Coraline: A Creative Morality Tale for Children of Academics and Other Rustabouts

If you're looking for a new movie to put onto the Ten Best Animated Movies for Traumatizing Kids list, Coraline may be the one.

Caroline, an animated film based on an award-winning 2002 children's dark fairy tale, falls into the genre created by Lemmony Snicket and Hayo Miyazaki's Spirited Away: dark, animated children's stories about children entering a psychological netherworld of monsters and demons, and learning lessons in the process of escape.

In Caroline's case, her parents have moved her from Michigan to a big, damp Victorian boarding house in the cloudy northwest, where she broods and waxes sarcastic as she finds herself immensely bored: until she discovers a closet in the wall that leads her to a secret life of wish-fullfilment and danger.

Without going into spoilers, what I can tell you is that this movie has a subtle, anti-convention subversive moral. It seems to be the kind of story that university professors would tell their bored children who protested their academic careers wishing to have more "normal" doting parents; normal, here, being the equivalent of a kind of creeping evil. There's also a distinct anti-traditional-values theme happening. The movie seems to be saying that the worse thing that could happen to a child is a doting, stay-at-home mother. Coraline's name after all is Coraline, not Caroline, with the vowels reversed as a kind of badge of uniqueness and pride. To be Caroline and not Coraline would be to be merely normal, maybe even a zombie.

Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that moral. It's just that unlike the heroines in Spirited Away or even a movie like Pan's Labyrinth, this moral about not fitting in is simpler, and Coraline doesn't really need to learn much in the process of escaping the predicament she's gotten herself into.

But aside from this, the look of Coraline is amazing; for eyes grown bored with 3G animation the creativity here keeps us watching in awe through the movie. Equally compelling is the storytelling. The supporting characters are all fully entertaining, with thespians like Jennifer Suanders (of "Ab Fab" and "Shrek" fame) and Ian McShane (of "Deadwood") lending their fabulous vocals. The opening sequence astounded the audience, and you could hear the gasps of awe and disturbance as the sequence ended, leaving everyone with a creepy feeling and a million questions. This isn't the goth vision of Tim Burton - it's got a little more Disney to it than that - which is why the dark happenings seem even more disturbing. There is also a friend for Coraline, a boy named Wybie - as well as, as there often seems to be in these films - a wise and helpful cat, and Coraline's growth to appreciate them both (and they her) adds a dimension to the story that takes it beyond a simple adventure fairy tale.

And as I said, it is a movie designed for scaring young children. Not recommended for kids under seven, though older children will find the animated sequences entertaining and the story compelling. And adults, too, may enjoy the look and the imagination of this nice little film.

Taken: Take This Movie, Please

February is traditionally the deadest month for cinema (yes, pun intended). More specifically - the time between the Oscar nominations and the awards ceremony. That's when the studios dump all the duds in their vault on the Oscar-movie-laden public. It's a form of counter-programming.

Sometimes this kind of February-cum-summer-movie programming can be a fun escape. Unfortunately, this was not the case with Taken, an uninspired 24 rip-off that in comparison makes Jack Bower seem like the world's most suave diplomat.

Taken - staring Liam Neeson, as retired spy Bryan Mills, in the unlikely rogue agent role - operates under the kind of least common denominator philosophy that if one bad is good, more bad must be better. Thus we get not one kidnapped victim, but two; not one set of baddies to dispatch, but three. Ratcheting up the murder-to-pleasure ratio is fine, but this movie wants to OD on it. The bad guys not only don't mind kidnapping, drugging, raping, and selling Bryan's daughter in front of his face, they don't even want to negotiate with him. Naturally they deserved to be killed in the most gruesome ways possible, though even the killing could have used a little more imagination.

Basically, if you've seen any other thriller (starting with 24) you already know the plot of this movie: innocent girl is kidnapped; Daddy has the "skills" to go after and karate chop the killers like James Bond on speed. There's not much else to this movie except ripping off scenes from better thrillers (such as the car chase in Ronin, a James Bond stunt scene, or Bourne Identity style detective work). So I've gotta ask: what director stages a car chase scene where all the cars, including the hero's, are the same model white truck? You can't even tell who's chasing whom. And let's not forget that Mr. Mills has a bitch of an ex that would make Alan Harper on Two and a Half Men blush. Naturally the whole point of this exercise seems to be so that she can come around to embrace our guy as a hero at the end.

Then there's the fact that the two kidnapped girls are total Britteny's. Getting a pony from your super rich Daddy in your gargantuan mansion for your eighteenth birthday doesn't exactly make them relatable to 99.99% of the audience. And they kind of make being kidnapped, drugged, and sold into white slavery seem like another form of Eurail pass. I totally don't understand the character of this bubblishish airhead daughter who is supposed to be the object of all this excitement. If it were up to me, I'd think twice about executing the entire expatriate population of Albania just to get her back. I do, however, feel sorry for Mr. Neeson, whose career seems to be on the skids having to helm this kind of script.

But I have a great way to improve this movie: The Wayans brothers should have stared as the kidnapped girls. At least that way the laughter in the audience would have been intentional.

So now I've probably dished this movie enough and should point out the few things that keep me from giving it a total zero. First, the issue of white slavery is kind of interesting, and I do think there's some imagination going into illustrating how this whole seedy operation works. They obviously watched enough documentaries on the subject to give the screenplay an air of authenticity.

And then there's Neeson, who even with this flat character is able to turn in a watchable performance. He seems to be a guy totally uncomfortable with his own prowess, like a reluctant tiger who kills because he's being bothered by a tick on his neck, and his creates a kind of nervous intensity that carries you through the hour an a half. He is a pussy whipped superspy who can take out a squadron of armed assassins with his bare hands but can't come up with a simple retort to his ex wife - I suppose that's some writer's idea of a delicious irony but I just found it irritatingly implausible. Nevertheless, Neeson kind of sees his way through this character enough to get you past the contradictions in the set up and well into the second act before you fully realize just how under imagined everything else in this story is going to be.

And then I will also say this: the movie has a beginning, a middle, and an end. That may sound a bit condescending, but I actually mean that as a compliment. A lot of better movies can't even do that, and I give this one kudos for picking a story and sticking to it. There's no doubt that this script knew where it was going from the start and it certainly knew how to get there.

I'm just not sure I wanted to go there. Fortunately, the audience I saw the movie with was self entertaining. If it hadn't been for their laughter and fun comments as the story unwound, the second half of the film wouldn't have been nearly as bearable.

Oscar Best Picture Nominations 2009

Need a guide to the best picture nominations for 2009? Wondering which picture is going to win? Here's the lowdown of the five pictures in contention.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - This traditional Hollywood tearjerker has everything Oscar loves, including the most nominations of any film in the Best Movie category (13). So it should be the front-runner, no? Think again: Oscar voters, like the public, are getting younger, and the old Hollywood tearjerkers may not have the pull they once did. But since this one was directed by David Fincher (director of dark movies like Seven, Fight Club, and Zodiac), is more "about death" than love, and stars a pretty-boy actor bravely facing old-age makeup, don't count out the chances that the expected favorite may come out on top. Still, despite the grand ambitions and the heap of talent kept employed by the making of this studio tent pole, many thought this film was a bit too long, and a bit saggy in the middle...so the field is wide open.

Frost / Nixon - This political boxing match between a TV-show-host-wannabe-reporter and tricky Dick Nixon has a knock-out performance by character actor Frank Langella, a well-deserved nominated screenplay, and the political timing at its back. Hollywood loves a good criminal Republican administration to dish, and Ron Howard's astute direction elevates this film to one of the best of the year. Still, political stage plays are long-shots on Oscar night.

Milk - the story of assassinated gay-rights activist Harvey Milk, and how he prevented the passage of the anti-gay Prop 6 in California in the 1970's, may assuage the angst of Hollywood over the recent passage of Prop 8. Gus van Sant is the "in" director in Hollywood right now (via his appearance in "Entourage") and Sean Penn's transformation into a middle-aged, gay, Jewish accountant-turned activist is uncanny. Oscar warmed up to this previously overlooked film (snubbed by the Globes) and rightly saw the talent behind the message. Could the Academy be preparing to right the wrong that was done to Brokeback two years ago? But Hollywood doesn't do regret, and the "gay movie" is still fighting an uphill battle: Those who thought Brokeback was a shoe-in may be setting themselves up for disappointment if they have equal hopes for Milk.

The Reader - This story of a mysterious German woman with a past who seduces a high-school student...who later grows up to be, shall we say, more than a little changed by his encounter - is perhaps the most surprising and original movie of the year. Kate Winslet is golden this year (her Best Actress nomination for The Reader rather than Revolutionary Road was a surprise, but she's still the favorite for it). The Holocaust subject matter may be a hard sell for most audiences, but on Oscar night, quality can still win out, and this little movie, tough as the subject matter may be, is flawless.

Slumdog Millionaire - The story of an impoverished Bombay "slumdog" who escapes poverty and wins the heart of the girl through his appearance on "Who Wants to Be A Millionaire" - and the story of an impoverished movie that wins the heart of Hollywood executives and gets made despite the odds - has infatuated both audiences and the movie industry, and come to be the sentimental favorite for this year's best picture. But has the sentiment peaked too early? Excessive weeks of good sentiment may start to seem like hype, allowing Academy voters to re-consider some of the other films on the slate: and those films, all of which are top quality, provide serious competition.

Frost / Nixon Reach Oscars After Going All Twelve Rounds

The title of the movie is Frost / Nixon with a slash...but it should be Frost v. Nixon - as in an HBO boxing special. For the boxing metaphor is the central organizing principle that Peter Morgan has set up in his play about TV Host David Frost's first public interview after Nixon's impeachment.

In this corner: David Frost, handsome, breezy international playboy, social butterfly, and lightweight TV-comedian turned Australian talk-show host, looking for a way back into the U.S. prime-time television limelight, and played with earnest enthusiasm by Michael Sheen.

In the other corner: Richard M. Nixon, aging right-wing paragon who's fallen from grace, former President, intellectual powerhouse, perversely anti-social paranoid and world's most notorious criminal. Played with intense nuance by Frank Langella.

Just as in the best boxing movies, both are consummate athletes in their field - in this case, the field of politics and media. And the match is set up as they typically are: the gutsy challenger (Frost) going for 12 grueling rounds against the past-his-prime champion (Nixon). Just as in the best boxing films, each man's weakness is the other's strength, and each can only triumph by learning how to overcome his weakness through his opponent's example. The question for Frost: can he learn the intellectual discipline necessary to corner Nixon on his own turf, and force an admission of culpability? For Nixon: can he ride Frost's good humor to muster the social grace necessary to revive his image in the eyes of the media and hence, America?

Both men have their coaching teams. (For Nixon, a former marine, Jack Brennan, played in caricature by Kevin Bacon. For Frost, his producer, John Birt, and the hired guns of Bob Zelnik - the news professional - and James Reston Jr - played by Sam Rockwell as kind of the "soul" of liberal America that NEEDS Nixon to be properly confronted).

Will Nixon be able to rehabilitate his reputation with this four-part interview (covering the four faces of Nixon: Viet Nam, foreign policy, Watergate, and "Nixon the man") and re-enter politics? Or will Frost deliver the knock-out blow that will reveal Nixon's guilty conscience to the world, thus providing the catharsis of culpability that the liberal public longs for (and the media riches and acclaim that Frost desperately needs)?

Needless to say, the story and the issues it raises - in terms of the criminal abuses of the Presidency, the need for political catharsis, and the power of the media to not only conceal and reveal, but also bestow both fame and notoriety - echo strongly with our current times. And as a film that explores the intersection of politics, history, and media through this conceit of the intellectual boxing match between these two men, the story succeeds masterfully at creating the kind of political fable that makes for excellent post-movie dinner conversation.

So let's talk about how the people behind Frost / Nixon have put together this confection. I agree completely with other reviewers who have compared this film's direction favorably to Doubt: by handing Frost / Nixon over to Ron Howard to direct (rather than attempting it himself, as John Shanley did with Doubt), Peter Morgan allows his story to escape Doubt's wordy claustrophobia. Visual symbols (such as a pair of Italian shoes, or the expression on Nixon's face) come to play as key a role in this film as the interview itself, and we're taken across the oceans and through Washington and LA as the film unfolds its story on the world stage. According to Entertainment Weekly's interview on the film, Howard "opened up" the feel of the movie by allowing his actors to free themselves of the gestures and habits they learned onstage. That freedom helps create performances that translate keenly on film, letting the actors interact broadly with the sets and making us feel the hothouse poppy Hollywood environment that Nixon has retreated to. Even so, the climactic scenes boil down to two men, facing each other in comfy chairs in a small, middle-class living room. But consider this the boxing ring, and you see how that set is just the arena for battle, supported by the wide-ranging backgrounds we see outside the ring.

Frank Langella as well deserves the praise (and the Oscar nomination) he's received, for the complexities of the Nixon he creates are the key to the film's message: this Nixon is a flawed but fascinating villain in the best Shakespearean tradition. When Nixon introduces his Hollywood agent, Swifty Lazar, to the reporters doing his bio (including Diane Sawyer), he does so as a personal joke about Lazar's fear of shaking hands. It doesn't matter so much that no one else in the room cares about Lazar's predilections: Nixon himself is perfectly amused. The scene reveals both Nixon's creepy fascination with people's personal idiosyncrasies and his social insensitivity (he has a file on everyone, a Watergate habit he can't seem to shake), as well as his keen insight into human nature (he's able to sum up Frost the instant he sets eyes on him). Never mind that Langella neither looks nor sounds much like Nixon; this is definitely the best portrayal of the man to date, capturing perfectly the quality of ambition, perversity, and intellect that made Nixon so considerable a figure to begin with. As some have said, it is a performance that perhaps captures the meaning of "Nixon" better than the man himself.

Sheen, for his part, does a serviceable job carrying the film as the entertaining David Frost, who gambles big and must face total ruin before summoning the nerve to truly act like a reporter. Not much else perhaps needs to be said of this side of the ring, since Frost's underdog story is perhaps the most expected one in the film, and Frost, though the protagonist, is not the ultimate subject of this biopic.

And so we come to the quibbles I have with this movie, which though I am giving five stars, is far from perfect. First, there's the treatment of Nixon. While I may not share Sam Rockwell's complete thirst for blood, I do find that the extent to which the movie makes us actually like Nixon makes me a bit uncomfortable. While I'm sure that the man could be charming, and understanding tricky Dick's nature is part of the dual edge of the sword here, I fear the film suffers a bit from its own greatest fear: that it will rehabilitate Nixon's reputation more than he deserves. Yes, I know this is a film that is not JUST about Nixon. Still, Frost's failure in completely nailing Nixon's culpability (and I'm not completely convinced he DOES nail it) needn't be the filmmakers.

And then there's that sports metaphor, which gets driven into your skull repeatedly. As an organizing principle of the story, I think it works. But even something that works can be overused. I think we tend into that territory, here.

And then, finally, there's simply the fact that however much we want this movie to be about something more - to be about our present day issues, or the nature of political corruption, or media ambition, mortality, and the rest of it - that it ultimately is about what it is. Which is to say, it's a smallish film, with limited ambitions - that is, if you consider the exploration of social graces and class resentment limited, which I kind of do - even though it largely achieves them.

But there is one scene in the movie that makes the film stand out. Just before the final interview, when everything is on the line, Nixon unexpectedly and ill-advisedly telephones Frost in the middle of the night. In that conversation, Nixon reveals both the commonality and the differences between the two men, in a speech that soars with insight and mastery of the film's themes. Without that scene - and the subsequent references to it - the film would have laid flat, a mere character study cum morality play, like Doubt. But that late-night encounter between the two men dives right into the heart of what this story is about, and ties it up neatly. It helps too that it's the middle of the night, the same time as the Watergate henchmen would have been breaking into the Democratic headquarters, the time when social mores and commonsense strategies can be thrown out the window, and truths can be gotten down to. The fact that Nixon can't remember it happening may lead us to wonder whether Nixon's ultimate flaw was his conscious ambition, or his unconscious demons - and whether the ruin of a country can really all be the fault of a single man.

So I have to say that despite its flaws, a movie that makes us consider that question - and consider it in such an entertaining and convincing way as this one does - in this day and age, is deserving of all the stars I have.

Edward Zwick's "Defiance": "Fiddler on the Roof" Meets "Lord of the Rings"

So maybe they should call this movie "Sharpshooter on the Roof" or "Lord of the Shpilkes." As Randy Gervais said to Kate Winslet on the Golden Globes: "do the Holocaust movie, you can't go wrong."

That is to say, this is yet another good Nazi / Holocaust movie in a year that seems to be full of them. I guess with a tragedy as immense as the Holocaust there are an innumerable number of stories to tell, because this subject just seems to keep on giving. However, as good as this movie is, I really think it could have been better.

First, I should confess that this movie holds a particular affection for me, since it's about Belorussian Jews (that's the westernmost area of Russia containing classic schtettle towns like Minsk and Pinsk) who take up arms against the invading Nazi's, forming perhaps the only known somewhat organized Jewish armed resistance movement: hiding out in the woods for over three years and rescuing 1200 Jews in the process. The heroes in this movie are the brothers Bielski, a quartet of brothers of varying ages and temperaments, who grow from being simple farmers and runabouts to leaders of an armed resistance.

My ancestry is precisely from Belorussian Jews, who are a bit more down-to-earth, adventurous, and handy with a gun than there more cerebral German counterparts (the brothers Bielski remind me an awful lot of my cousins, who have grown up to become 1) a navy captain, 2) a biker /writer / pilot and 3) a police SWAT team marksman.) In other words, these are Jews who may spout the old maxim "if you save a life, you're responsible for it," but they have great facility with weapons, and little hesitation about using them.

Daniel Craig (of James Bond fame...and Munich, interestingly enough) is cast as the elder Bielski, Tuvia (yep, same name as the Fiddler guy). Liev Schreiber is the second eldest, Zus, who has to live in his brother's shadow and develops some deep resentment. Here we have the classic cinematic chestnut of a single personality divided into two, with the cinematic arc being about how the two halves will come together. So while Tuvia starts off as a leader able to organize the panicked and traumatized refugees - but who's decisions may not be the most strategic - Zus is the man of action who learns quickly the tactics of warfare survival, but has difficulties getting the others to follow him. So the movie, in addition to being a study of how a group of Jews learn to drop their books and survive in the woods, is also a bromance between the brothers, and how they learn to become more like each other.

Unfortunately, both Craig and Schreiber seem to be miscast. Daniel is just wrong for the part: he's never struck me as ethnic, and he's way too forceful and world weary from the beginning to be a naive farm boy who must learn to grow into a leader. And though Schreiber is of course ethnically cast perfectly, he's really too old, as Craig is, for the role of the second brother. Both of these parts should have been played by younger men in their late twenties. But apparently, the stars must have been necessary for achieving the financing and studio backing to get the film made. Which is unfortunate, since both men overplay the parts and fail to wring the necessary subtly out of important moments (though, to be fair, they do well with the emotional scenes when a few strategic tears are required).

But the real important moments in this film often center around decisions to kill. For a Jew, such a decision is a weighty one...and the scenes set us up well to examine the moral questions about killing for revenge, or survival, or self defence. But while we're set up for these questions well in the screenplay, neither the actors nor the director seem to want to examine them: instead, what seems more pressing is to create a kind of Jewish action movie, replete with heroes, battles, and unlikely rescue. (There is one scene in the woods, involving a captured German soldier, that is directed with a provocative bent...but like the others, the provocation seems to move on without examining what one would expect to be its lasting effects.) All that quickly moving action is great, I suppose, for the Jews like me in the audience who want a hero to cheer. I guess for everyone else, though, it'll seem like just another formulaic war story.

Which is too bad. The question of Jews fighting back - and what that means both for Jews and for everyone else - is certainly a very relevant topic right now, given what's happening in Gaza. This movie starts to go there, but only part way. Much of the direction seems to want to inflect a kind of Yiddish kibitzing style (one can't help but think of Woody Allen's parodies of Greek chorus in some of the refugee debate scenes), which feels totally wrong conflated with other scenes of narrow escape that seem to be inspired from the trek to Helm's Deep in Lord of the Rings. In between all that - and tying it all together - are breathtakingly beautiful scenes of the forest in which the Jews hide and make their home, and this forest becomes alive, a third major character in the movie, that both hides the Jews and tests them. As the seasons change we understand the extreme unlikeness of their survival and the discipline it requires; and when spring comes again, we feel well both the new opportunities and new dangers.

So when you put it all together, there are moments of beauty and moments of great dramatic weight and tension; moments of vicarious thrills and moments of ethnic introspection. What seems to be missing from the film, however, is a single, coherent vision of what it all means. The screenplay is great, the story a unique and interesting one, and the emotion fully felt. And the deep feeling for the background of the characters and the land is certainly exhibited in the scenery and wardrobe. But this movie ends up being simply good when it could have been great, when it could have decided that it didn't need to be a box-office action thriller, and could have simply told a simple and remarkable tale, with humanity and vision. Maybe, being close to the subject matter, I'm being a little too hard on it, for it's a good movie, that's for sure. I certainly got something out of it - I understood my cousins more.

Maybe the problem is that I just saw The Reader, and after that movie, it's not fair to compare another film that touches the same subject. Still - go see it. You'll enjoy it, but you'll see what I mean. I'm not sure this one is quite good enough to end up on this season's Oscar's list, with so much other excellent competition out there.

Iron Man: Celebrating Boys and Their Servo-Powered Toys

The high point in Iron Man comes when Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark, testing out his racing-striped, servo-powered second-generation Iron Suit for the first time after turning his hand boosters from innocent propulsion mechanisms into a destructive weapon, takes flight like a jet and swoops into town to blow up a tank with casual insouciance. You see, a bunch of innocent villagers in some remote Afghan village are being massacred with his own company's weapons, and it's driving him bonkers. So bonkers, in fact, that his quest to give up making weapons in order to give mankind the wondrous, peaceful Iron Suit has to be momentarily abandoned so that he can turn the damned thing into a weapon and go wuppass on the bad guys who are terrorizing the innocent women and children of the village.

The movie goes out of its way to make the murder-to-pleasure ratio of this scene pretty high. The baddies are massacring villagers with gleeful remorselessness and Tony's suit hums, whirs, and shoots missiles like a chrome-plated, wi-fi enabled Lamborghini as he pummels them effortlessly and takes out hostage takers with surgical strikes. This is the wet dream of military techno-geeks: high impact killing of evildoers with zero collateral damage. And anyone who has second thoughts about the political fantasies of such cool killing has to be just a little bit discomfited by the enjoyment that this scene engenders.

Which is to say, this is a movie that wants to have it both ways: that wants to make a big deal about being more righteous than the war mongers, while getting its ya yas enjoying the righteousness of high-impact killing machines.

But that may be the only thing wrong with this otherwise fine excercise in enjoying the full impact of your high-def, big-screen TV. Iron Man is in fact the first time that Marvel creator Stan Lee has taken over the filming of his Avenger series of action heroes (The Hulk, also out this past summer, was Lee's second such film). Lee plans to release more superhero films under the Marvel studios label: in fact, he's on a project to create the entire Avengers series (which is what the mysterious five minute appearance of Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury is all about). If you aren't a comic book geek, what this basically means is that we will see more Marvel comic character movies (purportedly including an Ant Man movie starring comic Scotsman Simon Pegg, and culminating in a full Avengers movie led by Captain America). Iron Man is just the beginning of an entire popcorn series.

As such, it's a good start and demonstrates Lee's more intimate understanding of comic book narrative and emotional arch than many of those who have tinkered with Marvel characters before. Unlike other attempts at elevating comic book fare into some kind of filmic art (one thinks of Ang Lee's botched version of The Hulk - which more likely than not drove Lee over the edge to create his own film studio to do this stuff himself), Iron Man seeks to be nothing more than witty good comic-style fun, with straightforward direction and little stylistic pretension. What's important here is that we (the geekish public) understand Tony Stark's inner geek and get to feel why having a flying metal supersuit and the interest of Gwyneth Paltrow is so damn hot. And generally we do: thanks to A-list acting by Downey Jr and directing and dialogue that blessedly avoids the usual action clunkers to deliver some nice ironies (such as Stark getting blown up by his own missile, or a sad, dog-like animated arm that finally proves its usefulness). And since the final confrontation destroys the appropriate number of automobiles and buildings, we get the usual satisfying superhero denouement. Generally, in this formulaic comic movie, all goes according to plan.

And so I must confess, as a geek myself, the movie delivers a satisfying action experience, despite its repulsive simplistic politics and glorification of violence (and despite a bit less than unique villian to do battle with at the end). I suppose in a way Lee seems to be taking standing up for the necessity of violence - as if to say that it's an essential aspect of the comic narrative. Like his aversion to high-brow tinkering with his comic characters, this movie may be a bit of the backlash against the Bush-era/low-brow backlash. And though I'm not completely convinced that all this isn't just as damaging to young impressionable minds as any of the non-self-aware, non-ironic movie violence routinely found in lesser movies, I'll still be eagerly awaiting the next installment of the Avenger's new matinee series.

Burn After Reading: Politics Done Coen Brother's Style

Burn After Reading returns the Coen Brothers to their earlier, whimsical comedy stylings making fun of weirdo's, outsiders, and bumblers - movies like Raising Arizona, The Hudsucker Proxy, and The Big Lebowski - where characters with more ambitions than brains hatch cooky plans that get everyone fired, kidnapped, killed, or otherwise in some kind of trouble. The difference is that this time, the brothers Coen have set their bumblers in Washington D.C.: where comic bumbling has kind of become the credo of the past eight years of the Bush administration.

But lest you think this may be a trenchant sendup of Bush politics (a la Oliver Stone's "W"), bear in mind that the Coens have little interest in political points of view. Which in a way makes the Washington DC setting and the spy plot line oddly irrelevant to what the movie is really about - which is the idea of middle-age goofballs dealing with crushing disappointment and grasping for whatever small piece of salvation might happen to fall in their laps.

Burn After Reading introduces two sets of D.C. characters operating in different worlds of this highly transient city, whose paths disastrously intersect. The first are two Washington insider couples: washed-up CIA operative Osbourne Cox (John Malcovich) and his cold and distant wife (played by Tilda Swinton), who's having an affair with George Clooney's bumbling federal marshal, Harry Pfarrer, whose self-involved author wife is off in her own book-tour world. These four intersect with the dissatisfied managerial staff of a local gym (Hardbodies), played by the triangle of Fancis McDormand, Brad Pitt, and Richard Jenkins, when the gym managers find Osbourne Cox's diary - which they mistake for confidential CIA secrets - lying on the gym floor. Like Hi in Raising Arizona, Brad Pitt's character gets it in his head that this random find is really a cosmic gift that must be worth something to someone, and off we go.

By the end of the movie, everyone has run into everyone else in one way or another, and all the billiard balls end up falling into their appointed pockets.

Even so, there is unfortunately also a good deal of plotting laziness in this film. The two worlds never have an opportunity to comment on each other, and the fate of the characters seems more random than thematic, as if the brothers realized they had another movie to go make and had to quickly wrap up this one. That all makes the movie feel casually disjointed...closer to the random happenings of Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? than the tightly scripted No Country for Old Men or Fargo. Certainly there is no mistaking a Coen brother's movie, which always muses on the ambitions of overambitious losers and the random intersections of destiny, and usually delivers a healthy dose of mirth, as this one does. And yet, there can be such differences in quality and effect from film to film. Where No Country is deadly serious and important, Burn After Reading seems to go out of it's way to become a film of frivolity that wants to do nothing more than make you smirk for an hour and a half, then quickly forget.

All of which is to say, this is not a serious movie: the potential fun of Bush bashing in the D.C. setting is sadly wasted (with the exception of the promising opening scene), and by the time we get to the end, we may not care that much any more whatever it is the Coens have decided to do with all these bozos.

And yet: Malkovich is marvelous as the put-upon and cast-out spy. Swinton makes a wonderful bitch. McDormand stands out as the not-too-bright but desperately seeking Mr. Right gym manager, Pitt is satisfyingly goofy, and Clooney gives his usual over-the-top weird Cohen performance. And all the supporting actors, spies, and operatives give hilarious scenes spouting hokum, corporate-speak, and hooha in typical Cohen brothers fashion. So while this movie doesn't add up to much, it's certainly a lot of fun getting there.

Yes, Burn After Reading isn't in the top-tier of the Coen's ouevre, a Fargo or No Country. And it doesn't quite have the off-the-wall inspiration of a Big Lebowski. But it definitely qualifies in the Coen's second tier of comedies, the kind that are great fun going but add up to little, a kind of Arizona or Irreconcilable Differences. Now, considering that the Coen's second tier work is better than a lot of people's best stuff, maybe you want to see it.

Oscar Nomination Predictions for 2009

Okay, it's that time of year: time for my Oscar nomination predictions. I don't claim any special insight or knowledge - just testing my knack for predicting. Feel free to add your comments for anything you've think I've missed or zany picks you would have never included. Since my time is limited and Oscars are long, I'm just focusing on the major awards.

So far, the only major films I don't think I've seen are Frost/Nixon, The Wrestler, and Revolutionary Road, which haven't been released in our area. I reserve the right to update this after I see them.

Screenplay
Peter Morgan - Frost / Nixon
Simon Beaufoy - Slumdog Millionaire
Eric Roth - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
David Hare - The Reader
John Patrick Shanley - Doubt

will win: Simon Beaufoy - Slumdog Millionaire
should win: David Hare - The Reader

Directing
Clint Eastwood - Gran Torino
David Fincher - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Gus van Sant - Milk
Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire
Stephen Daldry - The Reader

will win: Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire
should win: Stephen Daldry - The Reader

Supporting Actress
Kate Winslet - The Reader
Francis McDormand - Burn After Reading
Taraja P. Henson - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Amy Adams - Doubt
Penelope Cruz - Vickie Christina Barcelona

will win: Kate Winslet - The Reader
should win: Kate Winslet - The Reader

Supporting Actor
Heath Ledger - Batman: The Dark Knight
Philip Seymore Hoffman - Doubt
Robert Downey Jr. - Tropic Thunder
David Kross - The Reader
Emile Hirsch - Milk

will win: Heath Ledger - Batman
should win: Heath Ledger - Batman

Lead Actress
Angelina Jolie - The Changeling
Meryl Streep - Doubt
Kate Winslet - Revolutionary Road
Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married
Kate Blanchette - The Curious Case of Banjamin Button

will win: Angelina Jolie - The Changeling
should win: Meryl Streep - Doubt

Lead Actor
Sean Penn - Milk
Brad Pitt - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Clint Eastwood - Gran Torino
Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler
Leonardo diCaprio - Revolutionary Road

will win: Clint Eastwood- Gran Torino
should win: Sean Penn - Milk

Best Film
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Milk
The Reader
Frost / Nixon
Slumdog Millionaire

will win: Slumdog Millionaire
should win: The Reader

Eastwood's Gran Torino Makes Hard-Earned Virtue Out of Politically Incorrect Cantankerousness

As I write this, Gran Torino gets a 76% on RottenTomatoes while Changeling, Eastwood's earlier movie this year, only gets a 59%. Gran Torino also seems to be getting the critical award mentions and gossip (as well as getting the weekend boxoffice, probably from theatergoers eager to see Clint Eastwood's rumored last big screen acting performance), while Changeling is largely overlooked. This is reminiscent of a couple years ago, when Eastwood also had two movies out: Letters from Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers, both of which were good but one of which was considered the more outstanding.

The reason I bring up Changeling in this review of Gran Torino, however, is because contrary to public opinion, I find it the more excellent movie. Not because Gran Torino is bad. It's a very good film, and Eastwood gives a great, gritty performance. Who knew back in the days of Dirty Harry that Eastwood would become not only one of our great acting talents, but one of our greatest film storytellers? This guy's talent is simply amazing. But while I find the Changeling to be truly revelatory filmmaking, Gran Torino tackles a similarly great story, but with some corners cut.

One of the things that distinguishes an Eastwood film is the way in which he tells a story that strongly engages our moral senses, with a straightforward narrative that engrosses us in how the choices that the characters make elucidate their moral universe. Eastwood is a master of this and Gran Torino delivers its moral theme with all engines firing.

But Eastwood does stack the deck in Gran Torino a bit more than usual. Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, a character who perhaps embodies the dictionary definition of "old codger." He has nary a pleasantry for anyone and his most endearing affection for his friends is to call them some disparaging racial slur. He also has a bit of the old Dirty Harry idea of what constitutes masculinity. His "dago / pollack" routine with his barber friend is meant to epitomize the height of male friendship, I suppose. Now imagine Walt as father/grandfather to a family of spoiled Yuppies, his wife newly deceased, a twenty-five-year-old priest attempting to minister to his soul, and an immigrant Hmong family living next door in his long-ago-racially diversified and decaying neighborhood, in which he refuses to move out - and throw in a multi-cultural assortment of gangs spoiling for trouble - and you have the picture of the kind of narrative dynamite that screenwriter Nick Schenk has planted all around the growling and cantankerous Walt.

Walt's story, then, is how he learns to face the deficiencies of his life, adopt a substitute family, and eventually, with help from the persistent if young priest, salvage his soul.

The journey Walt has to take would be more predictable if it weren't that Eastwood was so good in the role (he seems to be acting as if to say, "I was born to play this part, and I'm going out in style"), and if it weren't that Eastwood was also a masterful director able to elicit authentic performances from Bee Vang and Ahney Her, who play the neighboring Hmong kids who have the temerity to crack through Walt's artifice of cantankerousness and learn the life-lessons that this old man has been dying to teach to someone. The three actors bond through their various adversities to create the kind of family Walt has always yearned for.

And indeed, some of Walt's racial observations in Gran Torino are deeply insightful, especially in the sealed-in politically correct multicultural world we live in. Walt's diffusing of a particularly tense encounter between Sue Lor and her white boyfriend (a.k.a. "pussy," according to Walt) and a trio of black thugs is especially cutting. ("I don't think they want to be your bro," he tells the white guy after going crazy batshit on the black dudes.) But I feel, as I said, everything is stacked a bit too easily to make Walt the movie's only truth teller. His real-life family are but mere Yuppie cartoons, and even the gang members are barely more developed than the typical Dirty Harry villains. All this makes Walt's redemption more mythic than realistic, and though that may be the point, since we feel such realness and filmic care with the neighboring Hmong family, it's a shame that the other characters aren't given a bit more due. The movie wants us to understand that truly bonding with people is not something that's achieved through politically correct platitudes or the easy spoils of Yuppie privilege - rather, boding is hard-earned by telling and hearing the hard truth. Yes, but those Yuppies are especially dreadful, and they're not given any opportunity to redeem themselves. In one scene toward the end of the movie with Walt's granddaughter, she expresses an interest in Walt's vintage Gran Torino and we're meant to understand her reaction to what happens to it as selfishness, when in fact the story behind it is something that she couldn't possibly know. She's still a brat, yes, but but she isn't as cold as the movie wants us to believe her to be at that moment, and that felt like a cheat, to me.

It's a rare slip for Eastwood, who has become a master of tone and audience sympathy in his films. And this film certainly pushes the envelope of sympathy, with a character that rides on the edges of tolerance. But these criticisms are exceptions to this otherwise fine film, and that's no reason this movie shouldn't be on the short list of any Oscar watchers this season.

M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening" Didn't. Happen.

Sometimes I feel like the only M. Night Shyamalan fan in the world. After his precocious first-timer success with The Sixth Sense, he’s followed up that fame and acclaim with a series of mysterious and idiosyncratic films that play to his signature taste of spirituality, dreams, and animism. And a lot of the viewing public, it seems to me, misunderstand or misinterpret his films. He’s one of the few directors who creates movies that are neither realistic or fantastical, but operate in a kind of twilight dream world of the in between: in between life and death (Sixth Sense), story and mythology (Unbreakable and Lady in the Water), dreams and waking life (Signs). People who see these movies as failures I think misread the films, or read only the “realistic” portion and fail to appreciate the brilliance of the in-between world: fail to see that Signs is a waking dream, for instance, or that Lady in the Water a bedtime story with the same childhood logic of dark and light. When I see those movies, I think Shyamalan is on to something – something he might need to perfect, perhaps, but that is still a refreshing genius that attempts to defy convention.

But where Shyamalan really does fail, as he does somewhat in The Village and most disappointingly in The Happening, I think it’s because he’s given in to the most self-indulgent impulses for which all his movies are routinely criticized: that his concepts are only half-baked, not fully realized, and the tight sense of suspense he assiduously creates becomes a self-parody of style without the substance to make it worthwhile.

Such is what seems to have happened in The Happening.

Shyamalan’s first mistake seems to have been either hiring the wrong casting director, or not explaining the concept of the movie well enough to his actors, for everyone in this film seems to be not only miscast, but completely off on their timing and delivery. Wahlberg especially gets to deliver some real clunkers – the kind of lines like “we need some hotdogs” that got actual unintended laughs in the theater. When an experienced director like Shyamalan can’t control the tone he wants in the movie – when the audience begins to think what they’re watching is humorous when the reaction Shyamalan wants at that moment is suspense – then you know something has gone disastrously wrong.

Like most of Shyamalan’s movies, I find the premise intriguing: a mysterious airborne malaise is spreading over the east coast, first causing people to become confused, then to lose their sense of self-preservation and seek out the nearest handy means to kill themselves. With a concept like this – and a reputation of not being a critic-friendly director – Shyamalan must have winced as he envisioned potential reviews like “audience feels the same way.” I wish I could say that such criticism wasn’t deserved. Yes, Shyamalan provides the typical Shyamalan touches to the scenes of suicide, making them appropriately odd and frightening. But all that mystery has nowhere to go.

What seems to be missing from this film is any larger metaphor for what’s going on. A perfectly intelligent (though completely implausible) explanation is finally given (again picking up on the popular “green” theme of the day)…and all that’s fine and dandy…but what is what’s happening supposed to signify?

In other Shyamalan movies it signifies something interior about the characters: a state of being that needs to be addressed and resolved. Shyamalan's theme obviously should have been this: suicide...even one mysteriously stimulated by unknown agents...signifies a collective societal despair. So Wahlberg, our hero, must have some real despair to overcome - and that should be reflected in the culture at large as well. But Wahlberg doesn't play the character that way (he's just goofily mentally absent and all wincing sincerity, like an android), and in the script, the only potential state of being we’re given here is the relationship between Wahlberg and his reluctant girlfriend, played by Zooey Deschanel. But that relationship is a mere stereotype, the dialogue between them cliché and strained, and any deeper meaning about relationships we’re supposed to take from this film is completely undermined by the stultifying interactions between the two lead characters, who have zero chemistry and act like they’re reading pesticide manuals as they run to escape the kooky death that’s infesting the brains of everyone around them. So even if despair was meant to be the resonating theme, the only people despairing in this film are in the audience.

In other words, the redemption here is unearned, a result of a cliché script, poor acting choices, and uninspired setups.

A movie likes this makes me fear that Shyamalan may be isolating himself from any constructive feedback in his writing/directing process. After so much criticism of works that indeed have some merit, he may not be able any more to sort out and listen to the useful criticism necessary to fully bake his work. In other words, his foolproof bullshit detector may have died. Because this movie certainly suffers from an oversupply of fertilizer.

Let’s hope he gets it fixed soon.

Tropic Thunder: Ben Stiller's Hollywood Hijinks Gets Some Help From His Friends

I confess: I'm not a big fan of Ben Stiller comedies. I thought Meet the Parents was amusing, at best, Night at the Museum a waste of time, and Zoolander totally unwatchable. So I pretty much ignored Tropic Thunder when it was released, particularly given the trailer's focus on the Stiller-type shtick.

That wasn't necessarily a mistake, but upon rental, I can see why this movie has created a small following, and Stiller gets a lot of help from co-writers Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen (no, not Ethan Cohen) as well as co-star Robert Downey Jr., who turns out to be quite the comedic actor (he's actually on quite a roll, with recent great performances in Iron Man and Zodiac).

The opening is actually quite promising as we get three fake trailers introducing each of the characters cum actors. What makes the trailers even more hilarious are the studios assigned to each, which are nailed just right (Fox Searchlight makes the gay-themed medieval monk story, with Toby McGuire in a hilarious cameo). The movie goes on to become a Hollywood insider parody of the making of a Hollywood war movie, with three different types of Hollywood actors (Stiller, the action hero, Downey, the "serious" actor, and Jack Black, the scatalogically oriented comedian) cast in the major roles. I love Hollywood parodies...if they're good...so you can see here how I right away was hopeful this one might be elevated above the usual Stiller fare. And the first few scenes introducing the set up are quite promising, as everything on set starts to go wrong quite quickly, and Stiller and crew certainly have the film cliches and stock set-hand character types down cold.

Stiller also lands quite a coup casting Tom Cruise as the over-the-top movie producer (allegedly based on Stiller's producer partner Stuart Cornfeld). The role of Cruise in a fat suit with hairy hands is certain inspired comic casting and something that Stiller had hoped to keep secret before the release of the film. It certainly makes a great running gag, though that gag - like most of Stiller's - gets a bit played out by the end of the movie.

The other running gag that's created media attention for the movie is Robert Downey Jr. in blackface, playing the role of a method actor so committed he's had a pigmentation operation and refuses to come out of character. His performance has earned generally positive reviews - basically, he pulls this off well, because the parody isn't so much of black affectation, but of the vanity of Hollywood casting white actors in black roles and the actors who take this stuff seriously. He's just a "dude playin' a dude who thinks he's another dude." It doesn't hurt that he also has Brandon Jackson as a useful foil. Jackson provides the necessary context and commentary to make sure that everyone gets the Downey joke.

Yet while the movie starts of well, it falls victim to the curse of the boring second act, as the actors are placed into the deep jungle and get mixed up with real live heroine farmers out to either kill them or inspire some genuine method acting. Here, Stiller takes a turn away from Hollywood parody and back into Stiller-ville, introducing such impossible and unfunny characters such as a ten-year-old drug kingpin and his gang of twenty, who make a fierce roar but seem to have the organizational capabilities of the keystone cops. Though I should note that he does transition into this part of the movie with quite a startling bang that will likely enter the halls of sick comedy fame.

And the continued machinations of Matthew McCanaughey as Stiller's loyal agent, Tom Cruise as the foul-mouthed producer, and a simpering sycophantic Bill Hader from Saturday Night Live back in sunny LA provide necessary relief from the wearying jungle trek.

By the time the movie ends, then, with the predictable reconciliations, I feel like once again, it's another Ben Stiller vehicle that was good for a few laughs but will be quickly returned to the store. They really seemed to have missed some of the more obvious satire - such as, for instance, an Apocalypse Now moment as the actors go a bit native that was crying out to be parodied (there was even a steer, for gods sake). I think that's where the move messed up: if there had been more Hollywood parody, and less Stiller hijinks, it would have been one hilarious film. But we only get about 1/3 Hollywood parody; 1/4 Downey blackface humor, 1/5 weird Tom Cruise, and the rest is Stiller's Catskill's shtick.

If you like that stuff, then you'll probably love this movie. If not...or if you have an aversion to Pythonesque body parts flying in all directions...you might want to give it a pass.

Hellboy Two: Genius Directing Wasted on a Terrible Movie

Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Another another disappointing summer movie available now on DVD. This one gets an extra star than most lackluster disappointments. But like Hancock, it's still only half a movie.

Like Hancock, this one has a promising opening that the movie fails to live up to. Unlike Hancock, we realize it's not going to live up to the opening about fifteen minutes into the movie, when we get into the off-the-shelf formulaic horror-schlock of the Tooth Fairies and the Hellboy's domestic doldrums (not to mention the pure poison of the usually enjoyable Jeffrey Tambor, who brings the movie to a dead stop every time he appears). From the beautiful puppetry opening to bad Lucy and Dezi in fifteen minutes.

Then back again. I'm not sure I can even describe what this movie is about. More demons are let loose from the underworld and Hellboy has to assemble yet again a team of freaks to fend them off. I have to profess that I loved the vaporous character of Johann Krauss, the latest addition to the U.S.'s secret Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, and probably the most wholly original movie superhero we've seen. Director Guillermo del Toro's imagination is nothing but imaginatively feverish, even if he has no real script to work off of. Every time we turn the corner, we think this movie might now be saved with the introduction of some new squirmy, bumpy, toothy, or chloroformy paranormal baddie. What's odd about this movie is that it's simultaneously amazingly great while also being completely boring. Del Toro keeps coming up with one amazing visual set piece concept after another: whether it's doing battle against a giant city-stomping flower (with a baby in one arm), the mystical connections between vengeful Prince and pure-hearted Princess, or the bittersweet battle with the oddly teddy-bearish Wink, the director of the amazing Pan's Labyrinth explores the intersection of mythology and heroism with an imaginative ambivalence that's both endearing and fascinating.

At the same time, the story is such a boring mix of pop culture hoo-haa, I kept checking my watch, wanting it to move on to the end already. I was never too much a fan of Ghost Busters or Blade (okay, so del Toro's ripping off himself, here), so ripping off from them is one step below bubble-gum. Ripping off from Blade Runner, Total Recall or Lord of the Rings is always entertaining but pretty much cliche at this point, so while I liked the imaginative characters populating the Troll's market, I couldn't help but think, "Bar Scene in Star Wars" - which, to tell you the truth, was when, no matter how much I had been blown away by the power of what had come before, even as a seven year old boy, I had my first insight that some movies might be more interested in selling toys then entertaining their audience. Not that del Toro is as mechanizing happy as Lucas: his puppets are ten-time as fearsome...it's just that his sci-fi is a bland mash of yesteryear's warmed-overs.

And then it's back to the Lucy and Dezi show: the marriage banter between Hellboy and Liz Sherman is but one step above the groaning unevolving clunkiness between Indie and Marion in Indiana Jones and only marginally more believable than the insane drivel between Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel in The Happening. Could all this fake movie couple banter just die, already? It's as if none of these screenwriters have actually been in a relationship but have read some interplanetary fax about what it's supposed to be like (argue a lot about ultimately insignificant things; express your true feelings to everyone but your partner) and have been told they have to put some of it in the movie or suffer the rack. Maybe the characters could just say something like, "please take five minutes to turn to your partner and insert your own meaningless couple's banter here," and we could just be done with it. At least it'd be more interesting. And if you were in the theater alone you'd get five minutes of personal silence, which would be far more rewarding.

So what do I think? I think if you turned this from a movie into a thirty-minute museum video installation piece, it would be pure genius: it would blow me away. The fairy-tale opening...maybe a little mirthful introduction of Johann Krauss...followed by the prince taking over the crown...followed by the battles of wink and the giant plant...followed by an abbreviated go at the Golden Army. A flow of forms and imaginings made of wood and vapor, plants and animals, metal and fire. If I could have seen that as an installation piece, I'd be raving about it for years. In those few scenes I've mentioned, del Toro fully realizes the fantasy world that's haunted him in movies like Mimic and Pan's Labyrinth, and extracted a yearning for the lost magic of that mythical world and its creatures. And there's a nice little theme here, a nice little story that's overshadowed by the schlockier Hellboy story: that the vengeance of the night-time fantasy world is intricately bound with its pure hearted salvation. That the forest offers both death and life, that in fact, this is the very breast of mother nature, which man strives to turn from - whose authority man strives to challenge - but which he must ultimately accept. When the life-and-death destructive battle with the plant ends with an explosion of ferns and flowers, it's rapturous: the bringer of death and harbinger of life is just what these fairy tales are about, yet rarely so beautifully enacted.

But since you have to slog through about fifty additional minutes of off-the-rack boredom to pick out that poppy, I have to say, if you're renting this one, put it on your big-screen, hi-def TV to enjoy the visuals. Meanwhile you can do your workout, go out and tuck the baby into bed, and let the dog out during the boring parts, and you won't be missing much.