Clean

B+

Directed by Olivier Assayas

Olivier Assayas teams up with his ex-wife Maggie Cheung to make the effective and quite enjoyable "Clean," a story about one woman's long road back from substance abuse.

Cheung plays Emily, the wife of an over the hill rock star Lee who tries to manage her husband's career but more than often simply gets in the way of his success. Emily and Lee are also longtime heroin addicts. Their drug abuse turns tragic in, of all places, Hamilton Ontario where Lee, after a fight with Emily, overdoses and dies. Emily is taken into custody and sentenced to six months in prison for drug possession. Upon her release she meets with her father in law (played by Nick Nolte) who has been looking after he young son, Jay. Emily leaves for Paris and begins the long and difficult process of rebuilding her life in an ultimate effort to someday see Jay again.

Movies dealing with drug use are rather common but films such as "Clean," which focus on recovery from drug use as opposed to the abuse of narotics, are much more rare, perhaps due to the fact that recovery, unlike self destruction, doesn't lend itself as well to dramatic adaptations. Assayas's film proves, however, that the road back from drug addiction can be a fascinating subject matter indeed. In "Clean" Emily's recovery, and not her past excesses, is the focal point but the cost of her former lifestyle is not smoothed over by Assayas who quite effectively uses his picture to show the life altering effects of drug abuse, even years after the habit is finally quicked to the curb. At the same time, Assayas tries to get inside the mind of a drug user and explain why, exactly, individuals often give themselves up to substance abuse.

What truly elevates "Clean", however, is Cheung whose performance here is spectacular. This comes as no surprise to audiences familiar with much of her previous work but hr ability to convincingly play Emily, a brash and reckless junkie, flies in the face of much of her better known work where she primarily starred as a demure, reserved, and mannered woman. Cheung's ability to switch from English to French to Cantonese also gives some added credibility to her character's background as a globetrotting rocker even though Cheung's real life persona is as far removed from that as possible. Nick Nolte is also solid and his character is surprisingly three dimensional. Rather than being a bitter, remorseful father who blames Emily for his son's death, he is rather a mild mannered and caring character who attempts, not without trouble, to raise Emily's child while still keeping her as much a part of her son's life as possible. It's touching stuff, for sure, but it also feels more authentic than having Emily face off against a spiteful father bent on keeping her away from her child, a choice the writers of "Clean" could easily have made.

"Clean," although not one of Assayas's premier works, is an satisfying film that handles its subject matter both fairly and effectively.

Twilight

C

Directed by Catherine Hardwicke

As much as I try to deny it, I'm a sucker for huge blockbusters. If a film is exciting popular interest I'll more than likely end up watching it just to see what the fuss is about. I often, however, resist the urge to check these types of films out in the movie theater where I would have to shell out my hard earned cash on what would likely prove to be a mildly disappointing or at best mindless and superficial outing and succeed in waiting until these types of movies are available on DVD or even, dare I even say it, on the internet. Catherine Hardwicke's "Twilight," the film adaptation of Stephanie Meyer's wildly succesful vampire novel for teens, certainly qualifies as a blockbuster but I can safely say that I'm glad I waited for it to be out on DVD before I viewed it since this is not, in any terms, a very good film.

To those of you unfamiliar with Meyer's mega bestseller, "Twilight" focuses on the young Bella Swan, a girl from the Sunbelt who is sent to live with her father in the rainy and damp Northwest. She enrolls in the local high school and is immediately mesmerized by the dreamy, pasty white Edward Cullen. Bella's interest in Edward and his mysterious family only deepens as he tries to stear clear of her, a further indication that ladies love guys who are hopelessly aloof. As hard as he tries, however, bad boy Edward can't seem to stay away from Bella as she comes closer and closer to unconvering the truth about Edward and his family.

Vampire films have enjoyed something of a revival in the past few years with the real gem of the movement being Thomas Alfredson's "Let the Right One In." "Twilight," although a similar in its re-imagination of vampire mythology, is obviously no in the same vein as Alfredson's film, being aimed squarely at the same demographic that have so religiously read Meyer's book. As such, Hardwicke's primary goal in adapting "Twilight" to the big screen was likely to stay faithful to the book and deliver the type of swooning, PG Rated romance that "Twilight" readers crave. In Having not read the book it is difficult for me to come out and categorically say that Hardwicke failed in this regard but it seems top me that the essence of "Twilight" was not captured by Hardwicke's adaptation. It must be said that most "Twilight" fans weren't huge supporters of the film adaptation either, which many felt failed to accurately capture the essence of Meyer's novel. Not surprisingly, Hardwicke was swiftly canned after "Twilight" opened to mixed reviews from critics and outrage from fans.
As a viewer with no vested interest in the "Twilight" franchise I must say that on a purely cinematic level, "Twilight" is not a very good film. The story meanders along at a pedestrian pace, the acting is for the most part average and the romantic chemistry between Pattison and Kristen Stewart is lacking, which is probably "Twilight's" biggest failure since the books are in the end a romance between Pattison's Edward and Kristen's Bella.
Despite the failures of the first installment of "Twilight" all is not lost for the franchise which can still bank on the popularity of actors such as Pattison who, despite his inability to fully sell me on his romance with Stewart's character, is not that bad of an actor, as well as the fact that its source material, Meyer's books, have already been given the thumbs up by millions worldwide. All that is left to be done for "New Moon," "Breaking Dawn" and the third book, whose name escapes me at the moment, is to put someone mildly competent at the helm and simply interpret the books accurately.

Boy A

A-

John Crowley

John Crowley's fantastic "Boy A" is a meditation on guilt and the human capacity for change that is a terrific example of how a film can tackle a controversial issue in a way that avoids moralizing and actually stirs healthy debate.

"Boy A" open with the release of Jack, a young offender now in his early twenties who, we learn slowly throughout the film, was incarcerated for a violent crime committed when he was still a young boy. With the help of his parole officer Terry, Jack attempts to rebuild his life in a new city, taking a job as a delivery boy in a local plant. Things begin smoothly for Jack who makes friends quickly with his coworkers and even succeeds in landing a girlfriend. Jack's new life, however, is constantly threatened by his past, a past the he and Terry try hard to hide from those around him.

Crowley's film is truly remarkable on many levels. The acting, most of it done by relative unknowns, is fantastic. The work of Andrew Garfield, who plays Jack, is especially worth mentioning as Garfield gives a textured, multifaceted performance that reveals Jack to be what Crowley no doubt wanted him to be--a kindhearted young man who is nonetheless deeply affected both by the guilt of his actions as well as by the burden of having to hide his previous life from those around him. Crowley's direction is superb and he does what most directors often fail or simply refuse to do by taking himself as far out of the story as possible and allowing the characters and story to develop on their own. "Boy A's" veracity and emotional poignancy come mostly from the fact that Jack is a character who appears authentic; his existence is not simply in order to drive home a point about the nature of young offenders or the shortcomings of the penal system in the UK or even the nefarious effect of media on the recovery and reintegration of criminals into society.
As terrific as "Boy A" is I still must admit that I was disappointed by Crowley's refusal to make some tough choices in telling the story. There was a great opportunity here to tell the story of the rehabilitation of a young offender in the wake of a horrible crime that he had gladly or at least willingly participated in, a more potent storyline that would have given audience much more food for thought than "Boy A's" portrayal of Jack as the unwitting participant in a murder committed by the more emotionally scarred Philip. The audience is therefore forced to feel outright sympathy for the kindhearted Jack as opposed to any other mix of emotions which is unfortunate since the subject matter touched on by Crowley lends itself very well to a fascinating study of guilt, culpability, and the ability of human's to truly change, all fascinating subjects that are not often enough skillfully touched on in the cinema.
Nevertheless, there is far too much good in "Boy A" to ignore and Crowley's film deserves not only to be seen but the issues he raises on the rehabilitation of young offers and their reintegration into society are both pertinent and necessary to consider.

Rocket Science

D-

Directed by Jeffrey Blitz

Jeffrey Blitz, the director of the enjoyable and riveting "Spellbound," tries his hand at directing feature films in the truly awful yet still critically lauded "Rocket Science." The film provides further proof that film critics have been seduced by the increasingly awful "quirky comedy" genre that has birthed some of the worst American films in the past few years.

Hal Hefner, a young, sinewy kid with a stuttering problem, is recruited out of the blue for the debate team by hot shot and fast talking debate queen Ginny Ryerson. Not exactly sure what Ginny sees in him but nevertheless intrigued by her interest in him, Hal joins the team and tries to kick his stutter to the curb. Things don't go smoothly, however, and Hal soon finds himself in deep both with both the debate club and Ginny who he has fallen hopelessly in love with.

I had originally bought a ticket to see "Rocket Science" at last year's Fantasia Film Festival but had been unable to attend the screening due to a time conflict. That's too bad, because if I had been able to attend live I might have been able to publicly boo this film as loudly as it deserves to be. "Rocket Science" is riddled with flaws, but overall it could best be described as pretentious, unfunny, poorly written, and derivative. It might not be the worst "quirky teen comedy" ever but it is certainly right up there. It "borrows" freely from films such as "Rushmore" and "Thumbsucker" but is nowhere near as good as either, making the inspiration it culls from both films seem like sloppy plagiarism more than anything else.
The most annoying aspect of a film like "Rocket Science" is that like its "quirky" brethren such as "Juno" and "Gigantic" it insists on giving younger characters a voice that is both irritating and completely lacks any credibility. No teen talks like Juno or acts like Hal Hefner, period. Someone might object and say "Wait a minute! You love "Rushmore" and no one talks like Max Fisher!" This would, of course, be missing the point that Anderson's films are not simply quirky for the sake of quirkiness but rather worlds in which everything is surrealistic and a bit off kilter, a type of hermetically sealed reality that only succeeds because Anderson, unlike Jeffrey Blitz, is a supremely talented writer and director. In films like "Rocket Science," the quirks are just there because they're there and the characters mostly serve the prupose of proving to everyone how smart the writer or director is.
Every contrived bit of "Rocket Science" from Hal's stutter, to his friend's parents "music therapy" which consists of piano and cello Depeche Mode arrangements, to Jonah Hill's cameo as the head of the 'Junior Philospher's' club is hackneyed, predicable, and ultimately annoying. The whole thing just made me want to pop the DVD out of the player and snap it in half. Unfortunately, it was a rental.
Americans have always been great at making comedies and many of the world's funniest films have been American creations. It's a shame that most of the present comic output in American film consists of either raunchy gross out comedies or impossibly pretentious "indie comedies" such as "Rocket Science."

Flags of our Fathers

B

Directed by Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood's adaptation of John Bradley's nonfiction book of the same name is a glossy and heartfelt homage to the men who took Iwo Jima that is unfortunately undone to some extent by a lumbering, ham fisted script delivered by none other than repeat offender Paul Haggis.

"Flags of Our Fathers" follows the 28th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division as they assault the beaches of Iwo Jima, plant the flag, and eventually capture the island amidst fierce Japanese resistance. The story is told in flashbacks, alternating between the battle and the near future where three of the Marines who planted the flag, Ira Hayes, John Bradley, and Rene Gagnon, go on a nation wide "Heroes" tour to help the US government raise money for the war effort via war bonds. The fates of the other Marines involved in the flag planting are also followed as is the eventual denouement of both the Battle of Iwo Jima and the aftermath of the bond tour and the effect of both events on Hayes, Bradley, and Gagnon.

Part one of Clint Eastwood's double bill focusing on both sides of the Battle of Iwo Jima, part two being "Letters from Iwo Jima," is an effective if somewhat sloppy adaptation of Bradley's book. Eastwood certainly knows how to direct action sequences and the battle scenes are fantastically directed, gritty and authentic with the right doses of violence which allow for realism without wandering into the realm of the gratuitous.
The gritty Clint Eastwood direction is significantly hampered by the Paul Haggis co-written script which is about as lacking in nuance as anything Haggis has written for the big screen. Characters are semi-three dimensional, moral lessons as delivered at a blistering clip, and everyone finds out that even though they were heroes abroad, some of our boys were still not accepted for who they were back home. Hayes is portrayed as the drunken native, misnderstood by the white man and unable to come to grips with the horrors he has witnessed abroad. Gagnon is a fame seeker who wishes to capitalize on his fame in the most vulgar ways possible. Bradley is a stud of epic proportions. No more details beyond these are made available on any of these characters.
As far as I'm concerned, allowing Paul Haggis to work in any capacity on a film is essentially giving it the kiss of death; he has no idea how to tone down the preachiness of his scripts and everything he writes comes off as self indulgent, pseudo intellectual stabs at delivering "serious" film fare that nonetheless panders hopelessly to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science. "Flags of our Fathers" would have been considerably enhanced if Clint had left Haggis on the dock when the crew shipped out to make the movie.
That said, Eastwood's film is still gritty and gory yet beautiful to look at, the black and white photography of Tom Stern a perfect compliment to the rugged, naked landscape of Eastwood's Iwo Jima. The battle scenes don't really depart from the "Saving Private/Band of Brothers" mold which gives the viewer a distinct impression of cinematic déja vu but that doesn't mean Eastwood's film isn't gorgeous to look at. The film's most important accomplishment, however, is to once again capture the sacrifice of the Greatest Generation and commend the actions of those who served during the War. The fact that the Greatest Generation gave birth to probably the worst generation who then gave way (not without kicking and screeming) to my own generation which, although a slight improvement is still far from great, just goes to show that those who fought and died in World War II were from a bygone era and made scrifices that most of us wouldn't even dream of making today.

Apocalypto

B

Directed by Mel Gibson

Mel Gibson's most recent bank busting super epic ma be disappointment to those seeking the sweeping scale of "Braveheart" or the no-holds barred controvery of "The Passion of the Christ" (though I don't know why anyone would want to relive that circus...) but to those seeking some superficial excitement (albeit blood soaked), "Apocalypto" hits the mark.

Gibson's film focuses on the rough and tumble existence of Jaquar Paw, one of the male leaders of a smile tribe of indians living in a Mesoamerican jungle who scrapes out an existence by hunting the forests around his village and helps his beloved wife rise his son. Their relative transquility is shattered, however, when a band of marauding warriors arrives and sacks their village, kidnapping the adults and bringing them back to the Mayan capital to serve as human sacrifices to appease the Sun God, Kukulcan. Jaquar Paw, fueled by a desire to see his wife and young child again, decides he has better plans than to be served up to the non-existant Sun God and plans a daring escape.

One thing Mel Gibson has always done well is make an expensive movie look like an expensive movie. "Apocalypto" is sleek and massive in scale, sometimes reminiscent of early Indiana Jones adevntures and at other times of big Cecile B. Demille epics. The scenes in the Mayan capital are nothing short of amazing, especially when you consider that almost none of it was done with the help of CGI, and I tip my hat to Gibson and his crew for even taking on such a massive workload.
Nevertheless, I couldn't shake the feeling hile watching "Apocalypto" that with such a huge budget and extreme attention to detail, Gibson's film could have been more thant what is essentially a hugely expensive, gory, action adventure that is too superficial for its own good.

Although "Apocalypto" is far from perfect, I have difficulty believing that Gibson's film wouldn't have been more critically acclaimed if he didn't direct it. Gibson's "Passion of the Christ," which many critics saw as overblown and pretentious, had soured some film critics on his work and I have little doubt that "Apocalypto," which enjoyed mediocre reviews, suffered from it.
The historical accuracy of Apocalypto is somewhat questionable. Gibson and co-writer, seemingly unable to decide why exactly the Mayan Empire collapsed, provide us with every single explanation at the same time; crops fail, disease afflicts the population, the Euros even arrive at some point. Gibson seems to indicate that even if all of these many obstacles were not tormenting the Mayans, they would have till gone the way of, well of the Mayans, due to the fact that their society had in fact began to rot away form the inside, a fact he makes quite clear by prominently displaying a quote by Will Durant to that effect at the outset of the film. Such a conclusion is no doubt a controversial one to make but at least Gibson has the guts to give an alternate view of to the decline of a great Mesoamerican Civilization that doesn't simply blame it on colonialism.

Divorce Italian Style

A

Directed by Pietro Germi

One of the great Pietro Germi's greatest achievements, "Divorce Italian Style" is the epitome of the 'commedia all'italiana,' a rollicking comedy of errors which hilariously roasts Sicily's machismo society.

None other than the face of Italian film himself Marcello Mastroianni plays Fefe Cefalu, a thirty-something member of the monied class in the Sicilian town of Agromonte.
Despite his bourgeois credentials, Fefe's family's wealth is quickly dwindling and he and his overbearing and suffocating wife Rosalia and the rest of his family are now confined to a single, crumbling wing of the old Cefalu Namor. Exasperated by his wife, furstrated by his aimless existence and hopelessly attracted to his nuble, underage niece Angela, Fefe decides to take action and break free of his opressingly dull existence. The first step in his reinvention is to find a way to ditch Rosalia, no small feat in Sicily where the law forbids divorce. Fefe must therefore turn to the only viable option to free himself of the bonds of holy matrimony--murder!

"Divorce Italian Style" takes a rather dark premise and turns it into something irreverent and genuinely funny, a molotov coctail thrown in the direction of outdated legal and social conventions. In "Divorce Italian Style" Germi, like in most of his comedies, mines heavy, almost sacrosaint material in search of humour, in this case relying on the legal bonds of marriage to provide him with some comic material. It is important to note that Germi does not glamorize or condone adultery in "Divorce Italian Style," unfaithfulness being shown here as a losers game. Rather, he uses it as a platform by which to relentlessly skewer Sicillian social mores, taking hilarious jabs at anyone he sees fit to mock along the way. You can almost feel him giggling gleefully as Fefe, barred by social and legal conventions from divorcing his unfaithful spouse, is encouraged by the villagers to go out and kill her to avenge his honor. Germi takes great pleasure in pointing out the rampant double standards endorsed by the residents of Agromonte and pulls no punches when mining them for comic relief.

Since Germi's comedies are first and foremost genuinely funny films, viewers often overlook how technically sound they are, which is a shame considering the work Germi and his crew obviously put into constructing a film like "Divorce Italian Style." As Martin Scorcese comments in his introduction to the Criterion release of the film, the technical merits of "Divorce Italian Style" are significant and had a profound impact not only on the 'commedia all'italiana' as a genre but on numerous filmmakers working in several different genres and styles. Scorcese points most specifically to Germi's camera work in "Divorce Italian Style" which shifts radically depending on whose point of view is being shown throughout the film, as a technical innovation that was refined by Germi in this film.
"Divorce Italian Style's" technical brio, however, is still overshadowed by the film's comedic merits which is no doubt what Germi was going for when he made this movie. It's a film that even close to 50 years after its release is still hilarious and witty, a testament to how well Germi's film has aged.

Gunnin' for that #1 Spot

C

Directed by Adam Yauch

Beastie Boys MC and high school hoops phene Adam Yauch's basketball documentary "Gunnin' for that #1 Spot" follows a group of supremely talented blue chip prospects as they prepare to play a showcase game at New York's famed Rucker Park. The end result is a glossy yet empty film that skips over the bigger issues of high school recruiting in favor of a superficial look at the bright futures enjoyed by only the tiniest fraction of high school athletes.

Rucker Park's Elite 24 showcase game takes the nation's top 24 prep basketball players, regardless of class or age, and throws them onto the the center court at Rucker for an annual streetball game. Yauch focuses on eight players participating in the 2007 edition of the game, namely Michael Beasley, Jarryd Bayless, Kevin love, Kyle Singler, Lance Stephenson, Brandon Jennings, Tyreke Evans, and Donte Green. If those names sound familiar to you it's probably because most of these guys tore it up for one years in the NCAA and have already moved onto the greener pastures of the NBA where they are making millions as 20 year olds. Yauch gives some brief insight into the pasts of some of these players before showing us the run up to the Elite 24 game and the final battle on the blacktop of The Rucker.

"Gunnin'" is really nothing more than a glorified promotional spot for The Rucker and the athletes covered by Yauch. There is no real attempt to investigate some of the underlying issues with the recruiting process or some of the more unsavory elements of the high school showcase circuit. I don't think that every documentary on high school athletes needs to be an expose on the sociology of sport in the style of "Hoop Dreams" but there is really no reason to just crank out a vapid highlight reel with no underlying message to share with the audience. Yauch also casts his net too wide, focusing on eight players participating in the Elite 24 game, a number that is far too large to actually allow the viewer any serious insight into the situations of any of these kids. It is also worth noting that Yauch only focuses his film on guys who were basically bonafied blue chippers who were for the most part in the top 10 of their respective classes. Guys like Michael Beasley and Kevin Love were NBA ready during their senior years of high school so there isn't much suspense in wondering if they'll make it to the league or not. This obfuscates the fact that for every Michael Beasley there are thousands of other high school hoop stars who never make the league, a reality only quickly made reference to in Yauch's film.
I attended a CEGEP that had a very good basketball program and was friends with a number of the players. One of them went to a big shoe camp in his final year of CEGEP, meaning that he was considered to be one of the top 100 or so prospects in North America. When he got back I asked him how many of the guys who were at camp with him he though believed they would make the NBA. Without missing a beat he answer "All of them." To me, this is what is fascinating about the recruiting process. It's a system that fosters for the most part unrealistic dreams before chewing up and spitting out kids whose lives are for the most part constructed around and dedicated to basketball. Yauch's film doesn't focus on any of these kids but rather rolls out the red carpet for a bunch of guys who could have skipped college altogether and headed to the NBA if such an option was still available to them. There's no drama or insight in making a film about a bunch of kids whose ticket to the league is already punched. Maybe I was expecting too much from Yauch's film but the subject matter he covers is so rich with human interest that making a Sportscentre style highlight package of high schoolers dunking on each other completely fails to capitalize on the drama that's out there for the taking.
The fact that the Elite 24 game is not really that big of a deal, either in the prep hoops world por the real world, also makes Yauch's attempt to build it up into a monumental, life altering event for the kids appear a bit contrived. The fact of the matter is that although most of these guys probably enjoyed playing at The Rucker the game was probably nothing more than another event on a busy basketball calendar for most of these guys.

Overall was "Gunnin" leaves us with is an extremely quick glance at the highest rungs of prep hoops that is at times entertaining and always flashy but fails to mine the depths of what is essentially a fascinating slice of American culture.

The Firm

C

Directed by Sidney Pollack

Adaptations of John Grisham novels are dicey propositions and are more often then not destined for failure. Sidney Pollack's "The Firm," probably the best known and arguably the most successful film adaptation of a Grisham novel, is still not a very good movie at all which just goes to show how difficult it can be to adapt Grisham's legal thrillers.

"The Firm" opens with hotshot Harvard Law graduate Mitch McDeere (Tom Cruise, not that bad in this one actually) doing on campus recruiting rounds. He is fawned over by the elite corporate law firms in New York City and Chicago but ultimately decides to take his skills to a small but extremely successful Memphis firm called Bendini, Lambert and Locke. Once at B, L & L, however, McDeere discovers that the firm may not simply be an unusually succesful legal enterprise operating in a relative backwater but rather a far more powerful and evil entity than he ever could have imagined.

Whether you're a fan of Grisham or not, there is no denying that the strength of his novels rests in his unparalleled ability to develop suspenseful yarns that hold readers hostage, unable to put their book down because they are convinced that a big revelation is awaiting them on the very next page. As such, the success of a Grisham adaptation depends largely on how well it can replicate the narrative thrust of hos novels. In this respect, "The Firm" fails horribly, moving at an unforgivably pedestrian speed throughout. The only thing anyone should expect from a Grisham novel is to feel wrapped up in the suspense he creates and the same should go for any film adaptation of his novels. "The Firms" failure to deliver any of the narrative suspense that Grisham built his career on is inexcusable.
The casting of Pollack's film is also something of a mystery and results in performances of wildly different calibers from its core cast. Gene Hackman appears to have been misled into believing that he was starring in a serious film, as he gives a performance that goes far beyond what Pollack's film actually required. Tom Cruise, I have to admit, is not bad as Mitch McDere. On the other hand, Jeanne Tripplehorn is dull and unconvincing as McDere's wife and Wilfred Brimley is horribly miscast as the firm's mustachioed hitman. Frankly, I don't think that Brimley has ever been well cast in any part aside from his stint as the Quaker Oats man.
Although "The Firm" ism't completely unenjoyable there's isn't much in it to recommend that hasn't been done better somewhere else. I also hold a secret grudge against Grisham for glamorigizing the legal profession and making it look like every run of the mill lawyer deals with international conspiracies, terrorism, multi-million dollar fraud, mobsters, etc. on a daily basis.

Café Lumière

C

Directed by Hou Hsiao Hsen

What went wrong here!?! The usually rock solid Hou Hsiao Hsen lays an egg in his homage to Ozu, a lumbering, aimless affair that tests the patience of the viewer to an uncomfortable degree. "Café Lumière" goes to show that just because a film looks like a sure thing on paper doesn't necessarily mean it will translate to anything memorable on film.

Yoko, a young women studying the life of Taiwanese composer Jiang Wen Ye, shocks her parents when she reveals that she is pregnant with the child of a man she does not intend to marry. Seeking some respite from the solitude she feels, Yoko befriends a local record store owner named Hajime (Tadanobu Asano) who quickly falls in love with her.

I'm not going to lie, folks--this is pretty much all that happens in the film. I'm sure a number of more learned viewers likely picked up on layers of symbolism and nuance that I, due to my unevolved grasp of the cinema, did not, but I must say that I'm almost completely convinced that there truly is nothing more going on in "Café Lumière" than what I just described. Depressing, I know.

Whereas many who watch "Café Lumière" will simply be unimpressed and maybe a bit annoyed at the time they wasted watching it, I was hugely disappointment for a few reasons. Firstly, this film had a number of elements going for it that outwardly would have suggested that I was in for a treat. A film directed by Hou as an homage to Ozu, starting Tadanobu Asano and featuring cinematography by the incomparable Lee Pin Bing should be a slam dunk. A slam dunk with AUTHORITY! Yet the sum of "Café Lumière's" parts far outshines the finished product, a meandering, boring, and emotionally vacuous snoozer that attempts to ape Ozu but mostly helps the viewer realize how much better Ozu himself would have probably done it if he were still alive. The main problem with "Café Lumière" is that Hou seems to mistake Ozu's meditative style as a greenlight to simply make a film where nothing happens as opposed to delighting in the nuance, small gestures, and unspoken words that made Ozu's films so gripping, even though sometimes nothing appeared to be happening in them. How Ozu's films continue to be classified as elelments in the "cinema of mundanity" is beyond me. Ozu's films may be quiet and appear to move at a slow pace but things are always happening in an Ozu film, even in his most light and anecdotal works. All of Ozu's films are indeed very plot driven which is more than I can say for Hou's film which doesn't seem to even contain a plot line, much less be driven by one.

The film is saved (at least for me) by the presence of long time Hou collaborator Lee Pin Bing as director of photography. Lee bathes the streets of Tokyo in a warm summer glow, making the sprawling urban behometh inviting and almost quaint. I only wish Lee would have been asked to use his amazing talents in service of a more worthy film.

Maxed Out

D-

Directed by James D. Scurlock

America's recent credit crisis has spawned a number of documentary films which investigate the roots of the American obsession with credit, the predatory practices of commercial banks, and what it all means to the American consumers. While some of these works have been intelligent, nuanced, and responsible in assigning blame to both major culprits in the debacle, namely commercial banks and the American public, others, such as James D. Scurlock's manipulative and unintelligent "Maxed Out" have decided that the best way to explain America's credit woes is by presenting the problem as Corporate America preying on the helpless public.

"Maxed Out" opens with the woefully overplayed 1950s black and white public service schtick where a guy named "Mr. Money" is explaining to two young clean cut teenagers the wise use of credit. We then cut to a number of interviews with debtridden individuals, their families and their friends. Scurlock's film focuses mostly on highlighting the predatory lending practicies of commericla banks to mostly credit unworthy, high risk individuals such as those with previous histories of bankruptcy, the unemployed and low income earners. Scurlock intersplices his film with interviews from one (count it!) business expert who explains the nefarious work of the big banks to destroy middle America. Scurlock somehow weaves in a strand about governmental spending and finds a way to use some Katrina footage and blame George W. Bush for a bunch of stuff. Original.

"Maxed Out" is bad in so many different ways, I feel like I need to lay it out in point form. Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, Scurlock's film lacks a considerable amount of focus from the outset as it offers up a number of vignettes meant to show us ther personal side of debt but never really gives us a clear indication of where it's going. We eventually find out that the crux of Scurlock's film is that debt is, for the most part, the fault of commercial banks preying on poor consumers who need credit, a risible conclusion. "Maxed Out" also attempts to draw a number of links between governmental and personal finance, treating use to a montage of recent American presidents announcing deficit spending measures while a jangling score plays in the background. As both of my intelligent readers know, deficit spending by governments is in no way, shape, or form like personal "deficit spending" and is indeed part of most government's fiscal duties during economic slowdowns. The problem with American governmentla spending is that they never responded to their deficit spending by raising taxes during inflationary output gaps, not that they "spent money the didn't have" as "Maxed Out" puts it.

The biggest problem with "Maxed Out," however, isn't its sloppiness or its dubious grasp of basic economics but rather its refusal to admit that it took two to tango into America's massive debt problems. Of course predatory lending from commercial banks has played a large role in getting so many Americans, especially low income Americans, into crushing debt. The folly of commercial bank lending in the US was shown in its full, ghastly, array during the recent credit crisis and I would challenge anyone to argue that the lending practices of major American banks isn't mostly to blame for the American culture of debt. On the other hand, however, someone needed to have accepted these loans at ridiculous interest for there to actually be a problem and, as we all know, far too many Americans were more than willing to spend, spend, and spend some more on credit. "Maxed Out" gives little more than brief lip service to the personal responsibility of American consumers in taking on massive loads of debt, spending more of its time trying to convince the viewer that crushing personal debt is a weapon rich commercial banks use to to terrorize the American poor. As the child of parents who lived frugally and responsibly their entires lives to support their children, keep their debt low, and pay off their home mortgage early despite a relatively low income, I find this pretty insulting. "Maxed Out" features numerous interviews with individuals shouldering huge debt who defend themselves by saying that the banks were making easy credit available so they figured that if the money was there, they must be able to afford taking it. The onus is then put on the banks for making the credit available when in most likely should never have been offered. I certainly agree, as I said before, that the banks deserved to be savaged for their reckless lending, but Americans need to fess up to the fact that they love credit. One of the reasons American banks could afford to offer up so much credit at such ridiculous interest is because there has always been demand for it. Does anyone really think Citigroup could get away with offering credit at 29% interest to the Japanese or the Chinese? No way, and that isn't because East Asians are smarter than North Americans. It's because they don't want expensive credit. It's as simple as that.

Scurlock's attempts at emotional manipulation also deserve to be pointed out with a fair deal of contempt. He ends his documentary with the parents of two teens who had been crushed under a mountain of credit card debt explaining how their children,, crippled by hopelessness at repaying their loans, decided to take their lives instead. Coldplay's "Trouble" plays softly in the background as Scurlock zooms in on the teary eyes of one of the mothers.

"Maxed Out's" message is completely undone by its effort to frame the credit crisis as class warfare as opposed to a simple case of large scale consumer and lender recklessness, which it was. It further sinks itself by trying to draw parrallels between personal and governmental finances which will be immediately recognized as faully by anyone who has scored a "C" in Introductory Macroeconomics. This is documentary filmmaking at its worst: Manipulative, ignorant, uninformative, biased, and driven by a message that is purposefully innacurate.

La Sierra

A

Directed by Margarita Martinez and Scott Dalton

Scott Dalton and Margarita Martinez's gangland docu-drama "La Sierra" is one of the few films I've ever seen that has left me slack jawed for its entire duration. Dalton and Martinez's exposé of gang life in the insanely violent La Sierra neighborhood during the peak of Columbia's civil conflict of the late 1990's is an almost unbelievably up close and personal look at senseless, poverty fueled violence in one of South America's most dangerous areas.

Dalton and Martinez begin by introducing the viewer to three teenagers living in La Sierra. Edison, the leader of a paramillitary outfit in Medellin called the Bloque Metro, is 22 years old but has already fathered six children with six different girls, all of whom are under the age of 18. Jesus, one of Edison's soldiers in the Bloque Metro, accidentally blew off his left hand making a homemade grenade. He is also the father of a young child and a habitual drug user. Celia, a 15 year old girl with a baby of her own and a paramilitary boyfriend serving a jail sentence, is already the widow of a youngster who died in the civil violence. Dalton and Martinez follow the three as they attempt to navigate the shoppy waters of parenthood and, in the case of Jesus and Edison, not get killed.

"La Sierra" exposes the viewer to violence of a nature so senseless and heartbreaking it's hard to watch. Jesus and Edison, both little more than boys, walk around the barrio toting guns, shooting at their rivals and pontificating about the brevity of life and their likelihood of succumbing to a violent death. A shop owner at the beginning of the film summarizes the city's problems by saying that they are being ruled by "kids with guns." The question Dalton and Martinez's film raises, however, is why the kids of Medellin feel the need to engage in armed, pointless warfare and systematically wipe each other out. In their interviews with Edison and Jesus, Dalton and Martinez show that violence is mostly a way that disenfranchised, desperately poor youth can feel some form of accomplishment and power in a society that offers little hope for social mobility or comfort. Edison and Jesus both appear content to enjoy the fruits of their violent lifestyles in the present rather than actually living to see the future.
The danger Martinez and Dalton put themselves in to film "La Sierra" is nothing short of breathtaking. They tag along with Jesus and his fellow paras on a nighttime patrol only to be ambushed by a rival gang and sprayed with gunfire. Dalton keeps the camera rolling as he runs behind a building and hides in the bushes as bullets fly by. In another instance they crouch down behind a rundown building as Edison sprays a rival's home with automatic gunfire. Dalton and Martinez's fearlessness in capturing the violence and grittiness of their subject's lives makes "La Sierra" an emotionally gripping, heart wrenching work with a visceral emotional impact.

Children of Men

A

Directed by Alphonso Cuaron

Alphonso Cuaron's post apocalyptic thriller "Children of Men" is proof that major studio films with large budgets need not be either mindless and empty entertainment nor pseudo-intellectual pieces trying too hard to win an Oscar. "Children or Men's" blend of speculative history, big budget effects and solid acting make it one of the best studio effort I've seen in awhile (or at least since "The Dark Knight"...)

It is the year 2029 and the world's youngest human being, an 18 year old Argentine boy, has just been killed. Humans, unable to reproduce, have turned on one another, leading to the rapid collapse of most major world cities. Only London remains as a bastion of Western Civilization, resisting the coming extinction of the human race. All is not rosy in the UK, however, which has turned into a brutal police state that rigorously opposes immigration and controls its borders tightly. Theo (Clive Owen), a morose, jaded single man living in London is kidnapped by a terrorist organization helmed by called The Fishes who enlist his help to transport a young girl named Kee to the coast of England. Kee is no ordinary girl, however--she's the world's first pregnant woman in more than 18 years. Theo quickly realizes that the Fishes interest in Kee is anything but innocent and must find a way to protect the girl and her unborn child.

"Children of Men" is tremendous from first frame to last, compelling, thrilling, and tightly directed and realized. Cuaron's pacing is outstanding as he doesn't allow any significant lulls in the action but at the same time refrains from simply bombaring the screen with one chase scene after another. Cuaron, more than perhaps any other contemporary director, has always realized that his films, no matter how intellectually engaging he wants them to be, will always benefit from being entertaining and viewer friendly. He succeeds wonderfully in adapting Philp K. Dick's novel into a fast paced, exciting whole that keeps viewers on the edge of their seats. The last twenty minutes of "Children of Men" are jaw dropping, the product of inspired direction, a good script and mountains of cash.

As speculative history, the premise of "Children of Men" is interesting even if the reason for humanity's infertility is never fully explained. Realisitcally, the reasons behind the globe's mass infertilty are unimportant and serve more as a basis to launch into virtual, "what if" history. More than anything it appears as if the makers of "Children of Men" simply wanted to present a cinematic answer to Dick's original question in his novel, namely what the world would look like in the wake of some cataclysmic event. The future depicted in "Children of Men" seems pretty believable, a dystopia that is frightening to behold yet at the same time an undeniably familiar outgrowth of the world we currently live in. I usually hate dystopian films for the simple reason that the dystopian "future" they reveal , usually consting of a sci-fi world of urban, rendered in over the top CGI and ruled by an evil neo-fascist government, always seems fake and unbelievable. In "Children of Men" the future, although scary, looks pretty credible.
Overall, Cuaron's movie is an immensely engaging work based on a fascinating "what if" premise that is both intelligent and ridiculously entertaining, no small feat if I do say so myself.

Citizen Kane

A+

Directed by Orson Welles

Widely considered the best American movie ever made often cited as the best film of all time, Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" is a towering, almost larger than life film that looms gigantically over the landscape of cinema, casting a shadow over almost everything that came before and after it. Welles' film is an innovative gem that fully deserves its place as one of cinema's most venerated works.

After a large deposit of ore is discovered under his childhood home in Colorado, the young Charles Foster Kane is sent by his parents to be raised by Walter Parks Thatcher in Chicago. On his 25th birthday, Kane's family fortune is turned over to him in its entirety. Rather than continuing to build on the now diversified portfolio that is the Kane fortune, he rather decides to expend all his energies in building up a fledgling newspaper, The New York Daily Inquirer, into a national news powerhouse. The corrupting influence of greed and fortune soon contribute to making Hearts...uh, I mean Kane, into a power hungry, greedy recluse, hiding in the opulent confines of his palace, Xanadu.

I once heard a guy recall how he had gone to see "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark" as a teen in 1981 and had left the theater speechless as the credits rolled, unable to fully understand what he had just seen. I imagine a similar, yet far more intense effect was felt by "Citizen Kane's" first audiences. When you consider what the movies being produced in the early 1940's looked like, Citizen Kane's arrival is akin to an F-16 screeching to a halt on a tarmac next to a bunch of biplanes readying to take off. Bad analogy, but you get my drift. Welles' film was so innovative and forward thinking that basically everything about it was new and, at the time of its release, still unheard of. Just in terms of cinematography, Welles and his director of photography Greg Toland developed a dizzying array of innovate camera effects and lens settings that did much to revolutionize the way films were shot. Even today, watching some of Welles' more famous "deep focus" shots (where characters and objects in the background are brought into focus at the same level as those in the foreground) is an eye popping experience. Welles and Toland's use of effects to tell Kane's story in an innovative and radical way is also amazing, especially knowing how much of "Citizen Kane" is actually a "special effect." As Roger Ebert states in his commentary to "Citizen Kane," most of the shots in Welles' film were special effects, so much so that special effects were probably used at a higher ratio in "Citizen Kane" than they were in "Star Wars." Astounding stuff, to say the least.

Despite being almost universally acclaimed, "Citizen Kane" has been attacked by a few adventurous critics for a perceived lack of emotional depth. Although some of these criticisms the work of attention starved blowhards like Ron Carney, the unquestionably awesome Ingmar Bergman once attacked "Citizen Kane" for what he saw was a vapid story devoid of any real emotional depth. I can't say I disagree with Bergman's criticism, at least to some extent. Although there are interesting questions raised in "Citizen Kane" about the potentially nefarious effects of power and the nature of possession and ownership (be it of a newspaper empire or a person, in Kane's case) I can't say that I've ever felt that "Citizen Kane" had anything that important to say and I can certainly see why a guy like Bergman, whose bread and butter was making films that almost demand moral introspection from their audience, might have taken offense and the praise showered upon Kane's film. Nevertheless, I think that Bergman and others who critize(d) "Kane" for its alleged shallowness are asking way too much from Welles' film. The fact of the matter is that no film, even those saddled with the "greatest ever" title, films such as Renoir's "Les Regles du Jeu" or Ozsu's "Tokyo Story" truly have it all. "Tokyo Story," for instance, was a landmark achievement in terms of depth and characterization but I would argue that technically it was nothing spectacularly different than the rest of Ozu's films (of course, many would disagree with this assessment, but I stick by it). The bottom line is that "Citizen Kane," despite maybe not having the emotional impact of "Wild Strawberries" or "Ikuru" or some other film that is supposed to make you reevaluate your life once you watch it, is considered great mostly for being such an innovative yet still accessible and engaging work. Welles didn't just roll out the effects and the snazy editing and dump it onto the laps of a quizzical audience. Rather, he made "Citizen Kane" into a work that had the ability to excite and engage audiences, as much still today as it did in 1941. The continued praise and reverence for "Citizen Kane" is due, more than anything else, to its remarkable timelesness.

The Ballad of Narayama

A

Directed by Shohei Imamura

One of Shohei Imamura's most critically acclaimed works, "The Ballad of Narayama" cast a decidedly Imamura-esque look at 19th century village life in rural Japan, not without some of his trademark (and at times tiresome) skewering of social mores. Imamura's excesses, however, are not enough to sink a film that is full of meaning, beautiful to look at and butressed by one of the strongest finales I've seen in a long, long time.

The elderly Orin lives with her three children and their various wives and children (who rotate regularly throughout the film). Traditionally in their village, the elderly are taken up mount Narayama byt their eldest son and deposited there to die once they have reached an age where they can no longer be of service to the community. Orin, although still in good health, wants to go out in her prime and thus spends the eyar arranging the affairs of her family before enlisting the help of her eldest son, Tetsuhei, to take her the the mountain.

"The Ballad of Narayama" is yet another Imamura film that places a central focus on revealing the underbelly of Japanese society, although unlike most of his other well known works which were aimed squarely at contemporary Japan, this one plumbs history to find some dirty laundry.
As I've said before, I find that Imamura's social critique can at times be nothing more than cheap potshots directed at traditional Japanese social norms just for the sake of skewering them. It's fascinating to consider that Imamura, who made a name for himself by exposing the underbelly of Japanese society, was once Yasujiro Ozu's assistant. Ozu's vision of Japanese society, though not completely positive, was nonetheless strongly influenced by a deep respect for traditonal values, a sharp contrast to Immaura's often derogatory handling of Japanese social customs. In "The Ballad of Narayama" Imamura shows 19th century village life in rural Japan not as a bastion of community solidarity and tight knit families but rather as a cut throat world dominated by distrust, scarce ressources and, to some extent, ignorance. His attempt to unveil the murkier side of this traditional rural setting certainly allows for a fair amount of drama but his portayal of village life is also a tad bit over the top.
Many of shortcomings of Imamura's film (I'm tempted to say all of them, actually) were blown into the foggy recesses of my mind by the film's denouement, which is one of the most unrelenting, intense, and brilliant scenes I've ever witnessed. Watching Tatsuhei struggle up the mountain with his mother strapped to his back felt like watching Jon Voigt scale the rocky outcroppings of the Cahulawassee River in "Deliverance," a struggle of brute strength and will against nature's elements. It's an arresting, excruciating scene, riveting yet full of meaning and metaphor.
My own interpretation of Imamura's film is that it is about manliness, or at least a version of manliness that is closer to Machiavelli's virtu, a sort of martial spirit that can successfully navigate life's choppy waters. Before anyone accuses me of highfallutin academic grandstanding, the reason I thought about virtu when watching "The Ballad of Narayama" is that Machiavelli's virtu is not simply reserved for men but women can also have virtu and in essence be more manly than men. In this manner, Orin is probably the 'manliest' individual in her village and certainly far more so than Tetsuhei who trudges up the mountain but in the end has difficulty letting his mother perish, even though she herself has embraced her fate. If anyone was turned off by my pseudo academic breakdown of the film, I'll understand.
Regardless of any highfallutin anaylsis, there is no denying that "The Ballad of Narayama" is grand cinema. Imamura was an infintely talented filmmaker, especially when he focused on asking bigger questions as opposed to simply reveling in the dirty details of the lives of his characters.