartoon who dives into a glass of water and disappears completely." What in the name of Chuck Jones is THAT supposed to mean? That sounds Woody Allen on a bad day if he were to have a hot flash.

Every once in awhile, a glimmer of wisdom or poignancy cuts through all the emotional muck, particularly when Richard Jenkins (The Visitor) is on screen, portraying a man with a haunted past. He plays one heart-rending scene that made me realize there really was a story here, and made me wish the whole movie could have been that affecting.

But Murphy keeps shooting his own film in the foot. His pacing goes slack far too often, and he tends to resort to show-offy filmmaking (swirling cameras, Dutch tilts, fast cutting) that calls attention to itself. For a man who has had such great success with a show about singers, Murphy keeps failing to hit the right notes.

Roberts tries hard to give the material some emotional weight, but she struggles against two things: an unsympathetic character, and her own vivacious persona. There are too many Julia-isms, such as that horsey laugh, which gets overused and clashes with the character.

Some may claim that you have to read the book to appreciate the movie. I counter that if a viewer has to read a book to understand a movie, then the movie has failed. Eat Pray Love is a noble effort, but in the end, it succeeds at little more than being a very attractive advertisement that would be more at home on the Travel Channel or the Food Network.

GRADE: C-

REVIEW: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

The first thought that came to my mind after I saw Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was "Why isn't Mary Elizabeth Winstead a bigger star?"

That may strike some as a strange reaction since they might be geeking out over the wild candy-colored visuals and video game theatrics. And still others who know me may roll their eyes a bit, knowing my predilection for charming young actresses such as Amy Adam, Lea Michele and  Anna Kendrick. Added bonus: Kendrick is in this movie as well! Ah, me.

But hear me out here. I'm not just being mooney-eyed, I'm utterly serious. Winstead (who was also in Sky High, Live Free or Die Hard and Grindhouse) is a key part of what makes this very imaginative movie work. Of course, she has to be an object of desire. Not a challenge. But she also has to project an contradictory air of approachability and aloofness. Her Romana has to be charming enough to be endearing, but she  must also give the impression of someone who has been around the block  several times and is therefore hard to impress. When a guy gets her, he has to feel he's not only jumped through a hoop to get her, but through a ring of fire.

And in the case of Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera), that ring of fire is not just a figure of speech. Not long after he and Ramona start to date, Scott discovers he must defeat her seven evil exes, all of whom have super powers of some kind. Strangely enough, so does Scott, when provoked.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is an invigorating ode to comic books and especially video games. And it struck me how much I enjoyed all the play, because out of all the arenas of pop culture, comic books and video games are the ones I am least plugged into.

However, director Edgar Wright makes those worlds collide with considerable visual ingenuity. The imaginative, offbeat filmmaker who gave us Shaun of the Dead and the even better Hot Fuzz has loads of fun with the visuals. Not only do Batman-esques POWs and BAMs appear on screen, so do little animated hearts in a love scene, or  D's thundering from a bass. And Wright sometimes deploys text-on-screen descriptors of the characters as well. (Begin film geek talk). He also mixes aspect ratios, shooting most of the movie in the flat 1.85 ratio, but switching to anamorphic lenses and the Scope ratio for many of the fight scenes. (End film geek talk).

Scott Pilgrim has much of the same visual playfulness that pervaded the Wachowski Brothers' Speed Racer, but Scott Pilgrim has something that Speed Racer was missing: human connection. There's the aforementioned Winstead, but Cera fills the bill nicely in the title role. Yes, he's once again playing the charming geek, but he puts a nice spin on it with all the physical acting the part requires. Ellen Wong is spirited and touching as Knives Chau, the teenager who crushes on Scott, but is crushed in turn when he falls for Ramona.

Sometimes Scott Pilgrim vs. the World gets a little too spirited for its own good, as the action threatens to overwhelm the characters, especially in the overstuffed climax, but the charm of the actors keeps the movie in check. Whether it makes Mary Elizabeth Winstead a bigger star or not, I hope it finds an audience that isn't just geeky.

GRADE: B+

More Winstead goodness: A scene from Tarantino's Death Proof, in which she shows some impressive vocal chops. So we have an actress who sings, sings a song sung by the Beatles  - and sings it WELL.



Quentin should have kept this scene and deleted some of that blather he left in the movie.

The day I met Patricia Neal

Forgive me, my blog title is a bit of a misnomer. I never truly "met" Patricia Neal, who died on Sunday  - at least not in the sense that I walked up to her, shook her hand  and chit-chatted.

However, I did get to see her in the spring of 2008, when she paid a visit to the Sci-Fi Marathon in Columbus I go to most every year. She was there because the marathon was playing the film for which geeks know her best: The Day the Earth Should Still. On the strength of probably the most famous non-English line in the history of film -  "Klaatu barada nikto"  - she earned a place in cinema immortality. 

But she was so much more than that. She was a fascinating mixture - a striking beauty whose face could express a cornucopia of emotions in only a few seconds. She had real sass; she was the kind of lady who could probably be called a broad, and she'd take it as a compliment.

And then there was that VOICE of hers. The one that didn't sound quite feminine or quite masculine. I've heart it described as "husky" or "molasses," but to me it was like fine sandpaper - rough around the edges but smooth to the touch.

As any of her obituaries will tell you, she had to endure more trauma than even a lowlife should have to. And yet, through her steely will, she managed to bounce back and hang tough.

And she was that way when I saw her. She was already in frail health and had to be brought in on a wheelchair. Her memory seemed a bit foggy, but what she lacked in recall she made up for in personality. She hadn't lost an ounce of that. She was vivid and playful as she recalled her career - especially the time she fell in love with Gary Cooper when they made The Fountainhead. Even all those decades later, she still had a dreamy quality in her voice when she talked about him. Who could blame her?

When it came to The Day the Earth Stood Still, she recalled how at the time, nobody had any idea they were making anything that would last - yet last it has. When her interviewer brought up the fact that the movie was being remade (wretchedly, it turned out) with Keanu Reeves in the lead, she queried "Who??" 

The crowd ROARED. I don't think Neal was really trying to be funny, but the WAY she said it, with that voice, was priceless. 

She said her favorite movie of hers was Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd, and that is a very fine choice. Its demonstration of how the power of the media can make millions buy into a charlatan seems more prescient than ever these days. 

However, the movie in which she gave her best performance was, for me, the one for which she won her Oscar - 1963's Hud. Not many actresses could play haunted sensuality, but Neal could - vividly. 

Toward the end of that film, Paul Newman says to her, "I'll always remember you, honey - you're the one that got away." 

We'll always remember Patricia Neal, but she'll never get away, as long as there's a movie screen to flicker somewhere, on the faces in the crowd.

For more fine reading, check out EW's list of her essential performances, and critic Joe Leydon's recollections of Neal.

"Classics" that have not aged well

The summer movie series at the Victoria Theater in Dayton goes by the name, the Hot Times Cool Films series, but I and others tend to give it the informal name of the "classic movie series."

Lately, though, I've found out that the word "classic" does not fit every movie in the series. Twice this year, Victoria has shown films many people have called "classics." Yet after watching two titles in particular this season, I can only ask, "Really?"

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: I first saw this film at home several years ago and liked it quite a lot. Seeing it on the big screen, however, seemed to rob it of its luster.

Don't get me wrong. I like the film. It's a  good movie. It has a lot to recommend it. It's beautifully shot by the great Conrad L. Hall, who won an Oscar. (He would win two more, for Sam Mendes' American Beauty and Road to Perdition.) The chemistry between Paul Newman and Robert Redford is undeniable. The scene that constantly gets shown in clip-fests - the jump into the gorge - is a great scene.

However, one scene does not a great movie make. And one of the chief reasons is that practically every frame SCREAMS "late 60s." The chief offender here is the "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head." scene. It's cute, but it's the prime example of what Roger Ebert called "The Semi-Obligatory Musical Interlude."

Scene in which soft focus and slow motion are used while a would-be hit song is performed on the sound track and the lovers run through a pastoral setting. Common from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s; replaced in 1980s with the Semi-Obligatory Music Video.

The song won the Best Picture Oscar, and it's the kind of win that rankles me. I prefer it when a song actually serves the movie and isn't just window dressing, or a song to slow-dance to with your sweetie. Sure, "Raindrops" is a fun little tune, but the scene in the film has absolutely NOTHING to do with advancing the story. Zippo. Not only does the scene stop the movie cold, it even focuses on the wrong pair. It's Redford and Katharine Ross who are the couple - yet the scene shows Ross and Newman goofing around on a bicycle. Quite honestly, I think Sam Raimi made better use of the song in Spider-Man 2.

And it's not just the pastoral scene that feels off. The violence at the end, which is quite bloody, seems stolen from Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, which came out at the same time. That's dates the George Roy Hill film too.

I wouldn't necessarily say that Newman and Redford's follow-up film, The Sting, deserved to win Best Picture, but it's a much more entertaining film that doesn't seem quite so musty as Butch and Sundance do.

National Lampoon's Animal House: Victoria dubbed this film a "new classic," but neither word is accurate.   For a comedy with its reputation, I was surprised at how little I laughed.

Part of the problem may be my general distaste for the "drink all night, party every day, screw everything that moves" frat culture. The film revels in it. But another part of the problem is that even though it's set in the early 60s, it looks and feels VERY late 70s, from its flat lighting to its Studio 54-era hedonism. That just doesn't play as well now.

Most of my laughs came courtesy of John Belushi, who was a force of nature in this film (and pretty much everything else he did). But I didn't care about anybody else, aside from Karen Allen. If Victoria had to show a wild John Belushi movie from the same period, they would have been better off booking The Blues Brothers. Heck, they would have been better off booking Steven Spielberg's infamous 1941, which is not very good, but is better than its reputation suggests - and it's funnier than Animal House.

Robin Williams liked to joke that "If you could remember the 60s, you weren't really there." It seems the same is true of the late 70s. Animal House is called a classic mainly by people who say the word "man" after "classic." And how funny it is, I think, is directly proportional to how much beer you drank or pot you smoked in college (or high school).

Now it's discussion time. What "classics" didn't seem so classic when you finally saw them?  Perhaps we could make an anti-classics thread to go along with the classics one I intend to revive later.

Fire away at the overrated!

REVIEW: Salt

Salt preposterously entertained me. 

Much like the Bond movies it's so eager to emulate, Salt is often ridiculous and unbelievable - but most of the time, that's part of the fun. I found myself saying, "Yeah, right" a lot during the film - and that did indeed feel right. Suspension of disbelief, when it's executed well, can be thrilling, and it was in this movie, even when my eyes were rolling about as much as one of the stuntmen (or women).  

The other thing that struck me about this Angelina Jolie caper was how much it felt like a throwback. Oh, sure, it has many modern trappings, but the straight-ahead cleanly shot and edited action was rather refreshing when shots in some action movies don't last longer than two seconds. 

It really pays to take notice of the credits. Three names stood out to me. Chief among these was director Phillip Noyce, who is best known on these shores for the two Harrison Ford Jack Ryan movies, Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. He's a very solid action helmer, and this, I think,  is his best American film. 

Another name that stood out was cinematographer Robert Elswit. He's best known as Paul Thomas Anderson's regular DP, but he's also a very capable action shooter, having lensed the 1997 Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies. And one of the editors is Stuart Baird, Richard Donner's regular editor who cut Casino Royale, the best Bond film of at least the past 30 years.

Their contributions make the action in Salt fun to watch. It felt almost old school in a way, watching action scenes in which I could tell who was slugging whom. That stands out in the era of whiplash editing that so marred the last Bond entry, Quantum of Solace, and pretty much any movie directed by Michael Bay. 

Where Salt does come up a little short is in the humanity department. The gambit of Kurt Wimmer's twisty screenplay is that it doesn't want us to know for sure where Salt's allegiance lies, and that makes the story intriguing for awhile - but it also makes the character somewhat impenetrable. The saving grace is Jolie's considerable charisma - she made me want to root for her by sheer force of will. 

I'm not sure if Salt has done well enough to warrant a follow-up, but I woudn't mind at all, especially since the future of the Bond franchise is uncertain. Her first adventure was like one of his martinis - I wasn't all that stirred, but I was definitely shaken. 

GRADE: B+

Director vs. Director, Round 1

My Facebook friend and fellow movie buff Justin Wasson has come up with a fun game on Facebook wherein he pits various directors against each other, and then his Facebook friends choose one over the other and the directors narrow down through the rounds. Kinda like NCAA brackets for movie geeks.

I had fun casting my votes in the game, so I thought I would list the various "fights" and rationalize my choices.  I don't think there's any real rhyme or reason to pit a particular director over another, although I'm convinced that one particular fight HAS to be for comic effect.

Wes Craven vs. Richard Donner: Both quality directors in the horror and action genres, respectively.  I tapped Donner, because Donner has never made a movie as allegedly bad as Shocker or Vampire in Brooklyn.

Quentin Tarantino vs. John Carpenter: QT certainly has more buzz lately, while Carpenter  has been inactive for awhile. Carpenter hasn't made a truly decent movie in decades, but he gets the nod on the strength of classics like Assault on Precinct 13 and Halloween. Tarantino, while indisputably one of the most important directors to gain prominence in the 90s, has gown increasingly adolescent and self-indulgent. And yes, that includes the overrated Inglourious Basterds, which is a "handful of scenes in search of a real movie," as Leonard Maltin aptly put it.

John Landis vs. Robert Rodriguez: This one was a bit tough for me. Landis' career is much longer in the tooth, but Rodriguez has been in a bit of a slump lately. Still, I went for Rodriguez for his visual and low-budget ingenuity.

Tony Scott vs. Terry Gilliam: This one, on the other hand, was easy. Even on an off day, Gilliam is more interesting than Tony Scott on an on day.

Tim Burton vs. Bryan Singer: I went with Burton, who has more of a personality (in several senses of the word) - even though the disappointment of Alice in Wonderland is still fresh.

Martin Scorsese vs. James Cameron: Marty trumps EVERYBODY. Simple as that.

Brian De Palma, vs. Michael Mann: Mann, for the very simple reason that he has never made a movie as wretched as The Bonfire of the Vanities.

Oliver Stone vs. George Lucas: I have a feeling people may stone me for this (rim shot), but I pick Lucas. Stone may be more visually bold (and reckless),  but Lucas made Star Wars, and that fact remains, despite the existence of Jar Jar Binks.

The Coen Brothers vs. David Fincher: Both great, but I went with the Coens for their versatility. Fincher's style is easily imitated. The Coens' is not, because they keep switching up their game.

Gus Van Sant vs. Steven Spielberg: Van Sant may be hipper, but few people are as visually intuitive as Steven.

Ridley Scott vs. Christopher Nolan: Nolan is the best director of the last 10 years, hands down. Scott has been maddeningly inconsistent, especially in the last 10 years.

Robert Zemeckis vs. Spike Lee: A bit of a tough call. Both, at their best, are stellar. So that's why if either one misses, it tends to stand out. I go with Zemeckis, who has missed less often, and who I really wish would go back to making live action movies and drop this motion capture obsession.

Francis Ford Coppola vs. Sam Raimi: I have to say I was dismayed when Justin told me Raimi won this round. Nothing against Raimi, and I suppose you could use my De Palma logic and claim that Raimi has never made a movie as bad as Jack. The other side of that coin, however, is that Raimi has never made a movie as good as The Godfather. Come ON, people! Have a sense of history!

Robert Altman vs. Michael Bay: If you pick Bay over Altman, you should never be allowed to watch a movie again. Ever.

The Wachowksis vs. Kevin Smith: Smith is better storyteller, because he's a better writer. However, since this contest judges directing, I have to go with the Wachowskis. Even when their movies are messes, they're ambitious messes.

Ron Howard vs. Guy Ritchie: When you make a movie as allegedly bad as Swept Away, you're automatically disqualified.

Justin has already posted Round Two (did so as I was typing this), so I will post on that later. For now, I feel inspired to go watch Zemeckis' Used Cars, which I have not seen in awhile, and the one film of Chris Nolan's I've not seen: Following.

Every movie I've seen so far in 2010

My apologies for being so remiss in posting to this blog lately. My job has kept me quite busy so that I write/edit all day, and then I'm out of energy to write/edit some more when I am at home.

I think what I will do is start to write shorter posts just to keep the blog going more often - and you know, I really should revive that long-dormant Favorite movies project that was so much fun earlier this year.

At least that's the plan for now. I seem to change my methodology every few months, so consistency is not my strong suit! ;) And honestly, I haven't seen a whole lot lately - most of my theatrical viewing has been repeat visits to Inception, which I have now seen five times.

I still need to review Salt, which was actually quite good, but that's a project for another day. For the moment, here's a quick and easy idea: Since I JUST compiled a half-year best-of list, it only follows that I should post a half-year movie viewing list. This is everything I've seen so far this year, on the big screen and the small.

Now I'm off to watch Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte, since I just recently saw Whatever Happened to Baby Jane,  the other Robert Aldrich film featuring two cat-fighting movie idols, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Charlotte features Davis and Olivia de Haviland. Sounds almost as tasty.

1. It's Complicated    B
2. Up in the Air         A+
3. Sherlock Holmes    C+
4. Avatar     A+
5. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus B
6. The Lovely Bones B+
7. Leap Year B-
8. Crazy Heart A-
9. Edge of Darkness B+
10. A Single Man D
11. Shutter Island  x3 A
12. Precious A-
13. The Blind Side B+
14. Inglourious Basterds B
15. Up A+
16. A Serious Man A+
17. The Hurt Locker A-
18. An Education A
19. District 9 A
20. Alice in Wonderland C
21. Green Zone B+
22. How to Train Your Dragon A
23. Chloe  B+
24. The Ghost Writer B+
25. The White Ribbon B+
26. Diary of a Wimpy Kid B-
27. Blade Runner B
28. Ink D+
29. Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission B+
30. Sleep Dealer B+
31. Godzilla vs. King Ghidora C+
32. Star Trek A
33. Galaxina F
34. 2010 B
35. The Runaways B+
36. Hot Tub Time Machine B
37. Kick-Ass B+
38. Iron Man 2 B
39. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo A
40. Greenberg C
41. Robin Hood C+
42. Shrek Forever After B+
43. Splice B+
44. Singin in the Rain A+
45. Get Him to the Greek B-
46. Some Like It Hot A+
47. Toy Story 3 X2 A+
48. Sherlock Jr. A+
49. Seven Chances A-
50. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? B+
51. Waking Sleeping Beauty A
52. Knight and Day C-
53. The Music Man A
54. All About Eve A+
55. Psycho A+
56. Despicable Me A-
57. Inception X5 A+
58. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid B
59. The Girl Who Played with Fire B+
60. Salt B+

On the small screen

1. The Girlfriend Experience B
2. Dodsworth A
3. The Heiress A+
4. The Fox and the Hound B+
5. The Great Mouse Detective B+
6. The Private Lives of Sherlock Holmes A-
7. The Major and the Minor B+
8. A Guy Named Joe B
9. Moonlight Serenade C
10. Baby Doll B+
11. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof A-
12. The Paradine Case C+
13. Deception A-
14. Cleopatra (1934) B+
15. In the Loop C-
16. Seven Days in May A-
17. Lady for a Day A-
18. Zero Hour! B
19. Confederate States of America C-
20. The Diary of Anne Frank A-
21. Life After Tomorrow A-
22. American Pimp B
23. 3 Godfathers A-
24. Where the Truth Lies B
25. The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer B
26. Bugs Bunnny Superstar   B+
27. The Uninvited B
28. The Nun's Story A
29. Broken Embraces B+
30. Summertime B+
31. Red Cliff B
32. A Foreign Affair A-
33. Targets A
34. Seconds A-
35. Make Way for Tomorrow A
36. Annie Oakley B+
37. The Eastwood Factor B+
38. Rumble Fish B-
39. Peggy Sue Got Married B
40. Tetro  A-
41. New Moon C
42. Picture This A
43. Reds B+
44. American Madness A
45. Only Angels Have Wings B+
46. Wild Boys of the Road B+
47. The Old Man and the Sea B