The Day The Earth Stood Still

I don't really want to write a full review of Scott Derrickson's remake of Robert Wise's 1951 film The Day The Earth Stood Still. They clearly didn't put a full effort into this film, so I won't put one into the review. You all know the story. Klaatu (Keanu Reeves), an alien ambasador, comes to earth with his robot Gort, and they try to get the humans to stop their destructive ways (nuclear weapons in the original, global warming here). He meets a widow and her young stepson (Jennifer Connelly and Jaden Smith), who try to help him escape from various government figures-both good and bad (Kathy Bates, Kyle Chandler and Jon Hamm among others), and with the help of an eccentric professor (John Cleese), try to convince Klaatu to not kill all humans.

The original film was one of the most interesting and relevant sci-fi films of the 50s, and it relied on tension and character instead of action. This version stays interesting and exciting for about 25 minutes, and then it decends into standard sci-fi cliche. Reeves gives his usual emotionless performance, but, like in the first Matrix movie and A Scanner Darkly, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Klaatu would benefit from a better actor, but Reeves isn't awful. Connelly tries her best with the awful dialogue she's given, and makes it work when possible. Cleese and Hamm (of TV's Mad Men) are both very good in limited roles, but Bates is clearly phoning it in. Jaden Smith may not be a bad young actor, but he plays the exact same stunningly annoying role as Dakota Fanning in War of the Worlds. The effects are terrible, the dialogue is weak and the visuals are bland and uninspired. The original story could work very well as a remake, but this is clearly Fox trying to make a quick buck with a lazy, usless effort.

See this ^ instead

Rating (out of ****) *1/2

Doubt

Every once in a while, I'll see a movie poster, and, without knowing anything about the film itself, I know that I will see it. This was the case with John Patrick Shanley's Doubt. The names Meryl Streep, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams on their own are usually enough to get me to see a movie (although even Streep couldn't get me to see The Devil Wears Prada or Mama Mia). I would watch the three of them standing in a white room talking for two hours and I'd probably be entertained. After I saw the poster for Doubt, I looked up the play it is based on, and I got even more excited. Rapid fire dialogue and criticism of religion are generally things that I like. Combined with the actors, it seemed like the recipe for a sure-thing best picture contender. Unfortunately, something went sort of wrong.

The film takes place in the Bronx in 1964. Father Flynn (Hoffman) is the new priest at the St. Nicholas parish and school in the Bronx. He begins with a sermon on Doubt, and how in uncertain times, it can bring us together. This message resonates with Donald Miller, an alter-boy and the school's first black student. His teacher, Sister James (Adams), an innocent, kind young woman, tries her hardest to care for him and the rest of the class, a group she truly loves. In contrast is the school's tradition-minded principal, Sister Aloysius (Streep). She disapproves of the priest's new, kind attitude toward the students, and immediately suspects the worst when Sister James comes to her with worries about the relationship between Father Flynn and Donald. After a failed confrontation, Sister James begins to doubt her suspicions for their lack of evidence, but Sister Aloysius goes on and calls in Donald's mother, played by Viola Davis. During their confrontation, Aloysius learns more about Donald and begins to understand his situation. Afterwords, she confronts Flynn one final time.

Talking about this film, the first thing one must bring up is the acting. All four leads have been nominated for Golden Globes and Viola Davis already won best breakthrough performance from the National Board of Review. Davis, despite only having ten minutes of screen time, deserves all the praise she gets. In her scene, she goes through every possible emotion and more than holds her own with Streep. Just like last year's Charlie Wilson's War, Adams and Hoffman rescue a mediocre film and bring to an acceptable level of quality. Amy Adams portrays her character's innocence with such heartbreaking intensity the she would have my vote for best supporting actress if I had a ballot. I have never seen Phillip Seymour Hoffman give a bad performance, and, after this fall's combination of Doubt and Synecdoche, New York, I don't think I ever will. Oddly enough, Streep, the best actress of her generation, is the weak link in the cast. It's not a bad performance by any means, it is simply average. She's intense when called for, and her accent is OK, but there is nothing to make it rise above the rest of her work or the other performances in this film. Maybe she is the victim of high expectations, but her past performances have all lived up to the hype. The performances are not the film's problem. Shanley may be a great playwright, but he has only directed one film before this, the awful 1990 Tom Hanks film Joe Versus The Volcano, and this film suffers from an inexperience hand. The cinematography from Coen Brothers regular Roger Deakins is fine, but the score from Howard Shore fails, and the pacing never feels quite right. The original play only had four characters and was almost all dialogue. The extra focus put on the kids and the heavy-handed use of weather metaphors, neither of which was in the original (which, may I remind you, I haven't seen), and they are two of the weak points here. Still, this is not a bad film, as the dialogue (except for the final scene) is pretty good, and the performances from Davis, Adams and Hoffman are great, but it is a disapointment.

Rating (out of ****): ***

Paris, Texas

There are times where I watch a film, think about it for a night, realize that it is one of the greatest things I've ever seen, and I have to watch it again the next day just to make sure. I think the last time it happened was when I saw Antonioni's L'Eclise. Before I saw Wim Wenders' 1984 film Paris, Texas, I had high hopes; it sounded interesting, the reviews were great and I'm a sucker for a good road movie. Wenders has always been placed on the same level as Herzog (my favorite director) and Fassbinder (who I'm sadly unfamiliar with), and, after finally having seen his supposed masterpiece, I can agree, because I had to watch it again this afternoon after being stunned by it last night. Paris, Texas tells the simple story of Travis (Harry Dean Stanton), a man we first see wandering through the Texas desert. Eventually, he collapses in a bar, and the German doctor treating him (someone else who appears to be lost in this world), calls his brother Walt (Dean Stockwell). Walt comes to get the initially mute Travis and fly him back to LA, but that falls through and they have to drive. The scenes between the two brothers are among the strongest in the film. Stanton's brilliant performance and the beautiful photography elevate these scenes to a level of pure genius. When they get back to Walt's family in LA, including his wife Anne (Aurore Clement) and Travis's son, Hunter (Hunter Carson, in one of the greatest child performances of all time), Travis seems out of place. His wife Jane (Nastassja Kinski) left Hunter there right after Travis left, and she then disappeared. After some great scenes of reconciliation, Travis and Hunter drive to Houston, where they know Jane has been living. Travis finds her dancing in a club where she can't see the patrons, she can just talk to him. The final twenty minutes may be some of the most heartbreaking stuff ever put to film, as Travis and Jane try to understand each other and confess their sins.

In the end, mother and son are reunited. The question remains, is Hunter better off this way? In LA, he was with a successful family that gave him complete support, but here is mother is a stripper, and the film implies that she is a prostitute on the side. I don't know if it really matters. I think Wenders just wants them to be happy in his version of America. This is not Stroszek. There is no direct criticism of the American dream; Wenders seems more fascinated with America than anything else. Ry Cooder's stunning score brings back memories of the old west, and the constant focus on billboards and other signs appears to be more out of interest than disgust. I don't know how well I've described it, but Paris, Texas is one of the greatest films ever made.

Rating (out of ****): ****

Milk

I am admittedly unfamiliar with the work of Gus Van Sant. Good Will Hunting was pretty good, and Last Days was interesting, but not really my thing. I haven't seen Elephant or My Own Private Idaho, two films that many seem to consider his best. Going into his latest film, Milk, I wasn't really sure what to expect. I knew the story, and I knew its ending. Even if you don't know, archival footage five minutes into the film tells you that San Fransisco city supervisor Harvey Milk and mayor Moscone were killed by former supervisor Dan White. What separates Milk from most biopics is not some new form of storytelling like last year's masterful I'm Not There; Milk simply just does the formula better than almost any other biopic I've ever seen. It opens with archival footage of gay rights activists in the sixties, and then we get out framing device, Harvey Milk (Sean Penn), around the time of his death, recording his thoughts on tape only to be played upon his assassination. The actual narrative begins in New York in 1970. Milk, still working in an insurance office, meets Scott Smith (James Franco) on the street, they fall in love and decide to leave New York and go to San Fransisco. Once they arrive, Harvey begins to get involved in the gay rights movement. He realizes that having an elected official would be the only way their growing community will get the rights they deserve. Christening himself the "mayor of Castro street," Harvey begins to drum up support, and while he loses his first two elections (and Scott in the process), he begins to build a team, including young activist Cleve Jones (Emile Hirsch). He finally wins in 1977, and makes quick friends with everyone on the board except Dan White (Josh Brolin). During his early time in office, he meets Jack Lira (Diego Luna), a lover who he enjoys for simplicity and ease. After passing a gay rights bill in San Fransisco, Harvey and his team meet strong opposition from anti-gay activist Anita Bryant and various politicians in his quest to stop prop 6, which would have taken away gay rights across the state (sound familiar?). After their victory (which is still marred by tragedy), White resigns from the board, and, after he is informed that he cannot get his job back, takes matters into his own hands, resulting in tragedy.

To be honest, I wasn't that excited about this film based on the trailers. It looked like Penn would continue his recent streak of overacting in every role, and I thought it would be too formulaic for its own good. I was wrong. Penn gives the best performance of his career, never going too far over the top and always hitting the perfect notes. Franco and Brolin are also great (in fact, Brolin somehow won best actor from the national board of review), but Emile Hirsch gives the best supporting performance in the film, exuding a near perfect level of energy as Jones, who is still one of the leaders of the gay rights movement. The only weak performance comes from Luna, who lacks anything resembling subtlety (although, thinking about it now, that may have been the point). The film looks fantastic, although the use of archival footage grows a bit stale by the end, and the score, which mostly relies on opera (Harvey's favorite) perfectly conveys the emotion of the film.

Before I saw the movie, I wanted to avoid talking about its relevance in my review. We all know that California passed prop 8 last month and Harvey's final message of hope will seem familiar to any American viewers, but there's more to Milk than that. This isn't just a film about gay rights. Harvey Milk was about more than that, he fought for everyone's rights because he just wanted to help people. He even tried to help Dan White (although, that may have been because he thought White was gay). Here, we see the universal fights for human rights and acceptance. That is what makes Dustin Lance Black's script so great. Sure, the film concentrates on gay rights, but every minority can feel their pain and revel in their triumph, and that's what this film is, an absolute triumph.

Rating (out of ****): ****

Slumdog Millionaire

Danny Boyle is a special talent behind the camera. He has created the greatest drug movie of all time (Trainspotting) the second best horror film of this decade (28 Days Later) and one of the better, albeit still heavily flawed, modern sci-fi films (Sunshine). His latest movie, Slumdog Millionaire, has been riding a wave of festival buzz and Oscar talk (and it will most certainly receive that "little movie that could" nomination that went to both Juno and Little Miss Sunshine), and I was really excited to see it. Slumdog tells the story of Jamal, a Mumbai street kid who grows up to get on the Indian version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." Nobody believes that he could actually know the answers, so, after his first night on the show, which takes him all the way up to the final question, the police take him in and interrogate him to discover his method of cheating. He begins to tell them his life story, relating each question to specific events from his orphan youth. After the death of their mother in a religious riot, Jamal and his brother Salim meet up with a girl named Latika and eventually wind up in an absurdly corrupt orphanage. After escape and separation, Jamal spends the rest of his life trying to find Latika, while Salim transforms in a way frighteningly reminiscent of Lil' Ze from City of God. Of course Jamal's story wins the cops over, and he goes back on the show to try to find Latika again. It ends relatively happily and there's a dance number over the credits as some sort of homage to traditional Bollywood.
I can say that it ends happily because you know going in exactly what will happen. Like all inspirational films, you know that the character will reach their true goal in the end. In fact, after ten minutes, you should be able to guess the final question. I can't criticize the film for that. Unfortunately, I can criticize it for a few other things. Boyle's camera tries to capture the energy behind modern India (essentially the opposite of Wes Anderson's superior The Darjeeling Limited). This works perfectly about half the time. The color scheme is beautiful, and there are some truly stunning shots (a sequence involving young Jamal and Salim on a train stand out the most in my mind), but the constant motion does get annoying (although not quite at the level of a certain recent blockbuster). It also feels like nearly half the film is shot at either an odd angle or in slow motion, two techniques that rarely work here. Some of the music choices were also rather questionable. I would have much preferred them to just use Indian music all the way through, but one or two of the western songs actually work rather well (the use of M.I.A's "Paper Planes" perfectly complements the aforementioned train sequence, but the use of a remix about five minutes later fails). The rest of the western and techno music feels overbearing and takes away from the intended feel of the scene. The performances from the actors playing the three leads (and each had to be played by three actors at three separate ages) were very good, but some of the supporting performances completely fail, especially those playing the gangster characters.
Their "Millionaire" set really does look exactly like ours

Despite all of this, I still must recomend the film. It may not deserve the Oscar talk, but it's still something fun and different. The story is heart warming and occasionally pretty funny, the actors are great and, for the most part, it looks wonderful. It also has some good, albeit somewhat basic, Indian class commentary. Its always nice to see a great director take a bunch of relative unknowns (Anil Kapoor, who plays the gameshow host, is the only really well-known actor in the film, but even that is just in India), and make a good film out of it. I was also fascinated by the aspect of Boyle taking this very American story, moving it to India, and then basing it entirely around what was originally a British television show. It's something that could only be done in this modern world.
Rating (out of ****): ***

Edit: You know what, its been about a month since I saw the film. Upon much further review and a rewatch, I've decided that I gave it far too much credit. The acting is bad, the story is not as fun as I originally gave it credit for, the end is unbearable and, while the structure is interesting, it limits any opportunity to get to know the other characters.

New Rating (out of ****): **

Let The Right One In

This November, two non-traditional vampire movies will be released in America. They will both deal with teenagers (or preteens) learning to deal with the world around them, and they are both based on bestsellers. One is a masterpiece that goes far beyond almost any other vampire film ever made, the other is sure to be one of the year's worst films. I'll give you a hint, the name of the second one rhymes with "highlight." Is it really fair of me to judge Twilight, based on the bestselling young adult novel, so harshly without having seen it and only having been able to read ten pages of the book? Yes, because those were the worst ten pages of any book I've ever read. What will make it seem even worse if I'm forced to actually sit through it is the brilliance of that other vampire movie, Let The Right One In. This Swedish film may be the best vampire movie since Herzog's Nosferatu. Although this is a vampire film, it's much closer in feel to Pan's Labyrinth than anything else. While this doesn't reach the exact same level as Del Toro's masterpiece, it is still must-see cinema.

As the film opens, we see Oskar, a twelve year old boy living in the suburbs of Stockholm with his mother. He is an awkward child and faces constant bullying from an incredibly cruel group of children at his school. One night, while sitting in the courtyard outside of his apartment, he meets Eli, a girl who has just moved in and appears to be his age. As soon as she moves in, people around town begin to die in violent attacks. The first attacks were perpetrated by her handler, the much older Hakan, but he eventually fails, and Eli is forced to attack others for sustenance. As the film goes on, Oskar eventually realises what is going on, but he's OK with it. He's falling for Eli, even though she's not technically a girl, and happens to be well over twelve years old. She teaches Oskar to defend himself, and he does so in a scene that heavily reminded me of David Gordon Green's Snow Angels. The citizens of the town realize what's going on, and after numerous deaths, they close in on Eli. The end of the films features a scene of shocking, somewhat macabre violence, as Eli decides what really matters.

The film raises many moral questions, and they are the things that separate it from the standard vampire tale. After draining their blood, Eli clearly has two options. She could allow them to go on as a vampire, or she can kill them. We see what happens to one citizen who becomes a vampire, and Eli's preferred choice of murder seems to make a lot more sense. The people that die so that Eli may go on are all innocent. In fact, only one truly "bad" person dies in the movie. Is it really worth it? We know that Eli is a good person, but so are the townspeople. In the hands of a lesser director (something general audiences will get to see when the American remake, directed by Matt "Cloverfield" Reeves comes out next year), these questions would not have been nearly as interesting and the film would almost undoubtedly focused more on the violence than the characters. Thankfully, Tomas Alfredson shows a deft touch and balances all of the film's issues perfectly. There are probably a few too many lingering shots of snow-fall and nature (great in small amounts, but somewhat excessive here), but that is my only real complaint. The kids playing the leads give some of the best child-performances I've ever seen, the movie looks great, it's constantly exciting and by the end, I truly cared for the characters and their situation. This is the third best film of the year so far, and is my personal front runner for best foreign language film come January.

Rating (out of ****): ****

Quantum of Solace

It is probably important to note that I love the James Bond series. I'm pretty sure I've seen every one, and I know I have seen every one on opening night since 1997's Tomorrow Never Dies. I can't be certain what separates the good Bond films from the bad ones. I don't think it's the actor, as even Brosnan had Goldeneye, but after sitting through the train-wreck that is Quantum of Solace, I think it may be the director. Martin Campbell's Casino Royale is either the best or second best of all Bond films (it's hard to go go against Goldfinger). It was an exciting fresh start for the series and Daniel Craig was brilliant, but it still kept some of the moments that made us remember why we love the Bond films. Marc Forster's Quantum of Solace does nothing of the sort.

I'll start with the good parts: Daniel Craig proves that he is the best actor to ever play Bond (it's too early to say that he is the best Bond, just the best actor), and there are two pretty good action scenes (the finale, and a sequence involving Bond running away from Henchman at an opera). Unfortunately, there are more than two action sequences in this film, and the others are all downright incompetent. The worst example is probably the opening car chase, which could be one of the worst ever put to film. It isn't just a rather dull chase, but it's a dull chase that's edited quicker than a Bourne film; however, unlike a Bourne film, the short shots that we do get are not at all impressive. After that, we get what may be the worst Bond theme song yet. I'm going to blame this on Jack White, and unlike all of the other problems of the world I blame on this talentless hack, this song actually is his fault. Of course, the song isn't helped by the rather dull animation sequence that it's backing. Now, getting to the actual plot of the film, it opens an hour after Casino Royale, with Bond ending the chase and going to torture the mysterious Mr. White. He escapes, and another poorly shot chase ensues. Following some tagged bank notes, Bond goes to Haiti to find a contact, but, of course, winds up killing him, and trust me when I say this is a recurrent theme in this film. James Bond shouldn't kill everyone, even when he is motivated by revenge. It's what separates him from other action heroes. While in Haiti, Bond assumes the identity of that contact and discovers the plans of villain Dominic Greene, who plans on engineering a coup in Bolivia in order to take control of the nation's water supply, which is, as Roger Ebert points out, an incredibly stupid goal for a Bond villain. With the help of new Bond girl Camille Montes (played by the lovely Olga Kurylenko), he escapes via, you guessed it, another incompetent chase sequence. Bond follows Greene to Austria, and to a performance of the opera La Tosca. During the show, Bond taps into a conversation between Greene and other members of his mysterious organization Quantum (I'm actually very happy that they've utilized another SPECTRE type group). The films only really good chase scene follows, but even that is marred by needless, un-Bond-like civilian deaths. After this, M (once again played by Judy Dench) revokes Bond's papers, and he must rely on Mathis, the man who helped him in Casino Royal, to get him to Bolivia. I'll stop the summary here, as I'm pretty sure all of you already know whether or not you're going to see this film. All I'll say is that what follows in Bolivia includes a tribute to the most famous scene from Goldfinger, some more poorly shot action, the return of Jeffery Wright as Bond's CIA ally Felix Leiter, some heavy handed political commentary and a decent finale.

Craig and Kurylenko

Another important thing to note is the apparent increased role of Paul Haggis as a writer. On Casino Royale, he simply preformed some last minute touch-ups, but here is is the first credited writer. As someone who despises Haggis, I'm going to blame him for the lack of humor and the heavy-handedness. It's also come out that he turned in the final script two hours before the beginning of the writer's strike. I would have been happy if he had taken those two hours to write a single joke or pun that the Bond films are known for. Still, I've never really enjoyed a Marc Forster film, and if someone is barely able to put together a drama, they should not be given a $230 million action film. The film's failure probably belongs to both of them. Daniel Craig's performance alone keeps this film from falling into Moonraker or Die Another Day levels of bad, but Forster's complete inability to direct an action scene and Haggis's weak script do put this film near the bottom of my list of Bond films.

Rating (out of ****) *1/2