4 Movies

Finally got around to writing some reviews... There's some new ones mixed in here with the old...
And also, 5 more reviews coming soon...

Crash
No, not David Cronenberg's disturbingly sexual 1996 film about sex and car crashes, but Paul Haggis's 2005 effort about racial tension in Los Angeles... And let me tell you, until about half way through this picture, I had it pegged as a strong possibility for one of the 10 best films of the year. What a disappointment...
The first half of the film moves along at a wonderful pace. The movie's dozen or so characters are introduced in an almost random fashion, flowing in and out of the film as the individual stories start to overlap each other. What makes the film work in this first half are the conversations the characters have with each other about other races. These sequences of dialogue often border on preachy, but hardly ever cross that line. They mostly just stand out as hit-the-nail-on-the-head observances of modern day society.
The best thing about the film, before it goes down the drain, is the way it sets up the common racial stereotypes, one by one, and then completely negates those stereotypes. Even the black criminals aren't the same black criminals you see in every other picture. The racist cop is in the mix too, but here he's not just relegated to being the villain. He may be completely wrong in what he does, but he's still human. The Mexican locksmith (like one character observes) looks like, and is dressed the same way some random gang member might look, but appearances are deceiving, and as we follow his character, we learn that he's simply trying to work hard and make the best life for his daughter.
The characters, for the most part, are also quite intriguing. Matt Dillon has hands-down the best role in the film, playing a scumbag who gets his chance at redemption. I'd like to see him get a Supporting nomination. Relatively unknown actor Michael Pena makes a strong impression as the aforementioned locksmith. Don Cheadle is strong, although there isn't really much to his character, and Terrence Howard and Thandie Newton are great as a couple whose marriage is in trouble. Sadly, that's where the positives stop on this film. The film is much too short (less than 2 hours) to adequately accommodate the amount of characters in this film. It's simply not long enough to flesh out the characters: Cheadle, Pena, Brendan Fraser, Matt Dillon, Jennifer Esposito, Larenz Tate, and Sandra Bullock (although Bullock is questionable considering the amount of talent she may or may not have) are wasted in this film, with Fraser's and Bullock's roles being nothing more than cameos. We have no idea who the hell they are, and the same goes for Esposito's character, and to a lesser extent Cheadle. I do have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised by Ludacris in his acting here. I'm always a little hesitant when a rapper starts acting, but with Mos Def's performance in The Woodsman and Ludacris here, I think I'm not so adverse to the idea of rappers acting anymore.
The big compliment on this film, however, has to go the direction. Paul Haggis, in my opinion, should drop the writing and concentrate on a directing career. His direction is remarkably strong for a debut, and kept the film rolling along when the script wasn't quite there. It's my prediction that if he starts filming other people's screenplays, we're going to see some great stuff.
Another hour on this film, and I think we'd have a better picture. As it stands, it gets a strong:
(4 stars out of five)


The Interpreter
You'd hope that the first film in history that was allowed to film at the UN building would be of better caliber than this... A stale, standard Hollywood thriller with a great cast that deserves better. The movie is too long, too drawn out, too over-complicated, too much. The opening of the film, in particular, takes so long to set things up that you quickly tune out of the film even before the plot sets itself in motion. Sydney Pollack's direction is lifeless, Sean Penn looks bored, and the great Catherine Keener is completely wasted in a thankless role with zero character development. Only Nicole Kidman comes away somewhat unscathed, as she turns in great work here, bringing life and heart into an otherwise by-the-numbers story. Decent for what it is, but a dozen films have done it better.
(2 stars out of five)


Melinda and Melinda
People are desribing this as Woody Allen's big comeback, after years of less-than-stellar pictures. Well, for my money, the big comeback was Anything Else, but this one isn't that far off. Allen's most ambitious film in years, it features many big laughs, many great lines, and the dialogue is superb. Will Ferrell plays the "Woody Allen" role in the film, as Woody doesn't act in this, and for the most part, succeeds quite well. I was never a big fan of Will Ferrell, for quite a long time. I never got his charm; never understood why what he was doing was supposed to be funny. Then I saw Elf, and I finally figured it out... He's not an unfunny guy, but he uses what most commedians use these days, tone of voice and goofiness, to confey humor. Comedy these days is less about what the joke is about and more about how the joke is presented, i.e. funny goofy voice and crazy personality. Case in point: The Bewitched trailer... the trailer for Ferrell's new film contains moments where his character is acting generally goofy, but doing nothing more than talking in a funny voice. The audience in attendance to this trailer (I've seen said trailer in the theater several times) always laughs at Ferrell acting zany and whacky. But one gets the sense that all they're laughing at is the whackiness. Sure, that can be fun (I loved Elf), but doesn't it get tiring after awhile? Apparently not. Oh, wait, I forgot...people love to watch basically the same movie over and over again. No matter how many jokes fall flat, all people need to see is Will Ferrell acting goofy and all is well. Would Woody Allen and his neurotic humor have survived today? Hell no. That's why it's so interesting to see Will Ferrell in this. Woody doesn't even let Ferrell attempt to use his trademark "personality" here. And as a result, he's funnier here than in anything else he's ever done. I laughed out loud more than a dozen times, most of them from how Ferrell delivered certain lines. Anyway, enough about that.
From a technical point of view, Allen's new film is amazing in what it does... The film follows the adventures of one main character, Melinda, and examines her story as both a tragedy and a comedy, as imagined by two different writers. In the beginning of the film, Woody chooses to film the dramatic sequences like any modern Hollywood dramatic film made today: close-ups, long push-ins on monologues, frequent cutting, etc. Additionally, he chooses to film the comedic sections of the film like almost every other film he's ever made - in his "style" - long master shots with no cutting, classical/jazz music as score, etc. Until about half way through the film, you start to believe that, as the writers in the film are talking about whether comedy or tragedy best represents how life really is, you start to wonder if Woody is making a subtle statement in how he's filmed the picture, meaning that since he's filmed the comedic sequences of the film in his well known style, that his viewpoint better matches the comedic part of life. But at just that point in the film, Woody slowly turns a fast one on us. He begins, ever so slowly, to film the stories the opposite way. Meaning, the dramatic storyline starts to be filmed with long takes, and mininal cutting, and the comedic storyline begins to contain lots of close-ups and a few long push-ins on people as they deliver monologues. This is ingenious. In this amazingly subtle way, Woody makes his statement: life is both a comedy and a tragedy. It's an amazingly successful directorial move on his part, and it's deserving of a directing Oscar nod (along with the writing one he's tipped to get...he's had 20 Oscar nominations in his career...damn). Another great little touch Woody adds is the subtle tone changes within the stories: Because these stories are coming from two different, fictional writers within the film, and writers are people too, who make mistakes, the comedy will sometimes float just a little too much on the broad side, and the drama becomes melodramatic at times. A great little touch, showing how these writer characters spin the same story in their direction, and sometimes spin it a little too much. How can we tell that this was purposeful and not just a mistake Woody actually has made? When you combine, for example, one of the aforementioned cliched push-ins on a monologue with a subtle tone change towards the melodramatic, it totally works. It's a film with much more underneath than what lies on the surface. A hugely successful picture, especially for Woody fans.
(4 stars out of five)


Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
I never thought I'd say this, but for the first time, one of the Star Wars prequels actually (somewhat) lives up to the original trilogy. It's not a monumentally better film than the last two: Hayden Christensen is still unbelievably terrible, the rest of the cast doesn't fare much better, and the dialogue plays like unused material from a daytime soap; but what raises this film above the other prequels is its unflinching desire to go into dark territory....and the classy move it makes in the end when it doesn't try to tack on a happy ending. This is easily the darkest movie of the six, tone-wise, and I'll go even as far to say that its PG-13 rating borders on an R during some sequences (the most graphic being when a character is burned alive, and their flesh begins to melt). Definitely not for the kids. Lucas warned parents to keep young kids away, and although he wouldn't give a set age for when he believed kids would be old enough to see the film, he did say that he would take his 9-year old child to see it. That may be about right, age-wise (possibly a little older). But yes, a very dark picture. Children are slaughtered (off camera), and thousands of people die. The first half of the film is so-so, but in the second half, it's all worth it. It's so good, in fact, that if I had never seen the original Star Wars before seeing this film, at the conclusion of this film, I would be excited to see the next chapter.
The negatives are many, but in summary, they are basically the same as the rest of the Lucas-directed prequels: Acting is terrible and all over the place. Some of it isn't bad at all, but some of it is just horrible, most of the latter coming from Christensen (they should take Lucas's DGA membership away just for hiring that hack). Of course, not all of this is the actor's fault; Lucas has become well known for ignoring actors and not even talking to them. He actually doesn't direct the actors one bit; the "dialogue coach" instructs the actors while Lucas deals with the technical things. Almost all of the prequels' major flaws can be traced back to that.
So, all in all, a satisfying conclusion to the story that took place "long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away...."
(3 ½ stars out of five)