The Company

Grade: A-

If only Robert Altman had directed the film version of “A Chorus Line.” Now THAT would have been interesting. Here, Altman leaves behind the “Turning Point” vision of dramatic life amidst the backdrop of a ballet company, and instead focuses directly on the backdrop. The film is almost the essence of the anti-drama, so real and observational that we are literally made to feel we are eavesdropping on the lives within the company.

Neve Campbell (of “everybody want to be, closer to free” fame) is radiant as a company member on the verge of becoming a primary dancer. We watch her life less through dialogue and more through momentary glimpses pasted together – working as a cocktail waitress to support her chosen career, missed New Year’s celebrations with her boyfriend, the toxic mother, stepfather and father who all appear as a threesome in tow to every performance together, the boyfriend (nicely underplayed by James Franco) with a career every bit as important to him as hers is to her.

This is a film of such keyhole moments – of staff meetings brought to abrupt ends by a glorious yet nimble-witted diva of a company manager (the absolutely magnificent Malcolm McDowell), dancers living from one apartment floor to the next, neophytes struggling under the pressure of Svengali-like mentors, careers ended in an instant with nary a lapse in the rehearsal process, and a quietly understated sense that this is a world that has been blighted by an epidemic. If we never get to know any one person fully, we leave the theater instead comprehending the very essence of a dance tribe as a whole.

And then there is the dance, a great deal of it, and it is wonderful to behold. Altman knows how to film dance, capturing the grace and excitement of movement without the obtrusiveness of overt camerawork. Watching this troop repeatedly performing on a stage speaks more to character motivation than any words within a screenplay. It is truly for the passionate, all-encompassing love of a thing.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0335013/

Cold Mountain

Grade: B+

Filmmaker Anthony Minghella has beautifully crafted a lovely romantic melodrama.

I am not much of a fan of romantic melodramas.

With the possible exception of “The Way We Were” (“Is he a good father?” slays me every time) the suspension of disbelief required for hours of heightened dialogue, far-fetched situations and dreamy-eyed reunions asks for just too much from this moviegoer.

Unless it’s “Lord of the Rings,” of course, which is an entirely different matter altogether.

That said, anyone wanting to make such a film would be well advised to have Minghella directing and Jude Law as its romantic leading man. Minghella’s last two films, “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and “The English Patient” were among the very best and most distinguished films of their years, and here too he displays a unique, passionate filmmaking style that adds sweep, glamour, and delicacy to a rather hackneyed storyline.

And as for Mr. Law, well, he’s a hunk a hunk of burning love who can melt spoons with the heat he emanates. Woof and a half.

A love torn couple separated by the American Civil War and his subsequent pilgrimage to return to her while she keeps the home fires burning is not exactly original fare, and one can’t help but look for Rhett, Scarlett, Ashley, and Melanie to be lurking somewhere in the background. What makes this film interesting, however, is that the romance itself feels altogether less important than the romantic vision our characters cling to in order to survive. Virtually the entire movie takes place with our star couple apart, and a series of back and forth episodic storylines over the course of two and a half hours lead us to the well-anticipated reunion. The fact that this story isn’t in itself terribly original makes it all the more surprising and impressive that the film still manages to move at a nice tempo with moments of genuine humor, endearing emotion, and occasional suspense amidst an oft-trod “country torn asunder” backdrop that Minghella imbues with a new and captivating cinematic eye.

Jude Law is immensely successful as a soft spoken southern country boy tormented by love and war, Nicole Kidman less so as a southern belle thrust into a life of calluses and struggle – she’s simply too glowing even with sweat on her face and dirt in her fingernails to be truly believable. Renee Zellweger steals every single scene she’s in as a determinedly feisty woman who comes to Kidman’s rescue and saves her farm from complete deterioration – she gives the film much need humor and spunk. While one never really forgets who any of these stars are (the likes of Donald Sutherland, Natalie Portman, and Philip Seymour Hoffman all makes appearances), it doesn’t really matter any more here than it does when we watch Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh on the screen – it all just adds to the romance.

The fact that the emotional payoff simply doesn’t move one as much as it should and that this is a tearjerker that never really produces much in the way of wet hankies, combined with the fact that this is a story that we really didn’t need to have retold in the first place, keeps this from being a great epic film romance. Still, Anthony Minghella deserves much credit for delivering a film with such quiet grace and delicate poignancy.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0159365/

Monster

Grade: B+

This year’s “Boys Don’t Cry” – a true story that is in and of itself enormously compelling, aided by an extraordinary central performance, poorly supported by other cast members and a weak screenplay.

Charlize Theron gives this year’s “gorgeous actor who makes themselves look homely, fat, and grimy in the name of art” performance. Yet she also provides a powerhouse study into the tormented and insane mind of a serial killer, abused in her youth, forced by the need to survive into prostitution, desperate to feel normal and loved by somebody. Anybody. It is a blistering performance, and while one can’t help but wonder if the role would be receiving quite the level of acclaim it has if played by an unattractive and hefty woman rather than a starlit beauty queen layered in foam rubber, this does not detract from what is an often towering accomplishment. One can literally see the moment where the pressure builds inside this woman’s psyche and her mind snaps, and it is a rage filled with years of subjugation, groveling, and physical and emotional torture.

It is an even more amazing performance given the fact that she has virtually nothing on screen to act against. As her love interest, Christina Ricci is both miscast and wildly whiny and irritating. Her performance is virtually vacant, while all the while she is looking into the eyes of an unleashed animal caught in the jaws of an agonizing trap. Theron gives a tour-de-force performance in an acting vacuum. The screenplay doesn’t help much either, filled with awkwardly placed speeches about past abuses and voiceovers (the shortcut copout of bad screenwriting) about the meaningless lessons on hope and redemption she was taught as a teenager that led her nowhere.

This is Theron’s movie and no one else’s. To have uncovered such sympathy and rage amidst such indefensible violence and evil is both startling and imminently impressive. When she howls in frustrated agony, it is a howl rarely heard since “King Lear.”

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0340855/

House of Sand and Fog

First half: Grade A-
Third quarter: Grade B-
Fourth Quarter: Grade F

Final Grade: C


Cavet emptor. Rarely has a film started so exquisitely promising only to descend into one of Dante’s melodramatic rings of hell.

A somewhat wallowing woman has her home taken away under false pretenses, only to have it sold out from under her to a once prestigious and powerful immigrant family with problems of their own. So begins an intricate, immersing tale where no one is a villain and every perspective is sympathetic. The film oozes atmosphere, as fog rolls over the Golden Gate Bridge and trees come crashing to the ground so that we may see the shoreline and into the infinity of the ocean. It is to the initial credit of the writing, performances and filmmaking style that different spectators will no doubt form different allegiances. I for one found myself backing Ben Kingsley’s family far more than the weepily self-destructive Jennifer Connelly, but different audience members will no doubt have different perspectives, making for the stuff of compelling drama.

The second act begins to only somewhat deteriorate as we veer off track into an uninterestingly pro-forma affair between Connelly and her police office hero, but it is in the film’s last half hour that the screenplay literally collapses under its own weight and syrupy melodrama spews forth like an erupting volcano. Rest assured, pills will be popped, gunshots will be fired, blood will be shed, and prison time will be served. It is the stuff of pure soap opera drivel, and all the genuine drama that has come before is thoroughly negated. One can literally point a finger at the moment the storytelling goes horribly awry, and we evacuate the theater dumbfounded and utterly disgusted that the shark has been so horrifically and irreversibly jumped.

It is to their great credit that Connelly, the terrific Shohreh Aghdashloo, and especially Kingsley manage under such duress to turn in such fine work until the bitter end, wringing pathos and humanity even amidst such absurdly drippy writing, but nothing can save this ship once it has smashed headlong into its iceberg.

It is interesting to note that Andre Dubus III, author of the book on which the screenplay is based, is son of author Andre Dubus who gave us the short story “In The Bedroom,” another powerhouse tale that takes a manipulative and unrealistic turn in the final chapters – the writing sins of the father have definitely revisited the son. That film managed to overcome its false notes and find a place on my ten best of the year. This one won’t be nearly so lucky.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0315983/

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

GRADE: A+

Before any one else says it, let me be the first – this is not a film review. It is a love letter.

If one adores the art of cinema enough to believe it is truly a gift from the gods, then it must also be said that the gods created cinema so that a masterpiece such as this could be made.

This may indeed be the single greatest cinematic achievement I have ever seen. And it is most certainly, even for this self-proclaimed “Star Wars” fanatic, the greatest trilogy in the history of motion pictures.

There is little to express the mixture of overwhelmed exhilaration, exaltation and profound emotion anyone who believes in the quest will savor long after the mythology of the fellowship has reached its denouement.

Nay Sayers be damned – this is a film of poetic genius.

The grand cinematic sweep that delivers one moment of breathless wonder only to be followed by another. And another. And another. An intimacy so deep and resonant, so intensely personal one can only weep over and over again – for joy, for defeat, for triumph, for the depth of great friendship and for the heartfelt sorrow and loss over a journey’s end. And a sense of community and kinship -- with our bravura director, cast of brilliant actors, screenwriters, composer, special effects miracle workers and the literally thousands of others who have subjugated their lives and labored long years to create this staggering accomplishment.

It seems unfair to highlight only a few from what is truly a tour de force ensemble, yet Sean Astin gives one of the year’s finest performances as a traveling companion with mayhap more heart than even the tale’s protagonist – his sense of loyalty and his love of home will literally break your heart. Ian McKellen is yet again the grandest of grand wizards, with a command in his speech and a twinkle in his eye one can only relish, and Elijah Wood soulfully captures a weighty, tormenting, oppressive burden no single individual should ever need bare. While the humans (Viggo Mortensen, Miranda Otto, Bernard Hill) the elves (most notably Orlando Bloom), and our dwarf (John Rhys-Davies) are all equally triumphant, this final chapter is truly a hobbit’s tale, and both Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd embody the very essence of chivalric code and “Impossible Dream” courage to the hilt. Heroism repeatedly comes from the unlikeliest and most unexpected of sources, and we are both humbled and inspired.

But the real star of the show is none other than Director Peter Jackson, who joins an elite pantheon of the likes of D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. DeMille, David Lean, William Wyler and Akira Kurosowa, and has redefined epic filmmaking for a new age.

Dear God do I love the movies. “The Return of the King” is the reason why.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0167260/

Girl with a Pearl Earring

Grade: C

Not all that unlike watching paint dry for 99 straight minutes.

A young maiden cuts an onion. The light shines through the translucent peel -- it is a work of art. A young maiden next cuts some cabbage. The reds and whites intermingle as the knife slices -- it is a work of art. A young maiden then cuts a carrot. The bright orange, the thickness of the cuts -- it is a work of art. A young maiden arranges the onion, the cabbage, the carrots on a plate. She moves a cabbage leaf to create greater interest. She rotates the plate to create the proper perspective.

We’re talking 99 minutes of this, folks.

This is all so well intentioned, sincere, and beautiful to look at that one hates to mention the fact that it is also stoic, mannered, contrived and terribly boring. The supposition of the piece is that the previously noted salad maiden enters the service of a well-known painter and his family. Of course, all of the women in the place – the wife, mother-in-law, and child – are all insufferably shrewish bitches who treat the innocent (yet artistic) maiden like crap, but she discovers passion and art in the hands of the somber, introspective, and mildly tormented painter. “The Girl With a Pearl Earring” by Johannes Vermeer is born.

Scarlett Johansson literally glows on screen, Colin Firth is blandly fine, and Tom Wilkinson is stereotypically lecherous as the artist’s patron who desperately wants to get into Scarlett’s undergarments. The cinematography is stunning, the lighting design is sumptuous. Unfortunately, not unlike an art history professor who is passionate about her subject but drones on until we guilty students can’t help but glaze over, there simply isn’t enough life in this work to make it all that interesting.

Let’s face it -- watching two people sitting side by side making paint together when they really want to be screwing one another displays a significant lack of judgment.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0335119/

Something's Gotta Give

Grade: C+

My patience, for example.

Diane Keaton indeed shines as an independent woman stumbling onto love where and when she least expects it. Jack Nicholson is, well, Jack Nicholson. With tears. Keanu Reeves is actually less stiff and more charming than usual. It’s all rather absurd, frankly, that there’s any decision at all to be made between these two men. Clue phone, Diane, it’s for you.

The rest is all made for television pabulum and pablum, except that we’re all supposed to be impressed that anyone over 40 would be willing to show their naked selves on camera. We’re supposed to be so impressed, in fact, that the screenplay repeatedly and sanctimoniously reminds us just how unfair the world is to more mature women, via multiple lectures unfunnily masquerading as comedy routines. Yawn. When the screenplay isn’t lecturing us, it falls back on basic guy gets girl, guy loses girl sitcom level writing, exacerbated by a movie that’s at least 45 minutes too long and loses what little steam it had in the first place long before we’ve run out of popcorn.

Diane Keaton is so darn good, so genuinely warm, droll and funny, that she virtually carries this labored albatross single-handedly across the finish line. One can’t help but notice the best moments on screen are those where the screenplay must have said things like “Erica displays a mixture of emotion” or “Erica walks alone on the beach,” which Keaton time and time again performs with a richness and complexity far beyond what any written descriptions deserve. ‘Cause the dialogue itself is by and large caca. And will someone please tell Jack his romantic leading man days are over? Ovah. As for Keaton, she should be doing leading romantic women roles for many, many years to come.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0337741/

Big Fish

Grade: C+

If one is seeking a modest but delightful charmer, tall tales making up a life well lived, a meaningful novella on fathers and their sons, immediately go to:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=2VFRFQFLH8&isbn=0140282777&itm=5

and buy a copy of “Big Fish” by Daniel Wallace.

If one is seeking a stubbornly lifeless and often boring experience, earnest and well meaning yet surprisingly dull and unimaginative, the movie version will suit just fine.

Tim Burton, usually wildly cutting edge, whimsical and even visionary, here takes larger than life tales ripe for an expansive imagination and keeps them thoroughly earthbound. Visually, there are some nice bells and whistles as we visit towering giants, big top circuses and singing Siamese twins, but the storytelling itself feels surprisingly labored, episodic and bland.

A son, desperate to move beyond the tall tale telling father he has known his entire life, makes a deathbed visit in the hopes of discovering the man hiding behind the curtain. The replays of all the stories he has come to memorize through the drudgery of lifelong repetition should take flight and soar above the reality of his dying father, but instead feel as trite and tired to us as they do to the son. Ewan McGregor has plenty of eye twinkle as a young Albert Finney, Jessica Lange manages to imbue some nice sentiment with nary a line as an adoring wife, and Billy Crudup also does okay as the frustrated son, although Albert Finney has nothing to do here but lay in bed and reminisce about the good ole days.
While the film finally finds its spark of life and moving spirit in the last fifteen minutes, and a son comes to understand and appreciate his pop, it is too little too late to save this overly long and mundane yawner.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0319061/

The Last Samurai

Grade: F

I actually think I may owe “Matrix Revolutions” an apology.

John Wayne might have enjoyed this melodramatic piece of offensive crap, as it is a western of sorts -- full of battle scenes, shoot ‘em ups and unbearable self-righteousness -- but I somehow tend to doubt it. Nobody calls anybody “Pilgrim” in the movie, and I think this might trouble him.

As the film opens, an intoxicated Tom Cruise, once an officer who served under Custer, is now a rifle spokesperson. He veers off his cue cards (yes, there apparently were cue cards even in the 1870s) and begins telling the crowd about battle, and blood, and death, firing off a round of bullets for good measure. I knew we were in very big trouble right from the start.

This film actually manages to achieve something I’ve never quite witnessed before. It is not merely cliché-ridden from beginning to end -- it is the very thing itself. Every single moment is a cliché wrapped in a cliché, written as a cliché, filmed with clichéd camerawork, lit with clichéd lighting, enhanced with digitally clichéd effects and scored with clichéd music.

And then, dear lord, is the dialogue. “A man may spend his entire life searching for a perfect bloom, and it will be a life unwasted.” Blechh. Wretch, Gag. Of course, Captain Cruise keeps a chessy diary of his experiences as an American officer in Japan, hired to train the Emperor’s army only to fall in with a renegade Samurai and his world, and it is the stuff of which torturous voiceovers are made. “They are a people who seek perfection in everything they do,” he opines. When asked to tell about how someone died in battle, Captain Cruise strikes a meaningfully prostrate pose, the music swells, the tears flow, the light hits him at just the right angle to make certain he looks not unlike Jesus, and he responds, “I will tell you how he lived.” It’s “Brian’s Song” set in Japan.

Every moment is sheer torture – from the flashbacks of American Indian children being massacred in slow motion by American soldiers, to the look of profound inner peace that breaks on Cruise’s face to signify he is finally ready to engage in Samurai combat – in slow motion with Transcendental music of course, to his wounded howls for sake over and over again (“Sss aaaa kk eeeeeeeee. Saaaaaaakkkkeeeee.”), to his smoldering vitriol for a former commanding officer destined for retribution of the battlefield. There is not a single solitary moment that is remotely believable or affecting, and the piece is wrapped in an impressively pretentious and yet also racist bow – no mean feat – that proclaims it is a white man who, through learning the ways of the Samurai (which I guess is supposed to make this all okay somehow), leads the renegades to moral victory and helps Japan expel the western infidels. Of course, lest there be any doubt, he also ends up with a Japanese babe to boot. Lord knows, they couldn’t have done it without him, especially since he’s the only one left standing.

If one wants to see a great work about the battle between western influence and traditional eastern ways, be sure to catch Stephen Sondheim’s “Pacific Overtures” when it comes back to Broadway next season.

This film does a wonderful job, however, of demonstrating the process through which one may commit hari kari. Alas, I accidentally left my sword back at the apartment.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0325710/