Bruce the Blog

MOVIE REVIEWS

>Avatar in Imax 3D<
Written and Directed by James Cameron
Co-written by
Starring Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Wes Studi, CCH Pounder, Giovanni Ribisi, Michelle Rodriguez

NICE SURPRISE(S)

The 20th Century Fox fanfare that precedes the feature is the first blush of 3D, and, somewhat ironically, little in the movie itself matches the surprise of that bas relief sensation.

The subtitles also appear to extend from the screen in 3D. That was sorta cool, sort of.

When I doffed my Swifty Lazar oversized-hornrimmed 3D glasses during the film to get a sense of what it’s like to view the film in 2D, I was pleasantly surprised to find none of the double-image blurry effect of yesteryear’s 3D processes. The movie sans glasses was eminently viewable in its own right as a 2D epic. You might say the film is as effective cameroff as it is cameron

WHAT IT IS
A watershed feature filmed entertainment for its protean technological prowess that launches cinema into its next generation of virtual reality. The highest praise that can be accorded any creative artist can be conferred on James Cameron: he is his own genre; nobody does what he does as well as he does it.

WHAT IT IS NOT
In terms of pure cinema greatness, in the same league as Citizen Kane, Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz, The Godfather. But it could have been. Cameron’s technology is the spectacle, but his scriptwriting narrative here, as in Titanic, is too simplistic and shallow to earn parity with the aforementioned watershed works. Ultimately, he lets the message and the craft overshadow the art, and the whole suffers for the banality of the sum of its parts.

WHAT A DRAG
Sigourney Weaver’s first scene is an embarrassment of stiff, self-conscious overacting. That too is a casualty of one of Cameron’s weaknesses: he is no more a deft director of actors than he is a witty writer of screenplays. He is most comfortable orchestrating technology and manipulating objects. His output works best on an Imax-imized canvas where humans are incidental to the sturm und drang of the overarching spectacle.

ACTING

WRITING

DIRECTING

MOM + POP CULTURE SCORE IT

DVD REVIEW

>(500) DAYS OF SUMMER
Directed by Marc Webb
Written by Scott Neustadter, Michael Weber
Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel

NICE SURPRISE: 3/5 Old-style voice-over by detached narrator with no role in the story; break from strictly linear exposition with title cards denoting point in story (eg, Day 271), shifting back and forth in time. Helps keep movie moving briskly with absolutely no displacement of viewer in storyline.

WHAT IT IS: A sobering, realistic treatment of young love with which Joe Average readily will relate, as will Joanie Average. Leavened by a dash of fantasy, especially the musical production sequence, which actually makes sense as an explication of what’s going on inside the lead character’s head.

WHAT IT IS NOT: A typical Hollywood romance, thank goodness, which also means it is not smarmy, cheesy, overwritten, insulting or tedious, all the things Hollywood hacks do best.

WHAT A DRAG: Critics who didn’t get it (check out rottentomatoes.com), who only reveal themselves as being the kind of film reviewer increasingly irrelevant and inept, writing not for the average moviegoer but for their own oh-so-refined cinematic sensibility. By definition, a professional critic simply does not watch a movie like the rest of us do, so don’t look to them to know what you and I would like, or not.

ACTING: 9/10 Both Deschanel and Gordon-Levitt are pitch-perfect in their respective roles as object of desire and love-hungry, lost man-boy. They are remarkably affectless (much credit to the director, see below) and join a very impressive new generation of screen and stage thespians whose naturalistic interpretations make the most of minimalist technique.

WRITING: 7.5/10 I don’t recognize either scenarist’s name, which is encouraging: fresh blood. This is the flip side of the Lowell Ganz-Babaloo Mandel school of jokey, even hokey scriptwriting that had its day (and they were masters at it, a la Steve Martin’s “Parenthood”). The dialogue is etched with a light touch, eschewing heavy-handed bon mots and favoring wry boy-girl exchanges torn from real people and real life. The format is episodic and it all meshes smoothly. It’s no Juno in award-winning style but it’s better than most big-budget romances that overplay their hand and treat audiences like dimwits.

DIRECTING: 7.5/10 Marc Webb’s only other discernible credit is a 2006 music video DVD release, “My Chemical Romance: Life on the Murder Scene,” according to a Netflix search. His feature film debut is noteworthy for sure. Without knowing for sure how much of the film’s invention is his, the writers, or a cross of their creativity, he exhibits an uncharacteristic avoidance (among the music video directors fraternity) for flash and jump cuts that can give a viewer vertigo. His storytelling chops, based on this one film, are worth watching.

MOM + POP CULTURE SCORE IT 8.4/10

MOVIE REVIEWS

>UP IN THE AIR
>SHERLOCK HOLMES

UP IN THE AIR
Written + Directed by Jason Reitman (directed “Juno”; son of Animal House Producer Ivan Reitman)
Starring George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, Jason Bateman

NICE SURPRISE: 4/5 If Oscars were still awarded for Title Design, this film’s opening credits would be a contender. Refreshingly different and mercifully quick cuts. No single credit stays on screen long, as if Reitman smartly is assuring audience, “I know you came here to see a movie, not to watch credits.” Amazing how many insulated, self-indulgent directors and producers from the University of ME Pretentious School of Filmmaking don’t get that. (NOTE: (Nice Surprise category is down-weighted to count half as much as key categories of Acting, Directing, Writing)

WHAT IT IS: A small movie with a message

WHAT IT IS NOT: A straight-up comedy; it’s a topical drama (job loss, human isolation) with a script wittier than most

WHAT A DRAG: The movie never fully takes off (although Clooney’s character spends his life in airports and airliners and loves it).

ACTING: 7.5/10 Mom Culture afterwards said Clooney always plays himself. Pop Culture au contraired, saying the fact MC thinks that only helps prove how good he is because making acting look effortless is, not so paradoxically, quite difficult because, well, you ARE acting in a movie in front of a full camera crew in disjointed, non-chronological scenes that each require multiple takes, not walking through a spontaneous day in your own life.

Two days later, Mom + Pop’re watching Charlie Rose interview Jason and Ivan Reitman about the movie and whaddya know — Jason says the exact same thing about Clooney’s deft handling of artifice, even rebuking the knock that people like MC deliver about his playing himself. Clooney’s style and technique conjure comparisons to Cary Grant, just as Tom Hanks often evokes comparisons to James Stewart. In either case, that’s a pantheon any actor would kill, or die, to be part of.

Farmiga and Kendrick turn in excellent, believable portrayals, especially Farmiga, whose performance is award-caliber. Kendrick’s a bit green as an actor and that comes through in some scenes, where she tries a bit too hard and her line readings ring a tad off-key. She’s not always quite natural enough, although she is supposed to be a very uptight, very confident and bright young woman. Still, Kendrick comes dangerously close to caricature, but she’s entertaining all the same.

Bateman is a lot of fun to watch and does an excellent job of playing the kind of officious, bottom-line, slightly obnoxious businessman that just about all working-class people have encountered in their careers.

WRITING: 7.5/10 Substantive and literate, as typically is the case when a script is derived from a novel. This is based on a novel by Walter Kirn. Why is that the case? Because the nature of book publishing, more than ever, is such that both serious fiction and non-fiction don’t make the cut unless they ARE substantive and literate.

DIRECTING: 9/10 I’m a Reitman fan. He is as unpretentious a filmmaker as there is in Hollywood these days, which is one reason his films strike an empathetic, responsive chord in moviegoers. He knows how to tell a story tautly, pleasantly, casually, believably, without self-conscious cinematic frippery or digital downloading or reminding us constantly that an artiste is at work. He’s a talent to be reckoned with for years to come.

MOM CULTURE’S ONE-WORD CRITIQUE: Cute
POP CULTURE’S THREE-WORD CRITIQUE: Smart and fresh

MOM + POP CULTURE SCORE IT 8/10
———————————–
SHERLOCK HOLMES
Written by Michael Robert Johnson and Anthony Peckham and Simon Kinberg, screen story by Lionel Wigram and Michael Robert Johnson.
Directed by Guy Ritchie (aka Mister Madonna)
Starring Robert Downey, Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Mark Strong

NICE SURPRISE: 4/5 Effective evil-doing of Mark Strong as obligatory villain Lord Blackwood (presumably the never-seen Professor Moriarty is being saved for a sequel, lord help us; maybe Blackwood will!) Strong looks the part (he could be Andy Garcia’s brother based on facial resemblance; what ever did happen to Andy Garcia?) and is suitably creepy and chilling and foreboding. He’s the single most effective element in the film. (NOTE: Nice Surprise category is down-weighted to count half as much as key categories of Acting, Directing, Writing)

WHAT IT IS: A conceptual and functional mess; another example of digital excess and obviousness and absence of verisimilitude

WHAT IT IS NOT: True to Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary invention; engaging; suspenseful; an evocative period piece.

WHAT A DRAG: That Hollywood is so nervous and uncertain about audience reaction and traction that it couldn’t make a traditional Holmes movie, relying on a much stronger script, more authentic sets to create a sense of time and place, and a director up to the task.

ACTING: 7/10 Very broad. Downey doesn’t seem capable of turning in less than a diverting performance regardless of the level of talent around (cast) and behind (producers) and in front of him (crew). It may seem an odd analogy, but there’s a Cagneyesque quality to him, mostly owing to the high-octane energy level and heat the great Cagney was famous for radiating onscreen. Anybody else in the same scene had little choice: either meet his demanding standards and commanding presence or be whisked off the screen in a blaze of bravura emoting and body language. Here, Downey gets to play with and off of Jude Law, who holds his own, even if his character is underwritten, no doubt to not compete with or overshadow the top-billed Downey (or maybe it’s, just as likely, uneven writing). Rachel McAdams doesn’t do much with not much of a part.

WRITING: 4/10 The scribes clearly couldn’t decide what style or even genre they were working in and inevitably ended up nowhere at all. Somehow, the plot device is both cartoonishly uncomplicated yet hard to follow with any sustained interest. The filmmakers failed to pull me in or make me care what was going on at any point in the movie. It’s derivative of Bond action stunts and Lethal Weapon buddy repartee but not of good, old-fashioned mysteries or historical fiction. Ritchie hasn’t shown so far in his career that he has the depth or interest or craftsmanship to pull off such a piece de period.

DIRECTING: 3/10 Ritchie’s a journeyman director, with a distinctly undistinguished resume (”Rock n Rolla,” “Revolver,” “Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels” — see what I mean?). At one point, during a conflagration scene (Ritchie’s flamboyant style favors pyrotechnique), I was jarred by the soundtrack’s choice of a violin solo that sounded like a refugee from “Schindler’s List.” It is symptomatic of the director’s lack of moderation, his indiscrete choices and the movie’s smorgasbord (or crazy quilt) of genre mashups, a nice way of saying it has a terminal identity crisis.

MOM + POP CULTURE SCORE IT 5.5/10 (only because it’s the season of charity)

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