If there is one message the filmmakers behind Martian Child would like you to take home it is: You Are What You Is. The latest from John Cusack is a family film about spare pegs and round holes which extols the virtues of being yourself. It’s a great message in this age where conformity seems to be king, but I wish it had presented in a more interesting movie.
Cusack plays a widowed science fiction writer who—rather improbably—adopts a troubled young boy (Bobby Coleman). Abused and neglected, when we first meet the youngster he is spending his daylight hours in a large box with just an eye slot cut in the side. Inside his sanctuary he protects himself from dangerous UV rays and occasionally takes a Polaroid of the outside world. You see, young Dennis believes he is from Mars and that the sun’s deadly rays will eat away at his skin. The snap shots, he says, are part of his larger mission to observe and document the human race as part of a Martian scientific study. With his pale skin, reddish hair and ever present camera he like the strange love-child of The Man Who Fell to Earth and Andy Warhol.
Cusack, having been a bit of a social outcast himself, understands that the boy has obviously created the story to cover for a traumatic upbringing by his birth family, and allows him to keep one foot in outer space while trying to keep the other firmly planted on planet Earth. When the boy tries to conform to what others expect from him, and live by “Earth” rules, it leads to an epiphany between adopted father and son.
It’s hard to dislike a movie as earnest as Martian Child. It has interesting messages for kids on growing up and acceptance of others, and seems to understand that kid’s early days are not easy—Cusack’s character even says, “Childhood is barbaric”—but despite all the good stuff, it falls flat.
Like the weight belt that Dennis wears to stabilize his Martian gravity and prevent him from floating away into the ether, the movie too seems weighed down by a predictable plot and heavy handed lesson. We get it. There’s no harm in being a little eccentric. We got that in the first twenty minutes, and yet seventy minutes later we’re still being hit over the head with that sentiment. If the film had heeded its own advice and taken some chances, tried to be bit more eccentric it may have been a much better movie going experience
First time director Tony Gilroy is best known for writing the first two Bourne movies. Those scripts crackled with energy and high-wire tension. In Michael Clayton, a new legal drama starring George Clooney, he has dialled back the action but upped the intrigue.
Mixing elements of Erin Brockovich—corporate malfeasance, but without the bustier—and Syrianna, Michael Clayton sees Clooney playing the world weary title character, a lawyer who specializes in damage control.
He is called in to fix a situation involving his firm’s top litigator, Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson), who suffered a nervous breakdown while taking a deposition in a multi-million dollar case. Clayton soon puts two and two together and figures out that Arthur’s mental collapse was triggered by an ethical dilemma.
Feeling that he has not been following his moral compass and perhaps has indirectly had a hand in corporate malfeasance that has led to the death of innocent people, Arthur behaves irrationally and calls himself “Shiva the God of Death.” It’s Clayton’s job to set him back on track.
On the other side of the table is Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton), a corporate lawyer who will do anything to protect her company’s reputation, even if that means breaking the law.
Michael Clayton is about the law, corporate responsibility and the limits to which a person will allow their morals to stretch before conscious kicks in.
Told mostly in flashbacks, Michael Clayton is the kind of socially aware, whistle blowing drama that packed ‘em in during the 1970s but has been largely absent from the multiplexes in recent years, but if anyone can entice audiences to a thriller with more paranoia than thrills it’s Clooney. His trademarked good looks are amply on display—Gilroy takes full advantage of his star, taking every opportunity to fill the screen with Clooney’s face—but this isn’t Danny Ocean, the calm, cool and collected character he played so successfully in the Ocean’s 11 series. Clayton is a conflicted character, a jaded, weak man with more problems than solutions.
Michael Clayton has some story problems—several storylines are left dangling and the end seems a bit too pat, but the three leads—Clooney, Swinton and Wilkinson—hand in great performances and it is a blast to see the great director Sydney Pollock, best known for making movies that unveil abuses of power, playing a grizzled senior litigator who may be a little less than honest.
You either love the monosyllabic Mr. Bean or want to see him banished to the seventh level of Hell where constant pain will be his reward for all the idiocy he has loosed upon the world.
There is no middle ground.
Since 1990 Rowan Atkinson’s annoying man-child spread the kind of absurdity that makes Jerry Lewis look like a master of subtly in fourteen BBC produced television episodes, an animated series and one 1997 movie.
He’s back in a new adventure, and this time he wins a trip to Cannes in the south of France. He brings a video camera along to document his trip, and it is that camera that triggers a series of events that will see him be accused of kidnapping a young boy, meet a beautiful woman (named Sabine. If they got marries she’d be Sabine Bean. Get it?), blow up a film set, and become the toast of the Cannes film festival. It’s a long and strange journey. At one point, I kid you not, a chicken makes off with his bus ticket.
That’s right, a chicken. Even the livestock are out to get him.
There’s something old fashioned about the humor of Mr. Bean. Either he’s paying tribute to the silent movie slapstick comedians of yore, or he’s a comedic recycler of epic proportions. There’s very little dialogue, (which would explain the enormous international success of the franchise) it’s mostly just grunts and mumbled words, so Bean must rely on physical farce to get his point across. The physical stuff can occasionally raise a smile, but I felt I had seen much of it before, and usually done better. The estate of Buster Keaton should perhaps be looking into copyright infringement.
It’s hard to be rough on old Mr. Bean because I guess the movies are aimed at kids, so you shouldn’t really expect edgy, interesting comedy, but I had to wonder at the appropriateness of some of the set pieces wedged in between the sight gags. Do kids really need to see a man commit suicide by jumping off a bridge after Bean has been rude to him on the phone? Is the sight of Mr. Bean dressed as a Nazi goose-stepping and Sieg Heiling meant to crack up an eight year old? At those moments the youngster sitting next to me said, “Why is he doing that?” to his dad. The dad didn’t have an answer and neither do I.
I’m not exactly sure who the audience for Mr. Bean’s Holiday is, but I am quite sure it won’t win many new fans, although I think it should keep the old ones content.
First here’s all the stuff from the Miami Vice television show that you won’t see or hear in the movie version: pastel jackets with t-shirts underneath, Elvis the alligator, Jan Hammer’s distinctive theme song, or Phil Collins. In short, all of the stuff that made the “MTV cop” show a hit.
This isn’t your Dad’s Miami Vice. Director Michael Mann, who created, executive produced, wrote and directed the original series has turfed everything except the two main characters in his attempt to update the 1980s classic for the big screen. Sonny Crockett, now played by Colin Farrell still hasn’t figured out how to use a razor, but aside from that it’s a whole new game. In fact, only about half the movie actually takes place in Miami.
In Mann’s new version of Miami it’s always night and danger seems to lurk around every corner. Shooting in grainy digital video, the director transforms the Sunshine State’s biggest city into a menacing paradise where both life and drugs are cheap. It is a world where the good guys don’t always win and the bad guys don’t completely lose.
Mann has loosely based the film on one of the television show’s most famous episodes, Smuggler’s Blues. The story begins with a sting operation gone bad which costs two federal agents their lives. It appears there’s an information leak in either the FBI or DEA or ATF and it’s up to Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) to put a plug in it. Working deep undercover, posing as drug transporters they begin by infiltrating the network of a mid-level trafficker called Yero. Yero will be able to hook them up with the drug kingpin, Montoya, and from there they should be able to bring down his entire empire.
It’s not exactly the most original story we’ve seen at the movies this year, but the beauty is in the telling of the story, not the story itself. Mann has a way with this kind of material. Miami Vice, like his best work in the crime genre—movies like Thief and Heat—is dripping with cool atmosphere, enough to make up for the by-the-book story.
Less successful is the casting. Jamie Foxx and Mann have worked together three times now—on Ali, Collateral, which nabbed an Oscar nomination for Foxx—but this has to be their least inspiring outing. Foxx and Farrell don’t seem to have much chemistry, which is crucial to their roles as partners who would do anything for one another, but worse than that, Foxx isn’t given much to do. The character of Tubbs is so stoic and no nonsense that all he is required to do is stand there and look good. He does that well, but it feels like he is holding back.
Not so for Farrell who gives a performance of mock seriousness that sometimes borders on camp. He barks his tough-guy lines in a way that would knock the pastel off the original Crockett, Don Johnson. Johnson’s Crockett was unhappy and angry, but in the movie seems to have turned his life around. Now he’s angry and unhappy.
Miami Vice on the big screen isn’t a remake of the television series; it’s more than that. It’s the maturation of it. Mann has made a demanding but interesting film that reflects where he is now, not where he was when he created the television series.
Mr. Brooks stars Demi Moore and Kevin Costner. No, it isn’t some lost artifact from the early 1990s; it’s a tightly scripted, but slightly wonky new serial killer movie headlined by stars who were at the top of the form when the first George Bush was in office.
Costner takes a break from his usual nice guy routine to play the title role, Earl Brooks, a successful business man with a beautiful wife (Marg Helgenberger) and an even more beautiful home. His life seems perfect, but the far-away look in his eyes lets us know that everything is not right in Mr. Brooks’ world. You see, he’s an addict. He’s been on the straight and narrow for two years, but something is pulling at him. That something is Marshall (William Hurt) a mayhem loving imaginary friend who looks a great deal like the professor from Altered States.
Marshall convinces Mr. Brooks to indulge his bad habit one more time, letting loose the Mr. Hyde that Earl tries to keep under wraps. They don’t go on a drinking binge, start smoking or take drugs. Mr. Brooks is far too straight laced for any of that kind of behavior. You see, Mr. Brooks is addicted to killing, and Marshall is the bad influence who convinces him to stalk and kill innocent people. When the usually meticulous killer makes a mistake at the scene of the crime he opens himself up to scrutiny from not only a very determined police detective (Demi Moore), but also a wannabe homicidal maniac (Dane Cook) who blackmails Mr. Brooks into schooling him in the ways of the serial killing game.
We’ve seen the serial-killer-next-door scenario played out many times on screen, and as usual, in Mr. Brooks most of the female characters are underwritten. Helgenberger is wasted as Mrs. Brooks in a role that requires her to do little else than look good, while Moore’s determined cop routine, although well performed, is pretty standard stuff. In spite of its shortcomings Mr. Brooks has several points that vault it head and shoulders above the rest.
The story takes a few unexpected zigs and zags. Cook’s killer fan boy is a fun diversion and the seemingly red herring role of the daughter adds depth to the piece but it really is the performances of Costner and Hurt that make Mr. Brooks so entertaining to watch.
In Earl Brooks Costner, never an expressive actor, finds the perfect character fit for his acting style. Most of the time Costner’s bland approach undermines his characters, but Brooks is a man who controls his emotions, the blank look on his face hiding the barely controlled malevolence that wracks his brain. The actor’s dull exterior perfectly mirrors the image Mr. Brooks must portray to avoid being caught. This is a guy who looks like he couldn’t blow the foam off a glass of beer let alone put a bullet in someone’s head and that’s just as it should be.
William Hurt hands in a bravura turn as the evil alter ego who simply can’t contain his glee at the pandemonium he causes. He’s rotten to the core, but Hurt plays him more as a mischievous older brother who encourages his siblings to sneak a drink from dad’s liquor cabinet than a psychological force who pushes his host to commit heinous acts of murder.
A decade and a half ago these two actors almost co-starred in The Big Chill before Costner’s role ended up on the cutting room floor. Had that footage survived it would be interesting to see if they had the same kind of chemistry on-screen then as they do now. Mr. Brooks cooks with gas when those two do their evil twin routine.
Mr. Brooks isn’t on the same playing field as Silence of the Lambs or Psycho, but it is an interesting portrait of the killer next door.
Lately I have been very hard on that reliable old standby, the romantic comedy. I’ve said that the recent crop of them are neither romantic or funny and I even went so far as to suggest that The Holiday is misogynist. Today we’re talking about a different kind of romantic comedy, the trademarked Drew Barrymore Rom Com®. This genre contains some of the laughs missing from Because I Said So, the romance absent from Catch and Release and none of the woman bashing. What it does have are stories so formulaic I experience déjà vu while watching them.
The breakdown for a Drew Barrymore romance fest is simple. Act One sees the quirky couple—in this case she’s a substitute plant caregiver, he’s a faded 80s pop star—meet. Sparks fly. Act Two has the pair falling in love under unlikely circumstances. Things go great until the ugly confrontation that leads to separation and general unhappiness. Act Three contains the Grand Gesture. He or she, depending on the movie, moves heaven and earth to win the other back. Insert happy ending.
That’s the basic plot of all of her romantic opuses from 50 First Dates to Fever Pitch and beyond. Only the faces change. Barrymore is a warm, engaging screen presence and often that is enough to carry one of these movies, but Music and Lyrics falls flat. Her co-star, rom com vet Hugh Grant, seems off his game, and I didn’t sense a great deal of chemistry between the two.
On paper Grant’s casting as an 80s has-been pop idol seems inspired. He has the looks (and nails the 80s era mullet) and just the right self-depreciating attitude, but his comic timing seems askew and perhaps he’s a bit long in the tooth to continue playing his brand name bumbling Englishman role.
Music and Lyrics is predictable—here’s a spoiler: they get together at the end. Big Surprise!—but so are most romantic comedies. There are some laughs here, but with little chemistry between the leads it’s as though we’re laughing at them rather than with them.
Putting Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, the two best looking people in Hollywood—strike that, the world—in one movie is a no-brainer, so now the question is, do they have chemistry? Happily, they do, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the movie that broke up Jennifer Aniston’s marriage to Pitt and gave us the term “Brangelina,” works, not because of its outlandish story, but because of the performances from the two leads. They play married and highly paid assassins who don’t know what the other does for a living. They discover the truth when they are ordered to kill one another. The movie is kind of schizophrenic—on one hand it is a study of a marriage that is eroding, falling apart because of a lack of intimacy, and on the other it is a flat out action film with crazy action sequences. The two play off one another well—my favorite exchange between them happens when she accidentally stabs him with a knife in the leg. “We’ll talk about this later,” he mumbles as he pulls the knife out of his leg. If you liked the black humor of the Jack Nicholson / Kathleen Turner film Prizzi’s Honor, you’ll like Mr and Mrs Smith.
The Motorcycle Diaries tells the story of an 8,000 mile trip by motorcycle, raft, truck and foot, from Argentina to Peru, undertaken in 1952 by Ernesto Guevara de la Serna and his friend Alberto Granado. Of course Ernesto goes on to become Che Guevara, but we don’t meet the Che who went crazy and was shooting people in the jungle—we’ll have to wait for the Bencio del Toro Che film for that—this is Che Guevara as the romantic rebel who undergoes a life-changing change. At the end of the movie we’re told that Ernesto would go on to join Castro in the Cuban Revolution, and fight for his cause in the Congo and Bolivia, where he died.
A great deal of the appeal of this movie can be attributed to its star, Gael Garcia Bernal (from Y Tu Mama Tambien). He was the resident heartthrob at the film festival in Toronto last year and lends this movie much of its heat.
You’ve seen the ad on television where Jim Carrey says that he “just wanted to bring something good into the world,” well, Jimbo, this ain’t it. The Majestic is syrupy, predictable crap that makes one long for the days of Ace Ventura and The Mask. Jim Carrey’s performance literally screams “Please nominate me for an Oscar! I promise I won’t talk out of my ass anymore.” Carrey is a talented actor, but this rubbish is beneath him and if this is the kind of movie he wants to make, I’m glad he’s giving up his Canadian citizenship. Hollywood can have him.
