*The Kids Are All Right* Review

These are the times to warm men's hearts. First it was Toy Story 3, and now comes Lisa Chodolenko's The Kids Are All Right. Both have convinced my too-cerebral mind how much my hardened heart desires to be brought to the state of a pulsing glow. Both succeed because they have heaps to offer both head and heart. The close proximity of their release only underscores how few films even attempt the precarious tightrope walk between smart humor and sincere tenderness that they execute with such aplomb.

The Kids Are All Right is too uproariously funny to be a drama, and too earnest in its presentation of humanity to be a comedy. The closest comparison in recent memory is Judd Apatow's Knocked Up, a fine film no doubt, but one that never fully embraced its touchy-feely side. Why are serious writers and filmmakers so afraid of (or uninterested in) genuine positive emotion? Why are the sharpest comedies bitter and cynical satires? What does the say about our culture?

Nic and Jules (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore) are married parents of two teenagers, a nuclear family of the well-to-do liberal California sort. (If all film characters inhabeted the same universe, Nic and Jules would be friends with Meryl Streep's Jane Adler from It's Complicated.) While things are far from perfect -- Nic, an overstressed doctor, enjoys red wine too much, while Jules struggles to launch a new career (her third) in landscape design (don't you dare call it gardening) -- the two have an enviable, well-lived-in relationship. Joni (Mia Wasikowska), their eldest child and an overachiever who has just turned 18, is preparing to leave for college. Laser (Josh Hutcherson), who is aptly described as a "sensitive jock" and has the sole Y chromosome in the household, longs for an adult male presence in his life. The family's world becomes upturned when he convinces his sister to seek out and contact their anonymous donor father.

Enter Mark Ruffalo, whose Paul is the archetype of cool masculine worldliness. Not only does he own a hip, earthy restaurant that would make Alice Waters swoon (he grows his own organic vegetables), he wears a leather jacket, rides a motorcycle, and exudes sex. (Mark Ruffalo can't help that.) Paul is unhappy with his status as a listless Lothario. Once he meets his biological children, in a wonderfully awkward scene, he finds himself pulled into their lives as a new member of the family. The Kids Are All Right centers on how Paul uniquely disrupts and alters each family member's life, for better or worse.

Where a lesser director would veer into melodrama, farce, or (worst of all) polemic, Chodolenko subtly explores these tensions. She almost completely bypasses the fact that Nic and Jules are a married lesbian couple in what I assume is a post-Proposition 8 California. When the subject of their sexuality is explicitly addressed, it's in passing, tossed off like a fact of life unworthy of emphasis. In that sense, The Kids Are All Right is the next logical step from Brokeback Mountain, a film that couldn't escape its capsule definition as the "gay cowboy movie." The universality of The Kids Are All Right (we never even learn the character's last names) is what makes it the best gay movie since Far From Heaven (which also starred Julianne Moore). This is the story of a family, one that just so happens to have two women its head.

I regard Julianne Moore as an angel who walks on Earth, an actress of such radiance and ability that I would happily watch her perform as Tree #2 in a high school performance of Our Town, but The Kids Are All Right is Annette Bening's movie. Her Nic, the breadwinner and guardian of the family, whose facial expressions somehow communicate more than her impeccably written words, is the film's emotional center of gravity. In the film's best scene, Bening sings Joni Mitchell's "All I Want" acapella at the dinner table. That moment -- so funny, so ironic, so poignant -- will play next year, on the night she wins her first Academy Award. The rest of the cast is pitch perfect, especially Ruffalo, who plays Paul as a lovable and sympathetic fuck-up.

While watching The Kids Are All Right, I was reminded of Alexander Payne's Sideways, a (somewhat nasty) satire of the epicurean and boozy proclivities of the West Coast Liberal. Lisa Chodolenko is kinder, but a gently pointed satire underlies her film, though never at her characters' expense. Nic's tirade against composting and heirloom tomatoes is a riotous high point. (“If I hear another person talk about how much they love heirloom tomatoes, I am going to kill myself.”)

Before exiting the theater, while the credits still rolled, I half-jokingly asked my friend if he wanted to stay and watch the movie again. Not because I felt like I missed something, or because I thought a repeat viewing would reveal new depths, though both may be the case. Like a codependent, I didn't want to leave these characters behind, all of whom I'd come to love. And now, even as I write this, I feel like an addict: I can only think of my next fix, the next time I see The Kids Are All Right.

*Inception* Review

Remember Calvinball? It was the game Calvin and Hobbes played in Bill Watterson's cartoon, in which the two would gleefully come up with new, and arbitrary, rules as the game advanced. I quote wikipedia:

When asked how to play, Watterson states, "It's pretty simple: you make up the rules as you go." Calvinball is a nomic or self-modifying game, a contest of wits and creativity rather than stamina or athletic skill....

Inception, the new film by Christopher Nolan, is a two-and-a-half hour game of Calvinball. Remarkably high concept for a film (a summer film, no less), it requires the viewer to keep in mind a parade of rules, right up to its final moments. It's a demanding film, though never impenetrable. But given its running time, and its dizzying action-heavy heist movie format, this film about dreams becomes soporific.

Visually, Inception is arresting, in the vein of Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze, where reality is malleable, and metaphysics is thrown out the window. In one striking sequence, a city bends perpendicularly, becoming an M.C. Escher lithograph. If you're unfamiliar with The Matrix, Synecdoche, New York, or The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, these surrealistic visual tropes may thrill. But at this point, seeing a locomotive rush down a city street, or a skyscraper crumble like the edge of a glacier, seems more clichéd than visually daring.

The twisty mobius strip plot of Inception is all about its clever construction, but like a mobius strip, its center is empty. It's also nearly impossible to describe in fewer than five paragraphs. The (very) short of it: humans have discovered a new method of espionage, to enter a person's dreams with the purpose of stealing secrets. That's easy enough. But it's also possible, albeit highly dangerous, to implant an idea into person's mind during sleep. This act, called inception, is our characters' goal. Have I mentioned Inception involves one or two rules?

I almost hated Inception, yet it lingers on. Nolan's execution of his frustrating material is elegant, especially in the film's latter half. The performances are mostly excellent (Ellen Page, I love you), with the sole exception of Leonardo DiCaprio, whose furrowed brow should have gotten top billing, beside its host. Speaking of DiCaprio, Inception invites comparisons to Shutter Island, a less sophisticated high concept film that has an equally ambiguous denouement. And like Nolan's own Memento, most of the fun here is in reuniting the puzzle pieces.

Maddening, yet oddly satisfying, Inception requires at least one viewing. If only to give you a reason to debate it, or if you're like me, to kind of hate it.

*Toy Story 3* Review

There's one certainty in life apart from death and taxes: Pixar delivers. While not every Pixar film is created equal, even the lesser films -- Monsters, Inc., Bugs, Cars -- are better than the majority of what Hollywood puts out in a typical year. The best ones -- Ratatouille, The Incredibles, Up -- are masterpieces. For me the aberration is Wall*E, a film that aimed for greatness (and in its first 45 minutes, achieved it), but was bogged down by its heavy-handed message.

Toy Story, and its first sequel, were wonderful, snappy buddy pictures. But even at their best, they never delivered the emotional wallop of Finding Nemo or Up. Toy Story 3 is the odd tertiary franchise film that bests its predecessors. It's the most focused (and thrilling) of the trilogy, and the most moving. Those 3-D glasses have a secondary purpose -- they hide tears.

What sets the Toy Story films apart from the rest of the Pixar oeuvre is their deep understanding of childhood. Here the series' themes of mortality, disposability, and devotion reaches a climax. Andy is off to college. Our beloved toys' very purpose in life, to be played with and loved, is threatened. Like the previous films, Toy Story 3 is a return-to-home adventure story, mixed with a large dollop of Prison Break. Yes, it's rollicking and clever, but Toy Story 3 is infused with tender nostalgia, without being sentimental.

Oh, it's really, really fun, too.

*Sex and the City 2*

I really wanted to like it. Even after reading the dismal reviews, I still wanted to like it. Unfortunately, Sex and the City 2 is embarrassing throughout.

The first film was largely successful as a coda to the series. It was fun to see the stories of these much-beloved characters reach a satisfying resolution. The conflicts writer/director Michael Patrick King concocts in the sequel maybe could have sustained two episodes in the series. But as a (two-and-a-half hour!) movie, it's a complete mess. That King thought transporting these characters to an exotic locale (Abu Dhabi) would breathe new life into this franchise shows he's run out of ideas. SATC 2 makes clear there's nothing left to be said about Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha.

The real shame is that SATC 2 tarnishes the legacy of a great show. I wish were forgettable. That would be an improvement.

Island Music

Music critic Alex Ross has great profile of composer Michael Giacchino in this week's New Yorker (gated, unfortunately). Giacchino is best known for his integral work for the television series Lost, but he is also responsible for some incredible film scores, most notably the Oscar-winning score for Up.

Below are a couple of examples of Giacchino's talent. The first is the "Married Life" movement from Up, which is both charming and heartbreaking. The second is a video from Ross' New Yorker blog, which shows how Giacchino's music heightens the mystery and suspense of Lost.

Thoughts on the Academy Awards

Had Avatar swept last night, it wouldn't have imparted greatness onto the film, even if the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences declared it the "Best Picture Ever." Similarly, The Hurt Locker is a great film, it was before the awards were announced as it remains afterward.

The Oscars merely show how Hollywood regards its own output. An Avatar win would have revealed the preferences of those who make movies; it would have shown they value "bigness" over "artiness" (I know this is a gross oversimplification, but it holds a kernel of truth), and would have pointed to where Hollywood would be headed in the next few years. (Witness the aftermath of Chicago's win in 2003, at the flurry of musicals, mostly bad, that resulted.)

So David bested Goliath last night, and that's a good thing. The Hurt Locker was not the best film last year (that's a toss-up between Inglourious Basterds and Up), but it's the kind of movie that Hollywood produces too few of: small, honest pictures that don't aim to be Oscar bait, but end up achieving greatness. No doubt many will grouse that the Academy continues to be out of step with actual moviegoers, that it celebrates elitism over populism. After all, Avatar was the highest-grossing Best Picture nominee, while The Hurt Locker was the lowest.

However, it wasn't Avatar's bigness that made it undeserving of the win. It was its derivativeness, its hodgepodge of obvious sources that never gelled (not to mention its cringe-worthy dialogue, and its two-dimensional characters). Look at Cameron's previous film, the Oscar-sweeping behemoth, Titanic. It shares many flaws with Avatar. But there is pathos at the center of its spectacle that transcends its many failings. It deserved its Oscar jackpot.

I don't like James Cameron (I felt an abundance of schadenfreude at his defeat), yet I would never argue that he's anything but incredibly talented. Still, his loss last night represents a source of hope for those of us who love movies. Spectacles will continue to be made: Avatar's box office receipts will guarantee it. But maybe now studios will take more chances on smaller films that seek to be great on their own terms. We're all winners.

*The Ghost Writer*

Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer answers the question that's tortured every sober minded person for the last ten years: why is the British government so deep in the pocket of America and her jingoistic interests? Whether you agree with the premise of my last sentence is of no concern to Polanski. He believes it, and his film's answer is meant to incite deep shivers.

Ewan McGregor plays the titular (and nameless) writer, who scores the project of his career. He is to finish the highly publicized, ghostwritten, autobiography of a former British prime minister. Tony Blair, you figure? Nope: Adam Lang (played by Brosnan, Pierce Brosnan). The previous ghostwriter, who was close to completing his manuscript, has mysteriously drowned. Before the ink on the new ghostwriter's book contract can dry, Lang is charged with war crimes by the International Court of Justice. And the CIA is somehow involved. Uh oh. What follows is a detective story turned on its head, since our detective has full insider access to his prime suspects. After all, he's being paid a nice sum to write about them.

If you can get past its quasi-Manchurian conspiracy theory rubbish (as I did), you'll find The Ghost Writer is an elegant, satisfying thriller. Where most films in the genre twist and turn with mind-scrambling abandon (bang! pow! plot twist!), The Ghost Writer unspools with grace. The thread of each plot element follows so obviously in retrospect that The Ghost Writer makes films like The Usual Suspects seem cheap and clumsy. Its aha! moments, and it has a few, feel natural and justified, not shoehorned in.

The performances range from superlative (Olivia Williams as the prime minister's wife), to embarrassing (Kim Cattrall, who must have practiced her English accent for an entire hour). McGregor plays the ersatz gumshoe with the right mixture of incredulity and gullibility, while Pierce Brosnan misleads with aplomb.

A number of the The Ghost Writer's sequences dazzle, especially in its final minutes. Its muted visual palette, which enhances the increasing menace of the plot, is counterbalanced by the playfulness of its score (obviously inspired by Bernard Herrmann). Yes, the guy's a creep, but Polanski's still got it.

The Ghost Writer -- replete with virtuosity, yet diminished by hackneyed political intrigue -- is to be admired, but not loved.

*Crazy Heart*

Crazy Heart, a crowd-pleasing redemption story, is a good movie, and a good enough movie to be a successful star vehicle for Jeff Bridges. Still, the film feels a bit too familiar. In fact, I've abstracted the movie to the following equation:

Crazy Heart = [(The Big Lebowski - frat boy yuk yuks) + (The Wrestler/Leaving Las Vegas) + (Hedwig and the Angry Inch - sex change)] x Merle Haggard.

Otis "Bad" Blake (Bridges) not only performs country music (the kind played at run-down juke joints, mind you, not at the Opry or on CMT), he is it, the sad-sack archetype of every one of those songs: drunk, washed-up, penniless, alone. His greatest years behind him, Bad travels the Southwest in his beat-up truck, playing bowling alleys and dive bars. Still famous enough to be recognized by strangers, Bad, who hasn't written a new song in years, coasts on his legendary past, adrift in his own life.

Things take a turn for the better when Bad is asked to give an interview to a Santa Fe music journalist, Jean Craddock (played with great warmth by Maggie Gyllenhaal). Jean, a single mother, becomes charmed by Bad, despite being many years his junior, and the two begin to have a romantic relationship. Bad eventually takes on a paternal role for Jean's son (a role he never played for his own son), and in true Hollywood fashion, with fits and starts, he works at becoming a better man for the two (not without an end-of-second-act-fuck-up to put his reformation in jeopardy, of course.)

The film is as much about music, or rather the lifestyle of musicians, as it is about overcoming addiction. It succeeds more at the former than it does at the latter (which feels rushed and tacked-on). But most of all, it is Bridges who succeeds by making Bad Blake pitiful, loathsome, charming, and (yes) heroic at once -- and all without a whiff of effort.

*It's Complicated*

I doubt Nancy Meyers meant to be ironic when she titled her film (which she wrote and directed) It's Complicated. I assure you, complicated it's not. Not only is the film a color-by-numbers (and at times funny and charming) romantic dramedy, but it's also a fairy tale that shamelessly panders to the fantasies of middle-aged women. Still, who am I to begrudge that infrequently-pandered-to demographic a movie of their own?

Meryl Streep plays Jane Adler, an independent divorcée whose life is ridiculously perfect: she has a breathtaking house in Santa Barbara (which is about to be made even more breathtaking); owns a charming bakery of the kind that only exist in films set in California; has three smart, pretty, and emotionally mature children (plus one smart, pretty, emotionally mature soon-to-be son-in-law); and has an enviable relationship with her ex-husband of ten years, Jake (Alec Baldwin, who plays a toned-down version of Jack Donaghy, who is, in turn, just an amped-up right wing version of Alec Baldwin). There's only one chip in this Steuben Glass vase: Jane is still single. Not to worry ladies, Nancy Meyers has got you covered!

Though Jake is married to the ridiculously gorgeous (and young) Agness (whom he left Jane for), he still pines for his ex-wife. Early in the film, Jane and Jake share a drunken night out that ends in a wild romp in bed. Their sexual rediscovery leads to a full blown affair and, yada yada yada, things get complicated. (Hey, that's the title!) Adding to Jane's predicament (you see, now she's the other woman) is Adam Schaffer (a defanged Steve Martin), the architect working on an addition to her already-perfect home, who is himself recovering from a divorce and is beginning to fall in love with her. What's an older gal to do?

Really, does it matter? This film hangs together on, and is only worth seeing for, the genius of Streep and Baldwin, who have some truly wonderful romantic and comedic chemistry, to boot. And despite how formulaic the film is, the lead characters' maturity sets the film apart from generic chick flick fluff. (As Jane says at one point, "Wow, it's nuts how grownups talk.")

Everyone needs escapism, including older women, and It's Complicated is not bad escapism by any measure. Let's just hope that it's also the beginning of a trend that will result in films worthy of their target audience.

Best *Avatar* Review Yet

Mike Stoklasa, who produced the hilarious seven-part review of The Phantom Menace, reviews Avatar. As Tyler Cowen would say, self-recommending.

*Drag Me to Hell*

I typically don't like horror movies, especially the loathsome torture porn that has dominated the genre of late. But Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell is great, more a comedy wearing horror-movie clothes than Saw XIII. The premise is straight out of the Brothers Grimm: bank loan officer Christine Brown (the gorgeous and wonderful Allison Lohman), angling for a promotion and looking to appear stalwart, refuses a gypsy woman's mortgage extension despite the crone's pleading. Bad move.

The gypsy woman curses her, and now Christine has three days to reverse the spell, or suffer an eternity in hell. The bulk of the movie follows Christine's increasing desperation to avert her fate. Raimi fills the movie with cheap horror movie thrills, but like the Scream series, the clichés work to both scare and elicit laughter. The film logically builds to its twist ending, which is nasty, but also perversely satisfying. Recommended.

*Avatar* Review

The best thing I can say for James Cameron's Avatar is that its technology and setting, the jungle moon Pandora, would probably make a pretty nifty EPCOT ride. But Avatar's three-dimensional assault, which lasts the length of almost three hours, not only tires the eyes, but numbs the brain. I walked out woozy, and not because I was overwhelmed by its splendor.

Let me first address Avatar's visual presentation, about which even the film's fiercest detractors begrudgingly admit is magnificent. I think the film's palette is monotonous, boring even. There are moments of cleverness, mostly with the imaginative florae of Pandora (the faunae were roundly hideous). The motion capture technology of the alien race manages to avoid the uncanny valley, but it still looks cartoonish. I admit I had an initial gee whiz reaction to the 3D, but it faded after 20 minutes (about the length of an EPCOT ride).

Then there's the MESSAGE of the movie, and it is a MESSAGE, in hollering caps. Cameron presents his MESSAGE like a club to the head, bludgeoning the viewer's brain with anti-capitalism, environmentalism, mysticism, anti-reason, Luddism, collectivism, and Pre-Columbian nonsense. The villains, all of the humans save five, are American in the way the Left views America: aggressive, ruthlessly greedy, and borderline bloodthirsty. (The glee Cameron exhibits in obliterating the humans in Avatar is sickening.) The Na'vi, the indigenous creatures whom we're meant to praise, don't only hug trees, but fornicate with them (seriously).

Many critics have noted that Avatar's very existence is ironic. After all, everything it disparages (modernity, capitalism, technology) was responsible for its creation. I agree, but "irony" doesn't fully capture the degree of this contradiction. Alongside Terminator 2 and Titanic (two other Cameron films that were hostile toward technology), Avatar shows James Cameron either doesn't realize his dependence on technological innovation clashes with the Luddism of his films, or that he's shrewdly giving people what they want (visual dazzle), only to advance his philosophical MESSAGE.

That Cameron, a filmmaker with a seemingly infinite supply of hubris ("I'm King of the World!"), produces films that ultimately condemn hubris, is more than just irony. It's a joke. And the joke is on us.

Netflix Queues Across America

The NYT has an interactive tool. Three selections (Mad Men season one, Obsessed, and Last Chance Harvey) show distinct demographic patterns, while just about everyone wanted to watch The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Fascinating.

Is *Crash* the Worst Movie of the Decade?

I've never seen Crash, nor do I plan to. From what I know about the film, it represents the worst of the multiculturalist ideology, which I hold is the philosophical equivalent of a shrieking baby on a plane. Happily, and a bit surprisingly, the Atlantic's Te-Nehisi Coates agrees:

Before we go any further, I need to admit that several people who I love and respect actually like Crash. I need let them know that I don't hold this against them, and I still love and respect them--though, with Crash in mind, more the former than the latter.

With that said, I don't think there's a single human being in Crash. Instead you have arguments and propaganda violently bumping into each other, impressed with their own quirkiness. ("Hey look, I'm a black carjacker who resents being stereotyped.") But more than a bad film, Crash, which won an Oscar (!), is the apotheosis of a kind of unthinking, incurious, nihilistic, multiculturalism. To be blunt, nothing tempers my extremism more than watching a fellow liberal exhort the virtues of Crash.

If you're angry about race, but not particularly interested in understanding why, you probably like Crash. If you're black and believe in the curative qualities of yet another "dialogue around race," you probably liked Crash. If you're white and voted for Barack Obama strictly because he was black, you probably liked Crash. If you've ever used the term "post-racial" or "post-black" in a serious conversation, without a hint of irony, you probably liked Crash.

And I swear if any of you defend the film, I'm going to ban you. Not just from this site, not just from the Internet, but from all public life. Don't test me. My armies are legion.

In this sense only, consider me one of Coates' foot soldiers.

70-Minute *Phantom Menace* Review

This has been making its way around the internet. Ostensibly, it's a snarky fanboy review of Star Wars: Episode 1 The Phantom Menace. Actually, it's a brilliant, and hilarious, work of comedy. I don't know who this "Mike from Milwaukee" is, but the Onion needs to find him and hire him now.

The Year in Film

2009 was a good year for movies, especially for comedies. I've just posted on the excellent Jason Reitman film, Up in the Air. It's more than just a comedy, but it most fits in that genre. Adventureland was a minor success, though I wanted to like it more than I did. For Meryl Streep's performance alone, Julie and Julia was worth seeing. It's also a great food movie, along the lines of Like Water for Chocolate, Babette's Feast, and Big Night. In the Loop was good, but I wasn't nearly as bowled over as most people. The best, and most surprising, was The Hangover. It was absolutely hilarious, but more importantly it was smart -- reminiscent of Memento, however improbable as that seems.

In the realm of blockbusters, I really enjoyed J.J. Abrams' take on Star Trek and I'm in no way a fan of the franchise. I'm excited to see where he goes with this reboot. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was a bit of a disappointment, yet still better than most summer blockbusters. I thought District 9 was a spectacular failure, though most critics loved it. Watchmen was great to see, just because I've always loved the graphic novel. But it was for fans only. As I've already said, Inglourious Basterds was fantastic. Christoph Waltz's performance was a revelation.

I haven't see many great dramas, though I've yet to see Precious or An Education. Funny People, definitely not a comedy, was maddening: its first-half was phenomenal, its second-half was terrible. The best drama I've seen this year was the excellent Coen Brothers film, A Serious Man. Maybe their best since Fargo.

State of Play was a good political thriller. Russell Crowe, someone I don't normally enjoy, was excellent. Still, they could have done their research on the layout of Washington, DC. But that's a minor quibble.

The best films this year were animated. Coraline was wonderfully strange and creepy. It was a pleasure to watch in 3-D. My two favorite movies this year were Fantastic Mr. Fox and Up. Fantastic Mr. Fox is the only Wes Anderson film I've liked, at least since Rushmore. He has found his calling in animation. It's a whimsical gem, full of warmth and pure childlike wonder. Up, on the other hand, is a movie that only Pixar could make. On paper it sounds like a mess -- an elderly man travels to South America in his balloon-lifted house, to fulfill a lifelong dream and a pact made with his now-deceased wife. It was actually a poignant and exciting adventure tale. Its first ten minutes are marvelous; the remaining 86 are almost as good. I get teary-eyed every time I see it. And god bless Pixar for making Ed Asner the star of a blockbuster.

Some other films I haven't seen, but that might belong in this post include The Hurt Locker, Bruno, and Ponyo. Avatar looks awful, though it's been getting some good reviews.

*Up in the Air*

George Clooney has finally won me over, thanks to the one-two punch of Fantastic Mr. Fox and Up in the Air. He has become the Cary Grant of his generation. It's not that he is charming and debonair, though he is. It's that he is charming and debonair with the utmost ease. It seems totally natural.

Up in the Air is a terrific movie: funny, sad, and poignant. Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a "termination specialist." He's the guy a company calls in to fire its employees. He flies from one city to the next, secretly collecting frequent flyer miles with the hope of becoming the seventh person to reach the 10 million miles mark. He is a man without a home, purposefully unfettered by family, friends, or a romantic relationship. That is, until he meets Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga) his female doppelganger.

The film's performances are all wonderful. Vera Farmiga plays Alex with intelligence, humor, and sexiness. Anna Kendrick is great as Bingham's protege´, a mixture of Election's Tracy Flick and Sex and the City's Charlotte.

Jason Reitman is beginning to remind me of Alexander Payne (speaking of Election), who has become a master of comedies that have both warmth and depth. I loved Juno, but Up in the Air is a better movie, leaner and more focused. I can't wait to see it again.

Just announced: Up in the Air is getting some Golden Globe lovin'.

*A Serious Man* Review

Walking into the theater, I was half-expecting to hate the Coen brothers' latest film, A Serious Man. The film has received some widely mixed reviews, which have ranged from ecstatic to eviscerating. The negative reviews have highlighted the increasing bleakness of the Coens' films. The criticism is undoubtedly true. To use a popular modern idiom, A Serious Man can be described as suffer porn. The film's protagonist, physics professor Larry Gopnik (the incredible Michael Stuhlbarg), a modern Job, is put through the metaphysical ringer, over and over again. And we are left to helplessly watch his life spin out of control.

I don't know what it says about me, but I loved the movie. Mostly because the Coens have honed their skills so well. Despite the utter blackness of this black comedy, it was still very funny. The performances are all fabulous, though the cast is largely comprised of unknowns (the only name I recognized beforehand was Fyvush Finkel).

Fargo remains my all-time favorite movie, and A Serious Man nears its greatness, as did No Country for Old Men. Yes, all three are dark. But they contain a warmth in their lead performances. Frances McDormand, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Tommy Lee Jones all save their respective films from falling into an existential void. I don't see the Coen brothers as jaded nihilists, but as merry pranksters who are very, very good at what they do.

*District 9* Review

District 9 aims to be IMPORTANT, while wearing the skin of science fiction. Hey, it's about Apartheid...sorta! Look at how it exposes the utter villainy of humanity! Wallow in the victimhood of the film's insectoid aliens! The soundtrack even features dramatic choral music!

Bullshit.

Having read many glowing reviews beforehand, my initial response to District 9 wasn't just disappointment, but the feeling that I had been seriously misled. Afterward, as I thought further, I became confounded by how so many critics could have loved the film. Even the handful of negative reviews only focused on how the film's (admittedly) original premise quickly cedes to run-of-the-mill action movie tropes. Yes, that's true. But, it's like observing how ill-fitting a couture dress is on a gorilla. It completely misses the point.

District 9 is fundamentally driven by a profound hatred for humanity. The ostensible villain is the bogeyman that keeps on giving, a multinational corporation (with the startlingly original name...Multinational United). Ultimately, we're all implicated in the film's condemnation. Even our hero, a Richard Kimble with an alien arm, is unsympathetic through most of the movie. When he does, obligatorily, begin to "do the right thing," fifteen minutes before the movie ends, the filmmakers don't let us in on what motivates the sudden about-face. Meanwhile, the aliens are merely grotesque surrogates for every subjugated people in history; they're there to be helplessly tyrannized. We're supposed to feel hatred and anger for the humans who do this to them, but, somehow, not for the humans who made this ugly movie?

District 9's many plot holes could comfortably accommodate the aliens' mothership, which hangs suspended over Johannesburg through most of the movie. Why didn't the main alien, Christopher Johnson, use the goop that powers his spaceship to escape earlier? (In case you don't make the connection to African slavery yourself, the film's earthlings give the aliens white-man names.) The film implies that he hadn't yet gathered enough, but the supply is sufficient for the job later on, even after our hero accidentally sprays himself in the face with a significant amount of it. Further, we are asked to believe the aliens, who were somehow able to create this advanced technology, which the baddies so rapaciously seek to covet, are, for the most part, mindless brutes. Only Christopher and his bafflingly precocious child show evidence of intelligence. And then there's the "superior" alien technology itself, which can barely hold up against the boring human gunfire that destroys it throughout the movie. Why do the mean humans want this stuff in the first place?

There are many more inconsistencies, but to recount them only hurts my head. Good science fiction is allowed, no supposed, to present the extraordinary and unlikely as mundane, as long as it follows its own rules. It must adhere to an internal logic. In that regard, District 9 is a mess.

But, what is so offensive about the film, and what the critics so heartily lapped up, is the film's pretense at being an insightful parable about humanity. What do we learn, by the end of the movie? Humans are nasty, violent creatures, who seek to dominate disgusting, mindless creatures. I think the filmmakers were too effective; District 9 achieves the opposite of their intent. You don't leave the theater thinking humanity is rotten. That evaluation is reserved for those responsible for this film.

The Joy of Overwhelming Dislike

I don't typically engage in schadenfreude, but the Metacritic page for the new Sandra Bullock movie, All About Steve, is pretty great. It's not easy to annoy virtually every major film critic (even Transformers 2 received a few decent reviews), but Bullock managed to pull off that ignoble feat.

Here's an especially good quote, from the Boston Globe:

It is to comedy what leprosy once was to the island of Molokai: a plague best contemplated from many miles away.

In a spectacular feat of miscasting, the star plays a California fruitcake named Mary Horowitz who lives with her parents, constructs crossword puzzles for a living, and never stops yammering about the trivia that fizzes around her brain. Mary is supposed to be adorable. She’s not. She’s possibly the most irritating character I’ve ever encountered in a Hollywood movie. Five minutes in her presence produces only a searing pain in one’s frontal lobes and a primal flight response. The other characters understand this. Why don’t the filmmakers?

Ouch.