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.

By Santa Monica reporter Dan Cohen

“The Ghost Writer,” adapted by Roland Harris from his novel, “The Ghost,” and directed by the 76 year old Roman Polanski, is intelligent, smartly acted and handsomely shot. While it doesn’t have the stylistic élan of the director’s finest works – “Chinatown,” “Rosemary’s Baby,” “Tess,” (among others,); the knowing direction and visual flourishes keep reminding us a master craftsman is in charge.  And yet at the end, the movie isn’t as effective as we’d like it to be.

There’s no way to talk about this movie without some mention of Polanski’s topsy-turvy career.  There’s the temptation to relegate him to the past, say the 70s, when more attention was on his work than his court case. And it’s true that his most trenchant essays on the tortured psyche came in that middle period, before his wife was murdered in one of the most bizarre spectacles of the century. But every once in a while he’s re-established his credentials; in 1994 with a successful adaptation of the dark play “Death and the Maiden,” and then in 2002 with the multi award winning, “The Pianist.”  It’s just that “The Ghost Writer,” doesn’t measure up to his best work.

The set up generates a fair amount of interest.  Taking direction from current political scandals, it takes a fictional swipe at the relationship between George Bush and his British ally, Tony Blair.  And while we’ve seen this played out on the world stage, the movie tries to examine the murkier aspects of what’s on record from a different angle.

A middling writer, (Ewan McGregor) is hired to help a recently retired Prime Minister (Pierce Brosnan,) complete his autobiography after his “ghost writer” washes up on a beach, assumed to be a suicide.  The new hire, saddled with a nearly impossible deadline, is rapidly dispatched to a beachside compound where Adam Lang and his staff have been ensconced get the book done.

At exactly the moment McGergor accepts the assignment, a former colleague accuses Lang of having facilitated the torture of several suspected terrorists. The writer quickly realizes that the book could turn out to be more than predictably self aggrandizing, if he can just get his subject to talk. And, at first, Lang seems wiling.   But as he becomes enmeshed in a growing scandal that brings the threat of criminal charges, the work slows down.  While Lang, his wife, and staff struggle to stave off the press and other hostiles, the writer, mission interrupted, the “ghost” becomes drawn into the circumstances surrounding the former ghost writer’s demise.

McGregor is credible as a resourceful journeyman suddenly immersed in a political intrigue several levels beyond his pay grade.  Brosnan, by now the most seasoned of pros, deploys a host of idiosyncrasies to realize the mercurial Lang.   Olivia Williams, as Lang’s  troubled wife, takes a role constructed from the kind of conventions we recognize the moment she’s introduced, and breathes a bracing if icy life into it.  She’s the real surprise here.

Underused, at least in the US, Williams has the kind of face that transforms from mildly troubled to deeply ravaged with the slightest gesture.  Even though her character is shortchanged in terms of deveopment, sometimes to the point where her mood changes feel improvised, the actress rivets our attention in every scene.

The script is studded with low key wit. And it wastes no time getting started.  But before we get to the real problem a profusion of details, mainly delivered through dialogue, relegate suspense to the back burner.  Miss a few lines and you’re struggling to keep up.  And this is a problem that plagues the entire movie.

It isn’t that the writing isn’t good; it’s that the nature of the material, which originated in a different form, is better served by a leisurely pace.  As a movie, “Ghost Writer” is never less than skillful; it’s just too dense to get really juiced.

Then there’s the issue of motivation. McGregor ‘s first telling clue that all is not well, comes when he goes through the dead writers stuff and finds something that reveals an inconsistency in Lang’s story.  A photo leads him to former associates, which, in turn, brings on the bad guys we know are waiting in the wings.  You’d think at this point our hero would at least smell the trouble brewing, but he doesn’t. Ok, we’ll let that slide because we know he has to put himself in jeopardy in order for the story to continue. But there’s more.

Threatening weather clues us that evil lurks the first time McGregor ventures beyond the gaze of the PM’s security guards.  But we don’t know why or who he’s up against until more than an hour into the picture, again an impediment to the creation of real suspense. The problem is –  we don’t know the real problem.

Then there’s the surprise that comes in the last few minutes, a revelation that while cleverly conceived, is not very revealing.  More than that, it really doesn’t impact most of what we’ve already seen.

“The Ghost Writer” arrives on the heels of two other suspense driven features; “Green Zone,” and “The Crazies,” which is a horror movie, although many of the same elements of filmmaking are present.

The elements in “Green Zone,” are so predictable that we’re ahead of the story at the most critical junctures.  As it follows an inevitable glide path there are simply not enough diversions to keep us from becoming complacent. “Ghost Writers’” problem is exactly the opposite; we’re too much in the dark. As the plot becomes deeper and denser it defies our participation, which keeps us at arms’ length. We’re thankful when the proceedings are goosed by a well mounted chase or a distracting bit of sex, but we’re still iced out of real involvement.

“The Crazies” is little more than a formulaic horror thriller, but it studies its well travelled landscape with several  unexpected speed bumps, and as a result is much more successful in keeping us engaged. We know right from the start that the small town is under siege, but a half dozen inspired set pieces, all of which take place within the movie’s established boundaries, give it a fresh veneer.  If you’re a fan of the genre, you come away from it satisfied.

It doesn’t seem fair when films with serious aspirations are shown up by their poorer relatives, who have nothing on their minds but cheap thrills.  But when writers and directors defy  the rules of suspense so well articulated by the old masters; Hitchcock, Carol Reed, (“The Third Man”)  Don Seigel, (the original “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” “Dirty Harry,”)  they do so at their peril.

Paul Greengrass’ hyperkinetic take on the boondoggle that launched the Iraq war adds little to what we already know, and is less persuasive than speculative accounts that have been rehashed ad nauseam in other media.  As “Green Zone” screeches to a thundering finale, where a single army officer takes on a helicopter augmented strike team of Special Forces, you wonder not only what its creators were thinking, but who they thought they were talking to.

It’s one thing for a movie to fictionalize recent history, but another for it to render it in the conventions of an overheated action movie.  It becomes even more of a stumbling block when the script fails to tell us more than we already know, at the same time it trumpets its concerns with blaring self importance.

Shortly after the occupation of Baghdad, Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, (Matt Damon,) is assigned the risky task of securing the locations where Saddam supposedly stored weapons of mass destruction.  Several costly fire fights later, with nothing to show for his dangerous mission, Miller begins to doubt the accuracy of military intelligence.  When he complains at a briefing, his superiors all but squash him.

Reprimanded and ordered to continue, Miller decides to investigate the reliability of their intelligence on his own.  It soon becomes evident that the information on which the entire war is being prosecuted, originated from a single source.

Sound familiar? In addition to the already mentioned elements, the movie boasts a female journalist who’s alleged to have been tipped off about the whereabouts of Saddam’s WMDs.  Add to that a Baathist General on the run, whose face appears on a set of playing cards that identify him as the architect of the countries’ chemical warfare program.

Matt Damon plays Miller with more than his customary diligence.   Greg Kinnear oozes oil as a mendacious bureaucrat. Amy Ryan and Brendan Geeson, stellar character actors, decorate the scenery without chewing it up.  You yearn to see all of them in more challenging roles.

The opening siege is tense.  Greengrass’ recreation of Iraq in the grip of chaos, reportedly shot in Morocco, is appropriately harrowing.  He quickly establishes a landscape of pervasive upheaval, which, juxtaposed on life in the Green Zone, where women in bikinis casually fraternize with officers and press at poolside, speaks volumes about “multinational” forces.

But the movie isn’t content with the inherent tension of the locale and its tragedy. It wants to reduce the problem of the war and its advocates to a few bad guys with a single agenda.  As it hurtles forward, and that’s the only way to describe the way this one moves, the canvas keeps shrinking, until it seems like Damon is the only one in the country with the moxie to ferret out the truth. As the focus narrows to several characters on a collision course, he starts dodging bullets like a super hero out of Marvel comics.  Though I consider myself sympathetic to the movie’s politics, I found myself increasingly aggravated by its uncomfortable mix of matinee heroics and didactic tone.

Can you blame Brian Helgeland, an accomplished writer, for the way he’s treated the book, “Life In the Emerald City,” on which his screenplay is based? I haven’t read it so I can’t say, but I’ve heard the author, Rajiv Chandrasekaran speak,  and he came off as  far more sophisticated than the script that fronts his work.

Greengrass gave two Bourne thrillers, (“Bourne Supremacy,” and “Bourne Ultimatum,” a veneer of credibility that played smartly against their unlikely action scenes.  Credibility never became an issue, because nothing was at stake; you couldn’t fault the films, even when the camera cheated its way through chases and shoot outs that defied physics.

But “Green Zones’” relentless, hand held camerawork and sketchy lighting are more than distracting; they’re headache inducing.  In fact, most of the protracted action sequence that concludes the movie feels like it was shot from a camera attached to a bungee chord and dropped from a window.  Out of focus, dark, grainy images; pumped up by the bombastic score, insult your intelligence and gravity at the same time.

Last week, as I was composing a mildly negative review of Tim Burton’s “Alice In Wonderland,” the movie was raking in 116 million at the box office.  This, after early industry wags predicted about half that figure. By Sunday night it was the biggest March opening on record.

These numbers, coming at what’s usually a slack period at the theaters, reveal several trends on the ascent:

Theater attendance has increased, moving almost inversely to the negative movement of the economy.  Under the circumstances you’d think people would be more inclined to sit in front of their flat screens at home; but no, they’re showing up at the multiplex with increasing frequency.  One possible explanation; movie tickets are a lot cheaper than weekend getaways.

Disney did an excellent job marketing the film; I knew this the moment I walked into a 9:45 screening at a small town theater in Florida and discovered the place  three quarters full, with mainly adults in the seats.

Burton and Depp are a draw; they’ve made enough films to have developed the kind of fan base that immediately responds to seeing their names together.  But Depp on his own doesn’t seem to mean as much; despite his charismatic lead in Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies,” the movie struggled to break even.

3D is a compelling selling point; people seem willing to pay an extra three bucks for the clunky glasses the theaters insist you buy along with your ticket, that they then request you “recycle” on your way out. Recycle?  Hmmm?  Does that mean they’re going to charge you less the next time a 3D movie screens? I don’t think so.

The industry view is that the positive experience of the 3D “Avatar” created an appetite for more.  But you could see the germ of that earlier in the year, when a number of otherwise standard issue horror titles, distinguished only by spurting blood and body parts, earned substantially more than they should have.

As is rapidly becoming the norm, Alice’s 3D effects were added in post production. According to the editors, the decision to enhance the high def footage didn’t come until mid January, about 6 weeks before its scheduled release date.  Digital images, as it turns out, lend themselves to the illusion of depth.  All it takes is gobs of money and scores of artist/technicians.   Alice was completed in time for its scheduled release, at a reported 200 million, although the studio may have cooked that figure to impress the media. One never knows.

Disney was smart in its placement of “Alice,“ at precisely the moment “Avatar’s” popularity began to wane, although compared to James Cameron’s masterwork, Burton’s movie comes off like a gallery of stills.  The studios are well aware that theaters worldwide have been equipped for the new medium.  But they couldn’t have anticipated the huge cash bounty Avatar called forth. Now that the floodgates have opened, a host of other features, like “Clash of the Titans,” are currently being overhauled to take advantage of the seemingly unquenchable taste for images that float in space

So we can expect in a steady stream of 3D, at least until the public gets sideswiped by a string of bloated losers, almost a certainty.  Or people just grow weary of actors hanging in front of them like super sized lap dancers.

We’ll soon see how word of mouth impacts “Alice’s” second week. I overheard a lot of grumbling on my way out of the theater.   But it doesn’t really matter, as Disney’s second pass at “Alice” has already rung the cash register to the tune of 240 million worldwide.

By Dan Cohen, Santa Monica Reporter

Two remakes this week; a second go-round for Disney with “Alice in Wonderland,” and a polished reworking of 1973’s, “The Crazies.” While “Alice” aims high, the “Crazies” hits harder.

Tim Burtons’  ”Alice in Wonderland,” is actually the third English speaking version of the Lewis Carroll classic made here.  (There have been others, overseas.)  Paramount first tackled this meandering fantasy back in 1933, generating a wealth of publicity in connection with the casting of Alice. They alleged to have auditioned seven hundred professionals and amateurs before settling on Charlotte Henry, a relative newcomer. Debuting at Christmas time, featuring a bevy of well known actors, and incorporating fabled episodes from both “Alice,” and the sequel, “Through the Looking Glass,” it still failed to captivate the mass audience.

Walt Disney was always intrigued by the material, and early in his career produced a couple of shorts with the title character in the lead.  But the real labor went into his Alice from 1951. He was determined to contrive a narrative that honored the satire at the film’s core at the same time it pleased children with its luscious premise; a little girl who falls down a rabbit hole and ends up in an unpredictable “wonderland.”

The Disney artists were given significant latitude in creating the movies’ look. The script, largely episodic, tried to convey the essence of the novels.  But like the Paramount from the thirties, its satire, which had a lot more to do with the 19^th century than the 20^th, proved too remote for audiences.  Disney later conceded that he and his team failed to find the emotional core of Alice, and consigned the film to TV, quite extraordinary, as his general procedure was to broadcast only excerpts from his animated features, like “Pinocchio,” and “Sleeping Beauty,” and then, strictly as a prelude to their re-release in theaters.

I saw Alice, several times, on Disney’s TV show.  Long before seeing it in color I remember being mesmerized by the striking images and the lightning fast editing.  The animated Alice, beautifully realized, seemed adrift in wonderland, which was totally out of synch with anything in my world. The entire experience got “curiouser and curiouser,” without making much sense.

Disney’s  Alice was a noble experiment,  but anchored to impossibly dense material it was probably unsuitable for children and too arcane for many adults. The same can be said for Tim Burtons’ expensive and elaborate update.  This time Alice is 19, awkward lower middle class, and struggling under the yoke of the Victorian social mores in the 1860s. Faced with an unappealing marriage proposal, a subterranean tumble spares her from having to make an unpleasant decision.  It’s a promising set up, and Mia Wasikowska  is an open minded and sympathetic Alice.

The scenes that follow her fall, that detail her drug induced transformations, are captivating as a metaphor and a starting point for her journey.  Tweedledee and Tweedeldum, among her first distractions, happily inhabit a middle ground between the classic illustrations on which they’re based and seamless CGI effects.  Then comes Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, and Helena Bonham Carters’ Red Queen, probably the films’ most wondrous elements. Depp, a frequent Burton collaborator, and Carter, his wife, get the flashiest parts, and they’re both as puzzling and magnetic as you’d expect.

But then the problem of story intrudes, and the movie stumbles.  Carroll didn’t really care about forward momentum, leaving screenwriters and directors the burden of contriving a middle that moves to a satisfying conclusion.  But the movies’ promising set up, that introduces Alice as a woman struggling with her identity,  is almost cavalierly abandoned.  Alice’s age, verging on adulthood, provides her little other than athletic ability.  As it lumbers forward the lavish design fails to compensate for routine plotting that mimics every other fantasy/ spectacle where a hero or heroine is called to perform on the battlefield.  And it suffers in comparison to most.

The trippier aspects of both the early Paramount and the animated Disney, celebrated by the drug culture of the sixties, are passed over by Burtons’ overly literal storytelling.  Stripped of its satirical brio, the movies’ content isn’t rich enough to captivate adults. And though I’m way outside the demographic, I can’t see the sophisticated, hard edged characters holding the attention of young children. Talking dogs and rabbits are commonplace these days.

Burton, one of our foremost stylists, had an interesting take on “Sweeny Todd,” although I think the film lost something by making its leads younger than the originals in Sondheim’s’ brilliant theater piece.  His early features, “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure,” and “Edward Scissorshands,” work better because the characters complied more readily with Burton’s idiosyncrasies.  His remakes, like “Planet of the Apes,” and “Sleepy Hollow,” suffered because their source material wasn’t as malleable.  “Alice,” among his most ambitious projects, occupies an awkward space somewhere between the tepid remakes and the sturdier, stand alone originals.

As it began I had high hopes that Burton might completely reinvent Alice and her world.  That was probably too much to expect. Now, can we please leave Lewis Carroll’s’ work to the students of history and politics, its rightful heirs?

George Romero wrote and directed “The Crazies” in 1973, at a moment when distrust of the military, stoked by endless bad will from the Viet Nam war, reached an apex.  Now, almost 40 years later, in the wake of another war that’s put a bad taste in our mouths, the movie has been revisited. The story is the same, dressed up with better production values and performances by some very good actors.  And while it doesn’t resonate on levels the best horror films reach, it’s effective as a waking nightmare about military might gone haywire.

When a drunk interrupts a little league game with a loaded shotgun, the local sheriff, (Timothy Olyphant,) is forced to shoot him.  Shortly afterwards the cops wife, (Radha Mitchell,) a doctor, becomes puzzled by the listless behavior of a rural farmer. When the farmer burns down his home, killing his wife and child, the sheriff goes looking for a connection, and soon identifies a problem with the drinking water.  But before he can stop down the local system, his town is set upon by a gas masked strike force.  Things rapidly turn deadly, on a frighteningly large scale.

The situation is hackneyed, but it’s spiked by a host of refreshing incidents. The sheriff is ahead of the audience, which helps.  And as the community faces a full scale assault, the writers have contrived scenes of nerve jangling tension.

After the picture sets up the problem, the issue shifts to escape. It opens up the original, which, budgeted at around $250,000, was limited, even back in the seventies, when money went a lot further. The whole movie is shot with a soft, dreamy focus , complemented by slightly burned colors,  that recall the way a lot of B movies looked in the 70s, in the same way the story more or less mimics Romero’s original.

There’s a terrific scene where a car full of escapees gets stuck in a car wash. The claustrophobic feeling of riding with the passengers as the car slowly progresses through a wash cycle is exponentially amplified by the possibility that “crazies” are waiting at the other end.  A scene where a small boat passes over a large, submerged aircraft is a chilling precursor of the disaster to come.

As the noose tightens on the town, scenes pay off with the sort of bloodletting we’ve come to expect from the genre, so the weak of stomach should be warned. The violence, while unrelenting, is subdued by current standards.  Still, the R rating is well earned.

Romero hit the right nerve when he created his watershed “Night of the Living Dead.” Made in 1968, for pennies, it played havoc with the tensions that beset the nuclear family of the time.  That had been done before, but not with the same cutting brutality.  Exacerbating the nervousness was a nagging bit of racial commentary, that added an additional layer of discomfort.

Romero’s original “Crazies,” liberally borrowed from his “Living Dead.” A lot of it took place in a farmhouse, where the characters faced off against each other at the same time they confronted an onslaught of crazies from their own community.  The remake, while expertly directed by Breck Eisner, is less about personal squabbles and more about the spectacle of a complete breakdown in civil society.

The horror movies that stay with us, from “Dracula,” to “Rosemary’s Baby,” to “The Exorcist,” to Kubrick’s “The Shining”  are bound up with our most intimate  and for the most part, inarticulate anxieties.  As we examine them, we usually find the influence of Freud or Jung on their conceptual schemes. And finally, these dark shadows, that live in the basement of our conscious lives, are what take us by the throat.

The problem with “The Crazies,” is that it’s most disturbing aspects are mainly on the surface, a surface we’ve visited many times before. It’s most effective terrors are the product of the filmmakers’ techniques. We leave the theater disturbed, but for the most part because we’ve been expertly manipulated by professionals who know how and when to goose us.  The fear, palpable in the films’ best moments, is more physical than psychological.  You look over your shoulder, to see if your neighbor might be coming for you, but not to yourself, where the real terror lives.