Junto Boys

NOV/DEC 2006 MOVIE REVIEWS

+CASINO ROYALE (2006) – 007 means license to kill and you would hardly know it up ‘til now. The film series began as spy capers and evolved into suave jokes and explosions. This movie actually gets back to the books. I’m not sure how much of the plot is followed, but it’s very welcoming to see a tough Bond that doesn’t mind killing people. The casino showdown is decent as too with the poker being believable enough until the last hand that included too many players. Eva Green makes a great Bond girl with her own brand of smarts and librarian brand of beauty. What’s best here is that they all seem like real people and that makes the overindulgent stunts much more tolerable and it also helps to forgive the length. I liked the first Timothy Dalton movie and hoped that the movies were moving into a tougher direction, but the second Dalton disappointed and I hope it doesn’t happen here too especially with Bond trailing penguin films.

BORAT (2006) – Sasha Cohen is a creative comedian and I enjoy his Ali G show on HBO. The shame of this movie is that Borat is less interesting to me than the Ali G character and although the confidencess here are all-new they are hardly unpredictable. But I could have forgiven that if the movie wasn’t full of so much filler about his “homeland” and hanging out with the sidekick. Once you realize the Pamela Anderson scenes were set up too there isn’t much here in my opinion. Rent the Ali G show discs and watch him interview James Lipton, Pat Buchanan and Buzz Aldrin. .

DETOUR (1946) – Famous B movie featuring typical 40s acting, no stars and a thin script and yet Roger Ebert calls it a treasure. The direction is somewhat interesting even if the situations seem forced. At 67 minutes they were doing all they could to stretch it into feature length and they do so with very few sets and a lot of dialogue between two characters. The star is Tom Neal who according to Allmovie.com made more than 20 movies that rate less than 2 stars. I would maybe give this 2 ½ in a good mood.

PROOF (2005) I was in NYC during the summer of 2002 working a freelance project. Jennifer Jason Leigh was starring in this play not far from our hotel. Since we had a free night and everyone agreed on theatre, I thought it would be an easy sell. First neither of them had heard of Jennifer Jason Leigh and second they just had to see a musical because that’s what you see on Broadway. So we paid $50 (half price) to see the insufferable FULL MONTY re-written as a musical set in Buffalo. I felt that even the movie version was overrated preferring the quirky English comedy WAKING NED DEVINE much more. Half price is sometimes still too much. Back to Proof. . . It centers on Anthony Hopkins death and the flashback of his math genius coupled with his fight for sanity. G. Paltrow plays his daughter made up to look dowdy and J Gyllenhall is the semi-nerdy math student wanting to rummage through Hopkins numerous notebooks to find genius. The center of the story revolves around the authorship of a particular notebook and it’s complicated by the romance between the youngsters and Paltrow’s sister Hope Davis trying to take her back to New York. Directed by John Madden of Shakespeare in Love who seems to seek out literary adaptations. A decent experience overall.

DERAILED (2006) – Could be the title of any Jennifer Aniston movie and they finally decided to use it. It sure doesn’t have much to do with the plot except that the leads meet on a commuter train. They could have called it Hollywood wills Jennifer Aniston to have a film career or Clive Owen needed the money or that quirky French Vincent Cassel needed to play one more charming villain. If you ask why I seem to seek out Aniston movies the question has two answers. Trish still likes her and I keep trying to disprove my own criticism that she has no sense of fun. Nothing changed after this film. The setup is slow and it’s billed as an action film while one punch is thrown in the first 30 minutes. Once the action begins things take a turn for the silly. You just can’t imagine the characters really doing the things that happen here. The best part of the film is that you can really believe a career in screenwriting is possible if your competition is this.

CHRISTMAS CAROL (1984) – George C. Scott brings his irascible manner to the character and it’s offset decently with more focus on his harsh upbringing. The advantage of a meaner Scrooge is the transformation is all the more dramatic. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come could have used some better production values. His obvious prop stick hands drew attention during what should be the most frightening part though the staging of that scene seemed to work pretty well. I can never get over how Scrooge doesn’t realize that the dead man is him. Is it because I already know the story?

CHRISTMAS CAROL (1951) - Most critics consider this the best film version of the Dickens tale. Alastair Sim has an interesting take on the character making him less wicked and more indifferent leading up to the transformation. If the point of the story is that Scrooge was once a good man who lost his way it’s certainly more believable than the usual translation that scares mean Scrooge into being a puppy dog. It has a funny way of taking its time early and rushing the ending which I wasn't prepared for. Having seen most versions now I just don't know if they've ever made an entirely satisfying adaptation.

+MATCH POINT (2005) – Woody Allen the director minus Woody Allen the actor minus New York minus the jokes equals a surprisingly compelling Woody Allen film. Scarlett Johansson gets the ink as the young American insecure actress, but it’s Jonathan Rhys-Meyers that carries the picture as the brooding tennis pro getting ahead in life by marrying the rich guy’s daughter (Emily Mortimer). Things would be going just fine, except he is smitten with his brother-in-law’s girlfriend (Johansson). The London setting really seems to have freed Allen from his usual style although a little of it still exists around the edges especially the way characters come on and off the screen. It even has an Ingmar Bergman moment near the end that made me smile.

INTERIORS (1978) – Woody’s full-fledged homage to Bergman works for the most part although it doesn’t haunt you the way the master does. It focuses on three sisters their relationship and career problems and the breakup of their parents marriage. The well-off family spends much of their time at Hamptons Beach house which reminds you that their life isn’t so tough although they seem to disagree.

+UNITED 93 (2006) – This is not a movie I was looking forward to. If it hadn’t made those end-of-the-year top ten lists I may have skipped it altogether. Even when it came in the mail I waited 3 or 4 days before finally realizing that I had to watch it in order to send it back. I’m glad I did. It’s not just a movie of the harrowing experiences of those on the flight, but a recap of the entire day from the perspective of Air Traffic Control, the military and finally flight 93. It has some of the most natural acting I’ve ever seen helped along by having some of the real people play themselves. And it was full of information that I didn’t know. If nothing else, it’s a great human drama that every American would benefit from seeing.

LADY IN THE WATER (2006) – I’d consider 6th SENSE and SIGNS modern day classics. I even liked UNBREAKABLE more than most and forgave THE VILLAGE for leaning on its surprise ending. I like Night because the tone of his movies makes you listen and watch. I like that his movies are about the struggle of humanity and finding your rightful place in life. It’s the real human condition not the political human condition that stumbles into messages of socialism and peace through weakness. There’s a great film critic character that I think the critics hated, but boy was it right on. LADY is a fairytale fantasy and those kinds of movies can wear thin, but Paul Giamatti is his usual dead-on believable and the supporting cast keeps up with him well.

KISS KISS BANG BANG (2005) – Here we have Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer in the middle of a murder mystery complete with intrigue and plenty of laughs. The dialogue is clever and Downey does that famous deadpan reaction at just the right times. Each of the sections are titled after Raymond Chandler stories. The movie title was coined by Pauline Kael in one of her books. She said that 90% of all movies could be summed up in KISS KISS BANG BANG and regretfully few have anything else to offer but that. Here you also get laughs.

LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN (2006) – This is an annoying movie with annoying characters for the first hour because so much of what you see goes unexplained and makes little sense. Once the story comes together in the last half I didn’t mind it so much and by the end I was appreciative of its clever resolution.