The 2007 Academy Award®-winner for Best Foreign Language Film, The Counterfeiters is the true story of Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics), a shady character known in Berlin’s underworld as “King of the Counterfeiters.” His criminal career comes to an abrupt halt when he is arrested and sent to a Nazi concentration camp.
The German army is on the brink of bankruptcy so Sorowitsch, desperate to survive, makes a deal with the devil. He’ll use his expertise to make counterfeit money which will fund the Nazi war effort and in exchange he and a handpicked group of specialists will receive decent food, a comfortable place to sleep and fair treatment. Beginning in 1942 and continuing until 1945, Operation Bernhard becomes the largest counterfeiting undertaking in history, succeeding in forging over £130 million before the end of the war, but despite his criminal nature the moral quandary of a Jewish man helping the Nazis hangs heavy on his conscience.
Written and directed by Stefan Ruzowitsky, and based on the book The Devil’s Workshop by Adolf Burger The Counterfeiters is a study of the human will to survive disguised as a war-time thriller. Ruzowitsky carefully reconstructs the horrors of the concentration camp, effectively creating an atmosphere of fear and dread but keeps story focused on Sorowitsch and the consequences of his awful choice. It is thought provoking material that examines the moral choices and life-and-death decisions made in the face of adversity.
I would guess that Roger Spottiswoode is one of those directors-for-hire who, on the first read through of a script, is able to determine exactly how much each scene will cost,; is adept at squeezing money out of a stone and completely understands the mysterious world of international co-productions.
That’s why his films often have interesting locations—Shake Hands with the Devil was shot in Uganda, The Children of Huang Shi in China—are nicely shot and have production value that far out paces their actual budgets.
The capital “I” important stories in his films—he tends to be drawn toward serious topics like genocide and war—are generally undone not by the virtues of his technical production, but by his seeming inability to direct actors or breathe life into stilted stories. He understands how to block a scene, how to shoot it and what lens to use, so it all looks nice, but he relies too heavily on cinema clichés to manipulate the audience into caring about the mannequins on screen.
The Children of Huang Shi is a compelling true story about a brazen British journalist (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) who with the help of an Australian nurse (Radha Mitchell), saves a group of orphaned children during the Japanese occupation of China in 1937. A story that could have had Schindler List possibilities though, is rendered ineffective by his inability to effectively guide his actors through the emotional highpoints of the story. Instead each scene is broken down into a series of cookie-cutter cinema clichés.
Even worse than the predictable and tired storytelling is the inappropriate use of lame humor—“This is my favourite part,” says Chen Hansheng (Chow Yun Fat) as he blows up a building just minutes after a gruesome massacre.
The Children of Hunag Shi could have been an interesting look at an important and rarely told story from our recent past, but despite some gorgeous photography, falls far short of captivating.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe had the most ungainly title of 2005 but that didn’t stop audiences from shelling out upwards of 700 million dollars to see the story of four children who travel through a wardrobe to a magical land where animals talk and an evil ice queen has taken power. In the inevitable sequel (expect lots of Narnia in your future—there’s seven books of source material) the same kids are catapulted back to the wondrous world of Narnia.
This time around, however, the world isn’t so wondrous. In the one year they lived in the human world, 1300 years passed in Narnia and the once lush place is now ravaged by war. The four kids—teenagers in England, Kings and Queens in Narnia—are summoned by the deposed true king of Narnia, Prince Caspian. Together they form an uneasy alliance to defeat the evil Telmarines, protect Narnia and place Caspian on throne, where he belongs.
Despite the lion king Aslan’s sage words, “things are never the same way twice,” The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian follows the template set by the first movie, for better and for worse.
On the plus side, like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian is a classic tale of good verses evil. This time around though, the story is lumbering and takes far too long to get in gear. Aslan is largely absent—the subtitle Waiting for Aslan wouldn’t be too far off the mark—and while there are some whiz bang action sequences sprinkled throughout, the long connecting passages drag. When Trumpkin (Peter Dinklage) asks young Lucy (Georgie Henley) where she’s been for the last 1300 years, she says, “It’s a long story…”
It’s hard to disagree with her as the movie chugs past the two hour mark, with wooden performances making it seem even longer. As in the first movie director Andrew Adamson, who previously helmed the Shrek movies, is more at home with the animated characters than the flesh and blood actors. New additons, including a mouse whose personality seems cribbed from the Puss In Boots character in Shrek 2, add some dashes of humor, but overall the tone is much darker than the original.
This installment doesn’t skimp on the violence—a massive slaughter of Narnians trapped in a castle may be a tad too intense for a movie featuring cuddly, talking animals—but, like The Forbidden Kingdom, another recent family friendly action film, the brutality is bloodless. There’s loads of gouging, stabbing and general mayhem, but not one ounce of blood squirts or dribbles from any of the wounds. It takes some of the edge off the violence, and, I guess, smoothes out some of the viciousness, but make no mistake, this is a violent movie with as high a body count as any of the Lord of the Rings movies.
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian presents interesting ideas about loss of innocence, courage and chivalry but those messages are overshadowed by a movie that is overlong and relies too heavily on action scenes.
Film trailers are the single most important tool in the movie marketing business. Over the years the creation of movie trailers has been honed to a fine art and the right assortment of music, images and star power can be a powerful promotional tool. Cloverfield, a new monster movie from Lost producer JJ Abrams turned convention on its head recently with a teaser trailer that didn’t feature big stars or music, just one striking image.
There’s a party. Outside you hear a loud thump. Lights flicker and everyone rushes outside just I time for the head of The Statue of Liberty, torn from its body, to skid to a halt in from to them. Fade to black. No music, no title, nothing except a mind-bender of an image that knocked you back in your seat.
Not since The Blair Witch Project has a trailer stirred up so much anticipation. The only question that remains is: Can the movie top the trailer? Happily the answer is yes, but with reservations.
Cloverfield—the name is the US government code for the “incident” in which a mysterious creature destroyed NYC—is a curious mix of the production value of America’s Funniest Home Videos, (but without the crotch shots) and Godzilla. A movie shot entirely through the lens of a home video camera, complete with bad shot composition and shaky hand held cinematography.
If frenetic camera work is not your cup of tea then Cloverfield will not be for you. The occasionally nausea inducing visuals make the former jiggly-camera record holder, The Blair Witch Project look like it was shot by Ansel Adams on a steadi-cam. Having said that, for those willing to go along for the ride the intensity and immediacy of the images will leave you breathless.
As something—I’m not telling you what, not knowing in advance is part of the fun of the movie—lays waste to the Big Apple many of the scenes echo the well-known news footage of 9/11. Massive white clouds of dust billow out of buildings while sheets of paper eerily float to the ground, expelled from the skeletons of giant skyscrapers. These familiar images coupled with the immediacy of the home video footage give the film a realistic and horrifying feel.
Cloverfield takes elements from horror films as diverse as The Blair Witch Project, The Host and Godzilla and, in an economical 75 minutes, binds them together to create something new, fresh and really powerful.
Some things are better left alone. I recently read that the Jack Kerouac classic On the Road is being turned into a movie. I can’t imagine that this is a good idea as the filmmakers could never possibly translate this book, which is revered by generations of people, into a film that would be better than the book. Another, more tangible example is out on DVD this week. Charlotte’s Web is a beloved children’s book about Wilbur a little runt pig who is concerned that he is going to end up as dinner unless he takes action. With the help of a quick-witted spider named Charlotte he hatches a plan to avoid turning into Sunday dinner.
This big budget adaptation features an all-star voice cast, including Julia Roberts as the know-it-all spider and Robert Redford, Oprah Winfrey, Cedric the Entertainer, John Cleese, Reba McEntire and Kathy Bates with Dakota Fanning heading up the live action cast.
There’s an old saying, “You can’t put lipstick on a pig,” which seems appropriate here. Charlotte’s Web isn’t as charming as that other talking pig movie Babe, or the book for that matter, but it is sweet and maybe will encourage a few kids to turn off the TV and pick up the book.
On the television show Alias Jennifer Garner played a woman with a double life—average citizen by day, sexy super-spy by night. In her new film, Catch and Release, she plays it straight, it’s her dead fiancée who led two lives.
Catch and Release is an odd kind of romantic comedy that isn’t exactly a comedy or very romantic for that matter. There are a few laughs—mostly provided by Clerks director Kevin Smith, seen here slumming in the chubby roommate role—mixed throughout the movie in between the suicide attempts, illegitimate babies, crying jags and clandestine sex. Any movie that begins at a funeral reception on what was supposed to be a wedding day isn’t destined to be a barrel of monkeys, but that’s just what makes Catch and Release so confounding.
It can’t quite make up its mind what it wants to be. Is it a comedy? Not exactly. Is it a romance? Kind of. Is it a change of life story involving old friends? Sorta. It all this and, I suspect more. The original cut of the film by director Susannah Grant was an epic three hours in length. Thankfully she has cut it down by an hour, but in doing so she may have lost some clarity in the storyline.
On the plus the movie features some very winning performances. The incredibly square-jawed Jennifer Garner is hard not to like, even when grief pushes her to make some questionable life choices.
Opposite her is Timothy Olyphant, best known as the foul mouthed Seth on Deadwood, this time put he has cleaned up the language and puts on his sensitive guy hat. He’s kind of an unconventional choice for this sort of role and the casting against type works well here.
Juliette Lewis pops up in a supporting role, playing one of her patented flaky, trashy characters. It’s part Mallory from Natural Born Killers, part Jesse the Bounty Hunter from My Name is Earl, but she adds some spark to the proceedings.
Catch and Release isn’t a very good date movie, but it may have some appeal to people who like their romance with a bit of an edge.
Last year there was a lot of talk that Clive Owen would be the next James Bond. At the time I thought he would be a perfect choice for the role. In retrospect I’m glad he didn’t get the part because A) Daniel Craig is terrific and B) if he had been playing Bond he likely wouldn’t have had the chance to make Children of Men.
Based upon the novel of the same name by British author PD James, Children of Men is set in England in the not so distant future. A television ad trumpets that the world has collapsed and social terror is the norm but “only Britain soldiers on.” Women have lost the ability to have babies, terrorism and civil war wracks most of the planet, and the youngest person in the world has just been killed in a bar fight.
Clive Owen plays Theo, an alcoholic who spikes his morning coffee with scotch on the way to his bleak, low-level bureaucratic job. He reluctantly becomes involved with a radical group run by his former girlfriend who recruits him to courier the world’s only pregnant woman to safety.
With this film director Alfonso Cuarón (best known as the filmmaker behind the art house hit Y tu mamá también and the mega smash Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) proves that he is one of the best directors working today. The movie takes off like a rocket from its opening moments, shot in long takes that resemble a documentary. His sense of pacing, accentuated by many unexpected thrills is flawless.
Add to that a steely performance from Owen, terrific turns by Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Peter Mullan as a psycho detention camp guard and you have the best movie of the year.
Children of Men was the best Christmas present I got this year.
Charlie Bartlett could be the younger brother of Ferris Bueller, the kid from Rushmore or even Hard Harry from Pump Up the Volume. He’s a child of privilege who uses his charm and smarts to get what he wants.
If Ferris made you laugh, you’ll likely enjoy Charlie. If, however, you thought Ferris was simply an annoying snot nosed rich kid you may want to go see Vantage Point instead this weekend because Charlie Bartlett, though appealing, owes a mighty debt to Ferris (and at least a passing nod to Harold and Maude).
Wealthy teenager Charlie Bartlett’s (Anton Yelchin) habit of coming up with outlandish schemes to win the approval of his peers has gotten him kicked out of more private schools than Carter has little liver pills. He’s a troubled kid—“My family has a psychiatrist on call… how normal can I be?” he says—who gets a charge out of doing things that will land him in hot water.
Since no private school will have him he must go to a regular public school run by the Principal Gardner (Robert Downey Jr.) a man so world-weary he makes Andy Warhol look like Richard Simmons.
Still desperate for acceptance he comes up with one more ploy to endear himself to his classmates—like Lucy in the Peanuts—he becomes the school shrink, providing comfort and counsel and even the occasional mood altering drug cocktail. “Bringing psychiatric drugs and teenagers together is like opening a lemonade stand in the desert,” he says of his thriving pharmaceutical business.
When he is done helping his classmates find themselves, however, his life changes when he learns the hard way about the responsibility that comes along with great popularity.
Charlie Bartlett is probably the sweetest movie ever made about a drug dealer. As the titular character Anton Yelchin, best known for juvenile roles on Huff and Curb Your Enthusiasm, injects likeability to a character that in lesser hands could have been quite intolerable. He’s totally believable as the troubled but charming teenager, and his strong presence saves several of the movie’s more precious moments; ditto for Kat Dennings as the young rebel’s girlfriend and Toronto actor Mark Rendall as a terminally depressed Marilyn Manson fan.
If not for this talented cast Charlie Bartlett may have seemed a bit too clever for its own good, a Ferris Bueller on steroids. Luckily the chemistry of the young cast coupled with strong performances from Hope Davis as Charlie’s delicate mom and Downey Jr as the beaten down school master, who is neither master of his school or domain, elevates the film from simply being an 80s teen movie homage to something far more poignant and interesting.
The much anticipated rebooting of the James Bond franchise is finally in theatres after months of controversy. The unceremonious canning of Pierce Brosnan, who had played the role for the better part of a decade, and the hiring of Daniel Craig, a blonde largely unknown actor, generated hate amongst Bond die-hards. Websites like craignotbond.com—and others with names I can’t repeat here—sprung up all over the net and it seemed like the barrage of bad pre-release publicity might sink the new movie before it even opened in theatres. The Craig-bashing is likely to cease, not only because it is unwarranted, but also because after seeing the movie nay-sayers may fear for their safety.
Craig is an inspired choice to reinvent Bond for a new generation. He’s a good actor—check out his turns in Enduring Love and The Mother—and he’s good looking, but in a more dangerous way than Brosnan or Roger Moore, the slickest of the Bonds. Craig has the looks of a leading man, but is lean and mean, and seems like he could punch you in the mouth and not think too much of it. Not since Sean Connery has a Bond been so volatile.
Craig takes the formerly bloated Bond franchise in a new direction. Gone are the high tech gadgets, the lasers and the pens that contain nuclear bombs. This Bond, built like a muscular British bulldog dispatched bad guys the old-fashioned way—with his hands. In one scene when he is asked how one of his victims died he replies with a wink, “Not well.”
The story, based on the first Bond novel by Ian Flemming, is typical Bond. A series of missions in far-flung corners of the world leads Bond to a high-stakes poker game hosted by an international banker who launders money for terrorists. Bond’s goal is to bankrupt the banker at the poker table so the Secret Service can use financial leverage to get the banker to turn on his terrorist contacts. Along the way there are beautiful girls, exotic locations, a great bad guy who cries blood tears and lots of over-the-top action.
Casino Royale isn’t your father’s Bond. It may, however, be a little closer to your grandfather’s. Sean Connery officially hung up his Bond tuxedo in 1971 (we won’t count Never Say Never Again, the 1983 non-starter) and since then the franchise has drifted, becoming a cartoony, pun spewing vision of the Cold War spy. Craig (with the help of a script by {Paul Haggis) brings the franchise back to its roots. His Bond is a vicious anti-hero who happens to be on the side of right. He is at once the most contemporary of heroes and one of the most old-fashioned. He’s savvy enough to understand the intricacies of the international espionage but primitive enough to use force when necessary.
