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EC reviews 6 new movies: NICK AND NORAH, APPALOOSA, RELIGULOUS, HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS, RODANTHE and SAVE ME

October 6th, 2008 by Scott Marks

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (2008)
Directed by Peter Sollett
Starring: Michael Cera, Kat Dennings, Ari Graynor, Alexis Dziena, Rafi Gavron, Aaron Yoo, Jay Baruchel and Eddie Kaye Thomas as Jesus
Rating: ★★★½☆

Tris (Alexis Dziena) called it quits with Nick (Michael Cera) on his birthday and after 12 volumes of breakup mix tapes, she still finds room in her cold heart to rip on them before tossing them in the garbage. Although they have never met, Norah (Kat Dennings) wishes that she had a guy like Nick that would make her mix tapes. Sound predictable? If goes exactly where you’d expect and with this cast taking us through the motions, it’s a blessing. I didn’t see much to Michael Cera’s performance (or anything else) in Juno. He reminded me of a mildly catatonic Ted Bessell. The naturalistic appeal that once eluded at last brought a smile to my face. Some of it borders dangerously on cute. Nick is the only straight member of a gay boy band named The Jerk Offs, but the nonjudgmental manner in which the group is depicted sends out a message of tolerance and acceptance that contemporary teen audiences don’t get enough of. The film tries too hard to be PG-13. It’s all about a night in the life of a group of partying teens and there’s not one drug or cigarette in sight. There’s plenty of booze on screen, but neither of the title characters drink. Are we in Oz yet? This needed a bit more of an R rated Valley Girl bite to add an edge. Was Nick’s Yugo a subtle nod to Terry the Toad driving Opie’s Edsel, or am I thinking too much? Our lovers meet cute when Norah begs Nick to be her boyfriend for five minutes in order to prove that she has a date. Nick’s bandmates draw designated driver duty and are assignmed the task of driving Norah’s wasted BBF Caroline. Ari Graynor, handing in a hilarious, dead on depiction of a pretty (as in hot) drunk girl. For some reason, the image of Kat Denning sitting on the beach behind Edward Norton and Evan Rachel Wood is one of the strongest I retain from Down in the Valley. She learned early in life to stay away with movies that have “house” in their titles, particularly when they also feature words like “Bunny” and Big Momma’s 2.” Ms. Dennings takes a giant career move forward in this romantic charmer. As a date movie,  it lacks the intelligence of The Wackness and the verbal snap of In Search of a Midnight Kiss, N&N managed to quickly win me over. Honestly, it had me in reel one.

Nights in Rodanthe (2008)
Directed by George C. Wolfe
Starring: Diane Lane and Richard Gere

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

This probably would have passed by me had I not filled in at a vacationing friend’s movie group that screened it. (The Cinema Society of San Diego.) Long my favorite genre, melodramas, particularly romantic melodramas, are almost as dead as the western. This isn’t the one to resurrect the order, but it gives it a better shot that most recent soapers. It’s been a long time since Diane Lane and Richard Gere appeared together in The Cotton Club and their recent pairing, Unfaithful, didn’t win my loyalty. Lording over the proceedings is first timer George Wolfe (Tony winning director of Angels in America) and the entire show has two characters and is set in one location. Fortunately, he forgot to pack his hammer (the one most first time theatre directors use to nail movie cameras to the floor), as this is several cuts above canned theatre. Always a sucker for camera movements, there is a spectacular one as Gere approaches the inn that Lane is watching for a friend. The camera flies forward from the back seat, giving us only a momentary glimpse of Gere in the rearview, darts towards the inn and literally sucks the audience in as it swirls around the building before taking us through the front door. The suds are kept to a minimum and Ms. Lane gives the performance of her career. Former students with long memories will be quick to jump down my throat, but I have actually warmed a bit to Richard Gere. (Chicago had nothing to do with it!) Nowhere near as good as Nick and Norah and whole lot less funny.

Continue reading EC reviews 6 new movies: NICK AND NORAH, APPALOOSA, RELIGULOUS, HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS, RODANTHE and SAVE ME

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Review: HAPPILY EVER AFTER / Lidia Sheinin (2007)

October 3rd, 2008 by Scott Marks

Happily Ever After (2007)
Written and Directed by Lidia Sheinin
Starring: Kevin J. Kelly, Emily Maya Mills, Lee Ann Kim and Carol Lebeau
Running Time: 4 mins. 15 secs.
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

Rating: ★★★★★

I hate short films, I hate split screen, I hate stories that are told in reverse, and I love films that teach me not to hate. I can’t think of a better reason to buy a ticket to the fifth annual San Diego Women’s FIlm Festival than this four-minute miracle that plays tomorrow at 5 pm at Reading’s Gaslamp Theatre.

The film’s producer Gary Cohen wrote asking if I would review the film. Normally all I get are crap screeners of new releases. (Other than having birthday and Christmas gifts to spare, why would anyone send me copies of Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Heroes, Season 2?) I swear to you, I watched this thing five times in a row the day I received it just to see how they pulled the goddamned thing off.

It starts with the left half of the screen in black while on the right, a woman (Emily Maya Mills), photographed in desaaturated tones, lies awake in bed with her back to the television. There is no direct sound, only a pensive piano score by Yann Tiersen. Pan right to reveal a newscaster (Lee Ann Kim) reporting a plane crash and then left to the wall clock that establishes the time as 11:14 pm. It’s at this momet that the left side fades in to reveal a man (Kevin J. Kelly), lit in vibrant, lifelike hues, waking up to greet the dawn.

He shaves while she removes makeup, a backwards reflection of the crash coverage playing behind her. The two halves of their bodies meet at the crease to form one, and I don’t care if it did make me think of Bergman’s Persona because the execution is far too impeccable to be just another film school rip-off. The first concrete evidence provided that these two parallel stories (his forwards, hers backward) are moving in the direction of a mutual breaking off point is when her wine travels from the dinner glass back into the bottle as he fries up a couple of eggs for breakfast.

Director Lidia Sheinin

He drives and we see her face in the rearview. The bottom and top of a pair of escalators perfectly mesh as he departs as she arrives. Before long we are at the gate and the two lovers are giving each other a goodbye kiss. All this, timed to perfection, in a little over four minutes.

Don’t bitch that I gave away the ending, for Happily Ever After is not about story, it’s about form and storytelling and souls literally splintered in two. You have to experience it. I can’t think of many features I’ve seen in the past few years that use the medium quite as economically as this short film. As soon as it’s made available on YouTube, I will gladly post it. Until then, be on the lookout for this remakrable film at a festival near you.

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Review: MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA / Spike Lee (2008)

September 27th, 2008 by Scott Marks

Miracle at St. Anna (2008)
Directed by Spike Lee
Written by James McBride from his novel
Starring: Derek Luke, Michael Ealy, Laz Alonso, Omar Benson Miller, Valentina Cervi, Matteo Sciabordi & D. B. Sweeney
Running Time: 160 min.
Aspect Ratio:

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

It all began when Spike Lee objected to the fact that there were no African Americans in Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima. The first film details the story behind the famous photo of the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima (none of whom were black), while its companion piece assumes the Japanese point-of-view. Why not just make one of the guys into a black Jewish lady Eskimo?

In an attempt to stir up some pre-release publicity, Lee made his indignation known. Clint responded with: “If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, people’d go: ‘This guy’s lost his mind.’ I mean, it’s not accurate.’”

Flags is one of the few Clint Eastwood films that you will ever hear me knock. I do not go to see a Clint Eastwood movie for its messages any more than I would watch an Astaire, Rogers musical for the bridging sequences. Clint is a master visual storyteller and while his films have become progressively morose as the decade passes, he never once mounted a soap box. Flags is a predictable war film with a labored subplot concerning a “drunken Injun.’” The treatment becomes so forced and obvious that it begins to border on stereotype enforcement.

If only I could report that Spike’s handling of race matters in Miracle of St. Anna made Clint’s depiction of Ira Hayes look admirable. In this one instance, both directors are in sync. D.B. Sweeney is the token nice white guy while other all pigment challenged actors are racist soldiers, Italian comic relief or Nazis.

An arrogant white officer, who doesn’t believe the accuracy of information radioed in by a black soldier under his command, unwittingly aims at his own platoon. To expand his feud with Clint to near Charlie McCarty/W.C. Fields-like proportions, Spike cast Eastwood look-alike Robert John Burke.

Seen here in a still from something called Gossip Girl, Burk might look like a bad stretch of Gunny Highway. You have to believe me that when he’s made-up and dressed to play General Ned Almond, Burk looks like Clint’s younger brother Chip Eastwood. They swear alike, they walk alike; at times they even talk alike. You can lose your mind! Almond refers to the Buffalo Soldiers as “Eleanor Roosevelt n—ers,” and the Clint-clone is one of the few white characters in the film instructed to utter the invective. That’ll teach Clint not to rewrite history!

Long before Clint, Jr. enters the picture, Spike tackles another beloved all-American icon. The film opens in 1983 with a clip of John Wayne once again winning the war, this time in The Longest Day. It’s another example of all bluster and no luster as Lee’s Hector Negron (Laz Alonso rendered practically unrecognizable under pounds of aging latex) sits before his TV ranting at the Duke. If I ever get to make a movie, I vow to have a black dude parked in front of a TV set watching the insufferable Lilies of the Field. “Damn,” I’d have him mumble. “Only way that Sidney Poitier can appear next to a white woman is if she’s blind or a nun.” Poitier and Wayne were both products of their respective eras: one was a movie superstar that created memorable characters in dozens of American masterworks. Sidney Poitier made soft message pictures. If given the choice, I’d rather Rooster Cogburn came to dinner. At least I’d have a few cheap laughs.

Continue reading Review: MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA / Spike Lee (2008)

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KPBS Film Club reviews 5 new movies!

September 18th, 2008 by Scott Marks

Not the most inspired crop of movies this time around, but we did our best to keep it lively. And, uhhh…thanks for visiting emotioncompulsion.org. That’s what I get for lacing Tom’s coffee with psylicyben…

To listen to the show, click here.

Take it away, Tom!

Tom Fudge: We’ll talk about the following movies on this edition of Film Club of the Air:

Burn After Reading: We start with a new movie by Joel and Ethan Coen. The Coen brothers had a big year last year, winning Academy Awards for Best Picture AND Best Director for their film, based on the Cormac McCarthy novel, No Country for Old Men. Their new movie is called Burn After Reading. This movie takes place in Washington D.C.. In the beginning, we meet a CIA man who loses his job and decides to write a memoir. He loses a CD copy of his memoir, which is found by two people who work at a gym, and think they’ve stumbled across some top secret material. Meanwhile, the CIA man’s wife is having an affair with a U.S. Marshall. The people who work at the gym try to extort money from the CIA guy, then they try to sell his memoir to the Russians. This story soon becomes a great thicket of love affairs, mistaken identities, and foiled plots. Burn After Reading stars John Malcovich as the CIA man, George Clooney as the U.S. Marshall, and Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt as the people who work at the gym.

Burn After Reading is currently playing in area theaters.

The next movie on our list is Righteous Kill, directed by Jon Avnet. This movie stars two of the most prominent film actors alive today, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. Righteous Kill is a cop movie in which our two stars play two homicide detectives. At one point, they start investigating the work of a serial killer who murders people that have been accused or convicted of heinous crimes. Police begin to suspect that the serial killer is a police officer. In fact, we see bits of a video tape in which Turk, De Niro’s character, appears to be confessing to the crimes. The mystery and the investigation plays out. In the end, we see the confrontation between the main characters as it becomes clear what’s been going on. Righteous Kill also stars Carla Gugino and John Leguizamo.

Righteous Kill is currently playing in area theaters.

In Search of a Midnight Kiss is a movie by writer-director Alex Holdridge. Its main character is a slacker named Wilson who’s trying, though not trying very hard, to make a go of it as a screenwriter in Los Angeles. Wilson doesn’t have much going on in his life, and his roommate encourages him to get out of the apartment and make some friends. So he goes onto Craig’s List to tell the world he’s in search of a companion. His internet ad says “misanthrope seeks misanthrope.” As a result, Wilson meets Vivian, who is as surly as Wilson is lonely and depressed. Together, they set out to explore Los Angeles by foot (something I wasn’t sure you could actualy do). The film stars Scoot McNairy and Sara Simmonds.

In Search of a Midnight Kiss is playing at Landmark’s Ken Cinema through September 18th.

Our next movie is called Choke, directed and co-written by Clark Gregg. In this movie the main character is Victor, a sex addict who works at a historical theme park. He dresses up in period costume and gives tours to tourists. The title Choke refers to Victor’s habit of going to restaurants and pretending to choke on food, hoping some rich person will save his life, bond with him, and give him money. The money is meant to help Victor pay for his mother’s residence in a high-priced mental health hospital. Victor joins a sex addict support group while he’s also falling for his mother’s nurse. Meanwhile, he’s obsessed with finding out who his real father was, before his mother dies. Choke is based on a novel by Chuck Palahniuk, who’s best known for the book Fight Club, which was also made into a movie.

Choke opens in area theaters on September 26th.

Sukiyaki Western Django: This spoof of spaghetti westerns was made by veteran Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike and stars Quentin Tarantino.

Sukiyaki Western Django opens in area theaters on October 10th.

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Review: RIGHTEOUS KILL / Jon Avnet (2008)

September 11th, 2008 by Scott Marks

Look how they make him look. Like a bum! Like a Mama Luke!

Righteous Kill (2008)
Directed by Jon Avnet
Written by: Russell Gewirtz
Starring: Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Carla Gugino, John Leguizamo, Donnie Wahlberg, Brian Dennehy and Curtis Jackson
Running Time: 100 min.
Aspect Ratio:

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

So much meat and so little sizzle. As a thriller, it’s not competent enough to turn heads and as an unintentional comedy, it’s not bad enough to be good. What’s truly amazing is how few sparks fly when the two stars finally get to spend quality time together in the same film.

The sixty-plus actors play a pair of brotherly homicide cops in their fifties and the glaring cinematography easily adds a couple of decades. When a serial killer turns out to be DeNiro, it’s up to Al to defend his buddy and do whatever he can to prove his innocence. A serial killer on the force forms a terrific premise for a film (ask Larry Cohen), yet in the unskilled hands of Jon “Fried Green Hack” Avnet it becomes a sub-average crime thriller. The only reason this earned one star is due to a twist ending that came as a complete surprise.

The killer on the loose has a habit of leaving short poems at the scene of each crime. While DeNiro can fight, he’d much rather recite his videotaped confession (it functions as the film’s narration) in a monotone that makes Travis Bickle’s diary entries sound like an auctioneer.  With the exception of a few rousing exchanges peppered with “f–ks,” they never come to life, particularly Pacino. I’m surprised that Al agreed to work with Avnet after their lethal collaboration on 88 Minutes, one of the worst films of 2008.

Who knew that Brian DePalma would have such an everlasting impact on Al’s countenance? That leather jacket that he wore in Carlito’s Way has come to mean as much to Pacino as the cowboy hat Jimmy Stewart wore in the Anthony Mann’s westerns. And talking about hair-wear, what’s that schmate perched atop Al’s noggin? His inferiority complex would be better served by a pair of lifts rather than a height-enhancing swatch of broadloom.

DeNiro delivers the same crumpled expressions he’s been serving up for well over a decade. (Has “America’s Finest Actor” turned in a decent performance in a watchable movie since Jackie Brown? If any of you suggest Stardust, I’ll personally beat youse with my f–king shinebox.) How much higher a tax bracket does he aspire to? After all the unmitigated garbage he’s insulted us with over the past too many years, he should be refused payment on his next five features. Give the money to Marty’s Film Foundation and that’s that.

Continue reading Review: RIGHTEOUS KILL / Jon Avnet (2008)

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Review: ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED / Marina Zenovich (2008)

August 24th, 2008 by Scott Marks

Photo Credit: LA Times Collection, UCLA Library Department of Special Collections

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (2008)
Directed by: Marina Zenovich
Written by: Joe Bini, Peter G. Morgan and Marina Zenovich
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Running Time: 99 min.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Since when does being a Holocaust survivor excuse one from raping an underage girl? That, and a publicity hungry judge eager to be a celebrity by association appear to be director Marina Zenovich’s prime arguments in her documentary defense of director Roman Polanski. They’re not enough.

In 1977, Polanski was hired to photograph young girls for Vogue magazine. (That’s like giving John Gacy a clown suit, a length of rope and a Cub Scout.) He brought his subject/victim, a 13-year-old girl named Samantha Gailey, to Jack Nicholson’s house (Jack was out of town), got her naked in a jacuzzi, plied her with champagne and Quaaludes and proceeded to “consensually” rape her. Ms. Gailey has since publicly forgiven Mr. Polanski.

According to Det. Phil Vannatter, the upstanding law enforcement agent who tried his best to keep O.J. behind bars, “(Polanski) did not perceive having intercourse with a 13-year-old girl as against the law. That was not in his culture, you know. It was a ’so what’ type of thing.”

On March 11, 1977 the film director was arrested for rape by use of drugs. Eleven months later, citing Judge Laurence J. Rittenband’s incompetence, Polanski fled to Paris and hasn’t set foot on American soil since, not even to pick up his best director Oscar for The Pianist. Admittedly, Rittenband is a piece of work. The tough sentencing senior judge loved celebrity trials and the limelight it afforded him. He ordered his bailiff to keep a scrapbook of his star-studded encounters. Rittenband even went so far as to solicit reservations from the media for a seat in his courtroom.

The lawyers that argued the case, Douglas Dalton for the defense and prosecuting attorney Roger Gunson, are given too much screen time. Dalton, still defending his ex-client, states, “People have the right to their own opinion, but they don’t have the right to their own facts.” Richard Brenneman, former writer for The Santa Monica Evening Outlook remembers a nasty joke that circulated at the time of the trial: The only reason Gunson was selected was “because he was a Mormon and the only member of the D.A.’s office that hadn’t had sex with an underage girl.” There comes a point in the film where the haggard Dalton and the still youthful Gunson alternate so many talking head close-ups, it looks like a dialog between Royal Dano and Phil Donahue.

Continue reading Review: ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED / Marina Zenovich (2008)

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