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He has controled of the World!
Boys and their toys are in full formation in “Transformers,” a movie of epically assaultive noise and nonsense. Originating with the shape-shifting toys — created in Japan, rebranded in America — that transform from robots into stuff like cars and planes, then back again, the movie has been designed as the ultimate in shock-and-awe entertainment. The result is part car commercial, part military recruitment ad, a bumper-to-bumper pileup of big cars, big guns and, as befits its recently weaned target demographic, big breasts. First introduced in 1984, just in time for the rise of geek culture, the Transformer toys have spawned comic books, television shows, video games, an animated feature and a fan base that has grown beyond children to include collectors like Steven Spielberg, an executive producer for the new movie. Not surprisingly, there’s a touch of mawkish Spielbergian sentiment in the movie’s empathetic hook, a riff on the boy and his alien friendship from “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.” This time the boy is Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf, talking fast, running hard), a high schooler who discovers that his dingy 1970s Camaro is actually a gentle giant of a robot, Bumblebee. There’s more — a few goofy caricatures, some throwaway laughs, a lot of technological gobbledygook, the usual filler. Written by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, who cobbled the story together with John Rogers, the movie takes flight with a raucous, confusing attack on an American military base in Qatar. There, under the desert sun, muscly, sweaty military types (Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson) clash with an ominous helicopter that converts into a mysteriously angry critter with an articulated tail like that of a scorpion. Back in the United States the secretary of defense (Jon Voight) barks orders at other military types while Sam juggles his weird ride, his mounting fear and his agitated hormones. The guy charged with keeping the movie in gear is the director Michael Bay, the hard-core action savant whose other big-screen eruptions include “The Rock,” “Armageddon,” “Pearl Harbor” and “Bad Boys II.” Like his last effort, “The Island,” this new flick isn’t as propulsive and casually sadistic as the movies that he made with the producer Jerry Bruckheimer (this carries a reasonable PG-13); it feels slower, more tamped down than the usual Bruckheimer assaults. The camera, or rather multiple cameras, are still shooting every which way, and the cutting sometimes registers as eye-blink fast, but not compulsively so. Mr. Bay allows himself to linger here and there, which explains the bloated, almost two-and-a-half-hour running time. On the face of it “Transformers” is a story as old as the Greeks versus the Trojans, the difference being that these warriors are visitors from another planet, the 1980s-sounding Cybertron, and there isn’t a jot of poetry, tragedy, beauty, meaning or interest in this fight. The Autobots are trying to locate some all-important cube that looks like a Borg starship from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” before it’s found by the Autobots’ villainous alien brethren, the Decepticons. During their mission the Autobots blend into the earthly backdrop by turning into zippy cars and mondo trucks, a strategy that works particularly well in Southern California. Curiously, though the toys originated in Japan, no robot changes into a Toyota. It’s kind of nifty when the robots transform the first time; they furiously shake back and forth like wet dogs desperately to dry off. But by the 99th time there’s no fun left at all, even during the rock-’em, sock-’em knockdown that delivers the movie, in Spielbergesque pastiche, first to a violent and then to a warm-and-fuzzy close. The actors tend to be more engaging, notably Mr. LaBeouf, who brings energy and a semi-straight face to the dumbest setup. Just as easy on the eyes, though for other reasons, are the two female leads, the genius hacker in throw-her-down heels (Rachael Taylor) and the grease-monkey bombshell (Megan Fox) who helps Sam rise to the manly occasion. These walking, talking dolls register as less human and believable than the Transformers, which may be why they were even allowed inside this boy’s club. The movie waves the flag equally for Detroit and the military, if to no coherent end. Last year the director of General Motors brand-marketing and advertising clarified how the company’s cars were integral to the movie: “It’s a story of good versus evil. Our cars are the good guys.” And sure enough, most of the Autobots take the shape of GM vehicles, including Ratchet (a Hummer H2) and Ironhide (a TopKick pickup truck). The only Autobot that doesn’t wear that troubled automaker’s logo is the leader, Optimus Prime (a generic 18-wheeler tractor). Maybe that’s because the company didn’t want to be represented by a character that promises to blow itself up for the greater good, as Optimus does, especially one based on a child’s toy. Shape-shifters of another kind, Hollywood action movies bend this way and that politically in a bid to please as many viewers as possible, but they almost always play out exactly the same, as entertaining violence leads to heroic individualism leads to the restoration of order. “Transformers” is no different, even if it does offer chewy distraction for the bored viewer: the would-be suicide bomber, American soldiers tearing it up in the Middle East while American cars keep up the fight at home, along with plugs for Burger King, Lockheed Martin, Mountain Dew and the Department of Defense. Why there’s even a president who asks for a Ding Dong. He’s wearing red socks like a big old clown, but no one really laughs.
 He can change everything!
The gasping, grunting and oozing hard-body slab that muscles, and sometimes crawls, through "Live Free or Die Hard" sure looks like John McClane. Older if apparently no wiser, the blue-collar super-cop from the "Die Hard" franchise has lost his hair, his foul mouth and apparently his nicotine itch, but he still has the same knack for trouble, the adrenaline-pumping, cheerfully anarchic kind that causes cars to ignite, bodies to fly, eardrums to pop and hearts to race and gladden. He's also lost his sneer, but sneering is cheap, and movies are expensive, especially when your star has pushed past 50 and slid off the power lists. A lot has happened in the 12 years since Bruce Willis yippee-kai-yay-ed in "Die Hard With a Vengeance" with a glowering Samuel L. Jackson in tow. During that time Mr. Willis's star has expanded and collapsed through hits and duds and plenty of personal off-screen noise. The world has changed too, of course, and with it the action-flick coordinates: for one, Arnold Schwarzenegger runs California, while the sober, nonwisecracking likes of Matt Damon's Bourne rules the bad-boy roost. For another: Mr. Willis has become an increasingly appealing character actor, the kind who punches up a scene or two ("Alpha Dog," "Fast Food Nation") or an entire movie ("16 Blocks"), mostly by playing it not so nice and very easy. Life or age or something has mellowed Mr. Willis. He no longer enters a movie like God's gift, as he did almost two decades ago in the first "Die Hard," lips pursed as if he alone were in on the joke — which, given the fat salary he was earning, perhaps he was. In "Live Free or Die Hard" he enters swinging, fist smashing through hard glass and sinking into soft flesh. He's making a point and so is the movie, namely that McClane (and Mr. Willis) is ready to earn our love again by performing the same lovably violent, meathead tricks as before. And look, he's not laughing, not exactly, even if the film ends up a goof. An unexpectedly funny goof, at that, despite everything, including the mayhem and somewhat creepy plot. The screenplay attributed to Mark Bomback, who shares the story credit with David Marconi, has the whiff of multiple writers, as action-driven productions generally do. It originated with a 1997 story (dubiously titled "A Farewell to Arms") by John Carlin in Wired magazine about the potential for a cataclysmic, nation-crippling "information war," which mutated and stalled, picking up new writers and equally doubtful names . Somewhere along the development line, the real world intruded, which is why the original idea about an information war now includes a plausible-sounding or at least not entirely outlandish hook to Sept. 11 — hence, the creepiness. In most Hollywood action movies, references to Sept. 11 as well as to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are often tacked on or displaced, used for decorative flag-waving or scenes of torture. "Live Free or Die Hard" tries to engage the real world more directly than most studio-made fantasies, with a logic-defying plot involving a disgruntled government security expert. That would be Thomas Gabriel, who seems partly inspired by the counterterrorism expert Richard A. Clarke and partly informed by Bill Gates and is wholly played by the pretty Timothy Olyphant, dressed in black and wearing Maggie Q on his arm. Mr. Olyphant has many charms, but annihilating menace is not one of them. Mr. Willis nonetheless keeps any incredulity in check along with his sneer. Despite its jaw-jutting title, with its evocation of revolutionary America and radical individualism, "Live Free or Die Hard" keeps a tighter rein on McClane, dialing down his man-against-the-world attitude to a low hum. He's still more or less alone, at least existentially, though, as per the action playbook, he quickly picks up a sidekick and audience surrogate in the hacker impersonated by Justin Long (flicking between annoyance and amusement). But McClane is also unequivocally playing for team America, helping the F.B.I. and its no-nonsense, supremely capable deputy director, Bowman (Cliff Curtis), who runs the sillily named cyber division with blinking monitors and scurrying minions. Heroic in deed and in acquaintance, Bowman knows to side with McClane, saving his contemptuous looks for the guy from Homeland Security. Nothing on Len Wiseman's résumé — he previously directed the two "Underworld" flicks, wherein the Goth kids really are vampires — suggests that he could wrangle both Mr. Willis and this new film's nerve-jangling action to such satisfying effect. At least on the second count he has received terrific help from a sprawling cast of stuntmen and -women (and the stunt coordinator Brad Martin), who do a great deal to advance the film's old-school mayhem. The use of Parkour during several fight scenes is particularly tasty, proving that when cinematic push comes to shove, the French, who originated this ultra-cool rough-and-tumble, which finds performers bouncing like balls from wall to wall, rooftop to rooftop and many hair-raising points in between, are definitely in the coalition of the willing.
The Cartoon which was waited by everybody!
When it comes to The Simpsons, longevity is an asset few can ignore. 18 years old and counting, the TV series has carved its niche into pop culture. Most of today's high school students hadn't been born when The Simpsons debuted as filler on Tracey Ullman's variety show. It's no longer as fresh, as acerbic, and as popular as it once was, but could one expect anything else from a show that has turned out about 400 twenty-two minute episodes? It is a little odd that it has taken so long for The Simpsons to make the transition from the small screen to the big one; there has been talk about a movie since the mid-'90s. While nothing in this motion picture quite matches the television series at its early best, this is more of a throwback than a throw-away. It's wittier and more energetic than anything that has appeared on FOX in quite a few years. The film's irreverence is at full throttle from the opening moments when Homer Simpson (voice of Dan Castellaneta) wonders aloud why anyone would be stupid enough to pay money to see something in a theater they can see for free on TV. Later, there's a none-too-subtle jab at FOX's aggressive style of self-promotion. The primary satirical targets are religion (an easy mark), environmentalists (also easy), and government stupidity (even easier). The Simpsons Movie does not go after hot button issues nor does it tie itself to a time and place by addressing current events. One senses that the filmmakers want their production to feel as fresh and timely in 2015 as in 2007. For the most part, The Simpsons Movie is a series of rolling jokes. It's a little like Airplane in a sense - if something flops, the wait for the next gag isn't long. The film is heavy on comedy and parody and light on emotion, although there is a nice little arc in which Homer has an epiphany about the importance of family. That's about as serious as The Simpsons has ever gotten and it's certainly not going to bring tears to the eyes of many movie goers. People will flock to this picture because they want to enjoy the humor, and it delivers. I laughed aloud a number of times, and smiled and chuckled even more frequently. There is a plot, although it's not going to be mistaken for Shakespeare. It is, however, surprisingly coherent when one considers that there are nearly a dozen credited screenwriters. When the government discovers that the levels of toxicity in Springfield's lake have reached critical levels (courtesy of a silo of "pig crap" dumped there by Homer), they quarantine the entire community. Homer and his family - wife Marge (Julie Kavner), son Bart (Nancy Cartwright), and daughters Lisa (Yeardley Smith) and Maggie - escape from Springfield and head to Alaska, where they decide to start anew. But when word reaches them that the government intends to do more than merely isolate their hometown, they take action. Long-time fans of The Simpsons will be pleased to note that many of the series' recurring secondary characters have bit parts. They are well enough integrated that their inclusion won't bother Simpsons newbies. (Are there such people?) Harry Shearer and Hank Azaria do their usual yeoman's work as back-up vocalists. Star power comes from President Arnold Schwarzenegger (voice provided by Shearer) and Tom Hanks (voice provided by Tom Hanks). Hanks' participation is nothing new; over the years, the series has become a magnet for big-name cameos. You know you've arrived once you've appeared on The Simpsons. Visually, not a lot has been done to "improve" the characters for the big screen. There are times when the animation is a little crisper and there is occasional evidence of CGI (such as during the Frankenstein-inspired scene with an angry mob), but no major tweaking has been accomplished. Fans of the series will feel at home; the theme song even makes an appearance or two. The producers of the TV program are the driving forces behind the motion picture and they have ascertained that nothing is done to disappoint the core audience. If half the people who have ever enjoyed an episode of The Simpsons come to see the movie, this will be a huge hit. Fox is counting on big numbers; their marketing department is in overdrive. The film's PG-13 rating is a little misleading. With the exception of a little coarse language and a peep at Bart's underdeveloped cartoon genitals (shown as part of a hilariously over-the-top naked skateboarding sequence), there's nothing in the movie that couldn't be shown on TV. This isn't like South Park which, freed from the constraints of a more restrictive medium, pulled out all the stops. The Simpsons is interested in being a family film, although this is one of those rare animated occasions when adults are the primary audience. I, for one, couldn't be happier.
 Feel your speedAfter all, movies (and movie fans) have always had a soft spot for whining engines and screeching tires. But these days the deeper bond between auto racing and popular moviemaking lies in a shared passion for corporate sponsorship. The vehicles in “Talladega Nights” — which was made with the cooperation of Nascar — are covered with logos and brand names, and the movie itself may break new records for product placements per frame. It’s all in fun of course. As a good-hearted spoof of the folkways of stock-car racing, the movie is happy to mock the sport’s eagerness to sell prime uniform and chassis space to sponsors like Perrier, Wonder Bread and Old Spice. It also is tickled at the eating habits of its fast-driving characters, who wash down Domino’s Pizza and Kentucky Fried Chicken with Coca-Cola and Budweiser and, when they want a high-end night out, head for the nearest Applebee’s. You can be sure that all these companies paid handsomely for the privilege of such lampooning, which even extends to the movie’s single funniest joke, a suppertime blessing brought to you by PowerAde. Really, though, the brand that powers this ragged, intermittently uproarious fusion of sketch-comedy goofing and driving around in circles is Will Ferrell, who wrote the screenplay (with Adam McKay, the director) and served as an executive producer, in addition to running around on a race track in his underpants. He does a lot more than that, needless to say, but Mr. Ferrell’s willingness to strip down to his skivvies is one of his trademarks. It is also a rare movie-star display of solidarity with those American men who, whether out of laziness or principle, disdain sunlight, proper nutrition, body-hair maintenance and abdominal exercise. Part of Mr. Ferrell’s appeal is surely that he is one of them. O.K., one of us. He also has a genius for sniffing out pop-cultural fixtures and embodying them in a way that goes beyond easy, obvious parody. Like Ron Burgundy, the hero of “Anchorman,” Ricky Bobby is at once a creature of pure, extravagant absurdity and a curiously vulnerable, sympathetic figure. The son of a “semi-professional stock car racer and amateur tattoo artist” played by Gary Cole, Ricky is born in the back seat of a speeding Chevelle and goes on to glory on the Nascar circuit. His sidekick and best buddy is Cal Naughton Jr. (John C. Reilly), a sweet, dim fellow content to come in second behind his pal. (Their motto, “shake and bake,” may be an honest homage to a popular product rather than a paid endorsement, but who really knows?) Ricky, by turns childlike and ferociously competitive, has some unresolved Daddy issues, which unfortunately weigh down the last third of “Talladega Nights” with perfunctory sentimentality. Ricky and Cal are from North Carolina, home of the stock car king Richard Petty, and it requires no sensitivity training to recognize that they are stereotypes of a certain kind of Southern manhood. Not that anyone is likely to be too offended; from the old “Dukes of Hazzard” TV show to the songs of Toby Keith, caricature and Rebel pride tend to keep close company. In any case the two good ol’ boys are soon confronted with a designated bad guy who incarnates an entirely antithetical stereotype — or, rather, invents a new one: the gay French Formula One driver. Jean Girard, as this nemesis is called, is played by Sacha Baron Cohen of “Ali G” fame with a demented sang-froid that suggests a synthesis of Peter Sellers and Pee-wee Herman. Mr. Cohen proves himself to be Mr. Ferrell’s equal and opposite, a comic dialectic sealed with the summer’s best on-screen kiss. Like most movies of this kind, “Talladega Nights” is as good as its craziest riffs, which aren’t quite strong or various enough to fill out a whole feature. The funniest scenes have some of the improvised, pseudo-vérité flavor of Christopher Guest’s “Best in Show,” but Mr. Ferrell and Mr. McKay are less rigorous than Mr. Guest and his collaborators, preferring easy laughs to carefully turned comic insights. Still, at the high points — when Mr. Ferrell and Mr. Reilly start jawboning, when Leslie Bibb slyly steals a scene as Ricky’s frosty, gold-digging wife, when Mr. Reilly and Michael Clarke Duncan try to remove a fork from Mr. Ferrell’s thigh, or whenever Mr. Cohen opens his mouth — laughs are hard to suppress. As a cultural artifact, “Talladega Nights” is both completely phony and, therefore, utterly authentic. Or, to put it differently: this movie is the real thing. It’s finger lickin’ good. It’s eatin’ good in the neighborhood. It’s the King of Beers. It’s Wonder Bread.
Animation WORLD
THE temptation to write about "Cars" using automotive metaphors may be unwise, but it's also irresistible. You could say, for instance, that the film — the first directed by the Pixar guru John Lasseter since the company's 1999 hit "Toy Story 2" — tools along at an easy clip, rather like a Volvo station wagon en route to another family vacation. At no point does it spin out of control, much less venture off-road. Instead, the film just putt, putt, putts along, a shining model of technological progress and consumer safety. But, as Ed (Big Daddy) Roth might say, chrome don't get you home and neither does 3D animation.
Mr. Roth was the creator of a delightfully unappetizing cartoon rodent called Rat Fink, a kind of anti-Mickey Mouse mascot for the hot-rod set. Given Pixar's carefully cultivated — and, for the most part, justified — reputation as a modestly maverick outfit, it would be nice to think that a decal of Rat Fink adorns the computers of at least a couple of the film's many, many animators. But both in its ingratiating vibe and bland execution, "Cars" is nothing if not totally, disappointingly new-age Disney, the story of a little cherry-red race car, Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson), who can win the race of life only after he learns the value of friendship and the curvy appeal of Porsche Carrera (Bonnie Hunt).
Right off we know we're not in Kansas anymore or, for that matter, Monstropolis, home to the critters from "Monsters, Inc." or suburban Metroville, where the superheroic family in "The Incredibles" lives. The film opens at an enormous speedway, where some dozen candy-colored race cars, including Lightning McQueen, are whooshing around a track as thousands upon thousands of similarly polychromic jalopies cheer, wave flags and do the wave.
Welcome to Weirdsville, Cartoonland, where automobiles race — and rule — in a world that, save for a thicket of tall pines and an occasional scrubby bush, is freakishly absent any organic matter. Here, even the bugs singeing their wings on the porch light look like itty-bitty Volkswagen beetles.
That sounds like a slap and a tickle, and for a while it's both. As written by Mr. Lasseter, who shares screenwriting credit with Dan Fogelman, Joe Ranft, Kiel Murray, Phil Lorin and (whew) Jorgen Klubien, the film hinges on a premise older than the 1951 Hudson Hornet named Doc (Paul Newman), who gives the story its requisite geezer wisdom. After taking a wrong turn on his way to a race, McQueen lands in Radiator Springs, a town that time and the freeway forgot. There, on a derelict lick of asphalt, he meets a pileup of metal and ethnic clichés, including a tow truck with a deep-fried accent (Larry the Cable Guy as Mater) and a lowrider that apparently hopped in from East L.A. (Cheech Marin as Ramone).
This ethnic and cultural profiling is pretty much par for the animated film course, hence Jenifer Lewis, as a two-tone 1950's ride with big fins called Flo, provides the only identifiable "black" voice. Less wince-inducing are Luigi (Tony Shalhoub), a banana-yellow Italian-accented Fiat that runs the local tire store; Sarge (Paul Dooley), a World War II jeep as memorable and colorful as dung; and Fillmore (George Carlin), a VW bus who extols the virtues of organic fuel, mutters about conspiracies and raises the Stars and Stripes to the guitar squeals of Jimi Hendrix.
Given the film's regrettably retro attitude toward all things automotive (not a hybrid in sight!), it's no surprise that Fillmore, this desert outpost's most credible resident, is also its designated kook.
An animated fable about happy cars might have made sense before gas hit three bucks a gallon, but even an earlier sticker date couldn't shake the story's underlying creepiness, which comes down to the fact that there's nothing alive here: nada, zip. In this respect, the film can't help but bring to mind James Cameron's dystopic masterpiece, "The Terminator," which hinges on the violent war of the machine world on its human masters. To watch McQueen and the other cars motor along the film's highways and byways without running into or over a single creature is to realize that, in his cheerful way, Mr. Lasseter has done Mr. Cameron one better: instead of blowing the living world into smithereens, these machines have just gassed it with carbon monoxide.
Rendering plausible human forms remains one of 3D animation's biggest hurdles, something that Pixar directors like Andrew Stanton ("Finding Nemo") have readily admitted. As if realizing that they can't (yet) compete with nature, Pixar filmmakers tend to avoid the human form or create caricatures that, by virtue of their very exaggeration (think of the middle-age spread bedeviling Mr. Incredible's wife), are wonderfully lifelike.
With his machine world, however, Mr. Lasseter appears to have tried to do an end run around the vexing problem of the human body with cars that might as well have come out of a Chevron advertisement. Even stranger, the film turns Detroit's paving over of America into an occasion for some nostalgic historical revisionism. Surreal isn't the word.
Over the last two decades Pixar has invigorated American mainstream animation with charming stories and sterling technique, reaching a company best with the consecutively released "Monsters, Inc.," "Finding Nemo" and "The Incredibles." The age of Pixar may not be as golden as that of 1930's and 40's Disney, but it's an estimable run, especially since each new Pixar feature has reached deeper and higher in thematic and aesthetic preoccupations.
Like classic Disney, Pixar films are invariably traditionalist, with stories of familial and social retrenchment, but they're also witty and playful, fresh in both graphic and written line. One clunker won't shut down or even threaten the factory line, but here's hoping that as this onetime scrapper becomes increasingly entrenched and establishment, it keeps its geeks-and-freaks flag flying.
 Reality of businessProlific director Sidney Lumet, now 81, is in top form with his latest, superbly made and raucously entertaining new film, “Find Me Guilty.” He sure knows how to make a movie, from spinning a riveting story and perfection in casting to creating a visually compelling ambiance. I use his book “Making Movies” in film classes that I teach because Lumet lucidly examines each aspect of doing a movie and illustrates the know-how with examples from his own work. “Find Me Guilty” is a prime illustration of how to do everything right. The film is based on real characters and the real 1987-88 trial in New Jersey involving the Lucchese crime family. The trial lasted nearly two years. If you don’t know the outcome, I won’t spoil the film’s suspense by ratting. Central to the cast was a colorful criminal named Giacomo “Jackie Dee” DiNorscio who, already serving a 30-year-sentence involving drugs, decided to handle his own defense and turned the proceedings upside down and inside out. He described himself a gagster, not a gangster. (The real Jackie died during the filming.) A major part of the good news is that Lumet cast Vin Diesel in the role of Jackie, and the director, known for his great work with actors, gets a performance out of Diesel that deserves to loom as one of the best of the year when we head into to the next awards period. Diesel rises to the occasion in a challenging, unusual part and gives a commanding, colorful performance that becomes the film’s center. The rest of the film is also cast astutely, down to the most minor role. Excellent actor Peter Dinklage (“The Station Agent” on film and “Richard III” on stage) is suave and forceful as a defense attorney, making an impact beyond his size (he’s a dwarf), and it is a wonderful touch every time a court attendant has to wheel a special podium up for him to mount. Annabella Sciorra has a sizzling scene as Jackie’s wife, angrily rebellious but still with a flash of loyalty after he has cheated on her so many times. Ron Silver as the judge is measured but firm in the face of the difficulty in keeping his courtroom under control. Linus Roache is a bit over the edge as the prosecutor who has so much riding on the case, but it may be justified in view of how frustrated he is at not being able to get Jackie to become an informer and running into so many problems while pursuing the most important case of his career. Inevitably, some may think of “The Sopranos” but this is a story with far more scope. It does include elements of mob life, but the real issues involve a face off with the government in a boisterous trial. Those in the dock are not Mr. Nice Guys, and yet the sleaziness of the government witnesses and the nerve of Jackie, who is shunned by other defendants worrying about his antics, results in a dilemma for the viewer. There is the temptation to root for the defense over the prosecution. It’s a tribute to the filmmaking that one can get so caught up in the drama, its cast of characters and the courtroom atmosphere. The screenplay by T. J. Mancini and Robert McCrea uses actual testimony from the trial as part of the fictionalization. In order to accommodate the size of the trial in terms suitable for filming,--20 defendants, 20 defense attorneys and eight jury alternates—a specially wide courtroom was built in a warehouse in Bayonne, N.J. The success of the film lies partly in the details, and everything clicks brilliantly into place. “Find Me Guilty” is another important addition to Lumet’s work, encompassing such memorable films as “The Pawnbroker,” “12 Angry Men,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Network,” “The Verdict,” “Serpico,” “Fail Safe,” “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” and “Daniel,” to list but a few of his achievements. It is interesting to note that Lumet keeps up with the latest technology; he shot this film on high-definition video. A Yari Film Group Releasing release.
 Revival of a life High on the list of the year's corniest symbolic acts in a Hollywood movie is the freeing of a grizzly bear from its cage in the contemporary western "An Unfinished Life." And what exactly does the liberation of the beast from a makeshift rural zoo signify? In this solemn, sentimental bore of a movie that suffocates in its own predictability and watered-down psychobabble, it presages Oprah-worthy healing and imminent family togetherness after years of strife. If nothing else, the arrival of "An Unfinished Life" close on the heels of Werner Herzog's documentary "Grizzly Man" certifies 2005 as the year of the bear in Hollywood animal fashion. With all due compliments to Mr. Herzog's incisive portrait of a narcissistic nature boy out of touch with the natural world, "An Unfinished Life" suggests that the time has come to impose an immediate cinematic moratorium on these creatures, symbolic or otherwise, real or computerized. (This one, sometimes played by Bart the Bear, is both.) Before its capture and release, the bear in question lurks on the Wyoming ranch where Einar Gilkyson (Robert Redford), a farmer and recovering alcoholic, has been stewing in bitterness over the death of his son, Griffin, 12 years earlier. Einar, who regularly visits Griffin's grave to mumble sweet nothings into the hereafter, shares the property with Mitch Bradley (Morgan Freeman), his farm hand of four decades who was seriously mauled by the animal a year before the story begins. Einar waits on Mitch hand and foot, massages his painful but fake-looking scars and administers his daily shots of morphine. Mitch, in turn, gently tries to rouse Einar from his funk. This is the latest film in which Mr. Freeman plays a saintly African-American sage, and the stereotype has become as grating as Sidney Poitier's Perfect Negro of the 1960's. "An Unfinished Life" begins in Iowa, where Einar's daughter-in-law, Jean (Jennifer Lopez), beaten up by her abusive boyfriend, Gary (Damian Lewis), flees for Wyoming with her 11-year-old daughter, Griff (Becca Gardner). When she shows up on the Gilkyson homestead, she is less than welcome. Einar blames Jean for his son's death because she drove the car in the accident that killed him. But until Jean appears, Einar doesn't know he has a granddaughter. During the rest of the movie, Einar's heart slowly thaws as he forms an attachment to Griff, whom he teaches how to throw a rope and to drive his battered pickup truck. Can a happy, bugs-in-a-rug family be far behind? An adaptation of Mark Spragg's novel of the same title, "An Unfinished Life" was directed by Lasse Hallstrom from a screenplay Mr. Spragg wrote with his wife, Virginia Korus Spragg. It is the latest Miramax film to be dumped into the marketplace as the studio empties its back catalog after the departure of the Weinstein brothers from the helm. It also signifies the final descent into ponderous, cliché-ridden pseudo-profundity by a filmmaker who became the studio's go-to guy to direct Oscar-seeking middlebrow kitsch ("Chocolat," "The Shipping News"). His gradual softening into a director of Hallmark-style sentimentality offers a cautionary case study of an artist succumbing to the bottom-line mentality of Hollywood. That mentality must account for the presence of Ms. Lopez, who plays the same battered woman she did three years ago in "Enough," but under a different name. In both movies, she finds an identical (and phony) balance of vulnerability and toughness. After an initial skirmish with her ratty boyfriend, Jean walks around with a nasty wound on her chin. But a couple of scenes later, it has all but disappeared, the better to allow Ms. Lopez to slink about in a sexy peasant blouse and be a Hollywood babe with perfect hair, creamy makeup and a rustic wardrobe. Gary tracks Jean down to the Gilkyson homestead, and in the movie's most poorly written scenes explodes within seconds of seeing her. But the film provides Jean with a buffer and handy antidote to her suspicion of men in the person of the hunky local sheriff, Crane Curtis (Josh Lucas), who seems to have been hanging around all these years just waiting for her to show up. It also grants her sisterhood as she bonds with Nina (Camryn Manheim), a local waitress, who offers her shelter after a row with Einar. Mr. Redford appears to have recovered from whatever happened to his face several years ago, when it looked as if a bad eye job had turned his expression into a sinister squint. He gives a careful, measured performance that avoids making Einar, at his worst, the sort of crazed misanthrope the character would be if viewed without rose-colored glasses. But we've also seen this performance before. "An Unfinished Life" is further undermined by Christopher Young's relentless, folksy soundtrack. The musical equivalent of synthetic gingham (yards of it) strung up on a plastic clothesline, it brings you as close to the spirit of the West as a visit to a Ralph Lauren store. "An Unfinished Life" is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has some strong language and mild violence.
Straighten up and die right
Though not exactly prolific, Shane Black quickly carved himself a niche in Hollywood through the 80s and 90s. His name is synonymous with buddy action comedies, his screenplays turning the genre on its head with unconventional setups and setting standards with witty one-liners. Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout and The Long Kiss Goodnight all paired a relatively stable ‘minority’ character (in each of those cases a black male) with an unstable white character and combined clever dialogue with unexpected twists on the conventions of the genre. With his debut directorial effort, Black has stuck to a similar formula with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang by pairing the stable Gay Perry (Val Kilmer) with the neurotic petty thief turned actor Harry (Robert Downey Jr), only this time he is also messing with a second genre: film noir. Film noir conventions are introduced and almost immediately turned around. Harry’s opening monologue begins as a classic noir voiceover but he quickly changes from the hard-boiled hard-done-by enigma we expect from the genre into a wise-cracker, fully aware of his own character flaws. He then attempts to light a cigarette Sam Spade-style and falls foul of the modern LA attitude to smoking in public. The story itself is intentionally complex and centres on Harry, who teams up with Gay Perry to learn to be a detective for a role in a film but quickly becomes embroiled in a web of murder and deceit for real. The viewer is thrown around with improbable twists and coincidences coming one after another and then challenged by Harry in his voiceover to work out what’s going on. By that point I wasn’t too bothered about the plot, I was just enjoying the great dialogue between Harry and Gay Perry. ”This isn’t good cop, bad cop. This is fag and New Yorker.” Shane Black loves to play around with the audience’s expectations by presenting them with a typical setup, then completely changing what usually happens in every other action movie. Nowhere is this more evident than in a scene where Harry and Perry are pressing one of the bad guys for information and Harry decides to take the Russian roulette route, by putting one bullet in a six-shooter and spinning the barrel. I don’t want to give too much away but he doesn’t pull the trigger six times to find the bullet... Black has an obvious love for film noir (the chapters of the movie are named after Raymond Chandler novels) but he also makes his feelings for Hollywood in general known. Man, that guy really hates everything and everyone in his neighbourhood. Anger frequently breeds great comedy and this is no exception. In Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Hollywood is populated by vacuous blonde bimbos and old, over-tanned men trying to look like movie stars, all designed to make us laugh and cut close to the bone of the inhabitants of 90210. He also uses this view of the world to comment on the way films are made, especially the way second-choice actors are only used to ‘get Colin Farrell down by $2million’. ”I’ll be over there with the native American Joe Pesci.” There’s a lot to recommend in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang for the casual viewer. It’s very funny at times, has two great central performances and there’s plenty of action and intrigue but at the risk of being drawn through the streets and stoned to death for being a film snob, I’d say there’s more to appreciate for viewers already well-versed in the conventions of film noir so if you who know Detour from De-Lovely you should add an extra point onto the feature score. That said, I was still hoping for a little more from Shane Black’s first feature as a director. Since he has voiced his varying opinions of the previous adaptations of his work, it’s slightly disappointing to see that the style of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is not a million miles away from those films.
Improbable story
For about half a decade, Batman was a dirty word at Warner Bros. Once a marquee franchise, a flamboyant director (Joel Schumacher) drove the caped crusader into the ground, deeply angering fans and critics with the schlocky Batman & Robin in 1997. After flirting with Batman Vs. Superman in an attempt to resurrect both superheroes, the studio took a page out of 20th Century Fox's (X-Men) book and hired an auteur rather than a hit-maker. Warner Bros. made smart casting decisions and managed to get enough of the right people involved to convince the franchise's detractors that this time would be different. But just how different it is may come as a shock to everyone. Batman Begins is a true origin story. Not a detail is glossed over, such as in Tim Burton's first Batman film. Nolan's vision starts with Bruce Wayne as a boy. Attacked by bats on his property, Bruce develops a lifelong fear of the creatures. He becomes even more paranoid about the world around him after witnessing his parents' murder. When a chance to kill the man who committed the crime is foiled years later by local mob boss Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson), Wayne (Bale) disappears to Asia for seven years. There, he meets The League Of Shadows, a group of highly skilled ninjas who claim to influence history by trying to create equilibrium in the world's biggest cities. Wayne trains with League leader Ducard, but when he learns they intend to destroy his hometown, Gotham City, he turns his back on the ninjas, destroying their temple and fleeing for home to fight crime under a new moniker, Batman. I'd love to go into more plot details, but there is just too much going on in this film. In much the same way that Robert Rodriguez's take on Frank Miller's Sin City was like a graphic novel experience, director Christopher Nolan (Memento) one-ups him by presenting much of the back-story like a series of vignettes that actually evoke comic book pages. Nolan aces Batman with such deft accuracy that Warner Bros. better sign him up for another two movies before he gets bored and decides to go back to indie films. Bale brings to Batman what Kilmer, Clooney and even Keaton couldn't — menace. He's the first truly frightening Batman, but then this movie also features the scariest villain in the history of the franchise, Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy). Bale's dry humour and composure make him a perfect choice for the playboy Wayne. Fans wanted him for years and he doesn't disappoint. Michael Caine nails Alfred, Wayne's ever-present butler, while Gary Oldman is perfectly subtle as Lieut. (and future Commissioner) Jim Gordon. Ms. Tom Cruise, er, Katie Holmes is shockingly not bad as Wayne's lifelong friend, assistant district attorney Rachel Dawes, though some of the development of their relationship makes absolutely no sense at all. Given some time, Batman Begins will likely outdistance Batman Returns (Burton) as the best ever in the series. But move over Spider-Man: the potential that the key players — Nolan, Bale, Oldman and Caine — have put into place here could make a new series of Batman films the standard against which all future superhero movies are measured.
OUR REALITY
Welcome to my double feature, Flags of Our Fathers . Although they're in separate reviews, I seem to compare them a lot. This makes sense as they were released as companion movies and deal with the same subject in a broad sort of way. We saw Flags of Our Fathers before Letters from Iwo Jima, that was the order they were released in, and I'm writing this review first, so bear that all that in mind.
Flags of Our Fathers is one of the two war movies released in 2006 by Clint Eastwood. The movies made a lot of press and certainly got a lot of awards talk going, which really isn't a surprise, because well-made war movies always make press and get awards talk going. Focusing on the Pacific front of World War II, and most specifically the Battle of Iwo Jima, Flags of Our Fathers presents the American perspective. Sort of. I say "sort of" because Flags of Our Fathers is two movies in one. On the one hand, it's the story of the Battle of Iwo Jima from the American perspective. On the other hand, it's also the story of the iconic photograph of soldiers raising the American flag, and the post-war lives of some of the photographed men. Much of the movie takes place back on American soil as three of the flag raisers tour the country, trying to raise money for the war. But wait, you say. There were at least six men in the photograph! Yes, well. Remember these men toured the United States after the Battle of Iwo Jima. Rene Gagnon (Jesse Bradford), John Bradley (Ryan Phillippe), and Ira Hayes (Adam Beach) are the three survivors who are on tour. In classic war story tradition, at least two of these three guys are not big names. (And if for some reason you think of Ryan Phillippe as a Dawson's Creek/boy band type of actor, which for some bizarre reason I did, this is a good time to reevaluate that opinion.) The three men respond to their newfound fame very differently. Gagnon is ready to embrace it, Bradley accepts it as best he can, and Hayes resents it, especially as he feels he did nothing spectacular to be honored for. Interlaced with the story of the tour are flashbacks of the battle and the story of the flag raising photograph. I was of two minds about Flags of Our Fathers, mainly because it was two movies. Movie 1, the story of the tour and how the men in question handled their fame, was extremely interesting and an unexamined angle (movie-wise) of World War II. I really enjoyed this part of the movie, and watching how the war and being in this famous photograph, affected the boys and how they dealt with it. The acting was excellent, the emotions were ranged and real, and it struck me as very honest, neither stripping away glory nor adding to it. This part of the movie really made me think of my reaction to Jarhead, where I thought that the movie did an excellent job presenting the Marines as individuals and young men, not as stereotypes. Movie 2, however, the Battle of Iwo Jima, I did not like. This wasn't because it was necessarily bad, per se. But it was extremely graphic and intense. You know that first forty five minutes of Saving Private Ryan, where they storm Normandy Beach? Exactly like that. In fact, Stephen Spielberg was one of the producers, and this was one spot where I really think it showed. I felt EXACTLY like I did watching that scene in Saving Private Ryan. Some of you will think that's a good thing. Some of you will not. (Incidentally, Stephen Spielberg MUST be one of the world's leading experts on World War II by now, wouldn't you think? And I do mean that seriously, because the man seems to have researched it exhaustively.) For me, I found it too gory, too violent. Yes, war is violent, I know. But there also comes a point where the violence and the gore become so overwhelming that I find myself distracted from the story and spending more energy trying not to throw up than caring about the characters. I was very close to asking Duckie to turn it off and watch it the next day without me. I'm glad I didn't, because I really did like Movie 1 and found it very powerful. But the battle scenes were too much for me. Some of you are reading this and saying, "yeah, well, you have a weak stomach," and I'm glad you are. This is a line that's in a different place for each person, so a lot of people may not have as much of an issue with it as I did. Sure, it adds realism, but I thought it added it at the expense of the story. But the feeling Flags of Our Fathers evoked in me was one of great sadness. I'll probably never get around to reviewing Saving Private Ryan, so let me say that Saving Private Ryan and parts of Band of Brothers also had the same effect. It's just the realization of, on a personal level, how bloody STUPID war is. I find it very hard — and very sad — to watch these young men sent to war, to storm the beach, and then to die before they even set foot on dry land. They were literal canon fodder. It seems like such a waste of a life, just to be shot as soon as you faced the enemy. I know it still seems like a waste later, but any war movie that gets me to care about the characters will make me feel like this. I realize I'm not well-versed in politics. I know there are reasons for war. But I can't help but think there shouldn't be. I do respect the choices these young men made, if they had a choice. (Sorry. You're NOT going to get me to like the draft.) But Flags of Our Fathers just really drove home how badly war screws people up. I don't think I could be in the military, because I don't think I could hack it. Aside from the very real danger of death and having to watch your friends die, Flags of Our Fathers also focused on doing things you weren't proud of later in life. It takes someone very strong and dedicated to deal with that. But then, I suppose you do it because you have to. One thing being a parent teaches you — it's amazing what you can do because you have to do it. War must teach that lesson a thousand times over. Because of the violence aspect, I vastly preferred Letters from Iwo Jima. I do think Flags of Our Fathers was a good movie, but I also felt that Movie 2 has been done before. I am very glad we watched Flags of Our Fathers first, for several reasons. For one, I think it gave the background information on the battle in a more accessible way. But for two, I think we as a country aren't used to thinking of the other side so much, and the Japanese were presented in Flags of Our Fathers exactly as the Americans would have seen them. To see that brief, cursory depiction and then the depth presented in Letters from Iwo Jima was really powerful. It's not the best World War II movie I've ever seen — look to Spielberg for that — but it's one of the better ones. Definitely worth the rent. Just don't watch it right before you go to sleep. DOWNLOAD "FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS" Only $4.99 for a complete movie
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