Would someone care to chime in as to why I continue to expect greatness from these half-witted stories of working class triumph in merry old England (or, in this case, cold, hard prisoner triumph in merry old England)? Here we have a story ripe (forgive the pun) for plowing (and that one) into such a template, complete with humorless humor, a script so broad and fast paced you'll find yourself filling in the time gaps yourself (rather than watching the film) and characters so stock you can practically see their identification tag, keeping them filed as they age in the Britcom warehouse (which would, by the way, be located on American soil). Clive Owen (who plays Colin), gives the only performance that doesn't smack of conformity to the obvious formula. Somehow finding a note of likable, exciting rebellion in his obsession with gardening, he alone keeps the film watchable (although, to his discredit, his epiphany comes with the bare minimum of transition). His relationship with the always delightful David Kelley (from Waking Ned Devine) heads down a rather insulting, thoroughly sappy path, but it provides for, at the very least, a few semi satisfying moments of simplistic, guilty paternal pleasure.  Helen Mirren, who isn't bad per se in the film, seems utterly lost as a mere chapter stop, existing for the sole purpose of  providing that lethal dose of expository clarity whenever the film needs to get from point A to point B, but can't be bothered with the travel time. Then there are Colin's buddies, Tony (the requisite shameless romantic, wet-behind-the-ears criminal), Raw (the criminal bent on providing the bruiser / muscular comedic irony) and Jimmy (the father who, without any actual development, regains his son through the ancient art of passionate gardening). Lest I forget Natasha Little, an atrociously flat actress, saddled with a thankfully wee role as Colin's love interest, Primrose. Greenfingers is a model Britcom, if a less than compelling film. If only someone would just shuffle this genre beyond a permanent middle ground and either return it to its purist heyday (which, admittedly, was only four years ago) - - - or just bury it once and for all in the garden behind the award winning flower display.

(8/1)

Though not a hair as clever as a half-hour of Tom & Jerry, the key to enjoying Cats & Dogs is watching it as you would watch a cartoon (which, thanks to my daughter, is pretty much all I watch at home). On one level, it is so completely base that most cartoons shadow it in the intellect department. On still another level, because it is so outlandish and so ridiculous, it qualifies as one of those pieces that creates such a believable bizarro world, it ends up with carte blanche to write its own rules. Cats & Dogs has cleverness and wit sprinkled throughout, but what makes it a winner is how focused it is on allowing the viewer to relish in a world where cats and dogs are on par with humans as far as both technology and ambition go (I kept thinking, let's run with this and replace James Bond and his arch nemesis of the week with K-9's and felines, or, better still, let's return to stuff like MGM's one reel "barkies", the Dogville shorts you see constantly replayed on TCM). In fact, the story about world domination, dog agents and the ingenious / fiendish tactical maneuvers and what not on both sides reminded me of SPY Kids more than anything else. I had read that the filmmaker, Larry Guterman, had spent the year prior to production of Cats & Dogs trying in vain to usher a Curious George movie to the screen. In fact, the prospect of this movie and the idea of that movie had me at odds. Having seen Cats & Dogs, I think the right movie was made. Guterman's direction is slapstick heavy, exceedingly boorish and often, at center, somewhat lost in the shuffle - - - which makes the chaotic nature of Cats & Dogs spot on. He makes it fun for an audience to watch cartoonish animals plot against each other. Instead of being a mere Mousehunt 2, it pleasantly surprises us by being a near ingenious Babe meets Itchy & Scratchy.

(8/3)

We all know of my intense disdain for this brother² directing team who put out low-rent road movies disguised in Airplane!-esque sight gaggery (though possessing none of the charm or actual wit of that film). With Osmosis Jones, the first film they've made, but not written (or directed, essentially, since at least 75% of it is animated and the animation sequences do not contain the flat, gross-out authorship of the Brothers Farrelly), a great premise - for once not hatched and botched in the same breath - becomes a moderately entertaining, by-the-numbers motion picture. Osmosis Jones (voiced by Chris Rock) investigates the evil Red Death (Fishburne) and his effect on Frank (Bill Murray), an anti-health nut working a zoo clean-up job with a "90% pay-cut" because he vomited on his daughter (Franklin)'s teacher (Shannon). (Sounds like exactly the opposite of what the Farrelly's do these days, that is, to vomit on an audience for a 90% salary increase, or, to make movies centered around the concept of vomiting as an art form). There is some distinct cleverness in the way Marc Hyman (who penned the script) comes up with a working society inside the body of a human being. The animation is often sloppy and occasionally too vague to give us anything more than a shoulder shrug. The live-action sequences, which appear to have been underexposed for a grainy, dirty effect, come off well because Bill Murray gives such a likable performance in the lead role as Frank, the disgusting body we are forced to look inside throughout most of the film. The movie is certainly joyous fare for the 7-12 year old crowd who enjoys a good, solid overhelping of bodily humor. The adult audience may find the little world going on in the body fascinating, if simultaneously repulsive. Could have been an oddball conversation piece like this year's Monkeybone had it retained any artistic sensibilities. As the animation is droopy and the live action is made to look smeared and, often, foul merely for foul's sake - - - Osmosis Jones is less art than fart.

[Oh, and don't think I've overlooked the coincidence that I should accuse the atrocious Shrek of being an animated Farrelly Bros. movie and then, Bang!, one arrives on screen. At the very least, Osmosis Jones has half the music of Shrek and isn't a friggin' road movie. But then, the actual ANIMATION part of Osmosis Jones wasn't directed by the Farrelly Bros. anyway, so, this really doesn't count, then does it?]

(8/10)

Can I really justify my guilty pleasure in watching a movie grope blindly in the dark, so high on its own security and credit in a world already perceived and understood (thanks to the widely seen, far superior 1968 original)?. Honestly, how would we react if a movie came straight out of left field bearing not just talkin' apes, not merely talkin' apes in outer space, but low brow scriptwriting techniques attempting to convey high brow ideas about evolving, talkin' apes in outer space and the state of man vs. technology? Probably the way most moviegoers have reacted: pay, leave, complain (sometimes reversing the order of the last two items, I imagine). Also, can I really endorse a movie whose ending makes absolutely no sense any way you slice it (no matter how much empty logic Fox VP's dance around)? I guess, in this case, I can. I enjoyed it. It was a ninety minute summer film in a two hour time block, but for some reason, it charms us into sucking up its adventure-driven ridiculum with a big fat straw. It moves at the kind of pace a movie like this one certainly should not, but Burton keeps it so close to being image driven, so close to diverting you from the infant-simplistic story taking place in the foreground and so close to fitting into his repertoir. The makeup is extraordinary, the sets and setpieces look well enough to pass and, essentially, the movie doesn't commit any really damning sins aside from those we are big enough to forgive upon sight of its release date (which is, smack in the middle of the summer). Wahlberg is easily forgotten, while we relish the star turns as apes in an even more recognizable, even higher stakes set of celebrity appearances than the 1968 actors (who, let's face it, don't look as comfortable melding their persona with that of the apes as the actors do here). Roth is seething and entirely wicked, Duncan finds the deep down soul of a gorilla, Giamatti reaches a cartoonish fever pitch of his ordinary persona and Bonham Carter, the only one of the bunch to do so, creates, a new character out of herself. A fascinating movie to watch (and not just because my wife and I put off sleeping for two hours last night attempting to make sense of the ending while simultaneously writing our own sequel), which is odd - - - because its still a complete no bbrainer. Could be one of the Summer's most pure seasonal movies.

(8/12)

America's Sweethearts is a feat. How can one actually make John Cusack AND Catherine Zeta-Jones AND Julia Roberts into boring robot people? Really, if that were the purpose, I'd be jumping up and down praising Joe Roth and Billy Crystal for their joint effort in achieving absolute tedium. However, as the point here seems to be to slap three marquee-valued faces upon the poster and suck people in (that is, into a film about people desperately trying to retain their sole value as marketing tools anyway) - - - I must tell you, I was less than amused. The film seems to balance on a string of watered down, insultingly dated slapstick and sub-Neil Simon one liners until it decides to enter into a love story featuring characters we care so little for, we'd just as well have them die at the hands of the studio (score one for Stanley Tucci in a terrific turn as studio head Kingman). Billy Crystal has clearly written the best part for himself, with Seth Green (as mini-Crystal) pawning off upon us all of the important, expository digs we can swallow: a) the life of a publicist; b) plastic Hollywood; and c) all the other overplayed, underfunny nonsense about relationships, self-help gurus / nervous breakdowns and offbeat, reclusive directors. America's Sweethearts is at least a decade too late to be savvy, and far too overstuffed to be sharp, or even insightful. The promising wee roles played by Christopher Walken and Hank Azaria are crumbled into an one-track joke, played over and over and over again. Anything but sweet, but everything American, America's Sweethearts is a money making scheme about a money making scheme. ("And not in the good Las Vegas way" ª, either).

ª - Homer Simpson
(8/12)

In the first sixteen minutes of Enemy at the Gates (minus the prologue), nearly every frame emulates Saving Private Ryan. Dirt flies. People are killed fast, en masse, and without emotion. There is a chaos generated by hand-held camera work, fast cutting and that technique wherein film is sped up and played back at normal speed. Entwined there, with this inferior re-rendering of Spielberg's triumph, are the sensibilities of (and I kid you not) The Mummy Returns. Anything which holds position beyond the foreground looks computer enhanced. The backgrounds of the opening sequence are so outlandish, they almost remind one of the hopelessly phony rear screen projection which was the staple of exotic epics like this one in yesteryear. Had Enemy at the Gates followed in the footsteps of Saving Private Ryan and slid into historical drama mode with bolder than life main characters at center, at the very least it could have been entertaining. Unfortunately, it spills its contents into The Mummy Returns cup, courting the eternally out-of-reach video game mentality wherein the movie actually feels more like the tete a tete between two computer animated characters facing off, guns in hand, in a variety of different settings. As it progresses down this path, we more clearly identify the shifting focus leaping from historical statement sans background information into a very shallow story about two snipers determined to kill each other for country. A love story surfaces. Subplots come and go like the arbitrary titles which bear the date (both of whose existence are as baffling as their lack of significance). Eventually, a couple of bland twists set up one of the least satisfying, most ridiculous endings I've seen in years. Enemy at the Gates reminded me most of Ang Lee's Ride With the Devil: an expensive, extremely well cast, ultimately vacuous epic with no real story to tell and no real history lesson to teach us. To its credit, I'm not sure I've seen sets this meticulous in American cinema in quite some time. Admittedly, they are just convincing piles of rubble and collapsed buildings, but the fact remains. The actors aren't much more than sets themselves. They are convincing as well as collapsed. Much of their dialogue sounds ridiculous as written and as spoken (after all, these are Russians and Germans, many of whom sound like Brits, some of whom attempt their respective accents - - -  all very distracting). Fiennes' characters is, essentially, not intregal to the film. Law and Harris are appropriately severe and driven, but each lack the fire of the well-written parts we are accustomed to seeing them perform. Hoskins probably has the most hokey lines of anyone. Odd to see him play Kruschev as I kept picturing him as Winston Churchill from the mini-series World War II: When Lions Roared. What stands to reason is that Enemy at the Gates appears to have had initial promise but instead, ended up an tough sell, which resulted in a shift in elements. At its center, there is an absolutely brilliant scene that takes place in a felled tractor factory, which shows Jude Law stranded from his gun and pinned down by sniper Ed Harris. With little character development and its structure meticulously strained in order to present a imagery laced simplicity, Enemy at the Gates becomes confusing and, eventually, feels like a sniper stranded without its gun. Unlike the hero Law plays, the film never manages to get ahold of it again.

(8/27)

Like most films, The Deep End would be a lot better if it weren't infested with plot holes you could easily drive several construction vehicles through. The film concerns Maggie (Swinton), a mother caring for three children while her husband is away for long periods of time on an aircraft carrier. Her oldest son Beau (Tucker) has just been in an accident with Darby Reese (Lucas), a thirty year old "friend" (who turns out to be Beau's lover). They were both drunk. Maggie warns Darby to stay away from Beau, but Darby persists and meets with an accidental death while standing alone near Maggie's boathouse. Now the trouble starts. The entire movie is built around circumstances that arise when Maggie decides, for no real reason, to hide the body instead of calling the police. Darby owes money to Alec and his associate. Alec has a videotape of Beau and Darby in the throes of passion and he wants fifty-thousand dollars for it. (For some strange, perhaps telepathic reason, he assumes that she won't want the police to connect Beau or herself with Darby). More plot holes arise as the twists pile up, but why bore (or spoil them for) you. The writers do have cause to stretch their credibility. What follows this highly suspicious, utterly implausible set-up borders on both a skillful psychological character study and a realistic, flawed blackmail caper. There are great scenes and the film almost makes a wonderful ode to Maggie's longing as fulfilled by the mysterious good heart of Alec. By that time, though, you're so worried about why this happened, what that fact is inserted for, where that person is going, is that character necessary and how in the hell did the other guy know that was going to work. The film, sans its problems, is an admirable domestic crime drama that would remind one of A Simple Plan or The Last Seduction. Tilda Swinton and Gorin Visnjic are both extremely good as Maggie and Alec, respectively. Swinton especially seems to have the strength and charisma of a young Meryl Streep and gives a pow of a performance (you'll remember her from Orlando and, most recently, The Beach). That The Deep End is built on such a shaky, nagging foundation, takes all the good things about it and makes them merely mediocre.

(8/29)

Second, more marquee friendly cousin to McCabe & Mrs. Miller. Peter Mullan plays a character who has sold his wife and daughter for a plot of land. When that land is found to contain gold, he builds his town on it - and rules the town like king. When his terminally ill queen (Kinski) returns to introduce him to his daughter (Polley), it becomes too much for him as his own girlfriend seems less and less appropriate. On top of this, his beloved town is struck to be made obsolete by a railroad surveying team (led by Wes Bentley) bringing technology to the west - and interest away from the town. The subtext about trading human value for things - and the tenfold that comes back on one is hardly as interesting as the amount of originality Winterbottom stages these scenes with - a number of them familiar to the point of distaction. It doesn't hurt that the film's snowy, widescreen vistas take the breath away while Michael Nyman's score gently sews an extra dose of stature into the melodramatic flare. Mullan is fine as the deeply sad main character - his performance here could ride sidessaddle to the pained lead character he plays in Session 9. Off the bench for the first time since his eye-opening turn in American Beauty, Bentley makes a terrific leader. Employing a maturity he doesn't appear to have works for him - he ends up feeling like an underdog and performing like warrior. Polley is her usual brilliant self, still angling for that innocence and naivete while a glimmer in her eye gives her the kind of maturity that Winterbottom accentuates, keeping her in step with Bentley the whole way through. I sat down and started watching The Claim again. I didn't get past the thirty minute mark. The film is an extremely heavy meal - even as you watch it you don't realize how much suffering and anguish the characters are privy to. Though it never really gets away from some of the obvious it seems plagued with (the screenwriter might have pared down the book and given the film a touch of focus) - and some things that are not so obvious (people just didn't seem gruff or dirty enough to me) - The Claim is an extremely powerful film just the same. The characters wallow in an overwhelming world - but they're played by good, strong actors who look like they could take a beating and then some. The Claim is muscular poetry.

(8/29)

There's this hitman, right, and he starts going to a psychiatrist because he's afraid to tell his father/boss that he wants to quit the business, okay, and then, right, in the waiting room, he starts flirting with this girl, and then, right, even though he's married, he decides to start having an affair with her. Alright, it isn't the most original of genre-bending scenarios, but....? Writer-Director Bromell concocts his own problem. In his hell-bent journey to render this tired set of plots into something off-beat, he shoots himself in the foot by sacrificing consistency of tone as well as the development of most of the relationships in the film. He doesn't blow it entirely. What he has created is a film that works better in scenes rather than in tones. All fine and good for mediocrity, but since Panic is obviously striving to use its label-less style to discern itself, it only manages to keep our attention peaked instead of going anywhere, you know, interesting. We watch it in anticipation of the scenes between the ever-brilliant Macy and his son (the remarkable David Dorfman, of Bounce fame) as well as the verbal volleys with Campbell, who holds her own here. Some of the dialogue is razor sharp and, truth be told, the movie works best when experimenting with a deliberately defiant sense of humor. As the movie (especially noticeable in the last act) anchors itself in the wrong father-son relationship (the one between Macy and Sutherland), the film ultimately falters, lapsing from a curious, harmless misfire to an out-and-out failure as it reaches a maddeningly ordinary, terribly standard climax only to follow it up with something, dare I say it, predictable. In fact, the pitfalls can be summed up easily: the movie is never about its title until we're no longer interested in that aspect of the characters. How could one miss that?

(8/31)

While virtually nothing seems to actually happen in this seemingly endless dark corridor of a movie, tone conquers all and allows us to take in the flavor of Amenbar's piece with zero distortion. He scores extra points in how skillfully he handles the third act change over, an anti-gimmick twist that actually doesn't turn itself over in crescendo. Amenbar's style is confidant enough to be assertive, and while everything sings just below the bar of clarity, none of what happens chooses the road of ambiguity as an alternative to resolving itself. Nicole Kidman is easily the best we've ever seen her, evoking not only an antique version of herself, but wonderfully reinventing her own persona. In seeming to be so frightened for her children, she echoes an authentic sense of full bodied, sympathetic maternity. An admirable (if less than ambitious) affair.

(8/31)

Q: "Are you being sarcastic?"
A: "I don't even know anymore, man."
                                                    - The Simpsons

In the first forty minutes of Ghost World, the dynamic duo of sarcasm as an art form, Enid (Birch) and Becky (Johanssen), pretty much know they're being sarcastic. This opening act is so uproarious, that every single line is funny - even when what's being said and the context aren't all that hilarious. What follows rarely matches the satisfying pitch of this first bit, but is instead, content and forgivable (flat as it is) to explore, at its own pace, the barely seen human drama of those who are different for different's sake. The second two acts reflect normalcy as seen through three seemingly similar characters, each of which begin the movie in complete (and sometimes welcome) acceptance of their outcast-dom. Celebrated as universal archetypes who meet with an ironic reversal, writers Daniel Clowes (whose comic book series this film is based upon) and Terry Zwigoff draw Enid and Becky as entertaining vamps we sinfully enjoy despite our protest that they're headed down a road that leads to pessimism and negativity. To split their paths, Seymour (Buscemi), a homely loser of a record collector, is introduced. The girls answer a personal ad, pretending to be Seymour's dream girl. Telling the excited "he" to wait for the hypothetical "her" at a diner suggests a repression in both girls and, after watching Seymour in anguish for a couple of hours, they're reactions take them in completely different directions. The guilt-ridden Enid takes pity on Seymour and gets to know him, even offering to find him a date (the kind of playful irony she isn't used to, we observe). Becky, obsessed by her plans to be independent, thinks less of the girls' brutality and goes about her life. The two girls defy the obvious, including our expectations, and emerge in places so foreign to them, they become ghosts of their former selves. Seymour begins to find, through the magic of risk, the lift in confidence that makes his interior arc such a pleasure to watch. What happens to the inward nature of these characters seems so natural and so clear. What happens to the film after act one, however, is quite sad. Unfortunately, Ghost World becomes decidedly less fun to watch when it stops being funny (and you purists, it does cease being laugh out loud funny by act two). The direction feels meandering and, to know that your patience will be rewarded with significance upon later reflection, doesn't always sooth us. The dry humor lingers in spots, but the latter chunks betray the promise of the opening act. This is not to say that I didn't like the film. I found myself wandering. It happens, even at good films. What makes Ghost World a good film is what it achieves, not how it goes about it. What would make it a great film, would be if it achieved its goal and was fun to watch from start to finish.

(8/31)