Death at a Funeral: More like a short nap....

I didn't dislike the recent, Frank Oz-directed Death at a Funeral; dazed by the heat, I felt that seeing the new Jet Li movie War was more than I could handle. I wanted diversion and amusement. I got it, but just.

The film's been out for a while so I won't go into much detail. Suffice it to say that this is British humor, both broad and gentle, and the premise (who has not participated in craziness at a family funeral) is promising. But the main gags -- Valium that isn't, and a dead man's secret -- wear out rather sooner than does the film's running time. The cast is game, with numerous barely recognizable British actors joined by Americans Peter Dinklage and Alan Tudyk, who has a hilarious turn as a solicitor sent round the bend by the non-Valium. Kris Marshall is excellent as the source of the homemade pharmaceuticals. And my day was cheered immensely by the beauteous Jane Asher as the materfamilias; she doesn't have enough lines, but delivers the few putdowns she has with great panache.

Special bonus points to me for: Recognizing the British (excuse me, naturalized Canadian) actor John Neville -- the "Well-Manicured Man" from The X-Files -- among the mourners in the outdoor scenes. He's uncredited, but look carefully and you won't miss him.

I suppose the fact that I got excited about seeing John Neville proves that Death at a Funeral didn't wholly capture my attention. This heat is going to continue; I may spend tomorrow afternoon with Jet Li.

Eagle vs. Shark: Crazy, in love

In Taika Waititi's brilliantly, hysterically funny Eagle vs. Shark, Lily (Loren Horsley) and Jarrod (Flight of the Conchord's Jemaine Clement) meet cute: She crashes his animal costume party, her older brother in tow. Oh, and she's dressed as a shark; the host, her longtime crush, is dressed as an eagle. When her shark (who uses a great nom de game) beats almost all comers at Fight Man, Jarrod falls in like. Well, sort of.

This is a cockeyed romantic comedy about two oddballs who would seem like total losers if the rest of the New Zealand that Waititi shows us wasn't so weird all around them. Like characters in a song by They Might Be Giants come to life, Eagle vs. Shark and its characters have nuance and rhythm, and a completely nutty logic. All of the homes we enter have images of animals on their walls: Jarrod has a cougar head above his bed, and at his father's house, there's a German Shepherd on the wall like a family portrait (let's not even mention the card-playing dog tapestry). The animals aren't just there for entertainment purposes: Everyone in this film envies their power.

The characters all want to be more than they are; they want to step forward, but they can't. Jarrod takes an ill-advised step but can't back up; he's too committed to the wrong story. Lily can't speak up for herself for the longest time, until Jarrod challenges her with his illogical behavior. Then she is not only able to act, but also gives Jarrod the empathy he doesn't get from his loopy family.

"I'm a loser," he says to her.
"Doesn't matter," she replies.

Eagle vs. Shark makes that one of the most satisfying romantic exchanges all year.

Both Clement and, especially Horsley -- who displays a range of emotions while distractedly chewing her lower lip -- shine in their roles. The supporting cast is fine, too, from Cohen Holloway's porn-obsessed hacker, whose computer appears to be an old 286, to Rachel House's seen-it-all, tracksuit-dealing older sister. The music, largely by The Phoenix Foundation, moves things along nicely.

And, even if the quirky couple's bizarre charms begin to wear on you, Waititi has kept his film admirably compact: it's just under 90 minutes long.

Once: a musician's life

Once, a new film by the Irish director (and former member of the Frames) John Carney, chronicles a week in the life of a musician, played by the Frames' Glen Hansard, in which he busks in downtown Dublin, repairs hoovers (vacuum cleaners) with his dad, meets a Czech immigrant played by Marketa Irglova, and repairs her vacuum. They fall in love, which neither one of them wants to admit it, and collaborate (she was classically trained on the piano back home; now she cleans houses) on a CD's worth of tracks that he hopes will make his name. We never learn either of the characters' names.

Sounds simple, even sentimental, but it's not. As far as I can recall, Once is the most clear-eyed view of an ordinary musician's life that I've yet seen on the screen. Hansard's character, serious and a bit depressed, is obsessed with making his songs better. When Irglova plays for him, in a beautiful scene inside a music store, she gets the same bug he does. No, there are no cliches about either making beautiful music with the other -- they misunderstand each other but work it out, culminating in a long recording session with musicians they pick up busking on the street. Hansard acts with his soulful eyes and his height, creating a character who wants his work to succeed because it is the only way he can speak deeply; his battered guitar is a external manifestation of his psyche. Irglova convincingly creates a young Eastern European woman whose life is much more complicated than the Irishman can comprehend, despite his genuine like for her. The way she nonchalantly drags a canister vacuum cleaner down the high street in Dublin speaks oodles about what she's been through and how much it takes to ruffle her.

Amazingly, every time Hansard or Irglova plays a song, we hear the whole thing, not an excerpt, nor does their work run primarily as background, although there are some montages. While this is a boy-meets-girl film that will appeal to many romantics, it's also a feature for musicians, and those who love them. Carney hasn't compromised in making it clear that, to these musicians, love and music are essential, even when music comes first.

Hansard and Irglova wrote most of the songs in the film, both separately and together; the soundtrack is well worth checking out.

Photo of Glen Hansard performing in Central Park last summer by Gisele13 via Flickr.

The Host: Don't go near the water

As The Host (or as listed in Korean in the new IMDB, Gwoemul) begins, an arrogant American military guy (Scott Wilson, best known recently as Catherine Willowes' ring-a-ding-ding daddy on CSI) orders his Korean underling to pour hundreds of bottles of formaldehyde down the drain. "But these drains empty into the Han River," protests the underling. Exactly.

When we flash forward, we're on the river shore in Seoul, where a fractured and amusingly fractious family (Grandpa, Hie-bong Byeon; slacker Dad, Kang-ho Song, with a peroxided fringe; and sweet granddaughter/daughter, Hyun-seo, played by Ah-sung Ko) run a snack stand. But barely have we figured out the family relationships when a huge nasty sea creature that looks like a ferocious polliwog and runs like a lizard on speed crawls out of the ocean, threatens tens of funseekers, and grabs Hyun-seo, diving back into the Han with her in his ugly mouth.

The Host follows what happens to threatened schoolgirl Hyun-seo, who survives being grabbed by the sea monster, while focusing mostly on her family, both grandpa and slacker dad, along with slacker dad's siblings -- his sister the national bronze medalist in archery and his brother the snotty and unemployed college graduate -- as they discover that their beloved Hyun-seo is alive and plot to save her. At top and bottom, The Host is a creature feature, with excellent production values and a scary creature that moves so quickly that we never get a real fix on its appearance, which makes it seem even scarier. This is not Godzilla, except in the beast's origins; this is a very well-made film.

In its middle, however, The Host offers not just suspense but hearfelt family comedy; while this is not Little Miss Sunshine transposed to Korea, this family is both challenged and contentious. A brawl at Hyun-seo's memorial, before her slacker dad discovers she is alive, is dark fun. The clearly focused satire on Korean government officials, who are either bumblers or nefarious plotters, is entertaining and pointed, as is the presentation of the Americans as the people who create the problem, then rush in and take over to supposedly solve the problem. (You think?)

Who is scarier, a mutant river creature or the American military? That's the question that The Host asks, and, given this film's basis in history (a U.S. military official did indeed order the disposal of formaldehyde in the sewer system leading to the Han), it's not difficult to conclude that the latter is a greater threat.

The Oscars: Not much to blog about

The most entertaining moment was possibly in the ABC red carpet coverage, when Sally Kirkland (look here), a winner in the batshit insane sweepstakes if ever there was one, literally swooped in, saying that her sheer-dress-with-attached-cape was the meeting of "a reverend and a rabbi," and had been designed by her Kabbalah advisor. Let's just leave the Kabballah free and clear of this -- I think Miss Sally ought to take responsibility for her costume, which indeed it was, all by herself.

Unforgettable: The outsize Andre Leon Talley, on the 5 p.m. preshow, taking Jennifer Hudson by the hand and ushering her around Oscar de la Renta's studio. Why Oscar? Jennifer's dress was OK, but the beam-me-aboard jacketlet on top was not.

What else? The main surprise re: the awards was Eddie Murphy NOT winning. Did the recent premiere of Norbit, Murphy's latest forced comedy in latex, hurt his chances? Al Gore looked about as excited as Al Gore can look. Ooh, now he can move to L.A., and maybe Tipper can get a job in the music industry. (Just kidding.)

When Richard Roeper, on the red carpet and Ebertless, asked Catherine Deneuve what the hell was going on with her dress (it had a rose and a sword on the front), she said simply, "Jean-Paul Gaultier." Sometimes it helps to be able to pretend you are not fluent in English.

On E's red carpet special, the interviewer pointed out to Meryl Streep that she had 14 Oscar nominations. Streep said, "and I'm a size 14, so it all fits, doesn't it?" Great non sequitur (and does she really wear a 14?) Miss Size 12 Jennifer Hudson wants to know! (And p.s., that kinda frumpy outfit Streep wore was indeed Prada. I'm beginning to think she has a subtle yet wacky sense of humor.)

And I'd like to note that the introduction "Academy Award-winning screenwriter Ben Affleck" made me giggle endlessly, 'though indeed the phrase is true. Overall the ceremony was as boring as usual. Ellen DeGeneres was okay, although the constant in-audience shtick was a pain in the arse, and the long filmed tributes, except for the obligatory "here's who died this year," were snooze-making, although by and large well done. Much as I love Pilobolus, the dancers were extraneous, but the one musical number that wasn't a nominated song -- featuring Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, and Jack Black -- was actually funny. Who knew Will Ferrell could kind of sing?

Let me not forget to mention that Michael Musto's nomination predictions were all on target. No fool he -- he'd have to be smart to survive at The Village Voice -- Musto did NOT predict the winners.

Extra added bonus: Get yourself to Go Fug Yourself for hours of merriment on Oscar outfits!

Breaking and Entering: Jude Law wants (yet) another chance

What is most interesting about Breaking and Entering, written and directed by Anthony Minghella (Cold Mountain, The English Patient, Truly Madly Deeply) is its setting and the social construct in which the film takes place. The architect Will Francis, played by Jude Law, and his partner are working on an immense plan to redevelop the area around London's Kings Cross station, previously a "marginal" area of warehouses and cheap housing. Francis and co. have recently moved offices to a redeveloped warehouse, with an unfortunate glass roof that leaves them prey to casual thieves -- hence the title -- who twice steal the firm's new Apple computers. The geographical upheaval is echoed by social and class upheaval (the thieves are teenaged Bosnian refugees) and personal upheaval, as Will's half-Swedish longtime girlfriend Liv and her troubled gymnast daughter Bea are both unhappy with Will's lack of presence in their lives.

All could have made for a great film. Unfortunately, centering the film on Jude Law's character Will Francis weighs it down. Will is unhappy with Liv; he is inconstant and can't be trusted with the fragile Bea, who suffers an accident when left in his care. He meets the mother of one of the young thieves and contrives to start an affair with her; the fact that she's played by Juliette Binoche makes their coming together, in the tired logic of this film, inevitable. So what happens? Will eventually does the right thing in a number of ways, but doesn't seem to have changed. He's still a boy who won't or can't grow up. Minghella doesn't give us any evidence that Will wants to change or even recognizes what he's lacking, other than a trite, "I almost lost the love of my life" speech at the end. And Robin Wright Penn's Liv, although strong with her daughter and on her own, takes him back after one final outburst of rage against him. We don't get a sense that he's changed, really, other than he's had some experiences that caused him to 'fess up perhaps for the first time.

There's some annoyingly heavy symbolism. A few scenes after she gives a speech about how she's the one holding the family together, Penn tries to reassemble a broken dinner plate on the kitchen table. In another scene, Penn and Law lean against opposite ends of a mirrored door; we can see half their faces, and half their reflections. Ooh, arty. Also, there's the matter of their names: Liv, with her naturalistic response to life, and Will, who's all infantile urges. Binoche's character is called Amira, which leaves her out of this naming mess altogether. Ironically (that's one heavy iron), Binoche's son is remarkably well adjusted, although he's a thief; Penn's daughter is given to exercising 24 hours a day and doesn't sleep, and she has all the upper middle class advantages. Doesn't that just go to show you.

Jude Law's performance is, well, another Jude Law performance; he acts the right shit, then boyishly tries to make up for it. Robin Wright Penn is an interesting actress to watch, mercurial and tricky. Juliette Binoche doesn't have much to do, other than look bereaved or joyful, but she is a high point. Vera Farmiga is over the top, in a good way, as a car-pinching streetwalker who thinks that the English all talk too much. Juliet Stevenson is terrific in a small role as a child psychiatrist who sees through Law's baloney in two seconds.

One regrets that Penn's character didn't do the same. By the end of the film I was daydreaming about Penn and Binoche getting together over a bottle of vino and having a good laugh about what a silly boy Law is. He's so insubstantial that you believe more willingly in the women he attracts, but you can't really believe in them, because they're hung up on him.

Notes on a Scandal: Trust No One

Notes on a Scandal has been in release long enough, and won enough awards, for me to avoid doing a full-court press review. But I finally saw it (at the Arclight, not via one of the screeners that are ubiquitous at this time of year) and just want to say: Wow.

Judi Dench, uglied up as a repressed busybody-and-then-some of a teacher at a comprehensive (what we would call a public school) in Islington, northish London, is terrifyingly good. She's a totally self-delusional creature. Cate Blanchett, as an upper-middle-class Bohemienne art teacher, demonstrates again her essential bravery as an actress, throwing herself into a part in which she not-so-sympathetically has an affair with a 15 year-old who is younger than her teenaged daughter.

A big chunk of the subtext here is class: Judi Dench's Barbara is clearly a petite bourgeoise who has worked her way up to her basement flat and longtime teaching position. She's resistant, as one would imagine, to the airy charms of Blanchett's character, Sheba, but at the same time attracted by her upper-middle-class trappings: a row house, and a vacation home in the Dordogne (and the different way Blanchett and Dench pronounce that tricky French word is a key to their class differences). Dench envies Blanchett's entitlements, and in a way wants to prove to Blanchett how unnecessary they are to her; the tough life that Dench has set out for herself is much better. Class envy, repressed lust: Notes on a Scandal has it all.

What it also has is a very impressive Philip Glass score that at times overwhelms the action on screen. Glass' music is relentless and, as it tells a story all by itself, the score has trouble standing aside to let the tale unfold through visuals. Much as I like Glass' work, I'm not sure it functions fabulously here.

Catch and Release: When bad things happen to okay people who insist on smiling anyway

In Catch and Release (yes, the title made me grimace, too), Jennifer Garner plays a woman, probably in her late twenties, whose fiance dies in a sporting accident a day or so before their wedding; their ostensible wedding day is thus the day of his funeral. At the funeral, Garner, playing a character named Gray Wheeler, bravely holds back tears, which enables her to act mostly with her upper lip; seeking escape from the sympathetic crowd, she hides in the bathtub to cry in private, and mistakenly witnesses her dead fiance's best friend having a quickie with a cater-waitress.

And from there, we're off. Garner retreats to the house her fiance shared with roomies played by Sam Jaeger and Kevin Smith, and eventually resumes speaking to the quickie-prone pal, played by the toothsome Timothy Olyphant from Deadwood. Olyphant has a nervous grin that seems to appear whether his character is actually grinning or not; he ought to check that, because otherwise, his performance is respectable.

The problem with Catch and Release is that, on the one hand, the complications that ensue in the plot -- the possible redemption of the quickie pal, the bad, then good, behavior of Garner's to-be mother-in-law, played by premier Shakespearean actress Fiona Shaw (why?), her discovery that she didn't really know her fiance, a suicide attempt -- are pleasingly realistic, supporting a clear-eyed view of life's multidimensionality, which makes sense even more when one considers that the principal characters (Garner, Jaeger, Smith, Olyphant) all seem to be in their late 20s and hence at the time of their Saturn return, a time when, astrologically speaking, the shit hits the fan.

But something happened between the actual story and the film we see, and I'm not holding Susannah Grant (who also wrote Erin Brockovich; this is her first write/direct effort) wholly accountable. Although a lot of things that most people would classify as "bad" happen to these very likable characters, nothing seems to have much of an impact on them. It's not that they're not drama queens; it's that they don't show any hint of the deep emotions that, say, a suicide attempt would bring up in a real person. They bounce back too quickly, with just a bit too much bounce.

The film is set in tie-dyed Boulder, Colorado, which seems like Vermont with better mountains (just substitute Celestial Seasonings tea for Ben and Jerry's ice cream, and you'll get the idea). Maybe there's lithium in the water. Or maybe Susannah Grant allowed her arm to be twisted to get her film made (imagine! could that happen?).

Despite my criticism, I enjoyed the film. Kevin Smith, whose character works at Celestial Seasonings and is constantly spouting quotes from the tea boxes, steals every scene he's in; he's a lively and interesting Big Guy, like Donal Logue in The Tao of Steve. Jennifer Garner is okay, which I think is the best she can do, but she's the right type for the part -- a girl jock who tries not to dwell on things -- so she acquits herself well. I wondered about the names Gray Wheeler (Garner) and Grady Douglas (her deceased fiance). Gray 'n' Grady? Why don't people in films have real names?

In conclusion, if what you need is a feel-good film, Catch and Release is a safe bet. Be warned, it IS a chick flick, despite the presence of Kevin Clerks Smith. But within those limitations, it's entertaining.

Oscar Predictions: What He Said

The Village Voice, now completely denuded of most of its longtime talent (nice to hear Christgau on NPR now, 'though, isn't it?) has so far retained its "It" boy gossip columnist/social commentator Michael Musto (who has a new book, too). Musto offers his Oscar nomination predictions in this week's Voice, explaining in often-excruciating detail why certain films, actors, and actresses will NOT be nominated. Here's his take on the Best Actress non-Nominees:

Tumbling into non-recognition will be: BEYONCÉ KNOWLES, Dreamgirls (they nominated the real Diana Ross, but she had to shoot up and throw up and give it up for over two hours. Beyoncé's part doesn't allow her to wallow nearly enough); CATE BLANCHETT, The Good German (the bad casting); ANNETTE BENING, Running With Scissors (terrific, but most observers feel the movie collapsed under its own weirdness); MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL, Sherrybaby (she appealingly elevated it from a Lifetime movie, but I'm one of three people who saw it, and the other two weren't thrilled); RENÉE ZELLWEGER, Miss Potter (Are we even sure it is Renée and not Grey's Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo?): NAOMI WATTS, The Painted Veil (tramp finds redemption in China, but is hungry again an hour later)

It's an entertaining read and I agree with most of what he says. Read the whole column for a laugh; page down for his comments on the Golden Globes telecast for even more fun.

Curse of the Golden Flower: Intrigue in the Forbidden City

Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Golden Flower takes place in what seems to be a 24-hour span preceding the Chrysanthemum Festival in the year 928 A.D. at the end of the Tang Dynasty. We are immediately plunged into action: The empress (Gong Li) is unwell, despire her daily medicine, and the emperor (Chow Yun-Fat) is returning. The crazy psychedelic colors of the palace's jade walls, accentuated with red and gold, swirl us into melodrama: sons in revolt, incest both witting and unwitting, plots and poison, and at the top of the pyramid, an unhappy autocrat.

Despite the lurid story and socko colors, the story plays out as an affecting drama, not as soap opera. The rituals of the court and Confucian mores dictate how the family acts and reacts, even in revolt, and Zhang shows us that. What he also gives us is spectacle: the codified life of the royal court, the sweep of the breathtaking landscape outside the palace, and of course some beautifully-orchestrated battle scenes, as well as some more intimate action moments. The film is pure entertainment served up on a historical platter, with action and intrigue enough to keep a non-Chinese audience enthralled. This is a knights and ladies costume epic, in essence.

Chow Yun-Fat is masterful as the embodiment of absolute power, never letting go or slipping. Gong Li is strong as the empress; she is the queen of hysterics as an actress. The actors who play the threee princes do well, too, although I preferred Liu Ye's beset Crown Prince to Jay Chou's warrior Prince Jia. In essence, Curse of the Golden Flower is a costume epic of kings and queens, creating its own world. And it's an engrossing one.

Dreamgirls: Tales from the Motor City

or more specifically, Tales from Motown (or more honestly, What Crossover Hath Wrought). As those of you who've been paying attention (as well as those of us who remember the Broadway show, produced by Michael "Chorus Line" Bennett), know, Dreamgirls is a thinly-disguised story about the birth of the Supremes, the rise of Diana Ross and the dumping and decline of Florence Ballard. Now, after many attempts and go-rounds, David Geffen -- also a producer of the original show, and owner and defender of the rights since then-- has brought Dreamgirls to the cinema, thanks to director Bill Condon.

Dreamgirls has been marketed as an event film; in the three-city exclusive release leading up to its release on Christmas day, the tickets were $25 and you got a souvenir program. (Remember souvenir programs? I have ones for The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins.) On the Cinerama Dome screen at the Arclight, the film reads big, with sweeping gestures, generous run-ups to each big number, and performances that call out to Oscar in a shout, not a whisper.

Which is both Dreamgirls' strength, and its weakness: there's no room for nuance in this musical. It's all show and tell; we're not left to figure anything out for ourselves. Similarly, there's no subtlety in the big performances. I'm not saying they're not good; some are excellent. But in the grand tradition of the American musical, excepting Stephen Sondheim, Dreamgirls doesn't assume its audience would like to bring something to the table, as it were. And as I do with all fairytales, I loved it (girls from the projects find success! Uplifting!) and hated it (all the men behave badly! Still, we all smile! Depressing!). But don't mind me.

On to the performances. Eddie Murphy is phenomenal as James "Thunder" Early, who is systematically deprived of his mojo by every attempt to sound whiter and whiter. When Eddie lets loose on stage, he is a dynamo; when he falls apart offstage, he is moving. Two observations: It's great that he can sing (No, "Party All the Time," which he sang in a girly falsetto, doesn't count); maybe he could be James Brown in the film that Spike Lee has agreed to direct? And, secondly, just seeing him doing well on screen makes all those damn films in which he plays forty characters with all variety of padding seem even more ludicrous. The man can act! Think twice (oops, too late!) before you take on more alimony or child support, Eddie.

Beyonce Knowles does what needs to be done to show Diana's, whoops, Deena's, journey from backup singer to expensive and beautiful object. I can't imagine anyone else being gorgeous enough to play the part, although apparently years ago Whitney Houston was talked about and perhaps she could have done it. Deena is prissy and proper, and Beyonce does that well. Anika Noni Rose hasn't gotten enough attention for her good work as Lorell, who can hold her own with James Early. And Jennifer Hudson has the oomph, the balls, and the power to play the mulish Effie--her pout is magnificent, and her singing voice (she's a belter, not a thrush) blows Deena, whoops Beyonce, away.

Jamie Foxx is fine as Curtis Taylor, the Berry Gordyesque svengali, but he doesn't connect with either of the ladies he's supposed to be devoted to. The character is mostly interested in his own snakiness, but the actor doesn't give us any sense that he might be up for caring, or even pretending that he cares.

By the end of the film, all the Dreamgirls have left is their talent and their own amour-propre; the men have all betrayed them in various ways, although the film doesn't moralize on that. But we get it. One of the original tunes for the film, "Listen," in which Beyonce finally gets to let loose, sums all that up.

So, yes, multiple thumbs up for Dreamgirls. My advice is to see it on as large a screen as possible, since the film was clearly made for that (it'll lose a lot on video).

Final shots: It was a nice touch that Loretta Devine, who created the role of Lorell on Broadway (check out that cast--Candy Darling was in it), played a singer in one scene. One wonders why Condon didn't cast Jennifer Holliday, the original Effie....perhaps JH is a bit too Effie for him. And let's not forget Florence Ballard, either, and the tragedy that crossover meant for many, many African-American artists.

P.S. I went to download a few tracks from the show...I ended up going for the original Broadway cast, not the film. Liked the orchestrations much more; they're a little less bombastic, and since the songs aren't top tier, anyway -- they're thin imitations of Motown -- away from the film the big treatment doesn't hold up for me.

For Your Consideration....give it a shot!

Checking the reviews of Christopher Guest's latest in his self-created mockumentary genre, For Your Consideration, one wonders why the buzz (at least what I've heard) has been so lukewarm. FYC isn't another This is Spinal Tap, but it's still yards funnier than much of what's out there, and has the usual crack repertory company that Guest uses, with special guests, including Ricky Gervais, who could find a home with this clan.

Since FYC was released a while back, I'm not going to post a full review. All I want to say is, it's hilarious. Jennifer Coolidge once again proves that you can be a Boston Brahmin and be funny, and Jane Lynch, Fred Willard, and Harry Shearer are all terrific. Catherine O'Hara is indeed marvelous as a not-terribly-successful actress whose head is turned (and then some) by Oscar nomination buzz.

Guest's script, written with Eugene Levy, is just so literate and funny. In an early scene, John Michael Higgins' out-of-touch publicist says he wants the campaign for the film-within-a-film (originally called Home for Purim) to be "orotund." Orotund? And any film that includes the phrase "It's a mitzvah" (wouldn't that be a great name for a game show?) has me laughing already.

Casino Royale: It's a Man's, Man's, Man's (etc.) World

Here we go with another film I can't really advise you on: Either you want to see the latest entry in the Bond genre, or you don't. Some quick notes:

• Titles, 'though animated and expensive they may be, just look tacky. Song, by Chris Cornell of Soundgarden, is awful. Bond demands a female singer. Maybe Beyonce is too busy, but what about Mariah Carey or some other songbird looking for the attention? What's Sheena Easton doing these days? Or how about (groan) Kylie Minogue?
• It's all uphill from there, however. After a needless but entertaining prologue, the action kicks in and doesn't stop. Judi Dench hams it up as "M" while giving her character a sense of depth (plus we get an inkling that, surprise, there's a Mr. M. What does he do? My money's on his being a retired don from Cambridge or Oxford).
• Daniel Craig nails Bond. He may be the best Bond since Sean Connery. Connery had a working-class edge to him, as if his playboy gloss was something precarious and hard-won, while his ease at killing, regardless of his license, was instinctive. Craig's got the up-from-nothing attitude. (Yes, I know Ian Fleming preferred Roger Moore, but --speaking as a writer -- we don't always know who will work best on the screen. There's almost a sterility to Moore's performances.)
• And Craig is, to bring this down to the nitty-gritty, a major babe, compact and well-built, as Private Eye might say. Ladies and gentlemen, we get to see him pretty much in the altogether, and sweaty, too. Enjoy.
• The Bond women (I won't call them girls, as they are all thankfully legal) in this are counter trend; Eva Green rocks some 80s eye makeup that doesn't flatter her. She's far more beautiful without it. But I rather thought the new Bond deserved more glamo(u)rous ladies...as well as a better song.

The film is about 20 minutes too long; we don't need the prologue, and Bond's oasis of bliss with Eva Green's Vesper Lynd could be a little snappier, since we know this Eden can't last. Action scenes are plentiful and great. We see too little of the always-excellent Jeffrey Wright as an American compatriot. Overall, however, this is a great new installment in the franchise, and good holiday fare -- if exploding and collapsing things and major mortality rates is your distraction of choice.

Stranger Than Fiction: The Authorial Voice Intrudes

What if, one day, you heard a narrator describing your every action, including the precise number of strokes, both up-and-down and across-and-back, with which you brush your teeth? And what if you were not a imaginative sort who'd like to play along--or who, like some of us occasionally, narrate our own lives and thus welcome the assistance--but were instead an auditor for the IRS?

That's the premise of Stranger Than Fiction, in which Harold Crick, played by Will Ferrell, discovers that, not only is his dull life a story, but also that he has a narrator, Kay Eiffel, played by Emma Thompson. His discovery of the narrator's voice drives Crick to react, possibly for the first time in his life, and ask for help, surely for the first time. He starts, involuntarily, with the office's Human Resource counselor, played by a determined-to-hug Tom Hulce with crunchy glee. Harold then is compelled to visit the wry Linda Hunt's therapist; when he insists that he's not a candidate for medication, she sends him to a literary scholar played by Dustin Hoffman because, after all, a narrator is a literary device.

Such is the loopy but perfectly reasonable logic followed by this piquant and imaginative film. Zach Helm's script is crisp and fresh; the direction, by Marc Monster's Ball Forster, follows. The film's big revelation is that Will Ferrell can do subtle comedy; he isn't limited to running amok in his tighty whities. In fact, he can ponder the meaning of life (even the Monty Python film) with pathos and NOT lose his sense of humor. Hearing him use the word "ogled" in a sentence, when speaking to the object of his crush Maggie Gyllenhaal, playing an anarchic baker, is a delight. When he picks out a Wreckless Eric tune on her guitar, he transports himself and the audience to another plane.

Ferrell isn't the only one who does his best and clearly enjoys his role here, as well: Thompson, another actress who never lets vanity get in her way, is the strung-out author who writes and narrates Harold Crick's tale. Thompson, who has been known to pick up a pen and acquit herself quite well, positively radiates authorial despair. Hoffman's scholar is a close relative to Bernard, the existential detective he impersonated wholly in I Heart Huckabees. His quirks are many. Gyllenhaal is quirky and charming.

The only one who seems miscast is Queen Latifah, as Emma Thompson's assistant, sent by her publisher to make sure she finishes her manuscript. The Queen seems uncomfortable and never really makes much of, admittedly, not a big role. But it could have been played with character, and she stays as stiff as those pantsuits she's costumed in (tell me, would Queen Latifah button the buttons on a suit jacket? No way!).

I won't describe the plot any more. It's got a satisfying number of twists and turns, along with the terrific performances. Driving home after the film, I found myself surrounded by characters--not from any of my writing, but clearly people who figure in some narrative, somewhere, or perhaps just in their own. Stranger Than Fiction is a fun little meditation on the nature of literary reality.

Borat: can $67 million gross (domestically) be wrong?

Those of you who know me, even only through the blog, know that I am an enthusiastic fan of sixth-grade boy humor. Talladega Nights? Loved it. Snakes on a Plane? Tolerated it well, and shouted back at the screen frequently. Wedding Crashers? Old School? South Park? Love them all. And I actually like the Three Stooges.

So my reaction to Borat (look it up if you want the full title) was a surprise. Sure, there was some funny stuff; a chicken always makes for laughs. And I like Sacha Baron Cohen, who is clearly a Smart Guy; he made a great fake Frenchperson in Talladega Nights. But there's broad ethnic satire, and then there's Borat.

My chief complaint: the film is dumb dumb instead of clever dumb. The naked fat guy wrestling with Cohen is just gross, not funny. And yes, lot's of stuff is offensive--in a very stupid way. Yes, I know that the anti-Semitic jokes are supposed to be OK because Cohen is, duh, Jewish, but I don't buy that. Plus the jokes are stupid. Yet, the audience -- a goodly number of people for a Monday matinee -- was going wild, laughing hysterically.

Which leads me to wonder: Have I in some way jumped the shark, personally, if I don't think Borat is funny? Have I reached the point at which the leading cultural phenomena no longer amuse or entice me?

Naah. Not yet. I just don't like extended, and extended, and extended jokes that rest on the discomfort of more and more and more people. So Borat shows off about how crude and stupid he is, while speaking what sounds like a fake Slavic language (his greetings are mispronounced Polish). My reaction was a big, so what? I don't feel particularly indignant about this, just baffled.

But I'd go back to see the chicken star in a movie in an instant.

Volver: Life among the women

In Volver, Pedro Almodovar continues his ever-deeper explorations into the world of women. Women are the keepers of secrets; they are the dependable workers upon whom the family depends. They support and encourage each other, and are each others' best audiences. All this is explicit in his earlier films, but perhaps never so seriously as in Volver.

Which doesn't mean the film is a weepie without any fun. Penelope Cruz plays Raimunda, whom we meet when she and her sister Sole (Lola Duenas, underplaying skillfully) and Raimunda's adolescent daughter Paula (Yohana Cobo, the youngest of the ladies) are cleaning off the graves of their parents in a country graveyard. The wind blows continously and ominously (in these Santa Ana days, Angelinos can relate). The scene is ironic and funny, as women of all shapes and sizes, many wearing Almodovar's near-trademark polka dots--albeit in solemn black and white--hurry to defy the wind and sweep off the huge marble slabs.

A visit to their ancient Aunt Paula (Chus Lampreave, a veteran of small roles in numerous Almodovar films) in their ancestral town nearby raises some questions, and when the trio return to their shabby apartments in a town near Madrid, the story continues to unfold. I won't describe any more of the plot, although some reviewers have, for fear of giving any of the secrets away; they are there for you to figure out or not, or wait to be told. But when Irene, the mother of Raimunda and Sole, appears in ghostly form as a very real Carmen Maura, mayhem of various sorts and intensity ensues.

What I want to comment on are a few notable aspects of Volver:

• Penelope Cruz is, as advertised, notable in this film. What I saw was that, for the first time--and despite other decent performances--she is allowing herself to play a woman, not a girl. Raimunda is beautiful, but she doesn't flirt; of course, she dresses to enhance her cleavage, but she has deeper concerns in mind.
• I nearly subtitled this review "Women moving heavy objects," because they do, alone and together, in this film. This is a very real detail that Almodovar depicts in all its tiresome detail. (A friend and I moved her dining room table last summer, up and down stairs and in and out of a truck. Not a pretty sight.)
• Carmen Maura, reconciled with Almodovar, is amazing. In our first sight of her, she has long gray hair and a complexion made up to look decrepit; after color and a haircut from her daughter Sole, she looks much younger. I will admit that I panicked when I first saw Maura because she looked so OLD--until I reasoned that Women on the Verge, when I first saw her, was made more than 20 years ago. Maura is now 61, and looks it; she hasn't had work done, more power to her, nor has she stopped working. Here, she is so much the master of every scene she is in, her mischievous grin and goggle eyes detracting not a bit from the serious matters she has returned to resolve.
• There's a lot of food in this film. When Penelope Cruz chops red peppers, they seem dewier and sexier than any red peppers that, say, I have every chopped.

All in all, Volver is a serious but not heavyhearted journey ever deeper into the world of Pedro Almodovar, an excursion that might take a tissue or two, but one that isn't without its quirky amusements.

Marie Antoinette: What it feels like for a girl

Marie Antoinette, Sofia Coppola's third feature, is like a cross between The Virgin Suicides, her first film, and a music video. There's one thing she does really well, which is understand and depict certain critical moments in the life of an adolescent girl: the moment when she realizes her power, and the subsquent moments when she learns, over and over, the limitations of that power, how much in her life is really out of her hands.

It wasn't Marie Antoinette's fault that her husband, Louis XVI, didn't consummate their marriage for seven years--but she is made to suffer for it. Kirsten's Dunst's queen is a kicky young Austrian who runs up against grim reality at the court of Versailles, trapped in arcane and seemingly purposeless rituals in an airless society in which every word spoken and not spoken counts. She copes with the help of sweets, clothes, and a Swedish lover; she accustoms herself to French customs; she playacts life as a well-off shepherdess in the Petit Trianon. The court and the French people blame her for the excesses of the monarchy.

Of course they do, because she's an outsider. The outside is always blamed, and in Sofia Coppola's world, the adolescent or postadolescent female is always the outsider. Marie joins those doomed sisters in The Virgin Suicides and Scarlett Johansson's character in Lost in Translation as women who feel too much and can't or won't do enough to save themselves.

Feeling is something Coppola transmits successfully on the screen. Her visuals are all pastel confectionery, with the help of Laduree and Manolo Blahnik, and do most of the storytelling, along with period music and 80s hits, from bands like The Cure and Gang of Four, as well as a more recent cut from The Strokes. Oddly, the music doesn't jar; although many of the visuals approximate historical accuracy, it's clear from the beginning that what we are seeing is stylized, a director's vision, and it's not difficult to embrace that.

What the film is, is too long. The parties with which Marie amuses herself go on just too long on the screen. She can gamble all night, but we get numb watching her. While the story is told with great feeling, there is little depth--more surface emotion and not much reflection on what it all means, even on the small scale. Marie Antoinette is not for everyone, but if you're willing to jump into the cotton candy, it's a fun two hours that certainly left me intrigued as to what Sofia Coppola will take on next.

The Prestige: Hey, it's magic!

The Prestige concerns an all-encompassing fierce competition between magicians—Alfred Borden, played by Christian Bale, and Rupert Angier, played by the ubiquitous Hugh Jackman—in late nineteenth-century London. Directed by Christopher Nolan, from a story concocted by Nolan and his brother Jonathan Nolan, based on a novel by Christopher Priest, The Prestige has the viewer in its grasp from its beginning through to the end of its two hours plus, leaving one breathless and perhaps just a few steps behind the secrets within secrets within secrets.

As is of course not surprising for a film about magicians. Bale, one of Nolan’s favored actors, is brooding and dark, playing a working-class striver. Jackman plays a toff with great ease, who resists performing, until he can’t resist trying to best Bale at his own game. Caught up in their rivalry, we follow, with wonder and amazement, but no real emotional involvement; this is not a film that inspires catharsis.

The story is crosscut between and among the distant past, the more recent past, and the present, but is not difficult to follow thanks to Nolan’s assured storytelling skills. Bale and Jackman do well by their characters, aided and abetted by Michael Caine as an ingenieur (he builds magic tricks) who knows more than anyone else how the story will turn out, and another memorable, quirky performance by David Bowie as electric genius Nikola Tesla (what has happened to David Lynch’s Tesla film?), who figures in the plot, as well. The scenes at Tesla’s hideaway laboratory in Colorado Springs are beautiful to watch; the echoes of his lifelong and real-life rivalry with Thomas Edison echo the plot nicely.

The women associated with these men live lives that are far less magical, including Piper Perabo and Rebecca Hall, both overwhelmed by poetic curls; the latter, especially, emotes all over the place but doesn’t get much from her spouse Bale, which is the point. The also-ubiquitous Scarlett Johansson fares better as a magician’s assistant who functions in the story. This time around, coming off of her Black Dahlia role in tight sweaters, Johansson is perennially costumed in fetching outfits that appear to be one size too small, especially on top. (Something for everyone, I guess; there is also the near-obligatory shot of Jackman, shirtless and hirsute.)

I won’t go into specifics of the rivalry, because that unraveling is one of the principal delights of the film, which I recommend highly.

One comment about accents: The Prestige is set in London, so one would expect a range of upper- and lower-class and perhaps even regional accents. Johansson works hard to maintain her accent, and of course Michael Caine doesn’t have to. But Jackman, who grew up in Sydney and whose parents are English, sounds completely American at this point, and Bale, who is Welsh and English, sounds as if he’s swimming somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic. This all-over-the-place isn’t as distracting as it sounds, but it did lead me to wonder to what extent the director ever addressed the issue of how he wanted his cast to sound.

Whom does The Queen love?

The Queen, directed by Stephen Frears, purports to show us a crisis in the British monarchy when Princess Diana died in a car accident in Paris in 1997. The crisis is not, however, with the monarchy, but with the monarch, Queen Elizabeth, played with great depth of feeling by Helen Mirren. Diana, to the Queen, is an ex-daughter-in-law; the mother of the heir to the throne, to be sure, but unmissed as an individual personality. The Queen proceeds in the wake of Diana's death as if the personal Diana that she knew is the only one that matters. Her miscalculation leads her to discover that, horror of horrors, she is out of touch with her subjects, and she therefore must change. She listens to the advice of the new Labor Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and commemorates the public face of the "people's princess." Crisis averted.

It may seem odd to note that Mirren plays the role feelingly, but it is not, because the Queen's feelings are at the heart of this very clever, very entertaining film. For whom does the Queen love but her people? It's clear from the outset that her marriage is now a ceremonial matter; James Cromwell adroitly captures Prince Philip's impatience and distance from actual matters of state, although it's always been my impression that Philip is even more of a boor than Cromwell plays him. The Queen's son and heir, Charles, has the temerity to presume that he may take The Queen's Flight to Paris to retrieve the body of his ex-wife. Alex Jennings, although given often to a Bertie Woosterish grimace, demonstrates Charles as a man who is essentially soft of heart.

But the Queen is not. The only one who sees her way in things is "Mummy," as she calls The Queen Mother. Mummy counsels that the stiff upper lip is best. Elizabeth, on the other hand, is a woman who will do anything to keep the love she needs. She returns to London from Balmoral (lovely Scottish scenery in those scenes) and, amazingly, gets out of the car in front of Buckingham Palace to read the tributes to Diana and greet the crowd. This is just not done, as they say, but do it she does, and regains the admiration of her subjects -- which is what she wants.

Tony Blair, a perky Michael Sheen, presumes that the Queen listened to him because she thought highly of his advice. Not really. It was the advice she needed, and for it she owes him nothing. Her power, which Mirren acts subtly and convincingly, is derived from God, hence the divine right of kings. Yes, in this day it may sound a bit daft, but it doesn't matter if you or I believe in it. Elizabeth does, as does Mummy, and this is the reason for her lifelong dedication, meaning in this context that she has given her life to her people until she dies, not that she'll do a nice job and retire to Scotland someday.

An especially moving scene takes place in Scotland when the Queen, driving like a dynamo through a river, hits a rock and disables her Land Rover (interesting and not surprising that she can tell the gamekeeper she phones exactly which part is broken). She fumes for a minute, then relaxes and appreciates the beauty of the natural landscape around her. Tears fall -- probably not for Diana, perhaps for the frustration and loneliness of her role, which is the same as her life. A beautiful stag appears, one that Prince Philip has talked of bagging, and the Queen is transfixed by the handsomeness of the creature. When the stag next appears, he galvanizes the Queen into action. The scenes and the metaphor are beautifully done.

The pomp and ceremony of British royalty are interestingly rendered, as is the immediate post-Diana climate. There is rather too much television news footage to provide context and mood. Overall, however, this is a fine film, and one for which Helen Mirren may indeed receive an Academy Award nomination. Although one does not expect the stiff upper lip to win, as Best Actress is usually rather more given to an hysterical role.

Those darn snakes...

Kudos to my friend C -- not her real name -- who agreed to accompany me to see Snakes on a Plane yesterday. We'd each seen everything else that we agreed was of value, and what better way to wind up the summer than with a scary film of questionable quality?

It's inevitable that the buildup would be more fun to savor than the film itself. Films like SoaP (summer thrillers is the category, I guess) are akin to rides on a roller coaster. First, it seems like a good idea. Then, once you get on the ride or in the theater, it seems like not such a good idea -- in fact, you remember ten other things you'd rather do. After the first thrill -- a good long drop or, say, an attacking reptile -- you start feeling like maybe this isn't so bad after all. Then you get all caught up in the motion and come off the ride or out of the film with a big smile on your face.

Thus it is with Snakes. The initial story, necessary though it is, drags. FBI guy Samuel L. Jackson saves Surfer Boy, who witnessed a nasty crime in Hawaii. Instigator of said crime is established as a nasty and connected dude. Time to fly Surfer Boy to L.A. to testify. Ominous music finally starts....we see the cargo hold, but not what's in that mysterious cabinet behind the boxes of leis sprayed with snake pheromone.

After much delay the plane takes off and (groan) so does the movie. A special feature is what I'd like to call Snake-o-Vision, where we see the snake's point of view through what looks like muddy night-vision goggles. That way, alas, we always know who's going to get it, and when. That is, if they don't escape certain death by chance or purpose. The scariest attacks are the ones without Snake-o-Vision because they are total surprises, duh.

Once the snakes get out, mayhem ensues, in several stages. Most of the characters who seemed doomed at the beginning, or who are annoying enough to "deserve it" in the logic of these films, do indeed meet a snakey end. The final scenes, with a unique solution to getting rid of all the snakes, is fun and seems ingenious, although who knows or cares if it would work. Samuel L. Jackson is properly authoritative, Julianna Margulies is game (surely after the E.R., a crippled plane is a piece of cake), and all else acquit themselves well. (No one has to work particularly hard to do this.)

Major disappointment: Snake-o-Vision gives too much foreshadowing before a snake strikes.
Minor disappointment: Samuel L. Jackson doesn't say, to paraphrase, "Get these mofo snakes off this mofo plane" until rather late in the film.
Don't be scared: The snake closeups are obviously all animated fakes; still, next time I see a rattlesnake on a hike I am going to give it even more space.