YOUNG @ HEART

Directed by Stephen Walker


British filmmaker, Stephen Walker, admits in the first few moments of YOUNG @ HEART that he fell in love instantly with the Massachusetts chorus of the same name the first time he saw them perform. He wasn’t lying. He loved them so much that he followed them around for seven weeks to document their rehearsal process and then edited his footage into a television documentary. As if that wasn’t enough love, he has now remade his documentary for theatrical audiences.

While Walker’s admiration may seem to border on obsession, it isn’t hard to see why the group inspired him so deeply. Young @ Heart is no ordinary singing chorus. The average age of the members is 81 and they don’t sing traditional hymns but rather punk classics by The Clash or contemporary rock ballads by Coldplay. A rigorous rehearsal schedule of three sessions a week and hours of private practice culminating in a full two act evening performance to a sold out concert hall would be demanding for trained professionals in their prime. These folks make it all look so easy but that certainly doesn’t mean it is as death is always lurking backstage. The whole thing certainly gives new meaning to lyrics like, “Should I stay or should I go?”


Though your heart goes out to the entire Young @ Heart chorus, Walker regrettably fails to inspire his audience the way the chorus does theirs. Ironically, his youth as a filmmaker undermines the experience, inciting only a hearty applause when there was clearly a standing ovation to be had.

FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL

Written by Jason Segel
Directed by Nicholas Stoller
Starring Jason Segel, Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, Russell Brand, Jonah Hill, Paul Rudd & Bill Hader


The writer/star of FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL, Jason Segel, is the kind of artist who isn’t afraid to let it all hang out there for everyone to see and subsequently appreciate or pick apart. He writes his pain on to the screen and isn’t afraid to get naked on the path to true understanding. In the writer’s world, naked is a fairly obvious metaphor for vulnerability but here it just means nude. And so, as Segal’s penis flaps back and forth against his painfully pale body, moments before Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell) breaks up with him, the Judd Apatow movie machine unleashes its latest raw comedy from the mind of the modern male.

This particular male is Peter Bretter (Segel), a slob who can barely pick up after himself but somehow manages to maintain a serious relationship with a gorgeous actress girlfriend and holds down a job as a composer for schlock television. He’s not unattractive nor without his charms but he does raise the question as to how he ever managed to get himself this well positioned. He also has no trouble at all finding numerous beautiful women to help him take his mind off Sarah. And while forgetting Sarah Marshall proves much more complicated than Peter had hoped - it doesn’t help that they have found themselves both at the same Hawaiian resort – he can at least have the last laugh by vilifying her as a horrible human being before the credits role. Without giving too much away, he will have the option, as the sympathetic character, to walk away happy but Sarah, as the heartbreaker, has been doomed since Hester Prynne was sent to prison with that darn scarlet letter across her chest.


If I were Apatow, I would be a little tired of hearing my name being attached to all of these projects. If anything, he should make sure to have a firmer hand in the process in the future. FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL is not without the hilarity and genuine character development that his past productions have captured so poignantly but its bizarre subplots and many rushed moments make it somewhat forgettable.

SMART PEOPLE

Written by Mark Poirier
Directed by Noam Murro
Starring Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, Thomas Haden Church and Ellen Page


Vanessa Wetherhold: What is it like being stupid?
Brooke: It’s like sitting alone at lunch every day.

For a movie about supposedly clever individuals, SMART PEOPLE isn’t very smart. In fact, it shows its lack of intelligence almost instantly when it opens with a sequence of scenes that establish what a self-involved, miserable jackass college professor, Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) is, with the subtlety of an international fireworks competition. He can’t remember the names of his students. He can’t be bothered to honour his office hours. He doesn’t even have the time of day for his adopted brother, Chuck (Thomas Haden Church). He is coarse with everyone he meets and shows disdain for everything life throws at him. First time filmmaker, Noam Munro, then expects us to dig deep into our already put off hearts and find some sympathy for this devil of a man. Barely five minutes have passed and you know exactly what to expect. Lawrence will meet a girl before long and she will show him that as smart as he thinks he is, he’s got oh so much more to learn about living and loving life. Seeing as how the premise is overdone and the man in desperate need of change is completely unlikable, I’m thinking they might have wanted to put a little more thought into this one before declaring it smart.


And find a woman, Lawrence does. After suffering a concussion from falling off a fence, Lawrence is reconnected with a former student of his that went on to become an E.R. doctor, Janet Hartigan (Sarah Jessica Parker). Reconnected is not exactly the right choice of words as he does not remember her whatsoever. He is not the least bit kind to her, just like when he was her professor way back when, and all of their interactions are awkward and unsatisfying. Yet, she shows no hesitation when he asks her out for a “face to face” (that’s smart people talk for “date”). First time screenwriter, Mark Poirier, might want to look up the meaning of “motivation”. What incentive is there for this successful doctor to go out with this pompous man? While we’re on the subject, why does a man so content in his misery suddenly make a move toward potential happiness? Smart, well-rounded characters make their own decisions and do things for a reason. These types of script progressions make sense and create meaning instead of simply serving the plot. In this scenario, we are left to watch a relationship grow out of nothing and therefore have no stake in its success.


As if Lawrence’s obnoxious presence weren’t enough, he seems to have passed on all of his “better” traits to his teenage daughter, Vanessa (Ellen Page). Vanessa excels at everything she does and does not for a moment let life get in the way of these successes. Not surprisingly, she has no life outside of this. Having lost her mother an undetermined time ago, she desperately craves her father’s approval and attention. Thankfully for her, her uncle, Chuck, can come to her emotional rescue just like Dr. Hartigan is doing for her Dad. Thankfully for us, all the actors involved are talented enough to bring as much depth as is physically possible to these thin characters. Now we have a detestable father-daughter duo and two saviors. What we don’t have is a reason to care. While it makes sense for Vanessa to emulate her role model, we still have no idea why Lawrence is so unhappy. Seeing as how he can’t seem to part with his dead wife’s clothes, one could infer that he gave up after her death but he was apparently just as loathsome in his earlier teaching days. The story seems to be pushing him to get over something but doesn’t bother establishing what it is he has to get over.


SMART PEOPLE seems to imply that people who are smart do not know how to be happy, are completely selfish individuals and essentially think that they are better than everyone else. Not only have these inferences been made countless times but they are also the worst kinds of clichés, the kinds that are based on ignorance and untruths. Murro and Poirier jump in and out of moments in these characters’ experiences without explaining how they got there, why we should care or where they’ll go when it is all done. All they seem concerned with is making their hackneyed point and using as many big words as possible in the process. In the end, SMART PEOPLE is just plain dumb.

UNDER THE SAME MOON

Written by Ligiah Villalobos
Directed by Patricia Riggen
Starring Kate des Castillo, Eugenio Derbez and Adrian Alonso


Rosario: I don’t know any US history.
Paco: That’s easy. First they screwed the Indians; then they screwed the slaves; and now they’re screwing the Mexicans.

A mother gets up before the sun rises on Los Angeles to take the first of many buses to get to the first of her two housecleaning jobs. Elsewhere, in Mexico, her nine-year-old son still sleeps soundly in his bed. Before she left him over four years prior, she told him that should he ever find himself lonely and missing her, that he need only look up to moon in the sky and know that she too would be looking and thinking of him. In that thought, both the title and the dualistic tone are set for a surprisingly poignant piece about the borders that keep both countries and people apart. Director Patricia Riggen’s UNDER THE SAME MOON is a brave film that proudly puts a face to an issue that has polarized America. While the main focus surrounds precocious Carlito (Adrian Alonso) as he crosses the US/Mexican border to find his mother after a family death leaves him alone, his journey draws attention to the plight of a people who want only to pursue a better future for their families. It is soft and sweet one moment, difficult and tense the next, but always subtle and sensitive. Its significance is found in its simplicity – while our heart strings are being tugged, our eyes are also being opened.


When Rosario (Kate del Castillo) stares up at the moon, the longing to be with her son is matched only in magnitude by the constant wondering if all of her sacrifice is worth the trouble. The contradictory nature of her existence is a heavy burden to bear. She demeans herself daily cleaning the house of a wealthy woman who treats her like a second class citizen and then has to clean another house and sew dresses nightly in order to put any money aside. As every hour of every day disappears without notice or meaning, years go by without seeing her son. She must work so hard in order to provide him with the possibility of a brighter future and this sacrifice is truly great. For as she slaves away the days, sure to always be on the lookout for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, her son is growing up without her. She has foregone the potential of her own happiness and cut herself off from the one remaining source of joy in her life. The decision she made years ago to cross the border has now drawn another line between mother and son that she knows may one day be too thick to be erased.


When Carlito stares up at the moon, the longing to be with his mother is matched only in magnitude by the bewilderment derived from feeling abandoned. He cannot reconcile his mother’s love still felt in his heart and the reality of their situation. Four years after she left, his faith is finally faltering. While Rosario’s daily renunciation is a testament to conviction and hope, Carlito’s mission to make his way from Mexico to L.A. gives the film a heartbreaking tenderness while still tersely telling the truth of his tale. A boy willing to go to such great lengths just to be with his mother may sound saccharine in nature but there is nothing sweet about a nine-year old hitchhiking in Tucson, working wherever he can to pay for bus fare or nearly being sold into child prostitution. Ligiah Villalobos’s lean screenplay never loses sight of the prize long enough to find itself off course but it is also never afraid to talk about the reality illegal immigrants must face on the streets of a supposedly great country. The dichotomy between sappy and serious is what makes UNDER THE SAME MOON so effective. While we want with great desperation to see mother and son reunite, we are also exposed to the reality imposed by our own ignorance upon such innocent hopefuls.


Once upon a time, America used to be the land of the free. People the world over would immigrate in pursuit of the elusive American dream. Things are very different now. Now there is the threat of terrorism, economic unrest and generally widespread panic and fear. To be foreign is to be frightening. All of our misconceptions dehumanize those involved and in a backwards fashion, somehow glamorize the experience. UNDER THE SAME MOON is a fine, refreshing film that gives a voice to those who are so seldom heard in a fashion that will allow it be heard by many. And for all the tears and warmth it brings to the viewer, perhaps its crowning achievement is that all who see it will inevitably find themselves staring up at the night sky shortly afterward, realizing that we all live under that very same moon no matter how many lines are drawn between us.

LEATHERHEADS

Written by Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly
Directed by George Clooney
Starring George Clooney, Renee Zellweger, John Krasinski and Jonathan Pryce


Reporter: They got a completely different style; how are you going to adjust to that?
Carter Rutherford: Maybe they’ll just adjust to me.

Every seat in the stands is filled. The screams from the crowd almost eclipse the sound of the marching band. It is 1925 and both the country and its interest in college football is thriving. Meanwhile, at a game just a few fields away, a spectator could practically get an entire bench to themselves; a cow on the field goes unnoticed; and the entire thing could be called off because there is no spare football to be found when the game ball goes missing. Given today’s interest in the sport, it seems implausible to say but this second game is actually being played by the professionals. Apparently, back in the 20’s, America encouraged their young men to get on the field and toss the ball around for their amusement but expected them to grow up and be real men once college and the game were done. LEATHERHEADS, George Clooney’s third time behind the lens of a feature film, follows one man’s refusal to play by the rules and his quest to legitimize the boys who would rather play than become productive members of society.


With Randy Newman’s swing jazz score keeping the tone lively and the entire cast generally looking like they’re having a blast, it is a wonder that LEATHERHEADS falls as flat as it does. It’s got the look, the style and the attitude but it lacks the luster and the laughs necessary to transport the audience to a time when comedy meant screwball instead of raunchy. First time feature writers, Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly, go back over 80 years to tell their story but while recreating the proper language lends to the credibility of the scenario, writing in jokes that are just as old as the story itself does nothing to inspire a single guffaw. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A guy and a gal are having words and the lady says, “I didn’t come here to be insulted.” Without pause, the man retorts, “No, where do you usually go?” You aren’t laughing, are you? I told you to stop me. Still, it may be unfair to lay the blame entirely on Brantley and Reilly as the script itself has a few years on it. Originally written over fifteen years ago, only a few original scenes made it into Clooney’s revised version but with the bare essentials intact, Clooney was not awarded any writing credit for his overhaul.


This particular caper finds Clooney as Dodge Connolly, a forty-five year old professional football player that has no other skills other than playing it rough on the field. When his team seems to be headed for extinction due to lack of interest and therefore funds, he must make the country take notice of professional football or find a real job. To do this, he enlists Carter “The Bullet” Rutherford (Krasinski) out of college ball and turns him pro. This puts the crowds in the seats instantly and draws the attention of the media to a franchise they thought to be fumbling. One journalist in particular, Lexie Littleton (Zellweger), is sent in from Chicago to debunk the star player and soon enough, both Dodge and The Bullet are vying for her attentions. Clooney’s got his Cary Grant face on, Zellweger’s back in her Roxie Hart mode and Krasinski’s just got a face that beams with earnestness that you can’t help but love the guy. All around, the film is perfectly cast but everyone plays their part by the book. Funny how a film that makes such a strong statement about how rules ruined the game of football is so afraid of breaking any.


Clooney is a formidable director. His last effort, GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK, earned him well-warranted accolades and he proves once again with LEATHERHEADS that he is capable of assembling all the proper elements necessary to design a particular tenor. His issue here is that there are perhaps too many factors to consider and he loses sight of the whole and how that final product will come across to the audience. Unlike the players on the field, Clooney seems afraid to dive into the mud and get his film a little dirty. Every aspect is so polished but the game just isn’t as exciting if nobody gets their uniform dirty. And just because a play works on paper, doesn’t mean it will score your team a touchdown.

STOP-LOSS

Written by Mark Richard and Kimberly Pierce
Directed by Kimberly Pierce
Starring: Ryan Phillippe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Channing Tatum, Timothy Olyphant and Abbie Cornish


Steve Shriver: Shit, I’m gonna miss blowing things up.

A bunch of American army boys piss away their time at camp, horsing around and yelling obscenities at each other while they wait their next posting. The style is gritty and raw. There are no Hollywood glamour shots of pretty boy stars, Ryan Phillippe, Channing Tatum or Joseph Gordon-Levitt; there is just confusion over where their day is headed. Before long, the team is manning a road blockade. Director Kimberly Pierce keeps the framing and the editing tight in this opening sequence and shoots the intensity high into the clear-blue, Iraq sky. Each car that approaches the young, scattered soldiers could be a disaster. One second they’re lusting over a girl back home, the next they find themselves in the middle of a full-on ambush. The lot of them all fall into line and show what good soldiers are made of – boys that become men in a moment’s notice without thinking. And then they fight. Moves are made in as calculated a fashion as is allowed in the back alleys of a foreign land. Some of the men live and some die fighting. Within minutes, STOP-LOSS has you and then without warning, the film suddenly turns into a hip-hop musical montage, establishing the stop-and-start pulse of the film that ultimately leaves it for a loss.


It has been nearly ten years since Pierce made her fearless directorial debut with BOYS DON’T CRY. It was a commanding assault on the viewer’s nerves with each scene building panic and mounting anxiety. You were never given a chance to breathe and the tragic story it told became unforgettable as a result. This is why it is all so strange to see her impose breaks upon the viewer. Not only does it grind the flow to a halt in the dirt but it also exposes the need to repackage the current wave of Iraq war themed films. On the one hand, it makes some sense to cut the film together in an MTV-inspired style to market the war to the generation that is actually fighting it (it should also be noted that the film is MTV produced). On the other hand though, this approach subsequently comes across as a compromised version of Pierce’s potential vision. That said, perhaps the new design is necessary in order to get the film’s important message across and heard.


The message in this latest condemnation of the Iraq war effort is to bring attention to the “stop-loss” process. The term itself refers to the army’s right to force soldiers into another tour of duty at the end of the term they voluntarily signed up for. It is only supposed to be invoked when the war is still ongoing so you can imagine the outrage felt by Brandon King (Phillippe) as he is expecting to be signing his discharge papers and is told instead that he is shipping back to Iraq. Infuriated by his government’s backdoor approach to get around the lack of a draft, Brandon goes AWOL in search of a way out. While taking advantage of the soldiers that enlisted freely to fight for their country is appalling enough, it becomes even more so when you see how messed up the returning soldiers have become after balancing being boys and being men in such devastating situations. Pierce’s subtle presentation of the young men of Middle America is smart enough not to exaggerate their psychological damage but their table manners speak volumes to make her point. These are men who cannot carry on a conversation without recounting atrocious experiences they suffered through and have no concept of how uncomfortable they are making everyone around them. Another tour of duty could reasonably crush them if it doesn’t kill them. With that in mind, Brandon’s escape is not just warranted but imperative.


At one point, Brandon makes a homecoming speech to the people of his Texas town. Midway, he is overwhelmed by how much he has been affected by the simple sights and smells of his home and he cannot go on. Everything he was fighting for becomes clear to him but a fellow officer interrupts his speech in favor of a more crowd-rousing message. People don’t want to face the reality of the war; they just want to hear that their side is winning. And while Pierce’s point is important and still firmly made, it is impossible to feel as if this film that took so many years to make is actually the film she intended and not a film that was designed to profit from a specific market. Still, it is worth applauding for providing a product that will be most enjoyed and appreciated by the demographic that is actually fighting on the front lines as opposed to an older generation that until now has been able to just sit back in the theatre and quietly criticize the war from afar.

MARRIED LIFE

Written by Ira Sachs and Oren Moverman
Directed by Ira Sachs
Starring: Chris Cooper, Patricia Clarkson, Pierce Brosnan and Rachel McAdams


Richard Langley: I always felt marriage was like a mild illness, like the flu or chicken pox.

The biggest problem with MARRIED LIFE, the movie not the state of existence, is the tone set by its title. Before even setting foot in the theatre, your mind is filled with preconceived notions about the likelihoods the film will deliver. You cannot expect a film called MARRIED LIFE to show long term couples just as happy now as they were when they first met. In fact, in these cynical times, you might likely be disappointed if you didn’t see spouses abusing each other, scheming and plotting against the other or, if you want to be old fashioned, just plain cheating on each other. Perhaps to offset these expectations, writer/director, Ira Sachs, sets his story in the 1940’s, a supposedly simpler time when people were married and stayed that way despite their personal unhappiness. Even a setting as delicately composed as this one is not a good enough disguise for its contemporary sensibility. The film’s fate seems sealed as soon as the opening credits begin to roll. Similar in design and manner to television’s “Desperate Housewives”, a show that has built its reputation on couples scheming, they seem to announce Sach’s intention to give us exactly what we expect. Only when the final animated frame settles on a city skyline and you expect the real thing to take its place, Sachs reveals that it is in fact a reflection. With the lens pointing inward now, I wonder if I’ve spoken too soon.


Like the beginning of a marriage, for a while, it is good. The strings of the score swell and sweep you up into the sentiment like a warm wind taking you for a dance in the sky overlooking a quiet family-friendly suburban street. This particular street is home to Harry and Pat Allen (Chris Cooper and Patricia Clarkson). The two have been married for what might as well be forever and they still cherish and respect each other but whether they still love each other is a question that looms over their lives like a heavy cloud. Harry believes that love is defined by the desire to give constantly to the other person. Pat believes that love is sex. Despite their definitions being categorically on different pages, they are a solid, functional couple. However, Harry has found another woman, Kay (Rachel McAdams in a refreshing return that is more tender and vulnerable than past performances) for whom continuously being doted on is the perfect compliment to her lonely life. I suppose it doesn’t hurt that she is younger and beautiful but Harry conveniently avoids seeing this as the motivating factor for his affection.


And so Harry finds himself in quite the pickle. He doesn’t want to burden his wife with the embarrassment of a divorce but yet he cannot deny that he is no longer in love with her. Harry is a sensible businessman who lives his life with order and reason and is still able to embrace his more romantic sensibility, wanting his life to embody the love he feels. He racks his brain to come up with the tidiest, most logical solution to his dilemma and somehow, the best plan he can come up with is to kill his wife. He rationalizes that this will cause the least amount of pain to all involved, including his children. Is it me or is this the least rational course of action? Essentially, this becomes MARRIED LIFE’s main storyline and as it is ridiculous in concept, it also serves to undermine the intelligence of what was otherwise a fairly engaging film. Even Sachs seems unsure of this whole direction as he throws in a couple of painfully obvious scenes about how death can take away misery rather than add to it. If Sachs isn’t buying it, I’m not sure how he thought anyone else would.


Despite its shortcomings, MARRIED LIFE does plant a few seeds of wisdom in its perfectly tended garden. The banalities of spending every day of your life with the same person are accepted by most of the characters as a perfectly normal piece of the pie. With decades past between their time and ours, have we really changed all that much? There are so many things happening and left unsaid in any marriage with both partners none the wiser. Subsequently, we have fine-tuned an uncanny ability to exist in a state of comfortable misery. We may look elsewhere for distraction but so many never walk away from what they know isn’t working. Applying that same logic makes sitting through MARRIED LIFE entirely acceptable while you wonder what’s playing next door.

DR. SEUSS’ HORTON HEARS A WHO!

Written by Ken Dario and Cinco Paul
Directed by Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino
Voices by: Jim Carrey, Steve Carell, Carol Burnett, Will Arnett, Seth Rogan and Charles Osgood


Katie: In my world, everyone’s a pony and eats rainbows and poops butterflies.

Dr. Seuss has not always found fortune when making his way from page to screen. But, this latest incarnation is the most who-larious I’ve ever seen. Get it? Who-larious? Like “hi-larious” but with “who”. As in all the Who’s down in Whoville and little Cindy Lou Who? Fine, roll your eyes but you’d be rhyming too if you stopped being so cynical and saw HORTON HEARS A WHO! It’s funny; it’s goofy; it’s surprising and loopy. It’s colorful and flashy; it’s unexpected and splashy. Wait. Splashy? Is that even a word? I needed something to rhyme with flashy and what I came up with was absurd. Sorry, I promise I won’t rhyme all the way through. Besides I’m no match for Dr. You-Know-Who. It’s just that this movie is so darn adorable when all the previous Seuss movies have been basically horrible. The spirit of the book remains completely intact but it’s modern somehow and as a matter of fact, the ideas have expanded without looking back. Now, thanks to the good folks at Blue Sky, the studio that gave us ICE AGE before this, Dr. Seuss can rest easy, his legacy revered and no longer amiss. So pack up your car, pack up your girl and your boy and bring them to see Horton, a movie the whole family can… hmm, what rhymes with “boy”? Employ? Coy? Toy? Nevermind. Bring them to see Horton, a movie the whole family can appreciate.


All that rhyming was mildly exhausting. Let’s move on to the intellectualizing portion of this review. When HORTON HEARS A WHO! was originally published in 1954, Dr. Seuss gave his young readers an important lesson about how any voice, no matter how small it may appear to be, can change the world. Screenwriters, Ken Dario and Cinco Paul, have developed the confidence-boosting tale into a much grander take on societal hierarchies, the power of the imagination and the possibility that we are not alone in this universe. The very big elephant, Horton (voiced in a lovably whimsical fashion of fancy by Jim Carrey), randomly finds the tiniest world in the most unexpected of places, a spec of dust that has flown past him to eventually rest comfortably on a clover. It turns out that this world is known as Whoville. It plays home to hundreds if not thousands of Who’s and is run by a Who known only as The Mayor. You can only imagine The Mayor’s surprise when Horton finally makes contact with him. Now imagine that surprise voiced by the self-deprecating, neurotic genius of Steve Carrell. Together, Carell and Carey play perfectly off each other as their performances are based in the knowledge that Horton and The Mayor are not nearly as different as they initially appear. Though one is huge and one is small, they both know the meaning of responsibility and importance of helping all who need.


Of course, back in the Jungle of Nool that Horton calls home, no one believes his story about the people on the spec, so he must go it alone. This would be fine if it weren’t for one kangaroo (Carol Burnett), the self-proclaimed ruler of this particular jungle. Horton’s flagrant use of his imagination could inspire others and before you know it, all you got is anarchy. And so the door is opened to one of many lessons that give this fable a great richness. While children are not often discouraged to use their imaginations, here they are encouraged to support what they believe to be true inside of their hearts. In doing so, they should even challenge the status quo. Combine that with Horton’s perseverance, dedication and loyalty to his cause as well as The Mayor’s ability to rally his people together by overcoming his insecurity to become a great leader and you’ve got a family film focused on promoting fine values instead of promotional products for a refreshing change. The best part is that the lessons never take away from the fun!


I know I wouldn’t have an easy time if a giant elephant I couldn’t see informed me that my whole universe was nothing more than a spec of dust. This is why I’m not in charge of the planet, I suppose. Although slightly less jarring, I was also thrown and most certainly impressed by the existential depth of HORTON HEARS A WHO! Who knew that an animated family flick could challenge the young minds of children the world over to think for second about the fragility and preciousness of life itself while cracking them up non-stop and without freaking them out? Horton knew; that’s who!

Oh wait … ENJOY!! Enjoy rhymes with boy. Right.

PARANOID PARK

Written and Directed by Gus Van Sant
Starring: Gabe Nevins, Daniel Liu, Taylor Momsen, Jake Miller, Lauren McKinney


Alex: Nobody is ever ready for Paranoid Park.

Up the ramp, through the sky and inevitably down again, pulled back by the greater forces that were just defied momentarily. This is the repeated journey of the seasoned skater. In PARANOID PARK, the community made skate park that plays home to Gus Van Sant’s latest effort and a number of aimless boarders, the journey is dreamy. Boys go up, boys come down and though they never seem to know where they will land, the camera is always right behind them to capture their fall back to earth. Between Christopher Doyle’s sinuous cinematography and the mangled music of Nino Rota, it is easy to feel as if you might be dreaming when watching, if only your eyes were closed. It isn’t long though before the hollow looks on everyone’s faces, the pointless words that repeatedly fall out of everyone’s mouths and the "How I Spent my Summer Vacation" narration, wake you from your dream to see things as they really are. PARANOID PARK is just another Van Sant art experiment gone painfully wrong. If only the aging director weren’t so blinded by his adoration for the young – maybe then he could see that he wasn’t showing us his dreams but rather his fantasies.


From the moment the film opens on a static shot of cars passing over a bridge in time lapse photography, you know that you’re about to see that other kind of Van Sant movie. The veteran director has always skated back and forth between the accessible and the abnormal. He has proven that he can handle both sides of the ramp with ease (GOOD WILL HUNTING vs. MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO) and has wiped out just as often (FINDING FORRESTER vs. EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES). Lately though, he seems more concerned with trying hard to be different that the works feel increasingly labored and less genuine or spontaneous. While he’s busy spitting on convention, he doesn’t realize that he’s creating his own distinct but overdone aesthetic at the same time. I for one have seen enough lanky, longhaired, young boys looking blankly into the camera before turning and walking away as we follow and stare at their pants hanging off their asses. Change the scenery from a skate park to a desert or a high school corridor and all his later films become stylistically interchangeable. Only PARANOID PARK is distinctly different then his other works – it’s almost entirely unenjoyable and not the least bit aware of or concerned for its audience.


As if snubbing both your audience and convention weren’t enough, Van Sant also doesn’t seem to care about his own amassed experience. What point is there in making movies for over twenty years if you’re not going to use what you’ve learnt to make even better ones? Though Van Sant may clearly be bored of the Hollywood style, that doesn’t mean it holds no merit. To ensure PARANOID PARK felt fresh and inspired, he cast non-professional actors he found on Myspace. First of all, I’m pretty sure other men his age have been reprimanded, not rewarded, for seeking out underage boys on the internet. Secondly, untrained acting does not come across as more authentic, it just comes across as bad. A movie about teenagers trying to come to terms with their inevitable passage into adulthood shouldn’t feel like it was made by a bunch of teenagers on the weekend because they had nothing better to do with their time. And even Van Sant knows his story was thinner than the emaciated boys onscreen as he is constantly cutting back to montages of said boys performing skate tricks with their buddies. Either he was trying to distract us from the film’s futility or the boys were just plain distracting him.


Honestly, I’m not sure who exactly is supposed to enjoy PARANOID PARK. It is far too esoteric for the distracted generation it portrays and entirely uninteresting to the older art house crowd given the subject matter. I like art house AND skater boys and I still wanted to scream in the middle of the picture to see if I was either living or dreaming this particular nightmare. And so it would seem that Van Sant has successfully made a picture for an untapped audience – men in their fifties desperate enough to sit through a painfully mundane hour and a half of uselessness to enjoy a few shots of boys in their prime flying through the air with their wooden boards gripped tightly in their virile hands.

THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL

Written by Peter Morgan
Directed by Justin Chadwick
Starring Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Eric Bana, Jim Sturgess, Kristen Scott Thomas


Lady Elizabeth: Our daughters are being traded like cattle for the advancement of men.

Historically speaking, Anne Boleyn was the second wife of England’s King Henry VIII. She was instrumental in England’s political and religious upheaval that saw England ultimately break away from the Catholic Church. When Henry’s first wife was unable to produce a male heir, he began to look elsewhere. His advances toward Anne were not returned, as she did not want to chance pregnancy. Any child born before the King could annul his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon would be a bastard child and therefore not a potential heir to the throne. As if this weren’t enough drama for the Boleyn family, Anne’s sister, Mary, was also involved with the King and rumoured to have had a child he fathered prior to his involvement with Anne. Regardless of how sordid the whole affair might have been, it altered England’s history dramatically and Anne went on to become both a martyr and a feminist icon. You would think that a screenplay about both sisters’ involvement with the King by the Oscar nominated writer of THE QUEEN would be an impartial account of the period but instead, THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL is nothing but a sexist farce that reduces both the male and female players to tired platitudes before robbing the story of all its humanity.


Men crave power and status. Women crave powerful men that they can manipulate to do their bidding. Men will essentially do anything to get into the skirt of a woman they desire and will lose their minds and capacity for rational thinking if she denies him. Women will in turn step over anyone, including their own sister, in order to bag a supposedly good man. Not only are all of these statements borderline offensive but they are also inane. There is always so much more to it than simply that. These clichés are the stuff great teen movies are made of and perhaps it was unfair of me to expect more from a costume film than insipid, nonsensical melodrama. What most undermines first time feature film director Justin Chadwick’s work is that it is amateurish and not at all convincing. Anne and Mary Boleyn (Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson) are introduced as loving, caring sisters. They protect each other, respect each other and love each other. Why then would I believe that either would hurt the other so maliciously? I guess because they’re girls and that’s what girls do when there is a man involved, right? Sure to stereotype both sexes fairly, the men do not escape Chadwick’s narrow view of gender definition. Am I to seriously believe the King of England (Eric Bana) would risk his throne and country’s well being just because a girl he lusts over refuses his royal wanting?


As Anne, Portman is a natural for the period but as she gets caught up in her father’s plans to have her bed the King as a means to better position her family’s standing at court, the inherent intelligence she brings to most of her roles makes it seem entirely unnatural that she would be naïve enough to play along with Daddy’s game. Johansson has never looked more drab as she stands amidst an always-overcast English countryside, her long, golden locks lying limp on her shoulders, her eyebrows almost invisible against her pale face. Though she seems to be playing catch-up to Portman’s supposed ease with the material at first, it is her poise and restraint that make for a more believable and sympathetic Boleyn. While Portman certainly masters the pain, remorse and paranoid fear necessary to convey Anne’s arch, she is incapable of escaping the same trap the entire cast falls into. Perhaps from having seen too many period pieces prior, the ensemble acts as though the events taking place are not actually happening to them as characters. Instead, they come off as amateur theatre actors caught up in the lore that comes with corsets and faked British accents.


THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL is not all that horrible. I too find myself getting lost in the barrage of bodices. Still, marrying off your children as commodities should not be taken lightly and the knowing twinkle in these girls’ eyes gives away their modern feminist thinking, making their wily behaviour seem all the more implausible. The only thing that makes this all worse is that all this trouble comes about to please the patriarch of the Boleyn family who is nothing more than a pathetic, insecure coward.

BE KIND, REWIND

Written and Directed by Michel Gondry
Starring Jack Black, Mos Def, Danny Glover, Melonie Diaz and Mia Farrow


Jerry: The only reason there’s anybody here is because there’s nowhere else to go.

How can someone who has built a reputation for being one of the more imaginative and visually creative directors in modern cinema find himself producing work that feels increasingly limited in scope? French filmmaker, Michel Gondry, broke out of the music video milieu in 2004 with ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND. The mind-melting dive into a psyche burnt by love was a dizzying assault on the eyes and a cerebral tickle simultaneously. His narrative film follow-up, THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP (2006), was expected to be a similar experience revolving around the dreamiest of human experiences. While it may have been whimsical, it lacked the firm contemplative nature of its predecessor. This was of course forgiven considering the elusive nature of the subject but disappointment was still felt. Now, as if in direct response to his criticisms of being perhaps too imaginative to be always understood, Gondry has crafted BE KIND, REWIND, where the madness of Gondry falls from the boundless sky and hits the pavement of Passaic, New Jersey, hard. His once ingenious approach is not entirely squashed but rather squeezed into conventional form resulting in a work that tries too hard on all plains.


The beginning of BE KIND, REWIND is both bizarre and boring. A video store clerk (Mos Def), his boss and mentor (Danny Glover) and a junkyard mechanic (Jack Black) sit around with colanders on their heads and stare across the street at a supposedly pimped out ride (an economy car outfitted with gigantic aluminum piping that looks like a musical wind instrument out of the world of Dr. Seuss) as they blabber on about working in a microwave or something equally nonsensical. Gondry just drops us there. He explains nothing as if everything we see is supposed to already make sense. Apparently, it means nothing to Gondry that we are not permanent residents in his brain. By the time Black’s Jerry concocts some plan about sabotaging the neighboring power plant with a grappling hook that I can only assume he found in the junkyard, I was ready to walk. Gondry’s attempt to ground the imagination in a real context only served to show how the two worlds are separate for a reason. Naturally, the sabotage is a disaster and this leads to every videotape in the “Be Kind, Rewind” store being erased by magnetism. Def’s Mike must now replace the tapes before his father figure finds him out and he proves to be the disappointment he fears he truly is. Thankfully, hilarity finally ensues.


Jerry and Mike proceed to reshoot “classic” fare like GHOSTBUSTERS, RUSH HOUR 2 and DRIVING MISS DAISY to replenish the shelves of wasted tapes. As they parade around in costumes made of aluminum foil and Christmas garland, they remove every trace of quality from these conventional crowd pleasers. Their antics and approaches are goofy and very funny in an intimate fashion; the chemistry between the pompous Black and the timid Def is just what the film needs to get the audience laughing and rooting for its formerly uninteresting heroes. And while they may look to be ruining these films at first, what they are really doing is reminding the audience that movies needn’t be made for millions of dollars to be entertaining. Suddenly, there is a lot being said in BE KIND, REWIND. The neighborhood that is home to the store is being entirely remodeled and Glover’s Mr. Fletcher wants to transition from VHS to DVD in order to compete with the chain stores that are gobbling up small business. The nostalgia for simpler times points out how glossing everything over to look new doesn’t erase what is underneath. Despite this, Gondry is too busy glossing his own work over to solidly make his point.


When BE KIND, REWIND is funny, it’s hysterical. When it is not, it is awkward and annoying. Though the film praises the amateur filmmaker in all of us, this is no excuse for it to play out like it was actually made by an amateur. Still, the film fosters a strong community effort to work together and be a part of movie making magic – a world so many of us admire regularly from afar but so few comparatively get to be involved in. The little guy can have his voice too and push his imagination further than, well, he ever imagined. Unfortunately, Gondry makes a crucial mistake and forgets to ask the audience to join in all the fun.