Part One.   By Dan Cohen, Santa Monica Reporter

I was out of the country most of December, but as I left I did a quick inventory of the years’ noteworthy American theatrical films.  It wasn’t much of a list; “The Social Network,” “The Kids Are Alright,” “Cyrus,” “Inception,”  “Winter’s Bone,” and Clint Eastwood’s underappreciated, “Hereafter.”  Just below that were several others, good enough to keep you out of trouble on a Saturday night; “The Town,” “Unstoppable,”  “Easy A,” and, with some reservations, “I Love You Phillip Morris.” But not much else.

“Inception” is the undisputed roller coaster ride of 2010, and in its category nothing else comes close. The others, produced for comparative peanuts, exist on an entirely different plane.  But even with a list this short, there are caveats. I admired “Winter’s Bone,” more than I actually enjoyed it; it was less compelling that 2009’s “Frozen River,” in more or less the same genre.  “Philip Morris,” is uneven, and really belonged to 2009, when it played at Sundance. Bottom line; for American movies, 2010 was disappointing.

I came back to an entirely changed landscape.  A half dozen theatrical features had found favor with both critics and audiences; “The Fighter,” “Black Swan,” “True Grit,” “Blue Valentine,” and the unexpected blast from Britain, “The King’s Speech.” (I’d add “Casino Jack” to that list, but it didn’t catch on.) Each of these titles is high end entertainment, and each had accumulated close to triple its production budget. (I don’t mean to snub the documentaries, in a year with several standouts; I just consider them in a class of their own.)

There were other, more predictable developments. Several big studio films bombed horribly, including a couple of pricey comedies that nobody seemed to love, an overpriced, effects driven sci- fi, and the usual tepid sequels; all of which were struggling to break even.

Understand one thing about the American movie business; big budget action flicks and star driven comedies pay more salaries and studio overhead than any of the low budget, scrappy dramas that audiences are currently responding to in large numbers. And none of them has a shot at a gross like “Inception,” which worldwide, has corralled about 825 million, not counting the DVD, which has to be huge. Warner’s shelled out 160 million just to get “Inception” in the can, before they spent dollar one on marketing.  But even if you add another 100 million to the production budget, the film is a phenomenon.

Before I start on the separate virtues of this happy handful, which you may have already seen, let’s do a comparison between their cost and. theatrical gross, using very basic numbers. Keep in mind; these figures do not include the coming revenues from DVDs or TV, which, although downplayed by the industry, are very significant.

“The Kids are Alright” Cost: 3.5 million.  Gross: 20 million.

“The Fighter,” Cost: 25 million. Gross: 80 and climbing.

“Black Swan,” Cost: 13 million. Gross now approaching 100.

“True Grit,” Cost: 38 million. Gross: 148 and still climbing.

“Blue Valentine,” Cost: 1 million. Gross: 6 million, and still going.

“Winter’s Bone,” Cost: 1 million . Gross: 4 million.

Let’s add to that the Brit hit, “The King’s Speech,” with a negative cost of 15 million that has so far piled up 80 in the US, and is quite likely to reach 100 before the Academy’s big night. “Speech” is likely to make its distributor, The Wienstein Company, which has had its share of big losers the past couple years, (remember “9”?) profitable for some time to come.

Each of 2010’s awards nominees boasts a distinct voice and style. Each features well known actors, (other than “Winter’s Bone,”) who most certainly took less than their agents’ quotes, if for no other reason than to work in projects driven by a vision, in both style and content.

In terms of audience appeal, the films are vastly different. But each is the sort of movie that movie lovers tend to seek out; distinctive but at the same time, familiar.

It’s no surprise that every one of them works first as entertainment.  But the sort of entertainment that requires the viewer to pay attention to what’s happening on screen. Even the remake of “True Grit,” which sprouted in the shadow of John Wayne’s classic, has been realized with a unique style that sets it apart from the original.   And ironically, each is rooted in the kind of narrative filmmaking pioneered by the studios, the sort of storytelling they’ve more or less abandoned in the obsessive drive to generate Spider Man sized profits.

The studios distributed these smaller movies, and they’ll make money on them.  But they’ll also fail to make money on most of their bigger budget projects.

In order to understand why things go wrong you have to understand that the studios are more about business plans than filmmaking. And their main target is teenagers.

They dream that if the young demographic turns out en masse the rest of us will follow suit, if for no other reason than curiosity. But it hasn’t worked that way lately.  Teenagers do show up on opening weekend, eagerly plunking down expendable cash for the latest 3D thrill machine.  But when it stinks halfway through, they take action, tweeting and texting others of their tribe, warning them off. In that way, they can dampen enthusiasm for a movie more effectively than the fussy and largely aging critical establishment.

It’s not that there isn’t a healthy appetite for another installment of the “Fokkers,” or “Narnia,” or the reboot of “Tron.” It’s just that there isn’t enough of an audience for those films to make a profit when production comes in between 120 and 200 million.  And that’s not including marketing, which on a big studio release has to come in north of 20 million.

The next biggest audience for studio films is the overseas market.  On paper at least, big action movies like “Green Hornet,” (120 million,) “Tron,” (170 million,) and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” (150 million,) have a chance of recouping their production costs on foreign soil.  The thinking is that the masses of non English speakers are even less critical than our masses.

Sometimes this strategy works… especially when the big studios cut deals with foreign distributors ahead of production, or send the movies out under their own banners, (thus collecting a larger share of revenues.)  But when the movies are so oversized, like “Gulliver’s Travels,” (112 million,) “How Do You Know,” (120 million,) and “Prince of Persia, (200 million,) and fail so miserably, it’s hard to see how the studios stay in business.

“Prince of Persia,” is a good example of how a big budget can overwhelm even a successful theatrical run. A Disney product, made by super producer Jerry Bruckheimer, this fantasy/ adventure,  intended to kick off a franchise, brought in close to 95 million here in the US; a disaster considering its cost.  But overseas the film was huge, raking in what looks like a phenomenal figure; 235 million.  But considering that the studios only get half of that, the film, with a reported negative cost of 200 mil, was still a bomb.

That’s the business, and there’s little chance it’ll change in the near future. Not until they get burned over and over will studios refrain from throwing huge amounts of cash at projects like “Green Hornet.”  They will spend huge sums getting these concept movies made and then spend almost as much trying to create the desire for teenagers to see them. Hoping and praying to birth the next “Spider Man.”

I endured twenty minutes of this hapless bore in a theater the other night, while waiting for “Blue Valentine,” to start.  No one asked for “Green Hornet,” and the handful of kids whose parents had deposited them there, probably while they were shopping, didn’t seem to care for it either;  they ran through the aisles like lab rats.

I know this sounds tired; I promise to refrain from this kind of rant for at least a couple of months. But at this point in the new year, in the afterglow of some really good movies, what we’re getting instead, is the worst of the worst. This week alone, two national releases; “Sanctum,” and “The Roommate” have been pronounced dead on arrival.

I was actually looking forward to “Sanctum.” James Cameron’s name appeared above the title. The trailer was promising. The locales were intriguing. But after a hail of boos that greeted its arrival, and the dismal results of the first exit surveys I can’t force myself to see it.

Next week I’ll return to a discussion of what makes this year’s Oscar contenders worth the time and struggle that went into their creation. Until then, either catch up on them yourself, or hold your breath.

by Dan Cohen, Santa Monica Reporter

Anne Hathaway’s spirited performance is the best reason to see “Love and Other Drugs.”  Otherwise, the movie, in spite of its multple ambitions, is a mess. Not unlikeable, just unsuccessful.

The beginning is promising.  Writer/director Ed Zwick, and his co- screenwriter Charles Randolph, capably sketch a complicated family heavily invested in the medical arts.  George Segal and the late Jill Clayburgh appear, happily, as the clan elders.  You know right away there’s ample intelligence steering the events, in the writing and performing.

The characters seem part of a well functioning family with ongoing ambivalences to each other and their careers.  But the elders are quickly abandoned as the picture settles on the travails of the middle son, Jamie, (Jake Gyllenhall)  a med school dropout who seems uncomfortable with both his compliant sister, a doctor, and  his younger brother, a successful software entrepreneur.

Zwick understands Jamie’s ambivalence, and his resulting lack of a center.       A lengthy sequence that follows the opening, in which Jamie is indoctrinated into the corporate culture of  pharmaceutical giant, Phizer,  peeks into the workings of a corporate juggernaut with both curiosity and skepticism. At this point the movie plays like a perky satire.

Shortly after he begins a tentative career as a salesman, Jamie is introduced to Maggie, played by Anne Hathaway. They meet cute, in a way that almost guarantees there’ll be sparks between them. And there’s a health issue, which portends trouble. All of this follows a predictable pattern.

But the movie has much more on its mind than the relationship. It wants to talk about business ethics, brotherly disaffection, the introduction of Viagra, and the plight of doctors in the go go world of the mid 90s. Mostly this plays as comedy. But then the problem takes over, and we’re asked to change gears along with the movie.

It’s not that the jumble of elements are at war with each other; it’s just that they fail to reinforce the most important one, the stuff between Jamie and Maggie.

The movie becomes a kind of juggling act, certainly difficult for the editors, that struggles to keep the love story front and center at the same time it wants to satisfy the several constituencies a big movie like this needs to recruit a mass audience.

There’s one more problem, perhaps larger than the many others that nag at you as the story continues to deviate from its center. That is, a lack of real chemistry between the two leads.

I’m going to digress here, because the issue of chemistry is highly subjective. But I think in cases like this, comparisons to other moves can be telling.

Shortly after seeing “Love and Other Drugs,” I happened on a Belgian thriller called “Left Bank,” from 2008, (available on DVD,)  that deals with a troubled relationship between two athletes. Never mind that it’s a different genre; the same problem obtains in any romance.  Here, a young woman at first resists, then succumbs to the advances of a persistent and seductive male.  So we’re not really dealing with apples and oranges.

When they do get around to having sex, fairly early in the story, you can feel the heat between them.  There’s real tension in the willing seduction, which is no more or less graphic than what occurs between Hathaway and Gyllenhall. But there’s a big difference, in the portrayal of genuine desire.

It’s largely a matter of direction; how the characters interact, their physical  being, and finally where the director has elected to place them in the frame.  The director of “Left Bank,” Pieter Van Hees, keeps the camera at just enough distance for us to observe the peculiar body language that makes the attraction between his two lovers so strong.  Zwick, for better or worse, has given us glossy close ups that are overly familiar. Yes, body parts are in full view, and they’ve made a big deal in the press about a little bit of skin.  But the lighting and rather generic angles are hardly provocative, even as flesh is bared.  Sex scenes, at this point in movie history, have to be about more than skin.

Beyond that there are the issues of story.  The point is made that when Maggie and Jamie first get together it‘s mainly animal attraction, which is fine. But it doesn’t get much beyond that. The script tries to make more of it. The script harps on the disease and both characters resulting ambivalences.  But for a number of reasons, some having to do with the way Jamie is sketched in the beginning, (as a kind of feckless lothario,) you never really see Hathaway surrendering to him.  The result is that not much is at stake.

Because she’s got the winning appeal of the young Julia Roberts, who held audiences in thrall for almost two decades, any project with the Ann Hathaway gets our attention. She’s no less potent a star presence here than she’s been in any other of her recent roles. She’s just not enough to make the movie really sing.

Equally comfortable with comedy or drama, Hathaway has the kind of physical magnetism that commands your attention. On top of that she can act. You’re always wondering what part of her psyche she’s going to dredge up next. But she easily overpowers men who aren’t as strong in their own way.

Gyllenhall has charm and looks. But with this material he comes up short. The easy outs the script has given his character ultimately fail both the actor and the movie.

But it isn’t entirely his fault.  Hathaway is so resourceful she’s  become a formidable challenge to both sexes. We saw that in the terrific “My Sister’s Wedding”, where she made the rest of the cast, with the exception of Meryll Streep, almost disappear. Here, there just isn’t enough solid material to create the kind of tension that forces us to care.

I Love You, Phillip Morris

At this point in his career who would have expected Jim Carrey to play a blatantly gay con artist, a character modeled after a real person, who, at this moment is serving a life sentence in federal prison.

Even when Carrey has gone out on a limb, in performances that put him in a special category, a third sex, which resists the more conventional categories, you can’t imagine him as an aggressive homosexual. He mostly seems more interested in being nuts than actively sexual.  But here he is, in “ I Love You, Phillip Morris,” aggressively gay. And there’s no mistaking the drive that moves him in any number of close encounters with Ewan McGregor, the object of his affection. For most of the movie’s running time, it’s right in your face.

The movie starts rough, because its makers, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, have trouble establishing a consistent tone for their unlikely, but largely true story.  Playing a brilliant but disturbed sociopath, Carrey begins large and is matched by the movies sledgehammer style.

But for those who can accept the way the character goes from straight to gay, and from honest to pathologically dishonest, the movie pays off.  Here, the story finally wins us over, as insane as it seems on the surface.  After a while, the well rigged plot devices overwhelm us because Carrey’s character has a center, and an unquenchable thirst that persists, in spite of our initial instinct to resist it.

This is a case where more, instead of less, finally wins out.  The several turnarounds, one in particular regarding fatal illness, wrest us from any lethargy induced by clumsy filmmaking in the first half hour. It’s a shame it’s taken almost two years for this film to get into any kind of release. It’s an oddly chaotic, but frequently hilarious tall tale, that luckily for us, happens to be true.

By Daniel Cohen, Santa Monica Reporter

Unstoppable is a 100 million dollar B movie. Its plot line, and every digression from the device that drives it, a runaway freight train loaded with hazardous chemicals, feels like it was cribbed from an undergraduate screenwriting text.  There isn’t a single beat that isn’t telegraphed from miles down the track. And still, the movie is exciting.

Fox, the studio responsible, was wise in recruiting Tony Scott to pilot the project. Brother of Ridley, and a partner in Scott Free, one of Hollywood’s best production houses, the veteran director avoided the by now glossy but predictable computer graphics studios routinely employ in the service of their mid level action films.  Instead he went for a gritty, industrial motif that adds to the tension. How much is computer generated and how much actually staged?  You can’t tell, and that’s good.

Scott was also wise to keep the back stories, which are mired in predictable domestic strife, as far in the background as the labored script allows. You never really care about the wives, daughters and others who watch from the sidelines. Nor should you, since they’re never in any jeopardy.  The movie is about mistakes, collisions, heroics, and star power.

But none of this came cheap. Consider this: each minute of  “Unstoppable’s” running time cost about a million bucks. The talent; Denzel Washington, who commands 20 million a movie, and Chris Pine, a newly minted superstar from the rebooted “Star Trek,” raise the projects profile, but also the financial stakes.  Years ago the studios birthed a couple dozen of these movies a year. Now they’re the tent poles they rely on to keep them solvent.

Word from inside alleges that Fox squeezed five million from Washington’s usual take, which they probably mitigated with the promise of a big slice of the box office, from dollar one. Scott, a big ticket talent with a long string of hits to his credit, from “Top Gun,” to “Man on Fire,” no doubt added considerably to the price tag. But they both perform reliably.  Pine, now married to a deathless sci-fi franchise, is here saddled with the kind of colorless role a half dozen upcoming actors have played and survived; fielding Washington’s sarcasm.  He bears up reasonably well.

Before they even set up shop at the rust belt Pennsylvania locations, the tab for this production was probably well over thirty million. Happily the rest of the money is on the screen, in the large scale wrecks that goose the audience for almost the entire hour and forty minute running time.

It helps that the basic situation, inspired by a near catastrophe in 2001, feels and looks truthful.  The problem is that the manufactured dramatics, from Chris Pine’s marital woes, to Denzel’s retirement issues, contribute little or nothing to the tension. They’re as irritating as the near to real names given the small towns and cities menaced by the rampaging steel beast. “Scranton,” for example, has been recast as “Stanton,” and repeated ad nauseum in the endless foreboding speeches and newscasts, which are supposed to increase the tension, but actually make it feel synthetic. For some reason, probably legal, screenwriter Mark Bomback, author of the most recent in the “Die Hard” series, has mashed up Pennsylvania with Ohio, where the real story occurred. This is a needling distraction to those of us who know the state.

When it sticks to the rails “Unstoppable” runs hard and fast.  But back in the offices, where the lovely Rosario Dawson and the underused Kevin Corrigan are tethered to desks and video monitors, it defuses.  There’s also a risible, totally unnecessary detour involving a train full of school kids. Going into this, does anybody really think this ill timed field trip is going to end in a large body count?  Let’s see a show of hands.

A note:

Clint Eastwood’s remarkable, under loved “Hereafter,” continues on at least one local screen. So you still have a chance to see one of the best adult dramas of the year in a proper movie house, where it belongs.  I’ll discuss this movie at length, either in a year end wrap up, or as part of a dvd review. But for now, go see it.

By Dan Cohen, Santa Monica Reporter

Sparks fly in the David Fincher/ Aaron Sorkin adaptation of Ben Mezrich’s book, “The Accidental Billionaires.”  And that’s a good thing, because so much marketing energy has been lavished on “The Social Network,” you’d think it was the last word on world peace, as opposed to a story about techno nerds looking to better facilitate hookups.

But with 500 million people signed on, and the parent companies’ massive value, “Facebook” is a phenomenon that demands our attention. The movie though, owes most of its heat to its Harvard setting and the associated prestige, which it constantly waves in our faces. But that’s also good; while few of us can attend the classes, we get to wallow in a lot of its internal nastiness and social backbiting.  Even better, the movie fulfills all the promise of its tantalizing trailer, and more.

Aaron Sorkin’s ultra smart, cyclonic script doesn’t seem to care how many stories it flings at us in the first half hour.  Those who stay with it, and that will be most of the intended audience, will quickly realize there are at least three plot strands unfolding at once, with multiple points of view.  Eventually they get sorted out, but until that time, the movie challenges us with its fluid but unannounced movements through time and space.

Director Fincher has found the perfect pitch for both his actors and their setting. The movie is fast, clinical, and slightly detached.  You never become invested in the characters; they’re uniformly impatient, self centered and chauvinistic, from their entrances to exits. Such is the lot of the Harvard male, the script seems to say.

Jesse Eisenberg, darkly self involved throughout, is perfectly cast in the lead.  I have no idea what the real Mark Zuckerberg is like, but Eisenberg, who’s played thwarted young intellectuals before, rebuffs every challenge the story throws at him. Ferociously intelligent, with the kind of obsessive focus that takes no account of self doubt or reflection, he keeps the movies’ universe in his control, even in silence.

Andrew Garfield, as the business side of the company, is solid too, but he only has a couple notes to play.  The half dozen female supporting roles are sharply observed, but provide little more than diversion; this is a boys’ movie.

At the end of the day, (awards time, that is,) I suspect Justine Timberlake’s lightning rod portrayal of the brains behind Napster, will be recognized over Eisenberg and the rest of the cast. Timberlake, who blends a disarming, adolescent voice with a glaringly shallow veneer that barely conceals his feral drives, wrestles the movie out of complacence at exactly the moment its forward momentum starts to flag.

This is a movie that’s more about laying out history than interpreting it. There are frequent satiric asides, pointed jokes that jolt the audience out of the incestuous focus of the characters, but they’re more like punctuation than commentary.  That is, until the finale, which comes with a brilliant exclamation point as the whirlwind concludes.

In a moment of uncharacteristic calm, a seemingly inconsequential character, (a proxy for the audience,) comes forward with a pronouncement of devastating clarity.  I have no idea whether the book uses the same device, but Fincher and Sorkin have got to be given credit for ultimately having their way with these characters, without appearing superior or manipulative.

Zuckerberg, the boy genius now worth over a billion, has been quoted as saying he wanted to change the world.  But in what way he doesn’t make clear.  There’s nothing wrong with that; the creative impulse is hardly beholden to unintended consequences.  Omniscience is the province of the Greek chorus, and there’s none here.  But this and other retellings of recent social history reminded me of something the late Irving Kristol said at a commencement address many years ago. “It’s easy to change the world,” he declared, “what’s hard is to change it the way you want to.”  Is there a lesson in that for the boyish billionaires who engineered Facebook, and others like them?

“The Social Network” arrives at a crossroads in the history of movie making.  It’s the first major feature to use a high end digital camera with a special chip that dramatically improves the quality of the image.  Without going into great detail, this chip allows the camera to capture a greater range of blacks with increased ease and flexibility.

There are a couple of advantages here. First, night scenes come across with far greater detail.  Second, and perhaps more important, this new chip delivers more definition and depth than chips in prior image “capture systems,” ( I refrain from calling them “video cameras,” a holdover from the old days; these are whole new animals.)  The result is images that compete with the best 35 millimeter.  And yet they’re different.

To say the blacks are more pronounced seems on its face, of relatively little import to a medium we automatically associate with color.  We generally think of black as a singular visual element. But the many grades of black contribute more than any other value, enhancing all the rest.  This new chip, called the “mysterium” by its maker, when allied with high end lenses, renders digital images with compelling clarity and complexity.

You can see that not only in the expressive texture of “The Social Network’s” many evening exteriors, but also in the daylight scenes, like the boat race on the Charles River. In the past too many digital features have been confined to a color palette that was clipped down to a narrower range. And images marred by “video” noise.  Sometimes directors have used this to their advantage, like Michael Mann in “Public Enemy.”  But too often the films looked cold and distant, too much like TV news or reality shows.

Film, since it delivers images through a grain, or emulsion, has always been associated with a softer, more impressionistic texture. The first digital images considered acceptable for narrative purposes were still harder and sharper than film; in a way comparable to the high pitched sound of the early CDs.

With the advent of high end digital cameras the look has become more cinematic, even as it maintained a certain identity of its own; sharp focus, precise colors etc.   In the wake of newly improved “image capture,” the old look of film, once the norm, has begun to draw attention to itself, in the same way analog records did once CDs gained a foothold.  At a recent screening of “Never Let Me Go,” a film of relentlessly soft images, I became first aware, then impatient with the almost obsessively grainy cinematography.  It wasn’t that the look was bad—I was just so bored by the movie I started to focus on the technique. Not a good sign. Nevertheless, the 35mm look now stands out.

And there’s more. Although I’m not sure about the multi-plexes in Lancaster, many theaters in the country have converted to digital projection.  Since digital projectors bypass actual reels of film for huge files, it’s absent a host of problems that beset traditional exhibition.  Image degradation due to worn prints is non existent. Also, there’s none of that annoying flutter, particularly evident with older projectors, because there’s no longer a film gate.  And the amount of light projected is greatly increased.

To be sure there are technical issues with the new equipment. When it goes down, really goes down. The level of illumination can be distracting if not properly modulated. But audiences are rapidly acclimating to the advantages of both digital projection and movies that are shot with the new cameras.

Traditional film, with its particular look, and its warmth, has now become one of several choices for story telling.  The new media will no doubt learn to mimic the qualities of its forerunners; the digital medium is nothing if not malleable.  At this moment the latest breakthroughs, (like the mysterium chip,) have finally made the digital medium a worthy competitor. As the price of cameras with this new functionality comes down, and they’re falling like spring rain, and people become acclimated to digital imagery, independent filmmakers will be able to compete on a higher level.  This can’t be bad.

By Dan Cohen, Santa Monica Reporter

Emma Stone, a relative newcomer, who showed she could hold her own opposite Woody Harrelson and Bill Murray in “Zombieland,” plays the lead in “Easy A,” a comic riff on “The Scarlett Letter” set in a California high school.  And while Stone is challenged by an array of high power character actors, she quickly takes control of the picture and keeps it running one level above the material.

The set up is promising.  Olive, a quick witted, but self conscious 17year old, makes the mistake of telling her loud mouth friend, (Amanda Bynes,) she had sex with a college student. When word gets around that she’s “easy,” she elicits both the envy and scorn of her peers, who use her indiscretion to advance their own ends.  While some want sex, most are more interested in the change to their social status that her association will bring.

No one will ever mistake “Easy A” for “Election,” or “Juno;” It doesn’t exploit its premise with nearly as much depth as more incisive teen comedies. But it’s solidly funny.

Director Will Gluck has taken Bert V. Royals’ agile script and treated it like a high end sit com, keeping the narrative at arms length from the darker implications of Olive’s situation.  He and the editor have done their best to avoid stillness, understandablely given the target audience.  But their movie is so obsessively focused on jokes the inherent ironies go unexploited. “Easy A” didn’t have to be “Heathers,” but too often it plays safe for a young audience that welcomes a little more candor.

Gluck has encouraged an A list cast of character actors to play most of their lines for laughs. But even when they’re pushed two registers higher than necessary, the spirited performers come through. Patricia Clarkson, Stanley Tucci, Malcolm McDowell, Lisa Kudrow, Thomas Haden Church, among others,  might have been better served by dialing down and putting more flesh on their characters’ bones. Nonetheless, they hit their marks and keep the movie percolating at a good pace.

Emma Stone, with her husky voice, and quick wit, is the glue that keeps the material together.  On camera for almost every scene, she put so much spin on the words, she convinces us there’s something at stake.  Still, she and the other “students” in the movie, like Penn Badgely and Amanda Bynes, look easily five years older than their parts. I kept glancing around at the kids in the audience, wondering how they felt about seeing themselves played by people old enough to be in graduate school.

One day Ms. Stone she’ll get a role that allows her both comedy and grace. But after a summer full of shoddily made comedies, at least this one places its faith in language as a means of expressing humor. Give “Easy A” a solid B.

“Never Let Me Go,” lives on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, as slavishly dour as “Easy A” is comic. In spite of skillful filmmaking and the best intentions, it’s an empty shell of a movie, full of pretensions to art that never pan out.

We begin at a private school tucked away in the bucolic English country side.  The cherubic youngsters, uniformly groomed and outfitted, appear no different than the kids we’ve seen in countless poignant dramas set in the UK’s public school system.  But these kids aren’t typical kids. And their fate is as frozen as the clenched expression on headmistress Charlotte Rampling’s face.

The movie’s conclusion, which takes place in the present, is revealed in the opening, so we know that very little good will come of the situation.  The first third or so, which deals with their pre pubescence, is vividly detailed in both setting and character. A friendship among two girls and a boy becomes more complicated as they become teenagers.

The three very young leads are well defined; the acting is impeccable.  Midway through the sequence, the children are told they won’t have much of an adult hood. We’re sympathetic and unsure why.  But when we visit them later, as Andrew Garfield, Kera Knightley and Carey Mulligan, the story turns mechanical.

The adult actors deliver nuanced performances, but the script gives them little to work with beyond the sadness of their fate.  And for a movie that’s all dialogue I can’t recall one interesting conversation that really brought them to life, much less a dramatic moment that accomplished more than connecting the bare bones of the plot line.

Mark Romanek, who directed the stylish but plot starved “One Hour Photo,” can’t really be blamed. His direction, moment to moment, is fluid and coherent.  The cinematography, especially in the beginning, has a soft and comforting hue that raises our hopes that the movie will build to something worthwhile.  The script is where the film finally disappoints.

It isn’t that the idea at the story’s core is preposterous. It is, but we’re usually willing to accept nutty ideas when they’re presented to us in a movie’s opening. We take the movies’ world on faith, in order to see where the makers are going with it.  But then it becomes their responsibility, as story tellers, to keep us in a state of willful disbelief.  We expect more than a force march into decline.

It’s ok for characters to lose in the end; Shakespeare kills everybody off in his tragedies. And we never leave them feeling cheated.  But when characters roll over and play dead from the get go, we start to wonder why we should care. And as this falling action is attenuated, the feeling grows to resentment.

There’s an arresting moment midway, on an isolated beach, involving two of the characters and an abandoned boat.  The texture suggested painstaking attention to detail. The sky and its relationship to the land, in particular, is so evocative you can imagine the cast and crew waiting days to get it just so.   Their time would have better spent rethinking the material.

Both “Never Let Me Go,” and “Easy A” debuted at the Toronto Film Festival.  Their arrival in theaters signals the beginning of the fall movie going season.  After a disappointing summer, word from Toronto, Venice, and Telluride is that better films are on the way.  The initial box office success of “The Town,” suggests that adults are returning to theaters. Let’s hope the trend continues.

By Dan Cohen, Santa Monica Reporter

The mediocre performance of several would be blockbusters has made room at the multiplexes for two sharply observed indies, “Cyrus, “and “The Kids Are All Right.”  And while part of this can be attributed to the influence of powerful parent companies, in these cases the specialty wings of Fox and Universal, any win for a good film is a win for smart audiences.

“Cyrus,” has done less well than “The Kids Are All Right,” which has so far grossed four times its very modest budget.  Why this is so, when “Cyrus,” a comedy fueled by Jonah Hill, Marisa Tomei,  and John C. Reilly, is every bit as entertaining as “Kids,” with an even bigger triumvirate;  Annette Benning, Jullianne Moore, and Mark Ruffalo, is anybody’s guess, although star power and the particular niche the latter occupies may have a little to do with it.  For now I’ll focus on “Kids,” since it continues to play locally.

Nic and Jules, (Annette Benning and Julianne Moore,) are just like parents in any other middle class movie family, with one exception; they’re both women.  Their two likable kids, Joni and Laser, are the product of artificial insemination.  Luckily for the story, both came from the same sperm donor.

In the opening sequence, the “moms,” as their kids refer to them, appear as adept at handling adolescent issues as their heterosexual peers. Loving, protective and open minded, they’re engaged in as much of their kids’ growing pains as they’re shown.  The trouble starts when Laser, their 15 year old son, enlists his 18 year old sister to run down their biological dad… without consulting his parents.

Turns out that Paul, (Mark Ruffalo,) a free spirited restaurateur, comes along at exactly the moment the family is most vulnerable to an outsiders influence.  Paul, who functions as a kind of catalyst for both new and longstanding issues, causes a psychological chain reaction that mines all of them.

Most of the movie is comic.  There’s a fair amount of frisky sex, the most graphic of which is heterosexual, thus limiting the squirm factor for most straight viewers. The complications, at least on the surface, are as old as Moliere.  But Cholodenko’s humorous and sympathetic take is fresh.  And while she stays true to the characters and their gay identities, she’s eager to point out that beyond sexual preference, this family is pretty much like any other nuclear outfit on the block.

There are a half dozen deeply funny moments. One, that will stay in my memory, involves the two moms trying to tell why they keep male porno in a bedroom drawer to their son.  The explanation, and the way it’s delivered, is priceless.  A slow burning attraction between one of the mom’s and the earthy interloper is comic and poignant in equal measure.  These small scenes finally amount to more than their collected parts.

The acting is uniformly excellent.  Annette Benning, given the most complicated part, plays it without flinching from its rough edges. She’ll have to receive some kind of award consideration. Mark Ruffalo, once again proves to be one of our most versatile male leads.

Mia Wasikowska, yet another young Australian who effortlessly disguises her roots, has an open face and low key charm.  Earlier this year she was a convincing Alice in Tim Burton’s messy Lewis Carroll adaptation.  She will probably continue to win roles coveted by scads of American actresses.  Josh Hutcherson, who has virtually grown up on TV, shows a brooding intelligence beneath his good looks. And Julianne Moore is eagerly following in Meryl Streeps’ footsteps.

Cholodenko, who has directed dramatic material with confidence in the past, (“High Art,”) here proves that she can balance a host of elements without losing control of any. This is a seriously good movie.

Dinner With Schmucks

If you’ve resisted “Dinner With Schmucks” up to this point, keep up the good work.

There’s fifteen minutes of inspired comedy in Jay Roach’s labored and overlong adaptation of “The Dinner Game,” Francis Veber’s giddy French farce from 1998.  Unfortunately the other hour and half is punishment.  Halfway through I counted a dozen lit cell phones among the mainly young crowd in the theater where I sat, stewing.  Warning their friends?  I hope so.

Apparently Veber, who has been writing and directing successful comedies since the 70s, (“La Cage Aux Folles,” “The Toy,” many others) did not have enough influence to keep the worst instincts of others from defiling his original. Why didn’t they let him direct?

The shame is that Steve Carrel and Paul Rudd are capable of so much better. Here they’ve either been given a free reign to fill in the gaping holes in shoddily written material.  Much was made in the movie’s PR, how after so many rewrites, the producers went about shooting a script that left so much room for actors to improvise.  Well, it’s one thing when the Monty Python crew embellishes strong ideas, and another when Carell, Rudd, and their accomplices are handed a nearly blank canvas and let go with buckets of finger paint.

There are moments, mostly early on when the film is sharp and funny, mainly in the set up, which is promising. And Carell and Rudd have a nice chemistry. But others with much less ability to fill blank space have been invited to indulge themselves, to ill effect.  Zach Galifanakis does a painful imitation of Nathan Lane. Lucy Punch quickly wears out her welcome as an oversexed stalker. The rest have been edited down to minor offenses.

I firmly believe that those that wrote well of this mess will look back in regret.

By Dan Cohen, Santa Monica Reporter

Although it aspires to more, at its heart Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” is an elaborate caper flick. And while it belongs to a genre as old as moving pictures, it turns the conventions inside out, re-energizing itself with a fresh injection of technical bravado about every 15 minutes.

The caper, or heist, is a metaphor for something much bigger. The challenge of winning against all odds taps into transcendent issues of mortality and destiny. Is there anyone alive who hasn’t fantasized about beating the odds, one way or another? If only we had the daring and skill.

We always have a fair idea of what to expect going into a caper flick.  A team comes together, takes on a virtually impossible mission, and then somehow messes up in the execution. The big question then becomes, can they somehow make it work, at the exact moment when all seems lost.

The objective could be an impregnable museum, a bank, or a military installation; often a place off limits to ordinary mortals. But the most important element is the human factor, because at the end of the day, it’s the characters destiny that’s really at stake.  And if we aren’t involved with them, or can’t identify with their issues, it doesn’t make any difference whether the mission succeeds or fails

The single, indispensable persona in a caper is the mastermind, a man or woman in charge of the operation. This character, while highly skilled, is usually a victim of some undeserved misfortune, which becomes the impetus behind the undertaking, and more or less marries the character to the task.  The misfortune, often a double edged blade, may strike right at the heart of the quality that distinguishes the mastermind from everybody else in the story. Nobody can take his place.

Then comes the caper itself; an extraordinary challenge, that requires skill and daring beyond anything the mastermind has successfully encountered in the past, that functions as a fulcrum for tension. Most often the objective is armed with the latest technology, since nobody cares about a bank guarded by a padlock and a guy with a slingshot.

But none of the elements mean anything without an imperfect aspect of human nature, the fly in the ointment. When an elegantly conceived failing is at the heart of it, the caper itself becomes subordinate to a larger scenario.

The main character in “The Thomas Crown Affair,” looks to pull off one last museum heist before retiring. What makes Crown more interesting than the standard issue movie thief, is that he acts out of a psychological need. Money means nothing to him. So, it’s the deed itself.  But his need is compromised by a seductive detective, in her own way as driven as he is. The result, in both the Norman Jewison original, with Steve McQueen, and especially the John McTiernan/Pierce Brosnan remake, is first rate diversion. What makes both movies work is the tension between two competing desires, fulfillment through another, and fulfillment through one self. This kernel of psychological truth graces an otherwise outlandish story with just the right touch of credibility

But there’s far more at stake in “Notorious,” Hitchcock’s classic World War II caper.  Cary Grant’s task is to romance Ingrid Bergman, the daughter of a prominent Nazi, and then, once he’s gained her confidence, manipulate her in such a way as to get at military secrets. But when they fall in love Grant discovers that she’s innocent of collaboration.  In spite of that he keeps his own role in the war effort a secret.

But then things get complicated.  Grant has to get her into bed with one of the enemy, (played with great sympathy by Claude Rains,) so that he’ll trust her enough to reveal the German’s plan to smuggle uranium.  Hitchcock taps into a very dark aspect of Grant’s nature, which keeps the emotional and physical danger running neck and neck.  You keep asking yourself how Grant, so seemingly decent, could arrange for this other guy to have sex with the woman he loves, in so doing, to risk her life.  When the Nazis catch on, and start to poison her, we can’t be sure whether he’ll intervene and save her. The suspense, based on a capricious aspect of human nature, reaches the sublime.

Sex and love can always be depended on to foul up a caper, from the Jason Statham driven “The Bank Job,” to Steve McQueen’s “Getaway,” to Jules Dassin’s classic, “Riffifi.” Desire always calls upon us to order our priorities, and then to make tough decisions. Which brings us to “Inception.”

The mastermind in this case, is an intellectual, who has the ability to insert himself into other people’s dreams and influence their behavior.

We meet DeCaprio and his support staff of dream invaders in a lengthy torrent of effects heavy action that confounds us until it ends, when it’s mostly explained.  The “impossible,” assignment they’re handed, is to get inside a billionaire’s head and plant an idea that will impact his politics. Hence the “inception” of the title.

Essential to the success of this far reaching task is the expertise of the several specialists, who function like safecrackers or demolition experts in more conventional examples of the genre.  In this case they perform more metaphysical functions, like building dreams, administering drugs, or creating imaginary scenery.  On some level they’re a little like web designers.  The issue that complicates the task, the human factor, is DiCaprio’s preoccupation with his dead wife, who more or less “lives” in his dreams, cluttering them with guilt. When things get really sticky, and the lives of his entire team hang in the balance, can he separate from an obsession with her accidental death?

Carl Jung, if he’s watching from some heavenly screening room, is wearing a huge grin, as most of “Inceptions” ideas have been lifted from his pioneering work on the subconscious. Jung would be especially impressed with the lavish and well conceived dreamscapes that are among the movie’s many technical achievements.

Things go awry, as they must, both in the real world, where the team works in a kind of comatose limbo, and the dream, where the dead wife exerts a distracting and potentially fatal influence. The ground rules are established early on, although they’re augmented when things get more complicated.

One of the most startling passages depicts the entire team asleep in a van as it hurtles through New York City, with heavily armed bad guys in pursuit. Because it’s been contrived in order to disorient the “mark,” there’s no real jeopardy.  Still, the image of a half dozen people sleeping through a hail of machine gun fire is both startling and comic.  And like a lot of the other big thrills in the movie, it’s expertly shot and directed.

DiCaprio is sturdy in the lead, working in the same mode as “Shutter Island.”  Ever since Scorcese’s Howard Hughes bio, he’s been the go to guy for the troubled leading man roles in big studio productions.  Director Nolan has surrounded him with the best supporting cast one could expect in any world; Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon Levitt, and Ken Watanabe, among others.  Nolan’s script gives the secondary players as much to do as the leads in less ambitious films.  Marion Cotillard, whose bruised beauty is used to brilliant effect, haunts DiCaprio’s dreams and keeps us guessing as to what new strategy she’ll come up with to sabotage the mission.

No less than three action sequences play out simultaneously in the final act, each with a unique production design and pace.  As you would expect of a movie that cost $160 million, the effects are seamless, and at times, like when we enter the dream world DiCaprio and Cotillard create for their marriage, emotionally compelling.

But there’s something about this immensely entertaining movie that nagged at me at the end.  It’s more than the fact that the rules of the game are continually modified as complications ensue.  It has to do with the entire conception.

Most movies that linger in our memory are driven, from the very start by a character, and his problems.  When the best of them bring physical and psychological jeopardy together, as in “Notorious,” they stay with us even after the logistics of the story fades away. But “Inception,” like Nolan’s early “The Prestige,” and “Memento,” seems to have been conceived from the other direction.  That is, the characters have been rigged to fit unusual plot devices.

One of the tips of to this strategy is the way “Inception” begins, with that very long action sequence.  It’s almost a half hour before we know who our leads are or what they’re up to. So while we’re curious, the movie doesn’t build our involvement with DiCaprio and his issues until much later on.

These caveats notwithstanding, “Inception” is terrific entertainment, and a blessed relief from a slew of tepid summer blockbusters struggling to recoup the oversize budgets studios have lavished on them.

Briefly noted…

I was sorry to see “Cyrus,” get such a short run at the local multiplex.  Even though it’s managed to escape the art house ghetto too few people have been turned on to this funny, truly adult comedy.

I’ll comment on “Cyrus,” its inspired cast and sharp tongued writer/directors, when the film appears on DVD.  For now, if it shows up in another local, venue, go!

The appearance of “The Secret in Their Eyes” at a local art house is one small sign that the experience of seeing a foreign language title in a theater has not entirely escaped this community.  I wrote about this one early this summer, urging movie lovers to go for it.  For the short time it’s here, you can see a skillful and moving Argentine thriller, the Academy Award winner from last year, on a big screen.

And while I’m on the subject of theatrical releases, the second installment in the Dragon Tattoo series, “The Girl Who Played With Fire,” is currently lighting a fire under movie goers in Philadelphia.  If you liked the first, this is more of the same, in a slightly different key.  I’ll have more to say about this enigmatic “girl” in the near future.

By Daniel Cohen, Santa Monica Reporter

“The Secret in Their Eyes,” the 2009 foreign language Oscar winner, was an interesting choice, especially in light of the other contenders, a group of ambitious, highly stylized dramas, (“Un Prophet,” “Ajami,” “The White Ribbon”) with unique directorial stamps.  It is especially interesting, since on its surface this Argentine drama appears so cool and conventional.

Academy voters, who generally skew older, were probably attracted to the movies’ appealing, middle aged cast, and its adult sensibilities. The story proceeds at a leisurely pace, and though it never rests, it honors multiple aspects of the complicated story, with a subtle, overarching emphasis on the social and political contexts.

It starts with a dream of two people unhappily parting at a train station.  Beautifully shot and edited, the sequence is arresting, but slightly overwrought.  Our feelings about it are mixed; there’s something a little too Hallmark card about it.  But it’s quickly revealed as occurring in the mind of a retired police official struggling to write his life story.  So it’s actually the equivalent of purple prose.  Right from the start you sense the presence of an alert, ironic sensibility behind the camera.  And then,  without warning,  a jarring flash back to a grisly murder, followed by an uncomfortable reunion with the officers’ former boss, a woman who may or may not have been the character in his autobiographical novel.

Is this a movie about an unresolved murder, corruption at the upper levels of the Argentine government, or lost love?  Turns out it’s all of that, and a lot more, delicately and precisely realized by director Juan Jose Campanella, a veteran of many TV shows.    Campanella  knows exactly how to keep the seemingly disparate elements in balance. He gets excellent support from Felix Monti’s fluid images, and his own confident editing.

Most of the story takes place twenty years in the past, as Benjamin Esposito, a prosecutor and detective, does his best to corral a suspect for the outrageous murder we see in the opening.  As the investigation begins, he and his partner, an idiosyncratic drunk with a keen understanding of human nature, have little but their own ingenuity to rely on.  Esposito believes that eyes reveal secrets, but also lies.  In the course of their investigation the two cops blithely disregard the law.  But the law and those who enforce it are not above double dealing and deceit.  Trouble ensues.

The movie has a deliberate pace, but it’s not slow. It comes to a conventional and satisfying conclusion, although the means to getting there are entirely fresh.  When the initial dream sequence is revisited, much later, it takes on a whole new significance. A lost love, between two people of different socio economic backgrounds, is so skillfully woven into the mystery that it becomes just as vital as the darkest revelations regarding the crime.

Campanella, also the co-writer, drew the material from a novel of the same title.  The quirky forward momentum, which pauses for several amusing digressions, has the flavor of the printed page, probably because there’s so much dialogue. The payoffs, which come later, have as much to do with character as plot. Because the story moves back and forth, over twenty years, the physical presence of the actors graces it with a lived in quality that no amount of print could capture.

Esposito, played by Ricardo Darin is South Americas answer to Javier Bardem; rough hewn but soulful. You may remember him from two other terrific Argentine crime dramas, “Nine Queens,” and “The Aura.”  (Both are available on DVD and highly recommended.) The acting of the entire, large cast is so precisely tuned, that the smallest moments, amounting to little more than minute facial movements, speak volumes about the characters.  A sequence near the middle, involving an interrogation that goes from whispers to roars, is as hair raising as the grisly murder. Call it one more testament to the power of screen acting.

SPLICE

A widely distributed sci fi thriller with Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley, “Splice” immediately gets your attention. With a cast of that caliber, you can’t imagine it in the same category as the cheesy commercial fodder that shows up on the Sci Fi channel disguised as movies.  But “Splice” works so hard to swim in the other direction it fails as compelling entertainment.

The set up is, well, let’s remain civil and call it time tested.  Two attractive scientists, who’ve already created a blob like life  in a test tube, long to move up the food chain by birthing a creature closer to their own image.  I’m not sure what they splice the human DNA to, or even why, but the computer graphics try to convince us they know what they’re doing.  And of course the endeavor is expressly forbidden by their employers; this time a French corporate she devil, because, if the credits are to be believed, the film is a French-Canadian co production.

The spawn of their efforts, which enters the world like a super chicken on Red Bull, eventually develops into an expressive female humanoid, but a humanoid with problems.  Fine so far, because we’ll accept the tired conventions to get the action going. But as the creature becomes an adolescent the script turns its attention on the troubles of its creators.  Most of the remaining running time is devoted to their personal problems and the resultant impact on their parenting.  We like Body and Polley, even when their neuroses get the better of them, but we’re more interested in what the creature is up to. And that, as it turns out, is not much.

There’s intelligence and taste in the production and the moment to moment direction. And the creature is physically convincing.  A few of its powers seem to develop more by the whim of  screenwriters than anything seeded in the plot line, which also takes its toll as the latter half whimpers on.

Earlier this year, George Romero’s dirt cheap “The Crazies” was rebooted with a healthy budget and a sharp cast headed by Timothy Olyphant and Rhada Mitchell. An effective shocker with a bit of an edge, it stated its case and the basic social implications, then got down to the business of thrills.  It was canny enough to sense the limitations of the idea and play to its strengths; the tried and true elimination game.

The problem with “Splice” is that the director, Vincenzo Natali, who made the smart and concise “Cube” back in 1997, never came up with a strong enough proxy to substitute for the elements we expect in the sci fi horror thrillers.   The trailer makes “Splice” look like a high voltage thrill ride; there are quick cuts to  arms stuck in lab equipment, a creature swooping down from nowhere, Polley and Brody frozen with fear.  But the actual movie is more dreary melodrama than dreamy nightmare.  You don’t fault it for its intelligence, or the convincing performances; you fault it for its arty pretensions.

By Santa Monica Reporter, Dan Cohen

Theaters like Landmark’s Ritz in Philadelphia, have become the last venue for adult dramas with adult casts, which in the not so distant past were a mainstay of popular cinema.  As a result,  a standard issue revenge flick, like the Michael Caine driven “Harry Brown,” ends up in these “art” houses, probably because it’s star, now in his late 70s, belongs to the older demographic.  But “Harry Brown no more belongs in art houses than “Harry Potter.”

I suppose the difference between “Harry Brown” and the majority of B movies masquerading as dramas, are the British accents, since the story takes place in a down and dirty part of London.  But Michael Caine’s stately and elegant presence, and our memory of him in so many deeply nuanced roles, are the only distinguishing features in this ugly and simple minded blood bath. Drama involves human interaction; the only thing Caine interacts with here is a gun.

An aged pensioner goes on a killing spree after his best friend is found murdered. His targets, the odious teenagers in a multi ethnic street gang, are shown early on to be cold blooded killers. So in terms of dramatic elements, they exist solely as prey. Brown, a retired marine who hasn’t lost his touch, stalks the worst and lets loose on them. As the rampage escalates, a miscast Emily Mortimer, the detective assigned to investigate, pursues with a grim posture that suggests she’d rather be collecting her paycheck in another line of work, or movie.

Director Daniel Barber shows he can elicit the maximum impact from the collision of bullets and flesh, even with the camera at a distance, where you’d think the carnage might feel restrained. It does not. He and his effects crew are to be applauded for the spurting fountains of red that are the most moving aspects of this dour, dispiriting mess.

A couple seasons back Liam Neeson went ballistic on a variety of scumbags living off the flesh of kidnapped teenage girls in the hugely successful “Taken.”  But director Pierre Morel, a cinematographer who directed the kinetic “District 13,” kept his absurd rampage moving with spirited energy. The rocket fuel that kept it moving made what should have been unsavory and bleak into a breathless whirlwind through several levels of Parisian lowlife.  Neesons’ sad eyed face, married to his unapologetic, libinous malice, recalled the Charles Bronson of the comically overwrought “Death Wish,” series.  In comparison, “Harry Brown” is a dirge. The lesson for filmmakers; if you’re going to make feckless trash, do it with brio.

A dash of brio might lifted Rodrigo Garcia’s well acted and crafted “Mother and Child” above the level of well intentioned melodrama, where it lives for most of its running time. But writer/director Garcia eschews the light touch that directors like Woody Allen have mastered, for deadly earnest.

A multi character drama, largely composed in a series of brief, humorless encounters between characters who don’t like each other very much, but are more or less bound by sex, kinship, or paternity, this is a roadmap of an emotional territory where you don’t want to live if you don’t have to.

Annette Benning, Naomi Watts, Samuel Jackson, Jimmy Smits, Kerry Washington and many others are included in the sprawling cast, and they’re all fine as far as fulfilling the director’s intentions.  But you’re more likely to be engaged in identifying the procession of notable character actors, (isn’t that what’s-his-name from dah dah dah?) than getting genuinely involved with them.

Why is that? Partially it’s the film’s structure, which moves from one emotional high point to the next with mostly cause and effect connecting them.  Making matters more problematic,  the essence of each scene is telegraphed long before it’s over, so after the strategy repeats a few times, you tend to hang around waiting for one episode to end and another to begin.

Woody Allen, in “Husbands and Wives,” or “Hannah and Her Sisters,” and the Robert Altman, of “Nashville,” and “Gosford Park” demonstrate how to bring multi character pieces to life.  Both rely heavily on humor, and place way more emphasis on character and circumstance than an obvious scheme that could be taken for a “message.” (All four are currently available on DVD)

Garcia’s message, and this is indeed a message movie, is that bringing children into the world has consequences that go far beyond the simple reality of their existence.  As a cautionary tale it’s effective, but it may be more useful to high school hygiene classes than movie goers.

DVD watch

“Il Divo,” (The Diety,) a stunning, disturbing and altogether disorienting biography of Giulio Andreotti, a murderous Italian politician, is now on DVD. I find it hard to enjoy or recommend films that lose me, but this is an exception.

“Il Divo,” is a hunchbacked, devious, and charismatic member of the Italian parliament, who in spite of his deeply corrupted, violent tactics, (or perhaps because of them,) served seven terms in their legislative body.  His story is lit and shot like a never ending nightmare that reminds us Italy has only functioned as a unified state since 1900. And that their politics have been inextricably linked to the worst elements of church and state.

If Fellini and Bertolucci had a kid together, he might have been blessed with the talents of writer/director Paolo Sorrentino.  Even when his gorgeously made film confuses us with its wealth of characters and intrigues, you remain awed by the rapturous filmmaking. The DVD is a  perfect medium for us non Italians to experience it, because we can always stop the film and rewind a bit to catch up with the various entanglements and intrigues it outlines.

You may want to read a little on Andreotti and the treacherous times he lived in before tackling the movie, but it’s well worth the trouble.

By Dan Cohen, Santa Monica Reporter

Back in July of 2006, the small Chicago based distributor, Music Box Films, released “Tell No One,” a French thriller based on a novel by an American, Harlen Corben. Much to everyone’s’ surprise, the movie, winner of several French “Cesars” raked in over 6 million US dollars, a big number for a foreign language film.

“Tell No One’s” pleasantly contrived plot line, seasoned with a sexy, Gallic flavor, found favor among adults searching for an alternative to the teen directed blockbusters that normally predominate in summer. While the relatively small gross meant nothing to major distributors, it was a huge windfall for Music Box.  And its’ success proved once again, that if you offer adults smart entertainment, they’ll turn out.

The plucky small distributor, followed up with an interesting slate of foreign releases, including the sensational “Il Divo,” which I’ll discuss in a forthcoming article covering DVDS. But none of their titles burned with the viral intensity of “Tell No One.”  Until now.

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” the latest overseas pickup from Music Box, is rapidly becoming the must see art house thriller of the year.  Running a little more than two and half hours, (with almost 30 minutes trimmed from its original length) the movie keeps your riveted with a complicated story line, perverse sex, and periodic spurts of grisly, but tasteful, blood letting.  It’s more unlikely aspects are blunted by expert filmmaking, which tantalizes you with the sense that anything could happen to the off beat characters.

Immediately after serving a brief jail term, Mikael Blomqvist, a controversial journalist, is hired by the patriarch of a wealthy Swedish family to find out how and why his favorite niece disappeared forty years ago.  As the journalist delves into the family tree, his work is secretly monitored by a voyeuristic, private investigator with a prison record herself. Spying on him through cyberspace, (hooked up to his computer) she keeps to a safe distance, until plot devices compel her to intervene.  Once the two partner up, their very different inclinations, (the investigators’ penchant for violence, the writers’ compulsive curiosity), accelerate a dangerous journey.

Why anybody other than an idiosyncratic octogenarian would hire either of these characters, and what attracts them to each other, are questions the movie never takes up.  Since I haven’t read it, I can’t tell you if these issues are addressed in Stieg Larssons’ lengthy novel, on which the deft screenplay is based.  But it matters little to the movie, as its confident filmmaking quickly disarms your rational faculties, especially when things get nasty. Given that at its heart, “Dragon Tattoo” never aspires to more than adult fun, there isn’t much to complain.

And good fun it is, especially when Lisbeth, a spiky haired lesbian with a nearly wordless demeanor, takes eye popping revenge on a predatory male, or goes ballistic on one of the several bad guys who threaten her partner Mikael. This time out the male is clearly the more genteel of the two.  And the movie is all the better for that.

Lisbeth, who never leaves home in less than head to toe, skin tight leather, is the latest in a series of darker than dark heroines who appeal to that part of our psyche that flirts with sado-masochism.  On this side of the Atlantic this archetype is best personified by Angela Jolie, whose contemptuous sneers and snarls are the high points of over the top fantasies, like “Wanted” and “Lara Croft.”  Jolie is our tepid contribution to a  tradition that was better served by a number of others, including the divinely talented Diana Rigg, who, with tongue firmly planted in cheek and body stuffed into leather jump suits, delivered karate chops to evil doers in the slyly comic, mid sixties TV series, “The Avengers.”   Oh, for the good old days.

Noomi Rapace, a thirtyish veteran of TV, playing the dragon girl with a face as frozen as the Swedish winter, makes Jolie’s half hearted sadists look like lawyers bar hopping on Friday nights. Her expressions are so tortured that when she strips down to show her dragon tattoo and protruding rib cage, you worry that sex, for her, might be a prelude to ritual slaying. Have no fear; two sequels featuring the same unlikely duo are already in the can.

“Tell No Evil,” and “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” have been secured for American remakes. But in order for them to work as popular movies both will have to be completely rethought, as the better part of their charm is bound up with their European settings and attendant attitudes. My hope is the rights holders will get distracted by subjects closer to home and leave well enough alone.  One more interesting note; “Dragon’s” original Swedish title is “Men who Hate Women,” a line that is amply illustrated in the story.

“Un Prophet,” along with “The White Ribbon,” were the odds on favorites for last years foreign language Oscar.  As it turned out, neither won.  “Ribbon,” an earnest work by a director of the highest order, was probably too dense and demanding. “The Story in Their Eyes,” from Argentina, took home the statue.  More on that one later.

“Un Prophet,” an ambitious chronicle of a young immigrant’s evolution from petty criminal to major criminal has a relentless energy not to be denied. Its ugliness is relieved by meticulous detail along with a script that refuses to fall back on sentimentality.

I believe it was Sartre who commented that the humanity of a society could be measured by the way it treated its prisoners. If that really is the case, and there’s any truth to “Un Prophet,” French prisons do not speak very well for the society that maintains them.

Bullied by the two main gangs that dominate life inside a middle level correction facility, a young Arab is ordered to murder a fellow inmate suspected of informing. But the order is just the beginning of his odyssey.

Although Malik’s sole interest is serving the six year sentence he considers unjust, and to some extent, the bi product of his illiteracy, he becomes easy prey for the designs of a ruthless Corsican Mafioso, who controls a large contingency of the prison population.

After the rude, disorienting shocks that establish the setting, the movie focuses on the process by which Malik ingratiates himself to the powers that be. In truth, he has little choice.  Eventually he learns the skills that will serve him both within and without the prison.  Along the way he sees the inevitable ebb and flow that binds him and his fellows to a cycle of crime that may be their only entrée to middle class life.

Most of director Jacques Audiard’s well observed drama takes place within prison walls, although vivid fantasies and a number of pivotal sequences liberate the camera and his protagonist from the claustrophobic settings of the films first half. The initial thirty minutes or so, which build to one of the most terrifying sequences in recent memory, are hardly relieved by what comes after, but they do set the stage for an evolution of sorts, even if it does show the human impulse to bond as more of a liability than an asset.

“Un Prophet” has been compared to “The Godfather,” but it doesn’t have nearly the scope of Coppola’s classic. For one thing, there’s almost no place for a female voice. Interestingly, Audiard, writer and director of the remarkable “Read My Lips,” from 2001, has shown an uncanny ability to weave a unique male/female dynamic into the fabric of a suspense thriller.  Let me digress on that one for a minute.

“Lips,” begins as a drama about the tentative relationship between a cloistered and deaf office worker and a low level convict, then gracefully evolves into a nail biting caper flick.  Carla, a plain office worker generally reviled by her co workers, is handed the unenviable task of finding a place for the sadly disheveled Paul, who, as the movie begins, spends his nights in broom closets. Their slow process of bonding eventually yields an ideal team for an imaginative, hair raising robbery. The characters are not so much acted as inhabited by brilliant actors; Emmanuelle Devos and Vincent Cassell.  Get the DVD!

I don’t mean to minimize the strengths of “Un Prophet,” because it moves toward a breath taking set piece that fully exploits the wealth of details accumulated early on.  But it doesn’t have the positive libido of Audiard’s earlier work, where so much more is at stake.

The screen writer of several other French thrillers, Aduiard knows the genre and the people. “Un Prophet” is a work of grit and integrity.  But its isolated character leaves us cold.

Both “Un Prophet” and “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” are screening in Philadelphia. Both run a solid two and a half hours, and are more than worth the trip…especially considering the studio drivel currently filling local screens.