Winter's Bone [2010] • USA

"Here's a doobie for the road". Haven't heard that one in years. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to sit comfortably through a couple hours of hillbilly meth heads mumbling through their problems, but Jennifer Lawrence's performance doesn't take long to latch onto. Then Uncle Teardrop shows up. John Hawkes, as Teardrop, nails the role of resident scary guy, and he almost steals the show. A young man of slight physical stature, he is nonetheless able to project frightening unpredictability and intimidation. His character is very well written with a broad development arc, from violent to thoughtful to playing the banjo. The film is worth seeing for Hawkes's performance alone, but it's got a lot more to offer.

Winter's Bone, on the surface, is a backwoods family drama about drug culture, but it's also a good mystery thriller. There are some obvious and unnatural "dialog as character development" moments, and a few scenes inserted to show a little down home familial love and bonding which are a slight cause for pause, but the overall pace is fairly swift and they are easily forgiven, especially when the it rolls out one of the saddest, most thought-provoking endings to a film I've seen in a long time ... well, at least since Confessions. And it's John Hawkes who delivers the death blow.

The ending is not ambiguous. The intended scenario seems fairly clear, but it is open to a number of possibilities. It allows the viewer to sidestep the tragedy if they want to. It's brilliantly written, not saying as much as it says, and it sort of retroactively creates another layer of emotional depth to the film as a whole. I might have been on the fence had the ending come with less of an impact. This is a film that could be a big downer, considering its subject matter, but as written and directed by Debra Granik it clings to the hopeful side of bleak, punctuated and allowed for in the end. Such is the nature of hope.

★★★★★

Director: Debra Granik
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes, Isaiah Stone, Ashlee Thompson, Valerie Richards

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Jack Goes Boating [2010] • USA

Phillip Seymour Hoffman fans should be happy with this, his directorial debut. Hoffman is the king of uncomfortable and he directs to his strength here. Beyond directing himself well, a couple other things struck me as far as the direction goes. He uses a lot of music and knows how to pick tunes. The soundtrack is full of Grizzly Bear with a little Evan Lurie sprinkled about. "Rivers of Babylon", by The Melodians serves as a sort of theme song, being played at the beginning, the end, and during a climatic scene in the middle. A couple songs that stand out as beautiful in and of themselves, and at really nailing the mood, are Goldfrapp's "Eat Yourself" and DeVotchKa's "Dearly Departed". You can listen to these tracks at IFC's web page for the film.

I don't want to give the impression that this film is some kind of music video collage, because it's not. Far from it. The other thing that strikes me about the direction is the tendency, reminiscent of John Cassavetes, to let scenes go on for just a little bit longer than you think they should, allowing for moments of tension or discomfort to linger and echo. And there are a lot of moments of tension and discomfort in the film. The silences contrast beautifully with the more musical moments.

The film is adapted from a play about the intermingling relationships of two couples. One is beginning, the other is established and endured, if not enduring. The established couple, Clyde and Lucy (John Ortiz and Daphne Rubin-Vega), set up their friend Jack (Hoffman) with Lucy's co-worker Connie (Amy Ryan). The use of contrast at work again. One relationship is about to bloom, while the other fights a season of wither. Hoffman, Ortiz, and Ruben-Vega starred in the stage version and reprise their respective roles here. Needless to say they know their parts inside and out. The film has a playful and slow pace and is filled with sharp dialog, a lot of which seems to jump in from out of nowhere. Half the stuff that comes out of Connie's mouth made me chuckle and think 'Where did that come from? Did she really just say that?' Amy Ryan is fabulous here, as are all the players.

The only weakness is that the climactic scene sort of fails, but it doesn't kill the film. It's just one scene you might wish had been done better or different. Or maybe not. Jack Goes Boating is a wonderful character play with a strong script, great acting, and a moving soundtrack. It's kind of brutal and it's pure Philip.

★★★★

Director: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Ortiz, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Amy Ryan

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Catfish [2010] • USA

The other Facebook movie. The most surprisingly thoughtful little film of the year. That's all I'm saying.

★★★★★

Directors: Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman
Starring: Megan Faccio, Melody C. Roscher, Ariel Schulman, Yaniv Schulman

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Twitchfilm (Ben Umstead)
Twitchfilm (Todd Brown and the reason that's all I'm saying.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World [2010] • USA

A total blast. This film has about a dozen principle players and they are all great. Michael Cera does his Michael Cera thing but since I've only seen him do it once before I'm not sick of it. This is a good film for him. He gets to rock out on bass guitar and do a lot of ninja fighting. It's all way over the top and executed very well. Whoever edited this film deserves an Oscar for it. It's amazing. This is easily the most fun I've had watching a movie all year. But it's not trash fun. It's witty. I was smiling from start to finish and LOL'd many times. Not a weak or bad character in the bunch.

I understand that this film had a hard time defining its target audience. Who cares? It is sort of a middle school level cartoon with subtlety more mature humor. I don't care that many of the video game references are dated and I don't think the film is "I'm so smugly and ironically hip." I wasn't interested in seeing this film until I noticed it showing up on a few year end top tens. Yes, the film's marketing escaped me too. I was immediately hooked. Try it. If you aren't smiling and laughing in the first ten minutes unplug it and move on. It's at Netflix.

★★★★★

Director: Edgar Wright
Starring: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Jason Schwartzman, Chris Evans, Anna Kendrick, Ellen Wong

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Twitchfilm (Todd Brown)
Twitchfilm (Jim Tudor)

Black Swan [2010] • USA

Natalie Portman gives a career performance but I don't think it's good enough to make this a great film. The transformation scene near the end is a little too little too late. None of the actual ballet is that exciting or well-executed, and it's only slightly an edgy drama ... inner demons and all that. Nothing is that interesting or played out too intensely. Vincent Cassel is great, of course, but it's not about him. Mila Kunis is refreshing as a "dancer from San Francisco". I enjoyed that she seemed to get what that means.

Good but not great. Natalie Portman is no Mickey Rourke. 


★★★★

Director: Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Winona Ryder, Vincent Cassel, Janet Montgomery, Barbara Hershey

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Buried [2010] • USA, Spain, France

I thought I'd give this one a chance. I like Ryan Reynolds and figured anybody with the kohones to release a film which consists of 95 minutes of a man in a box, a coffin to be exact, might have something interesting to show. But alas, it didn't pan out. Nothing about the film is plausible or interesting.

Reynolds' character has been kidnapped and buried alive by ne'er-do-wells in Iraq. His backstory is revealed through a series of phone calls from within the coffin. There are no flashbacks, nothing to get viewers out of the box. We're in the box with him for the entire run time. His money and papers have been taken from him but he's got a cell phone and a Zippo lighter. He keeps the lighter lit for most of the film so that we can see him—maybe not a good idea when oxygen is in short supply but the thing that kept bugging me is that he hangs onto the lighter most of the time and it should have burnt his fingers. He looks around the coffin for a possible escape hatch but doesn't notice a bag with instructions for making a hostage video until one of his kidnappers calls him and tells him where it's located—"it's by your left foot".

Then a snake shows up. Reynolds lights a fire which causes the snake to make a hasty exit. He's been making phone calls the whole time and eventually gets a call back from the Head of Human Resources at the place which had contracted him to drive a truck in Iraq. The HR guy gives him an exit interview and has him agree that the company shall not be responsible for anything that happens to him, and will not honor his life insurance policy, because he was fired earlier that morning for being too friendly with another employee. The satire of that scene was so broad it bombed.

The film does have a tension filled sad ending which I liked. The director's kohones showed up then, but the rest of the film is ridiculous.

★

Director: Rodrigo Cortés
Starring: Ryan Reynolds

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Greenberg [2010] • USA

I dislike it when there are moments in a film that seem to reflect the writer or director's personal need to express their opinion instead of springing from the natural interactions of its characters. So what to make of a film that seems from beginning to end to be playing out inside the writer/director Noah Baumbach's head? Well, if it's interesting it's interesting, I guess. And I choose the notoriously vague word interesting intentionally. It's like pornography: difficult to define but you know it when you see it. If you don't find articulate ruminations on a life of disappointment, or character studies of people who are imperfect but capable of being attractive, interesting, you won't like this film.

On a technical level, Greenberg is solid. The production values are all good, the music is well chosen and the sets and costuming are fine because they're pretty much invisible, but all that's no big deal. The editing approach is one that pauses, or simply moves on from a scene rather than finishing it allowing the viewer a moment's reflection to create echoes as the film progresses. What really shines is the script. Almost every line of dialog in this film is funny. Not laugh out loud funny, but amusing in its delivery, simplicity, or unexpectedness. And then it comes down to performance.

Ben Stiller's introspective deadpan character is very well suited to Greenberg. He's a guy who says things that many people only think. He's introduced as someone who has spent time in a hospital for mental patients, adding an edge which, brilliantly, is never realized. As I watched this film I kept thinking of the scene from the promotional television commercial for it where Stiller speaks bluntly to some twenty-somethings about his views on the younger generation, and I couldn't imagine how that scene was going to fit into what I was seeing. The film presents a much more subdued character than that commercial implies.

Greenberg is a slow boil and the two other main players are just as muted in their performances. Rhys Ifans plays an old friend of Greenberg and rolls along every time he's onscreen as if he's just gotten out of bed and is too tired to disagree with anything. The highlight of the film is Greta Gerwig. She literally says "Okay" to everything. Her performance is a breath of fresh air, charming and unpretentious, artfully unartful. Contrast it to the small role played by Baumbach's real life wife, Jennifer Jason Leigh. She's become an indie diva, and her appearance is the only thing that brings the film out of its sweet brutal little universe.

I've been a fan of Noah Baumbach since Kicking and Screaming, and his latest film reinforces my admiration of his work. Greenberg is a nearly perfect bit of intelligent and thoughtful film making.

★★★★★

Director: Noah Baumbach
Starring: Ben Stiller, Greta Gerwig, Rhys Ifans
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Secret (Himitsu) [1999] • Japan ... & ... The Secret (Si j'etais toi) If I Were You (2007) • France

I saw the 2007 French/American version of this film first without knowing it was a remake. I liked it, especially the performance by Olivia Thirlby, but when I discovered the 1999 Japanese version, which I liked even more, it highlighted for me a little of why I like Japanese films in particular, and East Asian films in general. It's a lot sweeter and more subtle. More sad too, casts a wider emotional net. As a matter of disclosure I'll point out that I am not a remake basher, on principle, at all.

The basic story centers on a seventeen year old girl whose body is inhabited by her mother's soul. The two of them were in a terrible accident, and while in the hospital, just as the mother is about to die she reaches over, all ceiling of the Sistine Chapel like, and transfers her soul into the body of her daughter. The daughter keeps her body but becomes her mother in personality and memories. When she goes to school and hangs out with her friends she doesn't really know what's going on, who the people are or what her homework assignments are, because ... well, she's her mother now, for all practical purposes. It takes her a while to come to terms with what's happened and even longer to convince her father/husband.

Now, to cut right to the chase in case you can't see the 400 pound gorilla in the room, once the father is convinced that his wife is living in the body of his daughter and they, well, ya know, they're all in love and stuff ... so what about sex?

Things get a little creepy but I give both films high marks for how delicately the sex question is handled. I'll leave it at that and say it's not the main theme of either film, just one of many issues that come up.

The English version is loud and antagonistic. It's not a horror movie (not sure how it got marketed as such) unless you consider David Duchovny spooning with a seventeen year old girl to be horror. The daughter is in rebellion mode against the mother before the accident and their relationship takes center stage—the mother discovering her daughter’s world of sex, drugs, and rock and roll while the daughter comes to recognize the love that her mother has always had for her. The Japanese version is much quieter in comparison. The mother and daughter love each other very much and the antagonism angle focuses on the husband/wife relationship. The husband becomes sad and wimpy, feeling oppressed by having his wife around only as a roadblock to his moving on. The diet of sadness is served in small introspective doses, though, and changes how the film resolves. In the English version the resolution occurs between the mother and daughter. In the Japanese version it is between the husband and wife and involves a big twist that should serve to remind viewers that this has been a fantasy film, after all. As mentioned, I saw the English remake first and it didn’t do the twist, and when I watched the original (with the twist) I thought to myself “This is why I like Asian cinema.” It is so Japanese. Just when the limits of despair seem to have been reached, another complex layer of sadness is revealed for your weeping pleasure. (I wonder how the book they're both based upon ends.)

I’m not a remake basher but I think if I had seen the Japanese version first I might have railed against the remake for changing focus and tone. Having seen the English version first allowed me to enjoy it for what it was, and it didn’t in any way impinge upon my enjoyment of the original. I recommend both films but suggest, oddly, seeing the remake first. Both films explore, and handle, the creepy dilemma of “Would you have sex with your wife if she was living in your daughter’s body?” quite well. They’re both sweet and touching ... except for some of the touching.

★★★★ 

(Japanese version)
Director:  Yojiro Takita
Starring: Ryoko Hirosue, Kaoru Kobayashi

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★★★★ 

(English version)
Director: Vincent Perez  
Starring: David Duchovny, Olivia Thirlby, Lili Taylor

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Avatar: An IMAX 3D Experience [2009] • USA

I've finally seen Avatar in all its glorious 3D IMAXness. I applaud the commitment and the massive amount of work that went into making it, which is just a different way of saying I give it an A for effort, but I'm not sure I'm ready to respond to it as merely an experience and set aside thoughts on how it fares as a film.

The problem with, like, solidly professional filmmakers who make big ass films like this is that they often rely on cardboard cutout stereotypes for character development. For every beautiful set piece, every touching ritual or philosophical bit of soul candy in Avatar, and there are lots of them, there are moments of groan out loud, eye-rolling plot points and dialog. I understand the need for expediency when creating a brand new world and trying to tell a story within it (within the running time of a movie) but that doesn't mean it's exempt from taking hits for it. If you are the type to overlook things like this, like so many seeds in a watermelon, then you will probably enjoy this movie, a lot. And by 'things like this' I mean almost all the moments and characters in the film that are negative in some way. The Colonel, why is he so shiny? Maybe there are tools like him in real life but he seems more irratating than badass. As good as Giovanni Ribisi is, he really goes dumpster diving for this role. Sigourney Weaver plays an ultimately good character, and it's actually developed pretty well, but every time she has to act tough, or act like a bitch, I sighed silently in protest of the script. The same is true of Tsu'tey, the jilted heir.

Creating conflict and character development in films is tough. At almost three hours, the film didn't feel long to me at all. I was never bored and if some of the blunt shallowness could have been presented in a more ripened form by extending the running time I would have been happier, overall.

I don't mind one bit that Avatar is a story that we've heard before and will hear again. That's the nature of good stories, educational fables. They keep getting retold. All in all, Avatar has some incredibly beautiful scenes and some very uplifting and touching moments and if you're not a film creep like me who prefers character studies to fantasy and action, you will love this movie.

★★★★

Director: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez

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A Perfect Getaway [2009] • USA

Some day Timothy Olyphant will land a role in a good movie and the world will ask "Where has this guy been hiding?"

I don't enjoy writing negative reviews and generally reserve the endeavor for films that feel insulting rather than simply failing to excite. Generally these are either art-house films which are too arty or selfish for their own good, or more mainstream films that use standard formulas as if we've never seen them before. A Perfect Getaway falls in the latter category.

I'm going to get spoilery here because there is no way to talk about why I didn't like this film without telling what happens, how it gets there. I will also add that I went into this film knowing nothing about it except for the title which does give some notion of the genre it is aiming for.

In a nutshell we have three couples in this film, one of them a murderous one. The first couple is Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich. They are presented, very clearly, as nerdy, naive, and wimpy. They embark on their honeymoon to some far off and secluded place in Hawaii. They hear about another newlywed couple that was murdered by another couple and so we are all set to weather the storm of how they will getaway from being murdered. The second couple is presented very early on, and very stereotypically, as most likely the killers. Right here we have the first insult. This couple, couple number 2, is insinuated into the plot in a lame attempt to take your eye off the ball. It's cheap. We know right away they are not going to turn out to be the killers, and yet we also know we are still going to have to sit through a handful of phony attempts to convince us that maybe we are wrong about that obvious conclusion.

The third couple is Timothy Olyphant. He's got a girlfriend but he is the only one important to the character development of the couple. He is mysterious. He has a badass history, carries a knife, kills an animal, and has a steel plate in his head. But he is also a nice, thoughtful guy. It's the back and forth of his mysterious goodness and badness that creates the only interesting tension in this film. And since Olyphant is a good actor his character makes for the only enjoyable aspect of the film—besides some beautiful photography of Hawaii.

To cut a long story short, it turns out that the first couple are the killers (or the first couple is the killer couple). It's a big twist! But it's completely unfeasible. So unfeasible that the film spends thirty minutes of inexplicably black and white night visioned flashback recreations to try and make the case anyway. I immediately called bullshit, stopped caring at all, and just wanted the film to be over because nothing about it mattered any more. Twists should be over with quickly. If a film has to spend an inordinate amount of time defending a twist, it's not a very good twist. I felt completely disrespected by the script. Insulted. Thrillers with twists are supposed to be somewhat mysterious throughout. This one deliberately misleads its audience in a patronizing manner, and only attempts such nonsense because it thinks its audience is gullible and stupid. Well ... right back at ya, Perfect. Getaway from me.

★

The Bad Lieutenant • Port of Call New Orleans [2009] • USA

Eva Mendes doesn't have much screen time. I don't know why she's on the movie poster. Wait. Yes I do. There's no use comparing this to the 1992 film called Bad Lieutenant by Abel Ferrara because it's not a remake, not the same film at all.

Herzog doesn't spend a lot of time on things, which is good, I suppose, because that way we get more Herzog. But then again, if he would have known ahead of time that he was going to get the performance from Nicolas Cage that he got he might have spent a little more time massaging the script and he might have produced a masterpiece. Instead what he gives us is a pretty good movie with a masterpiece performance from Cage. The film comes off as a series of vignettes rather than a smoothly flowing story. A lot of it is rather implausible if you stop and dissect it so maybe a series of hallucinogenic impressions was the only way to go. It's a great film but it's not a masterpiece.


★★★★

Pandorum [2009] • USA, Germany

I watched this movie because Ben Foster is a major talent. It's hard to recommend any of the movies he's been in but his performances have always been great. Most notable is his role in 3:10 to Yuma where he plays a cold-blooded killer like an effeminate Klaus Kinski on horseback. It's creepy and unnerving in its understatedness. He's one of those actors that scares you, like Vera Farmiga. Pandorum is another film I don't recommend except for Foster's performance. It's a bad movie but you can enjoy Foster improvising his way through it, trying to make something of the nonsense he's given to work with. He adds humor to the film by mocking his own dialog. He whispers a lot too, hoping no one will hear some of the lines he's tasked to deliver. So it is entertaining on that level. The rest of it is problematic.

The film starts with a couple guys aboard a gigantic spaceship waking from hypersleep with mild amnesia. One of them puts on a walkie-talkie headset and goes off in search of the reactor room. From that point on we're treated to dialog that consists of endless variations on the theme of "Can you hear me now?" And then the creatures show up. These creatures, reminiscent of those from The Descent (2005), can "run faster than you" and are "stronger than you know", but the humans outrun them throughout the movie, sort of like Mark Wahlberg outrunning the wind in The Happening, and they lose in some of their fights with humans. That's weird. The director uses silly camera tricks to cover up ridiculously written and choreographed scenes—and not very well. You often see characters just standing there on the sidelines, twiddling their thumbs waiting for their cue to start acting. There is, of course, a big holy shit twist at the end which segues peacefully to a happy ending, but who cares? Movie bad, Ben Foster good.

★★

Hurt Locker [2008] • USA

I don't understand all the love for this film. Kathryn Bigelow is a fine director and all, but the script for this is terrible. It's cliché from top to bottom. There's nothing here that isn't predictable macho nonsense. Given that it is purported to be written by someone embedded with real access to these army guys, I couldn't believe how unbelievable it all is. Team players don't turn off radio contact and do things the other players don't know about unless they're dumb movie characters. Generals don't then praise them for doing it, either. Of course butch boy befriends Iraqi boy for cheap shot at character depth and I call bullshit. This film is insufferably boring unless you get a rush from fantasy testosterone games. The narrative barely rises above the limits of a Powerpoint presentation.

★ ★

Paranormal Activity [2007] • USA

Don't fall for the stories of people walking out of this movie because it's too scary. It doesn't even pretend to be scary until at least an hour into it. Somebody's leg is being pulled. And speaking of pulled legs ... that is the only scary scene in the movie.

There are allegedly three different endings to the film. I saw the original one ... and it's not scary or satisfying at all. There's a little bit of off-screen screaming that abruptly turns into silence. OK, that can be unnerving but it's just a technique. It doesn't move the story to anywhere that matters. The ending being shown in theaters now might be better--a whole bunch more technique with a frightening image or two that is over with quickly. The original peters out to nothingness for far too long and has no meaning.

Even if we grant that either or both of the endings I didn't see kick total ass, that doesn't make it a good film. It makes it three minutes of coolness that requires ninety minutes of suffering to get to.

The guy in this film is a completely unlikeable moron. The girl is OK but I never really thought she was scared, more just annoyed by her idiotic day-trader boyfriend. I think everyone acknowledges that this film is mostly, for at least an hour, nothing but set up before anything happens, and that's too much time spent with bad actors working without a script. There's nothing subtle about it.

★★

Synecdoche, New York • 2008 • USA

I've finally seen Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York, and jeezus. I thought his Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was trippy. How this film didn't sweep the Oscars I don't understand. Wait, yes I do. It's relentlessly bleak—in that Woody Allen 'obsessed-with-death' way—but it's also belly crunch hilarious. I had to stop and rewind a dozen times because I missed things, overcome by a wheezing laughter. There is not a feel good moment in the film and yet it left me strangely uplifted.

Charlie Kaufman is a contortionist of the mind. Again, like in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, he stretches and reshapes time (and space, to a degree) until you just have to let go, and yet a firm narrative structure is always present, never abandoned. It's an amazing feat of screenplay-ism.

The film is remarkably cast. Philip Seymour Hoffman is one of the best actors working today and he is perfect for the role of representing, on film, the introverted, insecure because he's seen the abyss genius of Charlie Kaufman. His performance is better, ten times better, and funnier, than anything he's done before. Imagine that! Catherine Keener? Has any one ever had a bad word to say about her? The pièce de résistance, however, in a creepy—as if it were meant to be but will never happen again but seems like it may have, or should have, been done before—kind of way is Emily Watson playing Samantha Morton. You'll have to see it to understand. If a fifth wall existed, this film would shatter it.

Casual movie-goers will find Synecdoche, New York difficult, dark, pretentious and hopeless, but if you like film, if you like writing, if you like artistic commitment, if you like mind-fuck hilarity, don't miss it.

★★★★★

Rachel Getting Married [2008] • USA

On the one hand, Rachel Getting Married is a docu-style contempo-drama where family members rip each other's skin off and speak directly to the nerve endings, and on the other hand it's a celebration of diversity where black and white marry, and a couple Asians are invited to the party for spice. Often, when these two hands come together they'll include a racist character who makes old school remarks so the audience can point and scream "old school!" with sheepish enlightenment, ala the moronic Gran Torino. The beauty of this film is that it doesn't engage in diversity training and simply observes the diversity. Its hipness cup does runneth over, however, by outfitting the bridesmaids in saris and designing the wedding cake as an elephant. There are no Indians in the film, nor any plot points suggesting any characters have ever been to India or even know any Indians. I can only assume that the theme is meant to play on the notion that all enlightened people love India. Maybe I missed something but it seems weird and inexplicable, and hence, a little multiculturally profligate.

The "look ma! No hands" handheld video camera that's meant to reinforce, or rather enforce, the not so much directing as capturing directorial style is annoying more than it needs to be. It devalues the film, and along with the numerous scenes that go on far too long (or needn't have been included in the first place) leaves the viewer with the impression that they are watching a real wedding video. I mean that in an unflattering way.

What makes this film really annoying, however, is that it is completely inauthentic. The grand metaphor for me involves Anne Hathaway and cigarettes. She's obviously a non-smoker in real life and just can't act smoking, and yet she chain smokes throughout the film. Why? Because it gives her rehab character street cred. That's how phony most of the script is. It's full of dialog that even the most narcissistic and damaged are incapable of, or maybe not, but even if you allow the serve, the volleys are absurd. Take the scene where the girls are in a salon getting their hair done. Hathaway is in a chair up front getting highlights while her sister's head is in the back being washed. Some asshole kneels in front of Hathaway and relates a story about knowing her from some rehab psycho ward where they passed around anonymous confessions as an cleansing exercise. The guy tells her he knows the note he got was from her and that her story of an uncle who sexually abused her and her sister helped him and he wants to say thank you. Now, it's just impossible for someone to be that stupid. Did I mention that he tells the story to Hathaway with enough volume that her sister, and presumably everyone else in the busy salon, also hears it? It's this kind of crass and amateurish manipulation that sinks the film. I couldn't recover after that scene, and neither did the film. Even if the film had gotten better, instead of a lot worse and much more boring, that big ugly stain of a scene could only receive positive marks for blotting out, by surpassing in ugliness, the interminable dishwasher fight scene that preceded it.

There is a lot to like about this film. The joy, amidst all the suffering, is palpable, and many of the performances are well-executed, a few resulting in very likable characters, mostly on the groom's side. But the bad overshadows the good, like the omnipresent group of musicians whose constant rehearsing provides a live soundtrack to the movie in lieu of a real one. It's a cool concept, like much of the film, but it doesn't work. I want to applaud the film's good intentions and its progressive approach to film making but it comes off as immature, self-indulgent, and too hip for its own good as it tries to cover way too much ground in its frustratingly unclear timeframe.

★★

The Guitar (2008) • USA

In the first five minutes of this film three big things happen. 1) Saffron Burrows is diagnosed with terminal cancer, given a month, two at most. 2) She's downsized out of her job and then, presumably to illustrate the impact of #2, she makes a collect phone call. Turns out the call is to her boyfriend. How weird is that? He meets with her and spews forth the most inane psychobabble nonsense about needing to find his inner child you've ever heard and says 3) he is breaking up with her. I should have given up right then and there but ... girls with guitars, ya know.

Saffron proceeds to rent a penthouse loft and furnishes it extravagantly using an endless supply of credit cards. She never goes out so she walks around naked and has sex with the UPS guy and pizza delivery girl. Saffron's acting is decent. She's capable of exposing layers of emotion. She buys a guitar. It has something to do with the flashbacks we see of her childhood, of course. At this point things become subjective. I'm a guitar snob and am not impressed seeing people fake a relationship with a guitar. Movies have for years been able to convincingly fake people playing the piano (right?) but I've never seen a good fake guitar playing performance. Granted, she is supposed to be a beginner so I shouldn't have expected much but I did anyway. I could let her slide on the fingering and strumming, given her beginner status and all, but I really needed to see an exciting relationship of her body to the guitar. I'm not expecting her to have sex with it, just show me that her body and her soul (that is the point, isn't it?) understand it, know how to move it and move with it and let it move her. Nada.

Final verdict: thumbs down. Even if you don't share my guitar snobbery I don't think the film has much to offer beyond a decent performance from Burrows. It's pretty standard (trite and fantastic) "what would you do if you were told you had only a couple months to live" stuff. If playing the guitar is something that you'd do, given that you've got only a couple months to live, the learning curve ought to be really quick. I mean, if you are going to make a movie out of it.

★★

Nothing But the Truth [2008] • USA

This is a good film, not a great one but I'm going to call it a great film because I loved it enough for it to fall into the great film category for me. Great films are films that I will watch again and again just to spend time with the characters, performances of characters, really. It's seldom that the story or plot of a film by itself will prompt me to multiple viewings. The story here starts off like it's going to be a dramatization of the Valerie Plame affair. A newspaper reporter (Kate Beckinsale) reveals the identity of a CIA operative (Vera Farmiga). The government goes after the reporter, in the name of national security, to get her to reveal her source. The reporter refuses to cooperate, is held in contempt of court and goes to jail. Beyond that, the story veers off to create a commercial thriller with its own character backgrounds and struggles.

Part of the veering off involves some questionable, or maybe just questioning of, gender politics. Beckinsale's character is given an elementary school aged son, setting her up as not just a professional woman but also as a mother. As her time in jail grows longer, her relationship with her son grows strained and the government uses this to its advantage to try and get what they want. Her struggle, then, is split between motherhood and first amendment issues. I'm not sure this plot branch was scripted very well but there is one scene where it is driven home economically. After doing a television interview where she is berated for neglecting her son, her own lawyer is coaching her to reveal her source and informs her that the public is no longer behind her and thinks she is being selfish and a bad mother. She declares, "Oh! So the message is, you can trust your sources unless they're a mother, in which case they will crack!"

But enough about the story. Suffice to say, don't go see this in the hopes of insight or elucidation regarding the Valerie Plame affair. It's fictionalized enough to distance itself from that. It does have a few short, but not overly dramatic, preachy moments about first amendment issues but they are done fairly and the more fair they become the less pedantic it ends up. It's a pretty smart film. So let's get to the performances.

Kate Beckinsale is beautiful, even while in jail without eye make up for most of the film. No big deal. But she is also very genuine in her role here. And genuine is what makes for good performance. She plays the right combination of spunk and vulnerability which provides great detail in her dual role as mother and gender neutral professional. Same goes for Vera Farmiga. Jesus, the woman scares me. She is tasked with delivering some of the most ridiculous dialog in the film ("You are an unpatriotic little cunt who’s going to walk right off the plank into the bowels of hell, do you know that?") but doesn't lose credibility. She's that tough. It's like she's a chameleon with nerve endings on the outside of her skin. If you even look at her the wrong way she might electrocute you. She'll smile while it happens. Best to just send good vibes her way and hope she doesn't bother you. She has become one of my favorite actresses due to her acting like a really fast car that doesn't handle well. Matt Dillon on the other hand, comes with power steering. He seems bigger now, not just physically but in terms of presence. He plays the special prosecutor charged with getting the information from Beckinsale. He is pitch perfect and totally in control even though he seems to never make any progress. Very well done. I'm tired of Alan Alda's charming simplicity, but for those who are not, in many ways he steals the show as the eccentric, well-dressed lawyer who represents Beckinsale. Angela Bassett, David Schwimmer, and Noah Wyle round out the ensemble cast. All good, surprisingly or not. Noah Wyle actually creeped me out a bit, in a good way. He wasn't at all like a wounded puppy dog staring off into space. With the exception of Schwimmer, every time someone from this ensemble has a scene it becomes their film. Color me impressed.

Then there's the reveal at the end. Brilliantly provocative. Make sure you've been paying attention because it changes everything. It's unexpected and sure to stir up chatter on your way out the theater. Lame or awesome? There is no in between. I loved it just for the cahoneys.

★★★★

The Grand (2008) • USA

I laughed and laughed. This is a great vehicle for Woody Harrelson, but I could also list and applaud the umpteen other actors (from Werner Herzog to Gabe Kaplan) in this ensemble comedy. It's fast paced and smartly written. The inside jokes are there for those who know the world of Professional Poker but you don't need to be an insider to laugh at most of them. This is one of the best comedies I've seen in a long time.

★★★★

Gran Torino (2009) • USA

I tried three times and couldn't get past the first twenty minutes, or so. The setup, the writing, is so immature and clichéd I couldn't take it. No creativity, no nuance, no respect for the audience. I was thinking ... if I get past the funeral opening, where a pierced belly button is used to set the stage for generational gap, and two sons have a discussion about their father in that way people never talk except when they're characters in movie providing background on another character ... I might be good to go. Sometimes directors shove too much down your throat at the beginning of a film so they can get on with telling the story. But the hits just kept on coming.

I'm not saying this is a bad movie. To be clear, I'm saying I found the first act so insulting I couldn't go on. So, technically, I can't say.

★