Tuesday, December 30, 2008

2008 in Review: The Worst Films of the Year (among other things)

Without further ado, my five least favorite films of the year:

Honorable Mentions: “Fool’s Gold,” “One Missed Call,” “10,000 B.C.”

#5


Speed Racer


Directed by the Wachowski Brothers


Throwing any sense of wonder and innovation to the wind, the Wachowski Brothers created a vanity project in every respect. From the nauseous, headache-inducing visual style to the nondescript, one-dimensional characters to the awfully gee-whiz screenplay, “Speed Racer” just didn’t work on any level. The only thing going for it was a strong performance by Matthew Fox as the mysterious Racer X, but he’s at the service of bad material. “Speed Racer” could have been one of the most beautiful and original films ever created but instead became something akin to “Starburst Skittles Milkshake: The Movie.” And yes, I said that just now.

#4



Space Chimps


Directed by Kirk De Micco


Here is the worst animated film I’ve ever seen, the sheer amateurishness almost insulting. It’s like the filmmakers didn’t really try and instead just cranked something out in a few months. The animation is beyond average, the synching of dialogue to movement at a notable disconnect. The plot is stringent and thin, not even substantial enough to hold together 81 measly minutes. The only good thing is that it at least feels its length and doesn’t drag on. The characters are straight out of video games, except they would be more interesting that way. This is awful stuff. In fact, I forgot most of it before the credits.


#3



Meet the Spartans

Directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer

After the film ended, I asked myself the following question: Can comedies get more depressing? The answer would be…yes, actually, as proven by my #2 film. Still this is among the worst of its kind I’ve ever seen. Remember when spoofs and satires were among the best comedies of all time? Think of the greats, like “Airplane!,” “The Naked Gun: Files from the Police Squad!” (and its respective sequels), and “Hot Shots! Part Deux” (the original is just okay for me, but the second is a laff riot). Even as far back as “Dr. Strangelove.” Those are prime examples of lampoonery, and “Meet the Spartans” craps on their memories. It’s not irredeemable, because all spoof films have potential; nevertheless, it’s depressing.


#2




You Don’t Mess with the Zohan

Directed by Dennis Dugan

Yet, no matter how depressing a comedy “Meet the Spartans” was, “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” was worse. If the former was depressing, this film was soulless. The plot is hypocritical and disgusting: a terrorist who wants to be a hairdresser and also really likes giving quickies to old ladies who come into his salon. Uh huh. It’s a terrible plot made worse by the typical Sandler structure—that of pea-brained sex and anatomy jokes, followed by romantic and dramatic histrionics of the most cloying kind. It worked in his great “The Wedding Singer,” as well as “Mr. Deeds,” but here it just flops around for 113 interminable minutes, with one big chuckle near the end. What awfulness!

#1


In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale


Directed by Uwe Boll


For me, no film ever made (nor any that will be made in the future) even touches the sheer badness of “In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale.” Critics have called this film “laughably bad,” but I don’t see what’s so funny. Every single aspect of this film doesn’t work in the most basic of senses. The direction by schlockmeister Uwe Boll can be kindly described as the worst of any movie ever made (you don’t wanna hear what the unkind description is). The screenplay by Doug Taylor isn’t missing anything except a story, character development, good dialogue, effective action, and structural integrity. The technical aspects are catastrophically off the mark: the cinematography is the worst I’ve ever seen; the visual effects, what little there are, are just terrible; the film editing could have only been done by a blind monkey with Tourette Syndrome (yeah, that’s a fitting description); the costume and makeup designs are straight out of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. So, does that describe it for ya? To call it a vanity project is to be kind and caring to the proceedings at hand. It isn’t good enough for direct-to-cable, let alone theatrical release.



Most Underrated Film of 2008:


The Happening

I’m not sure what the critics’ problems were with “The Happening,” a film I consider the best chiller of the year and scarier than most of 2008’s horror films. The plot is understated (as is the acting) and terrifying in a general sense. Think about it: the plant life on the earth is turning against humans by killing them in the only way possible—assisted suicide. It’s a brilliant plot device, very Shyamalan, and the execution is even better for me. The only reason I can think of for Shyamalan to be so reviled for this film, as well as his touching and beautiful “Lady in the Water,” is that he stands up to any criticism. It speaks more to the critics reviewing his films than to any of his actual films. They can’t take someone who can take their “all-knowing” judgment. I, for one, loved both films. But that’s me.


Most Overrated Film of 2008:

The Strangers

Built on a terrifying premise made even scarier when one considers it is a true story, it is unfortunate that “The Strangers” is ultimately a sloppy motion picture. Spare and grim, singular sequences are terrifying but were handled with much more realism and emotion in “The Descent” and the underrated “Saw III.” The problem with “The Strangers” has less to do with the scares present and more with the fact that I’ve seen done before and better. The ending is more nihilistic and mean-spirited than anything done in the name of true events. And people say the “Saw” trilogy is torture porn…

Tomorrow: The Ten Best Films of 2008

A Slight Delay...

...on the Five Worst list. It, as well as the Most Underrated/Overrated, will be on in a few hours. Keep watch.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

2008 in Review: An Introduction and Thoughts

(Note: this is not a great piece of writing, and I know that. It's meant to be a lengthy intro to the year we just finished. The great writing has been saved for the other articles.)

The year 2008 has been different. Looking at my current top ten, only three films came out in the fall months of September through December. Five films were released during the summer, including four of the top five. The other two were released in the spring. That’s diversity right there.

January was a terrible month (as it always is), but out of the three films I saw, there was one gem: “Cloverfield”. The other two, put mildly, were pieces of radioactive sludge. Still, “Cloverfield” was a breath of fresh air, a terrifying thrill ride that I knew would be hard to beat when it came to entertainment. February was pretty uneventful, starting off with the iffy “The Eye,” the disastrously unfunny “Fool’s Gold,” and the scant “Jumper,” which was one of my more anticipated of Spring 2008. I found the time to be thrilled by “Vantage Point,” but the real surprise was the brilliant “Penelope,” a tiny and forgotten gem every inch of which I loved to death.

March was a good month, though it admittedly started off with the abysmal “10,000 B.C.” Just the week after, however, there was the delightful and hilarious “Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who!” The week after that, another small gem called “Married Life” came and went practically unseen, much like “Penelope.” Then the spoof genre had a savior in the witty and sweet “Superhero Movie,” which was the best outright comedy I’d seen so far. I only saw three films from the month of April: the fun “The Forbidden Kingdom,” a return for the floundering Jackie Chan, “Son of Rambow,” which also was a forgotten, underseen near-masterpiece, and the charming if uneven “Baby Mama,” which I saw on a whim.

So, good but disappointing were the early months of the year, but I did have four wonderful choices for the end of the year list (note: only one makes it to the final top ten). Then summer came, as it does, and turned things around.

May was a very good, if not great, month for summer blockbusters. For every great “Iron Man” and “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” type of success, there was a “Speed Racer” disaster and a “The Strangers” letdown to cloud one’s vision of the good stuff (then again, neither of the latter made much money, so there was an upside). In the middle of them all was the thrilling “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” and a little masterpiece called “The Fall” to hold them together. June was one of two months of excessive movie-going for me. I saw the following: the funny and exciting “Kung Fu Panda,” the awful “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan,” the underrated “The Happening,” the dumbly fun “The Incredible Hulk,” the equally funny “Get Smart” and “The Love Guru,” and the masterworks-for-different-reasons “WALL-E” and “Wanted.” It was a refreshingly good month, but “WALL-E” beating out “Cloverfield” for the top prize was unexpected, as nothing else had done so. My thought at the time was that even the long-awaited “The Dark Knight” would have to perfect in order to beat it.

July started off with the disappointing “Hancock,” which turned out to be much ado about not much. The weekend of July 11 brought me to the theaters for all three big films: the surprisingly not awful “Meet Dave,” the fun “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” and “Hellboy II: The Golden Army,” the biggest comeback for superhero movies since May’s “Iron Man.” But then “The Dark Knight” came out. I had my winner for the entire year, even the months that had not yet passed. It was an utter masterpiece and a work of pure genius—and that’s just the late Heath Ledger’s performance. Other movies after that paled in comparison, until the evening of August 15. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I also saw “Space Chimps,” which depressed me, and “The X-Files: I Want to Believe,” which lifted my spirits.

My impending move to college and my brother’s wedding dampened August’s movie-going experiences, and I didn’t see a film for two weeks. Perhaps this affected my liking “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.” The following week, a comedic masterpiece in Ben Stiller’s “Tropic Thunder” and three weeks after that, the brilliant thriller “Traitor.”

After this point, movies became few and far between. I was more busy than I’d ever been, but I did find the time to see the brilliant “Lakeview Terrace” and the entertainingly paranoid “Eagle Eye.” In October, I saw the hauntingly scary “Quarantine,” a film I was dreading with my every fiber of being, and the resonant “Changeling,” a film that left a big impression on me. In November, the films I saw were okay, but the only major disappointment was “Quantum of Solace,” the incoherent follow-up to “Casino Royale.”

But December has been pretty good. The first movie I saw was the disappointing “The Day the Earth Stood Still” and next the sappy “Seven Pounds.” I liked its comedies, such as “Yes Man” and “Bedtime Stories,” as well as the thriller “Valkyrie.” But in the final week of the year, I saw a film so powerful and so resonant as to make me question the chances for “The Dark Knight” to be on the top spot at the end of the year: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”

For the last two days, it’s been haunting me. I can’t stop thinking about it. Which film beat which? I’ve made my choice, and it was, for me, a hard one to make. Both films are masterpieces of their respective genres. Both are those kinds of rarities I call perfect. I’m not entirely happy which choosing one over the other, but alas I must. You shall see in two days.

Let us start the journey…

Saturday, December 27, 2008

UPDATED 2008: A Rundown (so far)

I've added David Fincher's resonant, beautiful, epic masterpiece, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (****), although it's fighting with "The Dark Knight" for the top spot and its placement may change, by the time my top ten is published on Wednesday. On another note, I've ultimately decided not to see "The Spirit" on Monday and will just end my 2008 movie-going experience this weekend. My Year in Review articles are under way. I've also added the other films I've seen since last Friday: "Valkyrie" (***), "Australia" (***), "Yes Man" (***), "Bedtime Stories" (***), and "Seven Pounds" (**1/2).

Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" (****)
David Fincher's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (****)
Andrew Stanton's "WALL-E" (****)
Tarsem's "The Fall" (****)
Ben Stiller's "Tropic Thunder" (****)
Clint Eastwood's "Changeling" (****)
Howard & Williams's "Bolt" (****)
Matt Reeves' "Cloverfield" (****)
Stephen Walker's "Young @ Heart" (****)
Timur Bekmambetov's "Wanted" (****)

Jon Favreau's "Iron Man" (****)
Mark Palansky's "Penelope" (****)
Hammer & Tongs' "Son of Rambow" (****)
Steven Spielberg's "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (****)
Guillermo del Toro's "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" (****)
M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening" (****)
Hayward and Martino's "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!" (****)
John Erick Dowdle's "Quarantine" (****)
Chris Carter's "The X-Files: I Want to Believe" (***1/2)
Ira Sachs's "Married Life" (***1/2)

Michel Gondry's "Be Kind Rewind" (***1/2)
David Schwimmer's "Run Fatboy Run" (***1/2)
Osborne and Stevenson's "Kung Fu Panda" (***1/2)
Bryan Singer's "Valkyrie" (***)
Pete Travis' "Vantage Point" (***)
Baz Luhrmann's "Australia" (***)
David Wain's "Role Models" (***)
Fumihiko Sori's "Vexille" (***)
Peyton Reed's "Yes Man" (***)
Andrew Adamson's "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" (***)

Michael McCullers's "Baby Mama" (***)
Craig Mazin's "Superhero Movie" (***)
Adam Shankman's "Bedtime Stories" (***)
Catherine Hardwicke's "Twilight" (***)
Anne Fletcher's "27 Dresses" (***)
Paul Weiland's "Made of Honor" (***)
Rob Cohen's "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" (***)
Louis Leterrier's "The Incredible Hulk" (***)
Seth Gordon's "Four Christmases" (***)
Peter Segal's "Get Smart" (***)

Patricia Rozema's "Kit Kittredge: An American Girl" (***)
Marco Schnabel's "The Love Guru" (***)
Eric Brevig's "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (***)
Gabriele Muccino's "Seven Pounds" (**1/2)
Oliver Stone's "W." (**1/2)
Moreau and Palud's "The Eye" (**1/2)
Marc Forster's "Quantum of Solace" (**)
Peter Berg's "Hancock" (**)
Doug Liman's "Jumper" (**)
Scott Derrickson's "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (**)

Bryan Bertino's "The Strangers" (**)
Brian Robbins's "Meet Dave" (**)
Eric Valette's "One Missed Call" (*1/2)
Andy Tennant's "Fool's Gold" (*)
Roland Emmerich's "10,000 B.C." (*)
The Wachowskis' "Speed Racer" (*)
Kirk De Micco's "Space Chimps" (1/2*)
Friedberg and Seltzer's "Meet the Spartans" (1/2*)
Dennis Dugan's "You Don't Mess with the Zohan" (1/2*)
Uwe Boll's "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale" (zero)

Thursday, December 25, 2008

OSCARS 2009: Closing In...

Lot of changes this week. Also, "WALL-E" is creeping into the Best Picture buzz with a flurry of precursors. You won't see it here. I don't think it will be nominated, as much as I think it should.

Best Picture:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixon
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Director:

Woody Allen, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight
Gus Van Sant, Milk

Best Actor:

Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn, Milk
Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

Best Actress:

Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie, Changeling
Melissa Leo, Frozen River
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road

Best Supporting Actor:

Josh Brolin, Milk
Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Dev Patel, Slumdog Millionaire

Best Supporting Actress:

Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis, Doubt
Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
Kate Winslet, The Reader

Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay):

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Writing (Original Screenplay):

Happy-Go-Lucky
Milk
Rachel Getting Married
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
The Visitor

Best Animated Feature Film:

Kung Fu Panda
WALL-E
Waltz with Bashir

Best Art Direction:

Australia
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Duchess
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Revolutionary Road

Best Cinematography:

Australia
The Dark Knight
Defiance
Revolutionary Road
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Costume Design:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Duchess
The Fall
The Other Boleyn Girl
Revolutionary Road

Best Film Editing:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Defiance
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Makeup:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Synecdoche, New York
Tropic Thunder

Best Music (Original Score):

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Defiance
Milk
Revolutionary Road
WALL-E

Best Music (Original Song):

"Down to Earth," WALL-E
"Gran Torino," Gran Torino
"I Thought I Lost You," Bolt
"I Want It All," High School Musical 3: Senior Year
"The Wrestler," The Wrestler

Best Sound Editing:

The Dark Knight
Defiance
Iron Man
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
WALL-E

Best Sound Mixing:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Defiance
Iron Man
WALL-E

Best Visual Effects:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Iron Man

Best Foreign Language Film:

The Baader-Meinhof Complex
The Class
Everlasting Moments
Gomorrah
Waltz with Bashir

Best Documentary:

At the Death House Door
Blessed is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh
I.O.U.S.A.
Man on Wire
Trouble the Water

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Schedule for next week

It's gonna be a busy weekend for me, writing up my Year in Review articles and other miscellanea, as well as seeing "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" tomorrow evening, "Bedtime Stories" on Saturday, "Valkyrie" on Friday, and "The Spirit" on Monday (yes, I'm seeing if it's as bad as reported). I may be reviewing them. Maybe not. We'll see.

That'll be it for 2008 on my end. I know, I know--I haven't seen the higher profile films like "Slumdog Millionaire" or "Synecdoche, New York" or "Frost/Nixon." But I have a darn good lineup for my top ten right now. And if "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" lives up to the potential, the climate could shift further.

Anyway, as of next Monday, I will have seen 61 movies this year. Considering the year I've had subtracting movies from it, that's impressive. I saw 58 in total from last year, so this is upping that number.

So, without further procrastination, here's my very busy lineup for the Year in Review week:

Monday--Introduction and Thoughts in conclusion to the year 2008 as it pertains to movies (no, that's not the title)

Tuesday--The Five Worst Films of 2008, along with the Most Overrated, Underrated, Overlooked, and Overhyped Films

Wednesday--The Ten Best Films of 2008, along with the Ten Runners-Up

Thursday--The JSC Awards, where I nominate everything that the Oscar voters categorize, plus Best Ensemble in a Motion Picture (thank you, Kris Tapley of InContention), and no, this is nothing like the Teen Choice Awards

Friday--The Year in Superlatives, which announces my winners in said categories

Saturday--The Ten Most Anticipated of 2009 (I know, it'll be the 3rd already, but I won't have seen anything, so...)

And on Jan. 10 and Feb. 22, I will be giving my final predictions for the Globes and Oscars, respectively. Live updates will take place on my Twitter page for both.

I may also provide reviews of each season of 24, in preparation for Jan. 11's season 7 premiere. The Wednesday after that (the 14th) will have a review of the 2-night, 4-hour premiere. Coverage of each episode will ensue.

Can't wait to do all of this! Keep watch!

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Review: Role Models (***)

Directed by David Wain
Cast: Seann William Scott, Paul Rudd, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bobb’e J. Thompson, Elizabeth Banks, Jane Lynch, Ken Jeong, Ken Marino, Kerri Kinney, A.D. Miles, Joe Lo Truglio, Matt Walsh, Nicole Randall Johnson, Alexandra Stamler, Carly Craig.
2008—99 minutes.
Rated R (crude and sexual content, language, nudity)
Reviewed by The Teen Critic on December 20, 2008.

“Role Models” works. It just works. Yes, it’s uneven, and raunchy. But it’s very, very funny and contains two of the best comedic performances of the year. But more on those later. Yes, it’s nowhere near “Tropic Thunder,” but it’s funnier than some of the other comedies this year. Like “The Love Guru,” it’s shameless in its raunchiness, isn’t too deep, and is just a foulmouthed funfest. I like the spirit of “Role Models” over all; it was blessedly R-rated but never mean-spirited. And those performances—man, did they make the movie.

Danny and Wheeler are best friends and drunks. They have been having a bad day, selling their power drinks as they do, until Danny’s girlfriend breaks up with him after an unromantic proposal. He ruins the next presentation, wrecks the tow truck trying to take their car, and is threatened with jail. That is, unless he and Wheeler can prove their worth by spending time with some kids at Sturdy Wings, an organization specializing in troubled kids.




Danny is assigned to Augie, a wide-open nerd obsessed with RPGs and never quite able to live in the real world. It ends up that Augie has extra layers, and Danny finally realizes why Augie is the way he is. There is a brilliantly played-out scene where Danny and Augie’s parents argue about Augie’s upbringing; it ends with Danny kicked out of their house for making better points than the parents. Meanwhile, Wheeler has to deal with Ronnie, a potty-mouthed 10-year-old with no filter, it seems, to move past the bad words. No worries; the heroes, and the organization’s headmistress, are just as salty.

So, the plot of “Role Models” isn’t exactly a novel one, but it works for this film. The screenplay is amiable, and the direction by David Wain consists mostly of montages, yes, but the most entertaining montages in a while. What works best about “Role Models” is the acting, and good performances are not in short supply. Paul Rudd is impressive as Danny, showing true colors near the end and deserving it. Seann William Scott is hilarious as Wheeler, but isn’t given enough to work with (he’s still good with what he’s got). Elizabeth Banks is radiant as always as love-interest Beth, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse, fresh off of “Superbad,” is wonderful as the role playing Augie. (Note: the role-playing sequences are very believable.)


But the two aforementioned brilliant performances—seriously among the best of the year—are by Jane Lynch and Bobb’e J. Thompson. Lynch plays Gayle Sweeny, the head of Sturdy Wings, as the demented cousin of Tom Cruise’s Les Grossman. She’s that good and hits every note perfectly. It’s brilliant, and, above all, side-splittingly hilarious. Now, for Bobb’e J. Thompson as Ronnie. Consider this among the four most fearless supporting actor performances of the year, right up there with Cruise and Robert Downey Jr. in “Tropic Thunder” and, yes, Heath Ledger’s Joker. Thompson is simply electrifying and, in my opinion, Oscar-worthy in the role, and I predict he will go far as a result of this performance. Every other word is a naughty one; I suspect he would positively blanch Les Grossman and Kirk Lazarus—combined.

There are things that don’t work. The dramatic sequences are mostly melodramatic and unrealistic. The scenes between Danny and Beth are from any romantic comedy you can think of. The scenes with Wheeler and Ronnie, however, are perfectly balanced. I love how Thompson switches between dramatic and comedic without losing a step or a single bad word. The scenes between Danny and Augie are dramatically inert, except for that dinner sequence.


But the comedy’s the key in “Role Models,” and thank goodness for that. The performances are also electric, especially from Lynch and, more so if possible, Thompson. This is a vulgar good time at the movies. And that’s all the filmmakers were looking for, right?

Review: Seven Pounds (**1/2)

Directed by Gabriele Muccino
Cast: Will Smith, Rosario Dawson, Woody Harrelson, Michael Ealy, Barry Pepper, Elpidia Carillo, Robinne Lee, Joe Nunez, Bill Smitrovich, Tim Kelleher, Gina Hecht, Andy Milder, Judyann Elder, Sarah Jane Morris, Madison Pettis.
2008—118 minutes
Rated PG-13 (thematic elements, disturbing content, sensuality)
Reviewed by The Teen Critic on December 20, 2008.

Writing about the 2007 independent Kevin Bacon-starrer, “Rails & Ties,” Roger Ebert said, “…there were fundamental decisions to be made about the lives and fates of these characters, and I think somehow the filmmakers lost the way, lost sight of the people inside the plot.” Likewise, Gabriele Muccino’s “Seven Pounds” is like that. Here is a movie whose premise is ingenious but which bogs itself down in overbearing melodrama and other machinery. It’s utterly ordinary, and anyone looking forward to a brilliant follow-up to Muccino’s previous Will Smith film, 2006’s devastating and realistic “The Pursuit of Happyness,” will be disappointed and, afterward, inclined to look elsewhere.

“The Pursuit of Happyness” was never overbearing; its inherent sentimentality sprung out of believable situations, and above all, we cared about the characters. I wasn’t as invested in the character of Ben Thomas, especially when the Big Revelation is made near the end of the film. Not even when the film title’s meaning is revealed at the end did I for one second believe in him or, for that matter, the reason for his wanting repentance. It isn’t that I didn’t care; it’s that I didn’t know when I was supposed to.

Ben Thomas is an IRS agent, making his rounds to people who are possibly the final seven on his list. There is a blind telemarketer, named Ezra Turner, whom he insults on the telephone in the first scene of the film. And there is a woman who has developed congenital heart disease and is currently on a donor list. These two people, as well as five others, will be drastically changed in some way by the actions that Ben takes.

Oh, the movie works itself out by the end, but you’ll have it all figured out by the halfway point. Yes, the premise is intriguing. Yes, the Big Revelation is shocking and realistic. Yes, the final fifteen minutes are excellent (after all, the ending is most important, no?). Yes, the cinematography is gritty enough for the film to feel realistic. Yes, there are enough intense scenes between the actors to fill a book. My problems with “Seven Pounds” will perhaps be dismissed by those simply taken by all of the above and not looking for anything else in the picture. I, for one, am less interested in the story at hand and more interested in what takes place off-screen: the stories of those other five people, what troubles they are going through.

There are things about “Seven Pounds” I am weary of. One of them is the acting, surprisingly enough. I love Will Smith to death, and in nearly every one of his movies, he inhabits the character, even in disappointments like “Men in Black II” and “Hancock.” I use the word “nearly” because “Seven Pounds” is his first major misstep. If there was ever a performance that was over the top and too reserved at the same time, this is it. Smith is curiously off the mark here, overplaying the dialogue he is given. Woody Harrelson is simply awful as Ezra Turner, and Barry Pepper is forgettable as Ben’s best friend. The only person who comes through is Rosario Dawson, strong and affecting as Emily Posa, a woman fully aware of her mortality; it’s a brilliant performance deserving a better film. I am also weary of the screenplay, which sidesteps the more important storyline to pursue an unaffecting romance between two people whose relationship would be meaningless and absurd if the ending means what it means. Finally, I am weary of the terrible music score that turns saccharine in scenes that are supposed to be sweet (there’s a difference).

I’m at an odd place with “Seven Pounds.” I know people will see it, which I ultimately do not recommend, but I can’t ruin the ending. And that ending is brilliant. The rest of the film isn’t worth the time. At the same time, to understand the ending, the rest of the film must be seen. Do this at your own risk. It isn’t awful in the slightest, and you may like it, and I won’t blame you. Just know that this is not all there is. There’s more to it, and maybe the director’s cut DVD (or a redo) might bring the whole movie to light.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Review: Bolt (****)

Directed by Byron Howard and Chris Williams
Cast: John Travolta, Miley Cyrus, Susie Essman, Mark Walton, Malcolm McDowell, James Lipton, Greg Germann, Diedrich Bader, Nick Swardson, J.P. Manoux, Dan Fogelman, Kari Wahlgren, Chloe Moretz, Randy Savage, Ronn Moss.
2008--96 minutes

Rated PG (violence)

Reviewed by The Teen Critic on December 19, 2008.

(Note: This review contains potential spoilers. Read with care. You might want to see the movie before reading it.)

There's a moment in "Bolt" when I just about choked up. You might miss it if you take the sequence out of context. It comes near the middle of the film, when Bolt has found out the truth about himself: that he isn't any real hero and instead is just the star of a television show depicting as such. He wants to learn what a real dog is like, so his feline friend Mittens tells him to stick his head out the window, just like other dogs. "Stick your tongue out," Mittens suggests. He does. And loves it. It's a little scene, maybe forty-five seconds out of 96 minutes. But it stuck with me and I wasn't able to forget it. I kept thinking back to that sequence after viewing it, thinking about how powerfully it hit me and wondering why. Then I remembered: I had similar experiences in the other two animated films that I adored this year, "WALL-E" and "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!" Those films also received four stars from me, because they elevated themselves within the animated genre (this also happened with "Ratatouille" and "Meet the Robinsons" last year, "Happy Feet" and "Monster House" in 2006...you get the picture).

I think the sequence I described speaks directly to the themes of the film: finding one's true identity, and never forsaking a friendship. They are "stock themes," if you will, right out of the handbook, but they are made fresh and exciting by a near-perfect screenplay and brilliant handling by the filmmakers and the writers. "Bolt" is four things: side-splittingly hilarious, surprisingly tender, visually beautiful, and wondrously exciting. So were "WALL-E" and "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!," the former nonetheless at a higher level. All three are magical experiences just the same.



The plot is actually kind of ingenious. Bolt is a superdog, both on and off TV. On the tube, he plays a dog with super powers to defeat evil. Off the tube, he's a renowned superstar, forming on billboards and, I'm assuming, lunchboxes. The catch is, he knows only about his TV persona and nothing about the real world; to him, the show is real world, and there isn't anything else. Because of a plot development on his show (his person Penny's character gets kidnapped, so naturally he wants to save her, thinking Penny herself has been kidnapped), Bolt goes after her and in the process ends up in the real world--Hollywood, to be exact. He teams up with queenie cat Mittens and rabid fan Rhino the Hamster to find Penny. Soon, however, Bolt must learn the truth about himself and...

That's where I'll stop. I don't want to ruin anything for you before you see the movie. The plot is ingenious, yes, but it takes turns you won't expect and the ending is actually not that predictable (to a level, it is, but there are elements about it you won't foresee). Nearly all the usual stuff is here: sidekicks abandon hero, they get back together and reconcile, arrive just in time to save heroine, etc. But it's delivered with originality, verve, and charm.



These animals are almost human in nature--they make rational decisions which have consequences in the near future--but then, aren't all animated creatures humane? Yes, but these have extra layers. When Mittens breaks near the climax, explaining the true nature of humans to Bolt, there is a certain sadness and, dare I say, weariness behind her eyes. She's experienced it; she can testify. When Rhino the Hamster explains the true meaning of friendship to Mittens later, as he has learned from Bolt's TV show, it isn't just another sermon. He's learned so much from the show, is so excited to impart it, that his endearing hyperactivity gives way to a wisdom rarely seen in movies of this ilk. And as for Bolt, his emotions are all given by facial expressions--understandable since he is an actor--and there is a moment when he sees the horrifying reality of recasting a role on a TV show; the scene is deeply ironic and heartbreakingly sad at the same time.

The technical attributes are alarmingly good. The fast-paced editing, as well as the disorientingly good animation, make for a visual style reminiscent of and just as good as anything by Pixar (yes, I just said that). It may not be on the level of "WALL-E" (that required more intricacies), but surprisingly, it comes rather close, though on a different level. The voice work is, simply put, amazing. I am coming rather close, with this film, of forgiving Miley Cyrus of her alter ego, Hannah Montana; maybe her picking a smarter movie than the upcoming "Hannah Montana: The Movie" will do that for me. For the time being, she easily does her strongest work as Penny, a true individual when the situation needs it. John Travolta and Susie Essman have great chemistry together--Bolt is as strong an individual as Penny, and Mittens's true colors are only shown in that aforementioned sequences. But perhaps the best work in the film is by relative nobody Matt Walton as Rhino the Hamster, ranking as the best animated comedic character since Dory in the Pixar classic "Finding Nemo;" like Dory, Rhino the Hamster isn't all laugh and no heart, and he shows a real soul in his humor. All of these are actually great performances, by any standards, both live-action and animated.





I'm not sure why I was so touched by "Bolt." Perhaps the same reason I was so touched by "Penelope" earlier this year: it's a rather conventional story arc, told with originality and not without its unexpected developments. It ranks as the biggest surprise of the year, and yes, I would call it an animated masterpiece and a new classic of the genre. On a special note, this is the best 3-D experience I've ever had; I've never liked the process, but here it works beautifully, as the colors pop and are tailor-made for 3-D. I cannot think of a place this movie steps wrong. It's one of this year's very best.

UPDATED 2008: A Rundown (so far)

I've added "The Fall" (****) to my list (you'll see it, right near the top), as well as the two I saw tonight, "Bolt" (****) and "Role Models" (***).

Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" (****)
Andrew Stanton's "WALL-E" (****)
Tarsem's "The Fall" (****)
Ben Stiller's "Tropic Thunder" (****)
Clint Eastwood's "Changeling" (****)
Howard & Williams's "Bolt" (****)
Matt Reeves' "Cloverfield" (****)
Stephen Walker's "Young @ Heart" (****)
Timur Bekmambetov's "Wanted" (****)
Jon Favreau's "Iron Man" (****)

Mark Palansky's "Penelope" (****)
Hammer & Tongs' "Son of Rambow" (****)
Steven Spielberg's "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (****)
Guillermo del Toro's "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" (****)
M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening" (****)
Hayward and Martino's "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!" (****)
John Erick Dowdle's "Quarantine" (****)
Chris Carter's "The X-Files: I Want to Believe" (***1/2)
Ira Sachs's "Married Life" (***1/2)
Michel Gondry's "Be Kind Rewind" (***1/2)

David Schwimmer's "Run Fatboy Run" (***1/2)
Osborne and Stevenson's "Kung Fu Panda" (***1/2)
Pete Travis' "Vantage Point" (***)
David Wain's "Role Models" (***)
Fumihiko Sori's "Vexille" (***)
Andrew Adamson's "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" (***)
Michael McCullers's "Baby Mama" (***)
Craig Mazin's "Superhero Movie" (***)
Catherine Hardwicke's "Twilight" (***)
Anne Fletcher's "27 Dresses" (***)

Paul Weiland's "Made of Honor" (***)
Rob Cohen's "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" (***)
Louis Leterrier's "The Incredible Hulk" (***)
Seth Gordon's "Four Christmases" (***)
Peter Segal's "Get Smart" (***)
Patricia Rozema's "Kit Kittredge: An American Girl" (***)
Marco Schnabel's "The Love Guru" (***)
Eric Brevig's "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (***)
Oliver Stone's "W." (**1/2)
Moreau and Palud's "The Eye" (**1/2)

Marc Forster's "Quantum of Solace" (**)
Peter Berg's "Hancock" (**)
Doug Liman's "Jumper" (**)
Scott Derrickson's "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (**)
Bryan Bertino's "The Strangers" (**)
Brian Robbins's "Meet Dave" (**)
Eric Valette's "One Missed Call" (*1/2)
Andy Tennant's "Fool's Gold" (*)
Roland Emmerich's "10,000 B.C." (*)
The Wachowskis' "Speed Racer" (*)

Kirk De Micco's "Space Chimps" (1/2*)
Friedberg and Seltzer's "Meet the Spartans" (1/2*)
Dennis Dugan's "You Don't Mess with the Zohan" (1/2*)
Uwe Boll's "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale" (zero)

61 movies. Wow.

Review: The Fall (****)

(Note: Sorry for the lack of photos. Couldn't really find any. Plus, don't wanna spoil the beauty of the film.)

Directed by Tarsem
Cast: Catinca Untaru, Justine Waddell, Lee Pace, Kim Uylenbroek, Aiden Lithgow, Sean Gilder, Ronald France, Andrew Roussouw, Michael Huff, Grant Swanby, Emil Hostina, Robin Smith, Jeetu Verma, Leo Bill, Marcus Wesley.
2008--117 minutes
Rated R (violent images)
Reviewed by The Teen Critic on December 18, 2008.

I have a rhetorical question for you: How the heck do you even write a review for "The Fall," let alone a plot description? It's the closest thing to indescribable as a movie could get. As Roger Ebert would say, that's not a criticism, that's an observation. I would like to say that "The Fall" is a bizarre masterpiece and it's all that can be said. Well, dang it, I'm wrong. There are a lot of things that can be said about Tarsem's film, much like his previous one, "The Cell."

That film was perhaps a bit better to explain: A woman goes into the mind of a serial killer, only to be caught up and trapped inside it. It was 2000's best film by a mile, not only visually striking, but also frightening, trippy, and quite touching. "The Fall" is equally trippy and perhaps even more touching. The plot description is murky: In order to get more morphine, a paralyzed and suicidal man tells stories to a crippled girl about...what? And to what effect? Many films must have a logical point; people demand it. What if the film has no logical point? They won't hear of it. Must be the "artsy-fartsy" thing.

I believe that "The Fall" has no logical point (or much of a narrative, either), and instead contains a creative engine only. That's it. Nothing else. The film works as a celebration of style over substance, yes, but what about when there's very little substance to begin with? "The Fall" has less a story than a plot, but that works in its favor, as the lack of a strong narrative gives way to the best cinematography and scenery and set direction and costume design ever conducted on film.

That's pretty much the point that Tarsem is making: the visualization of someone's uninhibited imagination. It's like an abstract painting. Some understand it, some don't. I guess it really is all relative. All I know is this: I will never forget "The Fall." Forget the 59% on Rotten Tomatoes. Forget its near incomprehensibility. This is a goundbreaking visual achievement that needs no review to establish that. It has established itself, I believe.

Whenever someone says that a film is pretentious because it makes its own points and makes sense within its own universe, I have to think to myself, "That happened to '2001: A Space Odyssey.' And that's a great film." So, is "The Fall" confusing? Yes. Maddening? Very. Strange? Doesn't even scratch the surface. Masterpiece? Maybe, though that's hard to say. Striking? Extremely. Plot-driven? No. It doesn't have to be. It's driven by its own means, you see. It's also one of the very best films I've seen this year, and possibly one of the most strikingly original ever made. Which tells you something right there.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008


Great shot of the "Labyrinth of Despair," which is a great name. Can't wait. "The Fall." Actionman praised it back in June. His choice for best film of the year. It was on Ebert's list. Better than "The Dark Knight?" I'll be watching it with lunch.
I really loved Tarsem's previous film, 2000's masterpiece "The Cell." It was creepy, scary, beautiful, haunting, and had an involving plot to go with the truly unforgettable imgery. What nearly no one knows is "The Cell" is my pick for 2000's best film. It'll be on my "Decade in Review" article next December. This looks completely different, but just as entrancing. Actionman compared it to "Pan's Labyrinth." Wow. If it's that good, I'm freaking excited.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

UPDATED 2008: A Rundown (so far)

I added "Twilight" (***), "Four Christmases" (***), and "The Day the Earth Stood Still (**) to my list. I'll be doing this again next Saturday, as I'll being seeing a lot of movies by then.

Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" (****)
Andrew Stanton's "WALL-E" (****)
Ben Stiller's "Tropic Thunder" (****)
Clint Eastwood's "Changeling" (****)
Matt Reeves' "Cloverfield" (****)
Stephen Walker's "Young @ Heart" (****)
Timur Bekmambetov's "Wanted" (****)
Jon Favreau's "Iron Man" (****)
Mark Palansky's "Penelope" (****)
Hammer & Tongs' "Son of Rambow" (****)

Steven Spielberg's "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (****)
Guillermo del Toro's "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" (****)
M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening" (****)
Hayward and Martino's "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!" (****)
John Erick Dowdle's "Quarantine" (****)
Chris Carter's "The X-Files: I Want to Believe" (***1/2)
Ira Sachs's "Married Life" (***1/2)
Michel Gondry's "Be Kind Rewind" (***1/2)
David Schwimmer's "Run Fatboy Run" (***1/2)
Osborne and Stevenson's "Kung Fu Panda" (***1/2)

Pete Travis' "Vantage Point" (***)
Fumihiko Sori's "Vexille" (***)
Andrew Adamson's "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" (***)
Michael McCullers's "Baby Mama" (***)
Craig Mazin's "Superhero Movie" (***)
Catherine Hardwicke's "Twilight" (***)
Anne Fletcher's "27 Dresses" (***)
Paul Weiland's "Made of Honor" (***)
Rob Cohen's "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" (***)
Louis Leterrier's "The Incredible Hulk" (***)

Seth Gordon's "Four Christmases" (***)
Peter Segal's "Get Smart" (***)
Patricia Rozema's "Kit Kittredge: An American Girl" (***)
Marco Schnabel's "The Love Guru" (***)
Eric Brevig's "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (***)
Oliver Stone's "W." (**1/2)
Moreau and Palud's "The Eye" (**1/2)
Marc Forster's "Quantum of Solace" (**)
Peter Berg's "Hancock" (**)
Doug Liman's "Jumper" (**)

Scott Derrickson's "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (**)
Bryan Bertino's "The Strangers" (**)
Brian Robbins's "Meet Dave" (**)
Eric Valette's "One Missed Call" (*1/2)
Andy Tennant's "Fool's Gold" (*)
Roland Emmerich's "10,000 B.C." (*)
The Wachowskis' "Speed Racer" (*)
Kirk De Micco's "Space Chimps" (1/2*)
Friedberg and Seltzer's "Meet the Spartans" (1/2*)
Dennis Dugan's "You Don't Mess with the Zohan" (1/2*)

Uwe Boll's "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale" (zero)

Review: The Day the Earth Stood Still (**)

Directed by Scott Derrickson
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly, Kathy Bates, Jaden Smith, John Cleese, Jon Hamm, Kyle Chandler, Robert Knepper, James Hong, John Rothman, Sunita Prasad, Juan Riedinger, Sam Gilroy, Tanya Champoux, Rukiya Bernard.
2008--103 minutes
Rated PG-13 (violence)
Reviewed by The Teen Critic on December 13, 2008.

I don't remember "The Day the Earth Stood Still" being one big environmental message. The original 1951 picture is one of the greatest science fiction films of the age, and its remake is one of the weakest. This is spineless pulp fiction at best; one imagines original director Robert Wise shaking his finger at Scott Derrickson. And how can we blame him? Derrickson turned GORT, one of the great villainous robots in the movies, into the worst special effects creation of the last year and three months (since the dragons of "Dragon Wars").

Still, I suppose this was inevitable. The original maybe shouldn't have been touched, but then, what teenager today will admit he has seen it? Moreover, who of those will admit he loves it? So, Derrickson attempts to update it, and the result is the best film that can come from an immortal film. How good is that? Not very, but it's far from boring.



Wise's "The Day the Earth Stood Still" was one of the best chillers ever made; he was sci-fi's Hitchcock, if you will, followed closely by Kubrick. Derrickson's remake is a second-rate action flick with not very much action. The most intense sequence involves a silly and gigantic robot taking control of fighter pilots and running them into the ground. Insidious, yes; skillful, no. The effects in these sequences are laughably see-through, not a good sign for a sci-fi movie released in 2008 with Keanu Reeves.

Speaking of Reeves, he plays Klaatu, an alien who has come to "save the planet Earth," though not necessarily its inhabitants. He teams up with "astrobiologist" Helen Benson and her stepson Jacob to evade the government, who is trying to kill Klaatu so that the human race is okay. What they don't know is, he's got some pretty freaky powers. He can control a lot of things with his mind. There's one chilling scene when he causes a guy to have a heart attack and die. Too bad the whole movie couldn't have been that chilling.


There's a lot of melodrama in this "The Day the Earth Stood Still," a lot of which doesn't work, but I did like the scenes with little Jaden Smith's character when he mourns the loss of his father by lashing out at others; it's more realistic than any special effect could be and shows how brilliant the film could have been but wasn't. The whole movie feels that way: a series of missed opportunities. I can't tell you how many sequences began well and ended disappointingly.

There are a few good things. I was very impressed by the tiny nanobyte/bug thingies and how they dissolved everything in their path; the effects here are Oscar-worthy while nothing else in the film is. And the human emotions of young Smith's character are palpably felt. And Reeves does well with what he's got playing Klaatu: he's impressively emotionless.




It's a shame the movie they are in is the biggest disappointment of the year, easily surpassing--but not leaving the restraints of the star rating--"Hancock," "Jumper," and "Quantum of Solace." While maybe I shouldn't have, I was expecting something epic. What I got was neither an epic nor an epic failure. I really didn't hate this film. I just really didn't like it, either. It's just plain forgettable, without being incomprehensible or terrible.

Seeing it...


...in about two-and-a-half hours. Pretty excited, but also leery. Been getting bad reviews, yes, but not even Ebert liked it.

I'll be posting my review a little later today.

Friday, December 12, 2008

On the Golden Globe Nominations

This year's Golden Globe Nominations are more exciting than disappointing (for me, at least). This'll be something that's talked about endlessly in the media for about a month after the show's already been televised. There are some snubs--gotta expect that with the HFPA--but a lot of these are surprises and delights.

The Best Dramatic Picture category has a lot of non-surprises, but the snub for the buzz-filled "The Dark Knight" is surprising to say the least. No surprise for nominees "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (which I predict will take the gold) and "Revolutionary Road." What is surprising is the shutout of "Milk" from the lineup; once I see it on Monday, I'll tell you what I think about the snub. "Slumdog Millionaire" is the dark horse here, no matter how good it is. I expect it to take something home, but what that will be has yet to be determined in my mind. "The Reader" is an odd choice to me; there's really no substantial buzz.

As for the comedies and the lone musical in the group, there's only one movie that has the power to take home the gold: "Burn after Reading." Yes, I know that "Happy-Go-Lucky" has been widely acclaimed, and that "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" has been called Woody Allen's best in 10 years. On the other end of the spectrum, "In Bruges" wasn't expected--at all--and "Mamma Mia!" seems to be on here because it made money. But the HFPA love the Coens (forgiving their awful snub of "No Country for Old Men" last year) and "Burn after Reading" has enough buzz to win the award. But that's me, and I haven't yet seen it.

The acting in the drama categories are basically givens in themselves. Sean Penn will win for "Milk," and Anne Hathaway will win for "Rachel Getting Married." The only ones who could take it away from them (but won't) are, respectively, Mickey Rourke for "The Wrestler" and Kristin Scott-Thomas for the highly acclaimed French drama "I've Loved You So Long."

The comedy actors are stranger and harder to predict. "In Bruges" has two nominees here, but neither of them will win. I think the winner here is James Franco as the pothead sidekick in "Pineapple Express." The actresses...that's a toss-up, but I think Sally Hawkins might get it for the title description in "Happy-Go-Lucky."

We all know that Heath's gonna win for "The Dark Knight" (the only nomination it received), but I think it's super that Tom Cruise and Robert Downey Jr. were nominated for their roles in "Tropic Thunder." PSH was nominated for the theater adaptation "Doubt," which I will hopefully see on Sunday evening. The odd man out here is Voldemort (aka Ralph Fiennes) for "The Duchess"; I am shocked he didn't get one for "In Bruges" here, as he was called the best in the film by a lot of people. And I think it's a given that Penelope Cruz will win Supporting Actress for "Vicky Cristina Barcelona."

Just as "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" will win drama picture, so will David Fincher win for director. And as "WALL-E" is the only one that could win animated film, that's a given; it'll also win screenplay. The acclaimed mob drama "Gomorrah" will take home the gold for foreign film. The score for "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is brilliant (I've heard some of it), and the title song of "The Wrestler" is beautiful.

That's it for now. No getting into the TV nominations right now.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Essay Review: The Dark Knight (****)

Directed by Christopher Nolan
Cast: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Monique Curnen, Ron Dean, Cilian Murphy, Chin Han, Nestor Carbonell, Eric Roberts, Ritchie Coster, Anthony Michael Hall.
2008--152 minutes
Rated PG-13 (violence)
Reviewed by The Teen Critic on December 10, 2008.

Question: Can superhero films get any better than "The Dark Knight?"

Answer: No.

Reason: It transcends the genre by delving into themes not-so-different than those in "The Godfather" or "GoodFellas."

This is a masterpiece and the best film of the last three years. Better than "WALL-E" and "No Country for Old Men" and "Children of Men" and "Pan's Labryinth." That's quite the list to beat, but "The Dark Knight" does it. This is truly operatic in nature, a Greek tragedy with a bat as its hero and a clown as its villain. Isn't that true irony? We are to fear bats and delight in clowns, but that which we fear is the very thing that will ultimately save us. Or will it? By the end of "The Dark Knight," the viewer is not so sure. It's that impressive on the viewer's minds, that thematically rich, that emotionally charged. I have now watched the film five times, and will watch it again, and each time it has left me staggering. I've used that word quite a bit: staggering. What does that even mean? you might ask. It means this: something so good as to be disconcerting to the viewer.







I'm really at a loss, with the most recent viewing, to point out what works best in the film. Is it the cinematography? Certainly Wally Pfister has shot this film to perfection, every little corner something to be savored. Is it the film editing? Lee Smith is one of the most overlooked editors out there (he previously edited "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World," one of my favorites of 2003), and the editing in the action sequences is flawlessly mounted, every scene dripping with suspense. Is it the musical score? Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, recently requalified for this masterwork, have written something completely different yet utterly familiar; the use of violins and cellos here is quite something (and is it just me, or is that continuous droning sound reminiscent of "There Will Be Blood?").

Or is it the acting, with brilliant performances by the entire ensemble? Christian Bale is unusually strong with his quivering, gravelly voice of someone wearied by fighting crime. Aaron Eckhart is equally strong as a man who had everything and then lost it. Gary Oldman is the heart and soul of the film, giving a stunningly great performance as Jim Gordon, a man who knows justice and does the right thing to the end. Maggie Gyllenhaal is tour-de-force as a woman who loves two men, one more than the other, and may die for both their causes. Michael Caine is typical Michael Caine, just better; who knew that acting as a butler for a superhero could be one of his finest roles? Morgan Freeman, good in everything he's in, is equally powerful.




Or is it the person whose performance has been hailed by the AFI as one of the finest in cinema, Heath Ledger? His untimely death has nothing to do with how good he is. James Berardinelli nailed it, saying that the performance "would have been no less memorable had it not been his last and most grueling." Ledger is a force of nature...when he isn't speaking. This is the best villain performance I've seen, as well as the best performance in general. You just believe him every second he inhabits the screen. If Ledger doesn't win the Oscar, the Academy will have a riot outside Kodak Theatre. Forgetting my opinion for a second, many call this the best performance of the year in any respect, and they're not wrong.

I thought about giving a plot description but have opted against it. The reason for this is: it's made over a billion dollars worldwide. If you don't know the plot, why are you reading this review? So, if you want plot, go somewhere else. Other than the fact that Batman is less popular than normal and must fight an insane terrorist named The Joker, what do you need to know? Just that this is a complex and labyrinthine (but never impossible) plot that is accessible to everyone.




Before "The Dark Knight" came out, "Spider-Man 2" was, for me, the pinnacle achievement in the superhero genre. After viewing this film for the first time, I saw that that sequel was only the beginning. Not that it diminishes the power of the earlier film, but with it I always felt aware I was watching a "comic book movie." I even felt this sometimes with "Batman Begins." What Christopher Nolan has done with "The Dark Knight" is to dissect it completely with the world of Batman as we know it but still stay within the restraints of the genre. Yes, Bruce Wayne is Batman, but more Ray Liotta in "GoodFellas" than Michael Keaton in Tim Burton's overrated "Batman" and "Batman Returns." There are shots here that will haunt me. The shot of The Joker hanging his head out of the window of a cop car.
Films like "The Dark Knight" come out once in a blue moon. What some people forget, I think, in the middle of the Heath shuffle, is that "The Dark Knight" is perfectly fine, with or without Ledger. Take out the great performance by Ledger, replace it with a lesser one, and you've still got a brilliant film. The plotting, the technical aspects, the acting--all have spelled a mixture that has Oscar written all over it. This is what happens when all of the aspects of great superhero cinema are put to their best uses.



"Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded." This line pervades the themes of the film. I wonder what the Academy will make of this film come the January announcements. But will they be able to look at this as transcendent of its genre? I certainly hope so. It's good enough to win the big award (and I think it will, despite my predictions saying otherwise). We shall see.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Sorry...

...my review for "Minority Report" is here. Read and enjoy!

Trailer Debut: "Terminator: Salvation"

Okay, so it's Japanese. I'm loving the ever-so-brief glimpses of Josh Brolin, moving from Dubya to Terminator. Overall, looks friggin' brilliant.

On DVD Today

"The Dark Knight." Buying it tomorrow at noon(ish). Nothing else matters. Review should be up soon.

Speaking of, it's now been requalified for Best Music Score. Thank God. It'll win, no doubt. Well, maybe some doubt. But not much. Things are looking up.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Roger Ebert's Best Films of the Year

He has twenty of them this time.

"Ballast" (I want to rent this. It came highly touted from TIFF, and the trailers seem to lead me to believe it's brilliant.)

"The Band's Visit" (Same with this one. Looks terrific. Might be a rental for me.)

"Che" (This one will be a seer when I have four and a half hours on my hands. Once I do, it's zip-to-the-theater-or-rental-place time.)

"Chop Shop" (Yet again. Need to rent this and Bahrani's previous film, "Man Push Cart." Ebert adores both of them.)

"The Dark Knight" (A masterpiece, all four times I saw it. Buying it in less than two days. Will probably be watching it a couple more times before the week is over.)

"Doubt" (Gotten some rave reviews, and I will probably catch it over Christmas break sometime.)

"The Fall" (Looks like Ebert and Actionman are ganging up on me to see this. Will be renting it on the 16th, I hope. Looks phenomenally weird.)

"Frost/Nixon" (Will be catching this on the 15th. Can't wait.)

"Frozen River" (Probably won't rent it for a while, but at some point, yes.)

"Happy-Go-Lucky" (Will try and catch this over Christmas break. But not sure about timing matters. I'll see it eventually.)

"Iron Man" (May make my Top-Ten of 2008, but that remains to be seen. Surely my runners-up if not.)

"Milk" (Seeing this the first chance I get. Looks like a masterpiece.)

"Rachel Getting Married" (Will rent once on DVD. Looks startlingly good.)

"The Reader" (Won't be seeing it, but I've heard great things.)

"Revolutionary Road" (Opens the day after New Year's for me. Will be there opening night. Cannot freakin' wait. Looks staggeringly good.)

"Shotgun Stories" (When I sign up for Netflix next year, I will get this immediately. Somehow I missed his review. Reading it now, I need to rent this. Need. To.)

"Slumdog Millionaire" (Hoping to see this on the 14th or 18th. I have a weird schedule.)

"Synecdoche, New York" (Seeing this on the 17th, due to the maddening fact that "The Wrestler" comes out in Dallas on Jan. 16--when I'll be in college again. I was all pumped for an apparent masterpiece. So, I'll see another apparent masterpiece instead. Actionman, I hope you're right.)

"W." (Boggles the mind. Not that it was awful, but I didn't care for it. A really well-acted SNL skit.)

"WALL-E" (An animated classic for all ages. And a great movie, too.)

His Special Jury Prize winner:

"My Winnipeg" (Won't be seeing this anytime soon, but sometime in my life.)

His favorite documentaries:

"Encounters at the End of the World" (Looks hauntingly brilliant. According to Actionman, it is. I'll rent it.)

"I.O.U.S.A." (This is one I'm intrigued in. Possibly a renter next summer.)

"Man on Wire" (DEFINITELY!!! I wanna see this. Badly. Everyone has said it actually surpassed "Standard Operating Procedure" as the Best Documentary frontrunner this year. Speaking of...)

"Standard Operating Procedure" (I wanna see this, too, but I don't know when.)

"Trouble the Water" (Heard great things about this. Maybe next summer.)

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Scathing Review #2: Bratz (zero stars)

Directed by Sean McNamara
Cast: Logan Browning, Janel Parrish, Nathalia Ramos, Skyler Shaye, Chelsea Staub, Annelise van der Pol, Malese Jow, Ian Nelson, Stephen Lunsford, Jon Voight, Lainie Kazan, William May, Emily Everhard, Chet Hanks, Carl Rux, Kadeem Hardison.
2007--110 minutes.
Rated PG (thematic elements)
Reviewed by The Teen Critic on December 7, 2008.



I want to make something very clear: It isn't that I don't like "Bratz" because I was a 17-year-old guy when I saw it last year. It's that I don't like it because it's horrible from any perspective. That's a common misconception that I have dealt with from girls younger than I who liked the film. I am serious when I say that I can't see what's good about it from any angle. I'm all for a cute, Disney Channel-level movie that sermonizes to us about friendship; I think they are underrated and watch them every once in a while if I'm in a cheerful mood. So, I confess that I wasn't dreading "Bratz" as much as I should have. I expected it would be bad (it's expected with a movie based on a line of children's dolls) but fun enough to sit through, much like a movie made for Disney Channel is.
I was off the mark--way off the mark. This isn't even good enough for the Disney Channel. At least with those films and television shows, even stuff like "Hannah Montana," you get a sense that the players are trying to teach us something. This is not so with "Bratz," a vile piece of trash that is so terrifying in its contempt for high-schoolers that it's a wonder someone didn't intervene.




The most irksome thing about "Bratz," other than its very existence, is how utterly and completely hypocritical it is at its very core. Those Disney Channel movies have fun messages that turn out well for the character in the end. Maybe the characters do bad things to get there, but, in the world's eyes, the end justifies the means. They learn their lesson. Whether we like the final product isn't important, because at least it hasn't given us a bad taste in our mouth. The characters in "Bratz" live up to the movie's very title and, as the images ravage our cornea with such melodrama as to choke the viewer, we realize something much more insidious than its materialistic teachings: this movie is telling us that, in order to reconnect with our friends, we must plot against the mean girl and make her more miserable than she ever made ours. It's a bad message to teach kids, and that's what differentiates "Bratz" and the everyday kids' movie.

The plot of "Bratz" is as generic as they come. Four girls have been BFF's since, like, ever, and they're entering high school together for the first time. "Don't lose your passion for fashion," Sasha says to Cloe, in one of the movie's more original moments (that's not necessarily a good thing, considering Cloe is changing her clothes right in front of the school with only the other girls to cover her). Two years pass by, apparently (I don't remember the transition), and the girls have parted ways, joining cliques as the girls in this mysterious universe from another planet do, at the whim of ice queen Meredith. After the girls get back together following a food fight (of course!), "Mer" plots to steal their thunder. So, as mentioned before, the Bratz plot to get her back at her televised sweet sixteen party.

It took all of my brain power to remember that plot, and the stuff I couldn't remember was gotten off of WikiPedia. It's asinine, stagnant entertainment at best, soulless and mind-boggling at worst. Suffice to say, the latter two attributes are prevalent for 95% of the movie. Not only is the plot generic, but it is also cut and pasted from the most cliche moments out of countless better Valley Girl movies--namely the Valley Girl masterworks "Clueless" and "Legally Blonde," both films endlessly more delightful than "Bratz" ever hopes to be. The dialogue is stale, to say the least, the characters sounding exactly like soundbytes from the animated films made about the dolls. Speaking of the dolls, they have more personality and charm than the four talentless hacks playing them.





Logan Browning, Janel Parrish, Nathalia Ramos, and Skyler Shaye have never acted before this film. If this is any sort of proof of their acting ability, I never want to see something with any of these actresses again. Ever. These are not actresses emoting; they are no more than cardboard that moves. There isn't a brain in any of their pretty little heads, no soul behind their actions, no heart in the material. These are four of the worst performances I have ever seen splattered onto the cinema. If you saw "Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker" and "Dragon Wars" and were taken aback by both Alex Pettyfer and Amanda Brooks, get a load of these four girls. I understand that preteens want over-the-top, but this is beyond that. There is nary a good performance in the film, but they are asked to hold the material on their shoulders. They don't, but then, there would have to be material to work with.

The pitiful direction by "That's So Raven" and "Hannah Montana" alum Sean McNamara is so nondescript it is as if he gave up and set the camera on "autopilot" mode. The script by McNamara is nothing more than crap disguised as cutesy. Not only could monkeys have written it better, they could have won an Oscar compared to this. In fact, the script seems to be about ten pages long, triple-spaced. They repeat the same thing over and over and over and over.

In short, to write this as they would understand it: LIK OMG THIS IS SOOOOOOO AWFUL!!! ITS AMZINGLY AWFULZ!!!! ISNT THERE ANY JUSTIZ IN THIZ WORLD?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Friday, December 5, 2008

Scathing Review #1 - Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker (zero stars)

Directed by Geofrey Sax
Cast: Alex Pettyfer, Alicia Silverstone, Mickey Rourke, Missi Pyle, Bill Nighy, Damian Lewis, Robbie Coltrane, Stephen Fry, Ewan McGregor, Sophie Okonedo, Andy Serkis, Ashley Walters, Alex Barrett, Richard Huw.
2006--93 minutes
Rated PG (violence)
Reviewed by The Teen Critic on December 6, 2008.

I find it difficult to find even one good thing to say about Geoffrey Sax's disaster "Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker," except maybe one good use of cinematography in the entire 93 minute running time. This is a film so awful in its every facet, so disquietingly uninteresting, so repugnantly, viciously irredeemable, that one wonders if the actors were even trying.

I have an interesting story behind my watching this film. A friend and I were browsing Movie Boy's website and decided to watch two films that he hated. We chose this and "Zoom." We had heard "Zoom" was the worst of the Tim Allen Trilogy of Shame in 2006, but hadn't seen it or the other two 2006 releases he was in, so we gave it a shot. We both figured, well, Movie Boy isn't always that smart about his star ratings, so his giving "Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker" zero stars and "Zoom" half a star was just a fluke.

Good God, were we wrong. While "Zoom" was awful, you couldn't consciously hate it. It had a zeal, even if every scene failed miserably, a kind of "Sky High" rip-off. "Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker," however, started as an "Agent Cody Banks"-lite for about five mediocre albeit harmless minutes and descended into such levels of awfulness that I don't think a family-friendly actioner has ever reached.

It is also the most incomprehensible drivel written before January 11, 2008 (when the impossibly worse "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale" was released). The script is utterly lifeless, attempting to squish a plot that, while awful, is also much too large for a film like this. That is to say, if anyone could understand it. Not one second of expository dialogue is, well, expository. Not one action sequence makes an iota of sense. Not one character has enough depth (or any depth for that matter) to latch onto. This is not "so bad it's good" we're talking about. It's "so bad it's awful."

The plot I could understand (or remember) involves a plot to kill millions of children by transferring some sort of virus into computers. So, not only is it incomprehensible, but it is also inherently disturbing. Nice. But then, the transfer is so ridiculous that it doesn't even exist in a reality that is of any sort on this earth.

If "Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker" is useful for one thing, it is how not to make a kid-friendly action film. From the schizoid, ADD filmmaking by Sax (who, big surprise, made the non-suspenser "White Noise" in 2005) to the nondescript cinematography (except one single crane shot near the end) to the unbelievably bad fight choreography (Alex beats up seven people with a rope and without any previous training), this film steps wrong in any direction. I would say to watch it if you just want to laugh at the badness of it all, but that would be like saying the badness is entertaining. It's not. It's depressingly bad.

Rumor is that star Alex Pettyfer was chosen out of 500 other boys to play Alex Rider. Those 499 others must have been unspeakably bad. I think Movie Boy says it best in his review, "...it's safe to say that a sock puppet could have been capable of delivering a more dedicated performance than Alex Pettyfer does." He's too kind there. I don't think that Pettyfer emotes one time in the entire film. Not that he has anything to work with here or anything. The supporting cast is no better (but thankfully not worse) with Alicia Silverstone giving the best performance in the film; the catch is, she's awful. Mickey Rourke acts like he has a million better things to do, and he probably does. Sophie Okonedo, Ewan McGregor, Robbie Coltrane, Bill Nighy, Missi Pyle, Andy Serkis, Stephen Fry, Sarah Bolger, and Damian Lewis are all wasted in nothing roles.



"Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker" comes to a point close to cinematic torture, but is one step away from that. It presents an endurance test for the viewer: How inept can it get at any moment? The answer is, a whole freakin' lot. This is irredeemable filmmaking at its very atrocious and the second-worst film I've ever seen. I've seen only six films I could say that about. So, that's saying a lot.

Also...

...I will be offering reviews of six special films in the course of the next few weeks:

Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker
Bratz
Domestic Disturbance
Dragon Wars
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
My Super Ex-Girlfriend

They're special, because they are irredeemable pieces of trash that aim for "bad" and come up short. They are the worst films I've ever seen, and in the case of one of them, nothing will come close.

I love reviewing great films but perhaps love writing scathing reviews even more. It's fun, ganging up on those films I abhor.

2006: A Rundown

Man, I'm on a roll with these movie lists. This is one of the best years for cinema--ever. Possibly THE best.

The films of 2006:

Alfonso Cuaron's masterful Children of Men (****)
Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth (****)
Neil Marshall's The Descent (****)
Gabriele Muccino's The Pursuit of Happyness (****)
Bill Condon's Dreamgirls (****)
Darren Lynn Bousman's Saw III (****) (I know, I know, I'm gonna catch flack for this, but I stand by it...)
George Miller's Happy Feet (****)
Emilio Estevez's Bobby (****)
Doug Atchison's Akeelah and the Bee (****)
J.J. Abrams's Mission: Impossible III (****)

David Frankel's The Devil Wears Prada (****)
Steven Frears's The Queen (****)
Gil Kenan's Monster House (****)
Christopher Nolan's The Prestige (****)
Marc Forster's Stranger than Fiction (****)
Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers (****)
M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water (****)
Martin Campbell's Casino Royale (****)
Oliver Stone's World Trade Center (****)

Barry Levinson's Man of the Year (***1/2)
Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain (***1/2)
Ron Howard's The Da Vinci Code (***1/2)
Bryan Singer's Superman Returns (***1/2)
Lasseter and Ranft's Cars (***1/2)
Alejandro Agresti's The Lake House (***1/2)
Tony Bill's Flyboys (***1/2)
Neil Burger's The Illusionist (***1/2)
James Gartner's Glory Road (***)
Clark Johnson's The Sentinel (***)

Gore Verbinski's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (***)
Gary Winick's Charlotte's Web (***)
James McTeigue's V for Vendetta (***)
Tony Scott's Deja Vu (***)
Johnson and Kirkpatrick's Over the Hedge (***)
Brett Ratner's X-Men: The Last Stand (***)
Andrew Davis' The Guardian (***)
Richard Loncraine's Firewall (***)
Richard Donner's 16 Blocks (***)
John Moore's The Omen (***)

McG's We are Marshall (***)
Frank Marshall's Eight Below (**1/2)
Carlos Saldanha's Ice Age: The Meltdown (**1/2)
Allen Coulter's Hollywoodland (**)
Wolfgang Petersen's Poseidon (**)
Stefen Fengmeier's Eragon (**)
Frank Coraci's Click (*1/2)
Jared Hess's Nacho Libre (*1/2)
Peter Hewitt's Zoom (1/2*)
Ivan Reitman's My Super Ex-Girlfriend (zero)
Geoffrey Sax's irredeemable, mind-numbing Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker (zero; and no film from 2006 that I ever see will be worse than this steaming puddle of turtle pee...and yes, I used that term just now)

Thursday, December 4, 2008

"Great Films Series" Upcoming

In the words of Tony Stark/Iron Man, I'm working on something big.


Because of the list I posted in September, I thought, well, why not provide some reviews of those films? I already covered "WALL-E" and will cover "The Dark Knight" as soon as I watch it for a fifth time this coming Wednesday. I'm in the process of writing a review for the masterpiece "Minority Report," to be on in a few days.


The other films' reviews will be slowgoing, but nevertheless, every review will be on by the time next May rolls around.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

2009 Golden Globe Prediction

Here are my thoughts, with the winners signified like they normally are.


Best Motion Picture--Drama:

Australia
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Milk
Revolutionary Road
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Actor--Drama:

Leonardo DiCaprio, Revolutionary Road
Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn, Milk
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

Best Actress--Drama:

Cate Blanchett, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Angelina Jolie, Changeling
Nicole Kidman, Australia
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road

Best Motion Picture--Comedy or Musical:

Burn After Reading
Mamma Mia!
Pineapple Express
Sex and the City
Tropic Thunder

Best Actor--Comedy or Musical:

Josh Brolin, W.
Steve Carell, Get Smart
Robert Downey Jr., Iron Man
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Synecdoche, New York
Ben Stiller, Tropic Thunder

Best Actress--Comedy or Musical:

Elizabeth Banks, Zack and Miri Makes a Porno
Anne Hathaway, Get Smart
Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky
Sarah Jessica Parker, Sex and the City
Rachel Weisz, The Brothers Bloom

Best Supporting Actor:

Josh Brolin, Milk
Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder
James Franco, Milk
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road

Best Supporting Actress:

Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Rosemarie DeWitt, Rachel Getting Married
Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
Michelle Williams, Synecdoche, New York

Best Director:

Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Charlie Kaufman, Synecdoche, New York
Sam Mendes, Revolutionary Road
Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight
Gus Van Sant, Milk

Best Score:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Defiance
Revolutionary Road
WALL-E

Best Animated Film:

Bolt
Kung Fu Panda
WALL-E

Best Foreign Film:

The Class
Gomorrah
Waltz with Bashir

And...I'm not bothering with the TV nominations. I'm sure "The Shield," "Mad Men," and "House" will be nominated. But beyond that, I can't say.

OSCARS 2009: A "Dark" Horse

Finally, the Best Picture buzz for the best picture of the year is taking shape. Critics have called out "The Dark Knight" for a Best Picture nomination and deservedly so. It's a monstrous film, both critically (95% on Rotten Tomatoes) and commercially ($997 million worldwide, not counting the millions destined to be raked in next Tuesday).

I also noticed that I keep forgetting to add Documentary Feature Film and Foreign Film categories. Consider them added permanently.

On a slightly different note, I will be giving my Golden Globes Nominations Predictions either tonight or tomorrow. Keep a look out. The real nominations are announced next Friday, the 12th. I'll post those then.

Best Picture:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixon
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Director:

Darren Aronofsky, The Wrestler
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight
Gus Van Sant, Milk

Best Actor:

Leonardo DiCaprio, Revolutionary Road
Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn, Milk
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

Best Actress:

Cate Blanchett, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Kristin Scott-Thomas, I've Loved You So Long
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road

Best Supporting Actor:

Josh Brolin, Milk
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Dev Patel, Slumdog Millionaire
Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road

Best Supporting Actress:

Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis, Doubt
Rosemarie DeWitt, Rachel Getting Married
Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler

Best Adapted Screenplay:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixon
Revolutionary Road
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Original Screenplay:

Happy-Go-Lucky
Milk
Rachel Getting Married
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
The Visitor

Best Animated Feature Film:

Kung Fu Panda
WALL-E
Waltz with Bashir

Best Art Direction:

Australia
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Duchess
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Revolutionary Road

Best Cinematography:

Australia
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Defiance
Revolutionary Road

Best Costume Design:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Duchess
The Fall
The Other Boleyn Girl
Revolutionary Road

Best Film Editing:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Defiance
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Makeup:

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Synecdoche, New York

Best Original Score:

Australia
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Defiance
Revolutionary Road
WALL-E

Best Original Song:

"Down to Earth," WALL-E
"Gran Torino," Gran Torino
"I Want it All," High School Musical 3: Senior Year
"Jai Ho," Slumdog Millionaire
"The Wrestler," The Wrestler

Best Sound Editing:

The Dark Knight
Defiance
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Iron Man
WALL-E

Best Sound Mixing:

Australia
The Dark Knight
Defiance
Iron Man
WALL-E

Best Visual Effects:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Iron Man

Best Foreign Language Film:

Captain Abu Raed
The Class
Everlasting Moments
Gomorrah
Waltz with Bashir

Best Documentary Feature:

Encounters at the End of the World
Man on Wire
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
Standard Operating Procedure
Trouble the Water

Essay Review: Minority Report (****)

Directed by Steven Spielberg
Cast: Tom Cruise, Max von Sydow, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton, Neal McDonough, Jessica Capshaw, Lois Smith, Tim Blake Nelson, Kathryn Morris, Tyler Patrick Jones, Dominic Scott Kay, Mike Binder, Peter Stormare, Steve Harris, Patrick Kilpatrick, Daniel London, Michael Dickman, Matthew Dickman, George Wallace, Amy Ryerson, Arye Gross, Ashley Crow, Joel Gretsch, Jessica Harper.
2002--145 minutes

Rated PG-13 (violence, language, sexuality, drug content)

Reviewed by The Teen Critic on December 2, 2008.

Having watched "Minority Report" within the last week, I find no quibble to be had. Every once in a blue moon, there is a movie I would label as "perfect," and "Minority Report" is the best of those. This is a full-blooded masterpiece, as well as Spielberg's greatest achievement yet. I seriously cannot see him topping this, as every sequence, shot, and frame has a deeper meaning and could be dissected for hours at a time. Besides being a thoughtful rumination on fate and whether the future truly is written in stone, "Minority Report" is also a masterfully exciting science fiction epic and a staggering masterpiece of complex plotting and note-perfect direction. It also contains the most visually stimulating special effects sequence I've ever seen (yes, even more so than anything in "King Kong") and the most beautiful cinematography of any film I've seen from this decade, by the great Janusz Kaminski. In fact, I think "Minority Report" is the best film of the decade, and considering we have two years and one month left until December 31, 2010, I don't see anything in the lineup possibly reaching these heights. Before "The Dark Knight" and "King Kong" became pop entertainment masterpieces and veritable classics in their own right, there was this film, one so perfect in its every facet, so striking at any second, that I have no problem saying it stylistically blows those two films out of the water.

The story is so labyrinthine it makes the plot of "The Dark Knight" simple to follow in comparison. The Pre-Crime Division Unit of New York City has been established, and crime has been nearly stopped for good. Chief John Anderton is pretty sure that the technology is absolutely perfect, until his name comes up as the perpetrator to murdering someone he has never met. The catch is, it's supposed to go down in 36 hours. Also figuring into the forefront of the plot in unexpected ways is the personal drama involving his missing son, taken years earlier at a public pool.



Oh, but it goes deeper than that--much deeper. This story goes in directions you will never be able to guess, because Steven Spielberg won't let you. How the story takes its turns is simply and undeniably perfect in its execution and scripting. The character arcs are forever changed and, if the film has a mildly "happy" ending, that is because this story deserves it. Nothing that comes before prepares us for the emotional and visceral rollercoaster ahead, and thus we need something to lift our spirits in the end; but that does not mean it cheats the audience.

Just look at this movie. The cinematography, stark and spare yet wondrous and beautiful at the same time, shrouds the movie in hopeful despair. Times are bad, but they'll get better. The film editing, especially during the unbelievably exciting action sequences, flows nicely, never wavering or cutting two quickly.

Take two scenes, for example, that will be included in my "Great Sequences of 2000-2009" article next year. One is a gun battle and then all-out fistfight between Tom Cruise's Anderton and Colin Farrell's Danny Witwer. The other is the aforementioned brilliant visual effects sequence, involving robotic spiders sent into Anderton's building. The first is chaotic, because any other way it wouldn't work. The effects of the blast gun are perfectly mounted, as are the repercussions of using it (the user is a bit disoriented due to the backlash). The second is so fluid as to be unlike any action scene ever filmed; the camera looms overhead and, in one long unbroken shot, builds tension until...well, see the movie.




This is what happens when cinema (as well as pop sci-fi) reaches levels of perfection all too rarely seen in movies. Taking Philip K. Dick's brilliant, 30-page short story and adapting it into a staggering achievement of modern film is something that rarely, if ever, happens. Dick was a master at writing science fiction--perhaps the best there is--and all of his short stories and both of his novels have labyrinthine plots tackled wonderfully. Another example: "Paycheck," which was made into the underrated 2003 masterpiece starring Ben Affleck. "Minority Report" and "Paycheck" (both the films and the sources) have something in common: they are about men who have been dropped into a misunderstanding that may ruin their careers and lives. They are also about forms of time travel and manipulation and deal with this aspect brilliantly. The difference between them lies in the directors. Spielberg is better than John Woo, who opts more for action than characters--ironic, since "Paycheck" is his finest, a nearly operatic action film of a very high order, and that also benefited from well-drawn characters. Both are great films, but "Minority Report" is beyond great: it's literally perfect in every aspect, and the best summer blockbuster ever made.

Tom Cruise is at his absolutely finest when playing confused, emotionally damaged action heroes (just look at his work in "War of the Worlds"), and this is his best role. John Anderton is a hero to root for and care about, and Cruise brings that humanity to the forefront. This is a powerful performance. Equally effective is Samantha Morton, Oscar-worthy as Agatha, one of the Pre-Cogs, who has seen the future and doesn't like it. Morton doesn't have a substantial line of dialogue until a scene near the end, but even when not talking, you can't take your eyes off of her. Also making strong impact are Colin Farrell and Max Von Sydow as the agent taking over when Anderton is suspected of future murder and the mentor and friend...and with true colors not seen till the end.



The most maddening thing surrounding this film is that it was denied even one Oscar nomination, when it was better than any of the films from 2002 (pick one). Not visual effects. Not the indelible music score that ranks as one of the best I've heard. Not that haunting cinematography. Not the film editing. Not the film, for Pete's sake. Nothing. This is a travesty. Everything about this film resonates with the viewer for months after viewing. But then, it's the Academy. What do you expect? Them to be reasonable?