June 2010

WINTER’S BONE (2010)
At the center of this intense, depressing slice of life in poverty-stricken Ozarks is an extraordinary performance by Jennifer Lawrence. Playing the stoic, determined 17-year-old daughter of a backwoods drug dealer who has skipped bail, Lawrence embodies the hopelessness of those growing up in this environment while creating a character who fearlessly risks her life to save her family.

The actress, still shy of 20 and resembling a young Renée Zellweger, gave an impressive performance last year as Kim Basinger’s rebellious daughter in the underrated “The Burning Plain,” but in “Winter’s Bone” she’s simply mesmerizing, establishing herself as the best young actress in film.

After Ree (Lawrence) learns that her father put up their house and property as bond, she ventures out to question her cousins, nephews and uncles scattered throughout the region about her father’s whereabouts. If he doesn’t show up for a court date, Ree, her mentally incapacitated mother and her younger siblings will be homeless.

But blood relations have a different meaning in the back country and she’s greeted by stern, hateful glares and undisguised threats from these meth-cooking, paranoid white trash. They’d rather see her family be put out in the cold than rat out her outlaw father.

Director and co-writer Debra Granik (“Down to the Bone”) has perfectly captured the look and attitude of these anti-social, vindictive people who, in recent decades, have replaced moonshine with meth as their source of income. About their only redeeming value is that they still produce some incredible folk music.

Ree gets some help in her search when her mean, but understanding uncle, known as Teardrop (unforgettably portrayed by John Hawkes) offers his influence and insight into what he believes happened to his brother.

The irony and power of this film comes from the depiction of the unimaginable poverty these people are living in yet how precious that world is to them. In one of the films few lighthearted scenes, Ree shows her little brother and sister how to hunt squirrels and then later how to skin and gut them. Yet, here is this teen who not only knows how to put meat on the family table (even if it is squirrel meat) but is taking on the role of a father, teaching the children how to provide for themselves in the future.

Granik and co-writer Anne Rosellini (adapting Daniel Woodrell’s novel) never let the urgency of the story take over the film; it’s the people and their world that makes “Winter’s Bone” such a memorable film, along with Lawrence’s heartbreak performance, one of the most affecting I’ve seen in years.


THE EDGE OF HEAVEN (2007)
This unassuming German film is both a perceptive study of a diverse collection of characters and a harsh political critique of life in Turkey. Writer-director Fatih Akin, a German born to Turkish parents, who made the superb “Head-On” (2004), weaves the lives of these characters together in the most unexpected ways, utilizing coincidences in a manner that comes off as completely believable, spiking the drama.

The intricately plotted script, which plays tricks with time to intensify the situations, begins its complex journey with an elderly Turkish man, who pays a middle-aged prostitute (Nursel Köse) to live with him. It soon ends badly when he returns from a hospital stay, accidentally kills her and then is sentenced to prison. Filled with guilt and anger at his father’s act of violence, the son (Baki Davrak), a professor at a German university, returns to his native Istanbul, determined to track down the prostitute’s daughter and provide for her.

At the same time all that is occurring, the prostitute’s daughter (Nurgül Yesilçay), an activist in a radical political organization in Turkey, is on the run from police and ends up in Germany, hooking up with a sympathetic college student (Patrycia Ziolkowska). Much to the displeasure of the German’s girl mother (played by the legendary German actress Hannah Schygulla), the women become lovers.

The acting is all first rate, especially Yesilçay as the tough, rebellious woman who finds friends in unusual places. Schygulla, who was an international star in the 1970s and ‘80s as director Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s muse in “The Marriage of Maria Braun” (1979) and the epic “Berlin Alexanderplatz” (1980), gives a moving performance as a mother who must accept that her daughter is more like her than she prefers. At first, her character doesn’t seem that important, but, as happens throughout this exceptional film, perspectives change and she emerges as a crucial figure.

“The Edge of Heaven” is a perfectly cut puzzle that speaks to the cross-cultural nature of contemporary Europe and the idea that we are all, in some way, responsible for one another. Also at its heart is the healing nature of forgiveness. For these characters, forgiving those close to them, in the face of horrific circumstances, turns out to be central to their salvation.


THE MESSENGER (2009)
and BROTHERS (2009)
Both of these desert war films examine the varied victims of the conflict, mostly those left behind on the home front. The wives, children and parents of soldiers along with the soldiers who must re-adjust to civilian life are the focus of this pair of well-acted, but mostly disappointing pictures.

Barely released in theaters (essentially to qualify for the Oscars), “The Messenger” provides a meaty, serious role for Woody Harrelson, earning him a supporting actor nomination, as career soldier Capt. Tony Stone, who notifies next of kin of the death of a U.S. combatant. Stone is a by-the-book but talkative officer who understands the gravity of his job. His new, unhappy partner is Staff Sgt. Will Montgomery (played with tight-lipped intensity by Ben Foster), a recently wounded soldier who considers the assignment as beneath his abilities, a clerk’s task. But, need I even say it, Will comes to appreciate the role of notifier, even taking the job too personality when he gets involved with a widow (the always superb Samantha Morton).

Foster, who gave a memorable performance as Russell Crowe’s hot-headed sidekick in “3:10 to Yuma” (2007), builds his character slowly and quietly, bringing a depth to Will not found in the film’s story. He’s the perfect foil for Harrelson’s Stone, who eventually reveals more than the macho/military posing he has down pat.

The heart of the film are the excruciating moments when parents and wives learn of the death of their loved one and the impact that has on the two officers. It’s an aspect of war well worth exploring, but this script, by director Oren Moverman and Alessandro Camon, doesn’t bring much originality to the subject.

“Brothers” was also positioned as Oscar bait, with a cast of young stars----Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal and Natalie Portman----under the direction of top-line director Jim Sheridan (“My Left Foot,” “In the Name of the Father”), but it faded quickly. This isn’t a bad film, but like “The Messenger,” doesn’t have much new to offer to the rich legacy of home-front movies.

The plot beings in earnest when a pair of notifiers (it would have been perfect if Harrelson and Foster had made cameos) inform Portman’s Grace that her Marine husband Sam (Maguire), who had just returned to duty in Afghanistan, died when his helicopter was shot down.

A few weeks later, Grace receives a late night call from Sam’s irresponsible, just out of prison brother Tommy (Gyllenhaal), who needs her to pay his bar bill and save him from a parole violation. Finding himself surrounded by Sam’s and Grace’s two cute little girls and the alluring widow, Tommy becomes a model citizen and takes on the role of surrogate father for the girls. At the same time, the film switches to the desert hills of Afghanistan to reveal that Sam isn’t dead, but has been taken prisoner by Afghan rebels and is suffering horrific treatment.

The problem with “Brothers” is that Sheridan doesn’t have anywhere interesting to take the story once he reaches this point. Typical of Sheridan’s scripts (written here with David Benioff), the film is loaded with intense family arguments and discussions of what it means to be part of a family and a responsible adult. Part “Deer Hunter,” part “Coming Home,” the picture too often plays like a greatest hits reel. What emotional truth it pacts comes from the strong acting.

While I didn’t think Maguire was the right actor for Sam (he’s not believable as a brooding tough guy), Portman and Gyllenhaal create sympathetic, emotionally complex characters who bond over the memory of Sam. Another standout is Sam Shepard as the brothers’ ex-military, temperamental father, devoted to Sam but disdainful of Tommy. Shepard has become a master at finding just the right vocal tilt and physical mannerisms that quickly establish what his character’s all about. It’s one of this underrated actors finest performances.


ONDINE (2010)
There’s something about Ireland that lends itself to tales of mystic possibilities and romantic fairy tales. This version of the mermaid legend comes to life when a forlorn, solitary fisherman (a hangdog Colin Farrell) discovers a willowy young woman amidst the crabs when he pulls his net from the sea. While she doesn’t speak initially, she does sing, which seems to increase his catch tenfold.

He puts her up in a small dockside shack he owns and she soon becomes the object of speculation among the town’s folks. Most interested is the fisherman’s spunky, independent young daughter Annie (Alison Barry), who lives with his bitter, alcoholic ex-wife and suffers from kidney failure. She decides that Ondine (as they call the girl from the sea) is a selkie, a mythological creature that transforms itself from a seal to a human when searching for love.

While an expected romance blooms between Farrell’s Syracuse and Ondine (played mysteriously by Alicja Bachleda), it is the lovingly drawn relationship between father and daughter that elevates the picture to something more than a lark. Also adding to the depth of the film is the picturesque setting of Castletownbere---the home of the film’s director Neil Jordan---beautifully captured by cinematographer Christopher Doyle.

Jordan, one of the most interesting and eclectic filmmakers working today, is best known for “The Crying Game” (1992), but also has helmed such gems as “Mona Lisa” (1986), “The End of the Affair” (1999) and “The Good Thief” (2002). He usually imbues his characters with a lived-in, world-wearing angst and in this film Farrell fills the bill perfectly.

The 34-year-old Irish actor has fashioned an impressive career, staring with his intense soldier in “Tigerland” (2000) and including recent, superbly rendered performances in “The New World” (2005), “Cassandra’s Dream” (2007), “In Bruges” (2008) and in a small but key role in “Crazy Heart” (2009). In “Ondine,” his Syracuse has been dealt bad hands all his life, so he’s a bit confused as to how to deal with the good luck this girl he fished from the sea brings him. Farrell lets you see the character’s struggles and his indecisiveness.

The picture turns a tad melodramatic in the end as the true nature of Ondine is revealed, but writer-director Jordan never lets it drift too far from the magical nature of the story and its touching father-daughter bond.


YOUNG VICTORIA (2009)
Another movie about a queen of England is hard to get excited about considering how overexposed these women have been in the past dozen years.

Elizabeth I was portrayed by Cate Blanchett in “Elizabeth” (1998) and “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” (2007) and by Helen Mirren in the BBC 2005 miniseries, “Elizabeth I.” Elizabeth II, the current sovereign, was played by Mirren and earned her an Oscar, in “The Queen” (2006). Judi Dench also scored an Oscar as Elizabeth I in “Shakespeare in Love” (1998). There was also a BBC miniseries in 2006 from the BBC called “The Virgin Queen,” which starred Anne-Marie Duff.

Before she was Elizabeth, Dench portrayed Victoria in “Mrs. Brown” (1997) and in 2001, A&E Network produced a superb miniseries, “Victoria and Albert,” starring Victoria Hamilton as the young queen.

“Young Victoria,” released at the end of 2009, focuses on the palace intrigue right before she ascends to the throne and during her early days as monarch while Prince Albert courts her. Emily Blunt, best known as the harried assistant in “The Devil Wears Prada,” displays the right balance of steely authority and youthful vulnerability as the teenaged queen. Her battles with her mother (Miranda Richardson) and her controlling companion Sir Conroy (a memorable Mark Strong) are well played and make for good cinema, but much of the political maneuverings seem much ado about inside politics circa 1840.

Typical of a “queen” movie, “Young Victoria” is filled with sparkling supporting acting, including Jim Broadbent as the dying King William, Paul Bettany as Prime Minister Lord Melbourne and Rupert Friend as Albert.

Director Jean-Marc Vallée, whose 2005 film “C.R.A.Z.Y.” earned good reviews, takes full advantage of the regal setting and colorful costumes, but the script by Julian Fellowes, who won an Oscar for “Gosford Park,” fails to elevate the film above the subject’s crowded field.


SPLICE (2010)
This science-gone-bad picture poses interesting questions about the ethics of creating life in the lab and what exactly constitutes human life. At the same time, it plays out as a ridiculously melodramatic, B-movie thriller.

Adrian Brody and Sarah Polley play a pair of hip, cutting-edge researchers who have managed to splice genes of a variety of species to create a slimy but valuable form of life. The drug company they work for wants to cash in on the medicinal possibilities of these giant worm-like creations, but Clive and Elsa want to go one step further. Soon little Dren, part monkey, part antelope, part human, is leaping around the lab and aging rapidly.

Not only does Elsa grow way too close to the “experiment,” but Dren (superbly played French actress Delphine Chanéac), becoming a teenager a few weeks after birth, starts forming a wedge between the couple. The film goes places you’d never expect, which sometimes is a good thing, other times less so.

But throughout, Brody and Polley work well together as determined but misguided scientists, completely believable as brilliant scientists and emotionally conflicted humans. Since winning the 2002 best actor Oscar for “The Pianist,” Brody has yet to give a performance that made me think he was destined for a great movie career. He was good in the grungy time-travel film “The Jacket” (2004), as the detective in “Hollywoodland” and as record producer Leonard Chess in “Cadillac Records” (2008), but little more than an empty slate in higher profile roles in “King Kong” (2005) and “The Darjeeling Limited” (2007).

Polley has also failed to live up to expectations. Working in Canada since she was six, Polley was first noticed in the U.S. with her extraordinary performances as the victim of abuse in “The Sweet Hereafter” (1997) when she was 18. Since then she’s mostly worked in offbeat pictures, playing a young bride in Michael Winterbottom’s underrated “The Claim” (2000), a journalist who befriends a monster in Hal Hartley’s “No Such Thing” (2001) and as Sam Shepard’s unorthodox daughter in Wim Wender’s “Don’t Come Knocking” (2005).

She was excellent in these little seen films, but her biggest success has come behind the camera, directing Julie Christie as a victim of Alzheimer’s in the beautifully rendered “Away From Her” (2007). It earned Polley an Oscar nomination for her screenplay adaption in addition to Christie’s best actress nod. But Polley still needs that meaty leading role in a major film to establish herself as an A-list actress, if that’s even what she’s interested in.

In the final act, director Vincenzo Natali throws all the scientific and quite believable aspects of the story out the window and morphs the picture into a fantasy/horror mess. But there are enough interesting ideas and fascinating angles to “Splice” to elevate it above the typical sci-fi cautionary tale.


AUNTIE MAME (1958)
I’ve been avoiding this film for decades. Everything I’ve ever read about the picture convinced me it wasn’t my cup of tea. So I kept putting it off until it was the last best picture Oscar nominee in my lifetime that I hadn’t seen.

But, as with many things one avoids for years, it turned out to be less odious than I imagined. In large part, it is saved by Rosalind Russell, who plays Mame as a version of her classic screwball persona, part Hildy from “His Girl Friday,” part Sylvia from “The Women.”

Mame is an outspoken, fabulously rich widow who lives the decadent life as part of the 1920s New York theater crowd. Her parties are legendary, as are many of her friends (as her maid states the morning after a particular late night: “The first lady of the American stage is passed out in the upstairs room”).

But after 30 minutes of snappy one liners as Mame juggles raising and educating her nephew (dropped into her life after his parents’ death) while maintaining her jazz-age party lifestyle, the crash of ’29 throws a wet blanket over everything.

The film, just like the Great Depression economy, goes from bad to worse as Mame takes up with a boisterous but generous oil tycoon (Forrest Tucker) and they marry and travel the world. Most of the last half of this incredible long, tiresome picture deals with Mame’s nerdish secretary (game show maven Peggy Cass, who scored an unlikely Oscar nomination for the role) and the now grown, and snobbish, nephew (Roger Smith, who went on to playing Jeff Spencer in the TV show “77 Sunset Strip”) and his equally pretentious fiancé.

Enduring 2 hours and 23 minutes of “Auntie Mame” (it felt like 4 hours and 46 minutes) was painful, but Russell’s unabated energy keeps the film afloat. She earned a best actress nomination for the role and the colorful cinematography, by Hollywood veteran Harry Stradling, also was nominated.

What’s most shocking about the film’s best picture nomination is that it filled a spot that could have been taken by two of the greatest American films ever made: Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece “Vertigo” and Orson Welles’ brilliant noir “Touch of Evil.” It may be the most egregious misjudgment in Oscar history.

May 2010

TRACKS (1977)
After ushering in the most creative and adventurous decade in American cinema with “Easy Rider,” it was quite appropriate that Dennis Hopper appeared in the last great movie of the 1970s, “Apocalypse Now.” Yet in between, Hopper contributed almost nothing to this seminal era. Like much of his career, the 70s were lost in a haze of drugs, alcohol, paranoia and destructive relationships.

Actually, it’s a miracle “Easy Rider” ever got made if even half of the stories of Hopper’s behavior during the filming are true. Equally miraculous is that the man lived 74 years, losing a battle with prostate cancer on May 29.

Before he turned 20, Dennis Hopper had appeared in two classics of the 1950s, “Rebel Without a Cause” and “Giant,” both starring James Dean. By 1969, he was a minor supporting player, mostly in television, who had failed to live up to his own dream of carrying the Method acting torch for Dean.

Then Peter Fonda brought him a story of a pair of motorcycle-riding hippies transporting dope across the country. He fought endlessly with Fonda, co-writer Terry Southern and producer Bert Schneider and pulled a knife on co-star Rip Torn. That turned out to be Hopper’s best directorial decision: Torn was replaced by Jack Nicholson. Hopper turned in a four-hour cut of the film and was immediately sent on vacation as Schneider and editor Donn Cambern turned it into a releasable picture. No one expected to make a dime, but it grossed $40 million and nearly single-handedly awakened Hollywood to a new paradigm. The 70s were born.

But Hopper’s tenure as a hot, young director ended quickly with the incoherent chaos of his follow-up, “The Last Movie” (1971) and he was back to his pre-“Easy Rider” role, still a minor player even in the new Hollywood he helped create.

One of his more interesting performances during the decade is in “Tracks,” playing an unstable Vietnam vet escorting the body of a fellow soldier across the country. Actually, writer-director Henry Jaglom would have been better off dropping the Vietnam angle and finding another reason for Hopper’s train trip. Whatever political statement Jaglom was trying for here just gets in the way of a pretty good character study.

To say Hopper’s Jack Falan is tightly wound is an understatement. He’s so nervous around people that he usually excuses himself (very politely) just a few minutes after sitting down. He makes friends with a hustling hippie (Dean Stockwell) and makes a clumsy attempt to woo a confused college girl (Taryn Power), but by the end of the trip has become completely delusional and on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Needless to say, the ‘Nam soldier goes nuts theme is the worst kind of cliché, but Hopper brings a quiet dignity to the role. In the nicest touch of the film, Falan listens to World War II era music whenever he’s alone. As one of the many characters he encounters on the train says of him, “There is something oddly endearing about the man.”

But the film did nothing to raise Hopper’s profile; in fact, when I first saw “Apocalypse Now,” I was uncertain which character he was playing. He was just a name to me. After repeated viewings, he seemed to be playing himself as the fast-talking, Kurtz-idolizing photojournalist.

Then, in 1986 at age 50, Hopper had his breakthrough year. He was the creepy drug dealer Feck in “River’s Edge,” the alcoholic basketball expert Shooter in “Hoosiers” and, most astonishingly, the psychotic, unnervingly explosive Frank Booth in “Blue Velvet.” He was nominated for a supporting Oscar for “Hoosiers,” but the nod was clearly seen as a comeback award for this Method acting prodigal son. Booth became the role the rest of his career would be based on as he played a series of crazies in hits such as “Speed” (1994) and “Waterworld” (1995). Much of what he appeared in was unwatchable straight-to-DVD movies, but he never stopped working, appearing in over 100 movies and TV series from 1986 until his death.

He had two memorable TV roles in this second half of his career: as the vile racist in “Paris Trout” (1991) and as Victor Drazen, a European terrorist who seeks revenge on Jack Bauer in the first season of “24” (2002). And he got his chance to direct some mainstream Hollywood films, including “Colors” (1988) and “The Hot Spot” (1990).

His last performance in a major film turned out to be one of his best, playing a famous poet and intellectual and best friend to star Ben Kingsley in “Elegy” (2008). In a moving scene, Hopper’s George, on his deathbed, takes his friend in his arms. Despite all the over-the-top, wild-eyed performances of the past two decades, it was clear that Hopper, if given a chance, was capable of creating an emotionally truthful and intelligent character.

But it’d be romanticizing Hopper to say that, without the drugs and alcohol, he could have made something more of his career. He never possessed the talent or screen presence of his idol Dean or his contemporaries Nicholson and the underrated Stockwell. Yet he managed to will to life the movie that marked the end of the studio system, had a central role in the best American film of the past 25 years and, along the way, became the surviving icon of Hollywood rebellion. What his character says of Kurtz in “Apocalypse Now” could easily apply to Hopper: “The man is clear in his mind, but his soul is mad….don’t judge the colonel like you would another man.”


THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES (2010)
I admit I was baffled when Pedro Almodóvar announced the winner of 2009 foreign-language film Oscar was this Argentine picture, at that point yet to be released in the U.S. I suspected, based on the questionable picks by Academy membership in this category in years past, that Michael Henke’s “The White Ribbon,” was just too provocative for the Oscars. In 2008, they ignored “Waltz with Bashir” and “The Class,” both edgy, widely praised pictures, and instead went with the Japanese film “Departures,” which, when it was finally released here, was roundly paned.

But now that I’ve seen “Secret in Their Eyes” I must admit that, at least this time, the Academy got it right. This is one of the most stylish, well acted and intelligently written murder mystery/love stories I’ve seen in a long time.

Argentine writer-director Juan José Campanella, who previously was up for a foreign-language film Oscar for his comedy “Son of the Bride,” draws you into the story---a beautiful young woman is brutally raped and murdered---quickly and effortlessly. It’s so refreshing to watch a movie made for an audience that doesn’t require every plot point to be spelled out. Even first-rate American films are filled with unnecessary transitional and explanatory scenes that not only diminish the art of the film but drain its energy. (Eduardo Sacheri, who wrote the novel, co-wrote the script with Campanella.)

In “Secret in Their Eyes,” subtle character relationships and an emotionally complex plot that shifts back and forth between the 1970s and today, kept me glued to the screen from start to finish. Adding to Campanella’s superb storytelling is the performance by Ricardo Darin, who is both obsessed and introspective as Buenos Aires prosecutor Benjamin Esposito, who must battle his bosses to solve this crime of twisted passion.

At the heart of the case---recalled by Esposito as he attempts to novelize the story 20 years later as a retiree----is the manner in which the prosecutor is completely taken by the devotion of the dead girl’s husband (an impressive Pablo Rago) and his dogged determination to find her murderer.

Paralleling the mystery of tracking the killer and then political complications in a corrupt Argentina (this is the 1970s), is Esposito’s mostly unspoken, unrequited love for his boss, the eloquent, American education chief prosecutor Irene Hastings (Soledad Villamil). Especially in their scenes in the contemporary part of the film, Darin and Vallamil convey a mature, complicated relationship that develops between those who have know each other for decades.

Darrin is so convincing as both the younger Esposito and the retiree version that until I looked up his filmography, I didn’t know which age he was closer to in real life. (At 53, he’s closer to retirement than the young gung-ho prosecutor of the 1970s.) Also memorable is Guillermo Francella, a well-known Argentine comic actor who plays Esposito’s assistant. His Pablo offers welcomed comic relief, but also, when not in the midst of an ugly drinking binge, provides some impressive insight into the case and Esposito’s romantic longings.

“Secret in Their Eyes” doesn’t flinch from its duty as a murder mystery/police procedural genre picture, but this smart, philosophical movie is much more as it explores life’s regrets and how chance can alter lives in a second.


FANTASTIC MR. FOX (2009)
This occasionally amusing, standard-issue Wes Anderson picture mines the same territory as his films, “The Royal Tenenbaums” and “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou.”

Yet again, Anderson, and co-writer Noah Baumbach (who also worked on “Life Aquatic”), offer up a main character who does what he wants with little regard to those around him. The only difference this time is that he’s a fox (dressed as a human and voiced by a sanguine George Clooney). I’m sure the original Roald Dahl story is very clever and heartwarming; in the hands of Anderson the tale is yet another collection of quirky characters that adds up to very little.

Mr. Fox moves his family (Meryl Streep voices his wife; Jason Schwartzman their whiny son) from a hole to a tree house in defiance of three wealthy, evil farmers in clear sight of the tree. And then, after promising his wife to stop stealing chickens---he becomes a newspaper columnist but we never see him at his paper---he plots a grand scheme to break into the farms.

The old-fashioned stop-action animation is a long way from Gumby, but it’s still more functional than artistic, and never comes close to making up for the slow-moving, déjà vu all over again plot.

As with so many of these animated pictures, I have no clues as to what anyone over the age of 13 saw in “Mr. Fox”---it’s just a furrier version of Anderson’s past failures. At least in his live action pictures, Anderson includes a roomful of nutty characters to divert one’s attention away from the inane plot and the self-indulgent lead. The only character who made me laugh in “Mr. Fox” was Coach Skip (perfectly voiced by Anderson regular Owen Wilson) who explains the rules of a bizarre, cricket-like sport called Whack-bat. It lasts about three minutes.

The film offers some unusual music on the soundtrack, including “The Ballad of Davy Crockett,” but otherwise, “Mr. Fox” is way too ordinary for its own good.


WHY DID I GET MARRIED? (2007)
I can offer no excuse for waiting so long to experience a Tyler Perry film. But now that I have, I’m thinking I should have waited a bit longer.

Perry has quickly become the most successful African-American filmmaker in movie history, having racked up over $450 million in box-office receipts with eight movies since his 2005 debut. The 40-year-old actor-writer-director began as a playwright and cross-dressing star of regional stage comedies featuring his Madea, an outspoken, feisty middle-aged woman. With “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” (2005), he successfully transferred his stage work to the screen (in fact, all his films begin as stage plays) and since then nearly every one of his films has opened as the weekend’s No. 1 film. Perry’s film have succeeded in the face of generally tepid reviews and backlash in the black community, led by Spike Lee, who assailed the comedies as harkening back to “Amos ‘n’ Andy” shows.

“Why Did I Get Married?” his third film and first drama, is a version of one of those cloying, preachy and ultimately teary films, usually set during a holiday or at a wedding, in which every member of the family shows up with a problem that will be solved by story’s end.

Perry avoids the family/holiday-wedding cliché by focusing on three married couples vacationing together at an upscale mountain resort. But he utilizes every other cliché in the marriage-drama handbook, turning each character into a symbol for a social problem. It plays like a very long episode of a very bad television series.

Essential, the film is a series of discussions (it can’t hide its stage origins) between various members of this group of well-to-do friends thrown together for a weekend. The dialogue sounds as if it was written by a collection of self-help experts, which is ironic since one of the characters plays a psychologist who has written a book about the problems of her friends. It’s all very sincere and well meaning with a heavy dose of Christianity.

We quickly are told of the marital dysfunctions: One of the husbands has brought his female “assistant” from work along because, as he repeats over and over again, his wife is embarrassingly fat; while another is hiding a STD from his wife. And the marriage of Terry and writer Patricia (Perry and Janet Jackson) is on the rocks because of an unresolved tragedy in their past.

Overall, the acting comes off as flat and uninvolving, with the exception of Tasha Smith as the fast-talking, blunt Angela, who steals nearly every scene she’s in. It’s hard to blame the actors as they are saddled with Perry’s stilted dialogue, but the ensemble displays zero chemistry.

By the end, problems are miraculously resolved, tears are shed and hugs are exchanged, and blame gets evenly distributed.

The sequel, “Why Did I Get Married, Too,” opened early this year and quietly made $50 million. Clearly there is a large audience of black moviegoers desperate to see their world depicted on the screen and Hollywood isn’t doing much about it.

I know this is backhanded praise, but Perry’s film is no worse than the typical feel-good product Hollywood regularly cranks out for mainstream audiences. His next production steps away from the safety of his own plays, as he’ll direct the film version of the popular ‘70s play, “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf.”


THE T.A.M.I. SHOW (1964)
On Oct. 28-29, 1964, producer Bill Sargent staged what he expected would be an annual music concert called the Teen-Age Music International Show. Sargent filmed the show held at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in a high-definition video process called Electronovision, which enabled him to transfer the tape to film and release the edited concert in theaters. While the process quickly faded and there never was another T.A.M.I. show, the rarely seen concert has grown to legendary status over the past 40-plus years.

Finally, earlier this year, the concert was released on DVD and it doesn’t disappoint. The performers, including Chuck Berry, Smokey Robinson, the Supremes, the Beach Boys, James Brown and the Rolling Stones, exude the energy of young musicians finding their voice and establishing themselves in a quickly changing industry. The show catches the exuberance of a musical revolution, which started just eight months earlier when the Beatles performed on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

Central to the freshness and vibrancy of “The T.A.M.I. Show” is the dynamic direction of Steve Binder, who, over the next decade, became the go-to guy for capturing memorable pop music on television. He went on to shoot the landmark dance show “Hullabaloo,” helmed the Elvis Presley comeback special and later called the shots for “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert.” Binder keeps the camera moving, shifting from wide shots of the entire bands to close-ups on the musicians (something rarely done when filming performances in that era) while mixing in shots of the provocatively dressed dancers (who weave around the stage during performances) and, of course, the crowd reaction.

Just like the crowd scenes from Beatle performances, this audience screams at the top of their lungs for every act, seemingly on the edge of hysteria for the entire show. Leslie Gore, one of the show’s stars, told Steven van Zandt on his “Underground Garage” radio show, that it was nearly impossible to hear the other acts from backstage because the crowd was so loud, let alone trying to perform.

What has made this show legendary is the incredible lineup, put together by the great rock ‘n’ roll arranger and producer Jack Nitzsche, who convinced Sargent that a little-known band from England was good enough for a prominent spot in the show. Nitzsche also put together the incredible house band, including Leon Russell on piano and Glen Campbell on guitar, which plays behind the vocalists.

Appropriately opening the show was Chuck Berry, whose musical influence permeates nearly every performer’s set. It also immediately signals what a revolutionary show this was: here’s Berry singing “Sweet Little Sixteen” while a young white go-go dancer shimmies on a set behind him. The mixing of whites and blacks was unheard of just a few years earlier and in 1964 it remained bold. For Middle America, seeing a crowd of mostly white teenagers screaming madly for Berry and the other black performers was still something of a concern.

Berry, while singing “Maybellene,” passes the spotlight to Garry and the Pacemakers, wearing their guitars at chest level, who do their own version of his classic. Before you can take a breath after those performances, the Miracles take center stage and rock out the joint with “Mickey’s Monkey.” They are followed by Marvin Gaye, looking incredible clean-cut, Leslie Gore and then the show’s emcees, Jan and Dean.

The show hits another high point when the Beach Boys hit the stage. They go through a half-dozen of their hits and are in peak form (I had forgotten what a great drummer Dennis Wilson was), but the boys’ controlling father wasn’t pleased and demanded that the performance be cut from the show. Only with the release of this DVD have their songs been restored to the movie.

The show does hit a lull with the performances of Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, a Brian Epstein discovery that scored a Top 10 hit with “Little Children” and the Barbarians, a hideously bad Boston band with comical Beatle-like haircuts.

But they are quickly forgotten when James Brown and his Fabulous Flames take over the stage. This spellbinding performance, called by aficionados as his greatest ever caught on tape, makes everyone that came before him look like amateurs. In constant motion and dancing like no one had ever seen before, Brown out screams the audience with “Out of Sight” and “Prisoner of Love,” before launching into his already legendary “Please, Please, Please” act.

Brown, soaked in sweat from the first number and sporting that no-hair-out-of-place pompadour, faints collapsing to the stage and then is slowly walked off the stage by a band member after wrapping the singer in a cape. “The Godfather” then tosses the cape aside and returns to center stage. This melodrama is repeated three or four times. It’s both outlandishly pretentious and mesmerizing and has been duplicated by everyone from Prince to Eddie Murphy to Paul Shaffer. Brown ends this amazing set with one of his first hits, “Night Train,” dancing so fast it’s as if he’s motorized. Those tiny, nibble feet and Astaire-like legs do what no performer could do: upstage Brown’s singing.

That should have been the end of the show, but the Rolling Stone’s manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, had insisted that his band close the show. James Brown warned the producers. “You’re making a big mistake,” he told them. “Nobody follows me.”

But Mick and the boys were up to the task. Jagger slides onto stage and does a split just as the band launches into their version of Berry’s “Around and Around.” Looking impossibly young yet already in possession of their bad-boy attitude, the Rolling Stones offer a preview of where popular music is headed.

The show closes with the Stones doing “Let’s Get Together,” joined by everyone on stage. It’s quite a scene and if you watch closely you can spot go-go dancer Teri Garr dancing with Jan (or is it Dean?).

“The T.A.M.I. Show” is not only an important piece of musical history, capturing the diverse, changing scene as of 1964, but provides more energy and unforgettable music than almost any concert ever captured for posterity.


IRON MAN 2 (2010)
This flabby sequel to an inventive, entertaining comic book movie is filled with so many cheap-shot one-liners and purposeless action that, at times, I felt like I was watching a spoof.

Robert Downey Jr. is back as Tony Stark (aka Iron Man), who by his mere presence has established world peace. Then into the ring jumps Mickey Rourke, a pissed off Russian physicist with a pet bird and a grudge against Stark. The film quickly moves from caustic to idiotic when Rourke’s Mad Russian shows up at the Monte Carlo street race and starts causing car wrecks as he attempts to confront our hero. Get this: he stands in the middle of the street with his super-powerful outfit/weapon but without a helmet. Any half-awake security guard could have taken him out with one shot. But nothing. Everyone just stands around waiting for Iron Man to do his thing. It’s just like in “Superman” when the cops slip out of sight while the man with the cape takes care of business.

I know, I know: Why am I looking for logic in a comic book movie? That’s why I shouldn’t be allowed to see these kinds of films. For what it’s worth, Rourke, giving his usual quirky, twisted, comical performance, and Scarlett Johansson, as the steely super spy whose seductive figure nearly melts Iron Man, are the only reasons to catch this dumb sequel.

The writers couldn’t even come up with some cliché megalomaniac who wants to take over the world: this film is basically about Stark’s attempt to hold on to the patent rights to his Iron Man contraption. Real edge-of- your-seat stuff.


THE DAM BUSTERS (1955)
This British war film takes its time as it chronicles the true story of the invention and deployment of a special kind of bomb used by the British to destroy a pair of key German dams during World War II. The superbly made picture methodically follows the process from the lab to the testing grounds to the battlefield, but ultimately delivers an exciting aerial finale.

But the first-rate direction, by Michael Anderson, and acting, led by Michael Redgrave and Richard Todd, can’t overcome the jolting and uncomfortable name given to the dog of wing commander Guy Gibson played by Todd. This black Labrador’s name is the n-word.

Todd and the other pilots don’t just say his name once or twice, the dog is constantly being referred to and becomes the center of attention near the end of the film when his name becomes a code word for one of the dams. It’s diverting and stinging in the casual, unthinking way everyone in the film uses the dog’s name. It might as well be Spot. It’s a little hard for me to believe that as late as 1955, the use of that word was accepted in a British film. Certainly, you wouldn’t hear it in a Hollywood picture unless it was used by a character clearly defined as a racist.

The story is being remade by Peter Jackson’s production company and I read where they are struggling with what to do about the dog’s name. Because they want to sell the film as “a true story,” they are reluctant to change the name as that was what the real-life Gibson called his Lab. Clearly, they will have to alter history if they expect to get U.S. distribution.

Redgrave plays inventor Dr. Wallis, who struggles with getting just the right calibration for his bowling ball-like bomb that skips like a stone over water to allow the planes to drop it well before the dam site. When the bombardiers do blow the dams, the “special effect” showing the explosion looks as if it was hand drawn on the frames. It’s very cheesy. But what the film does well is show the individual efforts and meticulous work that went into just one bombing run in the war against the Nazis. If only the filmmakers had shown some sensitivity or foresight to rename the dog.