This Week In Tickets: 27 December 2010 to 2 January 2011

Here's something you don't see every week: A T.W.I.T. page that not only has two new movies starring Jeff Bridges (first-billed in both although, arguably, his younger co-stars should be), but two movies featuring characters named "Beef".



Pretty good week - two award contenders, and two movies, that while really not great, are at least visually interesting. I maybe would have preferred that Tron not eat the entire day on Tuesday, but you live and learn on that.

Saturday was spent on a day-trip to Maine, seeing a bunch of extended family that, most years, I hardly see at all, but between weddings and family get-togethers, I saw them a bunch in '10. This is a cool thing, really, although it made my holiday weekend movie viewing sluggish. Of course, part of that was just me - I have no idea what I did with December 31st, although I do recall looking up and realizing that grocery shopping was going to have to be put off if I wanted to get to Phantom of the Paradise. It was that kind of lazy long weekend.

So, this closes the book on another year of movie-going. I'm planning on writing up a "This Year in Tickets" piece for eFilmCritic this weekend, and will have some stats up here when it goes up. The 2010 weekly planner isn't quite as ready to burst as 2009's was, but that is in large part the result of switching to a model that is able to take being stuffed full better. I note that I have pretty much failed on my "watching the backlog" resolution from last year, but I'm going to try again anyway - look for a "Fantasia in January" series soon. I'm also going to try and check out more of what I can find online; the new laptop makes it a much less painful experience than trying to feed things through the SlingCatcher.

The theaters I go to will probably shift a bit, as my employers are moving offices from Waltham to Burlington this month. I probably won't go to the Burlington Mall AMC very often (unless its suburban prices are much better than the city's), but I suspect I'll be hitting the Arlington Capitol a lot more, as new bus route will make it and Fresh Pond places that are on my way home, rather than out of my way. It'll also leave me less time to write, though, as I won't have the nearly one hour on the same bus that I do right now.

But, that's a couple weeks away. In the meantime, here's my last movie of 2010 and my first of 2011:

Phantom of the Paradise

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 31 December 2010 at the Brattle Theatre (20th Century Fox 75th Anniversery)

You look at the description for Phantom of the Paradise and you know it's going to be screwy: Brian De Palma doing a glam-rock version of "The Phantom of the Opera" with diminutive Paul Williams as the villain. Even taking that into account, this is a seriously screwy movie. Fortunately, it's the sort of screwy that is energetic as opposed to just weird.

Rock impresario Swan (Paul Williams) is about to open a new club in New York, The Paradise, but he needs a fantastic opening act, and what fifties throwbacks The Juicy Fruits are playing just won't cut it. He hears a great piece from singer/songwriter Winslow Leach (William Finley), but rather than actually doing business with him, swipes the sheet music, starts auditioning singers, and throws Leach out of his house and into jail when he tries to clear things up. Leach escapes, is deformed, and makes a deal with Swan to have the talented Phoenix (Jessica Harper) sing his music - although Swan opts for a rocker who goes by "Beef" (Gerrit Graham).

Laid out like that, Phantom sounds ridiculous, and that's before seeing the slapstick details and truly bizarre last-act left-turns that things take. De Palma's screenplay really makes almost no sense whatsoever, especially where Swan is concerned. Sure, there is a certain purity in being completely evil, even when being honest - or even merely extortionate - is clearly of greater benefit, but if the idea is even partially satirical, then De Palma overshoots the mark by some distance. Then he heaps some more silliness on top, but, hey, at this point, there is no point in being less deranged.

While it's a relatively early and, even for this director, not-particularly-subtle movie, it's still a De Palma film, which means it's certainly a treat to watch at times. There's a split-screen tracking shot that is right up there with anything he's ever done, which makes it pretty spiffy. The look of the film is garish as hell, but it's a fun ugliness; the filmmakers merrily blur the line between what was considered cool in 1974 (but dated now) and which bits of tackiness are timeless. Like the best of Brian De Palma's movies, there's often a feeling of just letting it rip even though looking at what's going on suggests everything must have been very tightly controlled, from the background anarchy in the first music number forward.

That cast can't really be said to elevate their material, sad to say - William Finley's performance improves markedly when his face is hidden behind a mask and his voice is electronically mangled, for instance. Paul Williams is a talented musician and a songwriter with an impressive range (he penned the music for both this and The Muppet Movie, and hit the nail square on the head with both), but except for rare moments, is neither threatening nor silly enough to get Swan to the proper extreme. There's some good work at the supporting level, though - Jessica Harper makes Phoenix sweet and crush-worthy without making her a complete doe-eyed innocent, and George Memmoli actually manages a few moments of dry, deadpan wit as Swan's second in command. And then there's Gerrit Graham's Beef. Graham may not do his own singing, but the man holds nothing back otherwise, making Beef as over-the-top as a proper glam-rocker should be while getting laughs beyond his role's silliness.

There's at least one surprisingly good print of Phantom of the Paradise floating around, and a midnight show at a funky theater seems like the best way to see it. It's not a great movie in and of itself, but it's just well-done enough for the kitsch to bring out more laughs than groans, either of which can be contagious with the right crowd.

(Fromerly at EFC)

True Grit '10

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 2 January 2011 at AMC Boston Common #11 (first-run)

No individual movie is truly necessary, but few recent films have likely seemed as unnecessary as a new adaptation of Charles Portis's novel True Grit. At least, until after one sees it; at that point, having Joel & Ethan Coen apply their distinctive voice to this particular story seems the most natural thing in the world, and the movies would be a poorer thing without it.

Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) is a fourteen-year-old girl, but who else is going to put the affairs of her recently gunned-down father in order? Her siblings are younger than she is, her mother is certainly not up to it, and her head for sums and determination means she will likely be taking control of the business anyway. It is not just money that concerns her, though - she wants Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), the man responsible, to hang, which means hiring a marshall to track her down. Reuben "Rooster" Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) is described as the meanest in the territory, which appeals to her, even if he is a fat old drunk. Their party is crashed by Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (Matt Damon), who wants Chaney for the murder of a Texas state senator, but even with their combined experience and determination, catching Chaney will be difficult - he has fled into Indian Territory and allegedly hooked up with Lucky Ned Pepper (Barry Pepper).

This initially seems a very talky western; Mattie's years-later narration is initially plentiful, and there is a wonderful bit of black humor that comes from the last words of three men about to hang. We see Mattie's talents as a hard (and pushy) negotiator, many jokes are made about how LaBoeuf (pronounced "La Beef") does like to run on, and even Rooster turns fairly chatty after a bit. The words come in big, chewy chunks, the sort that gives the audience a clear indication of the level of education nd sophistication the various characters have (or wish to project). More often than not, the exact words are not nearly so important as the grammar and way it rolls off the tongue.

The assembled cast helps a lot with the latter part, naturally. Though her name appears after her better-known, more experienced castmates, Hailee Steinfeld is the film's impressive star. A lesser actress might just manage the grim-faced Mattie, mature and hardened beyond her years; Steinfeld manages to sneak in moments of petulance without making the audience think less of Mattie, and a sense of a kid setting out for an adventure that is always there but never prominent enough to make her seem silly or immature. She manages to hold her own alongside Jeff Bridges, who makes Rooster her complement, outwardly laid-back but jaded. It's a nifty performance, in that he gives off the initial impression of being silly, but dispenses of it pretty quickly, and his interplay with the slightly puff-ed up Damon is always good. Josh Brolin and Barry Pepper make for interesting villains - dangerous not because they are typical raving or icy monsters, but because the actors convince us that Chaney's cowardice and Pepper's practicality don't have much room for respecting human life.

The Coens and company take all this and sew it all together with the genre's usual trappings, which they have a handle on as well as anyone. Regular cinematographer Roger Deakins shoots fine footage of the wide-open spaces, making them as beautiful and foreboding as the moment demands. Carter Burwell's score is always a perfect fit, making nice but not ostentatious use of traditional music. And every detail of the sets, costumes, and other production design is just right, hitting the sweet spot between backlot-clean and revisionist-gritty.

And the shoot-outs are great. Westerns are about confrontations, and everything from the last paragraph combines with the Coen's knack for setting the right pace and knowing how to quickly jump from words to action. The first shootout comes after a crackling scene where the audience gets just enough time to have the hairs on the back of its collective neck prick up, feeling like anything can happen, before the situation is quickly, violently, and decisively resolved. That sort of action can be tough; quick build-up, clear action, and a finish that doesn't leave the audience feeling cheated is a tall order, but one the movie delivers a few times.

Has it done before? Sure, and not just in the novel's first adaptation; this True Grit is an unashamedly traditional western even with some of the Coens' signature style. But there aren't enough of those made in this day and age that for ennui to be a reasonable reaction, and even if there were, few would be so well-done in every detail as this one.

Full review at EFC.

This Week In Tickets: 20 December 2010 to 26 December 2010

It's a sparse week, but Christmas shopping and Christmas visiting are priorities. Besides, it creates a nifty sort of theme week - all foreign films, but making their way to the United States in necessarily different ways:



I probably think about distribution and exhibition entirely too much for someone who, all running jokes about finding an eccentric millionaire to finance me opening a Keystone/Alamo-type theater aside, is not going to gain much by thinking about it. It's not wasted mental effort, especially if you love international cinema - the decision whether to buy import Blu-rays of 20th Century Boys versus the Viz Pictures DVDs versus waiting for something better is much easier if you know the lay of the land a little.

(It's almost like comics, in some ways, in that it takes a lot more effort to be much more than a casual fan. Where comics basically requires you to browse the retailer's catalog two months in advance if you want cool independent books, film fandom means knowing your local boutique theaters and what the changing release patterns are in order to catch movies without a major-studio-sized advertising budget.)

Applause is a boutique film¹. It's not light entertainment; it doesn't feature names that the average audience member will look at and say "I know who ___ is, and even if I don't enjoy this movie, being able to discuss it will make me look good". (Sorry, Paprika Steen fans!) It didn't get buzz at festivals. So, it fell past the notice of the bigger distributors of boutique films - Magnolia, IFC, the studio imprints - and then past the second tier - Oscilloscope, First Run, Music Box, Roadside Attractions² - and winds up with World Wide Motion Pictures Corporation, a tiny label that in the past seems to have mainly picked up pictures that went unsold for years and appears to create a very small number of prints.

It's a very targeted release right now - very select markets with the hope of either a Best Actress nomination for star Paprika Steen - in which case, new prints and an expansion becomes practical - or enough discussion to get small bookings, like a few shows at museums or film societies. A lot of films like Applause probably don't even get this big a push, but Steen's performance is worth pushing and there's a time limit on how long a foreign film can sit on a shelf and still be eligible for the Oscars.

Rare Exports, on the other hand, while arguably still a boutique film, is one that has a strong hook for a broader audience ("demon Santa"); got good buzz at festivals, especially genre festivals like Fantastic Fest and Sitges; and by its nature has a short shelf-life. Any studio that picked it up was looking at either getting it in theaters within three months, or hanging on to it until next December, when the buzz might have been exhausted. Oscilloscope appeared willing to do that; with a small slate, they've got a little more flexibility than some of the larger distributors, and they were willing to commit to this movie without seeing how it did in its home market, as it got the sort of simultaneous international release usually only associated with American blockbusters.

Then there's If You Are the One 2 which, as mentioned last night, is getting near-simultaneous releases in China, America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. It's not quite following the Bollywood model where foreign cinemas are simply treated like other screens in the domestic market; distribution rights are sold to a middleman who negotiates with theater chains. Also, unlike Applause and Rare Exports, things like If You Are the One 2 and the vast majority of Indian films are not being marketed toward a broad audience; they're being marketed toward ethnic communities, to the point where tickets often have the untranslated name on them, as does the signage above the theater door, where "Fei Cheng Wu Rao" really stands out amid a bunch of "True Grit" and "Little Fockers".


There's no one best way to go about this. As much as I like the really fast turnaround of the latter two movies, there aren't enough screens in New York, let alone Boston, to handle day-and-date releases of everything that plays theatrically in its home country. I do think, though, that we will see fewer and fewer situations like that of Applause as time goes on - the Academy will eventually emend the qualification rules so that films which are not released theatrically are eligible, digital infrastructure will make it possible (and even necessary) for even smaller producers to market globally.

¹ I'm not really a fan of the term art-house; it sounds snooty, with the implication that calling these films art means that those film's aren't. (Back)

² No disrespect to those distributors meant; they just don't have the resources and multi-platform reach that the others do. (Back)

This Week In Tickets: 13 December 2010 to 20 December 2010

Christmas is coming! Time spent shopping is time not spent in movies:



Stubless: The Tempest on 14 December 2010 at the Brattle Theatre, 7:30pm.

While running around Boston looking for gifts for my family, I found a chocolate bar that has bits of bacon in it. It is currently staring at me from the the other side of the kitchen, creating a mixture of desire and fear.

Anyway, not much time to write tonight; the early openings for movies this week means "Next Week in Tickets" is already late.

Black Swan

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 16 December 2010 at the Coolidge Corner Theatre #1 (first-run)

There's a moment in Black Swan where director Darren Aronofsky and his writers appear to tip their hands too much, and the audience may find themselves thinking that they've seen this sort of unreliable-narrator trick before, and doing it in so obvious a manner makes this example less than brilliant - and, of course, if it's a red herring, then the audience can rightfully complain about being jerked around a bit. Fortunately, the movie is not really about playing head games with its audience as much as its main character.

Natalie Portman is great in that part, fortunately. Some of that comes from being willing to succumb to the same sort of eating disorder as Christian Bale and then be made up unflatteringly after that, so that we can see that her Nina and the other ballerinas push themselves to absurd physical extremes in order to compete in a world that demands both tremendous athleticism and a dainty appearance that runs counter to it. Portman does a great job of presenting Nina as being right on the verge of cracking up and aware of it, trying to hold the inevitable breakdown back. It's a performance that doesn't quite work if the rest of the cast isn't just as good, but fortunately, they're covered there as well.

Black Swan is somewhat unusual in that as much as Portman and company get us to feel for Nina, and even root for her, it also has us hoping that she'll back down just as much as we hope she'll triumph.

Die Hard

* * * * (out of four)
Seen 18 December 2010 at the Brattle Theatre (Alt-Xmas)

Nigh-perfect, and I suspect all but impossible to repeat - the sequels and knock-offs all feel the need to raise the stakes, but the stakes are all perfectly balanced here. The writers are throwing all their ingenuity into the action set-pieces and, by dint of getting there first, are able to put a comic zing into moments without it seeming over-cutesy. It's got Bruce Willis, young and hungry, not yet having settled into a niche and thus making John McClane into a bona fide character.

And, because of its own success, it feels like a transitional piece. The style occasionally feels primitive; there's only one layer of polish on it. Director John McTiernan and company are willing to be simple in some spots, but not stupid, and though certain 1980s clichés stand out, they don't seem hackneyed. McTiernan also feels no pressure to do anything but a slow build during the movie's first act - no need to show you he means business, no establishing what the characters are capable of until stuff is actually on the line. We spend the entire first act watching McClane get diminished and look out of place. When Alan Rickman shows up as one of the greatest screen villains ever, it's not a mismatch just on numbers; Hans Gruber is clearly more prepared, smarter, and calmer than McClane. He's a legitimate underdog.

Then we get the action, and it's great, 1980s "we're not worried about a PG-13" stuff that understands its improbability and actually looks dangerous. Huge explosions are devastating, bullet wounds really do slow people down... It's a perfect balance between the real danger of the 1970s and the action spectacle that would follow it.

Die Hard 2

* * * (out of four)
Seen 18 December 2010 at the Brattle Theatre (Alt-Xmas)

Die Hard 2, on the other hand, doesn't hold up nearly as well. I suspect, if I were to watch all four in a row, this would be the weakest of the series, in part because it's trying so hard to emulate the first, but Renny Harlin just doesn't seem to get the vibe right. Here, McClane's cocky; he quips, rather than nervously runs his mouth. There's not a villain to rival Hans Gruber here - heck, William Sadler's Colonel Stuart really isn't even cool enough to qualify for henchman duty in the first film. The writers rehash a lot of the surface elements from the first, but not the heart of it - in the first, there were bona fide interesting relationships between John and Hans, Holly, and Al; there's nothing like that here.

Still, it's enjoyable enough, because Harlin can direct action. He gets one moment that will be on his resumé forever (the grenades in the cockpit), and that's certainly what everybody will remember. Less noted is that for 1990, the hand-to-hand looks darn good. Sure, the likes of Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Steven Seagal were hanging around at the time, but this sort of martial arts wasn't common in big action movies like this; when the hero and villain got within grappling range, the one-punch ending was much more common.

As good as Harlin is at that, the stuff around it could use serious work; it's the sort of movie where scenes seem to be built around looking cool in the trailer.

The Hebrew Hammer

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 19 December 2010 at the Brattle Theatre (Alt-Xmas)

Ah, Jewish jokes and Blaxpoitation spoofery. I won't deny that you're an amusing combo, but I have to say, you'd be a little funnier if the guys who wrote you took the next step, and populated their movie with characters who were a little funnier that stereotypes.

In other words, The Hebrew Hammer isn't nearly the hilarious movie that Black Dynamite is, despite working a lot of the same territory. It's a shame, because Judy Greer and Adam Goldberg are quite funny, and there are moments when having Goldberg's "Certified Circumsized Dick" walking around like a guy caught halfway between Orthodox Jew and The Mack is just brilliant. But there are a lot of jokes done at half effort that aren't funny, and I think making it this kind of Christmas movie was a mistake. The opening titles say that it's for all the Jews who had it up to here with the Gentiles, and it might have worked better if it ran with that rather than have the Hammer not just save Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, but Christmas as well. Make it about just how friggin' annoying Gentiles are during December, and I imagine even those Gentiles might get a laugh.

This Week In Tickets: 6 December 2010 to 12 December 2010

On, the surface, this week's calendar of tickets doesn't look like very much...



Stubless: I Love You Philip Morris on 6 December 2010 at the Brattle Theatre, 8pm.

... but that review of the Die Nibelungen movies has shot up the charts on my Blogger stats page crazy fast in the hours since it's been posted. One night, and it is already halfway to getting the number of hits as the Triangle review, the most popular since those stats started appearing in June. This leads me to one of the following two conclusions:

(1) There is an untapped market for silent movie reviews on the web, especially less reverent ones that suggest things would have been better if Fritz Lang had directed a big-budget Conan picture upon arriving in America, rather than a bunch of great film noirs.

(2) That somebody's computer was closing and restarting Firefox a lot yesterday afternoon and evening.

Sadly for me, the latter seems more likely, especially since 99% of the hits yesterday afternoon and evening were from Firefox on an "Other Unix" system in the United States. So, tell me - was it you?

-- sigh -- Well, it was an exciting distraction at work for a couple hours. And now, allow me to make a forced segue and say that Claire Denis's new one is exciting, but no mere distraction:

White Material

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 7 December 2010 at Landmark Kendall Square #9 (first-run)

White Material is a pretty good movie with a pretty uninspiring trailer, at least in the United States. I don't really blame the distributor for this; Claire Denis makes films which favor character and setting over plot, but that doesn't get butts in seats unless you already know her work. So, they try to cobble together a story, and it winds up looking like a movie about how white plantation owners are the ones who suffer during African unrest. That's just one facet of what is, in fact, an intriguing bit of work.

The movie opens in an interesting way, with two different scenes of Maria Vial (Isabelle Huppert) returning to the Vial Café plantation. In the first, she's sneaking around the landscape before finding a van; in the second, she seems carefree, riding her motorcycle. In both, it's made clear that this African country is in the process of exploding, but Maria refuses to leave the coffee plantation so close to the harvest. In some ways, the situation inside the gates is as volatile as outside: Maria basically runs the business with father-in-law Henri Vial (Michel Subor) ill; she does not hold back her disappointment about her son Manuel (Nicolas Duvauchelle) being a layabout. She's actually fairly fond of José (Daniel Tchangang), the son of her husband André (Christophe Lambert) and Lucie (Adèle Ado), the housekeeper. Maria seems to have no clue just how close the danger is, either in terms of Le Boxeur (Isaach De Bankolé), a wounded nearby rebel leader, or or a pair of child soldiers stealing supplies.

White Material could be a simple observation, but Denis and her collaborators paint a surprisingly complex and engrossing picture. The parallel openings inform us that we are going to be bouncing around the timeline a little, informing us that this is more likely to be a film about hubris than perseverance; hitchhiking-Maria almost certainly comes after motorcycle-Maria, but by seeing her trying to sneak home first, much of the admiration we may have for her desire to stick it out is stillborn. And while Denis doesn't fill her film with plot twists, she does fake the audience out once or twice. She's not looking for "gotcha!" moments, just making sure that the logical left side of one's brain doesn't wander while she feeds the emotional right.

Full review on EFC.

This Week In Tickets: 29 November 2010 to 5 December 2010

Wow, this is up quick after the last post. It's almost like I didn't have to write anything at all for it!



Stubless: Fantasia & Fantasia 2000 on 30 November 2010 in my living room, 8pm and Homeless Angels & Spring on Korean Peninsula on 5 December 2010 at the Harvard Film Archive, 7pm.

Shockingly little to say this week - the linked reviews more or less say it all. Although my brother Dan confirms that the Fantasia story I relate in the "Animation" entry did take place in 1982, as he remembers it too, with our next-youngest-brother Travis the baby at the time. You know, 1982 is a long time ago, to the extent that Dan now has two daughters, just a little younger than he and Travis were back then.

One thing that came to me when reflecting on that bit, though, is that if this is a formative movie-watching experience for me, it separates me a bit from a lot of the other mega-movie-fans I talk to online, especially genre fans, in that their stories are often about catching movies on late-night TV (the older ones), or VHS, or the ones that were in heavy rotation on HBO/Cinemax. I sometimes do think I'm a little more insistent on film, and seeing things in the theater than they are, and don't have quite the attachment to certain movies (I've never seen Road House, for instance).

So... That's that. A relatively late "Next Week" coming up!

This Week In Tickets: 22 November 2010 to 28 November 2010

How does a person who likes movies spend a long holiday weekend?



... by boosting his blog's hit count and profile on eFilmCritic. It is a weird weekend when I'm the guy posting reviews of the major studio releases as I get to seeing them. Usually, one or the other of the folks who get to press screenings do them, and I just toss links out on the eFilmCritic Twitter account between very important things at work or when I get home. It's been fun to see my reviews at the top of the "most read" list on EFC with a little staying power - at least until Brian's reviews went up yesterday and we wound up splitting the people jumping to "eFilmCritic review of Tangled" as opposed to "Jay Seaver's review of Tangled on eFilmCritic".

Not that it's a competition, but I do enjoy looking at readership stats for this blog and eFilmCritic. Not even to gloat or whine about the total numbers, but to track trends and figure out what's most likely to get hits. I don't know that I'll ever change how I write based on these numbers - really, something involving not just actually getting paid, but enough money to make writing SQL code a part-time gig. Still, some things worth noting:

* I get a lot more hits on "Next Week In Tickets" than "This Week in Tickets". For November, my top 10 posts include three "Next Week" entries and no "This Week"s. That's cool, because the implication is that people find "Next Week" useful. It'd be kind of cool to hear that, every once in a while. Hopefully the "This Week" stuff doesn't come off as self-indulgent.

* Of the three new movie reviews I wrote over the weekend, the review of Tangled has shown pretty good staying power at EFC, not dipping too far in the daily counts even as the new review smell wears off - it's stayed ahead of Faster and Love and Other Drugs. On the blog, Faster has actually gotten half again as many hits, despite having less time to accumulate them, and Love and Other Drugs is right on its tail, and that was posted nearly three days later. Suspected rationale? In terms of the relative positions on the blog, Tangled doesn't mention in the title that I'll also be talking about the previews that played before the movie, and mentioning that either makes it a more enticing click or increases the number of hits it gets in a search (as in, some people are searching for "Faster Trailer", not a review of Faster). At EFC, where it's a more level playing field? I'm not sure, quite honestly.

* My most consistently popular reviews on EFC are Diary of a Nymphomaniac and Cummings Farm, though the latter only really spiked when it got a DVD release under the title "All American Orgy", with a terribly misleading cover photo (it makes the movie look like an American Pie sequel) to go with a relatively misleading title. It seems pretty likely that people who land on those reviews were searching for, shall we say, something else. Neither is actually porn - Diary is a European erotic drama distributed by IFC in the US, while Farm is a comedy that never actually gets as raunchy as its title implies - and indeed, kind of recoils in horror when it comes closest. But, that just counts hits, not people actually reading all the way through or finding the review useful. I was briefly kind of happy when they dropped in the past few days (with Diary actually dropping below numbers I can see for the first time in nearly ever), as I don't know if that's not exactly what I want to be known for, but they've rebounded, darn it.

* The most consistently popular review on the blog is Triangle, by a long shot. I suspect that's because it's one of the few where I spend some time talking about the end of the movie. That's interesting, and something I might try to do more, because it does sort of point up an area where online movie discussion is rather lacking - talking about the film as a whole. It's not just that everybody writing about movies wants to be Siskel & Ebert, or replace their local film critic, or join the lineup of some review site, so we default to writing reviews that emulate the form. I also think that in regular life, we have so little opportunity to talk about the end that we shy away from doing it even when we can.

Half my conversations about movies is people who haven't seen anything currently playing asking me what's good, so I shift into playing by the "review rules" then. People bring out the phrase "spoiler" when we get too deep into the film, and most folks would like others to first experience the film at least as cleanly as they did. When one person in the conversation hasn't seen the movie, everybody else clams up, and the internet is the ultimate multi-party chat; millions of people could see what you're writing, and few have seen the movie. But it's useful, every once in a while, to remember that it doesn't have to be that way. As long as you make a clear delineation between "for the people who haven't seen the movie" and "for the people who have", most people won't be upset, and that second group is under-served.

Seriously, if a review and discussion of a direct-to-video movie from March that I only found so-so gets three times as many hits and comments as anything else I've written nine months later... Well, I wish there were more movies I felt like going into the full film in-depth. The hits don't hurt, and you can get burned out of writing newspaper-style reviews after a while ago.


Okay, enough navel-gazing. Well, okay, maybe one more bit: I do with that I'd had a little more time to hit the 20th Century Fox retrospective that played the Brattle for about a week. I've seen most of it, but I wouldn't have minded seeing the familiar ones again, and the ones I hadn't seen looked interesting. Ah, well.

Oh, one other thing before getting to the bit of the Fox series I did see: Being quoted on a DVD is fun. Being quoted on the German release of a Serbian animated film makes you realize just how simultaneously big and small the world is these days (Image courtesy of Twitch's Kurt Halfyard).

Leave Her to Heaven

* * * (out of four)
Seen 24 November 2010 at the Brattle Theatre (20th Century Fox 75th Anniversary)

Leave Her to Heaven is a fairly enjoyable film from 1945, although when trying to pay tribute to a studio's entire history within a week, I'm a bit surprised that something that one could more comfortably hang the word "classic" on doesn't fill its slot. Leave Her to Heaven is interesting mainly in that it is able to straddle the lines between melodrama and film noir, although it's not always a comfortable overlap.

As the film opens, Richard Harland (Cornel Wilde) is returning to his isolated home in Maine, a broken man from his time in prison. His friend Glen Robie (Ray Collins) tells the story to the local who asks, saying it started when Richard came to visit him at his ranch in New Mexico years before. On the train, he met Ellen Bernet (Gene Tierney), a beauty who initially doesn't recognize him as the author of the book she's reading from the dust jacket. Both, it turns out, are going to the same place, and it's not long before they are falling in love and getting married, although both Ellen's mother (Mary Philips) and cousin/adopted sister Ruth (Jeanne Crain) express their concerns. It's not just that Ellen was already engaged to Russell Quinton (Vincent Price), an ambitious district attorney back east, but that she can be tightly wound and possessive. Returning to Maine with Richard's ailing brother Danny (Darryl Hickman) and longtime friend Leick (Chill Wills) was not how Ellen had planned it.

For contemporary moviegoers, Ellen is going to have a neon sign with the words "Daddy Issues - Stay Away!" hanging over her head from the start, though I suspect that it might not have been quite as much of a cliché sixty-odd years ago. In a way, those somewhat snicker-worthy scenes make the job that Ms. Tierney does all the more impressive; despite the ample warning that we're given that there's something potentially not right about her, Tierney is able to seduce the audience somewhat, if not so completely as Ellen does Richard. We're able to see love instead of just pathology, convince ourselves that maybe Richard is just what she needs, and when the darker elements of her personality come out, she makes them shocking but also believable and perhaps inevitable.

It's a credit to director John M. Stahl and screenwriter Jo Swerling (working from a novel by Ben Ames Williams) that the twists in the story still come across as shocking, too. The story and motivations are straightforward, but everything is a logical next step from what we've seen before. Stahl does a very good job of implying more horror when it comes to that, and though the basic shape of what happens is clear both from the introduction and from what we see just as the final act kicks off, there's just enough held back to keep us curious. Stahl and Swerling do a nice job of keeping the story intimate, focused on Ellen and Richard, but rotating his nice supporting cast in and out as need be. Jeanne Crain and Darryl Hickman are especially good as Ellen's and Richard's respective siblings, although a little bit of Chill Wills can go a long way.

And, unfortunately, so can the material with Vincent Price. He shows up for one scene early, and it's one of those fun early roles where he played east coast aristocracy rather than madmen. Unfortunately, later he is given a lot of screen time in one of the dumber court scenes one will see. Ignoring that he's a Massachusetts prosecutor trying crimes that took place in Maine, the sequence is a momentum-killing drag, in which the accusations are spelled out in excruciating detail despite the audience likely having already figured everything out, the defense attorney being passive to the point of ineptitude for no good reason, and the actually decent acting by the principals can only do so much.

That last act problems keep it from being a true classic, as opposed to just a pretty good old movie. It's good-looking, too - it won an Oscar for color cinematography. Overall, a nifty little thriller, with some unusually creepy undertones for the period.

(Formerly at EFC)

This Week In Tickets: 15 November 2010 to 21 November 2010

I'm a bad indie film-lover. All sorts of documentaries playing, and what do I do?



A fair number of days staying an extra half hour at work make it hard to get to stuff during the week, especially if the non-doc stuff one wants to see is in Arlington or Somerville for one more leg on the T.

It's worth noting that the 10:45am show of Hereafter was the only time it ran during the day for the past five days. Someday, when I get an eccentric millionaire to invest in an Alamo Drafthouse-type theater for me to run, I'll have to figure out the reasoning for scheduling like that. If you're going to be keeping a print around for another week, is that the best way to utilize it? If so, why? Do you figure Hereafter is going to appeal to seniors (or whoever else, aside from me, who is seeing movies at 10:45am)?

Hereafter

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 20 November 2010 at AMC Boston Common #15 (first-run)

I want to like this movie for the talent involved: Clint Eastwood directing from a script by Peter Morgan. Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, and Frank Marshall producing. Matt Damon and Cecile De France in leading roles, Bryce Dallas Howard in a supporting part. The easy way for me to dismiss it is to mention my general skepticism about paranormal activities, that I'm just not going to be able to go for a movie that takes them seriously.

And, I won't lie - such elements don't help. Even when Eastwood provides a thump and a visual effect as Damon's George Lonegan character touches someone's hand, I'm still going to process the rest of that scene as a cold read, or wait for the Sherlock Holmes explanation, and I always wind up a little disappointed when George says something that he couldn't have known or deduced; a man who can instinctively read people is much more interesting than a medium, especially when you consider that the movie avoids the big paradox inherent in this sort of spirituality: If the afterlife is so wonderful and peaceful, why should anyone want to live?

Put that aside (I know, it's a little late for that), though, and the individual characters and stories are quite good. All three threads are about people who have had close encounters with death and been changed by the experience, to the point of obsession, and each features a fine performance at the center. Eastwood gives the film a properly somber tone without things ever becoming leaden or depressing. The meat of the movie is quite good, and there's something reassuring about the way the film rotates between Marie, George, and Marcus in order, as opposed to trying to get clever with its editing.

It has issues on the ends, though. The tsunami that opens the film is well-realized, but it does look like a special effect, and there's something just a bit exploitative about using a disaster that devastates a city and region so that one European tourist will almost die. At the finish, all this mournful pondering is apparently in service of these three people eventually meeting at a book fair, which seems coincidental and small. Even considering that the film is about needing to connect with the living rather than the dead, both the physical and philosophical sprawl seem a bit much if the goal is to get a couple people into a restaurant for dinner.

Morning Glory

* * * (out of four)
Seen 21 November 2010 at Regal Fenway #5 (first-run)

Morning Glory is a movie filled with characters and actors I really, really like, but saddled with a script that isn't quite sure how to put them together. It seems to me that if you've got Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton as diametrically opposed news anchors, you maybe let them play off each other a little more, use their bickering as more than background gags, and maybe get them to meet in the middle. I don't think you'd even have to take much focus off of Rachel McAdams to do that; you could even play the anchors' relationship against her character's and Patrick Wilson's.

And, maybe, doing it that way would help balance the dynamic between Ford and McAdams, too. Ford's hard-news-loving former evening news anchor and reporter, whom she hires to add gravitas to the fourth-place morning news program, is given so little to do that fits his skills that it makes McAdams's young executive producer look a little foolish.

Just a little, though. McAdams is rather delightful in this movie, all full-speed-ahead enthusiasm and dedication, genuinely funny and self-deprecating. Her driven character keeps the movie from ever slowing down too much, and Ford makes a fine grumpy foil to her (a grumbling combination of idealism and ego). The movie is in a way aggressively light - Ford's character is kind of beaten down in the end, his desire to be informative and substantial broken down, even after we're shown the characters getting a rush from actually breaking news - but it's fairly funny. It's just too bad the pieces don't fit together a little better.

This Week In Tickets: 8 November 2010 to 14 November 2010 - Including a new screen

I saw a fair amount of movies this week, and despite having to do the whole medical data thing to make money, they all get reviews, as I had something to say about most:



Before getting to the reviews, yes, there's a $15 movie ticket there for a regular movie, which isn't my usual thing (I'm cheap frugal!), but Regal re-opened screen #13 with enhancements, and I wanted to check it out.

The "Regal Premium Experience" screen (RPX) seems to be designed to tap the same wallets as the IMAX-branded digital screen across town at AMC Boston Common, although at first glance I'm not quite certain why the screen had to be closed down nearly a month for the upgrade. Screen 13 was already one of the "Screen Monsters" (although sometime between going from General City Cinemas to AMC to Regal, that cute local name seems to have vanished), a curved common-height screen that more or less filled the entire wall, and unless they've raised the ceiling, it's about the same size. It is, by necessity, a new surface, as the theater is advertising that 3D movies will play there, so the matte screen has been replaced by a reflective one. Maybe the curvature has increased a bit; I certainly noticed it more than I remember doing at other times. Switching that out is the work of a day or two, although it's possible that the actual seating was extensively rearranged, to the point of tearing out the stadium tiering and rebuilding it.

That is where a visitor notices the biggest improvements - the seating is all new, and comfortable. Some of that is likely entirely related to its newness - I can tell which seats in the Brattle Theatre are either seldom-used or recently replaced by how they feel when I drop my butt into them (similarly, I start moving around the Fantasia's Hall Theatre after a week or so because my usual seat has started to accommodate my shape too much) - but even after being broken in, they will still likely be thick and well-stuffed, with a nice leather-y covering as opposed to the usual fabric. I suspect/hope, considering the premium experience they're selling and price they're charging, that seats will be replaced more frequently than usual - heck, they may want to rotate materials with the seasons; as much as I liked the feel of the leather/vinyl on Saturday, I could see hating it next summer when I've just walked three miles there in shorts. For right now, though, they're some nice seats, an easy second place to the IMAX screen at Jordan's Furniture - which isn't bad, considering that comfortable chairs are what Jordan's does for a living.

The seats lack the "butt-kicker" subwoofers installed under every seat at Jordan's, but the sound is right up there with any other screen in the area, non-genuine-IMAX division. Unstoppable, with its constant sound of trains, proved a nice demo reel for the subs, and the room certainly makes a concerted effort to live up to its claim of being the best screen you've ever heard (or something like that; they've been pushing the sound). It's impressively clear even aside from the bass.

The picture... Well, it's bright, and sharp, and clear. It doesn't look quite so overtly digital once you get past the credits, and I'm starting to suspect that studios and distributors don't care about making those perfect any more (logos and credits are where it's easiest to notice staircases and jaggies, since they're relatively static images with non-horizontal/vertical straight lines). My preference is almost always going to be for film, but this looks pretty good, even on a big screen that I sat relatively close to.

Is it a worthwhile upgrade? I'm not sure. The presentation is as good as it gets at the multiplex, and $15.00 isn't that much more than the regular $11.50 that Fenway charges during the evening (though there will almost certainly be 3D surcharges on that when Tron Legacy, lest the RPX be only a token premium over the standard). During the day, when the matinee price is $9.00, they're still charging $15.00, a much more stark difference. In fact, let's revisit the chart from when AMC opened their "IMAX" screen, this time using Saturday's screenings of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1:

Screen	Price (before noon)	Price (afternoon)	Price (evening)
Somerville Theatre, 35mm	N/A	$7.00	$8.00
Arlington Capitol, 35mm/DLP	N/A	$7.00	$8.50
AMC Harvard Square, 35mm/DLP	$6.00	$8.00	$10.00
AMC Boston Common, 35mm/DLP	$6.00	$9.50	$11.50
AMC Boston Common, IMAX Digital	$10.00	$13.50	$15.50
Regal Fenway, 35mm/DLP	$9.00	$9.00	$11.50
Regal Fenway, RPX	$15.00	$15.00	$15.00
Jordan's Furniture Reading, IMAX	$11.50	$11.50	$11.50
New England Aquarium, IMAX	N/A	N/A	$12.95

Note: Somerville offers $5.00 matinees Monday-Friday, Arlington offers $6 matinees Monday-Friday. All prices are for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, except the Aquarium, which is for Inception (they'll likely pick up Harry Potter once Tron Legacy opens).

The RPX is the most expensive movie ticket in town before 4pm, barring festivals and special events, and darn close after. As of right now, it is a notable upgrade over everything but the genuine IMAX screens, but will that last? When I saw Megamind in the Imax-digital screen in Boston Common the other week, I was not blown away by the sound the way I was back when I saw Shrek 4 there. This is, sadly, the way things go - people complain that a theater is too loud, management turns the sound down, and it never gets turned back up again. Maybe in a couple of months the seats aren't as plush, or the projector's bulb starts getting turned down, or things generally start to slip. That, also, is the way things go, although by putting "premium" in the name, hopefully Regal will be motivated to keep on top of such things.

For what it's worth, I do think that the price is a factor - I saw Unstoppable at the 7pm Saturday show, generally one of the most busy, and I had a lot of elbow room. I can't compare how the regular 35mm show went at 6:30pm, but I suspect that without the IMAX branding, this may prove to be a bit more than audiences are willing to pay.

Well, at least for something second-tier like Unstoppable. Harry Potter is going to sell out no matter what, but it will be interesting to see if the higher price per ticket makes up for the smaller number of tickets sold for lesser draws.

Skyline

* ¾ (out of four)
Seen 13 November 2010 at Regal Fenway #2 (first-run)

A guy I follow tweeted about Skyline this weekend, saying to tune into his podcast to hear a review/takedown of the movie, and although I don't want to imply that it's a good movie, that rubbed me the wrong way. Calling your own work a "takedown" seems like braggadocio, and applying it to Skyline... Well, that's bullying. You take down those with inflated reputations, not the independent filmmakers whose weaknesses sadly don't make up for their strengths.

The movie starts out promising, with ships appearing in the sky above Los Angeles and dropping some sort of glowing payload on the city. Then, unfortunately, it flashes back thirteen hours or so, to artist Jarrod (Eric Balfour) and his girlfriend Elaine (Scottie Thompson) arriving from the other coast to visit their successful friend Terry (Donald Faison). They go to a party a Terry's place, find things awkward with his wife Candice (Brittany Daniel), "assistant" Denise (Crystal Reed), and friend Ray (Neil Hopkins). Eventually it breaks up, they hit the sack, and then the aliens invade, vacuuming people up into their ships en masse.

The writing for this movie, by Joshua Cordes and Liam O'Donnell, is pretty much terrible. It's generic, filled with people having incredibly stupid arguments, and not only that, rehashing the same ones within minutes of each other. But in the interest of fairness to all the independent filmmakers who can write but don't have the Brothers Strause's technical skills, how are they when the movie plays to their strengths - the parts that the audience is coming to see?

Complete review on eFilmCritic

Unstoppable

* * * (out of four)
Seen 13 November 2010 at Regal Fenway #13 (first-run, RPX)

Unstoppable isn't complicated. The filmmakers take a story about working class heroes facing long odds with high stakes and more or less lets it be, resisting the temptation to graft excessive contrivance or melodrama to an already thrilling situation. It's a fine example of how when a storyteller has a good story to work with and the means to tell it, everybody will be well-served by just getting out of the way - an apt metaphor for a story about a runaway train.

The train - filled with combustible and toxic chemicals! - is a runaway because Dewey (Ethan Suplee), a yard worker in central Pennsylvania, set the throttle in the wrong position when he hopped off to switch the tracks. Now it's picking up speed heading the wrong direction on the main line. Traffic supervisor Connie (Rosario Dawson) tracks the train but can't convince her boss (Kevin Dunn) to derail it early. Instead, it winds up on a collision course with a train driven by veteran engineer Frank (Denzel Washington) and rookie conductor Will (Chris Pine) - but Frank may be the guy who figures out how to stop it without major loss of life and property.

Part of the fun of a movie like Unstoppable is how, along with delivering an exciting thrill ride, it gives audiences an idea of the inner workings of something they tend to take for granted - railroads, in this case. Details can be fun, and both writer Mark Bomback and director Tony Scott do a good job of showing how this railway system works from top to bottom, doing it in context so that the information sinks into the audience's brains without dragging around a character whose entire purpose is to have things explained to him. Because of that, we're able to grasp the problems that the heroes are struggling with instinctively, and feel like we're working it right along with them.

Complete review on eFilmCritic

A New Leaf

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 14 November 2010 at the Harvard FIlm Archive (Elaine May)

There's a shortage of films like A New Leaf today, ones that are broad, absurd, and silly, but also refined in their way. These days, it's the other way around - broad comedies will go for anything, but figure it's okay so long as they tug at your heartstrings and impress you with their sincerity, rather than make the grudging allowance to sentiment that writer/director/co-star Elaine May makes here.

Henry Graham (Walter Matthau) has been a spendthrift his entire idle adult life, spending two hundred thousand dollars a year when his trust fund only generates about ninety thousand. Now, he's broke, although his butler Harold (George Rose), immediately after giving his notice, says that there is one time-honored solution - marry into wealth. Due to some conditions laid down by Harry's uncle Harry (James Coco), it must be done within six weeks lest Henry lose everything, which seems hopeless as a month passes. Then Henry meets Henrietta Lowell (Elaine May) - a mousy, clumsy, unrefined professor of botany with no need of the millions her family left her. She is easy to sweep off her feet, but the union is a perilous one - Henrietta comes with a Andy McPherson (Jack Weston), a lawyer whose entire practice has been managing the Lowell estate, and Mrs. Traggert (Doris Roberts), a housekeeper who runs a rather loose household; Henry, meanwhile, feels he'd be better off as a widower than a husband.

The Henry Graham model of rich buffoon is all but extinct in America, and likely endangered even in Britain. That's sad, because to watch Matthau in this film's opening act is to feast from a smorgasbord of tomfoolery: We start with a bit of banter that invites mockery with open arms, follow it up with Henry's accountant (William Redfield) pounding his head against Henry's obliviousness before delivering a tongue-lashing that only gets funnier as the distance between his even tone and his contemptuous words,grows, and chase it down with a laugh at Matthau's body language as he bids the beloved accouterments of his wealth a sad adieu. And that's before desperation brings a wily cunning to the character. It's an utterly delightful performance by Walter Matthau, as he plays his his loose, lanky frame and expressive face against his character's snobbish propriety. He's terrific whether playing silly or sophisticated.

Complete review on eFilmCritic

This Week In Tickets: 1 November 2010 to 7 November 2010

The end of Daylight Savings Time: Why a person can stay up late cleaning out the DVR/writing a review of Action Replayy on Saturday and still make it to downtown Boston for two "A.M. Cinema" screenings on Sunday.

... albeit being pretty much ready to crash after Fair Game:



No "stubless" movies per se, although when cleaning out the DVR, a lot of what I watched was feature-length episodes of Masterpiece Mystery! - specifically, the latest entries in the Wallander series and most of Sherlock. And while this was a pretty decent weekend at the movies, those GBH/BBC co-productions certainly help raise the average.

Wallander is based upon a popular series of Swedish detective novels and stars Kenneth Branagh as a detective with depressive tendencies, the sort who cares too much and obsesses about each case to an unhealthy degree. This cycle has him confronting death not just in the messy aftermath, but first-hand, as he's forced to fire his weapon when confronted with a killer and sees his already-ailing father (David Warner) further deteriorate.

I'm not certain how much of a prestige project Wallander is for the BBC, but it's one of the most impressively-produced series on the air. Three or four times an episode, there will be a shot of the gray sky and bleak landscape that just stuns, and WGBH and Comcast had the good sense to not ever hurt it with much compression. Though set in Gstad, neither Branagh nor anyone else in the fine cast affects an accent, but it doesn't take away from the Scandinavian chill (and charm) at all.

As for Sherlock... Well, anyone reading this blog last December recognizes that I am something of a fan of Sherlock Holmes, and when I saw that Steven Moffat and Mark Gattis would be doing a new series called Sherlock for the BBC, I was understandably excited; Moffat has tended to be responsible for the best episode of Doctor Who ineach of the revival's first four seasons (as well as the fun "Timecrash" special), and though I hadn't heard of Benedict Cumberbatch before, Martin Freeman seemed like a fine Watson. I hadn't heard that the new show would be contemporary until the press release that WGBH had picked up the U.S. rights, but that certainly gave me pause.

Not that Holmes hadn't been updated before - throughout the silent era and thirties, when Doyle was either still writing new Holmes stories or had passed relatively recently, the movies tended to be set in the present day, although that wasn't too much of a stretch. The first two Rathbone/Bruce movies (done for Fox) were set in Victorian England, but when Universal picked the series up in the early 1940s, it was moved to the then-wartime setting to save production costs. Still, the idea of putting Sherlock in the present day seemed a little more nutty, if only because one of the things that set Holmes apart in the nineteenth century was Arthur Conan Doyle's emphasis on what we now call forensics, and it might make Holmes seem less exceptionally brilliant.

And it does, to a certain extent (as does Rupert Graves's Lestrade not coming off as a buffoon or goon); the producers and cast compensate by pushing Holmes's antisocial tendencies more than usual. But not so much that we ever lose track of how Holmes and Watson are among the best characters ever created. I wouldn't be shocked if Moffat and Gattis came to the BBC with a nameless pitch ("an army doctor back home after being wounded in Afghanistan teams with an antisocial genius to solve crimes too sensitive or strange for Scotland Yard") before telling them it was Sherlock Holmes. It's a great hook, and the producers do a fine job of building it into a contemporary series while still remaining true to the characters.

Oh, and the last fifteen minutes of the finale (which has enough going on for six episodes of most television series), where Holmes confronts Moriarty, is likely the best use of Moriarty ever. He's an overused character, especially compared to how seldom he appears in the canon, and I'm not sure his plan here makes senes, but the phrase he uses to describe himself makes it worthwhile.

This past summer/fall of Masterpiece Mystery! was outstanding all around, actually - though I didn't pay much mind to Miss Marple or Inspector Lewis, it still gave me new installments of Foyle's War, David Suchet in Poirot, Branagh as Wallander (again, honestly, one of the best-looking shows ever produced), and this new Sherlock. So if you missed any of it, use the Amazon links as something other than decoration.

Due Date

* ½ (out of four)
Seen 6 November 2010 at AMC Harvard Square #1 (first-run)

Speaking of Sherlock Holmes, Robert Downey Junior is usually worth checking out. Sadly, that's not the case here. While I can't literally say that I didn't laugh once during Due Date, the moments were, shall we say, well-spaced. What's worse is that the bit that generally had me laughing during the previews (Jamie Foxx speeding through a drainage ditch to toss Zach Galifianakis around in the back of his truck) turned out to be far less enjoyable during the actual film. Instead, they became examples of just how mean-spirited and dumb the movie is.

And it really is unpleasant. I don't require a movie to give me someone to root for, but I get the sense that director Todd Phillips and his co-writers really did want us to like Galifianakis's and Downey's characters, but it never happens for me: Galifianakis's idiot never grows on me, and Downey's high-strung guy still has me worried - this is a guy who gut-punches an annoying kid toward the start and alludes to a severe rage problem several times (as in, he apparently doesn't even remember the times he snaps) - and we're supposed to be rooting for him to get home to his wife and new child? Sure, the idea is that spending time with this goofball makes him a better man, but I never believe it.

For what it's worth, I didn't much like Phillips's previous film, The Hangover, very much either. Both movies share a crude, mean-spirited, black little heart, and seem to be built on people doing things that just make no sense other than the filmmakers needing other characters to accidentally be screwed over. Everybody's got their own line between amusing absurdity and lazy idiocy, of course, and Due Date consistently lands on the wrong side for me.

Megamind

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 7 November 2010 at AMC Boston Common #2 (first-run, 3-D, digital IMAX)

As expected, Megamind is akin to Monsters Versus Aliens - an affectionate pop-culture spoof with a decent combination of comedy and action, along with DreamWorks's trademark star-studded cast. Of course, big stars aren't always great voices, as evinced by how, when Megamind disguises himself as another character and I have no idea whether it's Will Ferrell or Ben Stiller speaking. And as much fun as some of the script's riffing on Superman is, it does mean it's a very specific parody. The details are kind of fun, though; it doesn't require knowing comic book minutiae.

It's nice enough, and along with superstar voices, DreamWorks is rapidly establishing good use of 3-D as one of their calling cards. It's not flashy, but it's well-done. It's an entertaining movie, not quite so good as some of the company's other animated films (such as How to Train Your Dragon), but it works well enough.

This Week In Tickets: 25 October 2010 to 31 October 2010

A little slow this week - the World Series started Wednesday, and though it was a pretty short one, it occupied a few evenings. And while I'm not sure that Fox pushed the schedule around so that it wouldn't interfere with Glee (how is it fair or right that I don't get to see Fringe for a couple of weeks, but that thing continues uninterrupted?), it certainly seems that way. Still, good series, and my friend who roots for the Giants is probably still on cloud nine.



Stubless: Trick 'r Treat (31 October 2010, about 6:30pm)

Nothing really big-time this week - one movie I didn't really feel like talking about, one I wanted to talk about a lot, and one I went to in part because I figured few in the mainstream American blogosphere would be covering it (laugh all you want, but Endhiran drove people to this blog like crazy, relatively speaking). It's starting to get to be time to really pay attention to the multiplexes again - I really should get around to The Social Network and Hereafter while they're still playing theaters and the crush of other stuff isn't too heavy.

The one I felt talking about, Never Let Me Go, is in part because of something that gets under my skin more than it should: Nearly every write-up or review I've seen has said, more or less, to not worry about the science-fictional aspects of it, or used a euphemism like "speculative fiction", or, the one that really gets my goat, used some variation of "it transcends/is more than science fiction."

Look, I'll be the first to admit that there's a reason Sturgeon's Law was first applied to science fiction: 90% of it is crud. But, some of the other ten percent is like Never Let Me Go, fantastic. And for good science fiction to be taken seriously, it needs to stake a claim to things like this. Sure, the movie's trailer may have tried to downplay the science fictional aspects, but it was still pretty obviously a movie about clone kids created as raw materials for organ transplants (an art-house version of The Island, if you want to be sarcastic about it). Sci-fi fans should step forward and own that.

Or maybe it wasn't so obvious - before the screening, one of the trailers was for Monsters, an independent film which wears its genre trappings on its sleeve. It got a couple snickers from the audience, although it may just have been at the incongruity of one of the quotes being Ain't It Cool with "The greatest giant monster movie in years", or something like that. Still, I hear that, and I do have to wonder whether that person knows that they were settling in for science fiction themselves.

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

* * (out of four)
Seen 25 October 2010 at Landmark Kendall Square #5 (first-run)

It's no fun reviewing Woody Allen movies any more, even on the odd occasion when it's actually rewarding to watch them. About ten years ago, with Small Time Crooks, I found myself disliking the quite pessimistic take he seemed to have on life; the end result of the movie seemed to be the universe smacking characters down for any sort of ambition. Not just the characters plotting a robbery, but any attempt to rise above one's station would be punished. And every film of his to come out in the past decade seems to conform to this, though I haven't seen Scoop or Whatever Works. You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger is not the film which breaks the streak.

It is, however, unusually frustrating, in that it's pretty darn inert. There's not really a story for the quality ensemble to act out, just parallel situations of temptation that ultimately leads to destruction. Random, chaotic destruction, rather than smiting directly connected to ambition, but make no mistake - happiness will only come as the result of self-delusion.

Still, there are worthwhile moments. The awkward last scene between Naomi Watts and Antonio Banderas, for instance, as she tries to act on her attraction when they both know it's too late, even though she knows it's the first moment when she feels she can, while he just won't rise to it. That's a brief moment of quiet, almost beautiful tragedy, one of the few that stands out among the uninteresting selfishness and delusion that the movie otherwise settles for.

Never Let Me Go

* * * * (out of four)
Seen 29 October 2010 at Landmark Kendall Square #4 (first-run)

Never Let Me Go is the sort of science fiction that tends to hide its genre or go by another name - "speculative fiction" or "slipstream" - because it wants to associate itself with a different audience. Science fiction is considered to be stories about gadgets and things, while this work is about people, and relationships, and ideas. It's a false distinction, but even if one buys into it, all of the best science fiction has been about ideas, and this one is about people treated as things.

In its world, organ transplants became much safer much earlier, and cloning was apparently mastered not long after Crick and Watson discovered the double helix. Thus, by the late 1970s, Britain's National Donor Program has facilities of various types scattered around the country. Hailsham looks like a boarding school, but its charges have no parents to go home to. Three children on the cusp of adolescence are brought into focus: Tommy (Charlie Rove), a volatile but sensitive boy; Kathy (Isobel Meikle-Small), a curious young girl who finds herself attracted to him; and Ruth (Elle Purnell), her best friend. It's Tommy and Ruth who eventually pair off, though, and as they grow up and are moved to "The Cottages" to await their first "treatments", Kathy (now played by Carey Mulligan) opts to train as a "Carer". The three go their separate ways, until Kathy meets Ruth (Keira Knightley), who suggests they reunite with Tommy (Andrew Garfield) while they can.

Director Mark Romanek, novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, and screenwriter Alex Garland set the story in an alternate history rather than the future, and the speculative elements are all the chillier for it. A potential future, after all, is something that we can avoid; this world is so familiar that it feels like the way that the twentieth century would have inevitably run with those key differences in medical science. The world-building is deceptively meticulous - we hear little technical jargon and few details that the audience could trip on, but the details of the clones' lives at Hailsham and after always ring true. They cheat a little, perhaps, by having characters take note of their unusual psychology, but they also sneak things in that show that the world isn't standing still, and as horrible as the idea of Hailsham is, the setting implies things that are even worse.

Full review at eFilmCritic.

Trick 'r Treat

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 31 October 2010 in Jay's Living Room (Halloween! blu-ray)

How, I wonder, does Trick 'r Treat not get actual theatrical distribution? It's got a couple of of notable production companies behind it (Legendary Pictures and Bryan Singer's Bad Hat Harry). It's got some reasonably recognizable faces for the trailer. The effects are slick. It markets itself as a Halloween movie, a more fun alternative to the annual Saw release. Is there really no room for a horror-comedy more interested in freak-outs than gross-outs?

That's not to say the movie is perfect, although of the four or five interconnected stories, only one - a serial killer with a really annoying kid - falls flat, and that one at least gives Dylan Baker a good, nasty-funny role. Similarly, there's a fairly notable lapse in logic to the young t(w)eens collecting pumpkins and going to a haunted quarry, but the atmosphere is more than good enough to cover it. And there's nothing wrong with Brian Cox under siege from a demonic trick-or-treater and Anna Paquin as a college girl put upon by her more experienced sister and friends.

For any faults it has, though, it's a fun ride. Writer/director Michael Dougherty is good at tingling the spine; the expectation of what may happen next is built up very well. He's also good at having the humor come from the characters as opposed to making fun of the genre. He takes his scares seriously, but populates the stories with funny people.

This Week In Tickets: 18 October 2010 to 24 October 2010

Shortish week, but not a bad one:



Stubless: The Kovak Box (24 October 2010, Jay's Living Room, Amazon VOD)

This may very well be the first time video on demand has popped up on TWIT, which some folks may find as odd. It's not, really - given how many movies I watch, it's not always easy to fit more movies in, let alone different ways to watch movies. But, after seeing Cell 211, I wanted to see The Kovak Box.

Well, I remembered my VHS screener from 2006 (I ask for screeners every year, but am often terrible about watching them, even when my living-room technology doesn't just ignore the things). Now, folks, have any of you watched VHS recently? Now, admittedly, the last time I did, it was on a smaller television, but ye gods, how in the world did we put up with that for decades?

My VCR wasn't even hooked up anymore; I had to find an outlet and it was nuts trying to get it to stop trying to tune into cable that wasn't even hooked up. Then, about ten minutes in, it started blinking, locking up, and half-ejecting before finally just giving up. I think it more or less died of shock at being used.

The VOD looks a lot better, but getting it on the TV is kind of a hassle. I didn't drop a fair amount on my home theater to watching movies on my laptop screen, but the connections between the computer and T aren't perfect. The SlingCatcher, I've decided, is more or less worthless, but I've got a cheap DisplayPort to HDMI cable; unfortunately, it doesn't pass sound, and it took me a while to put headphones on rather than have the computer in my lap so the sound didn't seem to be coming from off to my left. I'm going to have to find a USB device to get 5.1 sound out, or maybe a headphone-to-stereo cable from monoprice.

It eventually did the job. I don't know that I'll be doing this a lot for movies versus TV, but it's nice to know, especially for smaller movies, they can be just a few bucks away.

My Dog Tulip

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 19 October 2010 at Landmark Kendall Square #7 (first-run)

There have been many "a boy and his dog" movies, even many that featured somewhat older boys, but I have trouble remembering many that wax so rhapsodic about the downright messy parts of pet ownership as My Dog Tulip. Via Christopher Plummer's voice and the animation of Paul and Sandra Fierlinger, we learn a great deal about the elimination habits of J.R. Ackerley's beloved Alsatian, as well as his attempts to breed her (quaintly described as "marrying" her), most likely much more than we really want to know.

Not that My Dog Tulip should be described as a "warts and all" movie. It's an enormously affectionate story of an older bachelor who finds true contentment for the first time with a dog that is large, loud, and difficult; Ackerley comes across as a true curmudgeon, as difficult in his own way as his pet. The pair don't quite make up for each other's faults, but do create a pairing that works, and earns the audience's affection.

The animation, though created entirely without paper and cels, has a pleasantly handmade feel, although occasionally the sketchy look, occasionally-sparse backgrounds, and limited animation can come across as trying a little too hard (there's having a style, and there's looking cheap). The end result is charming, but can often feel like it was more satisfying to its creators than its audience.

Predators

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 20 October 2010 at the Brattle Theatre (Recent [Cult!] Raves)

Even though the original Predator is not a particular favorite of mine (I didn't see it until fairly recently, and it seemed kind of unpolished compared to big action movies and hollow compared to ground-level ones), I had hopes for this one. It's got a quality ensemble cast, Robert Rodriguez is in charge and knows a little something about pulp fun, and director Nimrod Antal is coming off two movies (Vacancy and Armored) where he took a standard-issue plot and a good cast and made something better than you might expect.

Of course, when you start to expect better than you might expect, you'll occasionally be disappointed by only getting what you should have expected. That's what happens here. Basically, Antal, Rodriguez, and writers Alex Litvak & Michael Finch make more Predator. Which isn't really a bad thing; people still dig that first movie twenty-five years later, and recapturing that vibe probably counts more as success than failure. The movie is not for the folks like me who don't find the Predator's design awesome or didn't really dig the one-note testosterone fest. This one feels like it could have been a little more - the idea that the humans brought to the "game preserve" to be hunted are predators in their own right is a neat hook, as is the idea that they may find out more about these humanoids by being on their own turf - but just settles for being more Predator.